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Tag Archives: Middle East
Why I am not proud
Posted on 9 June 2012 by scottlong1980
This comes to me by way of Maya Mikdashi and the folks at Jadaliyya:
It's a float from 2011's San Francisco Pride. It shows a dungeonmaster dominating Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. There's a whip involved, but mainly he's fucking the Iranian with a nuclear bomb.
Jadaliyya headlines this "No Comment," and probably it's healthier for what's left of my gay identity, and ungay sanity, not to dwell on it. I feel like I've been putting up with other people's overspill of testosterone for several days now, from the guy downstairs whose pit bull seems to be killing a giant squid at great length, to the baltageyya an ocean away who assaulted a women's march in Cairo. But as I wrote rather inarticulately yesterday, you can only address the operations of power by first thinking them through — you know, trying to unpack a bit what's at work there. So shoulder to the wheel; let's try to extract some useable lessons from this very American, very gay piece of imperial performance art.
1) Rape is funny, depending on who you're raping. Not funny-strange or funny-abnormal, but funny-ha-ha. So, for that matter, is nuclear war! Why give head in front when you can give warhead from behind?
What's funny about it, though? Freud argued (in Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious) that humor is a safety-valve for thoughts society inhibits; jokes play much the same role for the collective imagination that dreams do for the individual's. But they release the repressed temporarily only to restore the social order in the end. Comedy is conservative. It puts the bounder, the miscreant, the climber or the rebel in his (or her) place, by saying, finally: this is who you are.
Rape is funny, then, when it reminds the raped (and the onlookers) of what's inescapable, the self he can't get away from. Inferiority is always a matter of interiority, the inner — penetrable — person placed, defined, exposed. Now, look at Ahmadinejad again. Who is he, really? Isn't he a bit … familiar?
Cartoon from Der Stürmer, for another annual celebration: "The Year is Over. The Battle Goes On."
Really, these hook-nosed Eastern types need some big blond leathery Meister to whack, or fuck, the presumption out of them 24/7. (The Iranians have this notion that they're Aryan somehow, and such arrogance especially calls out for the whip.) This is a fascinating instance of how grossly anti-Semitic imagery is so ingrained in Western modernity — the Jew as synonym for weakness, effeminacy, corruption — that it's a floating, limpetlike defilement. It doesn't even require actual Semites to glom onto. (I say nothing here about what you can assume are the pro-Israel, and particularly pro-Netanyahu, implications of the display. I suppose if you read Joseph Massad you might argue that Israeli discourse is also capable of exploiting anti-Semitism on its own terms. But then, I would never read Joseph Massad, would I?)
Of course, what's more satisfying than insulting Ahmadinejad by alleging he's not really a proper male, just one of those squirmy little degenerates? It's a feel-good thing for two reasons: it disses the the odious Mahmoud, while it affirms Manhood in general, including yours and mine. Ideologically, men are so damn easy to please.
Brown people are born to bottom. This is a fundamental fact, as it were: one in which politics has clearly seized the steering wheel away from desire. Plenty of white gay men, in the Bay Area as well as other precincts, undoubtedly harbor fantasies of being topped by some darker, muscled Other in a sweaty, hairy abnegation of one's personal power, one's private nuclear arsenal: an arms treaty for the ages. But these dreams are luxuries to be sacrificed for the national good, for the sanctified collective purpose, the way Americans submitted to gas rationing to beat the Nazis, or gave up — remind me, what did we give up? — to win the Iraq war. Politically, brown people are perpetually being screwed, and it's only natural that sex (which in essence is politics without the voting, like the rest of politics these days) should reflect that. Sex is also an excellent way of reminding them of the fact.
You can see what I mean by comparing the Pride photo to an image that must have been clanking around somewhere in the back of the floatmasters' minds, one of the most celebrated stills from any American film:
yee haw
Of course, that's Slim Pickens riding the bomb down to oblivion and Armageddon at the terminus of Dr. Strangelove. He's in pretty much the same position as the megaton-wielding Master on the float, with the Russians (honorary brown people for Cold War purposes) positioned where the Iranians now stand in our diminished day. Although this is an anti-war film, notoriously subversive of the military verities, there's no suggestion anywhere that any proper American is going to have his buttcheeks opened to insert weaponry. That would be, one supposes, too subversive — one turn of the screw too many, a fuck too far. (Instead the movie presents American soldiery as obsessed by Purity of Essence, keeping the holy jism bottled up and restrained for the Big Moment when its outburst is required. Or think Deliverance or Pulp Fiction, where the key to national masculinity is maintaining a clenched anus, despite all the menacing forces — from Vietnamese captors to Appalachian S&M freaks — trying to pry it open.)
2) It also depends on who's doing the raping. Not just anybody can accomplish the curative and conservative function. The question is: who's got the power?
(Re)consider, please, the following two photographs — I discussed them yesterday. Both accompanied Mona Eltahawy's article on Middle Eastern women, in Foreign Policy magazine this spring. This is the one FP chose for the article itself — a famous shot of an Egyptian demonstrator abused and stripped by police:
This really had to go with Eltahawy's essay — it was too well known to leave out. But they wouldn't and didn't put it on the cover, to draw a Western reader in. Why not? Well, it wouldn't seduce, it wouldn't draw. The people doing the dominating there aren't Us (to borrow Eltahawy's terms): they're Them, those Arabs, and the problem with them is they have too much power. No purchaser of FP in DC is going to be turned on by the politically suspect sight of them exerting it. Many viewers, in fact, saw the photo as especially disturbing because the bra made the woman seem like Us, prone at Their mercy — a commodity like underclothing is notoriously a more accurate indicator of a woman's identity than voice or face. Who can stand to see a Westernized woman subdued by Their violence? Thus Sally Quinn wrote:
Aside from the sheer brutality, I think what got to me was that she was wearing this gorgeous, sexy bright blue bra. … This person covered from head to toe demonstrated her beliefs through her choice of underwear. The blue bra said what I imagine her to be feeling: "I may be oppressed. I may not have rights. I may have to cover up my body and face. But you cannot destroy my womanhood. You can't rob me of my femininity. You can't take away my power." That blue bra, to me, was the ultimate symbol of women's power.
Me, I am no bio woman, just a poor aging drag queen on a Saturday night. But please, please, I want me a talking bra.
The cover photo FP chose instead, of course, was this:
Now, that woman has taken off her clothes not for Them, but for Us (not to mention how she's painted on that fetching, Ayisha-meets-Al-Jolson blackface niqab). Look at her! She's looking right at Us, acknowledging that she's at our command! Of course, it's a voluntary stripping she's undertaken. It isn't rape per se. But you don't need to be an acolyte of Catherine MacKinnon (I'm not, believe me) to realize that the fantasy of women's willing submission is intrinsic to the pornographic imagination. (It's one reason it's hard to argue that porn actually incites violence against women: most porn doesn't need it.) This photo, unlike the aggressive-Arabs one, shows the right kind of Sex at Issue here. Like ha-ha rape, it puts Them in their place, while pumping up Ours.
And now I see why, as part of the endless wars over "gay executions" in Iran, so many Western activists laugh — ha, ha! — at the idea that Iranian men might rape other men. That's impossible. It's allotting Them too much power. Iranian men (remember those small penises!) probably aren't able to rape Iranian men: bottoms bomb, rather literally, when they try to top. Even if They can rape, We won't allow Them to. As the Pride photo shows: that's Our job.
Posted in Human Rights, LGBT Rights, Sexual Rights, Uncategorized	| Tagged Ahmadinejad, blue bra, Foreign Policy sex issue, Iran, Middle East, Mona Eltahawy, nuclear program, rape, S&M, San Francisco Pride	| 6 Replies
Death, with toupee
"About Hitler," the great Viennese writer Karl Kraus wrote as his life neared its end in the 1930s, "I have nothing to say." It's hard to feel there's much to say about Mu'ammar al-Qaddafi's death either, though that will not stop anybody. A regime that lived by violence and died by violence immured itself in an element that, as Hannah Arendt repeatedly maintained, is absolutely inimical to words. Few outside Libya would disagree that it would be preferable if legality had prevailed, if he had been taken alive, if his crimes could be analyzed and proven in the verbal extravaganza of a trial. Still, when he was seized by angry and loosely-organized men with guns, hundreds of whose comrades he had killed in a nine-month war, it is hard to imagine how any adjective could apply to the remainder of his life but "short." The transitional council, if it wanted him tried (as is not clear), could perhaps have sent more orders — more words — to its military to keep him living. It's clear from the shouting men in the existing videos of his capture that they knew there were such commands. But it was as almost-inevitable as in Chekhovian dramaturgy that someone in the scene who had a gun would use it.
I am still not quite sure what I think about the Western intervention. I want to know — a figure still undetermined — how many Libyans died in what was supposed to be a surgical incursion, and turned into a prolonged civil war. Still, while it is easy to identify virtually any industrialized-world action in the Middle East as motivated by oil, in fact this one seems more disinterested. Ever since the West decided Qaddafi was a decent fellow to deal with, oil had flowed from Libya quite placidly; the cheapest and surest way to ensure its unabated egress would have been to ignore the rebellion tacitly, and let Qaddafi win. And — despite the hilarity of Qaddafi's claims that bin Laden was feeding hallucinogens to the rebels — it was true that al-Qaeda affiliates had for more than a decade been among the opposition to Qaddafi, making unseating him something of a risk from the perspective of US obsessions. Foreign policy, particularly US foreign policy, is never altruistic. But this looks like a decision in which some kind of moral calculus competed with political calculation.
Back when: the dictator, billboard-sized
Meanwhile, everyone is struck in an Aristotelian way by the depth and disorder of his fall: the figure who loomed as a giant in his own propaganda for forty years shunken to a dusty figure, clown-puffs of dishevelled Bozo-hair ballooning from his temples, dragged from a drain. The sense of tragedy is tempered by how silly he looks waddling into the face of death, the absolute deprivation of dignity as the last humiliation. They almost always seem this way at the end; people whose lives are made up of power find they have nothing left when stripped of it. (Among the fallen autocrats, or servants of autocracy, in this century, the only ones I can recall who regained some independent if ersatz dignity in the end were Göring and Milosevic. The former was detoxed by his generous captors after they jailed him, allowing him to stand up at Nuremberg as something more articulate than a morphine-addled wreck. The bureaucratic pettiness and endlessness of the latter's trial in the Hague made anyone who spoke with passion come off better for the cameras — and Milosevic did, although his essays in mass murder had been paradoxically passionless, a bloody form of paperwork.)
Khaled Said before and after: iconic images from the Egyptian revolution
I gave a paper last week on, among other things, body politics in the Arab Spring. Mohamed Bouazizi, who set fire to himself to protest Tunisia's dictatorship, and Khaled Said, tortured brutally to death by Mubarak's police in 2010, became vital figures animating the respective oppositions. Their bodies, burned and mutilated, themselves turned into symbols of resistance to the state's power.
Down he comes: the poseur deposed
And the palpability of their deaths stood in contrast to the vast, metastasized images of themselves that the dictators pasted everywhere. On every corner were gargantuan posters of Mubarak, Ben Ali, Qaddafi looking Botoxed to an unbelievably embryonic youth, stylized idols more airbrushed than a L'Oreal ad. Those were phantasmagoric bodies, suddenly confronted by the tangible bodies of tangible people that rose to depose them. Ghost faces against real faces; the unreal and duplicitous against the living and the dead; a ghost corporeality against human demands and needs. Fake existence faded before the weight and strength of actual lives, whose final mark of actuality was their vulnerability to death. Of all the surrounding newsbits that came with Qaddafi's killing, my favorite was the announcement that when the transitional council tried to determine for certain this was his corpse, by DNA-testing hair samples, it didn't work. Even in the last extremity, huddling in degradation in a drain, Qaddafi couldn't be wholly real. He wore a wig.
Posted in Human Rights, LGBT Rights, Politics	| Tagged Hosni Mubarak, Khaled Said, Libya, Libyan revolution, Middle East, Mohamed Bouazizi, Muammar al-Gaddafi, Qaddafi	| 5 Replies

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Tags: edge
Wednesday, December 2nd, 2020
Upgrades and polyfills
I started getting some emails recently from people having issues using The Session. The issues sounded similar—an interactive component that wasn't, well …interacting.
When I asked what device or browser they were using, the answer came back the same: Safari on iPad. But not a new iPad. These were older iPads running older operating systems.
Now, remember, even if I wanted to recommend that they use a different browser, that's not an option:
Safari is the only browser on iOS devices.
I don't mean it's the only browser that ships with iOS devices. I mean it's the only browser that can be installed on iOS devices.
You can install something called Chrome. You can install something called Firefox. Those aren't different web browsers. Under the hood they're using Safari's rendering engine. They have to.
It gets worse. Not only is there no choice when it comes to rendering engines on iOS, but the rendering engine is also tied to the operating system.
If you're on an old Apple laptop, you can at least install an up-to-date version of Firefox or Chrome. But you can't install an up-to-date version of Safari. An up-to-date version of Safari requires an up-to-date version of the operating system.
It's the same on iOS devices—you can't install a newer version of Safari without installing a newer version of iOS. But unlike the laptop scenario, you can't install any version of Firefox of Chrome.
It's disgraceful.
It's particularly frustrating when an older device can't upgrade its operating system. Upgrades for Operating system generally have some hardware requirements. If your device doesn't meet those requirements, you can't upgrade your operating system. That wouldn't matter so much except for the Safari issue. Without an upgraded operating system, your web browsing experience stagnates unnecessarily.
For want of a nail…
A website feature isn't working so
you need to upgrade your browser which means
you need to upgrade your operating sytem but
you can't upgrade your operating system so
you need to buy a new device.
Apple doesn't allow other browsers to be installed on iOS devices so people have to buy new devices if they want to use the web. Handy for Apple. Bad for users. Really bad for the planet.
It's particularly galling when it comes to iPads. Those are exactly the kind of casual-use devices that shouldn't need to be caught in the wasteful cycle of being used for a while before getting thrown away. I mean, I get why you might want to have a relatively modern phone—a device that's constantly with you that you use all the time—but an iPad is the perfect device to just have lying around. You shouldn't feel pressured to have the latest model if the older version still does the job:
An older tablet makes a great tableside companion in your living room, an effective e-book reader, or a light-duty device for reading mail or checking your favorite websites.
Hang on, though. There's another angle to this. Why should a website demand an up-to-date browser? If the website has been built using the tried and tested approach of progressive enhancement, then everyone should be able to achieve their goals regardless of what browser or device or operating system they're using.
On The Session, I'm using progressive enhancement and feature detection everywhere I can. If, for example, I've got some JavaScript that's going to use querySelectorAll and addEventListener, I'll first test that those methods are available.
if (!document.querySelectorAll || !window.addEventListener) {
// doesn't cut the mustard.
I try not to assume that anything is supported. So why was I getting emails from people with older iPads describing an interaction that wasn't working? A JavaScript error was being thrown somewhere and—because of JavaScript's brittle error-handling—that was causing all the subsequent JavaScript to fail.
I tracked the problem down to a function that was using some DOM methods—matches and closest—as well as the relatively recent JavaScript forEach method. But I had polyfills in place for all of those. Here's the polyfill I'm using for matches and closest. And here's the polyfill I'm using for forEach.
Then I spotted the problem. I was using forEach to loop through the results of querySelectorAll. But the polyfill works on arrays. Technically, the output of querySelectorAll isn't an array. It looks like an array, it quacks like an array, but it's actually a node list.
So I added this polyfill from Chris Ferdinandi.
That did the trick. I checked with the people with those older iPads and everything is now working just fine.
For the record, here's the small collection of polyfills I'm using. Polyfills are supposed to be temporary. At some stage, as everyone upgrades their browsers, I should be able to remove them. But as long as some people are stuck with using an older browser, I have to keep those polyfills around.
I wish that Apple would allow other rendering engines to be installed on iOS devices. But if that's a hell-freezing-over prospect, I wish that Safari updates weren't tied to operating system updates.
Apple may argue that their browser rendering engine and their operating system are deeply intertwingled. That line of defence worked out great for Microsoft in the '90s.
Tagged with apple ios browsers safari mobile ipads upgrades polyfills javascript progressive enhancement frontend development software installation appstores chrome firefox edge choice disempowerment inconsistency
Web browsers on iOS
You can install something called Chrome. You can install something called Firefox. Those aren't different web browsers. Under the hood they're using Safari's rendering engine. They have to. The app store doesn't allow other browsers to be listed. The apps called Chrome and Firefox are little more than skinned versions of Safari.
If you're a web developer, there are two possible reactions to hearing this. One is "Duh! Everyone knows that!". The other is "What‽ I never knew that!"
If you fall into the first category, I'm guessing you've been a web developer for a while. The fact that Safari is the only browser on iOS devices is something you've known for years, and something you assume everyone else knows. It's common knowledge, right?
But if you're relatively new to web development—heck, if you've been doing web development for half a decade—you might fall into the second category. After all, why would anyone tell you that Safari is the only browser on iOS? It's common knowledge, right?
So that's the situation. Safari is the only browser that can run on iOS. The obvious follow-on question is: why?
Apple at this point will respond with something about safety and security, which are certainly important priorities. So let me rephrase the question: why on iOS?
Why can I install Chrome or Firefox or Edge on my Macbook running macOS? If there are safety or security reasons for preventing me from installing those browsers on my iOS device, why don't those same concerns apply to my macOS device?
At one time, the mobile operating system—iOS—was quite different to the desktop operating system—OS X. Over time the gap has narrowed. At this point, the operating systems are converging. That makes sense. An iPhone, an iPad, and a Macbook aren't all that different apart from the form factor. It makes sense that computing devices from the same company would share an underlying operating system.
As this convergence continues, the browser question is going to have to be decided in one direction or the other. As it is, Apple's laptops and desktops strongly encourage you to install software from their app store, though it is still possible to install software by other means. Perhaps they'll decide that their laptops and desktops should only be able to install software from their app store—a decision they could justify with safety and security concerns.
Imagine that situation. You buy a computer. It comes with one web browser pre-installed. You can't install a different web browser on your computer.
You wouldn't stand for it! I mean, Microsoft got fined for anti-competitive behaviour when they pre-bundled their web browser with Windows back in the 90s. You could still install other browsers, but just the act of pre-bundling was seen as an abuse of power. Imagine if Windows never allowed you to install Netscape Navigator?
And yet that's exactly the situation in 2020.
You buy a computing device from Apple. It might be a Macbook. It might be an iPad. It might be an iPhone. But you can only install your choice of web browser on one of those devices. For now.
It is contradictory. It is hypocritical. It is indefensible.
Tagged with apple ios browsers safari mobile desktop macos software installation appstores chrome firefox edge choice disempowerment inconsistency
The Thing With Leading in CSS · Matthias Ott – User Experience Designer
An excellent explanation of the new leading-trim and text-edge properties in CSS, complete with an in-depth history of leading in typography.
(I'm very happy to finally have a permanent link to point to about this, rather than a post on Ev's blog.)
Tagged with css text-edge leading-trim typography history line-height frontend development design alignment vertical rhythm
Chromium Blog: Updates to form controls and focus
Chromium browsers—Chrome, Edge, et al.—are getting a much-needed update to some interface elements like the progess element, the meter element, and the range, date, and color input types.
This might encourage more people to use native form controls …but until we can more accurately tweak the styling of these elements, people are still going to reach for more bloated, less accessible JavaScript-driven options. Over-engineering is under-engineering
Tagged with browsers ui interface forms inputs progress meter chrome edge chromium design frontend development markup html styling accessibility a11y focus
It's official. Microsoft's Edge browser is running on the Blink rendering engine and it's available now.
Just over a year ago, I wrote about my feelings on this decision:
I'm sure the decision makes sound business sense for Microsoft, but it's not good for the health of the web.
The importance of browser engine diversity is beautifully illustrated (literally) in Rachel's The Ecological Impact of Browser Diversity .
But I was chatting to Amber the other day, and I mentioned how I can see the theoretical justification for Microsoft's decision …even if I don't quite buy it myself.
Picture, if you will, something I'll call the bar of unity. It's a measurement of how much collaboration is happening between browser makers.
In the early days of the web, the bar of unity was very low indeed. The two main browser vendors—Microsoft and Netscape—not only weren't collaborating, they were actively splintering the languages of the web. One of them would invent a new HTML element, and the other would invent a completely different element to do the same thing (remember abbr and acronym). One of them would come up with one model for interacting with a document through JavaScript, and the other would come up with a completely different model to the same thing (remember document.all and document.layers).
There wasn't enough collaboration. Our collective anger at this situation led directly to the creation of The Web Standards Project.
Eventually, those companies did start collaborating on standards at the W3C. The bar of unity was raised.
This has been the situation for most of the web's history. Different browser makers agreed on standards, but went their own separate ways on implementation. That's where they drew the line.
Now that line is being redrawn. The bar of unity is being raised. Now, a number of separate browser makers—Google, Samsung, Microsoft—not only collaborate on standards but also on implementation, sharing a codebase.
The bar of unity isn't right at the top. Browsers can still differentiate in their user interfaces. Edge, for example, can—and does—offer very sensible defaults for blocking trackers. That's much harder for Chrome to do, given that Google are amongst the worst offenders.
So these browsers are still competing, but the competition is no longer happening at the level of the rendering engine.
I can see how this looks like a positive development. In fact, from this point of view, Mozilla are getting in the way of progress by having a separate codebase (yes, this is a genuinely-held opinion by some people).
On the face of it, more unity sounds good. It sounds like more collaboration. More cooperation.
But then I think of situations where complete unity isn't necessarily a good thing. Take political systems, for example. If you have hundreds of different political parties, that's not ideal. But if you only have one political party, that's very bad indeed!
There's a sweet spot somewhere in between where there's a base of level of agreement and cooperation, but there's also plenty of room for disagreement and opposition. Right now, the browser landscape is just about still in that sweet spot. It's like a two-party system where one party has a crushing majority. Checks and balances exist, but they're in peril.
Firefox is one of the last remaining representatives offering an alternative. The least we can do is support it.
Tagged with browsers edge chrome firefox chromium blink unity cooperation collaboration agreement standards competition monopoly monoculture rendering engines
Intent to Deprecate and Freeze: The User-Agent string - Google Groups
Excellent news! All the major browsers have agreed to freeze their user-agent strings, effectively making them a relic (which they kinda always were).
For many (most?) uses of UA sniffing today, a better tool for the job would be to use feature detection.
Tagged with browsers standards useragent uastring sniffing feature detection chrome edge firefox safari
Wednesday, October 2nd, 2019
Same-Site Cookies By Default | text/plain
This is good news. I have third-party cookies disabled in my browser, and I'm very happy that it will become the default.
It's hard to believe that we ever allowed third-party cookies and scripts in the first place. Between them, they're responsible for the worst ills of the World Wide Web.
Tagged with cookies security thirdparty browsers google chrome microsoft edge
Friday, August 2nd, 2019
Seamful Design and Ubicomp Infrastructure (PDF)
Seams:
Seamful design involves deliberately revealing seams to users, and taking advantage of features usually considered as negative or problematic.
Tagged with pdf seamful design gaps edges empowerment ubicomp infrastructure iot connectivity
Microsoft's Edge browser is going to switch its rendering engine over to Chromium.
I am deflated and disappointed.
There's just no sugar-coating this. I'm sure the decision makes sound business sense for Microsoft, but it's not good for the health of the web.
Very soon, the vast majority of browsers will have an engine that's either Blink or its cousin, WebKit. That may seem like good news for developers when it comes to testing, but trust me, it's a sucky situation of innovation and agreement. Instead of a diverse browser ecosystem, we're going to end up with incest and inbreeding.
There's one shining exception though. Firefox. That browser was originally created to combat the seemingly unstoppable monopolistic power of Internet Explorer. Now that Microsoft are no longer in the rendering engine game, Firefox is once again the only thing standing in the way of a complete monopoly.
I've been using Firefox as my main browser for a while now, and I can heartily recommend it. You should try it (and maybe talk to your relatives about it at Christmas). At this point, which browser you use no longer feels like it's just about personal choice—it feels part of something bigger; it's about the shape of the web we want.
Jeffrey wrote that browser diversity starts with us:
The health of Firefox is critical now that Chromium will be the web's de facto rendering engine.
Even if you love Chrome, adore Gmail, and live in Google Docs or Analytics, no single company, let alone a user-tracking advertising giant, should control the internet.
Andy Bell also writes about browser diversity:
I'll say it bluntly: we must support Firefox. We can't, as a community allow this browser engine monopoly. We must use Firefox as our main dev browsers; we must encourage our friends and families to use it, too.
Yes, it's not perfect, nor are Mozilla, but we can help them to develop and grow by using Firefox and reporting issues that we find. If we just use and build for Chromium, which is looking likely (cough Internet Explorer monopoly cough), then Firefox will fall away and we will then have just one major engine left. I don't ever want to see that.
Uncle Dave says:
If the idea of a Google-driven Web is of concern to you, then I'd encourage you to use Firefox. And don't be a passive consumer; blog, tweet, and speak about its killer features. I'll start: Firefox's CSS Grid, Flexbox, and Variable Font tools are the best in the business.
Mozilla themselves came out all guns blazing when they said Goodbye, EdgeHTML:
Microsoft is officially giving up on an independent shared platform for the internet. By adopting Chromium, Microsoft hands over control of even more of online life to Google.
Tim describes the situation as risking a homogeneous web:
I don't think Microsoft using Chromium is the end of the world, but it is another step down a slippery slope. It's one more way of bolstering the influence Google currently has on the web.
We need Google to keep pushing the web forward. But it's critical that we have other voices, with different viewpoints, to maintain some sense of balance. Monocultures don't benefit anyone.
Andre Alves Garzia writes that while we Blink, we lose the web:
Losing engines is like losing languages. People may wish that everyone spoke the same language, they may claim it leads to easier understanding, but what people fail to consider is that this leads to losing all the culture and way of thought that that language produced. If you are a Web developer smiling and happy that Microsoft might be adopting Chrome, and this will make your work easier because it will be one less browser to test, don't be! You're trading convenience for diversity.
I like that analogy with language death. If you prefer biological analogies, it's worth revisiting this fantastic post by Rachel back in August—before any of us knew about Microsoft's decision—all about the ecological impact of browser diversity:
Let me be clear: an Internet that runs only on Chrome's engine, Blink, and its offspring, is not the paradise we like to imagine it to be.
That post is a great history lesson, documenting how things can change, and how decisions can have far-reaching unintended consequences.
So these are the three browser engines we have: WebKit/Blink, Gecko, and EdgeHTML. We are unlikely to get any brand new bloodlines in the foreseeable future. This is it.
If we lose one of those browser engines, we lose its lineage, every permutation of that engine that would follow, and the unique takes on the Web it could allow for.
And it's not likely to be replaced.
Tagged with browsers chrome edge rendering engines diversity monoculture competition microsoft google firefox mozilla standards
Browser diversity starts with us. | Zeldman on Web & Interaction Design
When one company decides which ideas are worth supporting and which aren't, which access problems matter and which don't, it stifles innovation, crushes competition, and opens the door to excluding people from digital experiences.
So how do we fight this? We, who are not powerful? We do it by doubling down on cross-browser testing. By baking it into the requirements on every project, large or small. By making sure our colleagues, bosses, and clients know what we're doing and why.
Tagged with browsers testing diversity chrome firefox edge standards power monopoly competition history future frontend development
Goodbye, EdgeHTML - The Mozilla Blog
Mozilla comes out with all guns blazing:
Thursday, December 6th, 2018
Microsoft Edge: Making the web better through more open source collaboration - Windows Experience BlogWindows Experience Blog
The marketing people at Microsoft are doing their best to sell us on the taste and nutritional value of their latest shit sandwich piece of news.
We will move to a Chromium-compatible web platform for Microsoft Edge on the desktop.
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Tagged with browsers chrome edge rendering engines diversity monoculture competition microsoft google standards
While we Blink, we lose the Web
Losing [browser] engines is like losing languages. People may wish that everyone spoke the same language, they may claim it leads to easier understanding, but what people fail to consider is that this leads to losing all the culture and way of thought that that language produced. If you are a Web developer smiling and happy that Microsoft might be adopting Chrome, and this will make your work easier because it will be one less browser to test, don't be! You're trading convenience for diversity.
Risking a Homogeneous Web - TimKadlec.com
When's the last time you can remember that a framework was given preferential treatment like AMP has been given? You could argue that it's a format, like RSS, but no one has ever tried to convince developers to build their entire site in RSS.
I'm with Tim on his nervousness about Google's ever-increasing power in the world of web standards.
Monocultures don't benefit anyone.
Tagged with google amp microsoft browsers monopoly monoculture power standards edge chrome
Monday, October 8th, 2018
The Internet's keepers? "Some call us hoarders—I like to say we're archivists" | Ars Technica
A profile of Mark Graham and the team at the Internet Archive.
Tagged with internetarchive digital preservation archives linkrot culture society longevity knowledge access
Saturday, September 1st, 2018
The Ecological Impact of Browser Diversity | CSS-Tricks
This is a terrific spot-on piece by Rachel. I firmly believe that healthy competition and diversity in the browser market is vital for the health of the web (which is why I'm always saddened and frustrated to hear web developers wish for a single monocultural rendering engine).
Tagged with browsers competition monoculture web history rendering engines diversity evolution biology markets ecology frontend development chrome firefox edge internetexplorer safari opera google apple microsoft
Tuesday, May 1st, 2018
What's new in Microsoft Edge in the Windows 10 April 2018 Update - Microsoft Edge Dev BlogMicrosoft Edge Dev Blog
Service workers, push notifications, and variable fonts are now shipping in Edge.
Tagged with serviceworkers edge browsers standards updates microsoft variable fonts apis features frontend development
It feels a little strange to refer to Going Offline as "my" book. I may have written most of the words in it, but it was only thanks to the work of others that they ended up being the right words in the right order in the right format.
I've included acknowledgements in the book, but I thought it would be good to reproduce them here in the form of hypertext…
Everyone should experience the joy of working with Katel LeDû and Lisa Maria Martin. From the first discussions right up until the final last-minute tweaks, they were unflaggingly fun to collaborate with. Thank you, Katel, for turning my idea into reality. Thank you, Lisa Maria, for turning my initial mush of words into a far more coherent mush of words.
Jake Archibald and Amber Wilson were the best of technical editors. Jake literally wrote the spec on service workers so I knew I could rely on him to let me know whenever I made any factual missteps. Meanwhile Amber kept me on the straight and narrow, letting me know whenever the writing was becoming unclear. Thank you both for being so generous with your time.
Thanks to my fellow Clearlefty Danielle Huntrods for giving me feedback as the book developed.
Finally, I want to express my heartfelt thanks to everyone who has ever taken the time to write on their website about their experiences with service workers. Lyza Gardner, Ire Aderinokun, Una Kravets, Mariko Kosaka, Jason Grigsby, Ethan Marcotte, Mike Riethmuller, and others inspired me with their generosity. Thank you to everyone who's making the web better through such kind acts of openness. To quote the original motto of the World Wide Web project, let's share what we know.
Tagged with goingoffline abookapart publishing writing serviceworkers acknowledgements thanks gratitude
Sunday, April 22nd, 2018
the Origins of Opera and the Future of Programming – The Composition
An interesting piece by Jessica Kerr that draws lessons from the histories of art and science and applies them to software development.
This was an interesting point about the cognitive load of getting your head around an existing system compared to creating your own:
Why are there a thousand JavaScript frameworks out there? because it's easier to build your own than to gain an understanding of React. Even with hundreds of people contributing to documentation, it's still more mental effort to form a mental model of an existing system than to construct your own. (I didn't say it was faster, but less cognitively strenuous.)
And just because I've spent most of last year thinking about how to effectively communicate—in book form—relatively complex ideas clearly and simply, this part really stood out for me:
When you do have a decent mental model of a system, sharing that with others is hard. You don't know how much you know.
Tagged with symmathesy history art science opera collaboration software development groups systems learning teaching sharing knowledge productivity


text:
Planning Permission Granted For £54m Glass Futures Development
This is a press release issued by Glass Futures:
St Helens Borough Council Planning Committee has today granted planning permission for delivery of the £54million global glass research and innovation facility located at Saints Retail Park.
The planning application was prepared and submitted by developer and landowner Network Space, on behalf of not-for-profit research and technology organisation Glass Futures, to build the 160,000 sq ft Global Centre of Excellence. This planning consent moves the delivery of the state-of-the-art facility, together with the world's first openly accessible test and trial furnace operation a step closer.
The facility will be used to deliver industry and government-backed R&D projects focused on decarbonising glass production, and also providing a platform for industry to test and trial their own commercial ideas on a state-of-the-art line, both collaboratively and individually.
Construction company, Bowmer + Kirkland, has been appointed to build the Global Centre of Excellence following an open procurement process through the North West Construction Hub. Work is expected to begin on-site in July this year and will complete by December 2022. The project delivery is led by Network Space on behalf of an innovative partnership created between Glass Futures, the global glass supply chain, Network Space, St Helens MBC, the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority and UKRI (UK Research and Innovation). This dynamic and fast-moving partnership has rapidly turned the Glass Futures concept into a worked up and deliverable scheme in less than two years.
The project will be funded through a mix of public and private investment. Glass Futures has secured a £15m UKRI grant to support the installation of a globally unique, experimental furnace and state of the art infrastructure capable of melting 30 tonnes of glass per day in a safe experimental space. Network Space will secure private sector investment and has been awarded a £9m grant from the Liverpool City Region's 'Build Back Better' fund to support the construction costs. Glass sector companies will also contribute a further £20m in resource, time and equipment to support the project. St Helens Council will take a head lease of the building to facilitate the development and deliver a green recovery.
We are delighted to have successfully secured planning permission for such a high profile and transformational project for St Helens and the Liverpool City Region. The consent is another major milestone in transforming the former United Glassworks site into a global hub for research whilst once more positioning St Helens at the forefront of glass innovation and sustainable glass manufacturing. Our team and the partnership that we have formed has worked tirelessly in bringing the concept to life and converting it into a deliverable scheme. We hope to announce further progress in the coming months.
Said Catherine Chilvers, Development Director at Network Space
I'm committed to reshaping our economy after COVID so that it is cleaner, greener, stronger, and designed around the needs of local people. We've invested £9m to help bring Glass Futures to life to help deliver that radical change.
Glass Futures has the potential to put our region at the forefront of the Green Industrial Revolution and make us a global leader in new technology. When complete, this project will help take St Helens proud history in glass making and bring it into the 21st century, creating lots of local jobs and drastically cutting carbon emissions.
Said Steve Rotheram, Metro Mayor of the Liverpool City Region
In addition to creating 80 new permanent jobs, the project will lead to much-needed apprenticeships, training and general up-skilling within the glass and similar industrial sectors. It is also set to attract further inward investment to the region as leading international glass companies focus resources to be within geographical reach of the facility. In addition to creating 80 new permanent jobs, the project will lead to much-needed apprenticeships, training and general up-skilling within the glass and similar industrial sectors. It is also set to attract further inward investment to the region as leading international glass companies focus resources to be within geographical reach of the facility.
"Today's decision is fantastic news. It enables the delivery of a test-bed facility to develop processes to make glass the most sustainable and recyclable material available. The research, innovations and energy efficiencies we deliver here can be shared and harnessed by all glass applications including packaging, glazing and glass fiber as well as across other foundation industries. The Global Centre of Excellence will enable us to work collaboratively with our members, the supply chain and academia to achieve zero carbon glass."
Said Glass Futures' Chief Executive, Richard Katz
We are delighted that the ground-breaking development Glass Futures is now set to become a reality in the heart of St Helens Borough. Our borough has been at the centre of global glass production and innovation for many years and throughout the process of creating this new centre of excellence we have worked extensively to ensure that St Helens Borough is its home.
Glass Futures fits perfectly with our plans for green recovery as we look to reset our borough's economic future and deliver wide ranging positive impacts from this new development, which include reviving a derelict brownfield site and securing direct benefits and opportunities for St. Helens communities. Taking this scheme from concept through planning and on to site in less than two years demonstrates the focus the council and partners have on delivery, I am sure this will be the first of many exciting and ambitious schemes that will be coming forward in St Helens over the coming months.
Added Councillor Richard McCauley, Cabinet Member for Regeneration and Planning at St Helens Borough Council
By DGB|2021-06-02T14:21:39+01:00June 2nd, 2021|Categories: double glazing industry, Glass|


text:
It follows a campaign in the summer of 2020 to reduce the number of cars in the park and give more space to pedestrians and cyclists. A Green Party petition on the issue in May 2020 received over 7,500 signatures. The Greens have been pursuing this issue hard within government, and this is the first stage of the result.
The plan sets out options for gate closures and road changes to reduce car dominance. It also recommends:
a new network of improved walking and cycling facilities through the park,
a limited bus route to open the park to public transport users,
a 30kph speed limit for the whole park (currently mostly 50kph),
a new parking control strategy,
a review of the park's 95-year-old bye-laws.
Below is what I'm sending in as part of the consultation. Let me know if any thoughts at michael@pidgeon.ie or join the chat on Twitter here.
The Transport and Mobility Options Study could transform the Phoenix Park for the better and should be implemented as soon as possible.
There is strong public support for the changes and the OPW should push on with them. Below are some thoughts on how to improve the plan.
The Phoenix Park has over 2,000 designated car spaces. Removing car parking from Chesterfield Avenue was a good move which improves accessibility and safety on the road.
But it is clear that there are huge parking problems across the park, with many parking on grass verges or inappropriately along side roads. The plan should set out:
Enforcement mechanisms, including tickets and/or clamping for those who park outside of designated spaces – with fines sets as part of the bye-law review
Clear signage upon entry that parking is permitted only in designated carparks
A pay and display or ticket system for carparks which allows free stays for under five hours – deterring those who use the park as a car park for commutes, while allowing people to visit the park and amenities easily.
Signage/app showing which car parks are at capacity or have space
The plan rightly ensures that access to all parts of the park for those who need to visit by car is retained. It also widens that access to public transport. The plan should make an explicit committment to accessibile, consistent design in all new walkways, cycle routes, and alterations, to improve the park experience for the very young, elderly or those with disabilities.
Loos and benches
Universal access isn't simply about the road/path space, but also about providing broader infrastructure to allow longer walks and visits to the park. This means the provision of benches for rests along the walking routes, along with a plan to increase the number of toilets and changing facilities available.
Limited piping is an issue around the park for toilets, but portable toilets or septic tanks could be considered as an option.
The park could also make greater use of kiosk licences to provide supervised toilet facilities.
It is important that wildlife are protected and encouraged in the park, and that there will still be spaces which are in darkness. But it is clear that some parts of the park – primarily Chesterfield Avenue – are already heavily trafficked and lit.
The OPW should, as part of the mobility plan, look at upgrading the lighting along this main strip, to ensure that all feel safe using the park even after dark. This is particularly important for winter.
This could be done in a way that is sympathetic to bats and other wildlife, while also retaining the heritage features of the gas lamps.
The proposed cycling routes are really welcome. Two-way, segregated gate access should be provided at all vehicular gates. The roundabouts on Chesterfield Avenue act as anti-cycling pinchpoints and should either be removed or redesigned.
Cycling parking should also be increased. The OPW should also work with the project partners (Dublin City and Fingal Councils and the NTA) to improve cycling connections to the park. From my own experience, connections from the Liberties/Kilmainham could be done well, but are currently hostile.
Permeable park
The park should be easier to enter and exit for pedestrians and cyclists. This means opening permanently-shut gates (such as this one on the Chapelizod Road) and looking at installing new gates into the park.
In practice, having to travel long distances around the park walls encourages car-dependent access.
These could also link it with any new cycling or walking infrastructure, such as the planned bridge from the War Memorial Gardens.
Pedestrian priority
There are no pedestrian crossings over Chesterfield Avenue. The entire park should be designated a pedestrian priority zone, with clear marked crossings at all corners and junctions, and regularly along Chesterfield.
This would not only make things better for pedestrians, but slow cars and discourage through traffic.
For this reason, cycle paths should be fully segregated to avoid conflicts with pedestrians and other traffic.
Calming traffic
The 30kph speed limit for the park is welcome. It should be applied across the park consistently and roads should be designed/calmed with this limit in mind.
The OPW should consider speed cameras in the park (either at certain points or taking an average over the length of the park). This should deter speeding, and also act as a soft discouragement to through traffic.
Better public transport
It is a bizarre situation that private car access is permitted in the park while public transport is not.
Plans to introduce a bus service into the park are very welcome. Where possible, this should be integrated as part of the Dublin Bus service. A specific shuttle bus runs the risk of being underused or going unknown, as before.
A regular bus service would also offer some transport options to those living north west of the park, reducing through traffic and car dependence.
The OPW should, however, limit the number of overall routes going through the park to avoid too much additional traffic.
Futureproofing the plan
The preferred mobility option for the park would hugely improve matters, but the design should also be sure to make future changes as easy as possible. Should the OPW later decide to restrict through traffic via the park, the design should take this need into account.
If through traffic will not be banned outright in this plan, it should at least be discouraged.
The study's timeline is ambitious and clear, with many changes in the first few months after the plan is agreed. But some of the timeline indicates that some points may take up to seven years to implement.
This likely includes the study several years after the changes are put in place, but the timeline should be clearer.
There should be a dedicated project webpage which sets out works in place, and an estimated timelines for the outstanding works. This would help with transparency and public understanding of the changes.


text:
Movie Reviews TV Reviews Roundtables Podcasts
Golden Globes: Most Popular Moments on Social Media (Video)
10:08 AM PST 1/13/2014 by Ashley Lee , Hilary Lewis
Jennifer Lawrence Press Room - H 2014
UPDATED: Wins by "Breaking Bad" and Jared Leto topped Twitter and Facebook.
Of the many awards distributed during Sunday night's Golden Globes, whose big moment triggered the most activity on social media?
PHOTOS: Golden Globes: Best and Worst Moments From the Show
The bragging rights belong to Breaking Bad. The AMC show's win for best TV drama garnered 28,117 tweets per minute, according to Twitter. Star Bryan Cranston's win for best actor in a TV series drama, meanwhile, was the biggest Golden Globes moment on Facebook, based on the volume of posts, comments and likes during the show.
"The best thing about this, I think, is that it gives us -- all the people up here and all the folks who worked on Breaking Bad -- one more chance to thank the fans of the show, especially the early adopters, as they say in the electronics business, the folks who were watching since season 1, the grim days when we had very little viewership," said Vince Gilligan, as he and the cast accepted the accolade for the show's final season. He then gave up the microphone to Aaron Paul, who shouted his character's catchphrase, "Yeah, bitch! Thank you!"
Cranston's win was also the second-most tweeted moment of the evening, collecting 24,099 tweets per minute. "This is such a wonderful honor and such a lovely way to say goodbye to the show that meant so much to me," the actor said in his acceptance speech. "I was always very grateful that the show resonated with American audiences, but now, through this and the Hollywood Foreign Press, everyone around the world will be able to share in Breaking Bad mirth and merriment."
PHOTOS: Golden Globe Winners
Coming in third on Twitter and second on Facebook was Jared Leto's win for best supporting actor in a motion picture, triggering 23,594 tweets per minute. The Dallas Buyers Club actor gave his thanks for the opportunity to return to the set after taking a break to pursue music with his band, 30 Seconds to Mars, and joked of his preparation for the transformative role. "One of the things that I did was wax my entire body, including my eyebrows. I'm just fortunate that it wasn't a period piece, so I didn't have to do full Brazilian -- ladies, you know what I'm talking about. So do some of you men, I think."
The third most popular moment on Facebook was Jacqueline Bisset's bizarre acceptance speech, including an uncensored "shit" broadcast on live TV.
Following that, 12 Years a Slave's win for best motion picture drama, at the end of the show, and Diane Keaton accepting the 2014 Cecil B. DeMille Award on Woody Allen's behalf were the fourth and fifth most popular moments on Facebook.
Among all the 2.1 million Globes-related tweets sent during the telecast's three hours, the most mentioned star was best supporting actress in a motion picture winner, Jennifer Lawrence, followed by Leto and best TV comedy actress winner, Amy Poehler.
With respect to Facebook, the social network reported that 4.1 million people had more than 7.2 million interactions related to the Globes.
Ashley Lee
Ashley.Lee@THRs.com cashleelee
Hilary Lewis


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Євген Миколайович Грошев (;  3 квітня 1937, Москва, СРСР) — радянський хокеїст, центральний нападник.

Бронзовий призер Олімпійських ігор 1960. Заслужений майстер спорту СРСР (1991). Член клубу Всеволода Боброва (267 голів).

Клубна кар'єра
З 1955 по 1971 рік виступав за команду «Крила Рад» (Москва). Особливо вдало взаємодіяв з Юрієм Цициновим. Чемпіон СРСР 1957 року. По два рази здобував срібні та бронзові нагороди національного чемпіонату. Найкращий снайпер чемпіонату 1962 — 38 закинутих шайб. Всього у чемпіонатах СРСР провів 450 матчів (236 голів). У кубку СРСР забив 15 голів. За результатами сезону тричі обирався до символічної збірної (1959, 1960, 1962).

Виступи у збірній
У складі національної збірної здобув бронзову нагороду на Олімпійських іграх 1960 у Скво-Веллі.

Другий призер чемпіонату світу 1959, третій — 1960. На чемпіонатах Європи — дві золоті нагороди (1959, 1960). На чемпіонатах світу та Олімпійських іграх провів 15 матчів (10 закинутих шайб), а всього у складі збірної СРСР — 25 матчів (10 голів).

Нагороди та досягнення

Примітки

Джерела
 Статистика виступів на Олімпійських іграх
 Профіль на сайті Yandex.ru
 Профіль на сайті Chidlovski.net
 Статистика на сайті Eurohockey.com

Уродженці Москви
Радянські хокеїсти
Гравці збірної СРСР з хокею
Бронзові призери зимових Олімпійських ігор 1960
Хокеїсти на зимових Олімпійських іграх 1960
Хокеїсти ХК «Крила Рад» (Москва)
Радянські бронзові олімпійські медалісти

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Younger siblings really are the favourite, says study
But the reason why may surprise you...
By Jessica Bateman
It's a long-held cliché (and complaint of older siblings) that the baby of the family is always the parents' favourite.
And a new study has revealed this may indeed be true – but only because younger siblings want it that way...
Researchers at Brigham Young University's School of Family Life have concluded that the younger members of the family are more concerned with comparing themselves to their siblings, meaning it's more important for them to form a stronger bond with their parents.
The team quizzed 300 families, each with two teenagers, about favouritism. The parents were asked how much warmth and conflict they had with their children, and the teens were asked about their relationship with their parents.
They found that if younger siblings feel they're the favourite and the parents agree, the relationship is strengthened. If not, then the opposite happens. However, it makes no difference to the older sibling-parent relationship whether the child feels like the favourite or not.
'It's not that first-borns don't ever think about their siblings and themselves in reference to them... It's just not a part of their daily life,' said study author Alex Jenson in the Journal of Adolescence.
'My guess is it's probably rarer that a parent will say to an older sibling, "Why can't you be like your younger sibling?"'
The researchers also said that, when parents are loving and supportive to all kids, favouritism tends to not matter as much.
'Some parents feel like 'I need to treat them all the same,'' said Alex. 'What I would say is, you need to treat them fairly but not equally.
'If you focus on it being ok to treat them different because they're different people and have different needs, that's ok.'
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The youngest child really is parents' favourite
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Parents do pick a favourite child: science says so.
Holidays really do make you live longer


WAYNE, Pa. — October 27, 2015 – Evolve IP, The Cloud Services Company™, today announced that Philadelphia Magazine has named it to its list of "Coolest Companies 2015: Best Places to Work in Philly". Noting the organization's rapid revenue growth, hiring, and leading technologies, the magazine's editors selected Evolve IP from among hundreds of entries and after consulting with regional business leaders. As part of a group of twenty cutting-edge companies, the article noted the companies' dynamic leaders, innovative products, disruptive cultures and inspiring environments.
One of the nation's fastest growing cloud companies, Evolve IP provides cloud services for some of the world's best known brands in virtually every industry including: healthcare, legal, insurance, banking, technology, travel and retail. The company's Evolve IP OneCloudTM solution allows organizations to migrate multiple cloud computing and cloud communications services onto a single, unified platform including: virtual data centers /servers, disaster recovery, virtual desktops, IP phone systems / unified communications, contact centers, and more.
Another focal point for Evolve IP's associates is the organization's Evolve Cares program. Since the company's inception in 2007 the company and its associates have volunteered over 3,300 hours of time to more than 45 charities. They have also raised and donated over $4.1 million. A remarkable feature of the program is that it is driven by the firm's associates who initiate the programs which are then backed by the company with financial, personnel and time-off resources.
Evolve IP is The Cloud Services Company™. Designed from the beginning to provide organizations with a unified option for cloud services, Evolve IP enables decision-makers to migrate all or select IT technologies to its award-winning cloud platform. Evolve IP's combination of security, stability, scalability, and lower total cost of ownership is fundamentally superior to outdated legacy systems and other cloud offerings. Today, approximately 90,000 users across the globe depend daily on Evolve IP for cloud services like virtual servers, virtual desktops, disaster recovery, unified communications, contact centers, and more. Visit www.EvolveIP.net or http://blog.EvolveIP.net.


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La série télévisée Les Sentinelles de l'air () inclut de nombreux véhicules et engins futuristes évoluant sur terre, mer, air et espace. La plupart des maquettes utilisées ont été créées par Derek Meddings. Les engins de sauvetage utilisés par la Sécurité Internationale sont issus d'une technologie bien plus avancée que ceux utilisés par les civils ou même l'armée, suscitant souvent l'admiration des observateurs. Néanmoins, la société présentée dans la série dispose de moyens technologiques futuristes pour les années 60, époque de la production de la série, et même pour l'époque actuelle.

Flotte de la Sécurité Internationale

Thunderbird 1
Pilotée par  (occasionnellement par ), cette fusée est l'engin le plus rapide de la Sécurité Internationale et est donc le premier arrivé sur les lieux du sauvetage. Cela permet à Scott de choisir sur le terrain la manière d'opérer puis de superviser les opérations sur place. Ce rôle essentiel justifie son apparition dans 28 épisodes sur 32 (les exceptions étant Vers le soleil, Les Imposteurs et Le Satellite Pirate qui se déroulent dans l'espace, ainsi que Joyeux Noël). La fusée prend son départ de la base en vol vertical, et sa position de croisière est horizontale, mais elle peut se poser sans piste d'atterrissage et redécoller immédiatement de sa position horizontale. Le point fort de cet appareil reste sa vitesse maximale de Mach 22 qui lui permet d'atteindre n'importe quel point sur Terre en une heure.

Thunderbird 2
Piloté par  (parfois accompagné par Brains, Alan ou Gordon), c'est un énorme avion cargo. Malgré son poids, il prend son décollage comme un avion et sa vitesse est plus importante que celle d'un avion, moins que celle d'un missile. Son rôle primordial est de transporter les engins de sauvetage sur le lieu des opérations. Il n'est absent que dans l'épisode Les Imposteurs. Six containers porte-cargaisons différents (numérotés de 1 à 6), sont visibles dans le hangar de l'île Tracy. Leur contenu varie selon les épisodes, à l'exception de la cargaison 4 qui contient toujours le sous-marin de la Sécurité Internationale (le Thunderbird 4). Outre les containers, l'engin numéro 2 possède des armes de défense ou des équipements anti-éboulements.

C'est le seul appareil à avoir été suffisamment endommagé pour être immobilisé (épisode 4, Terreur à New York).

Le Thunderbird 2 a été repris en plusieurs versions par Dinky Toys (1967-1979).

Thunderbird 3

Piloté par Alan Tracy, c'est la fusée de la Sécurité Internationale dévolue aux interventions dans l'espace. Elle est également utilisée par Alan et John pour aller prendre sa garde sur la station spatiale, le Thunderbird 5.

Thunderbird 4
Piloté par Gordon Tracy, le Thunderbird 4 est un sous-marin de poche assurant les opérations sous-marines. Il est la plupart du temps acheminé par le Thunderbird 2, qui le lance depuis les airs. Il apparaît dans 9 épisodes de la série.

Thunderbird 5
Voir la :Catégorie:Station spatiale de fiction.

Au contraire des autres appareils, le Thunderbird 5 n'est pas directement un engin de sauvetage, mais un satellite en orbite autour de la Terre qui facilite les communications entre l'île Tracy et le reste du monde. Il permet à la Sécurité Internationale de capter « toutes les fréquences », et d'entrer en contact avec de nombreux personnages devant faire appel à l'organisation. Elle nécessite la présence d'un homme : John et Alan se relèvent sur la station spatiale, mais la majorité des épisodes présentent John en poste dans la station.

Autres appareils de la Sécurité Internationale

Engins transportés par le Thunderbird 2
Le Thunderbird 2 peut transporter Mole, Firefly...

FAB1
Il s'agit de la Rolls-Royce rose de Lady Pénélope, pilotée par son chauffeur Aloysius Parker ou par Lady Pénélope elle-même.

Cette voiture possède différent gadgets tels que fusil-mitrailleur à l'avant, carrosserie à l'épreuve des balles, récepteur radio multidirectionnel dissimulé dans la statuette du capot, harpons, graisse et brouillard pour les poursuites, télé-commandable...) ainsi qu'une vitesse extraordinaire. FAB 1 est également équipée d'un hydrofoil lui permettant de naviguer sur les eaux à grande vitesse et occasionnellement, de skier.

La marque de modèles réduits Dinky Toys a reproduit FAB1 en plusieurs versions, entre 1966 et 1977.

Scooter à lévitation
Engin monoplace qui permet de se déplacer en lévitant à quelques dizaines de centimètres du sol, particulièrement utile en terrain difficile. Peu d'indices transparaissent quant à son fonctionnement.

Autres appareils

La Sauterelle
Immense engin tout-terrain à propulsion nucléaire de l'US Army de type marcheur (4 pattes), « dans les 500 tonnes environ », dirigé par un équipage de 3 pilotes militaires, dans le but de réaliser des missions en terrain hostile (incendies de forêts notamment).

BR 2

Flèche de feu
Avion de transport civil révolutionnaire dans sa conception qui fonctionne grâce à un moteur atomique, il permet d'atteindre 6 fois la vitesse du son en un temps record.

Il apparaît en difficulté dans de nombreux épisodes (cible de sabotage) mais est aussi utilisé couramment par les personnages pour des vols transcontinentaux.

Jeep du désert
Visible dans plusieurs épisodes, ce véhicule tout-terrain à 6 roues est utilisé notamment par The Hood.

Train Monorail
Train suspendu à grande vitesse.

TX-204

Avion largueur de cibles, appartient à l'Armée de l'Air du Royaume-Uni.

La sentinelle
Bateau lance missile de la marine américaine.
En essai dans le Pacifique lors de son apparition, il est caractérisé par sa vitesse de déplacement.

La flèche rouge
Avion de combat de l'armée.

Helijet
Hélicoptère propulsé par plusieurs réacteurs.

Références

Véhicule de fiction


text:
New York Rangers News
New York Rangers News: Marc Staal Officially Signs Six-Year Contract Extension
With reports floating around that Marc Staal was closing in on a brand new six-year contract extension, the Rangers are expected to officially announce the deal later today.
By Bryan Winters@BTW8892 Jan 18, 2015, 2:48pm EST
Share All sharing options for: New York Rangers News: Marc Staal Officially Signs Six-Year Contract Extension
Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
Over the last few days, reports have been flying around about Marc Staal and the New York Rangers closing in on a brand new six-year contract extension. At the time, the deal was not officially signed, but based on the reports there was a mutual agreement in place to keep the defenseman in New York for the next six seasons.
According to Larry Brooks, the Rangers are scheduled to officially announce Staal's new contract following today's matinee against the Pittsburgh Penguins. Just as the previous reports alluded to, Staal's new deal will pay him $5.7 million annually over the next six seasons, which is a decent uptick from the $3.975 million he is currently making. With Staal now locked up for the foreseeable future, the Rangers financial flexibility has taken quite a hit with another big summer of free agents on the horizon.
The Rangers will now have some big decisions to make this upcoming summer as Derek Stepan, Mats Zuccarello, Martin St. Louis, and Carl Hagelin are all due for new contracts. Staal's new contract may cause one of the four to depart New York at the season's end, but sometimes that's just the way it goes in a cap environment.
We will have some added analysis on Staal's extension in the coming days, but for now, thoughts on this?