All is well, peace.
jimmydoreisalefty
joined 2 years ago
MODERATOR OF
That seems to be the only retort spewed against Jill Stein.
The Russiaphobia and Russiagate smears continue as expected from the status quo.
"The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses." -- Malcolm X
Check this out:
Rachel Maddow Brings Back Russiagate INSANITY [13:36 | FEB 20 2025 | Glenn Greenwald]
Isar Aerospace, a German startup founded seven years ago, is positioned to become the first in a new generation of European launch companies to reach orbit with a privately funded rocket.
The company announced Friday that the first stage of its Spectrum rocket recently completed a 30-second test-firing on a launch pad in the northernmost reaches of mainland Europe. The nine-engine booster ignited on a launch pad at Andøya Spaceport in Norway on February 14.
The milestone follows a similar test-firing of the Spectrum rocket's second stage last year. With these two accomplishments, Isar Aerospace says its launch vehicle is qualified for flight.
The fully assembled Spectrum rocket will stand about 92 feet (28 meters) tall and measure more than 6 feet (2 meters) in diameter. The expendable launcher is designed to haul payloads up to 1 metric ton (2,200 pounds) into low-Earth orbit. Spectrum is powered by nine Aquila engines on its first stage, and one engine on the second stage, burning a mixture of propane and liquid oxygen propellants.
Named for the Bavarian river, Isar is headquartered near Munich, a hub of the European space industry home to facilities owned by the German space agency and Airbus. Meltzer co-founded Isar with two engineering classmates at Technical University Munich in 2018. The company says it has raised more than 400 million euros (about $420 million), more than any other European launch startup. It is primarily backed by venture capital, but it secured an investment from the NATO Innovation Fund last year.
Isar builds almost all of its rockets in-house, including Spectrum's Aquila engines.
Isar is the first European startup to reach this point in development. "Reaching this milestone is a huge success in itself," Meltzer said in a statement. "And while Spectrum is ready for its first test flight, launch vehicles for flights two and three are already in production."
Another Bavarian company, Rocket Factory Augsburg, destroyed its first booster during a test-firing on its launch pad in Scotland last year, ceding the frontrunner mantle to Isar. RFA received its launch license from the UK government last month and aims to deliver its second booster to the launch site for hot-fire testing and a launch attempt later this year.
The European Space Agency is organizing the European Launcher Challenge, a competition that will set aside some of the agency's satellites for launch opportunities with a new crop of startups. Isar is one of the top contenders in the competition to win money from ESA. The agency expects to award funding to multiple European launch providers after releasing a final solicitation later this year.
The first flight of the Spectrum rocket will attempt to reach a polar orbit, flying north from Andøya Spaceport. Located at approximately 69 degrees north latitude, the spaceport is poised to become the world's northernmost orbital launch site.
Because the inaugural launch of the Spectrum rocket is a test flight, it won't carry any customer payloads, an Isar spokesperson told Ars.
Edit: added four missing quotes
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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/22456731
We need to use our momentum from getting out the vote for Jill Stein's antiwar pro-worker campaign to fight the rich and their two parties. To end the wars and the genocide in Gaza. To fight against racism, sexism, and all forms of oppression. To organize protests and strike actions to win a $25/hour minimum wage, Medicare for All, quality affordable housing, and good union jobs for all.
Both Democrats and Republicans are a dead end for workers, the union movement, and the antiwar struggle. We urgently need a new, independent, antiwar, working-class party that can take on the billionaires & warmongers and BREAK the two-party system.
Register now for Workers Strike Back's February Organizing Conference SATURDAY, Feb 22 @ 10 am PT!^[[1] https://www.workersstrikeback.org/events/feb-2025-organizing-conference]
Link to signup for event: https://www.workersstrikeback.org/events/feb-2025-organizing-conference
Title Edit: To Be Announced -> Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center
“I was playing heroines, but in real life I wasn’t earning a living,” said Shibata, now 60. These days, she also works as a home organizer, helping people de-clutter. “Voice acting as a profession just doesn’t pay,” she said.
Even in a country where a culture of overwork permeates a wide range of businesses, the anime industry is notorious for the grueling hours that workers put in. Animators in their early 20s earn less than 2 million yen ($12,948) a year, according to industry data, compared with over 3 million yen for a person of a similar age living in Tokyo. That’s less than half of what US entry-level animators earn, websites like Glassdoor show. Creative workers also complain of late and uncertain payments.
Some, though, sense change is afoot. A working group for the United Nations Human Rights Council last year called out Japan’s anime industry for its poor treatment of workers, along with cases of sexual violence and harassment in the country’s entertainment business. In a May report, the group referred to “excessively long working hours” and low pay, as well as a disregard for creative workers’ intellectual property rights.
Acknowledging such worries, lawmakers passed a new law that took effect in November to boost protections for freelance workers. Late last month, regulatory officials at Japan’s Fair Trade Commission launched a study on labor practices within the anime industry and invited workers to submit complaints.
Once considered a geeky, so-called otaku obsession, anime is now considered mainstream. In 2020, when the pandemic brought Hollywood production to a halt, Demon Slayer: Mugen Train topped global box office sales at over $470 million. In Japan, around 400 anime titles are now produced for TV and theaters every year, attracting dedicated fans who go on to buy related merchandise. The genre’s popularity among global streaming audiences has also prompted a flurry of acquisitions. Sony, which bought anime streaming service Crunchyroll in 2021, became the largest shareholder of anime publisher Kadokawa Corp. in an alliance announced late last year. Movie producing and distributing company Toho Co. bought US-based anime distributor Gkids Inc. for an undisclosed amount to strengthen the Japanese firm’s US reach.
That later evolved into the current system in which studios work within budgets set by powerful committees of publishers, toymakers and businesses which finance the series and share royalties. Production companies outsource work to small anime studios and voice actors’ agencies, which in turn hire even smaller companies and freelancers. This helps companies work on multiple series at once and mitigate any potential losses. As a result, revenue is spread thinly, and it can take months for compensation to filter through to illustrators and voice actors.
Actors often wait six months or longer to get paid, according to Nobunari Neyoshi, who until last year ran a voice actor agency alongside his sound-production business for a decade. “Violations of subcontracting laws are rampant,” said 47-year-old Neyoshi, adding that sometimes actors don’t get paid at all. He closed his voice-acting business due to poor sales.
Workers are also often employed over the phone or via messaging apps without formal contracts, leaving it unclear how much, or even whether, they’ll get paid. “It’s common across the industry to be asked to start working on something even before any paperwork is done,” said Aina Sugisawa, a 24-year-old trainee at Tokyo-based studio TMS Entertainment Co., part of Sega Sammy Holdings Inc. and known for hit series like Detective Conan.
Unlike in Hollywood where a strike by screenwriters and performers brought movie and TV production to a halt in 2023, the majority of Japanese voice actors and illustrators don’t belong to labor unions. Numako, the former union official, says he’s always struggled to convince colleagues to join him.
The new law on freelancers forces companies to provide written contracts, including details on pay, to all workers. Businesses are now prohibited from demanding extra work without promising additional pay and are also required to pay workers within 60 days. The government is stepping up surveillance, and regulators are also inviting workers to blow the whistle on law-breaking activity.
One underlying problem, industry insiders say, has been the sheer number of people willing to endure poor conditions just to be involved in an art form they’ve loved since childhood. Breaking into the industry is still highly competitive; manga and anime illustrators regularly rank among the top dream professions of school children. Some blame themselves for their lack of financial success: there’s always a more senior job to aspire to. Key frame animators are responsible for drawing crucial images at the start and end of major scenes and earn more than those drawing sequences in between. With skills and experience, they can also move on to better-paid jobs including directors. But such senior roles are few. The field of voice acting can be even more competitive.
Shrinking demographics and technological innovation including AI are also seen bringing change — as well as an existential challenge. Japan Research Institute expects a labor shortage among anime illustrators, estimating their number to decline to roughly 5,600 by 2030 from around 6,200 in 2019. Production studios have already been turning to overseas labor, with Toei Animation sending 70% of its animation work to a branch in the Philippines, even though crucial processes remain in Japan. Many fear that AI will replace jobs, particularly at the entry level, turning away younger artists.
Real change, though, will require workers to act rather than expecting laws to protect them automatically, said Yasunari Yamada, a lawyer with expertise in freelance work. “Freelancers need to recognize that they’re business operators, and take action if they think something’s wrong,” he said.
Some are starting to speak up. Shibata, the voice actor, recently learned that a video game using her voice was reissued a few years ago without paying her royalties. After decades of work under her belt, including key roles in popular series like Saint Seiya, a story about mystical warriors, she complained, prompting the publisher to agree to a payment.
“People have just been clinging to whatever job they get, because if you say something negative you’re put out to pasture,” she said. “Everyone’s been putting up with it.”
FYI:
This was posted by a new account, around 9 mins old.
This is the first post they made. No comments, yet.
Interesting.
Would you say that your views align more with what Matt Duss or not really?
“I’m Gonna Miss Her” is a single released by Brad Paisley as the second single off of his album Part II. The song reached the top of the Billboard Hot Country songs chart.
The song describes a man who goes fishing a lot. He is confronted by his wife at home after one of the fishing trips where she tells him that he has to choose between her or the fishing. The song then describes how Brad is “gonna miss her”, the listener can then figure out that Brad choose fishing over his wife.
According to a 2004 issue of Country Weekly magazine, Brad said he co-wrote the song with Frank Rogers in high school during a talent contest where he decided to write a comedy song instead of the ballads he was writing prior.^[[1] https://genius.com/Brad-paisley-im-gonna-miss-her-lyrics]
Awesome, what a great relationship to have with your dad and his willingness to learn more about what makes you laugh!
Thank you for the energy you bring to Lemmy; I will continue to try to grow and learn from many like you!
Wow, thanks for the additional context!
Yes, it is much better to be friends online; that is an awesome outlook to have in life!
Edit: improved order of sentences, two sentences -> one sentence
I don't think we try to be rude; it may come across as being rude, though, since we all have our preferred propaganda sources.
In turn, we tend to fall into political tribalism: civility decreases when emotions are high.
We must continue to be willing to learn and teach from those that do not think like we do.
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Interesting.
It seems the Russia Smears are the main reason for your disdain towards Jill Stein.
I don't agree with your views, but thanks for sharing them.
"Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate." -- John F. Kennedy