I appreciate it!

I’m still very much in the placing pieces as I go phase, and haven’t had to deal with many inclines. However, I am aware that vehicles can handle the 2m slopes and not the 4m slopes. As long as I approach any height difference with that in mind, my slope blueprints will clear. I’m also giving myself plenty of ground clearance and will place my supports under the road to appropriately blend. Then it doesn’t much matter if I’m a little higher up off the ground, but would generally like to keep it at around power tower height unless needed for the incline’s sake.

I also have bottom and top slope transition blueprints as well as slopes. I can use beams from there to gauge my distances to start or properly position the slopes direction.

I originally tried using power towers for supports and building around them, but it just did not look great. A lot of fooling around with beams and frames, I got something that actually worked for me. I might still somehow integrate power towers at different intervals on blueprinted platforms that match the design but it just will be redundant and another way to get around with zip lines. I just imagined an all in one transport network infrastructure plan, but just sticking with platforms for roads and trains was enough of a foundation to work off of, and really the best core to function while while extras can be worked out later.

I love that you have “belt channels” between factory buildings. Looks super good! I wish I spent more time on interiors. My HMF factory looked great until I tried to conform a design inside the factory shell, and I just… Gave up. It’s producing and I don’t want to stop it! But once I had it rolling and started decorating, then I decided to care about what it looked like. Sure, the belts and pipework look good, but the integration of walk ability and nice lighting? I really should have considered that before I slapped some walls up, hmmm…

The bends were easy. I did both left and right directions a single deck, one tighter turn, one wider turn. Then stacked those prints for the second deck. The hard part was getting everything EXCEPT the foundations to line up and be coherent. I’ll add homebrew light posts from blueprints to slopes and turns after placement.

It will be more of a struggle when I start figuring junctions and merges/splits into the design, having to make one item, like a t-junction, between two different prints. Even the 6x6 blueprinter may not be enough. All of my current prints were done in the 5x5.

4 foundations wide. There is an 8m ceiling height from the lower deck. After a bit of testing, I maybe should have gone 9 meters, but it’s fine!

I found more pictures accessible from discord, but I’m having problems getting them to post. I’ll work it out when I get home this afternoon.

Maybe this will work?

There we go!

Another interesting look.

And another! With rail!

Although it’s been sporadic for him as he is no professional, my dad has always sculpted as his creative outlet. His best work being from the time period after we lost my mom. His chosen medium are various woods, but when I had an interest myself, he would show me carving techniques in soap bars and create initial sculpture(s) in clay before attempting to remove material on the final workpiece. I only made a couple things in wood, but I got more into charcoal drawing and music and didn’t explore the third dimension much more (until I got into modeling on the computer for practical/machining purposes). I imagine CAD design and 3d modeling programs likely had an impact on the interest in physical sculpture in general.

Yeah, young folks are moving away because they’ve been indoctrinated in liberal college institutions and lured by a gay communist urban agenda to destroy rural America and bring about the decline of Christian conservative values! Nothing at all to do with capital consolidation and market monopolization resulting in reductions of diversified local markets and diminished job prospects! Increased cultural exposure due to accessing instantaneous global communications and social media? No way that has any influence in the decisions people make about what cultural environment they’d prefer to raise their children in. SmallTown USA is the best place to escape all the scary ideas that exist in the world, like equality among gender and race, and socializing the excesses of the private. Who would want to live in that kind of world?!

Now you have to make a giant guitar for him too.

It was similar in my school, I mean aside from objective textbooks like in science or history. Apart from a couple stories, I’ve never really enjoyed reading fiction, and as a result, I struggled in school as that was the focus for gauging reading comprehension and other metrics.

Where I lacked in desire to read fiction, I was obsessed with poring through the encyclopedias we had at home. I would read ahead in history and math and science. I had no problems grasping the material and applying what I’d learned. In many ways, I feel this was not recognized by teachers and that the education system failed me in this regard.

I love reading to learn about the world, and I understand fiction can provide insight into other people’s perspectives, but it is still difficult for me to engage with fiction. It just doesn’t interest me the same way.

This isn’t to say we should change how we impart the joy of reading to kids. I’m not sure how I’d deal with my case, even if I could go back in time. There’s a good fiction plot somewhere in here, I guess. “Man goes back in time to spark new interest in himself to read fiction, ultimately fails, but the child reflects on it later in life and continues the time loop.”

To truly answer your question, I feel like I need to read about child development and the education system in general.

You’re in luck! The Kennedy half dollar, minted since 1964.

I’ve always understood SoaD to be overtly political, with songs like Prison Song, Attack, BYOB, A.D.D., and on and on… I listened to them for a long time because I enjoyed the music, but when I gave more than two seconds to think about the lyrics, I immediately understood them to be political in nature (which I actually enjoyed and appreciated more).

When I want non-political music, I almost avoid lyrics entirely, or listen to old-timey songs about broken hearts and love. I particularly enjoy early jazz guitar like Billy Banks, or The Ink Spots. Or some good EDM like Jaded and Noizu.

There’s a bit of politics in so much lyrical music, even if it is less transparent, seemingly nonsensical stuff. I do enjoy a good revelation about some bands, though. Like the amount of veterans my age that listen to Lamb of God but are very enthusiastic about military service and God and country types, or as has been mentioned in the thread already, that whole thing with Rage Against the Machine. I feel like SoaD falls into this category a lot too, with these particular people.

There are certainly moments of social commentary in RHCP songs, but I do enjoy Frusciante’s and Flea’s musical prowess to a degree that I don’t care at all what they’re saying at times, and just very much enjoy the tunes.

Edit: After reading replies in here, I oughta mention I’m wrong and political music doesn’t actually exist.

Not OP, but I am in a blue collar job and do the same. I get up at 4am and between brewing then drinking my coffee, eating a small breakfast, using the facilities, and doing general stuff getting ready to go to work, I then leave about 615am and clock in by 7am. I either read or listen to the news the whole time, or in this case, I also replied to your comment.

Not to mention corporate news. It’s impossible to find anyone else discussing particular events or raw video or even live streams without wading through what seems like thousands of every damn news channel with their talking heads and editors about any topic. I certainly understand why it’s important to have news easily accessible, but it kills me that I used to be able to find news media critique and videos of happenings from everyday people, and I just can’t anymore, at least not without serious digging. Obviously the rise of other video platforms plays a role, as does the need to ensure accurate information for specific things, like a pandemic or climate change, but I can’t help but see just how homogenized and corporatized it’s all become.

This isn’t to say there aren’t great channels out there that meet my needs, I just miss being able to type a keyword in and finding regular people, not trying to game the algorithm, not trying to make youtube a career, just getting their voices out there.

1. Behind the Bastards
2. Blowback

I didn’t listen to any other podcasts because there’s enough in these series to fill my work time and induce a rabid research of the topics discussed.

I think the word ‘conspiracy’ here is being conflated to mean ‘ridiculous, and false, conspiracy theory’. Conspiracies happen, but the word itself has the association with those who theorize and speculate on the absurd. I can say I don’t know for sure what the original commenter meant, but I think it is implied they meant they ‘know the Clinton’s murdering people isn’t true’.