Many years ago I got to be in The Guild, playing me. I loved it and I loved being directed by Felicia Day (ie @thisfeliciaday). Last year she asked me if I'd be in an audio comedy she was writing and I said I'd love to.
And then she sent me the scripts and I got even more excited. They are funny and smart and skewer (with love) all the conventions of twenty first century fantasy.
The experience of recording it was incredibly enjoyable. I play the narrator. (I may be playing a version of Neil Gaiman who is the narrator.) Whoever the narrator is, he is having much too much fun. I cannot wait to hear the whole thing and not just my bits.
It's called Third Eye and it will be on Audible and Wil Wheaton (aka @wilwheaton) is in it too. So is Felicia. So are... Well, best to click on the variety link above and see for yourself.
surely this is a good idea that doesn’t have the capacity to end real fuckin badly
Bridges aren’t supposed to have weight restrictions on them. That is, they don’t come with weight restrictions on them when they’re new. So a bridge with a weight restriction on it is a sign that something has gone wrong and the bridge does not meet current standards.
The maximum weight that a vehicle is allowed to carry on the Interstate System per federal law is 80,000 pounds gross vehicle weight (with a max of 20,000 pounds per axle). That’s 40 tons. That limit applies to every inch of pavement, not just the bridges. Since this is a known cap, a new Interstate bridge will be designed to accommodate an 80,000 lb GVW load on it. You could say the bridge’s weight limit is 80,000 lb/40 tons but that doesn’t really have much meaning, because a load higher than that would be illegal to transport on public roads anyway, and the road leading up to the bridge has the same weight restriction. (In practice, the bridge doubtlessly will be designed to have a little bit of let to it just in case some idiot tries to squeak by a few hundred extra pounds.)
Now, note that that law applies to the Interstate System only, because the federal government only has a governing interest in the Interstate System (and other roads that together make up something called the National Highway System) because they partially fund it. Most long-distance roads are owned and funded by the states. The states could theoretically set lower standard weight limits and/or design bridges with lower weight limits…but in practice they don’t.
One, because all of that 80,000 lb GVW traffic on the Interstate system has to go somewhere when it exits the system.
Two, because a group called the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO, who are best known for picking the road numbers) maintains a catalog of standard components for making bridges that meet Interstate System requirements. Engineers are expensive on a per-hour basis, so if you can direct your engineer to use standard components and make a standard bridge, that’s a lot cheaper than having them design a bridge from scratch to go over the creek in Nowheresville. As a result, most new bridges meet Interstate standards and have an 80,000 lb GVW rating even if they aren’t on the Interstate system. (This is also why all new bridges kind of look the same, but we’re not worried about how boring the bridges are for the sake of this post.)
So a bridge only has an explicit weight limit if it has been damaged in some way (through failure to properly maintain it usually) or because it predates the application of Interstate System standards and the standard AASHTO bridges.
Older bridges often have other problems in addition to the weight limits: many older designs are what we call “fracture critical”, which means that if one component of the bridge fails the whole thing collapses. Modern bridge designs have redundancy designed into them so that if one beam fails the other beams will carry the load until the damaged beam can be replaced. Older bridges also often don’t meet other standards, like height (16 ft clearance) and width (12 ft per lane plus 14 ft for shoulders) requirements.
Biden isn’t advocating eliminating weight limits and letting it be a laissez-faire free-for-all where trucks can just go wherever they want. He’s advocating for replacing bridges that carry weight limits with new ones that don’t have them.
kingtrashraccoon
wow i got absolutely schooled thank you for all this this is really informative. i have learned so much
This is a great explanation of what the fuck Biden was talking about in his tweet. because I will freely admit that I also went “…….wtf?????” when I read it. So thank you.
Today I learned about civil engineering.
how are these schools being ruled like kingdoms by their administrations? like who lets these people get in charge and then lets them keep their jobs after shit like this? is the school system that broken that you have literal nazis heading american schools and colleges too?????
a lot of the American education system is more of a popularity contest than people really guess, and yes, that extends to white supremacists in positions of power
I’m sure this will hit the news soon but just in case it’s not out yet — the Governor of Maryland just signed an executive order tonight declaring Maryland a sanctuary state for trans people seeking gender-affirming care, and for all people who provide such care or help trans people access such care. This executive order includes an explicit refusal to cooperate with law enforcement/prosecutors in any other state where accessing, providing, or helping people access such care is now or will soon be criminalized.
Yes it is absolutely a privilege to be able to travel or to think about moving but if someone can access the resources to move or visit to get what they need to survive and be less likely to be actively targeted for LITERAL EUGENICS AND GENOCIDE, then they should and we should support them.
Please spread the word.
Minnesota is also a sanctuary state, welcome trans people!
You promise that you'll stay But that's a promise you can't make Someone dies or someone gets hurt But if one of us dies — nessa barrett
Bless o bless the wonderful Merlin gif makers, for creating new gifsets for BBC Merlin fans to tell the story of Arthur’s return, like, SIX SECONDS after a new trailer drops for the cast. You folks are the BEST.
“You have learnt an important lesson, Merlin. Your determination to see goodness in people will be your undoing. But I fear that your futures are now joined forever. She is the darkness to your light, the hatred to your love.” — The Tears of Uther Pendragon “You are right to be afraid, Morgana. Your enemies will rue this day and all the destruction it brings, but you must beware. Tearing the veil between the worlds has created a new world, and you will not walk through it alone. The one they call Emrys will walk in your shadow. He is your destiny, and he is your doom.” — The Darkest Hour MERLIN MEME [2/2] PROPHECIES ▸ Morgana and Emrys
Late last year, people in tiny Whiteville, N.C., were recruited to weekly meetings with a group they'd never heard of. They got cold calls, flyers in the mail and in-person pitches at the local Pecan Harvest Festival. Did they want to come talk about the economy with Patriotic Millionaires?
That was intriguing enough to some.
"My first thought of it was, really? They care about Columbus County? Cause nobody cares about Columbus County like that," says April Thomas, who has three children and works at a vape and tobacco shop.
Others showed up for the freebies: door prizes, dinner and $50.
Over a month of meetings, dozens of residents got a crash course on inequality and learned why this group of rich people wants to pay higher taxes and raise the minimum wage.
The nonprofit Patriotic Millionaires has lobbied Congress to make changes for more than a decade. Its members see inequality as a danger — they worry big money is corrupting politics and driving civil unrest. But they haven't had much success. President Donald Trump's 2017 tax cuts largely benefited the wealthy, and even when Democrats controlled the Senate in 2021, they failed to pass a bill to raise the minimum wage.
"We hit a wall," says Erica Payne, the group's founder. "We have hammered them on both sides of the aisle for 12 years, OK. It's time to go to the people who hand them their power."
Enter Whiteville, population less than 5,000. It's in a swing state where the minimum wage is still $7.25 an hour, the same as the federal rate, which hasn't been raised since 2009. The state has even barred cities from boosting their own minimums.
Payne notes that low-wage workers make up more than 40% of the labor force. "They are the most powerful people in the United States of America, if only they realized it," she says.
Under the new rules, homes that are not occupied for at least six months of the year are subject to a tax of one per cent of the property’s assessed value. The deadline to rent out empty dwellings was July 1.
Fazli said many of the people he has talked to are thinking of renting or selling their properties. He recently met with a woman who owns three empty properties in Vancouver — and says one of them is now listed for rent, another will be listed shortly and she is thinking of selling the third.
“This is a scenario of someone who is kind of in a panic now and needs to rent them out,” he said. […]
amazing
Why were they empty?
they’re meant to be investment properties, bought, left empty, and then sold a year or few later for huge profit as housing values continue to rise. it’s a massive part of the bc housing bubble, and why despite so much new construction it’s still so difficult to find rental housing
the fact that these landlords are panicking because they might have to actually use their housing properties as housing rather than finance capital is deeply funny
It should be more than a 1% tax rate though. I want it to be 100%. Torture them.
Can we get this implemented in this country?
“The conservative majority now barely goes through the motions of arguing that it’s decisions are rooted in any coherent theory of constitutional interpretation. Precedent, original language, history – all go out the window if they don’t help get to a decision that meets the conservative Justices’ political or ideological goals. The legitimacy of the Court has always rested on the idea that the Justices are operating within some coherent set of rules, some coherent interpretative framework beyond individual preference. Increasingly since Obama’s presidency and overwhelmingly in the last six years they’ve simply dropped the pretense. The guiding jurisprudence might best be described as “Too bad, suckas” or perhaps “Sucks to be you”. They’ve got the power and you don’t. And they really don’t care to pretty it up more than that.”
Source: talkingpointsmemo.com
Coming soon to a school district near you. Between declining birth rates and more families opting for private schools or home schooling, our nation’s public schools are facing some very hard choices—and unpopular cuts to staff, classes, and programs.
Reblogging to potentially save a fur friends life
"When government sells education as the answer to government-caused wealth inequality, and makes trillions in student loans available to the industry that supplies it, government is helping that industry fleece its customers."
On #StudentDebt:
my body cracks like a glow stick but has the audacity to not glow? despicable
The fact that the CEO of OceanGate said "at some point, safety is just pure waste" and took some billionaires down to the grave of 1500 people whose deaths were, in large part, due to the hubris and negligence of the ultra wealthy and is stuck there is just shit you can't make up
The fact that this guy's wife's great-great grandparents were Isidor and Ida Straus aka these people:
Just proves to me that the ghosts got them
Anyways, donate to sea watch and/or SOS Méditerranée to donate and aid in rescue efforts of refugee and migrant ships in the Mediterranean
“Let us put it generally: if a regime is immoral, its citizens are free from all obligations to it.” – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Gulag Archipelago.
[Pictured: Captain Pia Klemp sitting in a chair beside her controls.
@VivianAngrisani on Twitter wrote on 6/8/2019: “Pia Klemp, a German biologist & boat captain faces 20 yrs in prison for rescuing 1,000+ migrants at risk of drowning whilst crossing the Mediterranean. Seeking asylum is a human right. Only 1 in 100 sea captains are female. This woman is a humanitarian, not a criminal. #FreePia”
@Galactic_Rabbit quote-tweeted on 6/10/2019 and wrote: “Thinking about all those videos of people honored in their old age for hiding/protecting Jewish people.”]
To all the people commenting that she’s an accessory to “illegal immigration,” note that seeking asylum is a human right. Countries which refuse asylum are in violation of the Geneva Convention. They get away with this and propagandize complacency towards the victims by using bureaucracy to complicate immigration proceedings. During times of genocide, this is tantamount to hearing a would-be murder victim knocking on your door and locking the deadbolt.
People who risk dying getting smuggled across borders do so out of sheer desperation because the situation they’re leaving is worse. Finally, you are missing the entire point: violation of the law is warranted when the laws violate human rights and criminalize existence. Laws which call immigrants “illegal” are tools of a systemic negligence designed to condemn those who need legal protection the most.
Hiding Jewish people or smuggling them out of Germany was illegal too.
as of 10 february 2023, the petition is still just short of its goal of 500k signatures.
