#road project tracking system

[cyberswift-story]

Revolutionising Road Construction with Technology: Enhancing Project Management for a Smarter Future

The road construction industry plays a vital role in shaping modern infrastructure, driving economic growth, and ensuring efficient transportation networks. However, it faces persistent challenges, including project delays, safety risks, cost overruns, and inefficient resource management. As construction projects grow in complexity, the need for innovative solutions to boost productivity and efficiency has never been more critical.

Learn more https://www.cyberswift.com/blog/revolutionising-road-construction-with-technology-enhancing-project-management-for-a-smarter-future/

[sapphia]

USA please listen to me: the price of “teaching them a lesson” is too high. take it from New Zealand, who voted our Labour government out in the last election because they weren’t doing exactly what we wanted and got facism instead.

Trans rights are being attacked, public transport has been defunded, tax cuts issued for the wealthy, they've mass-defunded public services, cut and attacked the disability funding model, cut benefits, diverted transport funding to roads, cut all recent public transport subsidies, cancelled massive important infrastructure projects like damns and ferries (we are three ISLANDS), fast tracked mining, oil, and other massive environmentally detrimental projects and gave the power the to approve these projects singularly to three ministers who have been wined and dined by lobbyists of the companies that have put the bids in to approve them while one of the main minister infers he will not prioritise the protection of endangered species like the archeys frog over mining projects that do massive environmental harm. They have attacked indigenous rights in an attempt to negate the Treaty of Waitangi by “redefining it”; as a backup, they are also trying to remove all mentions of the treaty from legislation starting with our Child Protection laws no longer requiring social workers to consider the importance of Maori children’s culture when placing those children; when the Waitangi Tribunal who oversees indigenous matters sought to enquire about this, the Minister for Children blocked their enquiry in a breach of comity that was condemned in a ruling — too late to do anything — by our Supreme Court. They have repealed labour protections around pay and 90 day trials, reversed our smoking ban, cancelled our EV subsidy, cancelled our water infrastructure scheme that would have given Maori iwi a say in water asset management, cancelled our biggest city’s fuel tax, made our treasury and inland revenue departments less accountable, dispensed of our Productivity Commission, begun work on charter schools and military boot camps in an obvious push towards privatisation, cancelled grants for first home buyers, reduced access to emergency housing, allowed no cause evictions, cancelled our Maori health system that would have given Maori control over their own public medical care and funding, cut funding of services like budgeting advice and food banks, cancelled the consumer advocacy council, cancelled our medicine regulations, repealed free prescriptions, deferred multiple hospital builds, failed to deliver on pre-election medical promises, reversed a gun ban created in response to the mosque shootings, brought back three strikes = life sentence policy, increased minimum wage by half the recommended amount, cancelled fair pay for disabled workers, reduced wheelchair services, reversed our oil and gas exploration ban, cancelled our climate emergency fund, cut science research funding including climate research, removed limits on killing sea lions, cut funding for the climate change commission, weakened our methane targets, cancelled Significant National Areas protections, have begun reversing our ban on live exports. Much of this was passed under urgency.

It’s been six months.

[relto]

more ass traffic, yawn. i still want a direct train connection across the river but tbh even if they started the project RIGHT NOW it would still take 10 years to complete

[identifying-cars-in-posts]

I GOT A NEW CAR

Everybody meet the new baby that i will never shut up about forever!

This is Clifford the Third, my new 1996 Nissan Pickup!! I probably paid too much for her but given that I live in Massachusetts and she has virtually no rust I’m okay with that lol.

So a brief history of the Nissan Pickup! These trucks were released in the US in 1985 and were sold through 1997, when they were replaced with the Frontier. They were the successor to the beloved Datsun 720, which had been in production since 1979. They are in fact just called the Pickup! They’re colloquially known as the D21 - their chassis code, and the Hardbody, because of the double walled durable construction of the trucks’ bed.

The D21 was available with a couple different engines and drivetrain layouts. Mine is a 4x4 with the KA24 motor (which it shared with the 240SX/Silvia). She’s also a King Cab, meaning she has a slightly elongated wheelbase to allow for two small inwards facing jump seats in the back of the cab. Still a two door though.

AND SHE’S A STICK! She has a 5-speed manual transmission, and it’s the best transmission i’ve ever personally had in a car. She’s my third manual, the other two being a 1999 Toyota Corolla and a 2004 Subaru WRX, both of which were great but the Corolla had a really sloppy gearbox that felt incredibly vague at times, whereas the WRX had a sportier transmission that was pretty unforgiving and stiff. This one is definitive about where each gear is, but also won’t get too jerky or loud if you shift a little early or late.

Nissan Hardbody trucks are known and loved for their durability, versatility, and simplicity. They’re super bare bones but what they do have is built remarkably well and meant to withstand lots of abuse. If they don’t rust and have basic maintenance kept up it’s not uncommon for them to go 300k+ miles with minimal issues. Mine has around 184k miles, high but manageable. She also has a few modifications from the previous owner, namely a straight piped exhaust (no muffler, just one big long aluminum tube), aftermarket bumpers and lights, locking hubs, and a small lift. The guy i bought it from had plans to make it an off-roader but had too many projects and needed to offload one to make space in his driveway.

While many people either take these off-roading or turn them into drift trucks, my plan is to bring her back to mostly stock. I’m in the process of tracking down OEM bumpers and a more typical cat-back (from the catalytic converter back) exhaust system so she’s a little less obnoxiously loud. Since i mostly just need reliable transport more than a toy and she is now my sole car, I want to just make her relatively normal. But I love her a lot and am happy to be able to share!

[talenlee]

My Weirdly Embarrassing Love of Spreadsheets

This is gunna be a post about like, the nuts and bolts of making big projects like ongoing writing projects like this blog, but to get there I need to talk to you about silly stuff like journals and buses and spreadsheets. We get there, please, trust me.

One of the first tools I made for blogging was a table in my bullet journal. If you’re not familiar, a common thing to do with bullet journals (or ‘bujos’ as cooler or more tedious people than I call them), is to write up a calendar at the start of each month, something that lists what you’re doing through the course of the month. When I started doing this, I had a way to look at the month, that I could scribble on, so I did, and it meant I was able to get into the habits of putting an article on a game every friday and an article on a story every monday, resulting in my Story Pile and Game Pile series.

This was back in 2017, and the notebooks are in my bookshelf, each of them a record of a year that… huh, I could go back and reread.

Anyway, one of the problems that came up with this system was the bus.

Not kidding.

I would get a bus home from the uni most days. When I was on that bus, or when I was at the uni, I would have time to write, but I wouldn’t necessarily have access to my notebook. I found myself wanting a copy of the chart that I could manage on two different computers – my laptop at the university, and my computer at home. This is how One Stone got written, too, the trips home on the bus being when I wrote the blog posts that became the first chapters of that book, eyes closed, not looking at the screen, and focusing on the road to avoid being car sick.

It is wild to consider how much of my first book I loved writing I did with my eyes effectively closed.

In 2019, I resolved midway through the year that I needed a better system, and started on a system that would handle the transport between two locations better, for the year coming where I anticipated a lot of travel between two sites.

Ahem.

Yeah, uh, 2020.

Anyway, that it wasn’t necessary didn’t stop it being useful! That led to the creation of this Google Sheets spreadsheet:

I made this in Sheets because Sheets is like Excel, which I like using, and it’s like Calc, which I now use, because the version of Excel I pirated doesn’t have access to IFS functions. Point is, this sheet, as originally conceived, did not need anything as a spreadsheet to work; I wanted a table with 365 cells in it that could show the entire year at a glance and be given a simple, straightforward tick or cross. It became something more, as the years progressed.

I’ve been using this kind of spreadsheet now, for 5 years. In 2025, the spreadsheet looks almost the same:

Being a spreadsheet, it is an array of data. You can manipulate that. You can track data in it. You can use indexes. You can cocatenate things, and that’s the stage this spreadsheet is at now. When I sit down to work on a blog post, the first thing I do is not open up WordPress to pull at my drafts, it’s to instead open up this spreadsheet and look at when I have slots available, where my next upcoming gap is, and what kind of thing that gap wants.

Blue slots are story pile, green are game pile. I have all the video article slots pencilled in already with a ‘V,’ on the working version, so I can look at the line of Xes under each date and then see the point where oh, yeah, I gotta work on one of those spots. But see, also, in that top left? That number? The 0 is a count of how many blog posts have been set in place for the year, how close I am to being finished, or on track for the number of days in the year I’m at.

I try to keep the blog progress (blogress) at around 51 posts. That is not because this is the number I’ve decided I need or anything like that, it’s just a round number that makes me happy. Just being able to look at that number and see it being reasonably high? That’s a progress number. I could make it a progress bar proper, with a pair of graphs, but y’know, not worth it. I could make it a fraction too, like, the formula it’s doing over a “/365” if I wanted.

The thing that I’m most happy with though is the cell next to it.

See that cell looks like this:

='Topics & Ideas'!A2

And oh ho what is that?

Well that leads to this:

Here’s what this is: This is a whole spreadsheet of idea categories. Each category has at the top of it, a cell that looks down in the list for a random entry in that list and just provides it. For some things this is a long list of possibilities, for some things this is a tiny list of possibilities. But that is an index function – it looks randomly up and down the list and finds something. That means any time I want something for a specific theme, I can go to this sheet and I’ll see a random selection from these ideas. If I have an idea for a thing to write about at some point, I can jam that in the list, and know that it will eventually be exposed to me at some random point.

Then, at the head of that list, there’s the cell that also randomises the other cells along that horizontal line. Which means that any time I open this blog arranger up, I get to see a random offering of just… anything I could be writing right now. That list can include really broad things, like hey, write about an OC? and sometimes it could be really narrow and specific, like here’s a real event, you know about that one, you should write about it.

Now let me be clear: This is not a tool I recommend for everyone. This is a lot of elaborate effort I put into what is essentially, a producivity toy. This lets me produce a big pile of input and get a random output, and it lets me collect long lists or short lists of things and also, along with all of that, I can just get a periodic output from that list.

The original purpose for this chart wound up being unnecessary. I didn’t need to write on the bus any more. I don’t need to track the post count like this. I don’t need the randomiser. None of this stuff is in any way necessary.

But making this tool though, and playing with it, I have ways to engage with the project of this blog, with the writing when I can’t do that. When my ability to muster words has left me, I have still a chart, a tool, I have productivity items that I can work on. Sometimes just… fine tuning formulas is still working on it.

There’s this idea, maybe you’ve heard of ‘just do a little every day.’ Well, making it so there is a little you can do is really valuable, as part of that.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[theresattrpgforthat]

The computer game Pacific Drive has the player driving a supernatural station wagon and delving ever deeper into an abandoned exclusion zone in the Olympic Peninsula of Washington, dodging anomalies, scavenging for resources, exploring, and seeking answers to what events caused the creation of the zone. The game takes heavy inspiration from the art of Simon Stålenhag, which has its on TTRPG in "Tales from the Loop", but can you recommend any other games that would recreate the experience of Pacific Drive?

THEME: Pacific Drive

Hello friend, so I looked up Pacific Drive and one thing that I found out about it was that it was inspired by media such as Annihilation and Roadside Picnic, so first I’m going to send you to my Fucked Up Settings Rec post, especially to the games titled Trespasser and The Zone.

What I’m getting from Pacific Drive is that it’s focused on travel, exploration, an interesting story, the ability to improve the one thing that you survive with, and experiencing a world that fundamentally doesn’t care about you. So let’s see if we have anything that hits any of those tangents.

The Last Caravan, by Ted Bushman.

In this cozy, melancholy post-apocalypse, the aliens came less than a year ago. The war lasted two months, but nobody won. Now, with an alien army rising from the ashes of war, you will have to make a dangerous journey across a shattered North America in search of a new home.

You are normal people finding heroism in extraordinary circumstances. You will explore transformed landscapes, search abandoned towns, discover otherworldly technology, negotiate with newly-formed factions, outrun alien pursuers, and — and all you’ve got is a car, your fellow travelers, and the road.

The Last Caravan combines the survival-horror genre with the fiction-first ethos of Blades in the Dark and No Dice No Masters. Each character has a list of prompts called triggers that reward you with a narrative resource that can open up abilities as you tell your story. The alien apocalypse has come, but the story isn’t over, as a some kind of threat shows signs of growing as you travel across a cold, frozen highway. If you’re interested in The Last Caravan, but missed the Kickstarter, you can check out the Quickstart while you wait for the final release.

24XX-D: Aftertime, by xiombarg.

As a volunteer for the  private paramilitary group Project Aftertime, your health was altered and your brain preserved so you could be revived after society collapsed. 

You awoke in an unfamiliar base filled with unfamiliar technology, with even stranger ultratech outside. 

The Event the wastelanders describe makes no sense. "The gods left us."

I feel like I’m missing something when I look through my folders because the 24XX system feels perfect for these kinds of ‘exclusion zone” games but Aftertime feels the closest to it, and it’s definitely not perfect. There’s too many people milling about, and there seems to be too much pointing towards some kind of answer about the alien event. However, I think in general, 24XX is a great system to root around in if you want to make something for yourself. A lot of these kinds of games have great roll-tables for events, locations, and missions, and inventory (which seems really important in Pacific Drive) is simple to track but absolutely necessary.

Aftertime is different from other 24XX games in that it uses a pool of resources rather than dice rolls to determine what you can or cannot do. You could stick with that, or mash this game together with some other 24XX games like PREDATORS to incorporate dice rolls, and vehicles. What I like about Aftertime is that it includes a base that you can upgrade over time, similar to how your car in Pacific Drive gets better as you find upgrades for it.

Crush Depth Apparition, by amandalee.

February 1902, somewhere on the North Atlantic. Mountainous waves blot out the horizon, and the wind and thunder roar too loud to tell one from the other. But 200 ft down there’s only still cold darkness and the submarine.  

No one has ever dived this deep before, so far from shore and safety. Maybe no one was ever meant to try. The submarine is 170 feet of dripping pipes and fogged up dials, levers rusting stuck in the damp. It was two weeks into the voyage when things started going wrong.  Little accidents, inexplicable mistakes. Someone heard a noise, like tapping, soft against the hull last night. Bright paint flakes off a torpedo and underneath there is a story scratched into the metal. The Captain turns down a hallway that can’t be there,  into pipes and steel and miles of ocean.

The one thing keeping you safe down here has turned into a labyrinth. 

Crush Depth Apparition is an eerie survival horror stand alone adventure zine for 3-5 players and a GM by Amanda Lee Franck. It  includes rules for running and repairing a state of the art (of 120 years ago) experimental submarine, a map of the ocean, an unnatural labyrinth,  ghostly encounters,  hundreds of things that can go wrong, and a crew that depends on you.

Because you are depending on your submarine for survival, much of the focus of this adventure is going to be on keeping it running. You’ll need to manage your fuel levels, the submarine’s battery, and how deep you go, all while trying to find a way home. The setting is very different from Pacific Drive, and I think the horror amps up a little bit because there are more personal details that will likely worm themselves into this game. You’re also less likely to survive the entirety of this game; but the weirdness that happens the further that you adventure may mirror some of the strangeness of Pacific Drive.

ZONE, by Iron Cutler.

ZONE is a genre-agnostic TTRPG , heavily inspired by Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach Trilogy, though adaptable to a wide variety of settings. It is about trespassing in a bizarre and dangerous area—the Zone—and becoming changed by what you find inside.

ZONE is a GM-less ttrpg that uses collaborative worldbuilding to design and deepen the strangeness of the world around you. Each session will contain an expedition of Trespassers, people who enter the Zone without permission, and thus destined to be permanently changed. Your Trespassers will not usually survive from one expedition to the next; this place will change them, and that is why ZONE is described as “un-winnable” by its designer.

Unlike many of the other games on this list, ZONE is very abstract because it doesn’t expect you to succeed. Your characters are destined to fail once they incur too much shock, so managing resources is not really something worth doing in this game. Character creation is also rather simple, and I think that is because the main focus of this game is on the place you are exploring, rather than the character themself. If you want a game about the horror of being changed by something alien and ultimately uncaring about you, I’d recommend ZONE.

RAD, by ¡Hipólita!

We don't know who broke the world, but we know what weapon they used.

In the year 1990, the United States of America fired a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union, immediately killing millions and poisoning the land, air and water for years.

The scarce few survivors were forced into hiding. About 50,000 people fled to the relative safety of the Moscow Metro, with smaller numbers following suit in cities like Novosibirsk, Volgograd, Saint Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Samara and others.

RAD is a game full of radiation-induced body-horror and all about survival. You have four core stats, and the rest of your character sheet is all about resources and inventory, including three resources called Bedroll, Rations and Battery. The game mechanics are inspired by systems like Mausritter, which means that player creativity and smart item use will take you far. It’s all about a delicate balance of resources, so if that’s what you liked about Pacific Drive, you might want to check out RAD - as well as an adventure for it titled The Technicolor Forest.

Other Games I've Recommended Before

Nibiru, by Araukana Media.

Apocalypse Roadtrip, by Mynar Lenahan.

Roadspire, by Glempy.

[green-hoedrogen]

Ok so in my fic Slip I vaguely based Hydra off of a DOT-114 tanker because i could find the specification really easily they're sometimes used for pressurised gasses, but GOOD NEWS! I was wrong and also stupid :)

I've been recreationally overthinking this all day, for funsies. The interesting thing is, in Europe we don't really have H2 on the rails in that way yet- DB cargo is doing a lot of work there, but not in any formats that match up with the green bean. We know he doesn't carry ammonia or methanol because his fuel is usable without pre-processing, and we know he's not any sort of MEGC. The only other option in europe is cryocontainers of LH2, but they're intermodal- you can put one on a ship, unload it onto a lorry or a flatbed or whatever, and go about your merry way. so not that neither.

(sidebar: I know he is a creation of andrew lloyd webber's twisted mind and also a twink on rollerskates, but shh. im playing touys.)

The likelier option, imo, is that he's carrying cryogenic liquid hydrogen. This would track with some sliiightly older technologies (and i really do mean slightly) like liquid natural gas, which has already been used in duel-fuel locomotives. At time of writing, the only thing I could scrounge up that's actually authorised for cryogenic hydrogen transport on US rails are DOT-113 tanker cars, which are usually designed for other cryogenic liquids but. Uh. Im sure its fine. Nowt in the UK yet, we've got all of it on the roads at the minute. He's some kind of freaky half-to-spec pilot project to me anyways, I just need to ballpark.

According to the Railway Association of Canada's Railway Emergncy guide, DOT-113A60W tankers have a working temperature of -423F, which is the temperature hydrogen becomes liquid at.

So! That means we're working with DOT-113A60W!Hydra, or at least something similar! :D He's got a tank-within-a-tank system, weather-shielded loading/unloading valves, and DO NOT HUMP OR CUT OFF WHILE IN MOTION stenciled somewhere easy to see. Thank you for coming to my ted talk!

[infinitestarsdev]

Devlog 2024-02-09 (Episode 4 - Part 1 is out NOW!)

It's Friday! And this is a special Friday because it's a RELEASE Friday!

That's right! Episode 4 - Part 1 is now live!

Update Edit: It's also a sad day for my family. I lost someone dear to me this morning, someone even dearer to my loved ones, and my heart is aching with them for our loss. I wish things weren't the way they are. I wish I could do more to ease their suffering.

Project Details:

167,666 words in total. (That's roughly the same length as the first two Harry Potter novels combined)

825 possible choices.

Patrons can get their version over here (win|mac|lin) or here (android), and everyone else can get the full game on Steam or Itchio!

Episode 4 - Part 1 continues the story after the dramatic conclusion from Episode 3.

It introduces several new characters, several new and redrawn backgrounds, several new portraits, several new music tracks, an overhauled story controller, a new free-roam mechanic, a new star system navigation interface, a lore gallery with unlockable entries, a system for players to load custom-made stories written by other players into the game, a seasonal event (Spooktober Heist), and nearly 40K additional words of content (some being intimate content for Kiaria, Lochem and Khalil).

It also includes two very special player portraits! Thanks to the amazing ladies from Wanderlust Games, you can now play your Mah'Abeu as a younger version of Damon or Ayame from Andromeda Six! (Seriously, if you're hearing about Andromeda Six for the first time– You're about to fall in love. Go check them out and support them if your wallet allows!)

We've been working extremely hard to bring this release to you, and while we've added a ton of new things, we would have loved to add more. Sadly, we had to draw a line in the sand and release what was available.

Some of the things that we could add before the deadline that were requested by our beta testers:

MC is more knowledgeable about the Cephilusk.

Added a location hint during free-roam sequences.

Made Kiaria more Kiaria when dealing with current events.

Your Mah'Abue now crafts the notice being sent to the crew.

Several more personality options (with more on their way)

Most free-roam scenes now have the crew members touching on or hinting at the current situation.

Fixed some logic bugs with Sonia's scene.

Adjusted Andreas' scene with an additional choice if he becomes too much.

Added some additional logic and checks to the response you can give when the crew/your LI asks about how you are coping. (Might still expand on this.)

Your Mah'Abue now has more control over how they handle Nikau.

Added Lindi's music track.

An additional intimate scene for Khalil

Some of the things that we couldn't add before the deadline that will be added very soon. (over the next week or three):

Implementing some more of the Beta Tester feedback requests.

The start of Tabitha's character arc.

A free-roam scene for Lebeny, along with an additional intimate scene.

Adding a semi-intimate, more risque scene with Matthias.

Adding additional character expressions to some of the free-roam content.

Additional music tracks where there is only silence.

Missing Lore Descriptions, replacing the WiP notice with actual content.

The new trailer for Episode 4.

Some of the things that we couldn't add before the deadline that will be added down the line. (more than a month from now)

Additional backgrounds and characters.

Continuing Episode 4, including the much-anticipated Matthias Elevator scene.

Additional Lore items to unlock.

More free-roam content, more character content (Reyna and more), more intimate scenes.

Character relationship arcs (and intimate scenes) for Raymond, Matthias, Veera and Tabitha as a prioity.

Character relationship arcs (and intimate scenes) for Cephilusk, Andreas and TBD a little further down the road.

As always, despite the hours and hours and heaps of financial resources poured into the project, Infinite Stars is still entirely free! If you like what we are doing and can afford to show your support, please consider joining one of our paid Patreon tiers!

Infinite Stars wouldn't be nearly as cool as it is without the support of our amazing Patrons who believe in us!

If you can't afford to support us, that's cool. We still love you, and having you enjoy our game fills our hearts with joy! If you like the game, share it with your friends or give us a positive review to help with the visibility algorithms.

Have a peaceful weekend, enjoy the release, and go hug one of your loved ones!

[mariacallous]

As delegates arrived at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee earlier this week to officially nominate former president Donald Trump as their 2024 candidate, a right-wing policy think tank held an all-day event nearby. The Heritage Foundation, a key sponsor of the convention and a group that has been influencing Republican presidential policy since the 1980s, gathered its supporters to tout Project 2025, a 900-plus-page policy blueprint that seeks to fundamentally restructure the federal government.

Dozens of conservative groups contributed to Project 2025, which recommends changes that would touch every aspect of American life and transform federal agencies—from the Department of Defense to the Department of Interior to the Federal Reserve. Although it has largely garnered attention for its proposed crackdowns on human rights and individual liberties, the blueprint would also undermine the country’s extensive network of environmental and climate policies and alter the future of American fossil fuel production, climate action, and environmental justice.

Under President Joe Biden’s direction, the majority of the federal government’s vast system of departments, agencies, and commissions have belatedly undertaken the arduous task of incorporating climate change into their operations and procedures. Two summers ago, Biden also signed the Inflation Reduction Act, the biggest climate spending law in US history, with the potential to help drive greenhouse gas emissions down 42 percent below 2005 levels.

Project 2025 seeks to undo much of that progress by slashing funding for government programs across the board, weakening federal oversight and policymaking capabilities, rolling back legislation passed during Biden’s first term, and eliminating career personnel. The policy changes it suggests—which include executive orders that Trump could implement single-handedly, regulatory changes by federal agencies, and legislation that would require congressional approval—would make it extremely difficult for the United States to fulfill the climate goals it has committed to under the 2015 Paris Agreement.

“It’s real bad,” said David Willett, senior vice president of communications for the environmental advocacy group the League of Conservation Voters. “This is a real plan, by people who have been in the government, for how to systematically take over, take away rights and freedoms, and dismantle the government in service of private industry.”

Trump has sought to distance himself from the blueprint. “Some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal,” he wrote in a social media post last week.

However, at least 140 people who worked in the Trump administration contributed to Project 2025, and policy experts and environmental advocates fear Project 2025 will play an influential role in shaping GOP policy if Trump is reelected in November. Some of the blueprint’s recommendations are echoed in the Republican National Convention’s official party platform, and Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts says he is “good friends” with Trump’s new running mate, Senator J. D. Vance of Ohio. Previous Heritage Foundation road maps have successfully dictated presidential agendas; 64 percent of the policy recommendations the foundation put out in 2016 had been implemented or considered under Trump one year into his term. The Heritage Foundation declined to provide a comment for this story.

Broadly speaking, Project 2025 proposals aim to scale down the federal government and empower states. The document calls for “unleashing all of America’s energy resources” by eliminating federal restrictions on fossil fuel drilling on public lands, curtailing federal investments in renewable energy technologies, and easing environmental permitting restrictions and procedures for new fossil fuel projects such as power plants. “What’s been designed here is a project that ensures a fossil fuel agenda, both in the literal and figurative sense,” said Craig Segall, the vice president of the climate-oriented political advocacy group Evergreen Action.

Within the Department of Energy, offices dedicated to clean energy research and implementation would be eliminated, and energy efficiency guidelines and requirements for household appliances would be scrapped. The environmental oversight capacities of the Department of the Interior and the Environmental Protection Agency would be curbed significantly or eliminated altogether, preventing these agencies from tracking methane emissions, managing environmental pollutants and chemicals, or conducting climate change research.

In addition to these major overhauls, Project 2025 advocates for getting rid of smaller and lesser-known federal programs and statutes that safeguard public health and environmental justice. It recommends eliminating the Endangerment Finding—the legal mechanism that requires the EPA to curb emissions and air pollutants from vehicles and power plants, among other industries, under the Clean Air Act. It also recommends axing government efforts to assess the social cost of carbon, or the damage each additional ton of carbon emitted causes. And it seeks to prevent agencies from assessing the “co-benefits,” or the knock-on positive health impacts, of their policies, such as better air quality.

“When you think about who is going to be hit the hardest by pollution—whether it’s conventional air, water, and soil pollution or climate change—it is very often low-income communities and communities of color,” said Rachel Cleetus, policy director of the climate and energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit science advocacy organization. “The undercutting of these kinds of protections is going to have a disproportionate impact on these very same communities.”

Other proposals would wreak havoc on the nation’s ability to prepare for and respond to climate disasters. Project 2025 suggests eliminating the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Weather Service housed therein and replacing those organizations with private companies. The blueprint appears to leave the National Hurricane Center intact, saying the data it collects should be “presented neutrally, without adjustments intended to support any one side in the climate debate.” But the National Hurricane Center pulls much of its data from the National Weather Service, as do most other private weather service companies, and eliminating public weather data could devastate Americans’ access to accurate weather forecasts. “It’s preposterous,” said Rob Moore, a policy analyst for the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Action Fund. “There’s no problem that’s getting addressed with this solution, this is a solution in search of some problem.”

The document also advocates moving the Federal Emergency Management Administration, which marshals federal disaster response, out from under the umbrella of the Department of Homeland Security, where it has been housed for more than 20 years, and into the Department of the Interior or the Department of Transportation. “All of the agencies within the Department of Interior are federal land management agencies that own lots of land and manage those resources on behalf of the federal government,” Moore said. “Why would you put FEMA there? I can’t even fathom why that is a starting point.”

The blueprint recommends eliminating the National Flood Insurance Program and moving flood insurance to private insurers. That notion skates right over the fact that the federal program was initially established because private insurers found that it was economically unfeasible to insure the nation’s flood-prone homes—long before climate change began wreaking havoc on the insurance market.

Despite the alarming implications of most of Project 2025’s climate-related proposals, it also recommends a small number of policies that climate experts said are worth considering. Its authors call for shifting the costs of natural disasters from the federal government to states. That’s not a bad conversation to have, Moore pointed out. “I think there’s people within FEMA who feel the same way,” he said. The federal government currently shoulders at least 75 percent of the costs of national disaster recovery, paving the way for development and rebuilding in risky areas. “You are disincentivizing states and local governments from making wise decisions about where and how to build because they know the federal government is going to pick up the tab for whatever mistake they make,” Moore said.

Quillan Robinson, a senior adviser with ConservAmerica who has worked with Republicans in Washington, DC, on crafting emissions policies, was heartened by the authors’ call for an end to what they termed “unfair bias against the nuclear industry.” Nuclear energy is a reliable source of carbon-free energy, but it has been plagued by security and public health concerns, as well as staunch opposition from some environmental activists. “We know it’s a crucial technology for decarbonization,” Robinson said, noting that there’s growing bipartisan interest in the energy source among lawmakers in Congress.

An analysis conducted by the United Kingdom–based Carbon Brief found that a Trump presidency would lead to 400 billion metric tons of additional emissions in the US by 2030—the emissions output of the European Union and Japan combined.

Above all else, Segall, from Evergreen Action, is worried about the effect Project 2025 would have on the personnel who make up the federal government. Much of the way the administrative state works is safeguarded in the minds of career staff who pass their knowledge on to the next cadre of federal workers. When this institutional knowledge is curbed, as it was by budget cuts and hostile management during Trump’s first term, the government loses crucial information that helps it run. The personnel “scatter,” he said, disrupts bottom-line operations and grinds the government to a halt.

Although Project 2025’s proposals are radical, Segall said that its effect on public servants would echo a pattern that has been playing out for decades. “This is a common theme in Republican administrations dating back to presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan,” he said. “What you do is you break the government, make it very hard for the government to function, and then you loudly announce that the government can’t do anything.”

[quietlyimplode]

the language of flowers and silent things

Whumptober 2023: Day 21 - Found family

Warnings: child abandonment, grief

Word Count: 1.8k (gif not mine)

Summary: Clint leaves to find a person from his past, surrounded by the family he created.

A/N: <3

Masterlist

Whumptober Masterlist

.

2013

NEW YORK

“Can you find someone for me?” Clint asks Tony, looking around the room, and the technology it holds.

He can’t help but touch the screens and play with the holograms as he waits for Tony to reply.

“Can you pass me the copper wire?” Tony asks.

Clint hops up on the bench and throws it to him, his aim true.

“I can find anyone, if they want to be found, and even then, likely I can find them if they don’t want to be,” he answers distractedly.

“Can you hold this here?”

Clint hops down and pushes on the wire, analysing the circuitry and frowning.

“You’ve wired it wrong,” he surmises, pointing with his other hand.

Tony swears and rubs his face.

“How long have you been up for?” Clint asks, a pinch of worry for his friend and his insomniac ways.

Tony looks up and glances at the time.

Jarvis answers for him, “twenty six hours.”

Clint swears it’s sounds almost disapproving.

“What are you trying to do?” he asks, knowing that until the project has reached a satisfactory conclusion, there’s no way Tony will stop.

Rubbing his forehead, Tony shows him the circuit board connected to the towers alarm system, and automatic controls for system lockdown.

Clint frowns.

“Has there been any attempts to get in here?”

He doesn’t understand why Tony was upgrading the already functioning system.

He shakes his head.

“No, but I just..” he pauses.

“Who do you want me to find?”

Clint ignores him and without words helps, correcting the circuitry then placing the upgraded board into Tony’s hand.

“You know, if you get sleep, these things become easier,” he grins.

Tony rolls his eyes, the lower limbs of the suits attaching as he flies to the control box outside and installs the board quickly.

There’s a quick glow, and a light force field covers the tower before disappearing again.

Clint didn’t realise how big the project was, and smiles as Tony returns.

“Come get some food,” he prompts, holding the door open as the legs come away and he reaches ground again.

Tony obliges.

Heading to the kitchen, Clint explains about Gus.

The ex-carney, convenience store owner that stayed close to the circus and protected Clint from future foster homes and set him on the path of this life.

There’s some hesitation in the way Tony replies, and Clint doesn’t quite know if he should have trusted him with the story.

“Why do you want to see him again?” Tony asks, handing him a Stark-Pad.

Clint hesitates, feeling judged in the moment.

“I want to tell him about Barney, maybe just check that he’s okay. Thank him I suppose?”

He doesn’t know, not in any way he can put into words.

Tony is uncharacteristically quiet, before he takes the stark-pad off of Clint and opens up a data base, taking time, he seems to hack into some sort of data base.

It takes him a minute or so, before he hands the tablet back.

“He’s still in Iowa, Cedar Rapids, last known address was near the Prairie Park Fishery,” he pauses, “we can go now if you want?”

Clint stops in his tracks.

“What?”

Tony points upwards.

“Two hours, we can go there now if you want?”

Clint nods slowly.

“Yeah okay,” he says impulsively, “let me just send a message to Natasha, and let her know.”

Tony shrugs, “sure, I’ll be up at the hanger, if you ask Steve it will be a party.”

Clint decides on calling Natasha, feeling a slight urgency on getting going.

“Hey,” she picks up, after a beat.

“Hey,” he answers.

“I asked Tony to find Gus and he found him in like five seconds. He asked if we wanted to go visit, and I’ve said yes,” he says quickly.

“Doyouwannacome?”

Natasha takes a second before responding, and then tells him she’d meet him at the hanger.

He smiles. It’s like a road trip with his friends, something they’d do at the circus.

It’s seems somewhat fitting.

Picking up the phone again, he calls Steve.

“Hey man,” he says as the phone clicks over.

“Hey,” Steve replies.

“Natasha and Tony and I are going on a bit of trip to see an old friend I have in Iowa. Do you want to come?”

“When?” Steve asks.

“Now?”

Steve takes a moment and then agrees, Clint thinks he can hear the change in his tone, a small amount of pleasure at being invited.

“Come to the hanger when you can,” Clint tells him, “we’ll be waiting.”

.

The trip to Iowa is an exchange of stories. Clint starts by telling the story of Gus and how he taught him magic, he shows the others a trick and then produces a coin from Steve’s ear.

Much to his delight, Steve replicates the trick and produces two coins.

Tony, not to be outdone, produces two coins and a card.

Natasha bursts out laughing.

“You’re all magic nerds,” she says, joyfully.

The rest of the trip they try and outdo each other, Natasha taking the lead in flying the plane as they all show off random magic tricks, and teaching each other the ones they don’t know.

She gives them a ten minute warning and looks back to see Clint smiling, a true smile that had been so rare from the events of New York to learning of his brothers death.

She hopes this is positive and that Gus is the man Clint believes him to be.

Otherwise, she might kill him herself.

.

Clint knocks on the door.

Alone now, he wishes he hadn’t been so adamant to do this himself. He’d left Natasha with the others in the plane, promising to be back soon.

The anticipation feels heavy as he hears movement in the house and he hopes Tony was right in the address.

The door opens slowly, and Clint smiles lightly.

“Hello,” he opens, “I don’t know if you—“

“Clint?”

The door opens wider, revealing Gus, now older but still the same man.

“Hi,” he says shyly.

“Clint!”

He pulls him into a hug and Clint feels himself sink into it, feeling like a kid again.

“Come in,” Gus asks, ushering him through the door.

“Can I get you anything?

Clint doesn’t get a chance to answer as Gus disappears into the kitchen and returns with beer and a bottle opener.

He takes it and opens them both, offering it to cheers which Gus does with a smile.

“Clint,” he says, almost in reverence.

“How are you?”

“I’m good,” Clint replies, not sure what to say.

He came here to say that Barney was dead. To thank him for helping him when he was a child, to pointing him in the direction of the military.

“I — wanted to find you,” he starts.

Gus stands, finds an album on the bench and hands it to Clint.

“Open it,” he gestures.

The album has photos, some articles from the circus, pictures of Clint he’d never seen before, gently he turns the pages, emotion welling inside.

He can’t speak.

Gently touching the photos, he sees himself holding the bow and arrow as a young boy, stance strong and gaze focussed.

“That’s my favourite,” Gus says, watching Clint carefully, “you had such natural talent from the get go, and even if archery didn’t get you famous, I think you would have been a fantastic pickpocket.”

Clint huffs a laugh, turning the page.

“And now you’re an Avenger?”

There’s clippings from the paper from the last twelve months.

Of Tony, Steve and Thor, of him and Natasha. Articles and pictures.

Clint thinks it’s one of the kindest things someone has ever done.

He smiles.

“I’m just a human, amongst superhero’s, metal men and gods,” he laughs, starting at the start again to take the photos in.

“Maybe it’s what they need, to keep them in line,” Gus retorts.

Clint stops at a picture.

Barney stands arms crossed with a smile as Clint does a handstand.

He stares at it, and forces breath.

Barney.

“He’s dead,” he whispers, taking the photo out, he shows it Gus.

“He’s dead,” he repeats again.

Gus hobbles over to sit with Clint, taking the photo and then handing it back.

“I know,” he nods, and hugs Clint in a side hug.

“He came here, a couple of years ago, asking after you, I showed him and told him you had gone into the military.”

He turns the page and Clint finds the picture of himself in uniform.

“He was so proud of you,” Gus tells him.

“I think he wanted to tell you.”

Clint can’t help it; he cries.

For the loss of his brother, for all the words left unsaid and the time they’d never get back.

“Do you think he knew I loved him?” he asks, voice as small as a child’s.

“Of course he did,” Gus nods.

He closes the album, and motions for Clint to follow him.

“Barney stayed here, for a little while at least, and drew some pictures. I held onto them, as I hoped— I wished I would see you again.”

He opens the door and pulls out some pictures from a drawer.

The pictures are of Clint and Barney as children, their faces small and chubby.

Clint feels the tears on his face as he furiously wipes at them.

“Your brother, he was complicated and could be harsh and I think he wanted to protect you but didn’t know how… You were both so young.”

Gus looks down.

“I think I failed you both but I did the best I could,” he admits.

Clint shakes his head.

“No,” he refutes, “you saved my life, probably Barney’s too. I came to thank you.”

Gus waves him off.

“Take them,” he tells Clint, “they’re yours, the album too if you want anything from it.”

Clint nods, finding the album, knowing what pictures he wants and the ones he wants to show Natasha, maybe even the others.

He sits back down, not quite ready to leave yet.

“I’m going to get married,” he confesses.

Gus looks up, his smile wide.

“Will you come?”

The nod and laugh is infectious.

“Of course, of course I will,” he agrees.

He sits back and takes a sip of the still cold beer.

“Tell me about her,” he asks.

.

The plane home is in darkness, as Clint shares the chocolate and pictures that Gus sent with him.

He tells the stories behind the pictures, prompting Steve and Tony to tell their own.

Natasha holds onto the picture of Clint and Barney and stares at it for a long time.

“He looks like you,” she whispers later.

“Remind me,” he tells her, “remind me to tell you the story behind that one.”

Natasha hands it back to him, and nods, bringing her head to his and pushing it against his.

“I’m proud of you,” she whispers, so the others can’t hear.

“It’s hard facing our pasts, and I’m glad it went well.”

He regards Natasha and all the history she has with facing her past; the good and the bad.

He nods.

“Me too, Nat.”

.

[vintageseawitch]

i urge people to realize that if you don't vote, it literally isn't hurting any candidate. it's hurting other vulnerable citizens. you get on your soap box, making claims like, "it's their fault for giving us a bad candidate" is literally only giving you an ego boost. in your efforts to fight the system you're inadvertently allowing the greater evil to win.

it completely sucks. i hate this timeline. it sucks that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. the elite have made it this way.

i need you to realize that this isn't a normal election. Project 2025 makes it basically existential. if you believe we live in a fascist state now just wait if they're allowed to implement this on a national level. think they'll take us back to the 1950s? nah. think of it as us being stuck in the 1800s but with modern surveillance technology. they'll implement the Comstock Law so anything they deem sexual - abortion drugs, contraception, condoms, sex toys, etc - can't be mailed. they will not allow pregnant women to go through chemo. they want to keep data trackers of periods. they want to keep track of stillbirths, miscarriages, etc. it's beyond what it used to be; it will be worse.

they will consider transgender people, merely existing, as pornography. they want to ban pornography. they want to re-define what pedophilia means & it will conveniently consist of LGBTQIA+ people & they want punishments to be SEVERE. they will also punish anyone - teachers, librarians, authors, etc - for handing out porn (this means any books they don't like).

they want to do mass deportations, the likes of which haven't been seen in this country. they want to remove natural born citizen rights. anyone not white is at risk.

they don't think climate change is "real" & so any good that has happened as a result of this government- NOAA, the EPA - will be gutted. they want to sell National Parks & other natural areas to anyone who wants to destroy them to harvest their resources. the days of Nixon (who started the EPA) are dead. this is very serious especially since climate change is the biggest threat to humanity's survival.

i urge you to re-think that both parties are exactly the same. one will be chosen & will be worse. i'm sorry it comes down to this but you not using your voice at this point us tragic. you will be badly affected as well if trump is re-elected & if you believe that the USA deserves this then welcome to this sinking ship; you're going down with the rest of us.

please never stop talking about Project 2025/Agenda 47. YOUR VOICE DOES MATTER. PLEASE VOTE. check your registration status often. vote early if you can 💙

[velvetfoxgames]

Infinite Blue - October 2023 Update

Hello everyone! We've reached the estimated date for when Infinite Blue was slated to be released on Kickstarter. We're not quite there yet, but we have made some great progress. For this update, we'll go over where we're at and give some estimates for how long the rest of development will take.

Artwork

A general overview:

Sprites: Complete

Stickers: Complete

Alternative outfits: Complete

Item art: Nearly 83%

GUI: ~70%

Backgrounds: ~72%

Chatroom art: 88%

CGs: 70%

Some of these won't take very long to complete, such as the item art and chatroom art. CGs will need the longest period of time to complete with an estimated 4-5 months.

Writing

Writing is at about 80% complete. One route still requires some heavy revision, but the others will only need a few more passthroughs to be considered done. This should be accomplished in the next few months.

Music

The new music tracks are close to being finished! The original music from the demo is also getting an update. So we're well on track in regards to music.

Programming

A lot of features have been programmed in already, so the wildcard for this will probably be testing and certain things we haven't done yet, like setting up the currency system. We can't accurately give an estimate for programming, but we'll keep everyone updated as time goes on.

Voice Acting

Once all the scripts are finalized, we'll be able to work on voice acting. This should only take a few weeks to get the files in and ready to be programmed into the game.

So when will Infinite Blue release?

Taking everything into account, we're currently looking at the first quarter of 2024. We're a little disappointed it will be delayed, but based on observation, game delays are pretty much par for the course! And we wouldn't want to rush development, or the people working on the project.

The good news is we have made great progress, and we are on the road to finishing.

Thank you so much for your patience and for all of your support. We know how excited you are for this game, and we are too! We'll continue our monthly updates so you know how we're progressing. Thanks again 💙

Thanks for reading!

🌦️ For weekly updates and extra content, join our Patreon!

🌦️ Follow us on Twitter and join our Discord

[marinette-sky]

ML Biologist AU Sneak Peek

Aiming for the first chapter to be 5k, but might be longer depending on the direction I go in. Here's a sneak peek!!

Indevillers, May 27

Dear Journal,

I don’t know how much more this agony I can take.

I’m freezing most of the time, the bugs (although lovely) are constantly buzzing and biting, meanwhile the afternoon storms do nothing but soak us to the bone! The least the rain can do is reveal my precious Tikki, but so far I haven’t uncovered any evidence of their presence on the mountain. We’ve only been out here for a few days, but I feel like I’m going to combust! Alya says that I should practice my patience, but patience is a virtue I do not possess (and we both know it).

Our firm still hasn’t told us the specific details of why we’re out here, they just tell us to record the flora and fauna as well as get a general population count of everything. Max theorizes that since the client is Monarch Development, LLC, a land development company under the Agreste umbrella, we’re “likely conducting a preliminary resource allocation study for a proposed project site” (bleh!). Rose seems opposed to this theory, but naturally she wants to believe we’re conducting this survey for conservation purposes. I want to believe that as well, but...I have my doubts.

Whats really annoying me is that I’m the only one without a field partner, which keeps me from doing an actual species survey! And searching for my little Tikki. I’ve had to pair off with the other teams for safety requirements, but supposedly the other wildlife biologist should get here by the evening. There was a scheduling conflict with Kagami and she had to back out at the last second, which fucking sucks since I was looking forward to spending time with her without Felix lurking in the background like he always does when we hang out. We’re cool now, but without Kagami I don’t think I could stand to be anywhere near him. And he just looks so much like [scribbled].

And if they’re sending who I think they’re sending, I don’t think I’ll last here much longer without actually combusting.

None of the entries I’ve made this week have been good, or consistent. Sorry journal! I hear Mylène calling my name.

Bug out!

Marinette shut her journal with a sigh, briefly shutting her eyes before opening them against the late afternoon sun filtering through the shaggy canopy overhead. She was sat at the edge of a wooded area that skirted an old plot of pastureland and watermill system. A manmade pond depressed the landscape slightly when looking across the entire clearing, disrupting the connected stream that served as a tributary to the nearby major river it trickled from. The watermill that Marinette now stared out at had definitely seen better days. The wood was splintered and decayed; its axel, once new, was warped beyond repair. Even the sloping terrain and gentle flow of water could no longer progress the turbine’s paddles.

It was much like the hamlet they were staying in.

Indevillers was a mountain town located in the northern part of the Jura Mountains, nestled between rolling hills and swathes of forest. It had a whopping population of 274 with a smattering of ancestral homes making up a majority of the town infrastructure. Tourism was what kept the place alive; however, the progression of time had slowly chipped away at the once bustling agriculture hub. A slow, quiet air of rot permeated from its center.

Thankfully, Marinette was tucked miles away in the local mountain valley of Fuesse, still within Indevillers but far enough to sever any visible evidence of the town. The lodgings their team was using was situated on a rocky, but vegetated, incline. Two barn-converted-cabins stood solemnly against the surrounding forest, the small patch of grasslands offering modest visibility for their refuge within the semi-wilderness. A two-track road led away from the cabins and further down the slope, disappearing into the trees.

“Marinette! If I don’t hear from you in the next five seconds, I’m going to send Ivan out to look!” Mylène sounded slightly exasperated while calling in her general direction. The first day Marinette didn’t rendezvous at the set time they decided on for their end of day meeting, Ivan was sent to find her. She had been busy recording potential habitat data when he crashed through the brush and gave her quite the fright.

Marinette sprung up with a start and quickly made herself visible. Time management was not her strong suit, nor was being in the places she was supposed to be when needed (even after all these years).

“A-Ah! Theres no need for that, Mylène! I’m right here!” Marinette made her way across the pasture, waving apologetically to her friend.

Hopefully I'll get the first chapter out by this weekend 🫶 kind of dc if this isn't interesting to anyone. Writing it more for myself since it's the first time I've wanted to write anything in 6 years. Pretty happy with this so far :)

[classic-vintage-bmw]

1991 Z1 Art Car by A. R. Penck

In 1991, the BMW Z1 became a canvas for German artist A. R. Penck, resulting in the eleventh installment of BMW’s iconic Art Car series. The Z1, a rare roadster with vertically sliding doors and a futuristic design, was already a standout with only 8,000 units produced between 1988 and 1991. Penck transformed the last Z1 produced into a rolling masterpiece, adorning its bright red body with his signature abstract symbols and stick figures. His design, inspired by prehistoric cave paintings and modern graffiti, turned the car into a dialogue between technology and primal art. Unlike other Art Cars meant for racing, Penck’s Z1 was crafted solely as an exhibition piece, never driven on roads or tracks, preserving its status as a pure artistic statement.

Penck viewed the BMW Z1 itself as a “work of art,” a product of the creativity and imagination of BMW’s engineers and designers. His approach was to challenge this technical marvel with his own visual language, a complex system of ciphers that invite viewers to decode their meaning. The car’s surface is covered with bold, black-and-white pictographs, including his famous “Matchstick Man” silhouette, alongside totemic forms and graphic icons reminiscent of Neolithic art. This fusion of high-tech automotive design and neo-primitivist imagery creates a striking contrast, making the Z1 a three-dimensional exploration of art’s relationship with technology. Penck’s work on the car reflects his fascination with mathematics, physics, and Asian calligraphy, blending intellectual rigor with raw, expressive energy.

The Z1 Art Car has since become a celebrated piece in BMW’s Art Car Collection, displayed at exhibitions like “Art Drive!” in London in 2012. Its uniqueness lies not only in Penck’s artistry but also in its status as the only convertible in the Art Car series and the last Z1 ever produced. The car’s design continues to captivate audiences, challenging them to interpret its abstract symbols while admiring the Z1’s innovative engineering, such as its removable thermoplastic panels and steel monocoque frame. As part of BMW’s ongoing commitment to merging art and mobility, Penck’s Z1 remains a testament to the power of interdisciplinary creativity, bridging the worlds of automotive design and fine art in a way that feels both timeless and avant-garde.

A. R. Penck, born Ralf Winkler in Dresden in 1939, was a self-taught artist whose career spanned decades and defied easy categorization. Emerging in East Germany, he held his first exhibition at age 17 in 1956, showcasing a precocious talent. Influenced by Picasso, Rembrandt, and prehistoric cave paintings, Penck developed a distinctive style that blended neo-primitivism with modern abstraction. His “Matchstick Man,” created in the early 1960s, became a hallmark of his work, symbolizing human struggle and communication. During the 1980s, he gained international acclaim as a leading figure in New Figuration, with his art exhibited in major Western museums. Penck’s fascination with systems—mathematics, cybernetics, and physics—infused his work with intellectual depth, making him a fitting choice for the BMW Art Car project. He passed away in 2017, leaving a legacy as one of Germany’s most innovative and enigmatic artists.

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this New York Times story:

When Interstate 25 was constructed through Denver, highway engineers moved a river.

It was the 1950s, and nothing was going to get in the way of building a national highway system. Colorado’s governor and other dignitaries, including the chief engineer of the state highway department, acknowledged the moment by posing for a photo standing on bulldozer tracks, next to the trench that would become Interstate 25.

Today, state highway departments have rebranded as transportation agencies, but building, fixing and expanding highways is still mostly what they do.

So it was notable when, in 2022, the head of Colorado’s Department of Transportation called off a long planned widening of Interstate 25. The decision to do nothing was arguably more consequential than the alternative. By not expanding the highway, the agency offered a new vision for the future of transportation planning.

In Colorado, that new vision was catalyzed by climate change. In 2019, Gov. Jared Polis signed a law that required the state to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 90 percent within 30 years. As the state tried to figure out how it would get there, it zeroed in on drivers. Transportation is the largest single contributor to greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, accounting for about 30 percent of the total; 60 percent of that comes from cars and trucks. To reduce emissions, Coloradans would have to drive less.

An effective bit of bureaucracy drove that message home. After sustained lobbying from climate and environmental justice activists, the Transportation Commission of Colorado adopted a formal rule that makes the state transportation agency, along with Colorado’s five metropolitan planning organizations, demonstrate how new projects, including highways, reduce greenhouse gas emissions. If they don’t, they could lose funding.

Within a year of the rule’s adoption in 2021, Colorado’s Department of Transportation, or CDOT, had canceled two major highway expansions, including Interstate 25, and shifted $100 million to transit projects. In 2022, a regional planning body in Denver reallocated $900 million from highway expansions to so-called multimodal projects, including faster buses and better bike lanes.

Now, other states are following Colorado’s lead. Last year, Minnesota passed a $7.8 billion transportation spending package with provisions modeled on Colorado’s greenhouse gas rule. Any project that added road capacity would have to demonstrate how it contributed to statewide greenhouse gas reduction targets. Maryland is considering similar legislation, as is New York.

[electronicironic]

quid pro quo my friend you must explain one of your oc groups to me

shriek. you daare squid pro quo ME. you don't even know that I HAVE oc groups actually who am I kidding. beans you over the head with these funny bastards. afterwards its your turn though

HUMAN RESOURCES DISPATCH AGENTS TEAM: Scrap Havoc (not sure if that's the team name or the story name) has a population of five (who only have code names because I haven't gotten around to real names. Team leader is Corleone and she orders around a squadron composed of Redbelly, Crispie, Cinnabar(&Mercury) and Shinjii.

Redbelly, joined the team as a pal of Corleone's and a solid worker is named after piranhas because that's her job. She has holdover magic powers from a system migration that gives her dope ass blood magic that's mostly used to heal real fast but you can also make pointy constructs out of blood and also she has a Special Unique blood dude ability, Devour, that she shares with her favorite shotgun. Devour is basically a blast shaped beam attack that annihilates matter and directly translates destroyed organic matter into more fuel for the Infinite Blood Healing.

Shinjii is Redbelly's fucked up and weird little nephew. He's in Redbelly's house and also business because he's the survivor of a Concerningly Redacted Sci Fi event that saw any family members with more respectable employment Deleted. He's also short enough to mention and kinda babyfaced which makes it odd for him to be doing Sci-Fi Adventure Bullshit, but Shinjii is also a fucked up little savant at the job. He's clever, small and fast and hard to keep track of, deadpan rude in a way that's GREAT for bantz, and best of all almost everyone else in the team can throw him if they need him through a high up window. He also may or may not be an inspecifically prescient were-dragon depending on the previously mentioned magic system migration. Either way it's a bit of an Image to put him (short, subtly and tastefully schemeful and unsettling) next to his auntie (tall, covered in blood, and very gregarious and boisterous.)

Cinnabar is an old friend from when she are Corleone were kids. She was SUPPOSED to be a cool and suave sharply dressed Corporate Agent you know the type of shit you see as bad guys in cheap cyberpunk-the-game stuff. She's great at things like infiltration, espionage, not being as horrifically crass as some of her teammates, and managing the paperwork that Sci Fi Adventure Bullshit probably causes. Her corporate base did get super duper blown up in the middle of corporate war. Cinnabar got not-exploded by breaking the glass on some Super Secret Corporate Bullshit and hitting the road with it and by it I mean Mercury. Mercury is a nanomachine grey goo with all the abilities a secret corporate grey goo project would probably have. It spends most of its time on Cinnabar's shoulder like a really fancy scarf and has all the brainpower of a really stupid smart dog. As a refined, dignified corporate agent she can appreciate fine art, such as Redbelly after a thirty minute street brawl.

Crispie is the team's funny operator robots guy and also the most honest character design here in that he's a guy who Maximizes his Gamer Skills by doing as much computer bullshit as humanely possible simultaneously. As the penultimate manifestation of such l33t g4m3r ski11z, Crispie can split his attention between his actual body and ludicrous amounts of drones and bots and hacker bullshit at any moment, to the point that he considers the entire network as part of his body more than his meat body alone. Despite such freakish computing power, Crispie has to put significant effort into preventing Shinjii and Cinnabar from sniping the shit outta him in most games. This universe is one energy-drink heart attack from the first true strong AI being made by accident by a dweeb who likes FOV drone racing.

You may think to yourself, what secret sauce does Corleone have to be the wise, respected, and even occasionally listened-to leader of this conference of freaks. Well for starters Corleone is a 6 foot something butch lesbian with a CDL and a set of sci-fi turbocarabiners. She also builds and mechanics dope-ass power rigs, the kind of shit that looks like wearing forklifts (and also she works on trucks because truck is still a concept even in the beautiful far future.) Leo also has a natural sense of wisdom, down-to-earth-ness, and capability for rough-housing that really contributes to the chill and love-and-friendshipful environment of this gang of Commits Tremendous Violence For Money And Advancement Opportunities Out Of The Back Of Corleone's Shop.

These guys kind of kick it inspecifically in a sci-fantastika setting that I gnaw on sometimes. Occasionally I lob these guys at funny hypothetical situations, or perhaps interactions with other characters in the setting like "1/4 of Satan" and "Capital A Alchemist who specializes in party drugs."