The City of Detroit has been pushing Detroit Renewable Energy to address neighborhood concerns about the incinerator for nearly a year. Now that the company has decided to close the incinerator, the City will soon have the ability to influence the future use of this property. The City of Detroit’s trash contract with Detroit Renewable Energy will be transferred to another company and our rates are locked in through the remainder of the contract, therefore, we expect there will be no added costs to taxpayers. The City of Detroit and Detroit At Work will work with the company in its effort to help their current employees find new jobs. As far as future use of this site, it is my strong preference that this site never again be used as a waste incinerator. We will be pursuing our legal options to make sure this remains the case.
Throw open the windows
and break out the feather duster, because spring is here and it’s time to do a
little cleaning! Fortunately, no one has to tidy up the dust in space — because
there’s a lot of it — around 100 tons rain down on Earth alone
every day! And there’s even more swirling around the solar system, our Milky Way galaxy, other galaxies
and the spaces in between.
By studying the contents of the dust in your
house — which can include skin cells, pet fur, furniture fibers, pollen,
concrete particles and more — scientists learn a lot about your environment. In the same way, scientists can
learn a lot by looking at space dust. Also called cosmic dust, a fleck of space dust is usually smaller
than a grain of sand and is made of rock, ice, minerals or organic compounds.
Scientists can study cosmic dust to learn about how it formed and how the
universe recycles material.
“We are made of star-stuff,” Carl Sagan
famously said. And it’s true! When a star dies, it sheds clouds of gas in
strong stellar winds or in an explosion called a supernova. As the gas cools,
minerals condense. Recent observations by our SOFIA mission suggest that
in the wake of a supernova shockwave, dust may form more rapidly than scientists previously
thought. These clouds of gas and dust created by the
deaths of stars can sprawl across light-years and form
new stars — like the Horsehead
Nebula pictured above. Disks of dust and gas form around
new stars and produce planets, moons, asteroids and comets. Here on Earth, some
of that space dust eventually became included in living organisms — like
us! Billions of years from now, our Sun will die too. The gas and
dust it sheds will be recycled into new stars and planets and so on and so
forth, in perpetuity!
Astronomers originally thought dust was a
nuisance that got in the way of seeing the objects it surrounded. Dust scatters
and absorbs light from stars and emits heat as infrared light. Once we started using infrared
telescopes, we began to understand just how important dust is in the universe
and how beautiful it can be. The picture of the Andromeda galaxy above was taken in
the infrared by our Spitzer Space Telescope and reveals
detailed spirals of dust that we can’t see in an optical image.
We also see plenty of dust right here in our
solar system. Saturn’s rings are made of mostly
ice particles and some dust, but scientists think that dust from meteorites may
be darkening the rings over time. Jupiter also has faint dusty rings,
although they’re hard to see
—
Voyager 1 only discovered them when it
saw them backlit by the Sun. Astronomers think the rings formed when meteorite impacts on Jupiter’s
moons released dust into orbit. The Juno spacecraft took the above picture in 2016 from inside the
rings, looking out at the bright star Betelgeuse.
And some space dust you can see from right
here on Earth! In spring or autumn, right before sunrise or after sunset, you
may be able to catch a glimpse of a hazy cone of light above the horizon
created when the Sun’s rays are scattered by dust in the inner solar system.
You can see an example in the image
above, extending from above the tree on the horizon toward a spectacular view
of the Milky Way. This phenomenon is called zodiacal light — and the dust
that’s reflecting the sunlight probably comes from icy comets. Those comets
were created by the same dusty disk that that formed our planets and eventually
you and the dust under your couch!
Beto O'Rourke got lots of attention from his campaign kickoff in Keokuk, Iowa. And thanks to some of his comments, not all of that attention was good.
To some Democratic voters, his references to his wife seemed like a flip acknowledgment that he was handing off parenting duties while he pursued his political dreams.
He’s not alone — Bernie Sanders and Cory Booker are among the candidates also asked about how they would look beyond their male points of view.
All of which is to say that the men running — and, in particular, the white men running — are having to grapple with gender in a way they’ve never quite had to before.
Hi, everyone. Angela Quinton, editor of WEREWOLVES VERSUS, here. I want to let everyone know about an upcoming change to the pricing structure I’ve applied to this project since its inception. Starting April 4th 2019, every issue of WEREWOLVES VERSUS will cost at least one dollar. No more free downloads. This is contrary to the spirit of the project up until now, but the distribution and sales platform I use, Gumroad, has tied my hands.
What’s changed?
At some point after the release of WV06 (Fashion), Gumroad changed their policy so that for users of their free tier (like me), products with a starting price of $0 cannot have more than 25MB of files associated with them. I imagine this is to make sure they get their % of the sale price on larger downloads, to cover their file hosting costs. This restriction applies to currently-existing products, too. For instance, WV06 is 75 MB, so if I try to make a change to the product page within Gumroad (like updating someone’s name), I get an error message telling me to make the price $1 or more, to make download smaller, or to start paying for a premium account, which doesn’t have this restriction.
After considering the ramifications of each “solution”, I’ve opted for the first: charge at least $1 per issue. This option strikes the best balance of honouring the work that all of the contributors have put into each issue (remember, they share 90% of the net sales from each issue), maintaining the integrity of each issue’s artwork, and maintaining some level of affordability for me.
Why not pay for a premium Gumroad account?
As of this post, WEREWOLVES VERSUS has over 4,200 customers in Gumroad’s system (this includes people who downloaded stuff for free), which means the monthly fee for a premium account is $50 USD. Paying that much is out of the question for me. Frankly, even the entry-level premium tier of $10 per month would consume well over the 10% of each sale that WEREWOLVES VERSUS keeps to cover administrative costs and PayPal fees incurred by contributor payouts.
Why not compress the large issues so they’re under 25MB?
I always want WEREWOLVES VERSUS to look as good as possible. The JPEG compression settings I’d need to apply to a large issue like WV06 would result in such mangled, over-processed artwork that I’d be embarrassed to publish it. Readers deserve to get the best possible product, and contributors deserve to have their work shown as pristinely as possible.
Why change the price on all of the issues when not all of them are over 25 MB in size?
Value and fairness. I firmly believe that if one issue is worth paying for, they all are. I don’t want to hamstring a particularly media-heavy issue by making it cost $1 or more while other, slimmer issues are still free.
Why not move to a different distribution platform, or make my own?
The last time I checked (and I’ve checked often), Gumroad is still the best option for this project. It’s fairly well-known, it accepts credit cards, and it handles the distribution of files well. There are also hundreds of tweets, toots, emails, blog posts, and forum posts that link to each issue at its Gumroad URL. It would be harmful to the project to break those links, and impossible to update enough of them to mitigate the harm.
I’m probably technically savvy enough to build something like the subset of Gumroad features that I actually use, but it would take me at least a year to do it properly and securely, and the third-party fees (hosting, payment processors, tech support) would murder me. I would rather dedicate more time to making the next issue or planning the print collection.
Your support means the world to me.
WEREWOLVES VERSUS has always been a strange monster. I’ve learned a lot during the four years I’ve been running it, and I know there are still lessons to come. The lesson here, I think, is that when a situation sucks no matter what you do, the best option is the one that maintains the integrity of the project. By setting the minimum price of WEREWOLVES VERSUS to $1, I’m ensuring that readers hungry for great werewolf stories, comics, poetry and artwork can get the best quality material I can provide, and I’m ensuring my ability to keep making new issues in the future. I value the hard work of every contributor and the patronage and readership of every person who’s ever downloaded an issue – whether they paid for it or not. Thank you!
This blog is mostly so I can vent my feelings and share my interests. Other than that, I am nothing special.
If you don't like Left Wing political thought and philosophy, all things related to horror, the supernatural, the grotesque, guns or the strange, then get the fuck out. I just warned you.
