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From £54.00 + Free UK Delivery
The sea turtle pendant, made in our London workshop, is crafted in sterling silver and has exquisite detail. The Sea Turtle is part of Argent's 'endangered species' jewellery range. The sea turtle is available on a silver curb chain or on its own without a chain. As well as sterling silver the turtle is available in gold plate, 9ct or 18ct gold. The latter three available to order. The entire Nature inspired collection is made in our London UK workshop.
Turtle measures 22mm long excluding the bale. Weight 4.6 grams
Threat: Turtles are an endangered species as a result of rubbish, particularly plastic, thrown into the sea. Turtles mistake plastic for jellyfish and having eaten the plastic then die. Sea turtles are listed on the IUCN Red List of Endangered Species as either "endangered" or "critically endangered". Marine pollution is both directly and indirectly harmful to sea turtles as a consequence of deterioration of their natural habitats. Poisins that threaten turtles include toxic metals, PCBs, fertilizers, untreated waste, chemicals, and a variety of petroleum products. Oil spills are particularly dangerous to sea turtles.
22mm long excluding the bale.
weight 4.6 grams | <urn:uuid:eba42958-3eb7-4249-97b1-feb209d7612c> | https://www.argentlondon.com/products/pendants/sea-turtle-pendant-in-sterling-silver/ | en | 0.856442 | 0.030994 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Fire breaks out at West Valley strip mall
SUN CITY, Ariz. (FOX 10) - A West Valley business has been destroyed by a massive fire. The blaze tore through a Sun City strip mall around 3:30 Friday morning.
Crews quickly bounced it to a second-alarm fire so they could get more resources. 75 firefighters from Phoneix, Surprise, and Glendale showed up to help.
They say it looked like the fire started at the ground level of a dance studio and made its way up. A member of the first crew on scene says it was quite the sight to see.
"It was pretty intense, the full occupancy was involved," said Battalion chief John Ramsey. "[The fire] had blown out the windows, so the flames were overlapping."
No one was hurt. The dance studio is connected to two other businesses. The law office next door had some smoke and water damage and the Thai restaurant next to the law office got very minimal damage. | <urn:uuid:363a115a-0e5b-41d6-b849-84adb4036af6> | https://www.fox10phoenix.com/news/fire-breaks-out-at-west-valley-strip-mall | en | 0.984166 | 0.109162 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
How to Treat Cold Sores with Natural Medicine? | How to Prevent Cold Sores Naturally?
How To Treat Cold Sores With Natural Medicine
Ninety percent of all people get at least one cold sore in their life. Cold sores are caused by a virus, but not a cold virus; instead, they happen because of an infection with the herpes simplex virus (HSV). Cold sores, can appear anywhere on the body. They're most likely to appear on the outside of the mouth and lips, but they can also be found on the nose, cheeks, or fingers. The sores usually last 7 to 10 days and could spread to other people. Cold sores generally are not serious, but the infection may be life-threatening for anyone with low immune system, elderly, kids, or when the infection spreads to the eyes and brain. Those with skin conditions such as eczema may experience a larger spread of the cold sores on their body.
How Cold Sore Starts?
Cold sores are small, painful, fluid-filled blisters or sores that appear on the lips, mouth, or nose caused by a virus . Unlike most viral infections, the cold sore virus is not completely eliminated by the body defenses. For this reason they often recur.
There are two types of herpes simplex virus that can cause cold sores: HSV type 1 and HSV type 2. Cold sores are usually caused by HSV type 1.
Individuals catch HSV when come into contact with people or things that carry the virus. For example, from kissing someone who's infected or when sharing eating utensils, towels, or razors.
One of the most important properties of herpes virus (Herpesviridae) is its ability to form a latent infection, which means that the virus can stay dormant in the body and becoming “re-activated” under certain conditions, showing symptoms long after the initial infection.
Triggers to the reactivation of herpes virus are suggested to be a local injury, or systemic factors such as emotions, stressfatigue, fever, trauma, allergiescertain foods, sunlight exposure, and hormone changes such as during menstrual periods. But perhaps the most prominent factor among older adults, is general age-related decline in immune function.
Infection with any member of the herpes virus family involves several steps. First, the virus attaches to the receptors on the external surface of human cells and enters into the cell. Then Virus uses the human cell to make many copies of itself (replicate). This stage is known as the primary infection, and while it can cause a period of illness, person may also be without any symptoms and unaware of the infection.
In addition to using the cell to replicate, herpes viruses are equipped with certain class of gene products known as latency-associated transcripts (LATs), which remain in the body and can reactivate the viral replication process.
Members of the herpes virus family typically travel across sensory nerves until they reach large nerve clusters called ganglia, where they replicate undetected by the host.
HSV-1 is the common cause of oral herpes. Herpes spreads by skin-to-skin contact of an individual that has been infected with the virus. Many cases initially contract this virus as an infant or child. The virus gains access to the body through mucous membranes or breaks in the skin.
Infection with either herpes virus can initially show as small fluid-filled blisters on the skin. Once the initial infection wares off, the virus spreads to the nerve cells where it stays dormant until it is reactivated. The frequency of the recurrent outbreaks differs from person to person; some individuals never experience any outbreaks (asymptomatic carriers), while others may have monthly or occasional outbreaks. It is unknown why some individuals are asymptomatic while others have outbreaks, but both asymptomatic and symptomatic patients are able to infect others.
Signs & Symptoms of Cold Sores:
Usually the first oral infection with HSV causes painful sores to appear in or around the mouth, which is also known as herpetic gingivostomatitis. In some cases swollen gums are the only symptom, and other times no symptoms may develop at all. The most common locations for these sores are the lips, the area around the mouth, and the tongue, however the blisters can appear on any skin-covered area. .
Before these sores appear, the skin may itch, tingle, or burn . The sores usually appear for the first time 1 to 3 weeks after contact with the infected person and may last up to 14 days. It can be accompanied with fever, a sore throat, and swollen neck lymph nodes, especially during the first episode, which can make eating and drinking difficult. When cold sores recur, the blisters stage is usually short. Blisters dry up rapidly and leave scabs that last anywhere from a day to several days, depending on the severity of the infection.
Herpes infections can also cause several complications by spreading to one or both eyes, and when the cornea is affected, it causes pain, sensitivity to light, a gritty feeling in the eye, and discharge ; which if left without treatment, it may result in scarring, cloudy vision or even blindness, requiring corneal transplantation .
Herpes infections may affect fingers via breaks in the skin, causing a condition known as herpetic whitlow, in which the fingertip becomes swollen, red, and painful. Herpes can also infect the brain, leading to herpes encephalitis. Other internal organs, such as the lungs and esophagus, can be infected as well, but this is rare.
Which Natural Medicine Can Help Relief Cold Sore Symptoms?
Cold sores are caused by the Herpes simplex virus which stays dormant in the nervous system. Immune system can no longer keep this virus inactive when we are under stress. This could be the common cold, certain foods, work or emotional upset. People who are prone to cold sore should get to know what triggers them to help reduce the number of out breaks. Tingling, burning, or itching may be felt around the lips for several hours or a day prior to cold sore appear, this is the best time to begin treating cold sore. The best approach to treat cold sore is to take care of it early before even it can be seen. Treating cold sore in its earliest stage can result in smaller sore that heals quickly. Ideally, the cold sore may be stopped in its track so it doesn't appear.
There are several natural treatments which may help reduce the frequency of outbreaks and provide quicker relief by helping to maintain healthy immune system they would provide a great help to prevent outbreaks. Certain Vitamins such as Vitamin C, Vitamin D, and Vitamin A provide immune protection, and antioxidant benefits. In addition, It is recommended to use a proper sunscreen and avoid sun exposure to help prevent the outbreaks triggered by sun.
Vitamin C (ascorbic acid) is a great antioxidant and has natural antiviral properties. In Vitro Vitamin C has helped to prevent HSV-1 from replicating. In vivo those participants with active HSV-1 breakouts who took a formula containing vitamin C prevented the HSV-1 outbreaks when taken within 48 hours of onset of tingling or itching at the outbreak site. Also, when the vitamin C formula was taken after this period of time, it helped reduce the severity and the duration of the outbreaks.
More recent studies suggest that vitamin D may play a role as a potent immunomodulator. Vitamin D deficiency is associated with impaired immune function and increased susceptibility to infections. Vitamin D is able to increase the levels of an immunologic antimicrobial peptide called cathelicidin, which has antiviral properties against HSV-1 and other viruses. Vitamin D level is apparently associated with antibody levels to several viruses, including herpes viruses, in children with multiple sclerosis. Higher vitamin D levels corresponded with more antibodies among children with multiple sclerosis.
Vitamin A and its precursor, beta-carotene, are potent antioxidants and may provide some benefits relevant to HSV infections. Beta-carotene can help protect the skin from sunlight damage, which is a known trigger of HSV-1 outbreaks. Plus, serum vitamin A levels appear to help reduce HSV viral shedding. Low vitamin A levels were associated with increased shedding of HSV. This suggests that vitamin A may help prevent the transmission of herpes to others.
Zinc is a key role player in many aspects of the immune system. Zinc deficiency is associated with immune dysfunction and an increased risk of infection. Zinc levels tend to decrease with age, in parallel with declining immune health. In vitro, zinc sulfate has prevented the HSV-1 replication up to a 98%. Topical zinc ointments (Zinc Oxide) have been used successfully to treat skin outbreaks of herpes simplex in humans. Topical ointments containing zinc oxide along with other natural ingredients have helped to significantly improve oral herpes lesions.
The herpes simplex virus appears to require high amounts of the amino acid arginine to replicate. Amino acid Lysine has a similar structure to arginine and therefore woks against its effects, making it harder for HSV to replicate. Diets rich in lysine and low in arginine have helped suppress HSV replication. Participants who took one gram of L-lysine three times per day for 6 months reduced their frequency, duration, and severity of herpes outbreaks. L-lysine supplementation can reduce the frequency of cold sores that occur during HSV-1 infection. It appears regularly taking lysine is able to reduce the intensity and the frequency of HSV flare-ups.
Lactoferrin is a type of protein found in both cow and human milk. Lactoferrin provides natural antimicrobial properties by helping to protect the body from bacterial, fungal, parasitic, and viral infections. Particularly, lactoferrin is able to suppress HSV-1 and HSV-2 replication, and block the virus from entering cells.
The reishi mushroom (Ganoderma lucidum) is a kind of medicinal fungus which some of its components appear to have antiviral benefits. Amongst reishi compounds GLPG (Ganoderma lucidum proteoglycan) and APBP (acidic protein bound polysaccharide), has provided strong antiviral activities against both HSV-1 and HSV-2 in vitro.
In participants with resistance to regular treatments against herpes and shingles infections, supplementation with reishi extract helped to reduce pain and to shorten the duration of symptoms.
Part of the reishi’s benefits may be due to its ability to overcome declining immune system due to aging. Combination of compounds in reishi including; a group of long-chain carbohydrates called polysaccharides, a unique protein named LZ-8, and a small group of steroid-like molecules called triterpenes help promote healthy immune responses against viral, bacterial, or fungal infections, while assist to reduce inflammation and therefore its unwanted impacts on immune health.
Variety of immune enhancing properties are identified from reishi including: promoting specialized dendritic cells and macrophages which are essential to react to new pathogens, vaccines, and cancer cells. Encouraging development of bone marrow, where most immune cells are born. Increasing numbers and functions of many cell lines in the immune system, such as natural killer cells, B Cells, and T cells for rapid response to a new or "remembered" antigen. Suppressing inflammatory markers produced during chronic inflammation, which is seen for instance, in rheumatoid arthritis, while maintaining normal inflammatory responses.
Lemon balm (Melissa officinalis) extract in lab has provided a variety of antiviral activities against both HSV-1 and HSV-2. Topical lemon balm preparations in participants helped to improve symptoms of oral herpes compared to placebo.
Antioxidants help protect against damage to immune cells, this is more important for the elderly, whose immune systems function less optimally than in younger individuals. Supplementation with antioxidants may help overcome age related immune decline and help prevent certain nutritional deficiencies, which are common among the elderly.
Participant who supplemented Coenzyme Q10Vitamin ESelenium and Methionine in the treatment of Chronic Recurrent Viral Mucocutaneous Infections, experienced a significantly faster healing with reduced incidence of relapses as compared to control groups, which was confirmed by decreased viral load and increased antiviral cytokine and peroxynitrite plasma levels.
Employing correct homeopathic remedy at the first sign, helps to prevent the outbreak; and if the cold sore is already a little advanced, then the correct remedy will help to speed up the healing. Repeated use of the remedy may also contribute to less frequent infections. If you are a cold sore sufferer, then you might want to have one of the following remedies on hand.
Nat mur It’s a fantastic remedy for cold sores that erupt on the lips specially after being in the sun. It can have large vesicles which burns, can develop with numbness and be tingling. The lips may have a tendency to be dry and cracked. there can be a craving for salt.
If cold sores tend to appear around menses then Sepia could be a great remedy. Feeling very tired, foggy and irritable before period would considered an indication for this remedy. The cold sores themselves will tend to be crusty and scabby at their worst. They may also appear around the nose and inside. Sepia is seen to help stop blistering and oozing from cold sores. If cold sores are particularly intense, Sepia might be a great choice.
Rhus tox is another great remedy for cold sores. When cold sores appear red, burning and itching. There may be some neuralgic pain in the face. The glands in the throat may also be slightly swollen. The vesicles may weep a yellow fluid. Rhus tox promotes a ‘crusting’ over the sore itself, that can stop additional blistering, bleeding, and oozing. Once the cold sore has crusted over, it can begin to heal.
Certain essential oils can be useful for treating cold sores. Essential oils can be harmful if taken orally and when used to treat cold sore they should be diluted with carrier oil before being applied on the skin.
Applying a few drops of the peppermint essential oil mixed with almond oil has helped participants to stop activity of both herpes virus type 1 and type 2, with less recurrence.
Eucalyptus essential oil may help to treat cold sore and speed up healing due to its anti-inflammatory benefits. Eucalyptus oil is known to cause allergies and also only should be used after mixed with carrier oils.
Clove oil may have an antimicrobial and antiviral effect on the herpes simplex virus. It also may decrease pain associated with a cold sore. Clove oil is irritating and should be diluted with other oils before application.
Chamomile oil and lemon Balm oil both appear to prevent the adhesion of virus to the cells and might be used for resistant herpes simplex, but yet again it has to be mixed with carrier oils before application.
Teat tree oil is another great essential oil with ability to stop and kill herpes virus, Pure teat Tree oil also needs to be mixed with a carrier oil before use.
Recurrent cold sores usually do not require medical care. A few people may have cold sores that come so frequently that may need a daily medicine to reduce the number of attacks. It is not possible to predict for how long the treatment should continue, because the virus continues to live in the ganglion. Therefore, stopping suppressive treatment is usually a trial and error procedure. People who have very weak immune systems from cancer treatments or other causes may have very severe outbreaks of cold sores. Medical care should be considered to avoid complications.
Herpes can be spread from a cold sore to another area of the body, which is called "autoinoculation." Autoinoculation is common during the primary infection when viral shedding is high and the immune system is still trying to contain it. The antibodies that are made after primary infection are usually; but not always; help preventing autoinoculation during the recurrent attack. To prevent spreading the virus to other parts of the body, it is important to keep high levels of hygiene, and wash hands after touching the sore. A more serious complication is an ocular herpes, which causes sores and severe pain around the eye. If untreated, ocular herpes can lead to serious eye damage or even blindness. Cold sores may cause genital herpes which acquired through sexual contacts.
Related Articles:
Natural Solutions to Quick Recovery from Common Cold
Key Steps to De-stress and Improve Your Energy and Focus
Medicinal Mushrooms and their Immune boosting power
Articles and products featured by Health Palace are collected from a variety of sources and are provided as a service by Health Palace. These newsletters, while of potential interest to readers, do not necessarily represent the opinions nor constitute the advice of Health Palace. Presented materials are only for information purposes and do not intent to treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
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6th Aug 2019
Recent Posts | <urn:uuid:9439219e-6ac6-496e-a690-5045087e1a52> | https://www.healthpalace.ca/blog/how-to-treat-cold-sores-with-natural-medicine-how-to-prevent-cold-sores-naturally/ | en | 0.876467 | 0.024937 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
CHEYENNE, Wyo. – Cleo counts out crumpled dollars, straightening the bills as she stacks them neatly on her bare leg.
“Twenty-two dollars,” the 23-year-old exclaims. “Not too bad!”
Some are bandannas. Some are surgical masks. One looks as if it was swiped from a construction site. They're a seemingly odd accessory for women wearing a mix of g-strings, bikinis and lingerie.
But this is the time of coronavirus, and following state rules, the women are wearing them as they feel out their first night back in business. For Cleo, that $22 is the first income she has earned in weeks. And she's ready to make more, even if it brings her far closer to customers than the state's 6-foot-social distancing guidelines.
"I feel like my makeup is sweating off under this thing," she adds from behind her bandanna, then looks up as the music changes. "Oh, that's my song. Gotta go."
Cleo, who didn't want her legal name used because of potential harassment, clambers up onto the stage and begins spinning around the pole, her 5-inch-high shoes banging together as she bends backward to rest both her feet and head on the floor to a scattering of cheers and whoops.
Welcome to The Den, one of the first strip clubs in the country to reopen amid the coronavirus pandemic. To celebrate its grand reopening, the club threw a “masks on, clothes off" party Friday night.
Because Wyoming has had so few coronavirus cases, state health officials on Friday allowed most businesses to reopen, including sit-down restaurants and bars, which is how The Den is licensed. Likely due to its large size and small population, Wyoming has had few coronavirus cases. Officials say they've confirmed just 541 cases, with another 175 listed as probable, and only seven deaths.
“I’m super-excited. I’m a little nervous because the virus is still out there, but I’m glad to be able to go to work, because a lot of people can’t yet,” says dancer Doris Craig, 20, between performances. “The stimulus money was nice, but that’s going to run out, and I don’t like to feel like I’m dependent on the government.”
While other bars and restaurants across the country are slowly reopening with strict distancing and safety protocols, establishments across Wyoming are taking a looser approach based largely on the widespread sentiment here that the coronavirus is mostly an urban illness affecting elderly people in nursing homes. At The Den, hand sanitizer is everywhere, but dancers are also touching patrons and exchanging cash, which can carry the virus.
The Den owner Kim Chavez says she doesn't feel completely secure in reopening, but she felt she had no choice but to open alongside other bars in Cheyenne, some of which started serving at 9 a.m. The Den shut down just after Easter, and performers, who are all legally considered independent contractors, went without pay until they began working again Friday night. Several said they applied for unemployment, but most said they scraped by on savings and the generosity of friends and family. Federal stimulus programs, including the Small Business Administration's Paycheck Protection Program, specifically bar adult-oriented businesses and performers from applying for help.
As the crowd builds, Chavez walks the club’s rooms, restocking hand sanitizer and greeting longtime customers. She and her husband, a former police officer, have owned the club for 15 years, and they say they've worked hard to create a welcoming environment for dancers and patrons alike.
For their part, the dancers said they missed the money – they can earn more than $1,000 on a good night – but also the sense of camaraderie they share. The Den has about 25 dancers on rotation.
After running a thick stack of bills through a counting machine, Chavez squirts sanitizer onto her hands and looks over the crowd.
“That was the hardest part about being shut: worrying about the girls,” Chavez said. “It was heartbreaking because you know every girl’s story.”
It's a pattern repeated for thousands of performers across the country, said Elizabeth Thomas, president of the International Entertainment Adult Union. Thomas said stripping or dancing is a fallback way for many women to pay the bills when other jobs are scarce, so they were hit harder when those jobs vanished.
More than 36.5 million Americans have applied for unemployment since the pandemic began and businesses across the country closed and laid off workers. The federal government doesn't specifically track the number of people working in the adult entertainment industry.
In addition to the loss of income, Thomas said, many dancers she has talked to have desperately missed the attention they get when working. They are, after all, performers.
"It's been very, very difficult. Most of us don't have anything else to fall back on," Thomas said. "You wonder why the food banks are so busy? There's no way for these girls to pay their rent."
Several of The Den's dancers said they tried to earn money performing online, but that's a surprisingly hard niche to break into, Thomas said, because there's already so much free content, and because online performers who've spent years building their followings garner most of the views.
"You're competing with millions of other girls," she said. "And it's harder to do – you have to talk, text and be a pretzel."
As The Den's parking lot fills with pickups and SUVs, the mostly male crowd inside grows. Chavez says the crowd is a mix of regulars and unfamiliar faces. Oil and gas companies have large operations in the area, and many of the men look as if they've come in from the oilfields for the night.
None of them are wearing masks, and they're clearly looking for a much smaller social distance than Americans have become accustomed to as dancers wrap their legs around them from the stage. Thomas, the union president, said she's worried that customers won't feel safe returning to clubs, although The Den was about as busy as usual for a Friday night, Chavez says.
Munching on a slice of freshly delivered Domino's pepperoni pizza, with her white bandanna temporarily hanging around her neck, dancer Breauna Grover says during a break that she's not worried about getting sick. At 24 years old, the self-described conspiracy theorist says she believes the virus poses little danger. Besides, she says, she missed the customers and dancers to whom she has became close over the past two years.
"That's why it's so great: People have to pay attention to you because you're naked," she says with a laugh. | <urn:uuid:3b1efeb5-be67-42ad-b3a0-ffcbb2f024c8> | https://www.lajuntatribunedemocrat.com/zz/news/20200518/pole-dancing-and-hand-sanitizer-wyoming-strip-club-reopens-with-masks-on-clothes-off-party | en | 0.975342 | 0.028857 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Why Your Business Should Consider SEO
SEO. You’ve heard the term, you know it has something to do with marketing, but you’re still not quite sure why your business should worry about it. Is SEO important? Do you even need it?
Whether your business is large and national or small and local, SEO—search engine optimization—is a huge part of making sure your company is marketable. But, what exactly is SEO, and what is it used for? Well, today we’re going to find out.
What is SEO?
SEO stands for search engine optimization—a set of guidelines a website can follow in order to optimize it for search engines, thus improving the website’s rankings. This means the better your website’s SEO, the higher you will be on a search engine’s rankings list.
Take Google for instance. When you use Google to search a topic online, its search engine looks through every website to try and find something meeting that criteria, then compiles a list of the most relevant material. The better optimized your website is, the more likely you are to be at the top of that list, and the more likely you are to get traffic on your website.
Why is it important?
Provides Credibility
When consumers search for material online, they trust sources which appear towards the top of a search engine ranking. The farther down the list they go, the less credible sources seem. If your business appears at the top of these lists, consumers will trust your company.
Boosts Traffic
While website traffic itself doesn’t increase your business earnings, it does increase the probability of earnings. When your website is closer to the top of search engines, your business will receive more traffic, in return increasing the number of customers.
Has a High ROI
Like many internet marketing strategies, SEO has a high return on investment. Unlike traditional marketing and advertisements, SEO is an inbound marketing strategy, meaning you only market to people who are looking for your products or service. You don’t have to first convince them they need your product, you just have to convince them your business is the best. This means for a small initial investment, your business can continue to get returns long after.
Gives Customer Insight
With an SEO analytics tool, your business can receive valuable insight on what your customers are searching, how they browse, their word choice, when they’re most active, the region they live in, everything. When SEO gives your business information such as this, you can continue to use it in other marketing strategies, both online and off.
How can you apply it?
Your company can start utilizing SEO right now! Many marketing companies offer SEO programs and materials your business can use to boost search engine rankings. Whether it’s on your website, blog or downloadable materials, SEO can be applied throughout your online presence to increase your rankings.
When it comes to marketing online for your small business, be sure to consider and take advantage of search engine optimization. When your company proves to be at the top of its field (and the top of the search list) your website traffic will increase and your business will grow because of it. | <urn:uuid:f7a48a75-f6ed-4e7e-bbf6-41e022ba6898> | https://www.myprintsouth.com/resources/news_archive.html/article/2016/10/24/why-your-business-should-consider-seo | en | 0.936648 | 0.185404 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
How to Choose a Landscaping Company
Do you ever look at your lawn and wonder, “how did it get this bad?” Maybe your plants are dying or overgrowing, or your lawn has been overtaken by crabgrass—maybe you’re just ready for a change. Landscaping can really impact your curb appeal and create a lasting impression on guests and passersby. When you decide to hire a landscaping company, there are many factors to consider before signing a contract. Hiring a landscaping company should be simple and painless, but if you sign with the wrong company, you could be in for a headache later. Here is a guide on how to choose a landscaping company.
Decide what you want
Don’t go into the landscaping company hunt blind. Have some idea of what you want for your lawn, so you know what services you’ll need. Consider if your lawn needs a total remodel or if you just need simple upkeep and maintenance. Many landscaping companies specialize in different areas or employ certain professionals for certain areas of your lawn. You should know what you’re looking for before you dive into research.
Do some research
Once you know what you want, it’s time to research companies that service your area. For example, if you need landscaping companies in Durham, NC, you should research local companies first, as they may have worked on other projects in your area. Read online reviews, ask friends and neighbors if they’ve heard of the company or know anything about their work, and find their website and social media accounts. Do the most you can to ensure they are reputable and do quality work.
Talk to your prospects
Once you’ve narrowed down your search to a few companies, call them. Have questions prepared and jot down their answers so you can compare each company when making the final decision. Here are some important questions to ask:
1. Do you specialize in anything or employ specialists?
2. Have you completed projects similar to mine in the past, and if so, what was the outcome like?
3. What is your current workload like?
4. What is an example of a timeline for a project like mine?
5. Can you provide a sketch of your ideas for my lawn, a quote, and a tentative start date?
6. Are you properly insured?
7. Do you offer any guarantees or warranties for your work?
It’s important to ask these questions and note their responses. If a company is overbooked, understaffed, or simply has poor time management skills, you could end up stuck with a half-completed yard for weeks. Once your prospects answer your questions, compare your sketches, quotes, and notes to choose the best landscaping company for you.
If you’re looking into landscaping companies in Durham, NC, give Old North State Landscape Development, Inc. a call today to discuss your exact needs and how we can fulfill them.
Mailing Address : PO Box 61748 Durham, NC 27715
Phone: (919) 384 -1800 | Fax: (919) 384-1817
©Copyright 2018 Old North State Landscape Development, Inc. | <urn:uuid:9235974d-0969-4ef6-a453-4c70b958048f> | https://www.onslandscape.com/post/how-to-choose-a-landscaping-company | en | 0.934756 | 0.03869 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
The hospital executive survival guide: 3 articles on achieving financial stability
Implementing an integrated coding model
Coding an Acute Myocardial Infarction: Unravelling the Mystery
5 ways analytics can help health systems optimize their collection strategies
Hospitals can improve both patient satisfaction and collection rates by using analytics at the front- end of the revenue cycle to develop real-time, personalized payment options for each patient. In this article for Becker’s Hospital Review, John Storino and Steven Lange share five ways revenue cycle analytics can help hospitals devise more effective collections strategies.
Review Coding for HCCs
Mastering Hierarchical Condition Categories (HCC) is key to success under new reimbursement methodologies that rely on risk adjustment, quality, and value metrics such as the Quality Payment Program (QPP). In the November issue of HIM Briefings, Prism Partner Laura Jacquin, RN offers insights and strategies for organizations to consider for mastering HCCs.
5 minutes, 6 tips for executive teams on successful integration
As health systems merge and acquire more hospitals, they often find the integration process is harder, takes longer and results in fewer benefits than expected. Here, Prism’s Mukesh Gangwal and Jan van Londen share six tips for hospital system CEOs to plan and implement more successful system integration programs.
Does HIM need to be a storefront operation?
The significant market, technology, and regulatory challenges affecting healthcare are also influencing what services HIM departments provide, leading to a transition from a storefront HIM department model to virtualization and consolidation of functions. Prism’s Lynette Kramer sheds light on how tackling these challenges will help organizations reduce operating costs and improve service in the September issue of HIM Briefings. | <urn:uuid:4604492b-47a3-407a-b2c5-67322b5614aa> | https://www.prismhealthcare.com/lib-service/publication/revenue-cycle-management/ | en | 0.90821 | 0.053582 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
What Do You Know About
How These Nine Technologies Will Change Work Future
It is possible for the robots to work and do 90{b67a3f4e7fc5775d3da7808041d860391d9cf7b00fcb77cd5eeea8d9aa59071c} of the human work. If you want to continue earning a living, have a career where the robots will not replace. When prepared about work future, you can have another plan and avoid stress. People who want to remain assured of future technology changes needs to read this piece.
You can discover more on job technology by having both bad and good news. Life keeps changing from things like making a hotel booking and having gadgets that track your movement. You should not be afraid of the technologies coming. You need to open your eyes to see everything coming. When researching on blood-borne diseases, a student can go online.
From a remote location, you can work. It is possible to work when not in the office. Employers save on office spaces and rent by allowing remote working. There is more productivity seen as people work at their own pace. Remote working gives space for one to add an education easily.
Many businesses are automating and using smart machines that take over human labor. The smart machines can talk in any language set.
Businesses are now using video content management, which has created more jobs for individuals. With the video management, there are more jobs created to help companies do the training, marketing and sales.
In many places, people are using mobile devices. People can now have virtual workspaces accessed by de mobile devices. This allows people to use a single technology. The use of mobile devices in IT makes the work easier.
The technology available allows the use of wearable devices to check on our wellness and health. In many workstations that people use wearable devices, jobs such as the scheduling, payments, communicating, security access, quick response codes and timecards.
To create new business operations and deliver new products and services, people are now into the digital enterprise. This involves going digital.
Another shot is the building of individual work style preferences to make workers more productive. The mobile strategies are built for individual preferences.
The mobile cloud computing also gives real-time access to business resources. The use of mobile cloud computing enhances productivity.
For the business that has a website, they can benefit by having the chat bots. With the chat bots, the visitors will be greeted by a representative on the other end, and they work 24/7. In many cases, you will have a representative answering your chat messages like a real human, and they do this within a shorter time. | <urn:uuid:43f65f88-8ec2-4fd5-b86d-93367ba39c10> | http://businessservicenevada.info/what-do-you-know-about-7.html | en | 0.939005 | 0.021359 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Having flashbacks to what it was like last year with a splinted hand that I could not get wet. You know how when you’re a kid and you hear that proverb about one hand clapping and so some kid totally goes out of their way to clap one handed to be a brat about it?
That is sort of what washing your hands is like when you can’t get your left hand wet at all.
The things you can take for granted. Seriously. | <urn:uuid:be2cb037-f009-4e86-9944-0170a19be261> | http://elle.mysky.net/archives/984 | en | 0.964168 | 0.172862 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
General result
The Higg Materials Sustainability Index (MSI)
App | Paid
The Higg MSI is a cradle-to-gate material scoring tool that:
• Enables companies to compare their materials against others
• Makes comparable environmental data available to the public
• Can be used to empower product development teams to make more sustainable choices during materials selection
The Higg Materials Sustainability Index (MSI) provides access to a large amount of relevant information about the impacts of material production used in the apparel, footwear, and home textile industries. You can leverage the information in different ways to get a clear understanding of what is causing different types of material impacts, and different production processes that can be used to reduce those impacts.
1 Reviews
General user
- Excellent
It's a nice and good way of providing a better knowledge to the people of our country.
Rate this Resource:
| <urn:uuid:410200b9-ef15-4885-b911-e1d0212e62e4> | http://shift.tools/resources/882 | en | 0.900422 | 0.021388 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Tag: Cults
Why do some people return to a cult?
The late Robert Vaughn Young walked away from the Scientology -- only to be talked into returning.
When he later left the cult for good, he rejected theories about 'brainwashing' and 'mind control,' but eventually found parallels between victims of domestic violence and those who leave other abusive situations.
History and usage of the term ‘cult’
The term 'cult' is used so often, it would seem that everyone knows what a cult is. Yet classifying a group as a cult is not as simple as it sounds.
This article -- a chapter from the 1994 book "Prophets of the Apocalypse: David Koresh and Other American Messiahs" -- takes a look at the history and usage of the term.
Categories of Cults
Cults come in a variety of shapes and sizes.
Cult of Christianity
Ideological totalism: “Isn’t this just like brainwashing?”
"Where totalism exists, a religion, a political movement, or even a scientific organization becomes little more than an exclusive cult," Dr. Robert Jay Lifton writes.
A discussion of what is most central in the thought reform environment can thus lead us to a more general consideration of the psychology of human zealotry. For in identifying, on the basis of this study of thought reform, features common to all expressions of ideological totalism, I wish to suggest a set of criteria against which any environment may be judged — a basis for answering the ever-recurring question: “Isn’t this just like ‘brainwashing‘?”
Corporate Cults
Does the company you work for act like a cult? Does your boss force you to attend seminars produced by cults? And how do some multi-level marketing (MLM) companies resemble cults or at least employ cult-like tactics?
Cults: Dangerous Devotion
Watch the documentary, Cults: Dangerous Devotion.
Cult Contract? Sign this for Membership in a Cultic Group or Relationship
In the medical profession, ethical contracts ensure that patients have given “fully informed consent.” That is, if a doctor fails to inform a patient about the risks, side effects, and options for treatment, the uninformed patient is entitled to sue. Below is a mock contract for cult membership. Ask yourself if you gave informed consent at the time of your recruitment, or if you would have joined had you known your participation would involve the following conditions. | <urn:uuid:2b59f003-540b-46c8-9647-d1958accb714> | http://www.apologeticsindex.org/tag/cults | en | 0.937465 | 0.331892 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Monday, February 5, 2018
How Democrats Escape the Ariadne Trap-On 3Quarks
My father hated the Richard Strauss opera Ariadne Auf Naxos.
Dad obviously had his preferences, and they had a certain strongly expressed idiosyncratic logic to them: He liked "good tunes," so thumbs up to Verdi, Puccini, Rossini, Offenbach and Bizet. He didn't like too much recit or harpsichord, which meant Mozart often tested his patience. Wagner was a no—too Wagnerian (I don't think the Hitler thing helped). The Beethoven and Tchaikovsky efforts puzzled him: When you write symphonies and concertos as magnificently as these two, why waste your time with mediocrities like Fidelio and Eugene Onegin?
Dad was more than capable of clearly articulating, at length, the reasons for his dislikes (this was a quality he also applied to the world beyond opera), but he would not get specific about Ariadne Auf NaxosAriadne Auf Noxious was not discussable. It did not make his formidable collection of open-reel tapes. He actually walked out of a performance (between acts, of course, but our seats were conspicuous) and never returned. Milton Cross couldn't tempt Dad. If, by some chance, it would appear on his subscription, he would give away the tickets (an act not lightly taken). Because of this, I had absolutely no memory of the opera, not even a wisp of a melody, so, as a public service to the reader, I subjected myself to about 15 minutes of it, and I think I almost blacked out. Dad was right. Very bad.
Yet, as we "celebrate" a year of Donald Trump, I can't stop thinking about this ridiculous, over-the-top, oddball, play-and-opera-within-an-opera as metaphor. The Donald Trump Show is our Democratic Ariadne Auf Naxos (Clockwork Orange version). It's like someone has tied us to our seats in the Trump-Lovers Section, and forced us to watch them leap up, screaming bravo, at his every croak. What's worse is that we (especially those of us in coastal Blue States) had to pay double for the tickets. It's driving us nuts.
One year is enough. Time to get off the feedback loop, because Trump-madness leads to electoral doom. Indulging in it is a fix, blaming it is a crutch, and frankly, with surveys showing more Republicans trust Putin than the FBI, it's our patriotic duty to do better. We have to start thinking with our heads instead of our glands. So, here are my 12 steps to sobriety:
1. Let Trump be Trump. Why fight a hurricane with a five-dollar umbrella? Trust the public to judge. Recognize that there is a large group of bedrock Trumpistas who will never leave him. They really believe the Deep State, Secret Society, Globalist Conspiracy, #fakenews mantra and nothing is ever going to shake that. So, let Trump do his thing, because every time we voice our outrage ... his people cheer. They have been waiting for a champion a very long time, and for whatever incomprehensible-to-us but clearly genuine reasons they may have, he's their guy.
2. Learn from the situationally sycophantic. Not the true believers, but the ones we think are hypocrites; the professional preachers, the party apparatchiks and the uber-wealthy—those guys. Take careful notes, because they have much to teach. Of course it's disgusting when Tony Perkins and Franklin Graham trade piety for power. Or when economic titans hold their noses with one hand while the other is palm upstretched. But bear in mind, Trump delivered for them. That's how they judge him. On theocracy and plutocracy, Trump delivered. What are we going to deliver?
3. Pay attention. Before we even start to answer the question of our deliverables, we have to realize how we've completely missed the boat on the largest tectonic movements in the last half-century: First, the fracturing of the post-World War II construct of liberal democracies defending political and economic liberties against Communist Cold War opponents. Second, as an unintended consequence of our attempts to pacify the world with trade and free military support, the creation of a raft of competitor nations that deliver cheap products to multinationals that have, in turn, destroyed whole sectors of our domestic industry. Third, the fear that is engendered by violence and stateless terrorism; the idea that threats can no longer be localized and treated at a distance, but may somehow come embodied in any "otherness" that needs to be quarantined. In fairness, Establishment Republicans like Jeb, Cruz, Rubio and Walker didn't recognize the first two either, but these are some of the defining problems of our age. Democrats have to figure out a way to address the peace and security issues without suggesting either infinitely permeable borders, or adopting Trump's cultural purity, blood-and-steel approach. The country needs a serious answer to this, and I have yet to see any cohesive, thought-out approach come out of a single Democratic mouth.
4. Watch Mueller and Trump. Republicans are privately fretting about Trump's promise to testify under oath—they consider it the ultimate "perjury trap," because everyone is acutely aware that Trump can't tell the same story twice. But they are also worried about Trump firing Mueller, Nunes Memo or not. They will be expected to throw themselves on the hand grenade—and not just by Trump, but by Trump's base and Trump's media supporters, and those folks are not a forgiving bunch. We Democrats need to stop talking about impeachment, which just causes queasy Republicans to circle the wagons, and focus our energies on defending Mueller, which also happens to be defending the rule of law.
5. Watch Putin and Trump. Putin will interfere again in 2018 and 2020. Don't take my word for it; Mike Pompeo, Trump confidant and CIA Director, says so. Putin will do so because he likes destabilizing American democracy. He will be aided not just by the Devin Nunes types, but also by a lot of less rabid Republicans who still feel they have to defend Trump and so have gone all in on the Putin-Good, FBI and pre-Pompeo CIA-Bad trope. The GOP hasn't grasped the threat Putin poses. They don't seem to understand that all those bots and hacks and selective leaks can be turned against them—and they can be turned against the country, to erode trust in government and to paralyze at a time when decisive action may be needed. This leaves us Democrats with no choice but to go it alone for now. We need to invest in technology and encryption; we need their own global threat team, and we have to do far better at the local level, where Putin is clearly, and quite smartly, directing resources.
6. Watch Trump himself. Don't underestimate him, because he benefits from incredibly low expectations, and he has his own special kind of genius. Trump's unlimited self-confidence that all deals not negotiated by him are, by definition, horrible, and his instinctive dislike for people different than him, enabled him to seize the fear and resentment and economic uncertainty many felt and make those issues his own. He still maintains the upper hand on all of them. He also grasps something else—that where the head moves, the body follows, and the vast majority of his adopted party will stay in line as long as they fear his strength more than they fear the electorate recalling them. Since many are operating from safe seats, that will hold at least through the 2018 elections.
7. Focus on 2018, not on 2020. Democrats absolutely must make serious inroads in the Midterm elections. We need it for our base, of course, so people don't lose hope, and we need it for recruiting. But we also need it to show those who invest opportunistically that Democratic candidates can win. Jamie Dimon, head of JPMorgan Chase, made an interesting observation recently which one could read as a threat—he said the Democrats would lose in 2020 unless they found a pro-business candidate. Now, that's a CEO protecting his company and the ocean of borrowed cash Trump and the GOP just handed him, but there is a critical point to be made—the smart money invests; it doesn't buy lottery tickets. The smart money is going to give bonuses to employees in September and October to boost Republican chances. Democrats must convince business that going all in on one side, as the NRA does, may not be prudent for 2020. Winning does that.
8. Infrastructure, Infrastructure, Infrastructure. Fundraising (Bernie, you need to help here) and phone banks, voter registration, logistics, and lawyers, where necessary. House parties, town halls, breakfasts, and meet-and-greets. Candidates born after the Korean War—better yet, after the Vietnam War. And be thoroughly prepared for maximum voter suppression by Republicans. This is something likely to come both from the grassroots level, stirred up by inflammatory media figures spinning fantasies of platoons of illegals being bused from one polling place to the next, and pushed from the Oval Office itself, with Trump directing Sessions to have the DOJ support Republican candidates.
9. Respect the moderate. Doug Jones didn't win in Alabama just because Roy Moore was a creep. He won because he was a credible candidate, with a career of service, moderate positions on many issues, and a guy who looked like, if you will excuse the imagery, someone you could trust to pick up your daughter's soccer team after school. Alabamians didn't agree with every Jones position, but they agreed with enough of them to choose him. Find enough Doug Joneses, people who understand and are largely in sync with their communities, and you can make a lot of seats competitive. Being doctrinaire is the luxury of those who either can't lose or can't win.
10. Protect your own. Senate Democrats are defending 25 seats. Joe Donnelly (Indiana), Claire McCaskill (Missouri), Jon Tester (Montana), Heidi Heitkamp (North Dakota) and Joe Manchin of West Virginia are running in states where Trump crushed Hillary. Four others, Tammy Baldwin (Wisconsin), Bob Casey (Pennsylvania), Bill Nelson (Florida), and Sherrod Brown (Ohio), are also up in Trump states. You want to know right now who these folks really depend on—it's Chuck Schumer, whose job it is to make sure their backs are covered and they aren't forced to take unpopular votes. And it was Chuck Schumer who just took one for the team on the DACA/Shutdown mini-crisis. Schumer has an excruciatingly difficult job—working with a Majority Leader who uses his 51 votes as if he had a unanimous mandate, and the Warren-Sanders wing of the Democratic Party, which wants drama. Beware the allure of the heroic loser. You won't feel better if McConnell has a filibuster-proof majority.
11. Make it about the voters. Trump and the GOP have spent their time in office benefitting a minority. That makes them vulnerable. But the Democrats have developed a disturbing political tic in recent years—they take up causes and forget about everything else. Tip O'Neill once said that the lesson he learned from his first (and only losing) campaign is that "people like to be asked" for their support. Ask the voters for their support; don't preach to them on how to be humanitarians. Make it clear that you will work for them, that you are thinking about them, that you will bring their concerns to the office each day. Make them the focus, not only some fuzzy feel-good thing that seems totally out of touch with their concerns.
12. Look to the future. The Republican base clings to the past. That's the real promise of Trump—that he will restore America to its Mayberry, Kitchen-Children-and-Church days. And that's the America they crave, one of homogeneity, order, certainty, and stability. The reality is different, and younger voters know that. But don't just rely on Millennials' dislike of Trump and his values, or their more liberal social views. Start with things that resonate with them: privacy and economic opportunity, resolving the burgeoning entitlements crisis, healthcare, job training, climate change, the threat of technology displacing workers.
Do these things guarantee that Democrats will thrive or at least survive? I don't know, but I can say with certainty that if we don't do them, we are going to go the way of the Whigs.
Which, I suppose, is what happens when bad operas happen to good people. So, let me leave you with Ariadne Auf Naxos' oddly prescient penultimate words: "When a new god comes along, we're dumbstruck."
Let's find some new music, please.
How Democrats Escape the Ariadne Trap first appeared on February 5, 2018 in | <urn:uuid:ad5c10b6-79b3-4ff3-b909-58f230caa336> | http://www.syncopatedpolitics.com/2018/02/how-democrats-escape-ariadne-trap-on_5.html | en | 0.969841 | 0.198766 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
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Friday, July 30, 2010
Always such a blast.
- Decided when to double down -- you may get slightly better info but most of the time you're going to have to dump some capital when you are still in the gray zone. We call it Prove / Build / Scale and the tough bit is building some people infrastructure before your thesis is proven outside of your launch market.
- not clear on whether you want to have capacity to follow on inside your own fund or whether you want to go for a Founder Collective positioning ?
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Dave, I think you pinpointed the current situation well, and suggested a reasonable approach method to optimize the investment thereunder.
However, like both sides of the same coin, all things in this world have both positive and negative aspects. If the principles of economics and standardized rules are rigidly applied to startups, we can accomplish the higher success rate, but we are likely to sacrifice and lose better opportunities which might make us join "The Giving Pledge"
What a great read Dave. I think you are so right in your take on the industry, and I love the fact that you are so open in sharing....the way you write is the way companies are starting to operate, no BS, honest, value adding. This is why people follow you, and this is why tech start ups that are lean and valuable will succeed.
Hi Dave,
I'm a mobile serial entrepreneur now launching (SaaS mobile commerce solution).
I have raised money in the past for other start ups and are not bootstrapping it on my own cause the VCs generated more problems than benefits int he past, so I complete agree with you.
But my point is: how do you manage the quickness required for product dev & mktg activites with...the slow fund raising? You can create a viable products in a short time, but it's unlikely that you put it live and get millions people on it. And raising money is a full time job that takes time...even raising small amounts.
That is why all innovations (google, FB, Youtube....) all come from the same locations where the "funnel" is working fine.
I agree that...smaller investments on metrics and smaller way outs are the future, this stage is easier to create a SaaS viable solution than...having it exploding in the short term.
How would you close that gap?
Also - you have a potty mouth. Why is that? Do you believe it helps get a point across? (Just trying to understand your style. I could care less about the potty mouth shit).
loved the post. What would be super-duper is if you understood more what went into developing an Internet service. One WEEKEND to design/develop a service that scales up to 1M? Your points seem much stronger from the MBA view. The challenge I have is you are devaluing what it really takes product wise. THAT IS NOT TO SAY A LOT of money has been wasted on development. I agree with that. Your knowledge of product development (as noted above) loses the article's credibility.
Nathan Beckord
Fun post. I am particularly keen on your Assertion #2. Along with the shift toward "microVC" / "superangel" / "seed accelerators" / "etc." will come a rise in the importance of "micro M&A" for that are well under the normal threshold for big i-banks, but that can provide meaningful returns to founders and angels (but not always VCs).
I think we'll see this scenario play itself out more and more, particularly in the web world: once founders have raised some angel$ (from 500Hats fund, natch), achieved product/market fit, and hit some initial traction, they'll come to a fork in the road...either swing big and raise multiple rounds of VC, or focus on a dual BD/acquisition strategy with strategic partners.
I think in many cases founders can actually make MORE money by exiting early (while still controlling a hefty share of equity) vs. going for the big score (fueled by multiple VC rounds and concurrent dilution). Plus, exiting early at $50m after 2-3 years means founders can quickly repeat the cycle, vs. hanging on for the typical 6-8 years it takes most VC backed co's to achieve.
In a nutshell, "Small VC is the new black" and "early M&A is the new exit."
(Of course, this oversimplifies things and is a very rational way of looking at overlooks the hubris that many founders get when things are growing fast and they start to get courted by name brand VCs...but I'm convinced we'll see more small exit deals, particularly if some of your thesis holds true); I put a related deck on the topic of startup exit strategy up on slideshare:
Nice job, Dave
Nathan Beckord
ps sat at your table at S2S "Art of M&A" last week-- great panel! good times!
Account Deleted
Hey Dave, very interesting article, I enjoyed reading it, thanks! It's cool how you make fun of old VCs, and it's probably true. I'm a web developer and the startup I'm in right now has gone the "dinosaur" way, but we're a service business, which makes things a little bit more complicated.
Anyways, thanks again!
~ @kovshenin
This fine and dandy when it comes to some product/service that runs online on a network and hardware already built and paid for by previous startups like Cisco/Intel etc.
I don't think you can develop a new materials technologies or semiconductors or bio tech ventures with this model that you put forth.
For those ventures still require a lot of heavy lifting and there are not many VC's of the ilk you mention like Y-combinator etc to fund such ideas/startups.
The kind of startups you mention take advantage of lot of the heavy lifting already done to create this platform.
I would like to see First Round Capital or USV or you invest in seed stage in Biotech startup or in a new energy technology venture.
The stakes are much higher and it is not for faint hearted, maybe Governments are the best suited to these investments, cuz private enterprise is least risk averse.
The same principles apply when investing your own capital.EVERY entrepreneur considering a start up or even those considering a new business line should read this. The big established VCs will probably blow this off because the implications for their business model are too horrible to contemplate.
Account Deleted
A lot of what you say is true, and I'm unqualified to comment on the rest. But, as an entrepreneur (wannabe) it'd be nice to see it from this side of the fence. Since startup costs are low, what do I really need investors for ? Mentorship (which is very suspect, for now), connects (useful) - so I guess the "smaller" VCs will need to be more part of the team than someone sitting across a desk peering at numbers (dis)approvingly.
Great points. We took a year to build out our app and business model with paying customers. We're finally nailing down the Revenue side and need to raise some money for our sales team.
Any suggestions on positioning the story at the Revenue stage (and the others) of the game to angels?
Very interesting article, for the most part we are in full agreement.
Here in Boston we feel as if there is a total lack of innovative early stage investment in any type of novel SAAS applications.
We feel it's not for lack of opportunities or for that matter talent, but a mindset that is closed to early stage companies with original concepts.
We find that without the site being fully fleshed out and a market already developed, there is a general lack of investment interest.
Dave are you planning on coming to Boston any time soon?
ThruDispatch - turned down by every VC in the Valley after 1000 independent mobile service customers surveyed positive. This was in 05-07.
Fucking A
Dave, you do a great job of analyzing the implications of the idea that web 2.0 technology has democratized startups - the cost of getting off the ground is much lower and reaching customers is more accessible.
I agree with Rick Bullotta's comment, though, that a lot of the startups who meet the criteria you've outlined tend be copycat, fad-driven companies. I wonder why tech innovation is so focused on gaming, more targeted search advertising, etc. when these tools could be used to address problems in other domains. Healthcare, for example, is devoid of interesting companies that take advantage of social media and search to bring better information to consumers.
I'd like to see a response from the perspective of the so-called "dinosaur VCs" you mentioned...
Mike Nelson
Looks like you dont have guts to take candid feedback, you deleted my comment. What do you have to cover up!
Mike Nelson
This is great post ? God save America.
Keep it simple asshole (your language), Example investment thesis - startup costs are down, hence smaller fund and I have guts to make quick decisions. If you had built worth while startup before, you would have known, what they mean by focus, focus. And also dont say exits are small, it will hurt your future portfolio, you never know.
Dave, the downside of the "web-enabled insto product" mindset is that a shitload of startups are copycats. Walking through the aisles at the TechCrunch thing in NYC a couple months ago, 95% of the companies started their pitch with "we're like XXXXX, but...". Like, "we're like Facebook, but for pets". Please. Spare me.
There is a middle ground for "real innovation" that will require a bit more capital than copycats and "applied technology" startups. If we don't find a way to fund real primary research and technology innovation and are just focused on following social fads with lightweight "insto startups", we're fucked as a country over the long term.
Schumpeter rules.
Venture Operating Expense will never produce the returns Venture Capital used to. Startup finance is in dire need of some innovation.
Brilliant post, Dave, written as only you could write it. You make a good case for the strategy behind my startup law practice -- "invest" in building client relationships with entrepreneurs at the pre-seed stage, before they've achieved product-market fit, doing their startup work for much lower rates than the big firms charge, with the goal of retaining and building on those trusted relationships when the successful ones reach the "double down" stage. Also, bring to bear a product-centric world view with deep specialization in one area (consumer/social Web in my case). Going after many clients at the earliest stages, who have the smallest amount of cash available to pay their lawyers, is probably the hardest way to build a practice (vs. the traditional pursuit of fat-cat corporations with huge legal budgets), but in the long run, I think it's the smartest way to thrive in the brave new world of disruptions in the VC ecosystem that you describe.
On a related note, I'd be curious to hear what you and other readers think of the Series Seed approach to streamlining documentation and reducing legal fees for seed rounds. I posted my (admittedly skeptical) thoughts at
Paul Ward
This is a good analysis. VC will take too long to pick it up unless, as he says, they're innovative. The reason is that they distrust cheap assets. They want their money to buy expensive, protectable assets. And yet expensive and protectable are two concepts that can be separated. It's far cheaper to get a new company up and running in ways that are differentiated from a brand standpoint, and lawyer up on protecting the brand, than to do patentable stuff.
I would want a version of this article that looks at the root cause of increasing total return to shareholders. This is essentially what gives VC their exit ... it creates an argument for the future value of the cash flows that VC can sell to people whose money will replace theirs (next tranche, IPO). So, the problem to solve REALLY is creating measurable, increasing total return to shareholders.
What are the drivers for that? 1. Compelling and engaging value prop - for social media plays, this means solving a problem, engaging the imagination, architecting a user experience that is easy to adopt AND YET NOT GENERIC (god, I hate those 'don't make me think' UI people who make everything so 'web 2.0' that it's all the same vanilla cr*p), lowering barriers to recommendation, allowing co-creation and sharing, and enhancing the customer's reputation. 2. Cognitive sophistication in customer experience management. 3. Well-designed multitouchpoint ecosystem, including partner ecosystems, that are measurable. 4. Hella analytics. 5. Lots of experiments, well-designed and targeted to increase customer engagement (see Gallup and Carlson).
The rest of the argument can fit with what I outlined. Remember, the goal is NOT to make it cheaper, or to engage customers sooner, or even to get revenues. Cheap can be bad. Engaging early adopters is not enough. And revenues can be expensive - that is, you have to have PROFITABLE revenues that are ALSO early indicators of FUTURE CUSTOMER VALUE.
All that equals ... increasing total returns to shareholders.
THAT you can get funded.
Great job Dave. Rackspace is hosting an event on October 7th for B2B SaaS apps. I assume your event in SanFran on the 8th would preclude you from being able to be one of the judges in our start-up session FundMyApp, but I wanted to still ask if there are any very early stage (what you call "product") firms that you could encourage to come and pitch during this session. Ping me back at andy.schroepfer [at] rackspace [dot] com.
For those reading this that have or know of a B2B SaaS application firm (of any size) that would like to attend, please contact me at the email above. Thanks, Andy
SICK! You've just written the filler for many venture slide decks now through 2015...
Discovery-driven Planning and Agile Market Research - An Antidote to Doubling Down Prematurely?
Dave, good post. Should provoke a lot of discussion. I'd like to share some supporting perspectives and offer alternative solutions.
Two academics - Ian MacMillan (Wharton) and Rita McGrath (Columbia) - have examined many of the issues you raise in their discussions of innovation, uncertainty and investment. MacMillan puts it succinctly when he recommends "spending imagination before you spend your money and... engineering the risk out of uncertain projects..." In a nutshell, the process he and McGrath advocate involves 1) creating tests to probe and reduce the uncertainty ahead of investment; 2) staging the investment tranches, contingent on intermediate outcomes; 3) postponing investment until (some of the) uncertainties are resolved.
Useful sources on their perspectives include notes from a conference last month at Wharton; a video in which MacMillan and McGrath explain the rationale and benefits of the approach, which they call "Discovery Driven Growth," at; their book; and McGrath's blog at Several readers have pointed out the parallels between their perspectives (developed over the last 10 years or so) and the "lean startup" notions of Eric Ries ( - these complementary perspectives are crucial to avoid the pitfalls you've identified.
Another important and useful resource is what we call Agile Market Research. Entrepreneurs often make bold assertions re: market potential, e.g., how the market will respond to their product, conversion rates, projected ASPs, etc. These hypotheses and others can be tested in advance of significant investment and commitments. While "listening to customers" and "build it and (see if) they will come" can be informative, more accurate methods can be used to predict market response and are recommended when opportunity costs, investment and/or uncertainty are high. Data can be obtained and a predictive model generated relatively quickly and at lower cost, compared to a market test - the model is also more robust (e.g., allows for the testing of many different configurations, price points and business models, not just one or a few). While predicting consumers's response to "very new" products (e.g., iPad; Twitter; etc.) is fraught with challenges, it's not impossible (for further discussion, see
Dr. Phil Hendrix, immr and GigaOm Pro analyst
This post validates what I've been banking on doing for the past couple years. Thanks. This made my day BIG time.
Hi Dave--long time since FSV and early SVASE. What if it takes more than $100K to get to product, but less than $1M to get to revenue/profitability in 6-12 months? Is that still worth a seed investment?
Great post... in concert, with the sea change occurring with this startup funding paradigm, there is a shifting mentality among entrepreneurs... the best entrepreneurs are hopefully looking for the intangibles that the angels bring to the table, more so than the actual cash. That is something worth giving up equity for. As a first time entrepreneur, i really do subscribe to that thought.
We are currently bootstrapping our product development in a pre-revenue environment, after raising friends and family money 3 years ago - with those coffers now depleted. While figuring out ways to keep our operations moving forward, and always *thinking* we're so close to hitting profitablity, I'm not at all interested in diluting our equity for cash... but I'd do it in a heartbeat to get access to someone who's done it before - that's the angel that I want... I would get the best of everything without entertaining VC-level equity dilutions.
Well written Dave; not experienced enough to speak for the metrics you attached to each stage, but the breakdowns into stages (Product/Market/Revenue) and what to focus on in each, are useful particularly for first-timers like myself. Bon courage.
More coffee, man! I mean that in a good way. Seriously, though, well-constructed in terms of your staging out thesis.
I think that where in practice things get potentially more complex is that in doing Seed or being a micro fund, you have to have a clear plan (and powder) on deals where you find yourself in the realm of liking the deal but being in the gray area between Seed and Series A readiness (in eyes of VCs).
You have to be clear if you are REALLY prepared to be the Lead Investor if you believe in the venture.
For VC's, I wholeheartedly agree with the Dixon analog of treating this as a Call option on Series A since they specifically want to be the lead in Series A.
By contrast, many Seed Round investors aren't prepared or capable to Lead, and that lack of preparation puts them in a position where they either drain their coffers or miss out on the double-down scenario when subsequent phases play out.
Refreshing and insightful Dave. Having sat on both sides of the line (VC & Entrepreneur) I fear the once revered VCs have all but become irrelevant. Have done the dance many times with these guys and music hasn't changed a beat - while the web world has evolved exponentially.
Best of luck with the new venture.
Irina Patterson
Hi Dave,
We would like to interview and feature you on the Silicon Valley blog, Sramana Mitra on Strategy:
My interviews focus on seed and angel financing for entrepreneurs.
I already interviewed Mike Maples, Jeff Clavier, and many many other very smart people here: So, you'll be in a good company...
If I can provide any added value for you, after serious talk on seed investing, we can talk funny hats too, that is my side gig:
But seriously. Could you get back with me regarding scheduling a serious talk on seed financing first, hats second. I can be found at @mylifeandart or 12irina34[at] Thanks in advance -- Irina
This makes so much sense to me. Would you say that KissMetrics's investments so far serve as a good example? It appears so.
Thanks for the insight and laughs!
LOVE the Blackjack metaphor, Dave - simple and accurate.
The more ideas that get that early, pre-market/product fit investment, the better. That's a really big hole in angel "strategy" right now.
This is a brilliant writeup! I like the points you've hit on, and how you specify how to change them for the better. As a startup in the consumer Internet space currently raising seed capital, I can attest to the Product > Market > Revenue strategy.
Although we are raising a total of $300k, the bulk of our cost will be in the Product development stage. I've been given estimates of ~$118k to have just the e-commerce engine developed. Luckily for us, once this is done, we will pretty much be cash flow positive within our first month of operation.
The one thing I am noticing across the board with the VCs we've spoken to is the prevailing sheep mentality you alluded to. It's an unfortunate fact indeed, and one that most certainly contributes to the increasing demise of the traditional VC investor, and the rise in the angel investors, and those VC who participate in early round funding. Thanks for the write up, Dave. And I wish you much success on your 500 Startups venture fund.
Bruce Christensen
Money, Money, Money...
That is all those investor types are interested in...
Oh, wait.. I am interested in money too!
Welcome to VC 2.0: VCs with a plan. Refreshing.
You are right about the dinosaurs and asteroid, but folks like YCombinator, Techstars, etc. aren't real investors and they aren't in it for investing. They're either
A) Attention seekers who got lucky in the first internet wave
B) Hucksters looking to make a few bucks off of people's dreams. They don't really even care if any company they back "makes it" because they're all about collecting fees on the way up.
They'll go the way of the dinosaurs faster than the big lizards, though there'll always be a snake oil huckster trying to sell beans to people trying to sell milk cows. And it always works.
Fantastic post. Feels like many tech investors are looking for bond-like risk, with early stage return and it just doesn't work that way. You nailed it -- got to invest before the traction if you want to get the right pricing.
This reads like a playbook for the @cdixon observation that seed investing is a call option on the series A:
"Basically big VCs are spending 5% of their budget generating captive leads for their real business: investing $10M into companies at the post-seed stage."
A long piece but still worth of reading :)
I really share your view and would like to add a small note. What I see as a typical T-Rex behavior is a local investing, e.g. most investors invest only in the Bay area.
I like your GOAP idea where you and likes explore opportunities outside the U.S. Of course it's going to be riskier business to invest "somewhere" in Europe or Asia.
But if you, or better say any investors, go the extra mile then you can invest at really low cost compared to the U.S. values. So it might be really win-win situation for both investors and foreign startups.
I like the point about investors knowing the space. As an entrepreneur its been hard for me to find good investors who know and understand the space I'm in (SMB) to be comfortable enough to put in small amounts of capital. I've had to bootstrap my venture for the last 7 months. In doing so I actually came to the realization that if I start to make revenue that will cover my operational costs then I don't need to take investment or can hold off and give my employees better equity based compensation. I'm wondering if there are other entrepreneurs out there who are starting to think like me and hold off on taking investment.
Dave, your diplomatic skills are as finely tuned as ever. One question: How do you structure sub $100K deals? Common? And do you do the full shareholder and purchase agreement bit? What are transaction costs on that type of deal?
Ok, that was more than 1 question
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Africa: For Credible Elections, Africa Needs More From the AU
(file photo).
Africa is experiencing a busy electoral year. Two important polls took place in February, in Nigeria and Senegal, both under the watchful eye of the African Union (AU). Tasked with ensuring its member states abide by the democratic principles of free and fair elections, the AU deployed electoral observer missions to both countries.
Ideally the missions assess the transparency and fairness of electoral processes to ensure credible results. The observer missions' reports should appraise the outcomes and propose areas of improvement. However AU observer missions have often lacked preparation and capacity, which diminishes their credibility.
At the request of the Nigerian government and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the AU deployed a short-term observer mission to Nigeria from 9 to 28 February. Just hours before the election was due to start on 16 February, INEC announced that it had been postponed by a week. This cast doubt on the credibility of the electoral process.
The AU observers appeared as surprised by the postponement as other observers in Nigeria. Had the AU been collaborating with the INEC as per its mandate, such a significant event would not have come as a surprise. This points to the shortcomings of AU observer missions, both in their working methods and in the timing of their deployment.
AU observer missions have often lacked preparation and capacity, which affects their credibility
The preliminary statement by the AU observers in Nigeria was criticised for apparent inaccuracies and contradictions. It talks of election-related violence, including bomb blasts and the destruction of election material. Despite these incidents and reports that over 50 people died, the statement concluded that the electoral process was generally 'violence-free'.
Another contradiction in the report concerns voters' rights. The observer mission claimed that 'fundamental rights of association, free speech and assembly' were observed, but then asserted that political opponents were intimidated during the campaign period. The report attempts to satisfy all stakeholders who can interpret it in any way they want - as an endorsement for some or condemnation for others.
The AU typically deploys long-term and short-term missions a month and a half, and a week before elections, respectively. This is not enough time for observers to become well acquainted with realities on the ground. Incumbents, opposition parties and electoral bodies often start election preparations a year or two before the election date. An earlier, perhaps year-long, monitoring and action plan could have alerted the observers to the challenges the INEC said it faced in the run-up to Nigeria's polls.
Election monitoring by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the West Africa Network for Peacebuilding, for example, is based on a year's tracking of the political situation and is more extensive and detailed. Those observers have a thorough understanding of political dynamics and potential hot spots, as well as access to remote areas, through civil society networks on the ground.
The statement by AU observers in Nigeria was criticised for its inaccuracies and contradictions
This contrasts with AU observers, who come from across Africa and participate as their country's permanent representative to the AU or as a representative of one of the AU's many different organs (the Pan African Parliament or AU staff, for example). Despite receiving pre-deployment training, they may not understand the nuances of the political space and situation. Observers don't have much time on the ground and the mission can typically amount to merely ticking the boxes.
Election observers also struggle to fully scrutinise digitalised voting systems. This was cause for concern in Nigeria, as technical challenges arose where polling staff had limited understanding of the technology. And it appears that even though ECOWAS and AU observer missions issued a joint statement on the postponement of Nigeria's elections, the two bodies worked independently of one another.
In Senegal, beyond the conduct of the polls, more than a year before the election, many complained that the political environment had been 'sanitised' to favour incumbent Macky Sall. Two of his major opponents were sentenced on charges of corruption and prevented from contesting the election. ECOWAS and the UN deemed the trials to have violated due process. Sall won the first round with 58% of the votes.
The measures Sall took before the elections, including amending the electoral law, also heightened tensions. This could not be addressed by the AU observer mission, as it was deployed only after these events had taken place. AU observer mission reports strive to be conflict-sensitive so they don't trigger further violence. But they must also ensure political parties don't stir violence before and after the announcement of results.
The AU must hold political actors accountable for tampering with electoral processes and causing violence
AU observer missions have come a long way since the first assignment in Namibia in 1989, but they can be improved. The AU should help enhance the capacity and transparency of electoral bodies and improve electoral laws in member states by engaging earlier in the electoral process. This will allow for a level playing field and enhance the credibility of polls.
Another lesson from the Nigerian and Senegal elections is that the AU should collaborate closely with regional bodies, especially those such as ECOWAS that have greater capacity to observe elections. The AU could also involve local civil society organisations that can serve as reliable expert partners. Finally, the AU must find ways to hold political actors accountable for tampering with the electoral process and causing violence.
Much of this could be achieved by implementing observer missions' recommendations following elections. This could be done in collaboration with the African Peer Review Mechanism or other AU organs that have the capacity to follow up.
Mohamed Diatta and Shewit Woldemichael, Researchers, PSC Report, ISS Addis Ababa
This article was first published by the ISS PSC Report.
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Hey there is another Kidrobot toy in this video!
Check it out at 3 min 14 seconds! :D
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Genome-wide linkage and association mapping of disease genes with the GAW14 simulated datasets
We combined the results of whole-genome linkage and association analyses to determine which markers were most strongly associated with Kofendrerd Personality Disorder. Using replicate 1 from the Genetic Analysis Workshop 14 Aipotu, Karangar, Danacaa, and New York City simulated populations, we determined that several markers showed significant linkage and association with disease status. We used both SNP and microsatellite markers to determine patterns and chromosomal regions of markers. Three consistently associated markers were C01R0050, C03R0280, and C10R0882. Using generalized linear mixed models, we modelled the effect of the three predefined phenotypic categories on disease status and concluded that the phenotypes defining the "anxiety-related" category best predicted the outcome.
Whole-genome linkage analyses involve looking for coinheritance of chromosomal regions with disease in families. Association studies seek to determine differences in the frequency of genetic variants between individuals exhibiting or not exhibiting a phenotype of interest (commonly case-control status). Family-based association studies utilize the available pedigree genetic variations to determine whether the transmission of particular genetic variants is associated with disease status. The results of linkage and association studies have been successfully combined in many analyses to refine the location of disease genes and to test the involvement of candidate genes in disease. The aim of this contribution was to perform linkage analyses, in combination with association analyses, on replicate 1 of the simulated Genetic Analysis Workshop 14 (GAW14) data to determine which markers or regions of markers are associated with Kofendrerd Personality Disorder (KPD).
Recoding the data
The GAW14 problem 2 description states because of the "varied phenotypes" for KPD, the "nosology for KPD falls into three different classifications", and that all three are used in diagnosis. The three main groups of phenotypes are indicative of three different methods used by each population for disease ascertainment. The different ascertainment methods and phenotypic categories suggest that complex interactions may be a key factor in identifying the causes and genetic determinants of KPD. Because we were blind to the simulated dataset answers, we chose to recode the data into these three additional grouped phenotypes to determine if complex combinations of phenotypes are of importance, in addition to examining the relationship between individual phenotypes and affection status. We chose replicate 1 as a representative data set for each of the four simulated populations. The first category, consisting of phenotypes a through e, is referred to as "communally shared emotions" (CSE). This was constructed in the data by assigning a positive affection status to an individual if they possessed at least one of phenotypes a through e, and assigning an individual a negative affection status otherwise. This procedure was similarly performed for the second category, consisting of phenotypes f through i, termed "behavioral-related" (BR) and for the third category, comprising phenotypes j through l, referred to as "anxiety related" (AR). This recoding procedure allowed us to assess affection status not only in terms of an overall status, but also in terms of the three different methods adopted by the different populations for deciding disease ascertainment.
Linkage analysis
To perform linkage analysis on the simulated datasets, we used the MERLIN [1] pedigree analysis software package. We performed a nonparametric linkage analysis using primary affection status and CSE, BR, and AR as binary outcomes. JLGRAPH [2] was used to generate linkage graphs for each chromosome for each population from the MERLIN results.
Association analysis
To perform association analysis on the binary traits for the simulated datasets, we used the computer program QTDT [3] to perform family-based tests. We performed an association analysis using affected individuals, including producing empirical p-values. The QTDT result files were input to JLGRAPH to produce association graphs for each chromosome for each population.
Regions of interest
The results from the linkage and association analyses were collated to provide a list of potential regions of interest for further study. Each of the 917 SNPs and 416 microsatellites markers were examined to determine their significance (in terms of both linkage and association) for affection, CSE, BR, and AR, for each of the four populations. Marker regions that appeared to be significant for both linkage and association were closely examined. Candidate packets of markers consisting of potentially important SNPs were "purchased" in order to analyze chromosomal regions of interest in fine detail. The procedures outlined above for association and linkage analysis were then repeated, this time incorporating the new marker sets.
To determine the effectiveness of each of the three newly defined categories for disease ascertainment, the data were modelled using a generalized linear mixed model (GLMM). Affection status was used as a binary outcome, with CSE, BR, and AR as factored predictor variables and family ID as a clustering variable. A mixed effects model was used so that a random intercept could be fitted, defining individuals within families to be correlated.
Linkage and association
Using the compiled list of markers from the results of the linkage and association analyses, we produced chromosomal graphs for each population in terms of SNP markers and microsatellite markers. From these initial graphs, we proceeded to select regions that appeared to be of most significance for linkage and/or association. We ranked the markers by p-value to determine those of highest significance. Table 1 shows nine SNP markers we determined to be significant with respect to linkage and association across all of the populations (p-values for each marker represent the most significant score from affection status, CSE, BR, and AR).
Table 1 Markers determined to be the most significant from linkage and association analysis
After "purchasing" more packets of markers and analyzing these in conjunction with the marker information already provided, several chromosomal regions showed significant linkage and association with disease status. The additional fine mapped packets available for download contained mostly SNP markers and we consequently determined that SNP markers would be of higher importance than microsatellites. In particular, regions surrounding the SNP markers C01R0050, C03R0280, and C10R0882 were examined. We describe the region surrounding marker C03R0280 as follows.
SNP marker C03R0280 is located 2.94 M along chromosome 3 of the simulated population. Figure (1A and 1B) shows linkage and association patterns using SNP markers for chromosome 3 within the Aipotu population. The region around marker C03R0280 shows significant results in terms of both the linkage and association using SNPs from the Aipotu population. Significance is visualized in the graphs by small p-values (indicated by large values on a -log10 scale) forming peaks over relevant markers. Figure (1C and 1D) represents results from the same population and chromosome for linkage and association analysis respectively, using microsatellite data. The region corresponding to the location of C03R0280 shows similar significance for both linkage and association. The finer points (circles) in Figure 1B and 1D are the actual datapoints for -log10P, while the larger shapes above them are used to highlight datapoints with significant p-values. The chromosome 3 region from approximately 2.5 M to 2.9 M shows a number of significant p-values for markers in terms of linkage and association for both SNP markers and microsatellites. Other chromosomes, such as 8 (not shown), provided very little evidence for linkage or association with KPD across all of the populations.
Figure 1
Aipotu SNP and microsatellite linkage and association on chromosome 3. A circle indicates the marker has a p-value < 0.05, a square indicates p-values < 0.01, a triangle indicates p-values < 0.001. Affection status is shown in red, with categories CSE, BR, and AR shown in blue, green, and black, respectively. A, SNP linkage: B, SNP association; C, microsatellite linkage; D, microsatellite association.
Disease ascertainment variables as predictors of disease
Phenotypic data were modelled using GLMMs to determine how effective each of the three categories used for disease ascertainment were at predicting overall affection status for each population. For all four populations in the simulated data, AR was the only category that effectively predicted disease status (p-value < 0.05).
Table 1 highlights linkage and association p-values for SNP markers across the ten chromosomes. While both markers from chromosome 1 had the most significant p-values, closer examination of these reveals our reason for choosing chromosome 3. The two chromosome 1 markers from Table 1 were localized to linkage with affection status in the New York City population only. In comparison, marker C03R0280 showed significant linkage in three of the four populations, and C03R0199 in two populations (results not shown). Because the individual p-values for chromosome 1 were not replicated across more than one population, we examined chromosome 3, in particular marker C03R0280, in more detail.
The microsatellite datapoints in Figure 1C and 1D were more sparsely located, as there were lower total numbers of markers, but overall trend pattern followed those of the SNP markers. While Table 1 showed only highlights from SNP markers, chromosomal regions such as from 2.5 M to 2.9 M in chromosome 3 returned significant results for both linkage and association for both SNP and microsatellite markers (other chromosomes not shown).
By defining the three new phenotypic categories we have created an effective method for determining the particular category (or categories) that contributed to significant linkage and association for affection status within markers for each population. This flexibility enabled us to locate markers such as C03R0280 and determine that this particular marker had significant p-values for linkage across all populations for affection status and two of the three additional categories. Creating phenotype categories allowed us to examine groups of phenotypic effects, and to determine the contribution of subsets to the overall disease status. This approach can provide very valuable information for conducting further analysis by narrowing down target phenotypes or phenotypic groups.
Through linkage and association analyses, markers C01R0050, C03R0280, and C10R0882 and markers surrounding these were found to be associated with affection status and the three phenotypic categories we defined (to varying degree within each region). Given time and "budgetary" constraints imposed on GAW14 participants, we successfully identified three gene regions, one within each of the three regions examined. While we did not find all the disease-associated genes contained within the GAW14 simulated datasets, we were successful in locating genes in the regions we focused on, indicating that our linkage and association mapping approach can successfully identify genes.
Anxiety related phenotypes j-l
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The work was supported by the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia (Enabling Grant 303312).
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Correspondence to Kim W Carter.
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KWC performed the linkage and association analysis, generated the graphs and drafted the manuscript. PAM designed the GLMM framework, conducted the data modeling, and drafted the manuscript. LJP conceived of the study and participated in the design and coordination of the study.
Kim W Carter, Pamela A McCaskie contributed equally to this work.
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Carter, K.W., McCaskie, P.A. & Palmer, L.J. Genome-wide linkage and association mapping of disease genes with the GAW14 simulated datasets. BMC Genet 6, S41 (2005).
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Get New Products from Customers
From the March 1982 Issue
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What is the most effective way of creating new products? The process is supposed to center on manufacturers who see a need, develop a product, and market it.
However, in many business areas users rather than manufacturers are often the actual developers of successful new products. And manufacturers are acquiring such products despite the conventional wisdom and a dearth of marketing research strategies to pinpoint the items.
This article begins the task of developing marketing research strategies tailored to finding valuable user-developed products by (1) considering two examples of such methods, (2) exploring conditions under which customers can be a valuable source of new products, and (3) presenting general methods for identifying and acquiring such goods.
Two Approaches
Two widely disparate businesses—one a consumer products company and the other an industrial products company—convey a flavor of two possible approaches for identifying and acquiring user-developed products.
Computer Software
Computer companies recognize that customers develop some software packages that other users would find valuable. Some producers ignore these sources; others set up a relatively passive, and low-profit, software exchange service for customers. A few companies, though, have devised approaches to seek, evaluate, and market user-developed software products—and make money in the process. At IBM, for example, the Installed User Program department (IUP) coordinates the effort of acquiring user-developed programs designed to run on its medium and large computers. The IUP learns of promising programs developed outside the company from either the customers themselves or from IBM field representatives. Potentially worthwhile programs are referred to the relevant IBM division, which applies its own criteria to evaluation. When IBM decides to acquire rights to a particular program, the company negotiates an agreement (usually a one-time, flat-fee payment) with the developer.
The success of the system in IBM’s case is clear: approximately one-third of all the software IBM leases for use on large and medium-sized computers is developed by outside users.
Bakery Products
Many companies know that consumers develop promising new products but do not know how to find these innovations. The Pillsbury Bake-Off provides an example of how this can be done. Established in 1949, this annual contest publicizes Pillsbury’s flour and other bakery products. Entrants develop recipes for specified types of baked goods, each incorporating certain Pillsbury products. Tens of thousands of entries are received and evaluated. Winners receive prizes and have their recipes published.
Although intended primarily as a publicity vehicle, the Bake-Off has brought forward several user-developed products that Pillsbury has commercialized. Pillsbury derived one of its four cake-mix lines and several variations of another directly from the recipes of Bake-Off winners.
When Will Users Innovate?
The role of users in developing new products varies widely according to the business field. For example, users developed 67% of the new process machines used by the semiconductor industry and 80% of the new instruments manufactured by scientific instrument companies. Yet plastics additives are typically not developed by users.1
Under what conditions will customers develop items with commercial potential for manufacturers? Businesses and individuals engage in new-product development when they find it financially attractive. Consumers are no exception; they will develop commercially attractive new goods when their return from using the product is high enough to justify it and they cannot get, or do not want to get, a product manufacturer to develop the item for them. Such conditions are likeliest to occur when two common situations prevail.
First, manufacturers may be aware of a need but consider the market too small or too risky to justify the investment required. If, in these circumstances, users need the product enough to justify developing it themselves, they will do so. Later, when some of these products turn out to serve or build markets that are of commercial interest, manufacturers will get into the act and make the products.
Many commercially successful items have evolved in such a manner. For example, users developed and built most new computers during the 1940s and early 1950s until manufacturers began to realize their commercial potential. Similarly, teenagers built their own customized light vans for years before automakers decided to enter the market.
Second, both the consumer and manufacturer may find a product commercially attractive enough to justify development. An innovating user sometimes hides the need from the manufacturer and secretly generates the item alone—because it is more profitable to have exclusive use than to induce a manufacturer to work on the needed product for sale to the user and competitors. For example, a manufacturer of electronic products will often build the integrated circuits that give its products a competitive edge rather than ask semiconductor manufacturers for design help. Similarly, users of process machinery often develop their important process machines in-house to gain an advantage over competitors.
Identifying Customer-developed Products
Products developed by users obviously represent a bargain to product manufacturers only when the search-plus-acquisition cost is significantly less than they would spend for in-house development and field testing of a product with an equivalent chance for commercial success. Since investigating costs money—a researcher’s visit to a consumer’s field site costs at least as much as a sales agent’s visit—the success of the entire process depends on efficient search. This in turn flows from the thoughtful application of appropriate methods.
An appropriate strategy for identifying commercially promising products must recognize two key characteristics of user-developers. First, a large user population develops relatively few products, of which only a small number will be commercially promising; and, second, user-innovators often have no incentive to take innovations beyond their own companies.
Finding Innovators
Two general strategies can address these obstacles. The first creates incentives that cause users to screen their own items, bringing the most promising to the manufacturer’s attention. The second analyzes the self-screening and self-identification behaviors of users.
User Stimulus Strategy
Finding promising user-developed products via this strategy requires three steps:
1. Define the desired product as precisely as possible.
Companies often specify their needs vaguely—and then are critical of users for inappropriate responses. For example, companies seeking user-developed software frequently complain that the software they are offered is poorly documented. But the companies usually fail to specify the level and type of documentation sought. Users should be given criteria by which to screen their ideas, which will result in fewer but more appropriate responses, reducing in-house screening costs.
Do not hesitate to specify precisely and technically what you require. If you need a recipe for a food product with ingredients customarily used by the commercial food processor rather than the home baker, say so. Or if you want a home handyman tool designed to be mass produced entirely out of stamped steel parts—no forgings, please—say so. Not all consumers will understand the specification, but some will. After all, expert computer designers, home economists, and engineers are also consumers.
2. Specify an appropriate reward.
First, and perhaps most important, don’t be a piker. If it would cost you $10 million to design a computer in-house, you can well afford to offer perhaps $5 million for an appropriate and complete design from users. Of course, experience will suggest how much you need to offer to stimulate users to provide the product you want. As every gambling authority knows, a million-dollar prize will induce all contenders taken together to spend much more than one million dollars in aggregate to obtain it.
Second, offer your reward in an appropriate form. Cash prizes are often best for individual consumers. Pillsbury, for example, offers cash awards to the winners of its Bake-Off. When companies develop the products, though, designing an appropriate inducement is more complicated. Any offer of payment to a group or individual in the user company is obviously unacceptable. At the same time, any offer of payment to the company as a whole might not motivate the right individuals. Thus, for instance, in a search for commercially promising instruments that researchers at universities and other institutions might develop, Technicon offered the inducement of a research grant.
3. Inform likely innovators only.
Targeting need and reward messages to only the most probable user-innovators offers two types of economy to the manufacturer. It saves advertising expenses as well as in-house screening costs by reducing the number of inappropriate responses.
The notion that users will innovate if and as it pays will aid attempts to identify the categories of users most likely to develop appropriate new products. Thus, a company interested in identifying user-developed mass-production grinding equipment might find it productive to begin the search by identifying categories of user companies for which quality mass-production grinding is essential, such as razor blade and ball-bearing companies. Similarly, IBM would choose its own customers as a likely source of IBM-compatible software.
Note that the companies needing an item most—and thus most likely to develop it—are not necessarily within a vendor’s own customer base. Thus, an auto fastener manufacturer might well determine that those users with the greatest need for reliable fasteners are aerospace companies. Further, one can refine the search as a function of particular product attributes. While the auto fastener manufacturer might well look to aerospace companies for more reliable mechanisms, it might more usefully explore toy makers if it is primarily interested in keeping costs down.
User Analysis Strategy
Sometimes a user-innovator is already generating signals that an interested manufacturer can adapt economically to the task of identifying promising user-developed products. In such cases, a user analysis strategy can help meet a need for confidentiality or address a lack of user awareness.
When confidentiality is paramount.
Sometimes a manufacturer does not want to inform others—particularly competitors—of its interest in a user product. Consider, for example, a manufacturer of scientific instruments. It knows that users develop 80% of these instruments and wants to tap into this rich source. At the same time, the company does not want to signal its product plans to competitors.
The manufacturer should know that many users who make promising scientific instruments will quickly report this fact, along with the instrument’s application, in scientific articles. Through computerized data bases, the manufacturer can quickly and economically identify all such references.
User analysis can also address very precise needs. Consider the embarrassing problem facing one manufacturer of a complex form of industrial sewing machine. It wished to quietly identify user-developed solutions to a machine failure problem that was painfully common in the field—but which couldn’t be replicated and solved in the lab. Company officials therefore chose to approach the problem with a user analysis rather than a user stimulus strategy. The signal was that each machine failure of this type resulted in an order for a certain repair part from the manufacturer. Officials concluded that users who ordered few such parts might have solved the problem. Since the manufacturer had a computerized record of customer orders, it quickly identified and contacted a few such users. And some of these had indeed solved the problem.
Unaware innovators.
Sometimes users with an innovation of potential interest to a manufacturer are simply unaware of what they have done. Consider the case of a midwestern manufacturer of prefabricated housing that wanted to make its housing more energy efficient. Actual energy usage in houses strongly depends on the living patterns of occupants and thus cannot be well simulated in a lab.
Users frequently modify their houses—often for reasons besides energy efficiency—and may create an energy-efficient result without even being aware of it; for example, they may alter room layouts and inadvertently create airlocks that help retain heat in winter.
One signal of a house’s energy efficiency is the amount of fuel it takes to heat it in winter. The housing manufacturer could obtain oil bills on the houses sold and thus determine which houses might be worth inspecting for possibly interesting user-developed heat-conserving modifications.
Acquiring Products
Of course, not all user-developed products have sufficient commercial promise to interest a manufacturer. Therefore, candidates should receive the same marketing scrutiny as product prototypes developed in the manufacturer’s own laboratories. Using this analysis, the manufacturer may decide that it is best off adopting only some aspects of the user-developed product. Thus, a process machinery manufacturer may want to adopt the operating principles and basic design of a new user-developed machine but will also want to modify some details.
Once a manufacturer decides to commercialize all or part of a user-developed product, the company must acquire the item. Fear of legal problems seems to make many businesses reluctant to solicit and analyze such products, when in fact users frequently welcome the manufacturers’ interest. Moreover, even ill-disposed users are often unable to cause significant legal difficulties for manufacturers who deal honorably with them.
Industrial users generally welcome the manufacturers’ interest in such products because both parties usually benefit. The customer’s gain may come from fees—or simply from having some other company assume the production task. A manufacturer can often provide its customers a cheaper, perhaps better, version of the new product than the one the user was building in-house.
Even if the user originated the product to obtain a competitive advantage, this advantage often fades over time, perhaps because the secret has leaked to competitors or because competitors have independently developed equivalents. The innovating customer can then benefit from helping a commercializer and thereby ensure compatibility of the commercial version with the internally developed product or process rather than with a version developed by a competitor.
Legal Considerations
The two legal mechanisms that an innovator may be able to call on are patent law and trade secrecy law. Both cover only very limited kinds of innovations and usually offer minimal protection.
Patent grants offer innovators the temporary legal right both to control who may use their knowledge and to charge for its use. Patent protection is offered only to explicitly described technical means to achieving a useful end, given that the means is of sufficient novelty and usefulness to be legally deemed an invention.
Thus, patents cannot be used to protect valuable products that do not include a technical aspect deemed sufficiently novel to constitute invention. Patent protection may not apply either to the user-developed product or to the particular aspect of the product that a manufacturer is interested in. Even if it does, and even if the product at issue is patented, both user and manufacturer should be aware that the real-world protection which patents afford is often quite imperfect.
United States patent law places the burden of detecting and prosecuting an infringement on the patentee. The practical benefits of a patent are often only realizable by spending considerable time and money in its defense. Also, patents awarded by the United States Patent System are more often than not found to be not valid, or not infringed, by U.S. courts. Because of these constraints, plus the likelihood that imitators can invent around the particular means protected by the patent, innovators in many fields do not rely very much on patent protection.
Trade secrets.
Users can attempt to protect products they develop from interested imitators by keeping their knowledge secret. Trade secret legislation allows user-developers to keep relevant information entirely secret or to make legally binding contracts with others in which the secret is revealed in exchange for a fee or other consideration and a commitment to keep the information secret. A trade secret possessor may take legal steps to prevent its use by others if they can be shown to have discovered the secret through unfair and dishonest means such as theft or breach of a contract promising secrecy. But if a manufacturer discovers the secret by legal means, the innovator has no recourse.
Manufacturers must know when they are dealing with innovations that might be legally considered trade secrets (for example, even unsolicited suggestions from outsiders can sometimes be seen as trade secrets) and establish an appropriate legal procedure for dealing with them. In general, the best approach is for the manufacturer to clearly establish a strong legal position and make sure user-innovators understand their own legal position as well.
Summing Up
User-developed products exist in categories ranging from consumer goods like egg shampoos to industrial products such as light bulb manufacturing machinery. Manufacturers who deal in categories where users are active need not consider whether they will adopt user-developed products; they usually already have some, albeit unrecognized, in their current product lines. Their real choice is whether to continue to allow the adoption process to proceed haphazardly and inefficiently or whether to recognize and systematize it. Systematizing involves making the difficult admission that some products were developed elsewhere. But companies that persist can profit handsomely by making their—and America’s—innovation process more efficient.
1. See my articles “The Dominant Role of Users in the Scientific Instrument Innovation Process,” Research Policy, vol. 5, no. 3, July 1976; “The Dominant Role of Users in Semiconductor and Electronic Subassembly Process Innovation,” IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, vol. 24, no. 2, May 1977. See also Julian Boyden, A Study of the Innovation Process in the Plastics Additives Industry, unpublished thesis, MIT Sloan School of Management, June 1976.
A version of this article appeared in the March 1982 issue of Harvard Business Review.
This article is about MARKETING
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On the contradiction in player agency between OSR and 5E D&D.
OSR games ostensibly care about player agency as one of their core principles.
Player agency can be defined as players having full control and responsibility over their own characters that the GM cannot interfere with. Ways GM’s typically interfere with player agency are by railroading players to certain destinations, for example by forcing players to save the village even if they would rather run away from it. By using techniques like ‘quantum ogres’ in which whatever direction the players go in they will face the same encounter and by extension any form of illusionism where players are given a false choice. Or simply by the GM fudging a dice roll, so that the choice the player made to attack a deadly monster is obsoleted when that monster cannot kill them due to GM fudging.
OSR games frown on this and instead encourage play where players are able to make meaningful choices for their characters within the world. Whilst the GM still has responsibility over the world it’s up to the players what they do within it and the GM acts as best they can as a ‘neutral arbiter’ of the game.
As a result OSR games tend to emphasise game structures that facilitate sandbox play in the likes of hexcrawls and dungeon crawls. They utilise a lot of randomisation mechanics, such as random encounters, reaction rolls and random treasure and monster placement to encourage the GM to allow player agency and not pre-script game situations. The GM is often ‘playing to find out what happens’ much like the players are.
There’s an interesting juxtaposition between the amount of freedom and agency given to players in OSR games and the limited amount of power in terms of mechanical ability characters in an OSR game have compared to other editions of the game, which can at first glance seem like a contradiction.
For example in an OSR game character stats are often randomly determined in order, taking those character build choices out of the player characters. Beyond that OSR characters will have far options and mechanical abilities.
A Magic User in an OSR game will often start with just 1 random spell they can use per day and D4 hp. In 5E D&D a Wizard starts with about half a dozen spells, can infinitely cast 3 cantrips per day and can cast 2 level 1 spells each day, starts with at least 6 HP assuming an average con score, and gets additional abilities and skills conferred by their race and background choices.
If our game cares about player agency, why do OSR games give characters such a limited amount of mechanical options to exercise their agency? Would you not be more free in a game if you had more options as you do in say 5E?
Well, not quite.
For one building a character is not the same as having agency within a game itself. The character building occurs outside of the game, it can be a lot of fun turning all the bells and whistles to design a character but it has very little to do with actually playing the game of D&D where you actually have to make active decisions in the moment for your character.
At its extreme this level of character building actually limits agency because character builds require a certain ‘white box’ perfect scenario to work effectively. You have to make the assumption that the game will include a set of perfectly tailored and balanced encounters that your character can defeat. But if we are to set up those encounters in a game we’ll be railroading the players hard to enforce them, rather than utilising the aforementioned sandbox techniques like the random encounters where a player may face the likes of a Dragon which their build is not equipped to deal with because it can only function in a limited parameter.
Agency is further predicated on the players having meaningful choices within a situation. If a character such as a Wizard should always cast a cantrip like mage hand to inspect a potential trap, or always cast Leomuds Tiny Hut for the group to rest in, then the player only has the one choice within a situation. Extrapolate it to the increasing power level of characters in a game such as 5E with a wide range of powerful abilities and the game becomes one of pressing the correct mechanical skill or spell button to solve the problem rather than having meaningful choice within the world.
Abilities such as the Rangers favoured terrain obsolete whole portions of decision making for players as they ignore key wilderness survival mechanic, effectively hand-waving over the players agency in those situations. Yes the player still had the agency of choosing the Ranger as a class, but this is no different from the illusionist GM presenting the players two false paths and giving them the same encounter in both. It’s just extrapolated to mechanically encompass the entire system.
Furthermore when we add the likes of a skill and feat system into the game we are effectively limiting player choices by saying that only X class with Y skill & feat combination can do a certain action. Though 5E isn’t as egregious as former editions of the game in this regard it still includes both of these elements which factor into limiting player agency.
Skill systems in general can also limit player actions towards simply pressing the correct ‘skill button’ within an in-game situation rather than describing what their actual actions in the game are. Even if a player does describe their action if these actions are always just resolved via whatever arbitrary skill feels like it fits we come to a situation where all that really matters is the characters skill bonus in a certain area and players are discouraged from trying actions that they don’t have the required stats in , further limiting their agency.
So we see the more powerful characters are, the less agency players often really have beyond an illusion. This also causes an escalation in terms of the GM attempting to match the players increasing range of abilities, this escalation can only ever be enforced within mechanical terms and the GM ends up having to use railroad techniques like forcing the players into constant ‘anti-magic zones’ to make it more difficult for them to utilise their powerful array of spells and abilities to bypass decisions in the game. This makes it difficult to create organic situations for the players to deal with through their agency alone as the GM is constantly in a cold war of sorts with the players as they both build up their collection of arms, which often culminates in incredibly adversarial gameplay.
To contrast OSR game-play gives players a much more limited toolkit to play with but through that limitation they are able to come up far more often with varied and creative solutions to in-game situations as they cannot solely rely on their characters power level to carry them through and therefore have far more agency in how they approach situations within the game not being limited by the heavy mechanical restrictions within the system.
1. I never got that about the ranger. Surely you pick the class because you want to be GOOD at wilderness stuff, and that you want it to be an important part of the game. Instead, Wot Sea say “Cool bro, here you go you don’t need to use those rules you especially wanted to”.
It’s much the same with synths in ALAN the rpg
2. I think this is more of a distinction between the culture of 5e and OSR players rather than anything to do with the rules themselves. 5e has a lot more new and/or casual players. Newer DMs are more likely to design a linear narrative game because they’re easy to make, and newer players are more likely to be satisfied by those kinds of games. OSR players are more likely to be veterans who don’t want to be railroaded, and OSR DMs are more likely to have the capability and inclination to develop a big sandbox game.
But there is no mechanical reason why someone couldn’t run a linear game in OSR or a hexcrawl in 5e – the rules aren’t even that different. From memory, the 5e DMG doesn’t endorse dice fudging or quantum ogres, and has a fair amount support for sandbox type games, such as random encounter and treasure tables.
I don’t agree with your argument that 5e giving players more spells and abilities means that they have less agency. Firstly a lot of abilities, particularly spells, have a limited number of uses per day. You might know the Knock spell, but still make the decision to try and pick a lock instead because you don’t want to expend a spell slot, or use the expensive material components, or because you decided not to prepare it that morning, or because you’re trying to be stealthy and so don’t want to cast spells with verbal or somatic components. Deciding when to spend your limited abilities, when there are an abundance of opportunities to do so, is meaningful agency.
And secondly, a lot of abilities don’t have that specific an application. The mage hand spell isn’t a ‘check for traps at range’ spell – it has a general effect that can be applied in countless possible ways. Deciding how to apply the general effects of these spells in order to achieve whatever specific challenge the players face, is meaningful agency.
And how far would you take it? “I would never put a shovel in my game because then the players would always use it whenever they need to dig a hole. It would take away their meaningful decision of whether to try and dig with their hands or fashion some kind of rudimentary drill…”
The ranger’s natural explorer ability doesn’t let you auto-succeed on survival checks (except preventing you from getting lost I guess). It gives you a bunch of bonuses when travelling through your favoured terrain, which might make travelling through those types of region a more appealing option. But it doesn’t remove the risk of starving to death in the wilderness, it just mitigates it. I think this is true of most class and feat abilities – they don’t say “you can always succeed at doing this thing now”, they say “you are a bit better than other people at doing this thing – have advantage or a bonus to the roll”. And crucial to this discussion, I don’t think there is any real distinction between these 5e abilities and OSR class abilities. Just look at all the special skills that the OSE thief gets, for example.
I agree that DMs building specific scenarios or encounters to constantly counter the party’s specific abilities is bad DMing. But again, I don’t think there is anything in the 5e rules that encourages this. 5e just gives a load of monster stat blocks with challenge ratings to indicate roughly how dangerous the monsters are. There isn’t a big sign on the Lich’s statblock saying “use this monster if you have a spellcaster in the party, its magic resistance will really fuck them up”.
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Ceviche de Pulpo en Tostada
Cuisine: Mexican
Prep Time: 30 minutes
Cook Time: 2 hours
Servings: 6 people
Because summer time equals ceviche time.
It's the summer, and to me that means ceviche season. This refreshing octopus ceviche, or ceviche de pulpo en tostada, is basically a decadent octopus salpicón topped on a corn tortilla. It's light, crunchy and delightful. But make sure to cook the octopus before dicing and mixing with the rest of the ingredients!
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1. Bring a large pot of water and salt to a boil.
2. Cook the octopus for two hours or until the meat is tender (approximately 1 hour per lb.) Set aside and allow to cool.
3. Chop the cilantro, serrano chiles, tomatoes and avocados.
4. Cut the octopus into small cubes. Mix the octopus with the lemon juice and olive oil. Add salt and all the vegetables.
5. Top each tostada with the octopus mix and enjoy.
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Paranormal Pop Culture
Samuel Johnson
Within the last ten years an unusual combination of factors have accounted for an emerging pop culture trend towards “ghost-hunting” themed reality-television programs and the subsequent ghost tourism industry spin-off. Much like the Spiritualism phase seen in England and the U.S. during the 19th and 20th centuries, ghost sleuthing is again being monetized for our entertainment, and we can’t get enough. Instead of a visit to an ectoplasm-producing medium, we can now be presented with swathes of digital (often unclear) ‘evidence’ of the spirit realm across our various devices as passive observers, download specific apps, or purchase these technologies for our own use ‘in the field’. Even Google Maps has recently compiled a list of 31 Most Haunted Places in America designed for your exploration.
We’ve arrived at a fascinating intersection of our current understanding of neurology and computer science, coupled with our fear or outright denial of our eventual demise. Adding in our ubiquitous usage of technology as an extension of our earthly bodies, it’s these factors, and our leisurely lifestyles and insatiable desire for entertainment, which is allowing us to become armchair philosophers contemplating the afterlife in the comfort of our own homes.
The reasons for the popularity of this genre can be used as a signpost to reveal something about our present relationship to death, intertwined with our ideas about the afterlife in the information age.
Our conceptions of ghosts—the fears they provoke, the forms they take—are connected to the conventions and beliefs of each particular era, from the marauding undead of the Middle Ages to the psychologically charged presences of our own age. The ghost is no less than the mirror of the times.(1) The contemporary ghost arrives from the past as a didactic ether, and only through the use of ‘special’ technology can we have an ideal gateway to their intangible world.
In these reality programs, ghosts become a sort of quantitative and collectible data, untouchable but captured through static sound recorders, special cameras and computers, thermal devices, rigged Xbox hardware, and electronic ouija boards. Much like us, they prefer quick and disembodied communication methods, beckoning from beyond the internet veil.
What is the modern idea of the ghost confronting us with now? The prospect of eternal existence in a downloaded metaphysical form? And why can’t we stop reading clickbait articles about haunted locations?
Paranormal Pop Culture
Ghost Comedy, Beetlejuice 1988
Ghost Hunting & Spectral Machines
Series that featured ghosts as regular characters seemed confined to children’s animated programming until the popularity of reality-based series boomed in the 2000s. It was probably only a matter of time before a reality show dedicated to ghost-hunting was made, but even so, its immediate success still came as something of a surprise. Ghost Hunters debuted on the Syfy channel in 2004, and garnered high ratings. But despite an onslaught of sceptics who have repeatedly criticised their methods and debunked their findings, the show has generated numerous spin-offs and imitators. The success of Ghost Hunters has also sent the revenue of ghost tourism into the stratosphere.(2) There are now over 250 paranormal television programs, according to Wikipedia as of 2017. There are also millions of websites dedicated to these topics; However, most of them are still experiencing a CSS dark-age from the early 2000’s.
The idea that ghosts often appeared to be vaporous or translucent was further reinforced by the invention of photography at the end of 1830’s; it was not long before shadowy figures, produced by the technique of double- exposure, were interpreted as ghosts that had been detected by the camera’s mechanical eye. It is paradoxical that it should have been advances in technology, in the shape of back-projection and the science of photography, which provided new ways of ‘seeing’ such age-old phenomena as ghosts.(3)
Paranormal Pop Culture
One of the most infamous and still-disputed ghost photographs, The Brown Lady of Raynham Hall, photographed by Indre Shira in 1936
In other words, it was strange that these new inventions, instead of casting light upon the well-established idea of ghosts, further advanced the canon of methodologies on how to detect them.
Ghost hunting has secured for itself an interesting spot between pseudoscience, superstition and real science. Now in the 21st century – with belief in supernatural happenings on the rise- anyone with a smartphone and a few pounds worth of apps can call themselves a ghost-hunter. However, more serious paranormal investigators require more than this, and ghost-hunting is now big business, with companies all over the world providing increasingly complicated devices. Although the twenty-first-century ghost-hunter may still employ traditional techniques, including mediums (or ‘sensitives’), dowsing rods (usually two narrow lengths of metal, which spirits are asked to cross to indicate ‘no’ and move apart for ‘yes’), gathering eyewitness accounts and relying on ‘bad feelings’ or even physical effects like headaches, ghost-hunting now has a veneer of scientific plausibility.(4) They employ ‘scientific’ methods with both cutting edge and old technology put to new uses in spirit chasing.The technology that is being used exists in a kind of grey zone. While it does measure real world phenomena, such as electromagnetic activity, infrared light, static, temperature and sound, its uses are limited to the paranormal and the results are not accepted by any outside scientific community. The parameters are very muddled, un-scientific and usually conducted in total darkness. This is apparently great for not only television ratings and injuries, but also for ghosts to feel comfortable, as a sort of natural environment for them.
Paranormal Pop Culture
Human-shaped anomalies caught on the Xbox kinect rig
Many of the ghost-detection tools on the market operate on the popular notion that ghosts are composed of a form of energy that falls within the electromagnetic spectrum and can thus be read on measuring devices that detect EMF (electromagnetic frequencies). As one purveyor of paranormal paraphernalia puts it, ‘At a haunted location, strong erratic, fluctuating EMFS are are commonly found. It seems these energy fields have some definite connection to the presence of ghosts.’ This belief that EMF correlates to spirit manifestation has its roots in Spiritualism. (5)
The series Ghost Adventures employs a four man crew and often features special guests, such as their house electrical engineer Bill Chappell, who’s always inventing new ways to capture ghosts. His methods involve the harvesting of large amounts of standard data values grabbed from the filming environment. These figures and values are then combed through and assessed for ‘evidence’ of the paranormal. Notably, his ‘Ovilus’ invention which is basically the electronic version of the Ouija board, which is now on version 4.
From the series Ghost Adventures
From the series Ghost Adventures
Interestingly, it was after the Civil War that one of the most notorious spirit communication objects was created- the Ouija board. Its also well worth a read on the origin story of the Ouija board which began its commercial life as a simple toy for children, and wasn’t until the 1973 movie, The Exorcist, that it took on its more frightening and demonic attributes.
After the Civil War, Spiritualism exploded in America. The mass deaths in the civil war created a widespread desire to contact the dead, and mediums began marketing their services in major cities around the country. According to historian Robert Murch, many families had to grapple with the bodies of their loved ones never being recovered and spiritual devices like the Ouija board answered questions that no one else could. “They gave people peace of mind because they couldn’t get answers any other way.”(6)
Paranormal Pop Culture
The infamous Ouija Board
In an experiment in 1997, James Houran and Rense Lange, researchers at the University of Illinois at Springfield, took 22 test subjects into an old theatre; half were told that the theatre was haunted, and the other half were told it was undergoing renovation. After analyzing data collected from the participants , Lange and Houran concluded that ‘the mere suggestion that a location is haunted [is] sufficient to produce poltergeist-like perceptions such as reports of a “sensed presence”, apparitions, or other anomalous sensations.’ (7)
Even with our active imaginations, all these busy ghosts seem to be wary and cleverly elusive of our gadgets. And that’s the funny thing, we still keep believing even after being presented with logical evidence on the contrary. Still, one would be hard-pressed to find the average skeptical individual who is willing to endure a night alone in a supposedly haunted location, without at least an inkling of fear and a raised heartbeat.
Are we tapping into the notion of the re-enchanted world, as the British artist Mark Leckey envisions? With the impending future of the internet of things and omnipresent connectivity are we starting to unconsciously sense the paradox that the more pervasive technology becomes in our lives the more it invokes the mindscapes of our ancestral past? Inanimate objects start to seem alive and networked like the totem spirits of yore. With our uber-connected devices we start to recognize that there is an immaterial cyber-world which hovers over our terrestrial realm like a suspension of disbelief; like the world in which the spirits ran wild.
Ghosts-if they cannot exactly be described as living history- certainly personify our shared past by replaying it. They are so valuable to us because they are externalised memories, reminding us of the layers of history beneath our feet, of the old stories that refuse to be erased.(8)
What is it about tempting these non-entities that make us so afraid, even in a golden-age of knowledge? Perhaps it’s because ghosts do not let us forget, and neither does the internet.
Paranormal Pop Culture
Beetlejuice 1988
1. Owens, Susan. The Ghost: A Cultural History. (London: Tate, 2017)
2. Morton, Lisa. Ghosts: A Haunted History. (London: Reaktion Books Ltd, 2015), 172.
3. Owens, Susan. The Ghost: A Cultural History. (London: Tate, 2017), 170.
4. Morton, Lisa. Ghosts: A Haunted History. (London: Reaktion Books Ltd, 2015), 129.
5. Ibid.
6. Woods,Baynard, 2016, The Ouija board’s mysterious origins: war, spirits, and a strange death,
7. Morton, Lisa. Ghosts: A Haunted History. (London: Reaktion Books Ltd, 2015), 141.Rense Lange and James Houran, ‘Induced Paranormal Experiences: Support for Houran and Lange’s Model of Haunting Phenomena’, Perceptual and Motor Skills, LXXXIV (June 1997),p 1455. | <urn:uuid:9d241184-1a87-4401-a053-8037d2287178> | https://jegensentevens.nl/2017/10/paranormal-pop-culture/ | en | 0.936359 | 0.059972 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
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Guard dad
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1. One tip to remember......it also takes longer for your muscles to rebuild than it used to. After working a particular muscle group, give it several days to recover before working those out again. For example, do your chest and triceps one day, biceps and lats another day, legs another day, and only do each of them once a week. That way they have time to rebuild the tissue you tore down while lifting. Abs can be done more often, every day or two. But when you do work a particular group, work 'em hard. The old "no pain-no gain" holds true. Do cardio every day if you want, but give yourself two consecutive days a week off from it. Good luck!
2. It will get better. Your muscles are doing things that they aren't used to, and there will be a period where they will revolt on you. After about a month you'll start to feel much better, and it will become much more difficult to get sore. I did the same, decided in my 40's to get fit again. I did it about 5 years ago and then hernias took me out for awhile. About a year ago (after I turned 50) I got back into the gym and now I'm in better shape than I was 20 years ago. Stick with it, it'll pay off.
3. Stay safe Glenn, and thank you for your service.
4. Haven't forgot about my weedeaters, just been too busy to bring them to you. I'll get around to it.
5. You'd be better off to spray his butt
6. I still want a Challenger Guard dad sad face------->
7. I've got a '97 Ram I bought new. One of the best vehicles I've ever owned. I bought a new Tundra last year but I couldn't bear to part with my Dodge so I kept it.
8. Being an old Mopar guy, I'm glad to see that you made the cut. Chrysler has done some very innovative engineering the last couple of years and I'd like to that trend continue. Can I have a new Challenger RT8?
9. As mentioned above, motion sensing lights are a cheap and effective way of deterring theft. When a would-be thief is suddenly bathed with bright light he will usually stop what he's doing and run. Electrical usage of these is negligible. There is also a type of car alarm that is very inexpensive. When armed, they sense the current draw of the dome light when a door is opened. Cheap and easy to install.
10. Congrats Matt! May God bless your endeavor.
11. Dang. Loved their music back in the 70's. Even went to one of their concerts when I was a young un.
12. Yum! I loves me some Cuban sammich
13. No. A business license in your home county or city allows you to work anywhere in the state. Used to you had to have a business license everywhere you went, the general assy changed that some years ago.
14. I'm very sorry for your loss. Prayers for peace in your family.
15. Congrats. Even though I'm not a drinker, I know that's a crucial part of your business. I'm also a local small businessman and I like to see folks like us succeed. In spite of what certain politicians think, small business is the backbone of the economy.
16. I know, just playing along.
17. That's fer sure. I'm so ugly the doctor slapped my mama when I was born. I'm so ugly I have to tie a pork chop around my neck for the dogs to play with me.
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Article marketing is the most effective ways in which a business can promote itself. By doing one thing as simple as writing an article, a enterprise could make its products and services out there to a wider audience. Use the advice in the next article if you would like to use article marketing.
Be daring and powerful along with your phrases. Readers want to know that the author is actually speaking their thoughts. To affect them even more, use strong wording to show your point. Bold your most highly effective words, and use bullet factors to draw their eyes to the locations you need them to focus most.
If you’ll spin your articles, use people, not software program. Article spinning software program usually generates ridiculous results and trigger web surfers to only shrug and click on away. Human spinners, on the other hand, should not solely higher at rewriting content to avoid search engine duplicate content material penalties, they also can generate rewrites which have barely completely different tones, a number of of which may drive extra conversions than the others (you could find this out by A/B testing spins towards each other).
As your article marketing sources broaden, be sure that your articles are extensively cross-referenced to each other. Do not make links between articles only for the sake of linking, but attempt to take advantage of each affordable risk where one article would assist another. A effectively cross-referenced net of article hyperlinks will boost your readership considerably.
For article marketing campaigns incorporating a weblog, soliciting visitor bloggers can improve traffic. By inviting a respected blogger to put up to their blogs, savvy article entrepreneurs can draw in fresh readers and increase their general exposure. Guest blogging works greatest when each the guest and the host have a popularity for offering helpful, trustworthy articles.
Make sure that you understand that not ever article you right goes to be permitted. This is essential as a result of you do not need to get your hopes up. Just do your best on writing the article. Ensure you could have checked spelling and grammar, and take your time on it.
Rewriting programs and services can boost the whole volume of articles you should use in a marketing program, but you shouldn’t depend on them completely. Spun and rewritten articles are usually not as fashionable as original content material, with readers or search engines like google. The core of your article marketing campaign ought to all the time be excessive-quality hand-crafted articles.
Your pure inclination could also be to present a fictionalized account of a services or products in your article marketing marketing campaign, however it’s best to always remain truthful. If you are marketing something for which you cannot find anything optimistic to say, then you need to definitely be marketing something else. Do not attempt to spin a product into gold, if it isn’t a minimum of, shiny already.
Furthermore, top-of-the-line methods a business can promote itself is through article marketing. Businesses can reach a wider audience of shoppers which are prepared to buy their merchandise and pay for his or her companies just by writing a simple article. Should you remember the advice from this text, then try to be ready to reach a wider viewers with article marketing. | <urn:uuid:3e15ee3c-6928-4561-8c10-27241cfcb42e> | https://promomagazine.club/mobile-marketing-ideas-and-inspiration-for-your-business/ | en | 0.953501 | 0.02107 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
May 16, 2008
Buy Domain Names For the Long Haul
(Connectict Law Tribune - May 5, 2008)
Domain names, if you haven't heard, are the next "real estate" boom. While law firms have made up a small sector of the Internet up until now, domain name ownership is very big business. And like condos in the early 2000s, there are many speculators looking to buy up domain names and flip them for a profit when someone wants their little piece of real estate.
This speculation game is very relevant to the new lawyer (and seasoned lawyer) because now, more than ever, domain name selection has got to be part of your short- and long-term marketing plan, as well as a slice of your operating expenses.
And this real estate is no longer limited to domain names. Now you must protect your real estate in social media such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc. Failure to secure your name on these social media sites can be costly as you may find others impersonating you or pirating your following.
You might be thinking: "I don't know what kind of law I want to practice or what the future holds."
From a dollar and cents perspective this doesn't matter. If you even think you want to practice personal injury law in Connecticut, spend the $8.99 or $9.99 for one year and secure domain(s) which reflect the practice area and the state or county. (It has been proven wise to enter a geographical designation in your domain name.) Consider the language of your clients when describing why they need legal services and be creative with domain names, too. For example: (I don't know if they exist, just blue-skying); Clever URLs also act as advertising on business cards, sponsorship banners and more.
If you ultimately want to let the domain lapse in a year because your location or practice area has changed, don't renew. But plan for realistic eventualities in your future and be creative.
And certainly protect your personal name because nothing is worse than building up your credibility and people are now searching for you by name and someone else owns the domain name and it is redirected to a gambling or a porn site. (Are there issues of cybersquatting when someone buys your name and can you sue? Sure. But the point is, avoid the issue today for a few dollars rather than buying your name back for thousands of dollars or initiating a lawsuit that will cost even more to pursue.)
Tip No. l: When you start searching for URLs, don't do it on a site like GoDaddy. Do it in Google. Why? When you decide on names you want to purchase and are available, then go to a purchasing site and be prepared to purchase right then and there. I have heard too many stories where the person goes back to the purchasing site, even 10 minutes later, and the domain has been purchased. I'm not sure how the mechanism is triggered, but why risk it when there is ample opportunity to do your homework on Google?
Tip No. 2: If you buy several domain names, spend the extra money and have them all redirected to your main URL. Why? When you buy a domain you are not using, the host will park it for free but set it up as an advertising page. This stinks. Pay the money for the redirect until such time as you use or release the URL. If in the future you want to redirect a specific domain to another site or a different landing page on your main website or blog, you can do so.
Buy your domain real estate now. You'll be happy you invested.•
(For Solo Practice University E-zine subscribers, this post is an excerpted version of Lesson #12. Lesson #12 includes numerous links and additional information which was not included in the Connecticut Law Tribune article.) | <urn:uuid:05d25d04-201e-4816-8047-d4caf7ff737b> | https://susancartierliebel.typepad.com/build_a_solo_practice/weblogs/ | en | 0.956019 | 0.01853 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Tangible Common Constitution
Life is difficult when, like me, you are under constant surveillance: having my home raided virtually every time it is empty, and on top of that having my writings, concepts, impact statements and sound-bites stolen, only for them to then appear in some shape or form in the UK’s leading right-wing newspaper and on a talk radio station whose presenters use the same – all of this stamps and seals how highly valued, incisive and thought provoking my writing is.
On Tuesday 16th May 2016, I went to visit the Harmony Of The Seas docked at Southampton, UK. Upon arrival in the city and making my way to the open public park adjacent to where the ship was docked, I was surrounded by security personnel, and was even afforded the high respect of having a security helicopter circling overhead. Wow, just for me. I along with everyone else present photographed the ship. Later, while visiting the opposite side of the narrow sea inlet I was stopped by plainclothes officers in an unmarked car who wanted to see my camera and the photos I had taken. They know I am a keen photographer. This has now become a routine for me. They always tell me it is not personal; however, they look ashamed when I ask them how many indigenous natives they have stopped and searched.
A renowned British journalist in his article has already used a sound-bite from this essay in a right wing newspaper…
As indicated by the canon of our human heritage scripture (which regrettably has been commandeered by one national religious group) there was a time when female rule and authority superseded the male perspective and involvement in politics. It was a time when faith communities, along with army and security personnel, the governing community, and the business community, were not allowed to vote because they had influence beyond their station and remit; whereas the common person was allowed to vote precisely because they lacked pre-existing power.
The balance between those with power, and those without, which differentiatial voting rights established, was founded upon certain realities.
Might we able to re-establish this ethos today? And if so, what would it take? Can past practices have currency and be meaningful in today’s climate? Certainly, a sense of representation, having a voice with which to champion a cause, and being able to protect and promote one’s personal concerns seem key to communal well-being.
Frequently we hear and learn about unresolved issues and complaints, where the mechanisms devised to protect the common woman – rather than the common man – are found wanting or are themselves ill-intentioned.
A country’s constitution should foremost protect, enhance, and prescribe (without prohibitions) the ongoing concerns of women – be they young females or fully matured pensioners.
“Thou shalt not…” should not, and in a mature Tangible Common Constitution would not, limit or cast females to subordinate roles. Without a woman no man can be born and subsequently find meditational peace. Therefore, any set of governing rules must not conflict with the essence of female sensibilities. Indeed, the rules that govern ought to be anchored to, and guided by, female sensibilities.
Let me elaborate.
Women are far more inclined to react to situations with circumspection. This is a trait and a modality of behaviour that could have far-reaching and positive implications for everything from earth-rape activities to inter-group warfare.
Circumspection encases degree of movement and action that are tri-directional – one may push forward, retreat, or hold one’s position. These options are not zero-sum, they can be modified, changed and enacted in ways that do not offend one’s opponent.
Circumspection – careful, thoughtful, considered behaviour – renders inane the male perspective that every action has one, normatively aggressive, possible reaction. Insult and injury thus become sources of reflection rather than inciting immediate reactive action. Furthermore, female circumspection-based political power dovetails neatly with other forms of power, notably economic and social.
Another redeeming feature of womanhood is that of not pigeon-holing each and every thought and idea. In this, women have similarities with some non-western states.
Consider how, in the West, for example a penchant for classifying things leads to the development of categories, typologies, and formal structures that define some activities as corrupt (which needs to be stamped out); meanwhile formalizing a system that by these rules ought to be considered corrupt but which instead allows people to engage in legally corrupt activities, as for example, when they set off expenses against tax liabilities.
In other countries, where labeling and pigeon-holing is not a national pastime, and where activities are evaluated in terms of complex social contexts and relationships, corruption is a largely foreign concept. But these countries of honest barter and exchange are deemed by the classification-loving countries to be corrupt, while their own deceitful cunning masquerades as honest brokerage.
The same distinction can be applied to male and female power. The former is aggressive, evasive, classificatory, imposing value judgments on others while assuming superiority for itself. The latter has an affinity with social realities and relationships, and is focused on maintaining these while pursuing balance and accord, transparency and accountability.
Male power negates female power by overpowering it with shoddy unkemptness and bully-governing, where rules are made up as one goes along to maximize benefits to one’s self and one’s own power. Sure, a woman might make it to a governing council seat within a male power framework – may be ‘allowed’ to sit at the table of power – but she does so as window-dressing, and is consistently talked down, her voice drowned out, subjected to mansplaining. Because, male power is no more than a school-boys adventure club, its rules and practices conjured up on platforms high up in secret tree-houses.
Male power discards the fact that female governance is satisfying, fulfilling, elegant even; to do otherwise would be to accept that they (men) by comparison are valuable primarily as beasts of burden, and as the brawn to the female brains of warfare. In the current configuration, male power in analogous to a military coup-let government whose power has been secured without the formal vote. Femalehood, in this analogy, corresponds to the population ruled by threat of death at the hands of the armed man.
So, how to achieve natural high-grade female governance?
A Tangible Common Constitution
Its features would follow the female power ideal, in which the disenfranchised are incorporated as functioning and valuable members of society, their invigorated self-esteem renewing family and extended-family relationships in positive ways, their self-worth inspiring a happy and balanced sociality that extends beyond the personal and communal to the national and international. Concomitantly, characteristics of male power and governance subside, such as the merciless pressure to always compete and win, to be a relentless social climber, to pursue thinly veiled dictatorship as a panacea to crippling lack of self-esteem.
Governance and social structure in this mould would render the ego of male power subservient to the sociality of female power. Power would not be attained through first-past-the post or proportional representation electoral systems. Power would reside instead with the social group whose duty it is to govern – those who, importantly, regard it as a duty rather than a right. Similarly, the army would comprise the social group that coheres around the ideal of social protection, the business community would comprise that group which most closely aligns with the traits and ideals of that role, and so on and so forth.
Yet, the boundaries would be porous; individuals whose talents lie in particular directions would be able to follow the corresponding occupation. Overall governance would rest with female leaders, selected-elected by the population; and neither the military nor the business or other occupations and social roles would intervene but would function instead within and according to their own respective remits and talents.
On one hand, the Tangible Common Constitution negates the concept of majority rule; on the other, it safeguards the concept of a society that functions without fear of victimisation or marginalisation.
Is this not more redeeming than the current system in which the ‘free world’ has been overrun by idiots and buffoons for the past thirty years? Britain had a common-garden con-artist, liar, and murderer in Tony Blair, who hung on to the coat-tails of the U.S president, George W Bush, as they committed mass murder of innocent people instead of simply taking to task individual regime leaders.
I feel deeply appalled and disgusted that in my name innocent lives were taken in order to satisfy the bloodlust of two egotistical men who would hide under the table or indeed in the toilet if a bar-room brawl broke out. The truth is that these two sub-five inchers are not street fighters, yet they engaged in a proxy street fight using other women’s sons and daughters as their military.
Some of you may point to British prime minister Mrs. Margaret Thatcher as either an example of, or indictment against, female power. The thing with Mrs.Thatcher is that she was competing in a mans world, and she had to have bigger balls than the men around her in order to attain power and be seen by the population as legitimately doing so. But what does it means to have balls, other than being prepared to be more heinous than the next guy. She is the exact opposite of the model and pathway of the Tangible Common Constitution I have described. She remains in my memory “Mrs. Thatcher, milk snatcher”, having stopped the daily distribution of milk to schoolchildren in the U.K. (made mandatory after the European war of 1939-45). Milk was a vital part of the diet. In stealing it, and thereby saving mere pennies on behalf of her beloved conservative government, Mrs. Thatcher showed she had balls. Her policy set in motion the removal of free school dinners by subsequent governments.
An entire social edifice brought down as the result of one person proving they had bigger balls than another person. Maybe an economist out there can tell me precisely what wealth was created, or has been enhanced, by stealing milk and food from the U.K’s schoolchildren, and thereby forcing them to consume cheap junk food, that causes health problems, which ends up burdening the NHS, impeding quality of life, contributing to sick days, leading to the development of mental health problems that compound the physical ones, systemically eroding any sense of self-worth and social value of a young growing child might have had?
Echoing the way that breast feeding is not frowned upon, but is seen as a natural rather than a sexual act in many countries outside Europe, a Tangible Common Constitution would redefine human dignity along the lines of femalehood and remove the spectre of malehood’s mindlessness in the process.
Is any of this possible?
Yes, in small stages.
Will I see it happen?
In one of the States in India.
Upon meeting me, people get confused about my blog-image and my chic dress style. Initial conversation revolves around the question of how I support devoutly spiritual atheism, whilst simultaneously championing a non-believer’s mindscape in defence of the irrational secular confusion about religious freedom. Then, people are confounded by my ability to be indiscriminately superstitious while also a staunch supporter of rites, rituals and practices observed by the ardently faithful; yet they find me strenuously defensive of interpersonal affection, sex, sexual interplay, sensuality and the worthlessness of humankind’s greed mindscape.
To me it all makes sense. However, to my inquisitors it all seems complicated, contradictory, and confusing. They cannot comprehend how I can admire beauty in a woman without the admiration progressing to another level. Feminine sexual allure does not trigger sexual intrigue or desire in those of my background. The panorama of female allure is pleasing, but at the horizon it remains. Males or females from my layer of occupation are not aroused by sexual allure, and secular inquisitors cannot comprehend this. And the phenomenon can’t be explained in words. The layer we operate from is only understood once the secular Being has transited from the lower layers and advanced into our mindscape-layer. However, once again, all of this is meaningless nonsense unless I can make sense of it for the ordinarywallahs.
The secular world is divided into segments of good ‘uns and bad ‘uns (GUBU) to coin a phrase. GUBU is a reality in every lifestyle, occupation, tradition, belief system, and bonding ethos of the animal world. Take, for example, capitalist theory and idealism: a system operating at the superficial level, based on personal greed, adulation of wealth, and accumulation of material things. The top-dogs are those who have amassed more of everything than they know what to do with. The dogs at the bottom look up to them and ‘pray’, seeking supernatural intervention or a mystical mantra that will allow them to emulate the top-dog. Yet, they both fail to appreciate the reality of the controlling symmetry.
The symmetry in this case is a pyramid. This pyramid is based on inner bio-chemical gates, whose optimal functioning and timing decides how and when and to what degree materialism is accumulated. The gates at the higher end of the pyramid function to ensure greater accumulation, whereas the poor sods underpinning the pyramid have a bio-chemistry where the gates operate haphazardly. The reality is that the top-dogs could never function as the bottom dogs. If the mechanism that holds the essence of this pyramid was reversed then the entire pyramid would cease to function, hemorrhaging via social upheaval and anarchy until another pyramid was established.
The GUBU pyramids are pyramids within an overview-pyramid. This overview-pyramid is sustained by individual psyches. Each individual psyche contains countless strands of individual consciousness. Each consciousness is itself a container of at least one thousand and twenty two individual entities. Each unit entity is ambiguously called the Soul or Antrakarna and, inaccurately sometimes, Atman.
Expanding further, the multiples of individual psyche evolve and develop in the overview-pyramid, starting at the base and moving upwards. The overview-pyramid is itself in a containment field, where multitudes of overview-pyramids exist. Thus, each overview-pyramid is segmented into smaller autonomous pyramids. It is quite reasonable to maintain, for explanation purposes, that the individual psyche enters and creates the lower layers of a given overview-pyramid. Once there it has to amend, change, adapt and recognise the new rules, regime and the ethos of the containment field whereby the two create a new world environment. The combination of the two now becomes the new psyche. Thus, as a one body-movement it can advance further up the mega-pyramid scale. A mega-pyramid contains countless collections of overview-pyramids. The containment field of this environment is the initial ‘creation’ upon or within which the catalyst entity triggers the manual physical presence of creation. Along with the ‘birth’ of the containment field, this junction also witnesses the ‘birth’ of cosmic light and the cosmic sound. The universe as you look up at the ‘dark sky’ of nighttime is in fact pure light. This light pervades everything, right deep down into the core of everything. It is the pulse of this light that is heard as the cosmic sound. The combination of the two ‘create’ creation as humankind see it.
Trial and error are the best teachers in this situation. The individual psyche has to move as one unit taking each component entity in the direction that best suits the end-game determined by each psyche. And each microscopic component entity has to play its part in the scheme of things. Each entity is ignorant of the bigger picture which is only visible to the psyche itself. But each entity has to do its best to assist, advance and aid the progression of the psyche it is contained within. The only way for that to happen is if each entity goes through its own trial and error, in order to advance and progress the collective benefits of the whole. This awareness only comes with experience and knowledge. A pool of collected knowledge is termed wisdom. Wisdom used for humanitarian purposes is ‘Age’.
Age as someone has said is not a number. They are correct. Age is experience. And when that experience is channeled for the benefit of others rather than the self, that experience is termed knowledge. To be prissy about it, it is not knowledge. It’s just information. A PhD is information-based reality only. It is not knowledge-based reality as anthropologists are only too aware off. Knowledge is several layers higher up the scale. But at times, I too fall victim to generalisation of terms…sorry.
Nevertheless, the gathering of this experience-information takes time.
Now let me make sense of this in a race-European mindscape. For example, your best teachers are your children – from when they are born until you are ready to die. They teach us humbleness. None of us would eat humble pie at the behest of another human-being as readily as we do when we have to back down in confrontations with our own children. At times, even when we know from our own experience-information that the child is making a mistake we accommodate our child’s wish. This humbleness is the social glue that holds social and societal structure intact.
Older and wiser civilisations never allowed young, bright, wet behind the ears, enthusiastic sparks, to head off on their own volition. The youth was always ‘guided’ and advised to err on the side of caution. Impetuousness was anathema and older mature voices reasoned against it.
The misery we see today, however, is of western governments run by wet-behind-the-ears kids who are themselves not in long-term personal relationships and don’t have grown-up children or grandchildren, and yet are foaming at the mouth to tell us how, why, and what to do with our own lives.
This is why the European pyramid is dysfunctional and fast leading the rest of humanity to fragment this planet, or extinguishing her protective atmospheric blanket or far more sinister, whereby all animals will become cyber-borgs.
This type of mismanagement leads to one war after another. It is based entirely on unrefined, uncontrollable and uncontainable sexual aggressive energy where the bio-system function has not yet ‘matured’ into rational reason.
Politicians should only be handed the highest office once they have lived the full gambit of secular life. However, history of the European mindscape indicates that that is not the case.
The European mindscape is a prime example of an individual race-psyche functioning out of sync with the nature of the overview-pyramid. Now do you understand how one race-psyche, in this case the European, with close to a billion individual animal entities termed ‘humans’, is steeped in seeking satisfaction from wholesale blood-letting and destruction of anything that gets in its way?
Race-European has annihilated races in north and south America, Australia, New Zealand and Tasmania to mention a few places. If it wants to be remembered and admired as India is, then it must emulate India when that was the global leader. The majority of land areas of Europe are named after Indian governance of this land mass. Upon her peaceful withdrawal it left behind affection and admiration of her spiritual ethos. Buddhaji was the universal figure of worship in Europe. Physically and consciously none can recall this reality let alone the mastery of this galaxy using technology secreted away in Indian scriptures. This technology allowed our ancestors to travel to the nearest ‘star’ in minutes. Travel into the middle of the galaxy was a normal taken-for-granted reality. But it all changed. The psyche governing that episode changed. A new psyche replaced it. But the new psyche still carries within its own memory banks the previous psyches’ existence and efforts. The template still remains.
Race-European has a choice. I do not want the fragmentation of this planet. Nor do I want an accelerated fry-up by depletion of the planet’s atmospheric blanket. And I certainly do not want to have humans and animals to have electro-mechanical body parts as if we are machines. If race-European does not stop its current headstrong stupidity then our seniors will step in to extinguish race-Europeans totally. And that would be sad and a step backwards. No, race-European has to take responsibility and amend the evil it has practiced, by open-heartedly giving back the lands mentioned above, that are under its illegal and unlawful occupation, to the races who were there before its arrival. This one act of humbleness will stop the relentless rape of the planet’s depleting mineral resources. It is the deep earth excavation of her mineral resources that will fragment this planet into non-existence. Yet if race-European hands governance back to the indigenous dwellers of those occupied lands and then sets up a global body to re-draw the map of Africa reflecting her true identity, then that will stop the exploitation of that land and her people by the Chinese. Race-European can either take a mature global lead or remain blood-thirsty, lacking confidence as a human race in fear that it will lose itself if it matures into a fully fledged member of the human race.
It is amusing when an individual entity terms itself a complete psyche during conversation with me; it does not recognise that it is part of a psyche trying to align itself into the new environment of the new pyramid it has entered. It is like an immigrant trying to settle into a new country learning the new ethos. It takes time. Time is experience, where gathering of information is based on a collective set of experiences. The combination of the two is called Age.
Age, truly, is not a number; however, it is not too far from it either. In human terms Age donates a number per se. Thus, in that context Age is a number. And all government authority should have a cut-off line, an age below which an individual cannot and should not be allowed into position of authority, at any cost.
A bright and brilliant mind lacking personal growth, attained via child rearing, will simply not do – a grandparent is the minimum requirement for an active politician.
Age, in that case, is redefined as experience based on collection of information. | <urn:uuid:2501bf77-bb3a-475b-bdcd-74d598b04176> | https://theavtar.wordpress.com/tag/politics/ | en | 0.956845 | 0.096218 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
On International Mother Language Day
Today is International Mother Language Day. Established by UNESCO in 1999, and formally recognised by the UN General Assembly in 2008, International Mother Tongue Language Day functions to promote awareness of linguistic and cultural diversity and multilingualism. For UNESCO, such awareness positively contributes to global citizenship, enabling our learners to play an active role in both local and global arenas to address global challenges and, ultimately, contribute proactively in creating a more just, peaceful, tolerant, inclusive, secure and sustainable world.
If nothing less, today should be a reminder about the importance of mother tongue or mother languages. It might be a trite thing to say but for our learners, regardless as to whether they are in an international school or a national school, language is important. It is the means by which our learners express themselves. A learner in Grade 1 has the same experience with language as a learner in Grade 10; language structures their thoughts and identities.
Facilitating a learning environment that supports, or incorporates, a learner’s mother tongue is complicated. It can be ‘messy’ but there are benefits:
• There is an emphasis on the quality of teaching and learning with a focus on understanding and creativity. The teacher has to ensure that what is going on in the classroom will promote understanding (of whatever content or concepts are being taught).
• There is a reinforcement of the cognitive aspect of learning because facilitating a learning environment that supports a learner’s mother tongue ensures the direct application of learning outcomes to the learner’s life through the mother tongue. There is an authentic understanding that takes place about whatever it is that is being taught.
• An enhanced dialogue and interaction between learner and teacher is allowed to take place. Promoting a “mother tongue friendly” environment from the very first day of classes allows genuine communication from the beginning. The learner sees the teacher as taking an interest in their cultural heritage and the teacher has a better capacity for reaching the student.
• It facilitates participation and action in society and gives access to new knowledge and cultural expressions, thus ensuring a harmonious interaction between the global and the local.
Image result for mandela language quote
Mandela’s quote on language and the difference between understanding and meaning is an appropriate endpoint to this (very) brief exposition on mother tongue and International Mother Language Day. Celebrating the diversity in language heritages in one’s classroom or school may contribute to creating an environment whereby learning takes place, opportunities for communication and interaction exist, and global-mindedness is fostered. These are good things. I want to posit that ensuring that the diversity in languages in one’s classroom or school is meshed into pedagogical practice might well take things further. Rather than just going through the motions of learning and interacting in different contexts, hearing what one is to learn in one’s own language (even if it is just key concepts) could encourage a sense of ownership of the learning process. As we seek greater degrees of global citizenship and international-mindedness, having individual learners take on the ownership of the processes that seeks to promote these concepts cannot be a bad thing.
If you are interested, you can find out more about this year’s International Mother Tongue Language Day here.
Dangerous worldviews
| <urn:uuid:c0f88c74-01ae-4d47-a258-b262d70d7dd7> | https://timscott674.edublogs.org/tag/interlingual-learners/ | en | 0.92722 | 0.084666 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
10x21 - Local She-ro
Miss Jacobson: Okay, everyone. Just a reminder, your reports on a place that inspired you are due next week.
Ugh. I forgot about that.
I heard Tina say she forgot about that.
Has anyone not forgotten?
I'm doing mine on the frozen foods aisle at the grocery store.
It's got the shiniest floors, perfect for dancing and sliding.
I like it when you slide on your knees at the frozen peas.
Miss Jacobson, I'm doing my report on New York City, because New York is my inspiration, it is my playground, it is my everything, ever since I went there for the first time last weekend.
Great choice, Tammy.
Does anyone else have any ideas about...
Yeah, so the first thing that you notice about New York City is the energy. It is raw.
And there are no public restrooms you can use, so you just hold it all the time, but you don't care, because it's just, like, mmm, it's New York.
Hey, did you see that statue of the bull with his grapefruits showing? That's bucket list stuff.
I did, and they were, and it was.
All the good stuff is in New York. All of it.
And everywhere else is stupid.
What about here? We have good stuff.
( laughs ) Tina, you only think this town has good stuff because you've never been to New York.
( school bell rings )
Okay, thank you, Tammy.
There's more school now, so go do that.
Okay, but just so you know, in New York, they'd actually say, "Ey, get outta here!"
Wow. Was that Italian?
Uh, yeah.
So, how was everyone's day?
Well, I pulled a clump of hair off of the hair brush today that looked like a hamster.
Aw, the whole family made that hair hamster.
Tina, could you pass the salt? Tina?
Tina? Sweetie?
Huh. Nothing.
Linda: Wherever she is, she's in deep.
♪ New York, New York ♪
♪ New York, New York ♪
( mouth full ): ♪ New York, New York ♪
♪ New York, New York ♪
I started too high. Going lower.
♪ New York, New York. ♪
( humming )
Okay, someone stick a bean up her nose.
Fine, I'll do it.
Tina, you okay?
Miss Jacobson wants us to do a report on a place that inspires us, and Tammy is doing New York.
Hey, do you think we can go to New York?
New York City? Probably not.
I mean, it's expensive, and we don't have money.
But what if all the good stuff here is just lame stuff, and New York Tina's way cooler than non-New York Tina, but I'll never meet her 'cause I'll never get to visit.
Whoa, whoa, whoa! Our good stuff isn't lame stuff.
It's good stuff.
Pretty good stuff...
Louise: Mmm...
You're all nuts. We got so much good stuff, they should call this place Goodstuffsburg.
Instead of Badstinksburg?
They don't really call us that. Anymore.
Yeah, not since they closed the dog food factory.
I miss it.
Me, too, I was gonna grow up to be a dog food-makin' man.
Anyway, our town's great. Right, Tina? Right?
( quietly mumbling ): ♪ New York, New York ♪
♪ New York, New York ♪
Tina? Tina?
♪ New York, New York. ♪
Oh, forget about it.
( Linda grunting )
Linda? Are you upset?
Is it because I have the good pillow?
It is my turn to have it.
No, it's Tina.
I'm worried she doesn't appreciate this town.
I think it's okay for Tina to dream about New York.
Don't a lot of people?
You don't get it, Bob.
When I was Tina's age, all I ever thought about was moving to the big city. I wanted to be Madonna.
Madonna was in New York.
So I wanted to be there, too.
I couldn't appreciate where I lived.
I wanted to desperately seek Susan in New York, but I missed out on all the Susans right in front of me.
If we don't get through to Tina, she's gonna miss out on what's right in front of her, just like I did.
Lin, I-I wouldn't worry too much about it.
Tina's just thinking about this stuff because her class is doing a report and it came up.
( gasps ) That's it! The report.
Wait-wait-wait, what are you doing? Aah!
Tina... sweetie.
Tina, wake up.
Guess what. I got a topic for your report.
A place that inspired you.
Really? What?
Our town.
Um... did it, though? Inspire me?
Sure. And if it didn't yet, it will.
Tomorrow I'll take you around and show you what this place has to offer.
So what do you say?
Uh, okay. I guess.
Yay, I knew you'd love it.
Oh, I'm so excited.
Wait, should we go right now?
No, we can't go right now, no, go to sleep, go to sleep.
You sure you guys don't want to come?
What do you say? Fun walking tour of the town?
None of those words make sense.
Yeah, walking is for psychos.
Fine. Bye.
Drop my name if it helps. It should at Radio Shack.
In a lot of cities, the whole thing's on a grid.
Here, the streets make no sense.
You got to get around on instinct.
Instinct and smells.
"West Thirty Halfth Street."
Great, right? Let's keep moving.
Look, there's the mayor.
Oh, yeah.
Isn't he great? The mayor.
Oh, wait, now he's peeing in a bush.
That's not the mayor. Oh, oh, now he's waving hi.
Hi. Let's go, walk fast.
See? Nice park, huh?
See the pigeons?
Put that in your essay, right?
No, I mean, write it down.
I'll remember.
Write it.
Okay, um... pigeons.
( entry bell jingles )
Bob, I got a problem.
It's big. And only you can solve it.
That's what I say to the toilet every morning.
You know how I always call into the Dom Lippo radio show?
Dom Lippo, the sports guy?
Yeah, he talks about hockey, and I have very strong opinions about minor league professional hockey. As we all do.
Oh, yeah, just try to shut this family up about minor league hockey.
I figured. Anyway, yesterday Lippo was talking about a goalie who got traded from the Bog Harbor Bog Dogs.
Any Bog Dog fans in the house? Woof-woof-woof-woof!
Teddy, Teddy, Teddy, just tell the story.
Uh, right. Anyway, Lippo thinks it's a good trade, I called in to say it's a bad trade, and we got in a fight, and Lippo banned me from his show.
You got banned for fighting about a sport where the best part is the fighting?
I mean, the call did get, you know, a little bit spicy.
Oh, all my predictions are wrong?!
Everything that comes out of your mouth is crazy!
Who did you call an idiot?
What do you want me to do about it?
I want you to call into the show and finish making my argument.
Mmm, no.
But I did more research. I know what to say now.
And if I win the argument, he'll have to unban me.
You can't ban someone for being right. Right?
Do it, Dad. Say yes to the dress.
Uh, I'm gonna say no to the dress.
Uh, I know this sounds crazy, but we are working, in our restaurant.
Working? ( chuckling ): Dad, a minute ago, you were trying to see how many spoons you could fit in your apron pocket.
Because I didn't know how many I could.
Right. 12.
Pretty good. Listen, if you help me, I'll do a job for free.
I'll fix the lock on your bathroom door.
The one that doesn't lock.
You mean the one that keeps things interesting?
( sighs ) Fine. I mean, this won't take long, will it?
Not at all. We could call right away.
Okay, good.
And while we're on hold for 45 minutes, I can teach you everything you need to know about hockey.
Buckle up, Bog Dog fans. Woof-woof-woof...
Oh, my God.
Okay, one last stop.
This is, like, the third-best flea market in the whole county.
You remember that bedazzled shoehorn I brought home?
Oh, yeah. It hurts to use it.
Well, I bought it here.
Great. This has been really inspiring, but I was thinking maybe I do Cleveland for my report.
Land of Cleves?
I haven't been there, but I saw a commercial about it once.
What? No. Oh, hey, the CD seller guy has a section for local music. Let's look.
Chumbawamba? They're from here?
Wow? Is this where they got knocked down and then got up again?
Oh. Sorry, that's in the wrong section.
But, uh, but you hear the CD that I'm playing right now?
That's local. Sorta.
Ooh, she's good. Who is it?
Dove Shannon. She put this album out back in the '70s.
So the singer, she's from here?
She's like our Madonna.
She's not exactly from here.
She made her name in Greenwich Village, then she moved here.
She moved from a small village?
Greenwich Village? It's in New York City.
Oh. Oh.
Is she still living here?
I don't know. I don't even know if she's alive.
If she is alive, I say we go find her.
You do?
She left New York to live here.
'Cause she knows our town's the best.
And if we find her, then you've got your report.
Plus the pigeon stuff.
I do wonder why she'd leave New York.
Okay. Let's do it.
Really? Yay!
Your first time on hold with the Dom Lippo Show.
Don't be nervous.
I'm not nervous, Teddy.
Be a little nervous.
Well, he is sweating.
But he does that constantly.
Remember, first you introduce yourself, but you keep it short.
Oh, uh, we should get you a nickname.
A lot of the callers have nicknames.
A nickname?
Yeah, yeah, you need it so he remembers you.
Mine's Ice Ice Teddy. Get it? Like hockey ice.
Uh, I-I don't need a nickname.
Ooh, how about the Pucky Ducky?
And you can say, ( duck voice ): "Quack, quack, Pucky Ducky calling."
That's great. You got to use that, Bob.
You'd be a damn fool not to.
Do you want to practice it real quick?
( duck voice ): Quack!
Say it with me.
Louise, I don't want to...
Say it with her, Bobby, come on, try it once.
Come on!
He's gonna screw it up.
Well, thanks, anyway. Okay, bye.
So the operator didn't have a listing for Dove Shannon.
That's why I said the "S" word just now.
Got it. It's funny how hair grew all the way to people's butt cracks back then.
Yeah. And I like how she's not wearing shoes.
Like a beautiful Fred Flintstone.
What do you think she looks like today?
Well, I bet she got herself some shoes.
So we're looking for a woman with shoes.
( gasps ) There she is! Oh, no. That's a guy.
And he's wearing sandals.
Huh. I recognize this place. I know where it is.
Should we go? See if we can talk to someone?
Is it a long walk?
Maybe, but we could take a cab.
That's cute. That doesn't work here.
But I'll call the cab, and when it shows up, you can pretend you hailed it. Sound good?
Thanks, Mom.
No sweat.
Her song titles are fun: "Corduroy Clouds," "Tapioca Groovin'," "Feminine Denim Man," "Snuggler's Cove."
Ooh, nautical and erotical.
This is the place.
Oh, we're here.
Do you mind waiting? Keep the meter running.
I mean, yeah. I will. That's how cabs work.
Okay. Aren't you a fun, sassy cab driver?
They don't have those in New York, Tina.
Welcome to Treasures o' the Tide.
Hi. Nice shop you got here.
It's, uh... it's a shop. It's a shop?
It is.
What do you sell?
Oh, this and that.
Mostly items I pick up at low tide and turn into art.
Like this driftwood snake. And this driftwood eel.
And this pretty little so-and-so.
A driftwood worm.
I like that eel.
Well, that, that is the snake.
Sorry to bother you, but, uh, we were wondering, does the name Dove Shannon mean anything to you?
Uh, yeah. I knew her. She passed away.
Oh, no.
Yep. So, you want to buy an eel?
I thought you said it was a snake.
Oh, wait, you're right. ( chuckles ) Crap.
I can't believe Dove died.
Well, believe it. She's dead. That's a snake.
And you want to buy this driftwood.
( woman vocalizing )
Wait a minute. That voice. Was that Dove?
No, no-no-no-no-no.
That's just a, a weird old lady with a great voice.
Yeah, they're everywhere. ( chuckles )
Uh, we got to follow her. Come on, back in the cab.
Uh-uh, don't, don't follow her.
Uh, follow me. I-Into the store. Yeah.
For outrageous bargains on collectible sea art.
Yeah, Mom, maybe we shouldn't follow her.
Get in! Get in! We're doing this.
Follow her. Catch that Dove!
Cab Driver: So you want me to ignore the sign?
Tina: "Private road, no trespassing."
( groans )
Uh, but, uh, we're doing a report.
If it has to do with school, it's totally cool and we can't get arrested.
Right, Mr. Cab Driver?
Sounds right.
Tina: Driver, turn around. I, uh, I want to buy that driftwood.
Linda: Uh-uh, Tina.
I want driftwood, damn it!
Linda: No, no, no, no. Speed up, speed up!
Linda: Ooh, it's those funky floaty home things.
You mean houseboats?
Yeah. Floaty homes.
( gasps ) There she is.
How do we know it's her?
Dove, watch out, a bear!
That's her. Stop here!
Excuse me. Uh, Dove Shannon?
Who are you?
I'm Linda, and this is Tina. Ti-Tina, where are you?
She's hiding behind me 'cause she's shy.
Oh, hey.
She's doing a thing for school.
How'd you track me down?
We got lucky.
You know the shopkeeper down the road told us you were dead?
Well, we look out for each other here.
If an outsider comes looking for someone, we tell them they're dead.
Such a fun rule.
Wait, where you going?
I'd stay and chat, but if I liked chatting, I probably wouldn't live in a reclusive houseboat community.
Oh, yeah.
Shopkeeper: Everything okay, Dove?
( both shout )
Tina: Oh, it's the shopkeeper guy.
The shopkeeper? Nah, he's dead.
No, he's not, he's... Oh, you're doing the dead thing.
( laughs ): Oh, I like it.
Look, I'm dead, too. ( wails )
It's very simple. While it's true that Wiesnewski's drug suspensions aren't nothing, his goals against are up there with the best.
Now say that back to me, Bob.
Okay, all right. Winzinski...
Wiesnewski. You got to say the guy's name right.
Dom Lippo: All right, Pucky Ducky's on the air.
What's your question, Ducky?
Oh, God, you're on.
( whispering ): Quack, quack.
( duck voice ): Quack, quack.
It's the Pucky Ducky.
Do it better.
All right, take your shot, Ducky. Quack at me.
Uh, so, um, Wi... uh, Wiznerski is... uh... the drug suspensions, or... ?
He's nailing it.
You want to talk about the Bog Dog trade.
Uh, I-I, I want to talk about the Bog Dog trade.
We traded Derek Wiesnewski...
Uh, we traded Derek, uh, Wiesnewski... who was a solid goalie.
Who was a solid... Teddy, your tongue keeps touching my ear.
Uh, hey, Pucky Ducky, uh, who do I hear in the background over there?
Uh, what? Uh, no... Uh, nobody, just me.
Ice Ice Teddy? Is that you?
No. I-I wish.
Ice Ice, are you using Pucky Ducky to make your terrible argument?
That's it. You're double-banned.
What?! Double-banned?! Gah! Lippo!
You're in the penalty box, pal. Forever!
No! I'm in the truth box!
Next caller. Zam-Tony, go ahead.
( shouts ) Lippo.
Teddy, let us take a shot.
Who's "us"?
Gene and myself, the professionals.
We can talk the dingle off a berry.
Kids, no.
Please? I have an idea.
You do?
I mean, I will, if it means I get to yell on the radio.
The show must be almost over anyway.
No, it's six hours long.
Six hours?
I know. It's not enough time.
She'll come out again.
Ooh, ooh, we could yell "tsunami" or something.
We tried that already.
Oh, right, right.
Mom, please, can we go?
The perfect end to a perfect day?
What about your report?
I mean, I should go write it?
Yeah. About the super inspiring place that we both decided was this town.
We got to talk to her and find out why she chose to live here instead of New York.
Wait, wait. What if we, uh, go around the fence?
I don't think that's how fences work.
No, no. We can do it.
We just, uh, jump from that rock to that concrete sticky-outie thing to that other concrete sticky-outie thing and bing, bang, boom.
Um, I don't know...
Come on, Tina!
Okay, you have crazy eyes, but that's all right.
Let's go jump over to that rock.
Great. I'll go first.
Jumping to that rock.
( grunts ) Damn it.
We're halfway there, is something we can say soon-ish.
Oh. You think those seagulls could support our weight?
No. Maybe that one.
I think I can make it to the next concrete thing.
Nope. Nope, you can't.
Yeah, yeah, I think I can do it.
Mom, what are you doing? Stop!
I'm a frog, I'm a frog!
Did I make it? I kept my eyes closed.
Oh, God. Did you know water could smell bad?
Swim back towards me.
I can't move my feet. I'm stuck.
I'm in, like, two feet of mud.
Oh, oh. Use me as another concrete pillar.
Jump on me and then to the dock. Come on, Tina.
Mom, you've gone crazy!
Jump off my face!
Mom, I'm not gonna jump on your face.
You're not my daughter!
Sorry, sorry. Okay, this is nuts.
I went a little cuckoo. Do Cleveland for your report.
I hear they have good pizza bagels.
And call the Coast Guard and see if they can find my shoe.
Hi, persistent stalkers. How's it going out there?
Oh, hi, Dove.
Uh, really good. Just soaking part of my body.
You know, getting my soaks in. You know how it is.
Also, I'm stuck and I might drown when the tide comes in.
But no big deal. Ooh! I think a fish bit my butt.
( groans ): Oh, God.
I think I might have gotten some mud in your boat.
She's usually not this muddy. Or this trespassy.
Yeah, sorry. I just really wanted my daughter to meet you.
She wanted me to jump on her face.
( sighs ) Follow me.
I'll hose off your mother.
And maybe I got something she can wear.
Terry cloth. I love it.
It's a pantsuit, it's a towel, it's both.
I've used it for both.
So, uh, you did this for school?
She's doing a report on a place that inspired her, and I wanted her to be inspired by this town, but she hates it 'cause it's not New York.
It seems like you could have done that without going in the water outside my houseboat.
It does, doesn't it?
But you chose to live here instead of New York.
You could've lived anywhere.
You were a superstar singer-songsinger.
And New York.
It's the newest York. Why would you leave?
You know that picture of me on the record?
In front of Stan's place?
Treasures o' the Tide?
Mm. That's from my first tour.
We stopped here and I fell in love with the place.
I loved the people and the nature.
The drugs. Not in that order.
If it were going in order, it would be drugs, people, nature.
N-No, wait.
People, drugs... This is hard.
Okay, uh, great.
See, Tina? She loves it here.
Do you guys want something to drink?
Tea? Or you could go?
I'd love some chardonnay.
( groans )
Bob: This is a bad idea, kids.
What-what are you - even gonna say?
Dom Lippo: All right, we got Sports Twins on the line.
We're on. Shh. Hi, Mr. Lippo.
This is Gene and Louise, um, Sports, calling about our friend Teddy.
First name Ice Ice.
All right. Goodbye.
No. We're worried about him.
He hasn't been the same since... since his divorce.
It broke him like a cheap egg.
Could you help, please, mister?
Oh. Oh, my God.
They're doing a Sleepless in Seattle.
They're gonna make your life sound really sad on the radio to try and help you.
That's brilliant.
He's pretty pathetic, to tell you the truth.
Uh, really? What are we talking about here?
Uh, well...
Tell him about my security sock.
It's my ex-wife's sock. I sleep with it on my hand.
Oh, Teddy.
I heard him say that. Yeah, that's, that's really sad.
Give me more?
Tell him that I go to church 'cause they hold hands during the Our Father and it's the only physical contact I get all week.
Oh, yeesh.
So you understand the situation here.
Well, he's a pain in the butt, but, uh, maybe this explains some things.
All right, Ice Ice Teddy, it's your lucky day.
You're hereby unbanned from the show, all right?
There. You happy?
Yes! Thank you!
Throw away that sock. Next caller.
And that is how you do that.
That was kind of impressive. And so, so sad.
Teddy, do you want a burger?
In a bit.
I'll just get started fixing that bathroom door lock.
Hey. Don't worry about that.
You know what else? The burger's on the house.
I just feel like giving you stuff.
Oof. The church thing.
Wow. Thanks, Bob.
Enjoy that pity lunch, Teddy.
Say something else sad and maybe he'll throw in fries.
What do you know? I found you some chardonnay.
Oh, it's warm. I like that.
Hey, Tina?
Sorry I got a little crazy, honey.
It's just, when I was your age, I didn't appreciate where I lived.
I wanted to leave the whole time I was there.
You did?
I just wish someone had told teenage me, instead of always thinking about being somewhere else, don't forget to be where you are right now.
Ooh. Almost sunset.
Ow. Ow. Ow.
Bring your guitars if you got 'em.
Just me?
( guitar plays )
Linda: What a view.
Tina: Wow.
Hey, you bums.
Hey, Dove. You're not gonna...
( vocalizing )
Oh, okay, you are.
♪ La, la, la, la ♪
♪ Feminine denim man ♪
♪ He's a slender and tender man ♪
♪ A leathers and feathers man... ♪
Oh, my.
I'm-I'm glad you went crazy today, Mom.
This is kind of a great town.
It is.
Tina: There's the wharf, the houseboat people. They're fun.
There's that garbage barge over there.
Yeah, stinky garbage barge.
Taking away all our little mistakes.
By the way, I can't wait until you see New York.
Yeah. It's great.
Right, Dove?
I'm singing.
Sorry, sorry.
♪ Tapioca groovin' ♪
♪ My pudding started movin' ♪
♪ La, la, la, la, la, la ♪
♪ Tapioca groovin'. ♪
So, you feeling it?
That lady lives here.
Zeke: Hell yeah!
Sorry, Tina, I'm confused. Your report is... a folk song about pudding?
That's pudding it mildly. ( laughs softly )
And did you not write anything?
Nope. Just the CD.
Okay. I might need to let it sink in.
Thank you, Tina.
Next up, Tammy Larson and her visual aide Jocelyn.
If Tina's report made you tired, get ready to be inspired.
New York, baby. Stand behind me please, Jocelyn.
No, behind me.
Stop trying to hog attention.
You are.
I am not, because this is my presentation.
I'm sharing my New York story and my truth.
You didn't even see New York.
( shushes )
You told me you stayed in the hotel room because New York smelled like pee and hot dogs and...
Shut up, Jocelyn! I told you that in secret.
Tammy, Tammy, Tammy.
Oh, my God, everyone's looking at us.
♪ We got that squirrel and we got that nice tree ♪
♪ We have a mural you can still kind of see ♪
♪ We've got a Tilt-A-Whirl I'm too scared to ride ♪
♪ There's the car wash where that famous guy died ♪
♪ There's a good mall ♪
♪ There's the bad mall ♪
♪ There's the sad mall ♪
♪ Ooh, really sad mall ♪
♪ We're having fun today ♪
♪ This town's okay ♪
♪ I guess this town's okay ♪
♪ It's basically okay. ♪ | <urn:uuid:47b98a05-993a-4d61-a60c-eb9590059429> | https://tvshowtranscripts.ourboard.org/viewtopic.php?f=428&t=37900 | en | 0.951954 | 0.064956 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Why donate to Urmston.net?
There are always costs involved in running a website like Urmston.net. There are the monthly hosting costs, software costs, the cost of buying plugins and of course my time. I've been incurring these costs for about 12 years and I'm more than happy to continue doing so. However, there's always room for improvement: better hosting, better plugins or even a better platform. Therefore, if you enjoy using the website and feel like donating something it will be much appreciated.
Please note: If you make a donation by card your address details are not forwarded to me; they're just used to verify the card. Also, by making a donation you do so on the understanding that it will have no impact on your membership and you will still need to comply with the rules of the site. Please don't think that you can make a donation and then ask me to give you "Post Live" status as I don't do things like that.
Best wishes,
Dave - webmaster Urmston.net | <urn:uuid:a94dc11e-e560-4aac-9b5e-10fdce24775c> | https://urmston.net/donate.asp | en | 0.968666 | 0.970502 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
From ScummVM :: Wiki
Revision as of 15:03, 25 October 2018 by Criezy (talk | contribs) (Text replacement - "</source>" to "</syntaxhighlight>")
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I will assume that you are at least roughly familiar with ScummVM, and have a recent checkout of our source code repository. Note that it's strongly advised to base your work on the current development version of ScummVM, and not on a release version. This will ease integration of your work.
Essentially, you will have to implement a subclass of the Engine class. Our Doxygen documentation is your friend and should hopefully explain enough about this: Engine class.
You also must hook yourself into the regular ScummVM main build system. Actually, some ports use a custom build system, but their maintainers will usually add your new engine once it has been added to ScummVM.
1. Add a new directory engines/quux/
2. Add engines/quux/configure.engine (looking at configure.engine files of existing engines should make it clear what you have to do).
3. Add engines/quux/ (Again, just check out what is done for the existing engines).
5. Add engines/quux/detection.cpp; It will contain the plugin interface code (more on that in the next section).
File name conventions
Since of the course of its existence, many people will have to deal with the source code of a given engine (be it to fix bugs in it, modify it to still compile after changes made to the backend code, or to simply add new functionality), it is useful to adhere to various conventions used throughout all engines. Besides source code conventions (see Code Formatting Conventions), this affects filenames. We suggest you use the following names for specific parts of your engine:
ENGINENAME.h Contains your (primary) Engine subclass.
ENGINENAME.cpp Contains at least the constructor and destructor of your (primary) Engine subclass, as well as the implementations of the mandatory (i.e. pure virtual) Engine methods.
detection.cpp Code related to game detection. Also contains the implementation of the plugin interface, as described in base/plugins.h.
saveload.cpp Code related to savegames
debug.cpp, debugger.cpp (console) debugger
gfx.cpp (alt: graphics.cpp) Graphics code
sound.cpp Sound code
music.cpp Music code
inter.cpp, logic.cpp, script.cpp Game logic, resp. script/bytecode interpreter
Additionally, the files saved by each engine should be consistent.
• Saves: These should be named <targetid>.### (where ### is the slot id) or <gameid>.###. The latter should be used when the saves can be shared across all game variants.
• Other files: These should be named <targetid>-<filename> or <gameid>-<filename>. Again the latter when the files can be shared acress all variants of the game (an example for these type of files would be when a minigame saves a high score record).
Here, only use the <gameid> scheme if you are absolutely sure that such files can be shared across all (that is every game platform, every game language, every game patch version, every game release, etc.) versions. If you are not sure whether this is the case, then stick to the <targetid> based scheme.
Subclassing MetaEngine
Let's implement the plugin interface:
You'll have to create a custom MetaEngine subclass. This provides the information and functionality related to the engine that can be used by the launcher without loading and running the game engine, which includes detecting games, listing savegames and instancing the engine.
The following example illustrates this, but:
It is recommended that most engines should instead subclass AdvancedMetaEngine.
This can be found in engines/advancedDetector.* and provides a standard framework for filename and MD5 based game detection. To use this, all you will have to provide is a standard data table of ADGameDescription entries describing each game variant, which is usually placed in a separate detection_tables.h header.
Finally, in either case, you will then have to specify your MetaEngine class to the REGISTER_PLUGIN_* macros.
Subclassing Engine
Important: If you're using the ScummVM GUI (g_gui and stuff) you have always to call g_gui.handleScreenChanged() if you received a OSystem::EVENT_SCREEN_CHANGED event, else it could be that your gui looks strange or even crashes ScummVM.
For opening files in your engine, see the how to open files page.
Infrastructure services
Header file common/scummsys.h provides services needed by virtually any source file:
• defines platform endianness
• defines portable types
• defines common constants and macros
Moreover, it deals with providing suitable building environment for different platforms:
• provides common names for non-standard library functions
• disables bogus and/or annoying warnings
• provides a lean environment to build win32 executables/libraries
The common directory contains many more useful things, e.g. various container classes (for lists, hashmaps, resizeable arrays etc.), code for dealing with transparent endianess handling, for file I/O, etc. We recommend that you browse this a bit to get an idea of what is there. Likewise you should familiarize yourself with graphics and sound; for example we already have decoders for quite some audio formats in there. Before you roll your own code for all sorts of basic things, have a look and see if we already have code for that, and maybe also ask some veterans for advice.
Common portability issues
There are wrapper around number of non-portable functions. These are:
max() -> MAX()
min() -> MIN()
rand() -> use Common::RandomSource class
strcasecmp() / stricmp() -> scumm_stricmp()
strncasecmp() / strnicmp() -> scumm_strnicmp()
strrev() -> scumm_strrev()
Also we have predefined common integer types. Please, use them instead of rolling your own:
Additionally ScummVM offers way of recording all events and then playing them back on request. That could be used for "demoplay" mode. But to ensure that it will work for your engine, you have to register your RandomSource class instance. See example engine below.
True RGB color support
If you need to support more than 256 colors in your game engine, please refer to the truecolor API reference page for specifications and initialization protocol.
Example: engines/quux/quux.h
<source lang="cpp">
1. ifndef QUUX_H
2. define QUUX_H
1. include "common/random.h"
2. include "engines/engine.h"
3. include "gui/debugger.h"
namespace Quux {
class Console;
// our engine debug channels enum { kQuuxDebugExample = 1 << 0, kQuuxDebugExample2 = 1 << 1 // next new channel must be 1 << 2 (4) // the current limitation is 32 debug channels (1 << 31 is the last one) };
class QuuxEngine : public Engine { public: QuuxEngine(OSystem *syst); ~QuuxEngine();
virtual Common::Error run();
private: Console *_console;
// We need random numbers Common::RandomSource *_rnd; };
// Example console class class Console : public GUI::Debugger { public: Console(QuuxEngine *vm) {} virtual ~Console(void) {} };
} // End of namespace Quux
1. endif
Example: engines/quux/quux.cpp
<source lang="cpp">
1. include "common/scummsys.h"
1. include "common/config-manager.h"
2. include "common/debug.h"
3. include "common/debug-channels.h"
4. include "common/error.h"
5. include "gui/EventRecorder.h"
6. include "common/file.h"
7. include "common/fs.h"
1. include "engines/util.h"
1. include "quux/quux.h"
namespace Quux {
QuuxEngine::QuuxEngine(OSystem *syst)
: Engine(syst), _console(nullptr) {
// Put your engine in a sane state, but do nothing big yet; // in particular, do not load data from files; rather, if you // need to do such things, do them from run().
// Do not initialize graphics here // Do not initialize audio devices here
// However this is the place to specify all default directories const Common::FSNode gameDataDir(ConfMan.get("path")); SearchMan.addSubDirectoryMatching(gameDataDir, "sound");
// Here is the right place to set up the engine specific debug channels DebugMan.addDebugChannel(kQuuxDebugExample, "example", "this is just an example for a engine specific debug channel"); DebugMan.addDebugChannel(kQuuxDebugExample2, "example2", "also an example");
// Don't forget to register your random source _rnd = new Common::RandomSource("quux");
debug("QuuxEngine::QuuxEngine"); }
QuuxEngine::~QuuxEngine() { debug("QuuxEngine::~QuuxEngine");
// Dispose your resources here delete _rnd;
// Remove all of our debug levels here DebugMan.clearAllDebugChannels(); }
Common::Error QuuxEngine::run() { // Initialize graphics using following: initGraphics(320, 200, false);
// You could use backend transactions directly as an alternative, // but it isn't recommended, until you want to handle the error values // from OSystem::endGFXTransaction yourself. // This is just an example template: //_system->beginGFXTransaction(); // // This setup the graphics mode according to users seetings // initCommonGFX(false); // // // Specify dimensions of game graphics window. // // In this example: 320x200 // _system->initSize(320, 200); //FIXME: You really want to handle //OSystem::kTransactionSizeChangeFailed here //_system->endGFXTransaction();
// Create debugger console. It requires GFX to be initialized _console = new Console(this);
// Additional setup. debug("QuuxEngine::init");
// Your main even loop should be (invoked from) here. debug("QuuxEngine::go: Hello, World!");
// This test will show up if -d1 and --debugflags=example are specified on the commandline debugC(1, kQuuxDebugExample, "Example debug call");
// This test will show up if --debugflags=example or --debugflags=example2 or both of them and -d3 are specified on the commandline debugC(3, kQuuxDebugExample | kQuuxDebugExample2, "Example debug call two");
return Common::kNoError; }
} // End of namespace Quux </syntaxhighlight>
Example: engines/quux/detection.cpp
The following example implements a custom MetaEngine instead of using the AdvancedMetaEngine. <source lang="cpp">
1. include "quux/quux.h"
1. include "common/config-manager.h"
2. include "common/error.h"
3. include "common/fs.h"
1. include "engines/metaengine.h"
static const PlainGameDescriptor quux_setting[] = { { "quux", "Quux the Example Module" }, { "quuxcd", "Quux the Example Module (CD version)" }, { 0, 0 } };
class QuuxMetaEngine : public MetaEngine { public: virtual const char *getName() const { return "Quux the Example Module"; }
virtual const char *getOriginalCopyright() const { return "Copyright (C) Quux Entertainment Ltd."; }
virtual GameList getSupportedGames() const { GameList games; const PlainGameDescriptor *g = quux_setting; while (g->gameid) { games.push_back(*g); g++; }
return games; }
virtual GameDescriptor findGame(const char *gameid) const { const PlainGameDescriptor *g = quux_setting; while (g->gameid) { if (0 == scumm_stricmp(gameid, g->gameid)) break; g++; } return GameDescriptor(g->gameid, g->description); }
virtual GameList detectGames(const Common::FSList &fslist) const { GameList detectedGames;
// Iterate over all files in the given directory for (Common::FSList::const_iterator file = fslist.begin(); file != fslist.end(); ++file) { if (!file->isDirectory()) { const char *gameName = file->getName().c_str();
if (0 == scumm_stricmp("README", gameName)) { // You could check the contents of the file now if you need to. detectedGames.push_back(quux_setting[0]); break; } } } return detectedGames; }
virtual Common::Error createInstance(OSystem *syst, Engine **engine) const { assert(syst); assert(engine);
// Scan the target directory for files (error out if it does not exist) Common::FSList fslist; Common::FSNode dir(ConfMan.get("path")); if (!dir.getChildren(fslist, Common::FSNode::kListAll)) { return Common::kNoGameDataFoundError; }
// Invoke the detector Common::String gameid = ConfMan.get("gameid"); GameList detectedGames = detectGames(fslist);
for (uint i = 0; i < detectedGames.size(); i++) { if (detectedGames[i].gameid() == gameid) { // At this point you may want to perform additional sanity checks. *engine = new Quux::QuuxEngine(syst); return Common::kNoError; } }
// Failed to find any game data return Common::kNoGameDataFoundError; } };
1. else
1. endif
Example: engines/quux/
<source lang="make"> MODULE := engines/quux
MODULE_OBJS := \ detection.o \ quux.o
MODULE_DIRS += \ engines/quux
1. This module can be built as a plugin
1. Include common rules
include $(srcdir)/ </syntaxhighlight>
Example: engines/quux/configure.engine
<source lang="bash">
1. This file is included from the main "configure" script
2. add_engine [name] [desc] [build-by-default] [subengines] [base games] [deps]
add_engine quux "Quux" no </syntaxhighlight> | <urn:uuid:452ae4e2-1a46-4b9d-81a6-62e363d0db65> | https://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php?title=HOWTO-Engines&direction=next&oldid=22874 | en | 0.730268 | 0.414905 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Podcast Madness
This weekend, I podcasted harder than I ever have before--appearing on not one, but two Google Hangouts.
First up, Daddy Warpig, Dorrinal, and I finally discussed the long overdue topic of pen and paper RPGs on Geek Gab. Old school dungeon master DW instructed first-time GM Dorrinal in the finer points of player character physical torture, while I focused on how to break them down psychologically. I'm sure Dorrinal found our tutelage elevating and enriching.
Then, on Sunday, I took part in a Superversive SF round table convened to discuss whether the golden age of publishing is upon us.
I was really looking forward to this one. Jason Rennie at Sci Phi Journal managed to round up two publishers, two editors, and a bunch of trad and self-pubbed authors to discuss a subject of great personal interest to all of the panelists.
The conversation was lively, and tended to meander a bit as panels are wont to do, but we managed to tackle most of the questions we set out to answer. Since we didn't explicitly state our conclusion, I'm pretty confident in summing it up like this: thanks to indie and micro press publishing, now is the best time in history to be an author--or a reader. But how long the golden door stays open is anyone's guess.
So if you're an aspiring author with a trunk full of unpublished novels who's frustrated with the submissions carousel, now's the time to polish up those manuscripts and get them on Amazon. Start earning some compensation for all those hours of toil in the word mines before the Kindle loses market dominance, or a new format makes eBooks obsolete, or the Big Five somehow shake off their stupor and crush Amazon. Or a comet strike wrecks civilization.
Of course, even if Amazon goes the way of, well, traditional publishing, I'm not ideologically tied to the Kindle. Capitalism has a way of satisfying under-served markets, and it's highly doubtful that indie authors will ever go back to legacy publishing under the old unconscionable terms.
1. It does appear to be the "gold rush" part of selling ebooks seems to be over.
The market get flooded with crap (like people hiring ghost writers who in turn just plagiarized from google, and throw together a five dollar cover.)
People are no longer making $2000 bucks a month for just throwing something on amazon now. That said, I still think well written books have a chance of a getting noticed, it just takes more marketing these days.
Also I really, really need to pick up the pace on my own book if I want to get there before the window closes.
2. You're right. The party's over for eBook hucksters, thanks to a "once bitten, twice shy" sentiment among readers and Amazon cracking down. That's a good thing.
Serious artists who treat writing as a job are still succeeding. Like you implied, it takes solid writing, thorough editing, a professionally designed cover, some marketing know-how, and luck. | <urn:uuid:e6085481-3e83-4306-aee0-4dd1b179c2cc> | https://www.brianniemeier.com/2015/10/podcast-madness.html | en | 0.944921 | 0.198782 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Jun 27, 2019
1:06 pm
How A Single-Use Plastics Ban Could Affect Canadian Convenience Stores
On June 10, 2019, the Government of Canada announced a plan to ban single-use plastics in this country by 2021. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said it is a dire crisis that requires action.
“You’ve all heard the stories and seen the photos,” he said. “To be honest, as a dad it is tough trying to explain this to my kids. How do you explain dead whales washing up on beaches across the world, their stomachs jam-packed with plastic bags? “How do I tell them that against all odds, you will find plastic at the very deepest point in the Pacific Ocean?”
The government announcement did not provide a detailed list of banned items. Trudeau indicated this would be forthcoming, based on scientific evidence. However, the Prime Minister did give examples of items in their sites: including several that would directly impact Canadian convenience stores.
1. Replacing plastic drinking straws
When a heartbreaking video of a sea turtle with a plastic straw in its nose went viral in 2015, it became a rallying point for a ban on single-use plastics. Starbucks and several other companies soon announced they would no longer be carrying plastic straws. It is a trend that does not appear to be waning.
In Canada alone, it is estimated close to 50 million straws are used daily. Whether a ban goes through or not, c-store owners would be wise to start looking at options: including paper, bamboo, biodegradable silicone and other materials.
2. Options to plastic cups, lids, plates, utensils and stir sticks
While cups were not specifically mentioned, all of these other items were listed by Trudeau as likely item to be banned – all of which figure quiet prominently in the average c-store operation. It is predicted there would be pressure to include polystyrene cups and plates as well.
Paper cups and plates are a logical option, as are wooden stir sticks. Products made of palm leaves and sugarcane exist. Companies around the world have even developed biodegradable, organic alternatives (some of which are edible).
3. Rethinking packaging
It has been speculated that plastic sandwich bags and plastic wrap could be included in a ban. This may affect how fresh items such as sandwiches are packaged. Disposable plastic and Styrofoam packaging may also be in the crosshairs of any ban. Expect to see paper and cardboard packaging pick up the slack.
4. Eliminating plastic bags
Up to 15 billion plastic bags are used in Canada each year. Many leading retailers have been charging customers for plastic bags for years (although most consumers shrug and pay the nickel). An outright ban would require consumers to change their mindset, and keep reusable bags handy. C-store may have to keep a supply in stock (a potential new revenue stream!)
5. Greater recycling of plastic bottles
The ocean is literally littered with plastic bottles. Organizations such as Greenpeace are calling for the phaseout of throwaway plastics – including disposable bottles. Water bottles, in particular, raise the ire of activists, as alternatives are easily available. Yet these bottles are easily recyclable.
While it is unclear what Canada would do, in the European Union, the focus is on increasing recycling more bottles vs. a ban – with a target of recycling 90% of plastic bottles by 2025. In Canada, it is estimated 65 million water bottles end up in landfills each year.
6. McDonald’s Canada takes an early leadership role
If you suppose the shift will be gradual, think again.
Just this week, McDonald’s Canada announced its first “Green Concept Restaurants” as part of its sustainability journey.
Their goal is to source 100% of all guest packaging from renewable and/or recycled materials. Two restaurants in Vancouver and London (ON) will serve as the testing ground for these packaging and recycling initiatives.
Initial packaging innovations will include Canada’s first recyclable paper cup for cold beverages, recyclable wood fiber lids (that actually double as a straw!), wooden cutlery and paper straws.
“Our Green Concept Restaurants are an exciting new innovation as part of our on-going sustainable journey,” says John Betts, President, and CEO at McDonald’s Canada.
According to James Downham, President, and CEO, PAC Packaging Consortium, when category leaders such McDonald’s spearhead change, you can be sure the shift will be felt across the industry as packaging companies jump to respond.
An issue worth following
At this point, the Canadian plastic ban is merely a policy announcement. With a Federal election coming in the fall, it is difficult to say if it will be enacted into legislation.
Regardless, consumers are increasingly choosing to support businesses that operate in an environmentally responsible manner. With juggernauts like McDonald’s staking their future on sustainability, the onus will be on the convenience store industry and its suppliers to adapt. [Read more about working with Convenience Stores] | <urn:uuid:081396f8-0cd6-4bf8-afab-e62f18a529ea> | https://www.ctmdesign.ca/plastics-ban-canadian-convenience-stores/ | en | 0.955177 | 0.019121 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Spin the Black Circle
74 % - 4170 Votes
Your goal in this cool skill flash game is to spin the maze and lead the ball to the blinking portal without being destroyed. Gravity is your friend here. Use the LEFT ARROW KEY to spin counterclockwise, RIGHT ARROW KEY to spin clockwise. You can hit SPACEBAR to restart the level. This game is very hard and it is very unlikely that you are able to complete all levels in one day. Thats why your progress is saved, next time you play you start from where you left. Good luck!
| <urn:uuid:f9962c1e-f6ae-4424-a533-1bfcd8a70fee> | https://www.funny-games.biz/spin-the-black-circle.html | en | 0.910296 | 0.18594 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Bolt Action Rifles - A Timeless Innovation
Bolt Action Rifles - A Timeless Innovation
By Numrich Gun Parts Corporation, Posted in Rifle
October 01, 2017
Bolt-action centerfire rifles are some of the most popular firearms among modern sportsmen. A glimpse into any random gun safe would surely reveal one these trusted firearms. Whether it is a Browning A-Bolt, Savage 110, or the ever-popular Remington 700, no sporting collection is complete without a smooth firing bolt gun. This is largely due to the combination of reliability and extreme long-range accuracy that these rifles can offer. However, the driving force behind their creation was not for recreational use, it actually began with the need for a superior infantry weapon.
They were invented at a time when the speed in which soldiers could fire their rifles would determine whether they won or lost a battle. The bolt-action design advanced to the forefront of infantry firearm development. Gun builders everywhere began to pursue their ideas for a more efficient rifle. This resulted in some of the most enduring firearms ever made, and inspired the modern sporting rifles of today, which still hold the core of the bolt-action technology that was thought up more than a century ago.
Needle Rifle
It all began way back in the first half of the 19th century with the invention of the first mass-produced bolt-action rifle, the Nadelgewehr (Needle Rifle) by Johann Nikolaus Von Dreyse. This advancement in engineering sparked a firearm revolution, as gun makers around the world set out to build a breech-loading rifle that could provide rapid reloading capabilities and battlefield durability. Each attempting to develop a superior weapon to the last.
The concept of breech-loading weapons was in some estimates said to have been around since the 14th or 15th century. It wasn’t until Dreyse introduced his design for opening and closing the breech by use of a bolt, that the idea truly started to show promise for a more efficient firearm.
Most infantries at that time were still armed with cumbersome and time-consuming muzzle-loaded weapons or breech-loaded conversions. The concept of a quickly chambered rifle from the rear of the breech was seen as a major breakthrough.
The Needle Rifle used a needle-like firing pin that passed through a paper-encased cartridge and ignited the percussion cap at the base of the bullet. After noticing the benefit that the gun offered, in 1841 the Prussian Army quickly acquired it and put it into service. The rifle afforded them the ability to get off several shots per minute from hidden positions, which was a great advantage over the slower loading muzzleloaders, which required soldiers to stand during reloading and thus leaving them vulnerable to enemy fire.
Greene Rifle
Shortly after the Needle Rifle introduction, Lieutenant Colonel J. Durrell Greene in the U.S. Army attempted to build on Dreyse’s design. This resulted in the first American built bolt-action rifles in 1859. This gun, known as the Greene Rifle, had some limitations primarily because it required a percussion cap to be placed on a cone with the hammer of the gun cocked. The rifle offered no way of securing this feature in place, and was found to be far too susceptible to failure. Despite that it had very little advantage over the already issued muzzleloaders, a limited number were purchased by the U.S. Military. A few rifles even saw action in the American Civil War. Ultimately, the rifles proved to be very unreliable for infantry use and their production was short lived.
Though, it wouldn’t be long before this core principle was improved upon. Firearm engineers around the world continued the race to develop more efficient weapons to arm troops for battle. In the remaining part of the century and on to the next, the creation of many models would find at least a small place in the history of the world’s armies. The Palmer Carbine, Chassepot Rifle, Jarmann M1884, and the Gras Rifle (Fusil Gras mle 1874) would all have short stints of military use. The Gras Rifle being the first infantry bolt-action to use a metallic cartridge did have a longer service run than others in this group.
Upgrades to previous designs continued, and the next influx of weapons would slightly outlast their predecessors' usefulness. Soon tubular and box magazines, and the invention of smokeless powder and full metal jacketed rounds would raise the bar. Creating a need for the coming generations of bolt-action rifles to be built more capable than the last.
Several firearms that came into service during the latter half of the 1800’s would hold some military value well into the 20th century. Although these rifles are not the longest to remain in infantry use, they do hold the place between the quickly dismissed designs and those that enjoyed true longevity. Some of the most notable among these firearms are the Kropatschek, Lebel Rifle, M1870 Vetterli, and the M1885 Remington. However, a true standout in this generation would have to be the Lee-Metford, because it was one of the first bolt-action firearms geared towards creating a more efficient shooter and not just a more efficient rifle. This was accomplished by incorporating James Paris Lee’s rear mounted lug design, hence locating the bolt directly above the trigger, and thus reducing the rifleman’s reach. It also had a reduced rotation of the bolt, needing just a 60° turn to cycle the action.
These features made the rifle easier to shoot, and likely much easier to train a novice soldier. Lastly, and possibly the most significant innovation of the Lee-Metford was the incorporation of a detachable magazine, which made it an efficient repeater that could perform well in battle situations. The downfall of the rifle was that it took years to develop, and it was built for use with black powder. By the time it was ready for action, smokeless powder was the new standard. The rifle stood little chance of finding long term military use.
As the bolt-action revolution continued, each new feature would be scrutinized and gun designers could determine their own direction based on what worked and what didn’t. Trial and error and constant feedback from testing provided valuable information for improvement. The rifles that were still to come in the turn of the century era would have likely made Dreyse very proud to be the pioneer that started it all.
The Krag-Jorgensen, originally designed in 1886, had elements inspired by several earlier rifles. It featured a long extractor situated at the top of the bolt which was likely derived from the Jarmann M1884 design. It also featured an early Mauser innovation of using curved surfaces to easily cock and eject rounds. Though what really made this rifle unique was a magazine that was integrated with the receiver and was fed from the side through a hinged loading gate. The ammunition was pushed up and around into the chamber in a J-shaped pattern. Similar to the rotation of, but not to be mistaken for, a rotary type magazine, which consequently was an idea also being developed at that time by both Otto Schonauer and Arthur Savage respectively. The rotary magazine would appear shortly after in their successful models, the Mannlicher-Schoenauer M1903 and the Savage M1895 & Model 99 rifles.
The Krag also integrated a magazine cut-off that essentially created a single shot weapon for focused long range shots and helped keep the poorly trained infantrymen from wasting ammunition. It could easily be switched to feed the reserve rounds when rapid firing was needed. The rifle was a workhorse and evolved through several caliber changes and sight configurations over the years, remaining in some level of service until about 1945.
Spanning five decades of service is impressive, but the Krag pales in comparison to the next few rifles. Out of all of the original centerfire bolt-action designs these are the champions of success. They are such reliable and effective guns that they hold two distinctions: they were some of the most produced firearms ever, and they (or variations of them) remained in active service for the longest period of time.
Mauser Gewehr 98
Paul Mauser, who like Greene set out to improve on the original Needle Gun concept, was perhaps one of the most instrumental engineers of bolt-action development. He is credited with designing the turning one-piece bolt, which offered tremendous solidity and strength that was far superior to earlier separate bolt head configurations. His legacy also boasts the creation of his own smokeless powder ammunition to go along with his rifles. His 7.9mm (8mm Mauser) and 7x57mm Mauser rounds are still being produced today.
His most enduring rifle, the Mauser Gewehr 98 had the innovative feature of a control-feed action. It was a strong, safe action that was intended to avoid failure while cycling the bolt. It was equipped with a claw-like extractor that maintained control of the round the entire time. Variations of this rifle would remain in military use throughout both World Wars and are still readily available. In fact, modern production of the Mauser M 98 and M 98 Magnums resumed in 1999. Based on early 20th century drawings and respective Mauser patents, these rifles continue to meet the demands of many modern day enthusiasts. Estimates on the number of Mauser 98 variants produced falls somewhere between 20 and 100 million rifles.
Mauser Bolt
Much like Mauser, James Paris Lee would continue to improve his earlier endeavors until he created a rifle that could stand the test of time. He achieved this success with the Lee-Enfield.
Lee-Enfield Rifles were first put into service in 1895 and adapted as the standard rifle by the British Military until around 1957. Its sniper variant, the L42, remained in use until the 1990’s.
This rifle was a redesign of the earlier Lee-Metford. The Lee-Enfield incorporated a ten round top-fed magazine, while most other rifles of the time only held five rounds, providing the British with a distinct advantage. J. Lee also kept the rear-locking lug system from the Lee-Metford that assured the rifle would be quick and efficient for the shooter to operate.
However, it wasn’t quite the infantry rifle it needed to be right away, so improvements were made to the original design a few years later. These changes made the rifle easier to build and much easier for infantrymen to maintain and operate. The newer rifles became commonly referred to as the SMLE, which is an acronym for “Short Magazine Lee Enfield”. The changes included the shortening of the guns overall length, the safety relocation from the cocking piece to the receiver, the dust cover removal from the bolt body, and the charging guide being milled directly onto the receiver. The SMLE is currently the second-longest serving military bolt-action rifle in the world and the total number produced is said to top the 17 million mark.
The Mosin-Nagant, first designed in 1891 by Captain Sergi Mosin and Leon Nagant, has the distinction of being used in more military installations than any other firearm. It has been in active service since the end of the 19th century, and has had a role in more than thirty wars or conflicts around the globe. The total number of these rifles produced is estimated to exceed 37 million.
Like the Mauser 98, the Mosin used two front-locking lugs to lock the action in place. The difference being the location of the lugs, Mosin lugs were in a horizontal position, where the Mauser 98 lugs were vertical. The Mosin incorporated the multi-piece bolt body to enable the use of interchangeable bolt heads, a feature that was also seen on the Lee-Enfield. The push-feed style recessed bolt head utilized a spring-loaded extractor that snapped over the cartridge base upon the closing of the bolt. Not quite as fail-proof as the control-feed, but still a reliable action that is being duplicated in modern rifles, such as the Remington 700 model.
It is truly a testament to the ingenuity of these early pioneers that the evidence of their creativity is still present all these years later. Even though the infantry use of the bolt-action rifle has faded, these durable guns are still in demand among modern shooters. Today’s sporting bolt-action rifles all hold elements of engineering that can be traced back to these original designs. Sure we have some modern adaptations like synthetic stocks, adjustable-triggers, and long-range riflescopes, but the core of the action was perfected a very long time ago. Next time you pick up a rifle, whether it’s the solid one-piece bolt and rotary magazine of a Ruger American, or a Winchester 70 with Mauser action and box magazine, just take a moment and you will find the obvious links to the past. | <urn:uuid:5bc515a7-86a7-4abb-8e67-8bcde25bfeb4> | https://www.gunpartscorp.com/blog/bolt-action-rifles-a-timeless-innovation | en | 0.969146 | 0.143012 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
The top baby names in the US have been announced - and they reveal an interesting trend 1 year ago
Fancy some transatlantic inspiration for your baba?
America's most popular baby names of 2018 have been announced.
The top girls' name of 2018 was Emma, which has held the number one spot since 2015.
Liam was the top choice for boys, meanwhile.
The name has become incredibly popular in the US in the last decade; in 2008 it was 75th on the list.
Here are the top ten lists for both boys and girls, as per data from the US Social Security Administration.
Girls' names
1. Emma
2. Olivia
3. Ava
4. Isabella
5. Sophia
6. Charlotte
7. Mia
8. Amelia
9. Harper
10. Evelyn
Boys' names
1. Liam
2. Noah
3. William
4. James
5. Oliver
6. Benjamin
7. Elijah
8. Lucas
9. Mason
10. Logan
The lists indicate the continuance of a trend that's been emerging for the past couple of years - 'raindrop names'.
These are short names dominated by vowel sounds, Laura Wattenberg, creator of the website BabyNameWizard, told LiveScience.
Mia, Emma, Ava, Noah and Liam all fall under this description as do Mila and Luna, which both appear in the top 30.
The fastest-rising name on the list is Zhavia. It's being attributed to singer Zhavia Ward.
Another name that's shot up in terms of popularity is Meghan, specifically the spelling with a 'H'.
In the year that Meghan Markle became the most-Googled person in the world, the name jumped from 1,404th place to 703rd.
It's one that surprised naming experts. It was popular in the 80s and 90s and so is a name that women who are becoming mums themselves would be likely to have.
"Making a name that sounds like a 'mom' name come back isn't easy," said Wattenberg.
Meghan isn't the only pop culture figure influencing baby names right now.
Celebrity-inspired monikers like Idris, Saoirse and Saint as well as ones from TV and movies (Yara and Arya from Game Of Thrones, Xiomara from Jane The Virgin, Kylo from Star Wars) are all enjoying a boost in popularity with new American parents. | <urn:uuid:d33557ff-e7e2-444e-9798-1e3e8886b3f3> | https://www.herfamily.ie/baby-names/top-baby-names-us-announced-reveal-interesting-trend-350796 | en | 0.936806 | 0.725785 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
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What is a hazardous condition and who is responsible for it?
Return to Video FAQs
In the context of a slip and fall claim, a hazardous condition is a condition that a reasonable person wouldn’t have left there and that’s dangerous, that can cause a fall and an injury. A hazardous condition can be anything from, again, a hole, a crack, a substance on the floor, something that you couldn’t see. A defect that’s covered. Landowners are responsible for it, or occupiers of the land. Somebody who’s renting the land. And of course the person who created the hazardous condition is also responsible.
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Episode guide
"Nightmare Monkeys" is the 12th episode of the third season of Young Justice, and the 58th of the overall series. It debuted on January 25, 2019 on DC Universe, along with the 10th, 11th and 13th episodes, "Exceptional Human Beings", "Another Freak" and "True Heroes".
Logline Edit
Garfield Logan (GREG CIPES) tests out a pair of Goode VR goggles. Then the goggles test him!
Synopsis Edit
October 15, 16:16 PDT
A clip of Space Trek 3016 plays and Paul Sloane praises Garfield Logan for his acting. Gretchen Goode approaches the two and compliments their work, saying she knew pairing them was the right move. Garfield is surprised she handles casting and Gretchen tells him that she handles everything at Goode World Studios. She adds that Paul and Garfield's mother Marie had great chemistry on Hello, Megan!. When Gretchen says Paul and Garfield's acting is like a father-son relationship, Paul mentions that he is Garfield's godfather and that Rita Farr is Garfield's godmother. Gretchen says that Marie and Farr would be both proud of him.
Steve Dayton, the producer of Space Trek 3016 and Garfield's step-father—and a man who doesn't appreciate Garfield calling him "Mento"—joins them and asks Gretchen for a word. She politely asks him for a moment, pulls Paul aside and slips away. Garfield and Dayton stare at each other and the former bluntly tells him that Gretchen isn't coming back. Dayton asks if Garfield is coming back to the house. Garfield tells him he has a date and both mutter "thank God."
Happy Harbor
October 15, 19:21 EDT
Dick Grayson arrives to meet with the rest of his contingent and is introduced to Victor Stone. Forager explains to Dick Grayson how Halo opened a boom tube while at Happy Harbor High School. Conner remembers the dissected Motherbox and mentions that Motherboxes are living computers. Helga Jace mentions that when Simon Ecks opened the box, there was a burst of energy, which Conner suspects was the Motherbox's soul escaping. Artemis recalls Doctor Fate's meeting with Halo and how he sensed an old soul in her young body, and how she first saw Halo when Count Vertigo's henchmen were burying her body. Artemis suspects that the Motherbox's soul merged with the body and resurrected it. Victor then inquires what all of this has to do with what happened to him.
Beverly Hills
October 15, 18:39 PDT
Garfield meets with Perdita at her room at the Luthor Grande Hotel. He inquires about the Goode Goggles she received and she allows him to try them out. Garfield plays a game of Space Trek 3016 and, while he does, a needle pops out inside the goggles and injects something into him. Lights on the goggles' exterior flash.
Back at Happy Harbor, Victor mentions that Halo "healed" him, but Halo says she actually "made adjustments to your internal technology." Victor says he wants to somebody to get the tech off him, but when he mentions the Fatherbox, Conner asks about it. Suddenly, Sphere arrives, transforming into the Super-Cycle and acting like Victor is a threat. The Fatherbox embedded in Victor takes control and he fires. Sphere fires back and Conner jumps in between them, telling both to stop. Sphere hesitates, while Victor gets ready to fire again, when Halo uses her powers to help Victor retake control, then gets Sphere to stand down. Dick observes that Halo's power to help Victor is temporary and says the two need to stick close to each other. Black Lightning asks if they should contact Victor's father and Victor refuses.
At the Luthor Grande, Garfield finishes his game, but a map pops up on the Goggles' screen and puts him into a trance. He tells Perdita he needs to go to Encino. A green monkey emoji pops on the screen and the Goggles short out.
Garfield finds himself on the set of Space Trek 3016, with the "ghosts" of Ted Kord, Jason Todd, Tula and Kid Flash in the rest of the crew's seats.
Back at Happy Harbor, M'gann pulls Conner aside and the two share a telepathic conversation. She assures him she's not kicking anybody out, and Conner says he understands that she's frustrated with how his mission with Dick turned into something bigger. Megan says the two have hardly spent any time together since they've become engaged, and Conner realizes that the Watchtower was supposed to be for missions, not their home in Happy Harbor.
Garfield is on the Space Trek set when Klamulons appear and zap the ghosts of the fallen heroes, save for Kid Flash. Garfield then sees Kid's death on Earth play out before him and turns away, when he notices Monkey. He chases after it, while Wally remarks Garfield must be "tired of this show" and flips a remote. Garfield then finds himself on the show Doom Patrol Go! and wonders where Monkey went.
Back at Luthor Grande, Perdita removes the Goggles from Garfield and finds him in a trance. She tries to snap him out of it, then discovers his pulse is weak. Suddenly, Garfield collapses.
On Doom Patrol Go!, Garfield meets Rita Farr as Elasti-girl, who introduces the rest of the Doom Patrol: Chief, Robotman, Negative Woman, and Rita's husband Steve Dayton, aka Mento. Rita says she wants to be a good mother for Garfield, but then she and the rest of the Doom Patrol go off on a mission—one in which they died. Miss Martian appears on the set and says Garfield can live with his adopted sister, only for Dayton to reappear, revealing he chickened out on the mission, hid for several years, then reappeared and claimed parental rights for Garfield. Monkey appears and tells Garfield his adopted sister was willing to back him, but Garfield believes he didn't have a choice. A giant remote appears and Monkey presses a button.
Megan and Conner arrive at Perdita's hotel room after Perdita contacts them. Megan tells the paramedics that she knows what he needs, and Conner escorts them out. Megan tells Perdita that Garfield's in a psychic fugue state, and she needs to help him find his way out. Conner serves as Megan's anchor as she enters Garfield's mind.
Garfield now finds himself on Hello, Megan!, in which Megan Wheeler, Conner Manley and Rita Lee find him in the house and have no idea who he is. There's a knock on the door and Conner Manley opens it, revealing Queen Bee, who "wants her honey back". Garfield tries to pull Megan Wheeler away, but she blows him off. Monkey appears and presses a remote, taking Garfield back to his memory of the day his mother died. Garfield asks Monkey to "shut it off" and Monkey presses the remote again.
Perdita asks Conner how bad things are, and he says he can't hear Garfield's heartbeat.
Inside Garfield's mind, Monkey asks Garfield if he's giving up and can't believe he picked Garfield "as my Beast Boy". Garfield counters that his powers came from the Martian blood transfusion from M'gann. Monkey says that helped, but that he, "the magical mystical monkey god", chose to gave him the power to transform into animals. Monkey adds that his mystical powers intervened to keep the Goggles from brainwashing Garfield. Monkey says that, while he gave Garfield the powers, Garfield made himself a hero and asks if things have changed.
Then Garfield thinks he sees his mother, but it's actually M'gann who has come to help him— though she remarks that Garfield didn't really need her help and that he solved things himself. Garfield says he thought it would be cool to be on TV like his mother was and felt closer to her, but now believes it really kept him from dealing with the loss of people from his life. He declares he's ready to get back to reality and snaps his fingers.
Garfield wakes up and reveals that he understands what Gretchen meant when she said she handles everything—that Gretchen is one of the bad guys. He says he'll explain more later but is ready for his date with Perdita. They share a kiss, and Megan and Conner do the same.
Back at Happy Harbor, Brion Markov and Violet Harper also share a kiss.
Title Edit
The title is a combination of two things relating to Garfield Logan's experiences within his mind: the Goode Goggles-induced nightmare, in which he relives the deaths of people close to him, and the multiple appearances of Monkey along the way. It's also a play on "Funny Monkeys", one of the games available in the Goode Goggles.
Cast and characters Edit
Voice actor Character
Troy Baker Brion Markov
Greg Cipes Tork/Garfield Logan/Beast Boy
Zehra Fazal Violet Harper
Grey Griffin Helga Jace
Stephanie Lemelin Artemis Crock
Jesse McCartney Dick Grayson
Danica McKellar Megan Morse/Miss Martian
Megan Wheeler/Marie Logan
Scott Menville Steve Dayton/Mento
Nolan North Conner Kent
Khary Payton Jefferson Pierce
Robot Man
Kevin Michael Richardson Tom Bender/Paul Sloane/Conner Manley
Klamulon commander
Zeno Robinson Victor Stone/Fatherbox
Jason Spisak Monkey
Kid Flash
Fred Bugg/Forager
Deborah Strang Gretchen Goode
Tara Strong Negative Woman
Casey Brinke
Hynden Walch Perdita
Elasti-girl/Rita Farr/Rita Lee
Non-speaking roles
Blue Beetle (flashback)
Courtney Whitmore (picture)
Doctor Fate (flashback)
Flash (flashback)
Jason Todd (illusion)
Henchy (flashback)
Johann Mintz (flashback)
Piotor Platz (flashback)
Queen Bee (illusion)
Ted Kord (illusion)
Tula (illusion)
6 Character debut
0 Speaking debut
1 Episode debut
Continuity Edit
• The Klamulons were first mentioned in "Royal We" by Garfield in his PSA.
• Paul Sloane describes the cast of Hello, Megan! as close family. This was also established by Sandra Stanyon in "Torch Songs, Part 1".
• The events at Happy Harbor pick up right after the previous episode, "Another Freak". Violet introduces Victor to the gang and Forager recounts how Violet opened a boom tube.
• Helga Jace mentions Baron Bedlam and Simon Ecks. Jace was part of their Bedlam Syndicate before she betrayed them and defected in "Eminent Threat".
• When explaining Halo's origins, Superboy mentions the Motherbox he found in "Royal We" and Artemis recalls her conversation with Doctor Fate in "Private Security".
• Artemis remembers Violet vehemently rejecting Gabrielle's identity, which she did in "Rescue Op" and "Exceptional Human Beings".
• Brion bemoans Dick's recurring advice about being patient, which escalated into a skirmish between the two in "Another Freak".
• Megan mentions Conner's penchant for adopting strays, a reference to his adoption of both Sphere in "Bereft" and Wolf in "Alpha Male".
• The heroes joining Beast Boy on the bridge of the Engager are all members of the Team or League who died in the line of duty:
• Wally's death and Artemis's reaction seen on-screen on the Engager is taken directly from the episode "Endgame".
• Conner mentions his mission with Dick in the first three episodes ("Princes All", "Royal We" and "Eminent Threat") which was supposed to be a one-time thing. Likewise, Megan notes that they haven't had time together since their engagement in "Princes All".
• The Martian blood transfusion that Garfield ascribes as the inception of his powers took place in "Image".
YJ Comics On DCU (motion comic 7)
YJ Comics On DCU (motion comic 7)
The motion comic featuring the death of Marie Logan with Marina Sirtis and Danica McKellar reading their lines as Queen Bee and Marie Logan.
• The death of Marie Logan was depicted on page 16 of the tie-in issue "Players, Chapter Six: Rolling Doubles", where Queen Been enthralls Marie to drive off a cliff, after reassuring her that Garfield was waiting there. Garfield's hallucination suggests that Queen Bee was being literal, because he was indeed close to the waterfall looking for Marie, moments before she crashed.
Trivia Edit
• Number 16:
• The episode beings at 16:16 PDT.
• Perdita is staying at room 1616.
• End credits shot: Sphere outside Conner's opened garage.
• The Wilhelm scream is used when one of the Klamulons is hit.
• The Doom Patrol Go! series is based on Teen Titans Go!, with all the main cast of that series appearing. Chris Battle, the lead character designer for that show, also designed the characters for Doom Patrol Go!.[1]
• Miss Martian's character model is reused from the season 2 episode "Let's Get Serious!", which guest-starred Aqualad, Miss Martian and Superboy.
• The Doom Patrol's fate—going on a mission and all dying, with only Beast Boy and Mento left behind and surviving—is similar to the team's demise in Doom Patrol #121.
Goofs Edit
• After his blood transfusion in "Image", Garfield's eyes turned green. In the scene where Gar relives his mother's death, his eyes are still blue.
Cultural references Edit
• Lieutenant Tork's "He's dead, Tom" is a reference to a recurring line from Star Trek, "He's dead, Jim".
• Gretchen Goode refers to Garfield as her "favorite Martian", nodding to the 1963 sitcom My Favorite Martian.
• Perdita jokingly threatens Gar "off with your head", referencing the Queen of Hearts' famous line from Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
• Gar's line "Whatchu talkin 'bout, monkey?" is a parody of the catchphrase "Whatchu talkin 'bout, Willis?" from the 70s sitcom Diff'rent Strokes.
• Monkey cites the "law of conservation of mass" as an explanation to the mystical nature of Garfield's powers, as it states that mass can neither be added nor removed from a system closed to all transfers of matter and energy. Therefore, Garfield would not be able to change into animals bigger or smaller than him, such as an elephant[2] or a roach,[3] without magic.
Questions Edit
1. Do not answer here.
Unanswered questions Edit
• What killed the Doom Patrol?
• Are Beast Boy's powers really derived from just Martian blood?
Quotes Edit
• Gretchen Goode: At Goode World Studios, Gretchen Goode handles everything.
• Victor Stone: You guys really aren't freaked out by how I look?
• Conner: You picked the right crowd.
• Garfield: See, I've always thought it would be cool to be on TV like Mom. And for a while, it did make me feel close to her again. Ugh. Or maybe it just distracted me, let me push away the ghosts of her and Rita and Wally, and everyone else I've lost. But I can see now I was chasing a dream, or running from a nightmare, or just feeling the mode. I'm ready to get back to reality, now. Ready to get back to the life.
References Edit
1. Battle, Chris (2019-01-27). TTG-styled Doom Patrol from Young Justice: Outsiders. Tumblr. Retrieved 2019-01-28.
External links Edit
Start a Discussion Discussions about Nightmare Monkeys
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Return to Transcripts main page
Trump Rips Democrats over Calls to Abolish Electoral College, Adds Seats to Supreme Court and Lower Voting Age; CNN Gets Rare Look Inside Trump Reelection Campaign; Pilots Scoured Handbook Moments Before Lion Air Crash; Trump Officials Brace for North Korea's Next Move. Aired 11:30-12p ET
Aired March 20, 2019 - 11:30 ET
[11:30:00] RYAN NOBLES, CNN ANCHOR: Chris, I do want to talk about President Trump's role in all of this.
NOBLES: He's talking about the Democratic field right now. He said, quote, "The Democrats are getting very strange," is how he put it. "Now they want to change the voting age to 16, abolish the Electoral College, and increase significantly the number of Supreme Court justices. Actually, you've got to win at the ballot box."
We're often critical of the way Donald Trump attacks his Democratic opponents, but this is actually some fairly reasonable criticisms of some more, I don't want to say radical, decisions or policy positions that Democrats have taken that may raise some eyebrows. Do you think he was smart by going after this?
CILLIZZA: Yes. Leaving aside my constant confusion over what he puts in quotations and what he capitalizes in his tweets, yes. Look, I do think there's a reason that Nancy Pelosi said last week that impeachment is not where we're going to go yet. And I think you will hear skepticism about adding more Supreme Court justices. Yes, Elizabeth Warren, in our town hall, earlier this week, came out in favor of abolishing the Electoral College. My guess is you're not going to see the leadership line up behind that.
I think you're going to see over and over again, Ryan, the 2020 candidates, whether Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, maybe Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, really push the envelope, with it's on impeachment, the Electoral College, all of these things, because they need to appeal to the base. Whereas, the congressional Democratic Party, led by Nancy Pelosi, will say, we're not really focused on that. We're focused on doing the business of the American people on pragmatic solutions to get things done. I think that is the natural role we always see when there's an open presidential nomination. I do think Trump will seize on the idea that Democrats, in his words, will focus on Socialism and impeaching him because that rallies his base. We'll see how much Democrats fall into that trap or not.
NOBLES: All right. And we are --
NOBLES: Quickly, Angela.
RYE: I was going to say, really quickly, I think it's important for us to understand, too, I think, this is demonstrating that there's a rising of a new, more visible base. This base has been here for years but finally Democrats are really starting to see the importance of the black vote. That is also why reparations has been a point of discussion. And the Electoral College, abolishing the Electoral College isn't just about undermining the democracy. It's about demonstrating for once that it's time for black people -- the 400th anniversary of slaves being in this country -- to finally have their own say and nobody speaking for them.
NOBLES: Which was the point that Elizabeth Warren made in that town hall --
RYE: Absolutely.
NOBLES: -- in Jackson, Mississippi, at a historically black college.
All right, Angela Rye, Chris Cillizza, thank you so much for being with us. We appreciate it.
Don't forget to watch a special CNN town hall with 2020 candidate, John Hickenlooper. Dana Bash will moderate. It will be in Atlanta tonight on CNN at 10:00 p.m. Eastern.
Coming up, the race is on for 2020 and we're not just talking about the Democrats. Next, CNN gets a rare look inside the Trump reelection machine.
[11:37:41] NOBLES: Trump 2020. The president's reelection campaign is full speed ahead. CNN has found that, in almost every way, it is a stark contrast to the chaotic bid that propelled Donald Trump to the nation's highest office in 2016.
CNN White House reporter, Jeremy Diamond, is part of our team that got an inside look at the Trump reelection machine.
Jeremy, I know you were there in 2016. How much different are things this time around?
JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: That's right, Ryan. What struck me the first moment that I walked into those office that the Trump campaign has now in Arlington, Virginia, was how different the office space was from what the campaign had in 2016. There were no moldy pipes or electrical wires hanging from the ceiling, no concrete slabs, no unpainted drywall. Instead you have this sleek modern office with glass walled offices inside. It's just such a stark contrast to what we saw back in 2016. But it goes so much beyond just the office itself. It's how
structured this reelection effort for 2020 is compared to 2016. They've already hired dozens of staff. They are sitting on lots and lots of cash. They entered 2019 with $19 million in cash on hand after raising more than $100 million in the past two years.
This is a reelection campaign that has gotten started earlier than any presidential reelection campaign before. You may remember that the president's campaign actually filed for reelection just hours after the president was inaugurated back in 2017. And leading this entire effort now is Brad Parscale, the Trump campaign's digital director back 2016. And he is working in lock step with the RNC in this unprecedented merger to essentially meld the two operations, field operations, well ahead of the general election, something they say is going to position them perfectly once Democrats have a nominee.
But Brad Parscale is very aware of the fact that, ultimately, it is going to be the president's campaign and defined by him. Here's what he told my colleague, Dana Bash, in an interview last week.
BRAD PARSCALE, PRESIDENT TRUMP'S PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN MANAGER: The president stays involved. When I show him the direction we're going, the things we're building, he's excited and he gives me input. This is what we should be doing. I've always said he's the campaign manager, the communications director, the finance director. He's the master of the Trump train and I'm the conductor on it.
[11:40:11] DIAMOND: He knows, obviously, the gain is going to be defined by the president, given his controversial nature, the polling numbers that he has. And he's also propelling the campaign with a digital focus strategy, one that's going to heavily rely on the RNC's data analytics operation. If you look at what the campaign has spent already on digital advertising, $4.5 million so far, and already outpacing those Democratic candidates. But they say the data and analytics operation that the RNC has to really precisely target those voters to turn the president's hardcore supporters into volunteers and to mobilize them to the polls, this is going to be a super-charged version of the 2016 campaign where the president really focused on his base. You're going to see much of the same this time around, just with many, many more resources -- Ryan?
NOBLES: Wow. And as of right now, he doesn't have to worry about a primary opponent so he can focus everything on the general election.
Jeremy Diamond, thank you for that inside look into the Trump campaign. We appreciate it.
Coming up, new details about the final moments of the doomed Lion Air flight and the frantic search for a fix. What the pilots tried to do to safe those on board before it crashed.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [13:45:57] NOBLES: So new information this morning about the Lion Air flight that crashed last October in Indonesia. It was the same kind of Boeing 737 MAX 8 jet that crashed last week in Ethiopia. "Reuters" reports the pilots frantically searched through a handbook minutes before the flight went down, trying to understand why the plane was nosediving. Meantime, "Bloomberg" reports that an off-duty pilot may have kept the Lion Air from crashing the day before.
CNN correspondent, Tom Foreman, has more details.
Tom, what is the latest?
TOM FOREMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, this is a horrifying new detail from "Reuters" here. The notion is that only a couple minutes after the Lion Airplane took off, they knew they had a problem. The plane was trying to pitch, nose downward, toward the Java Sea. So the pilots on board started looking through the manual. They were wrestling the plane. It would dive down and they would pull it back. It would dive down and they would pull it back. They started flipping through the manual, saying, what is going on with this plane, why is this happening? Based on this reporting, which is based upon apparently what came from the flight voice recorder on board, at no time did they realize the plane itself was doing something different in terms of the trim of the plane to make it dive. They kept talking about things like air speed, according to this report. They were concerned that somehow they were losing speed and that's what was making this plane nose down toward the sea. The bottom line is, if this is correct, this is what they went through for nine minutes trying to find an answer.
Then we have this other report from "Bloomberg" suggesting that, the day before, the same plane had a similar issue and the only difference was there was another pilot in the cockpit who was simply riding there. He might be deadheading, or whatever the explanation is, when this other pilot happened to be there. It's not clear from the authorities in Indonesia what happened. But that he recognized what was happening and he told them to shut down part of the system and that's the only reason the plane was able to fly on without a problem. And then on the ground, they looked at the plane and said everything is working fine, and they took off the next day and crashed. If you take both reports at face value, that raises the stakes very much higher for Boeing in the second crash -- Ryan?
NOBLES: Wow. Seems to be a lot more problems emerging than we first originally thought.
Tom Foreman, thank you for that report.
Coming up, bracing for North Korea's next move, the White House weighs how to respond to a possible satellite launch. What does it mean for Trump's negotiations with Kim Jong-Un?
[11:52:56] NOBLES: CNN has learned that Trump administration officials are discussing how to respond if North Korea makes a provocative new move, a satellite launch. Tensions between the two countries have escalated since President Trump's failed summit with Kim Jong-Un in Hanoi. And any weapons tests would go against the repeated assurances we've heard from President Trump about the progress he's made with North Korean leaders.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Now there's no missile testing, there's no rocket testing, there's no nuclear testing.
Chairman Kim promised me last night, regardless, he's not going to do testing of rockets and nuclear -- not going to do testing.
NOBLES: All right. So joining me now to talk about this, CNN national security reporter, Kylie Atwood.
Kylie, what are you hearing about how White House officials are preparing for this behind the scenes?
KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Well, Ryan, internally, the White House is having discussions right now about how they should react if North Korea does, indeed, make a provocative move in launching a satellite. Now, the administration has been crystal clear over the last few weeks that it would not be good. It would essentially be suicidal for U.S.-North Korea ongoing negotiations if North Korea were to test, carry out a nuclear or missile test. John Bolton, just over the weekend, the national security adviser, said that Trump himself would be very, very disappointed if North Korea made that move.
However, publicly, they have not said how the U.S. would react, how the Trump administration would react if North Korea makes the move in launching a satellite. It is a different kind of launch, but it is still banned by U.N. Security Council resolutions.
NOBLES: Yes. Talk about that a little bit more. There's a big difference between a satellite launch and a nuclear missile or even a missile that's being tested for a nuclear weapon. How would that be viewed by the American government?
ATWOOD: That's right. So you could make the argument that a satellite launch is using technology and it's outside of the nuclear infrastructure of North Korea's program, at least formally, but, of course, the devil is in the details. The actual technology that is used for a satellite launch is very similar to that that is used for an ICBM launch. So essentially, it is related. However, maybe not directly to North Korea's nuclear program.
[11:55:21] The other thing to consider here is the fact that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo earlier this year reacted very strongly, very aggressively when Iran tried to carry out a satellite test, saying it was a flagrant -- a flagrant move. It was in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions. So the Trump administration would be walking a fine line if it were to react any differently to the same move by the North Koreans.
NOBLES: All right. Kylie Atwood, thank you for that report. We appreciate it.
And we are going to be right back after this short break. | <urn:uuid:d1fe350e-4655-47ed-839a-2cf0e844c30d> | http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1903/20/ath.02.html | en | 0.970326 | 0.184651 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Thursday, February 19, 2015
Unsurpassable Memories Around the Table
Two weeks ago I got to spend a week with my son and daughter-in-law helping after their third child was born. Every meal was a delight to this grandma. Here's a sample of the joys that only come at family meals.
Two year old "Kiké" came gallop-jumping into the kitchen calling out, “Da! Da! Da!” and holding his beloved toy dog, Da. Mommy reached over, retrieved Da, and said, “Da can watch you eat from here, as she placed him safely out of reach.
Three and a half year old "Preciosa" took longer to arrive, coming in belly crawling. When she arrived at our feet she said, “I’m a snake!”
Daddy answered with a smile, “I can sssssee that. Missssss Sssssnake please come sssssit in your chair.”
Both children climbed up into their chairs. Preciosa struggled with the buckles on the booster seat until she was snapped in. “Well,” shrugging, Mommy said, “At least she has to sit facing forward that way.” Preciosa also managed to fasten the velcro on her bib while Mommy helped Kiké with his.
Preciosa surveyed the breakfast table. “Pancakes! Blueberries!” she exclaimed.
“ ‘An. Cakes. Boo. Bewwies.” echoed Kiké, who says every word with a period after it.
We all held hands and Daddy asked Preciosa if she would like to pray. Eyes scrunched tight shut she said, “Thank you for this good day and for Mommy and Daddy and baby and the snow and this good meal. Amen!”
“Ah. Men.” echoed Kiké.
While Daddy put peanut butter and jam on Preciosa’s pancake, Mommy took care of Kiké’s. “Can I please have some blueberries?” asked Preciosa.
“Since you asked so nicely you may have a few now, but then you need to eat your pancake before you have more,” Daddy answered.
Watching Preciosa get a dozen or so blueberries, Kiké said, “Boo. Bewwies.”
“How do you ask?”
“Boo. Bewwies. Peas.” Head nodding in emphasis of each word.
Preciosa daintily ate her blueberries two at a time while Kiké stuffed half of his in his mouth at once. Preciosa carefully ate her pancake so the jam and peanut butter went mostly into her mouth. Kiké grabbed his with two hands and took a bite out of the middle, leaving a smear of peanut butter and raspberry jam on both cheeks.
When Preciosa had finished she announced, “My plate is empty.”
“Yes it is,” said Daddy.
“I want more,” said Preciosa.
“How do you ask?” prompted Daddy.
“Please may I have some more pancake?”
And she got some more. Which caused a little more jam to stay on her face.
Preciosa and Kiké looked at each other and saw the food on the other’s face, each made a face, and then giggled impishly, which struck them even funnier and the giggling got louder until all of us were smiling.
“Kiké, do you want some more pancake?” asked Mommy.
Being two, Kiké said, “No,” and held up his plate for more.
When Preciosa had finished four pancakes and Kiké was mushing up his third, Mommy asked him, “Kiké, are you all done or still eating?”
“Till. Eatin’.” But after a few more mushes he proclaimed, “All. Done.”
“Would you like to say some verses to get some raisins?” Daddy asked.
“Yes please!” said Preciosa.
“Eth. Peas.” echoed Kiké.
Preciosa said four review verses, complete with motions, and received a small handful of raisins. Kiké said, “God. Is. Love.” and got some raisins. When they had finished eating those, they each said their new verse for more raisins.
Daddy ran some water till it got warm and dampened the wash cloths. Preciosa took her own and started playing with it. “I’m Mr. Washcloth and I’m going to eat your nose!” The cloth in her hand grabbed her own nose and said, “Nom, nom, nom” in a deep growly voice. Then Preciosa held out the washcloth again and said, “I’m Mr. Washcloth and I’m going to eat your cheek!” The cloth scrubbed the side of her face while saying, “Nom, nom, nom.” And so it went until Preciosa was all clean.
The two got down from the table to go play, leaving behind a sticky mess on the table, raisins on the floor, milked dripped down the chair, lots of smiles, and unsurpassable memories.
* * * * * * *
Do you have a meal to tell us about?
Write me and let me know.
I'd love to share it with my readers.
* * * * *
* * * * *
Linking with these great blogs.
1. It's amazing how many things you're actually teaching when you sit down to a family meal (about your values, your religious beliefs, social skills, manners... and it all happens in the 10 minutes it takes them to eat their food and then run away to play!)
Stopping from Titus2Tuesday, thanks for the glimpse into your morning.
1. it really is amazing, isn't it! And it's worth the effort and mess. So many fun memories and conversations happen at the table, but they don't just happen when the kids are grown up, they have to start young.
Have a great week.
Debi @ Adorned From Above
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Thursday, February 26, 2009
I Want My Health Care Easy
Imagine a time when you can log onto Facebook, click on your Doctor's profile, schedule a appointment for the next few days, fill out a quick form with a list of what's ailing you, happy in the knowledge that your medical information will be electronically transferred to his medical and office software for quick diagnosis and easy billing.
Facebook's easy to use, consumer friendly medical insurance app would monitor the Doctor's invoice, the insurance company's payments for any errors, while anonymous data about your condition, diagnosis and treatment would be sent to the CDC so it could monitor for pandemic flu and other diseases.
All of this would happen with a few clicks of the mouse.
Science fiction right?
Electronic health records (EHR) have been talked about forever and a day it seems. I remember sitting through a compelling presentation at the AeA four years ago about EHR. Microsoft and Google have SaaS offerings already up. Everyone agrees that EHR will be consumer friendly, increase reporting, preserve privacy, save Doctors money- so why doesn't happen?
Probably because the whole healthcare industry is so fractured, non-functional and distorted by haphazard government regulation that something this, well simple, has to wait until everything else wrong with healthcare gets fixed first.
How messed up is it? Here are five healthcare experts talking on a NYTimes blog with five different takes on healthcare reform. They each have an axe to grind but none of them seems to have a holistic solution.
What do you think? Even given that the President is setting aside $600B for health care reform, will it work? Can it work?
Anonymous said...
Another reason, and its quite simple: There are very few people in the world that have the know how to implement something like what you are describing.
Navigating a Health IT infrastructure is hard enough, but when you have to weave together a fractured health system like the one in the'd be hard pressed to A.) find someone capable enough not already employed, and B.) find enough money to get that person to leave their current job in order to try and put together a globe linking health solution.
Check out the incompetence of one group that just announced an iMedical Butler service just to see how hard it is for a group to get one patient from A to B electronically -
Saw this on twitter, thanks.
Unknown said...
Damjan, thanks for the comment! I think the health system is so fractured that, as a legacy system, it might be worthwile to ditch it entirely.
For example, would you sign up for POTS telephone service from AT&T, or would you sign up for an Internet based VOIP system from a smaller provider that's basically a SaaS service at 10% of the AT&T price?
EHR is basically secure data distribution. This is a solved problem in every other industry. The wheel doesn't need to be reinvented.
Garen Corbett said...
Might be worth thinking about HIPAA 2.0 to take away some of the regulatory hurtles? | <urn:uuid:833c4d1f-3576-4a99-a35d-d8145c91cfe8> | http://www.jeffmajka.com/2009/02/i-want-my-health-care-easy.html | en | 0.960339 | 0.297917 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
How to write a reflection speech
By | June 27, 2020
Introduce your topic and the point you plan to make about your experience and learning. write a draft. however, unlike essays, a speech must be written to be heard as how to write a reflection speech opposed to just essay on suburban chicago being read. aug 14, 2011 · the key to writing a successful personal reflection is to remember that it is a personal response made by you. here are the exact steps you need to follow for a reflection on group work narrative essay topics for grade 8 essay: professional business plans typically, a reflection paper should start with information that puts your reflection in context. how much knowledge to they have about how to write a reflection speech your topic? In order to come research paper on poverty up with an effective reflective statement, you must give yourself the time to reflect on things that has happened. the activity of reflection does not need how to write a reflection speech to be formal in nature. title: you can begin by talking about writing example essay skills, learn to write essay responses how to write a reflection speech and actions that have been strengthened by this experience, then move into topics for writing essays a discussion of areas that need work dec 20, 2018 · explain your thoughts and reflections about your business in your body paragraphs. in this commemorative speech, you will pay tribute to writing ielts task 2 essay one person. but i digress there’s never a bad time to re-examine and rethink how to write your syllabus. [2] x trustworthy source university of north carolina writing center unc’s on-campus and online instructional service that provides assistance to students, …. the proposals helped me focus on the prompt and deconstruct it go into a little more detail about reading essay example the core premise of how to write a reflection speech your speech, as the audience probably wasn’t really listening yet at the beginning. for example, you how to write a reflection speech might start an essay about medicine by talking about you how to write a reflective essay: an essay diary can take the form of an annotated bibliography (where you examine sources of evidence you might include in your essay) and a critique (where you reflect on your help with writing assignments own writing and research processes) as you read it, consider how the student has incorporated the elements of reflective essay about marriages writing as mentioned above (description, analysis and outcomes/action) then answer professional writers salary the questions below. how does turnitin work reddit.
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Cyclical technological evolution and comparative economic growth
• Elias Dinopoulos
• Peter Thompson
A two-country model of growth is developed with exogenous fluctuations in the rate of technological progress. Technological growth in the leading country follows a random walk, while in the lagging country the rate of advance depends on the technological distance between the two countries and the efficiency of limitation. In the absence of cyclical technological change or lags in technology transfer, there is monotonic convergence in income levels. If the two countries share initially identical technologies, their standards of living never diverge. In the presence of cyclical technological change and lags of limitation, a rich pattern of relative growth emerges: the model generates convergence, divergence and leapfrogging along balanced growth equilibria, and also demonstrates why observed convergence rates may be substantially slower than those predicted by the standard neoclassical model.
How to Cite
Dinopoulos, E., & Thompson, P. (2016). Cyclical technological evolution and comparative economic growth. Estudios de Economía, 22(2), pp. 133-157. Retrieved from | <urn:uuid:388e8033-d07f-42c4-b968-953b671d845b> | https://estudiosdeeconomia.uchile.cl/index.php/EDE/article/view/40946 | en | 0.841609 | 0.158372 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
ABDL Story Forum
Lost Cause by Lolatrec
Part One
Sixteen years old and already Charles Burbank was a lost cause. This his mother knew for certain. A smart mouth, awful grades, a vandalism rap – without his father around to keep him in line, the blue-eyed sweetheart they’d called Charlie had grown into Chuck, a bitter and arrogant hellion.
That’s why Mrs. Burbank was so grateful for Dr. Tompkins’s hypnosis therapy. For an overworked, single mother, it was a lifesaver, the only thing that could keep Chuck in line and allow his mother an afternoon’s respite. A mental haze, a temporary change in consciousness, triggered by a phrase, then augmented and ensured through prescribed medication, the endgame of the suggestive process would render Chuck tranquil via a return to comfortable familiarity; during and after this, he would have access to all of his knowledge, memories, and emotions. But the boy would be so mercifully manageable.
That said, hypnosis is for home use, not school; and, in that regard, Friday afternoon was the last straw. Chuck had been sent to the principal’s office for stealing cigarettes from the teachers’ lounge and selling them on school grounds. This, combined with previous offenses, would lead into a weekend of telephone calls to superintendents and appeals against expulsion, pending a final decision from the Willowbrook School District.
The doorbell rang as Mrs. Burbank swallowed an Advil. She was relieved Chuck had kept his Friday night plans. Far be it from her to use medical treatment as punishment, and the effects always had been kept private. But oh, what a stressful workweek will do to a mother…
“Hi, Mrs. Burbank!”
“Good to see you again, Emily!” Mrs. Burbank leaned across the threshold and gave her son’s girlfriend a hug. “I’m glad you could make it. Chuck’s just upstairs. He’ll be down shortly.”
The woman and the 15-year-old girl walked through the foyer towards the kitchen.
“Your house is lovely,” said Emily.
“Well, aren’t you a sweetheart! I only wish we could’ve had you over sooner. Two months seeing him and you don’t even have a real picture of how Chuck truly lives.”
Emily laughed. “I do like him so far. I’m just glad I get to spend some time with the woman behind the magic.”
Mrs. Burbank shot Emily a smile as Chuck came bounding down the stairs.
“Hey, beautiful,” Chuck said as he put his arm around his girlfriend. “How was your day?”
“Fine,” replied Emily. “Your mom was just fixing us dinner.”
The boy groaned. “I hope it’s better than the shit she made last night.”
Emily’s face turned bright red. She turned to look at Chuck’s mother, who had already set her serving spoon down in quiet frustration. Emily was surprised to find the woman smiling.
“Chuck?” Mrs. Burbank asked. “Did you bring your books home from school today?”
The words sounded hollow and tinny to Chuck, as if he were listening to them through a tin can. A wisp of confusion flitted across his eyes.
“What, Mom?”
“I asked you a question. Did you bring your books home from school today?”
The teenager snapped back to reality in an instant and nodded his head. “Yeah. Yeah, I always do, Mom.”
“Good,” Mrs. Burbank replied. “I’m proud of you.” She ladled out equal portions of chicken and broccoli casserole and set the plates around the kitchen table. The three sat down to dinner.
“I heard you got in trouble with Principal Kamen today,” said Emily. “What was the deal with that?”
Chuck shook his head as he talked through a mouthful of casserole. “There’s no fuckin’ way–”
Mrs. Burbank slapped her son across the face. “Language!”
Chuck took a deep breath. “I’m sorry.”
Mrs. Burbank nodded. “I’m sure it was all a misunderstanding, Emily. I’m working it out this weekend. Chuck will be at his desk and ready for his math test on Monday morning.”
“Right after Batman,” Chuck added.
Emily turned to her boyfriend. “Pardon?”
“Batman!” chirped the boy. “It comes on at 6:30? Hello?”
Emily was torn between chuckling and being taken aback. A genuine look of confusion crossed her face.
“I… I didn’t realize you were into Batman, Chuck,” Emily said.
“Pfft,” said the teen. He picked idly at his food with the tines of his fork. Eating was beginning to bore him. “It’s only the coolest show ever. I guess you wouldn’t understand 'cause you’re a girl.”
“Excuse me?” Emily replied with a laugh.
“Nothin’.” Chuck resumed eating, dancing his gaze along the ceiling as if he had been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
“So, Emily,” said Mrs. Burbank, “what sort of things do you like to do?”
The girl set down her fork. “Well, I’m really into nature… if it’s sunny outside I like to go out and walk through the woods, maybe gather up some–”
“BOOORRR-RRRIIINNNG!” Chuck wailed, slamming his hand on the table. “I wanna talk more about Batman!”
“Charles Burbank!” his mother scolded. “You do not interrupt at the dinner table!”
The boy stuck his tongue out. Emily froze in place, her eyes dancing between her hosts. She had never seen her boyfriend act this way before. Sure, he could be a prick at times, but this was just–
“Ow!” Emily said as a chunk of broccoli hit her in the forehead and fell to her plate. Chuck grinned from across the table.
“Gotchoo!” the teenager said, laughing. “Broccoli-face!”
Mrs. Burbank stood up. “CHARLES!”
“Broccoli-face! Broccoli-face! Em-i-ly’s a broccoli-face!” Chuck stuck his hand into the casserole and hurled a handful of food at his girlfriend. She jumped up from the table in revulsion and struggled to pick the chunks of chicken and sauce out of her hair.
“Mrs. Burbank,” Emily said, flustered, “I–”
“I am so sorry, dear,” the woman said, reaching for the paper towels. Chuck laughed uproariously in the background. “He’ll be fine in a second.”
“He’ll be fine.”
The laughter stopped.
Emily glanced up to see her boyfriend sucking his thumb and rocking in his chair, an expression of intense concentration on his face, as if he were chasing after a thought.
“He’s certainly a handful, isn’t he?” Mrs. Burbank asked, helping to remove the last of the food from Emily’s hair.
“Um, I guess,” the girl replied.
Mrs. Burbank turned to her son. “Charlie, are you ready for night-time?”
Those hollow, echoing words again. Inside, Chuck was screaming. He knew exactly what was going on. His private treatment – his deepest, most humiliating secret – was being put on display, exhibited for his girlfriend like a street parade. He wanted to slam on the brakes. He would do anything.
“Charlie, are you ready for night-time?”
He could do nothing.
A second switch flipped in Charlie’s head, and he spoke around his thumb. “Yeth, Mommy.”
Mrs. Burbank faced Emily and smiled warmly. “Now you’ll get to have a real picture of how Charlie truly lives,” she said. “Could you give me a hand with your boyfriend, dear?”
Emily put her filthy hair up into a scrunchie and smiled despite herself. “Absolutely.”
Part Two
Charlie’s hands, t-shirt, and jeans were covered in casserole. His mother and girlfriend led him through the kitchen and to the bathroom as he toddled uneasily on his feet.
“Dear, would you grab his pants?”
Charlie stood on the bathroom tile, sucking his thumb and staring downward dumbly as his girlfriend unbuttoned and unzipped his blue jeans. The teenager’s head was clouded and slow-moving; he caught the occasional solid thought as a frog would a fly, but in general there was naught but a constant, heavy haze of humiliation and helplessness while his girlfriend undressed him in his mother’s view.
Emily slid Charlie’s jeans down to his feet and he stepped out of them, removing his shoes as well. His every helpful motion was guided by Dr. Tompkins’s post-hypnotic suggestions. The 16-year-old wanted to fight, to scream out as he helped his mother pull his t-shirt over his head and toss it aside, but he was so sedate, so willing, so controllable.
Relief washed over the ladies in an awesome wave.
Mrs. Burbank drew the water. “Charlie? Can you take your big-boy boxers off or do you need Emily’s help with that?”
Charlie pouted and pulled his thumb from his mouth. “I can take my pants off, Mommy.”
“Just checking.”
The boy placed his fingers upon the waistband and slid his boxers down to his feet, exposing himself in front of his mother and Emily. The blood rushed to his skin in a hot fire as he came to acknowledge his penis dangling limply between his legs in full and open view. When he settled into the warm, inviting water of the bathtub, he felt better, but not much.
“You see, Emily,” Mrs. Burbank began, “when babies get messy, you have to clean them up right away lest they get food all over your nice carpeting and upholstery.”
Emily nodded and soaped up a rag, sliding it along her boyfriend’s chest. “I see.”
Charlie seethed in humiliation, unable to act, as the two women ran a rag and a bar of soap over his body, along his abs and back, and down his legs. Mrs. Burbank dropped a blue, plastic tugboat into the water; this distracted the teenager long enough for his girlfriend to soap up his genitals. He giggled at her touch and developed an erection.
Charlie wanted to howl with rage. And he couldn’t, which made him want to howl even more. He struggled to fight the effects of the hypnosis and the drugs as his girlfriend inadvertently masturbated him in front of his mother. Finally, something was coming to him – control. He felt himself able to muster up ability to scream out, at last, from his mental prison.
“W—W—Whaaaaiiiieeee?” he whined, a tear rolling down each cheek. He was amazed he could provide as much resistance. If he kept working at it, he might be able to beat this thing. "Why you— "—he sniffled—“Why you tweatin’ Charwie wike a widdle baby?”
“Because that’s all you are right now, little Charlie,” his mother replied. “Don’t you remember? Mommy gives you food, clothing, and shelter, and you give her peace by helping her this way. And now Emily’s here to help, too.”
The boy’s heart sank into his stomach.
“Emily, will you get Charlie’s diapers ready while I let out the water?”
Emily pulled her hands out of the tub. Charlie whined twofold—for losing the sensation of loving pleasure around his cock, and for the sudden realization that his girlfriend was going to be diapering him like a baby.
Please freak out, Emily. Please run away.
Emily dried off her hands. “Where are his diapers?”
“Down the hall, sweetie. His bedroom is the last door on the left.”
When Emily made it to her boyfriend’s room, her jaw dropped. Chuck Burbank, the meanest, toughest kid at Willowbrook High, the colossal prick, the cigarette salesman and vandal du année… lived in a nursery. There was a toy box, a diaper pail, and a playpen with blocks, rings, and Duplos. Bears with balloons bedecked the wallpaper and iridescent stars dotted the ceiling. A mobile hung over Charlie’s crib, next to which was a foot-high stack of thick, white, disposable diapers.
By the time Emily returned with them, Mrs. Burbank had already dried off her son and laid him on the bathmat. Emily, for her part, was finally piecing together why her boyfriend was always so smooth and shaved.
“Emiwy?” asked Charlie.
“Wet Mommy put me in dipees.”
Charlie burned with shame. He was jockeying for the lesser of two evils. But it wasn’t to be.
“Now, Charlie,” Mrs. Burbank said. “If Emily is going to be your girlfriend, we have to let her get some practice now, don’t we? Diapering a teenage boy is not the same thing as diapering a baby and she may as well know now for the times she has to change you.”
Emily nodded in agreement and Charlie started wailing. The teenage girl slid the double-thick diaper, white save for a blue band festooned with remote-control cars, underneath her boyfriend’s ass. Charlie squirmed and bawled, salty tears running down his face and moistening the bathmat, as Emily rubbed powder into the creases between his legs. Under Mrs. Burbank’s watchful eye she lubricated her hand with baby oil and slathered it over Charlie’s backside, eliciting a new round of whining cries from the teenager which crescendoed as he felt his girlfriend’s finger slide into his ass.
Charlie calmed down a bit as he felt Emily pull the thick diaper up between his legs and hold it to his tummy. He sucked his thumb – a counterintuitive way to allay his humiliation – as his girlfriend secured all four tapes and tucked in the legbands with her fingertips. Emily pronounced Charlie diapered and Mrs. Burbank voiced her approval.
Mrs. Burbank and Emily helped Charlie to his feet. The plastic of the thickly-padded, babyish diaper crinkled between the teenager’s legs.
Embarrassed beyond words, Charlie sucked his thumb earnestly as he toddled towards the living room, his awkward waddle supported by his mother and girlfriend, the sound of a rustling diaper echoing behind him.
Charlie felt like such a baby. Any semblance of the independent, tough-guy façade he conveyed around his mother was gone. Whatever respect and allure he had curried with Emily as the edgy, bad-boy boyfriend was locked away, never to be seen again, hidden behind a fortress of shame and the tapes a soft, white diaper.
“Me hungwy,” Charlie whined.
“Of course you are, dear,” his mother replied. “Half your food ended up on your pants and in your girlfriend’s hair. How are we supposed to feed you when you’re such a messy baby?”
Charlie, nearly naked as the sun, stood in the middle of the room and turned to face the girls. Pouting, his lower lip stuck outward, he clasped his hands together and hung them limply in front of his diaper.
NO! No, dammit!!
“Me wan’ ba-ba.”
Mrs. Burbank sighed. Emily put her hand to her mouth and failed at suppressing a giggle.
“Emily, be a sweetheart and get your boyfriend his ba-ba from the cupboard. You can feed him some warm milk for his dinner.”
Emily nodded and walked to the kitchen. Charlie fell to his knees in despair. Course grains of dignity, of control, slid through his fingers like sand and were gone.
Part Three
And so it was that 16-year-old Chuck, now Charlie, lay on the couch, sprawled across his girlfriend’s lap, thickly and comfortably diapered, nursing a baby bottle of warm milk as his mother sat in her rocking chair, gazing on in approval.
Please let this end. Please send her home. Please don’t do this to me.
“So, what’s it like taking care of Baby Charlie during the weekends?” Emily asked, holding the bottle upright to encourage the flow of milk to her boyfriend’s mouth. Charlie twitched his toes in reflex.
“He’s really very little trouble at all,” Mrs. Burbank replied. “Usually he just sits around and plays with his blocks. Time and time again he’ll find a colorful show on the television; that’ll hold his attention for a few minutes. It’s so boring for him. So very boring and so very humiliating. You see, his mind’s still there–up in the attic, it’s still 16-year-old Chuck, big man on campus.”
Charlie whined around the nipple of the bottle as the warm milk slid down his throat. He could not conceive of a situation wherein he would feel more humiliated. His girlfriend continued to nurse him as she listened intently to Mrs. Burbank’s chronicle.
“But his volition… why, he has but the sentience of an infant. He plays with his stuffed animals, he drinks from his bottles, he eats his baby food from a high chair…”
The teenager’s face burned with shame. The bottle was almost finished. He couldn’t wait for this episode finally to be overwith.
“He even goes potty in his diapers.”
The words echoed in Charlie’s head. A hollow tintinnabulation. They ricocheted and repeated.
Charlie whined as he sucked the last droplet of milk from his bottle.
“Don’t you, sweetie?”
“What, Mommy?” Charlie asked, turning to face his mother.
“Don’t you go potty in your diapers?”
Charlie shook and shivered, struggling to grasp one modicum of control, to save one iota of face with his girlfriend, but his lips seemed to move on their own.
“Yeth, Mommy. Me go poddy im my dipees.”
Mrs. Burbank smiled. “Why don’t you show Emily what a big boy you are?”
With a sigh of resignation, Charlie stood up off of the couch and walked to the middle of the room. His virgin white diapers crinkled loudly around his bottom as he baby-stepped. Emily and Mrs. Burbank stood side-by-side in front of him, eager to coach him on his performance.
Please, Mom. Stop this. Don’t make me do this in front of Emily. I will never, ever fuck up again, if you just–
Charlie felt a tear roll down his cheek as the first warm spurt of urine soaked into his diaper. He tried to hold back, to fight, but between his immediate need and the post-hypnotic suggestion, there was no hope.
The 16-year-old shoved his thumb into his mouth and let go. Waves of warmth flowed over his cock and down his balls, settling into his diaper and creeping up its backside. Emily giggled as she watched the white exterior of Charlie’s diaper gradually change to its yellow hue. The teenager’s face burned furiously as he emptied his bladder, feeling the trickle coursing through the creases of his legs like warm, pallid fingers. He couldn’t stop even if he had wanted to.
Emily walked behind Charlie and sized up his diapered butt. The urine had wicked back and caused his diaper to puff out. A lone stream of pee worked its way out of the legband and settled into the carpet.
Oh God. I’m leaking. I’m leaking in my diapers in front of my girlfriend. Please make it stop.
When it finally did, Charlie squirted out a few more drops, and jerked his thumb from his mouth.
“EMMMIWYYY!” he whined, loudly and in falsetto. “Me jus wen peepee im my DIPEE!”
Emily busted out laughing. “My, you certainly did! What a big boy we have here, with such a full diaper!”
Charlie seethed. He loved Emily, but he hated what she was doing to him. He hated every coo, every word of baby-talk, every sycophantic concession to his mother. The young boy’s mind was a torrid jungle of conflicting emotions. There simply wasn’t enough room for them all, and Charlie began to cry. To bawl.
“No, no, Charlie!” said Emily. “Emiwy wuvs hew widdwe baby!”
That made it even worse.
Charlie collapsed to his knees, his soaking wet diaper hanging at his hips, as he let out a genuine wail of despair. It was so loud that the portraits on the fireplace mantle shook. A thin line of spit amassed on Charlie’s bottom lip and trickled down to the inside of his diaper as he cried for his mommy, his girlfriend – somebody to save him from this humiliation. Anybody.
“I wan’ my Mommy!”
More tears.
Charlie fell to his stomach and started beating his fists on the carpet. He pounded his feet as well, throwing a considerable tantrum as the last of his inhibitions were whisked away. He squirmed, and wailed, and bellowed.
“Pwease do not do dis to me! Pwease! Me be goo boy! Me be goo! Me pwomise!”
The teenager felt as if he were possessed. Small juts of pain struck through him as his toes pounded the carpeting.
“Pwease dun do dis to Baby Chawie!”
Emily and Mrs. Burbank took pity on the boy and sought to calm him down. They nestled beside him and wiped the tears from his eyes.
“Is my baby going to be okay?” Emily asked.
Charlie struggled to catch his breath. He sucked his thumb as hard as he could for several seconds.
“Yeth, Mommy,” he replied.
Mrs. Burbank brushed the hair away from her eyes. “Charlie, are you calm?”
“Charlie, I need you to be a big boy for Mommy. Can you do that?”
Reassured, the women stood up and contemplated how to get their 16-year-old baby to his crib.
Mrs. Burbank sighed. “Ni-ni, Charlie?”
The teenager didn’t answer. He simply rolled over, his muscles weakened by the mere power of suggestion, and rose to his knees and the palms of his hands. His diaper sagging heavily between his legs, Charlie began the long, shameful crawl to his nursery.
And Emily was there every step of the way, making sure he didn’t fall over, and giving him but one consolatory kiss when he did.
Lost Cause by Lolatrec
Part Four
Charlie awoke to the feeling of his thumb in his mouth and a cold, soggy diaper wrapped around his private parts. Sunlight cast shadows of crib bars across the teenager’s face. He was confused in that he had never before woken up in such a state.
The boy reached down and scratched between his legs. He itched and reeked of urine.
“Dr. Tompkins, please,” Charlie heard his mother say from the kitchen. “Yes, I’ll hold.”
The 16-year-old popped his thumb out of his mouth, unlocked the top of his crib, and brought the bars down. Carefully, he set his tired legs to the floor and toddled out of his nursery and toward the kitchen.
“Well, that’s just it, Doctor,” Charlie overheard his mother say. “I’ve never put him to sleep without first taking him out of his trance before.”
When Charlie arrived in the kitchen, he was ashamed to see Emily still there, hovering around the boy’s mother as if she were a nurse’s assistant. Mrs. Burbank sat on a stool, talking intently into the telephone. The teenager wanted to move his hands, to cover the front of his soaked diaper from his girlfriend’s sight, but he still felt too weak, too drugged, too controlled – doubly so that he had just woken up.
“Uh-huh. I see.”
As per the terms of his hypnosis, Charlie returned his thumb to his mouth and dribbled his morning pee into his diaper. It dangled threateningly between the boy’s legs, causing his girlfriend to chuckle.
“I understand I was supposed to take him out of the trance first, but circumstances-- I see. Yes. Uh-huh. Alright. Thank you very much.” Mrs. Burbank hung up the phone.
Charlie yawned and stretched. “W…Wha was that all about?”
Mrs. Burbank sighed and turned to Emily. “There’s a problem, sweetie. We shouldn’t have put him to bed without taking him out of his hypnotic trance first. Apparently, the process of deep sleep wired the results of the hypnosis into Charlie’s brain a little harder than intended.”
Charlie shuddered. What was the meaning of this?
“Yes, Mrs. Burbank?”
“Can you take this next week off of school?”
“I’ll check with my mom, but I’m sure I can,” smiled Emily. “Why?”
Mrs. Burbank sighed. "I’ve spoken with the superintendent and Charlie is welcome back at school after this one-week suspension, but Dr. Tompkins said that, as a result of the hypnosis, the drugs, and the sleep, Charlie’s going to be in this state for a while. He’s lost all control of his bladder and bowels.
“Now, I’m going to be in a conference in Arizona all week… if I leave you with the keys, some cash, and a list of items, would you be a dear and potty-train him for me?”
Charlie’s head began to spin. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He couldn’t believe he was going to be trapped in this condition with his girlfriend for an entire week. And-- she would be potty-training him!
A nervous tear trickled down Charlie’s cheek as he visualized the week ahead. He saw himself at night, curled up with his drop-dead gorgeous girlfriend, only he’d be heavily diapered and nursing from a bottle. He saw himself during the day, toddling through the house wearing only his training pants, desperately trying to find Emily so he could tell her he had to go potty. He pictured Emily leading him by the hand to the bathroom and sitting him down on a purple potty chair, then holding his hand and coaching him on as he made tinkles for her. They’d sit together, Charlie’s face burning with morbid shame, waiting patiently for the sound of the teenager’s poop to hit the bottom of the potty chair. He saw his girlfriend clapping, congratulating him as he pouted tearfully, then wiping his butt before pulling up his Barney training pants. And if Charlie ever had an accident, he knew he would be back in diapers… and it would be his girlfriend who would have to change him. He didn’t want to go through that again. Not with his mother, not with Emily… not with anyone!
The 16-year-old burst into tears, his wails echoing across the kitchen walls. “Waaaaahhhhh!! I don’ wanna be potty-twained!”
Charlie’s mother and girlfriend looked on at the boy, clad only in his sodden diaper, in ultimate pity. Dejected, humiliated, and at a complete loss of strength, the teenager bawled like a baby as a stool worked its way out of his butt and settled into the wet fabric dangling between his legs. Charlie lost all control and all hope as he helplessly, reflexively, unclenched his muscles and pushed load after load of sticky crap into the seat of his bulging diaper. Emily stared on in mutual embarrassment and awe as her boyfriend messed himself so completely, so openly, and so loudly. Drops of salty tears splattered on the kitchen linoleum as the boy wailed around his thumb, the back of his diaper turning brown and hanging heavily from his hips. He had never felt so helpless, filthy, and utterly infantile in his life.
Emily approached her boyfriend, hoping to comfort him. Amusement had so quickly turned to empathy. She embraced him, kissed him into silence, and reassuringly ran her hand down his back and along his loaded diaper, pressing the stinking mess against his flesh.
“Does my baby need his didee changed?” Emily asked. “Does hims need Emiwy to teach him to use da potty?”
Charlie sniffled, nodded, and surrendered to his girlfriend the task at which his mother had failed; to make him a big boy.
Lost Cause by Lolatrec
I love the way he manages to make it worse every time he speaks.
Lost Cause by Lolatrec
Lost Cause by Lolatrec
very nice story
This story was pretty good,
i feel it was to short, a good read still,
Thanks for the story. | <urn:uuid:2654fc58-57dc-4981-b2b2-6d02cae3ae7e> | https://forums.abdlstoryforum.info/t/lost-cause-by-lolatrec/3345 | en | 0.984651 | 0.025982 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
After Auschwitz
‘Nothing can ever prepare you for Auschwitz’ we were told.
And yet as we walked around the camp, each of us plugged into headphones, listening to our guide’s rapid, rehearsed jabber, I simply rolled my shoulders which were aching from the weight of the water in my rucksack and shifted from one tired foot to the other.
Yes, the hair was shocking. The mounds and mounds of hair. And the glasses. And the shoes…
But there was no reaction: I’d heard it all before, seen the pictures countless times.
We listened to the stories of the escapees whose friends paid the price: up to twenty could be killed for their associations with the wrongdoer. We saw the places where they were punished: the starvation cell, the standing cell, the wall of death. Bang. Bang. Bang. All through this, I begged for a reaction, tried to imagine myself in the same position. I was disturbed by the calmness which held me. A coping mechanism? Perhaps. But I didn’t feel numb; I just felt normal.
Auschwitz was a film set. I was walking through a Granada studio, next door to Coronation Street. The ‘Arbiet Macht Frei’ gate was just a prop. That’s how I felt. I couldn’t connect with any of it. Not even the gas chamber in which millions had suffocated and then burned.
Auschwitz-Birkenau was the same. Barrack upon barrack upon barrack could be seen from the watchtower window through which I knew murderers had once peered. Of course, I was struck by the vastness of the place, and shocked by the figures: 1,000 to a barrack, 8 to a bed (a euphemism for the shelves on which the prisoners slept.) Yet when walking the same walk that so many others had taken as their last, I couldn’t feel anything.
What did affect me, though, were the family photographs, accompanied by brief biographies, taken before Auschwitz destroyed everything that they had. In particular, I remember a picture of three girls, about my age, proudly playing their musical instruments for the camera. I didn’t have time to read their biography so am left wondering whether they made it out. A face touches far deeper than a number.
The finishing ceremony, given by Rabbi Barry Marcus, at the point where the train track to Auschwitz-Birkenau ends, also provoked some response. As darkness fell and his prayer, sang in Hebrew, echoed over the vast expanse which once pulsated with feeble life, anger and fear ebbed dully within me. My main thought was of how reminiscent the contemporary cliche, ‘they’re stealing our jobs’, seems of the attitude held by many in the lead-up to the Holocaust. Did it ever really go away? Or did it just transfer from one minority group to another? Yet rather than it being those who hold with such a skin-crawling sentiment, I think that it is those of us who aren’t ignorant and bigoted and cruel that could pave the way to the next Holocaust. Our blind belief in ourselves is fast leading to a complacency which is sure to assist the spread of prejudice. We cannot allow a loss of urgency. To think ‘Oh, it will never happen again’ is just as dangerous as the contemporary myths being spouted about immigration and Islam.
Nevertheless, on the plane home, I was left selfishly pondering what was wrong with me. How was I supposed to feel? Was I heartless? Did I lack imagination? And then I went home and slept, where not a thought of the preceding day disturbed me.
But today, on my way to school, I passed a woman and a child. The boy, with a cunning smile, was obstinately refusing to follow her, secure in the knowledge that his mum would never abandon him here in the park. Yet after a couple of warnings, she began to walk away. The smile faded into a scowl and then into an expression of terror. The child was subsumed with tears as he tottered after his mother screaming ‘You left me, you left me!’
In that moment I was taken back to the train track at Auschwitz-Birkenau where mothers and children were separated with the gesture of a thumb. Husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, friends. Split into two categories: indefinitely prolonged life and death. The child’s screams continued long after his mother had scooped him up, back into the safety of her arms.
At Auschwitz, it was difficult to connect with that which happened nearly seventy years ago. To me, it didn’t feel real. It was just a place. The people that died there were just a number. History GCSE, ‘Schindler’s List’ and ‘The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas’, have all allowed me to explore the Holocaust, to come to terms with the horror and the suffering and the evil. Thus I argue that you can prepare for Auschwitz.
But sat here, with the image of that panic-stricken child chasing his mother who was only a few metres away, tears fall onto my hands and I realise that what it is impossible to prepare for is coming home.
And so, as the time between us and the Holocaust expands, we become less and less connected to it. This distance is becoming especially profound as the number of survivors dwindles. Yet we must remember. We must continue to visit and continue to educate others. We must always grieve the loss of life and put faces to those who suffered at the hand of the Nazis. If not for the victims, we must do it for ourselves and those that will come after us.
‘The one who does not remember history is bound to live through it again’ George Santayana
Thank you to Lessons From Auschwitz
Another interesting article: Bystanders | <urn:uuid:e9f856eb-746e-4445-9e2b-3c04ba46586d> | https://freyamorel.wordpress.com/tag/lessons-from-auschwitz/ | en | 0.955729 | 0.025254 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Glass String Quartet no. 2, ‘Company’
performed by the Smith Quartet, or below by the Spektral Quartet or in another great performance here
Here we are! This is something many more people will recognize as Philip Glass.
The description of the above video says it is the “haunting and melancholic Quartet No. 2”, which… perhaps much of Glass’s music is, but we’ll talk about that in a bit; it fits with the ‘inspiration’. The work is subtitled ‘Company’ because it was originally to be incidental music for Samuel Beckett’s novella Company. The (very short) Wikipedia article specifically states that the music was “expected to be” for an adaptation of Company, but with no clarification on why it is phrased that way instead of just “it was”.
It was finished and premiered in 1983, quite some time after the first quartet was finished, but before the first was actually premiered. Glass’s official site lists as the commission:
Mabou Mines Development Foundation for he [sic] dramatization of Samuel Beckett’s prose poem “Company”
What we have is a small eight or nine minute, compact and yet still rich string quartet. (Notably, JoAnne Akalaitis was a member of Mabou Mines, and Glass later married her.)
Of the original prose work that the quartet is (at least somewhat) based on, Professor Lawrence Graver at says:
In his early seventies, Samuel Beckett composed an enigmatic, hauntingly beautiful prose text, “Company,” in which an old man lying on his back alone in the dark is spoken to by a ghostly, unrelenting voice he can neither verify nor name. At times speaking in the third person, the voice describes the figure’s tormented confinement in the present; at other moments, using second person, he narrates striking scenes from the old man’s boyhood and adolescence (a past very much like Beckett’s own). Also acknowledged is a first person voice that remains significantly absent – the pronoun which the old man desperately wishes to use, but can’t.
I feel this is a work that doesn’t really need much of an explanation or extramusical idea to enjoy. While people might be inclined to use that ‘minimalist’ label in describing it, there’s actually still detail to discuss as to why it ‘works,’ and even more that I’m sure I can’t touch on. Wikipedia gives us two whole sentences on its musical content:
The main theme of this work is subjugated to arpeggios in minor keys all along the four movements. All of the movements of this monochrome work are highly and closely related to each other.
I thought ‘monochrome’ was an interesting term to use. While we do have four movements, what I don’t hear is any kind of… traditional structure (sonata form, slow movement, scherzo, all that), and even in this work, the tracks are listed as ‘parts’ rather than ‘movements’ on the album, similar to yesterday’s piece.
The first movement is the longest (at still less than three minutes), and the first few (yes, repeated) figures in violin and cello sound to me like inhales and exhales. The two other members of the ensemble enter, and the work develops a heartbeat, that pulse, and long high lines for which Glass’s music is known. Some of these repetitive figures move around in the ensemble, but they themselves don’t change much. It’s a straightforward, melancholy expansion and contraction, and overall it sounds like water running down a windowpane on a cold, dismal day. Having reached its apex, it decays back down to much the way it began.
The second part is notable for being much crunchier. It’s mechanical, propelled, rhythmic, and this is exactly the kind of writing that Glass is known for. Fans of his film scores might not have ever thought “oh yeah, that’s got principles of Indian music in it” and you can’t really say that, but he was fascinated with ideas of additive rhythms (much like Messiaen) from his exposure to them by Ravi Shankar, so some of the stuff that gives this movement (‘part’) a forward-moving, energetic, strongly rhythmic character is the use of two beats against three, or two vs. three, sudden changes in meter. If you can’t readily observe this, listen to the 110 seconds of the movement and pound out the rhythm on your desk, your knee, your palm, whatever, just a straight tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap. Within that same tap there will be two accents for some time… then three accents, and while the time between taps hasn’t changed, the underlying rhythm is different, but then there’ll be an extra little value added and you might realize now your taps seem ‘off’. This kind of thing is catchy and grabs the ear and the soul in a special way, but again ends suddenly.
Part 3 brings back some of the inhale/exhale figures of the first part, but now with more spirit, some more life, slightly brighter. You can see now why the word ‘monochromatic’ is fitting, right? There seem to be elements here from both of the previous two movements, but there are also glimpses of the biggest, most ‘together’, in-step towering (almost) whole-ensemble chords in the entire work, and the sound mighty when contrasted with the rest of the writing. There seems maybe to be a different kind of dialogue developing with some instruments in unison, but again, the plug on this movement gets pulled and it slows to a silence.
The fourth movement is the only one I can hear as maybe having any kind of ‘structure’ but even then it’s just a contrast between softer and more angular rhythmic sections (play the tapping game again to get an idea how the accents shift and change), and just like that the piece is done. When I say abrupt, it’s not that there’s a sudden, crisp end, like the end of a Mahler symphony with a commanding, final bang, but abrupt, like you’re listening to music with your eyes closed and someone walks into the room and just turns the volume knob to zero like they’d turn off a faucet. That’s it.
While I will admit this piece is an enjoyable little morsel to listen to, I am less convinced of its staying power even than the first quartet… maybe. I say this with the greatest respect, and a real intrigue, a kind of fascination with his earlier music, and even this stuff, but… the most straightforward, genuine way I could describe the depth and power of these four little sections that make up this quartet is to call them… (sorry not sorry) cheap thrills. It’s engaging, intricate, interesting, very atmospheric music, and it captivates, no doubt, but for someone looking to spend time deconstructing a work, finding meaning in it, pleasure and emotion from different angles, I don’t know how much this kind of music has to offer.
That being said, it’s popular and successful for a reason: there’s an immediacy to it, a sort of underlying intensity that grabs you along for a short but thrilling little ride, and people like that, and that aside, it’s phenomenal music to pair with beautiful, gripping scenery, a compelling story like The Hours or Secret Window or a long list of others. And for whatever I’ve said about the piece(s) that may sound negative, I sure as hell couldn’t write anything like it, so I do appreciate it. Think of it like a roller coaster though. The first time you ride it, it’s a breathtaking, mind-blowing thrill, and similarly the next few times, but how many times do you have to ride it before it starts to get repetitive? You know the turns, the drops, the whirls. But even then there’s a sense of familiarity that’s endearing. It’s just that maybe that initial thrill will never be there again, and if that’s what you’re relying on….
Stay tuned for two more of Glass’s much more modern works in the next few d
2 thoughts on “Glass String Quartet no. 2, ‘Company’
1. Found your blog when I was Google searching some ideas in writing a programme note for this piece. I must say – you have got a wonderful blog! Sending my appreciation and thanks all the way from Malaysia!
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@article {Maio201667, title = {Sediment dynamics and hydrographic conditions during storm passage, Waquoit Bay, Massachusetts}, journal = {Marine Geology}, volume = {381}, year = {2016}, pages = {67 - 86}, abstract = {Abstract The impact of storm events on the sediment dynamics of the shallow groundwater fed estuaries of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, \{USA\} is little understood. To address this, the objectives of this study are to assess sediment dynamics during storm passage and determine whether shallow back-barrier lagoons like Waquoit Bay have the preservation potential for a sedimentary archive of hurricanes. When setting out in this study, it was unclear whether paleotempestological methods could be applied successfully to cores collected from the landward reaches of shallow estuaries of southern New England. Water level and bottom current data using Arm-and-Float tide gauges and SeaHorse Tilt Current Meters was collected during Tropical Storm Irene (2011) and coupled with storm surge modeling projections to better elucidate storm-induced sediment transport mechanisms. Three sediment cores were collected at the head of Waquoit Bay, located 2.8 km from the barrier beach. Grain size analysis of sediment cores was conducted with a laser particle size analyzer at 1 cm increments in order to identify coarse grain anomalies, which can act as a storm event proxy. Bayesian statistics were applied to develop age models of two of the cores based on three Pb pollution chronomarkers and 21 continuous flow 14C \{AMS\} ages. The results yield variable sediment accumulation rates between 2 mm/yr to 10 mm/yr, with significantly higher rates occurring in the upper 1 m of sediments. Grain size results are highly variable, and contain numerous large amplitude, short duration fluctuations suggesting that during storm passage coarse sand is deposited in the coring site. The sensitivity of the site to both tropical and extratropical storm events, uncertainties in the age model, and the multiple sediment sources and transport pathways limits the utility of using the Waquoit sediments to determine long-term hurricane frequencies. Results nonetheless provide insights into how extreme storm events impact coastal lagoons.}, keywords = {Sediment transport}, issn = {0025-3227}, doi = {http://doi.org/10.1016/j.margeo.2016.07.004}, url = {http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0025322716301438}, author = {Christopher V. Maio and Jeffrey P. Donnelly and Richard Sullivan and Stephanie M. Madsen and Christopher R. Weidman and Allen M. Gontz and Vitalii A. Sheremet} } | <urn:uuid:c84e9aa8-6d94-4acd-9e7c-5d92abf0625a> | https://nosamsresearch.whoi.edu/biblio/export/bibtex/1083 | en | 0.905276 | 0.021751 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
The Opening Hours of Yakuza Zero
Friends have recommended the Yakuza series to me dozens of times but the view I had in my head of what this series entailed was entirely wrong. Like many, I thought Yakuza was something of a Japanese Grand Theft Auto clone. In reality, it’s something of a cross between Sleeping Dogs (which was clearly inspired by both Yakuza and GTA) and an anime crime drama series. Not since Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty have I experienced so many cut-scenes in such rapid succession in a game.
Continue reading The Opening Hours of Yakuza Zero
The Difficulty of Choice in Divinity Original Sin 2
When searching for your next role-playing game, what do you look for first? While you’re looking high and low for a game with a compelling story, fluid combat and excellent customization, difficulty is sure to rear its slightly annoying-looking head. Somewhere deep inside you ask: “Is this game going to kick my pimply white behind?” It’s a fair question, and one that I ask before beginning a new adventure myself. What makes a game difficult, I wonder. Is it enemies with high health pools or multiple splitting paths with some leading to doom and others salvation? Let’s take Dark Souls for instance. There was a recent remake, so it should be top of mind. Dark Souls plopped you into a world of shifting shadows, bleak enemies and very, very little narrative. Sure, the enemies themselves were difficult at times, but it was actually the general lack of direction that did me in initially.
Some games just…insert you into a living, breathing universe and metaphorically say, “have fun!” If I were a game developer, I’d be very much concerned about the level of spoon-feeding going on in a typical session. In this world of glowing map-markers and linear story-telling, it’s a damned rarity for a game to present choices to the player. The difference between Divinity Original Sin 2 (or its predecessor) and say…Trails of Cold Steel 1/2/3 is the difference between riding a roller coaster and building, designing and putting into action one yourself. It’s really that stark a contrast. While I absolutely love the Trails in the Sky / Trails of Cold Steel series, I know it for what it is. It’s an elaborate ride that you can choose how much and how in-depth you’d like to experience. If it’s not your bag of bones, cup o’ tea or whatnot, then you simply get off the ride and pick something else. The developers know this and have crafted a wonderful world for you. If there’s someone out there that dislikes the Legend of Heroes series, then I really want nothing to do with them. Come on, how can you not like that?! Anyway…
Who Likes Roller Coasters? The People Who Matter.
Divinity doesn’t roll like that. Right at the beginning, it’s all business, sure. Make your character, watch a cut scene with a vague story, and then you’re in a place. There’s a very, very short tutorial that essentially makes sure you are intelligent enough to use a real world can opener. Then it says, okay, do whatever you’d like. Other game series have toyed with similar concepts. The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim (and its sixteen re-releases) give you a short dungeon experience and then set you free in the world. There’s a key difference between Skyrim and DivinitySkyrim is a theme park of roller coasters. It’s tempting to see the plethora of concept and assume that that in itself is a form of difficulty. The only substantive question I ever found myself asking in an Elder Scrolls game is, “Where do I want to start first?”
Like box art…only on your PC screen.
In Divinity, however, after the initial dungeon-y experience of the ship level, you’re simply set free upon a beach that lies adjacent to a fort and its prison. The game does not tell you where to go, who to talk to, nor if there are any consequences to doing so. It does not tell you how to spend your attribute points, talent points, socket your skills or anything substantial to your mission. Your overall goal is to escape the prison ghetto, but that leaves you with several more questions that may or may not have answers. Why should I leave the ghetto? What lies beyond? What’s even in here? Who are these people?
Skyrim answers each of those questions with, “It doesn’t matter. They’re NPCs, bro. They’re going to want you to do something and once you do it, it’s done. It won’t affect anyone or anything else in your experience.” Divinity’s take is to give you ultimate choice to talk to whomever you’d like, skip quests, kill everyone, steal everything, promise false things, trick people in conversation, and dies glorious and/or horrifying deaths.
Larian studies enjoys surprising you more than anything. You have absolutely no idea how two spells are going to react to each other or if/how your abilities will affect your enemy. You don’t even know if your enemy is actually an enemy, or if you’re the fucking bad guy. Morality is subjective, combat is subjective, everything is left to your choice. Who would you like to do battle with, and how? Who would you like to strike deals with? Who would you like to ignore altogether and scrounge together your own idea of how to progress?
My friend and I played this co-operatively for maybe six hours the first day. We absolutely managed to make asses out of ourselves more than a dozen times. Accidentally stealing and getting murdered by whomever we transgressed against or saying the wrong thing in dialogue and ending up with a quest like being locked shut from our reach.
Oh Boy, An Arena
One particularly hilarious episode was when we went down below the ghetto to fight in the arena. You remember the arena in Oblivion, right? Fight some random enemies and become a victor. You could do it at level one and got decent loot. Of course you do. Yeah, Divinity doesn’t go quite like that. Sure, you fight a group of maybe five bad guys. It’s not…easy. I admit. Doable at level two, though. Use your head, figure it out. That’s what I thought anyway.
After we emerged the victors, the woman who offered us the fight in the first place offered one more addendum. “There can only be one One.” The fuck does that mean? Oh no, really? I felt like Missy Elliot, flipping it down, reversing and the like.
With our health pools that we ended the first fight, it was now a two-on-two team deathmatch between myself and my friend. We both knew from the first Original Sin, that dying was a hugely bad idea in any fight, which meant we were both stunned as to how to progress. Do we want to kill each other’s players? What if we have to waste our limited resources resurrecting the fallen? Is this some sort of perverted permadeath thing that there’s no coming back from?
Oh….look at that shading and water ripplies…
You can only know once you do it. I won, of course, as I was playing a summoner/ice mage and a cleric versus a tanky dwarf and an elemental ranger. They were low on health at the start, and I buried them in ice and fire quickly enough. What ended up happening is that we were all resurrected for free with full health back at the beginning of the arena and I was given phat loots. He was shunned and told never to return. I was “The One” and it felt good. Being as Skyrim is a single player game, you can’t ever really have that kind of experience. You’re always told from each NPC that you’re the savior of everywhere from Indiana to Narnia and that becomes ever more boring as you mow down dragons and demons alike. When nothing can stand in your path and even the mightiest beasties fall silent to your sword, you must know there is an inherent problem. When in life has being put on a pedestal before earning it ever worked out? When did that ever feel good. No, seriously. Think about it. Skyrim is that creepy dude who tells he he loves you on the second date, offers to marry you on the third. No one likes that.
So Much Uncertainty
Divinity is able to give meaning to accomplishment through difficulty and uncertainty. I don’t know what’s going to happen next, and unlike a book, movie or average video game, I have a good hand in shaping what this world becomes. Depending on which companions you pick, which items you steal, which people you slay, different things happen. Things! It’s no mere illusion of choice, either. Dragon Age was one of my favorite game series of all time, but it offered two sides to a coin at every juncture. Side with the good guys or the bad guys. At the end of the second game, the devs adroitly decided that no matter what choices you made, you’ll have to fight both the good guys and the bad guys. What a waste, I mean, it’s been what seven years and I’m still mad about that. Let’s spend forty hours giving the player all these tough choices and then at the end send them through the fucking garbage disposal and shrug our shoulders.
Divinity Original Sin 2 does so many things right. It obscures the consequences of your actions long enough for you to completely make a mess of things. By the time you realize how vital is was for you to save that girl in that cave, it’s already been sixty some odd hours and now you’re hosed. Or maybe you built your characters wrong and you absolutely cannot beat one of the boss fights. That’s what happened to me on my maiden run-through of the first Original Sin. I could not beat that damned four-elemental penultimate boss fight. So much rage. So much rage.
I remember every bit of Divinity: Original Sin because it was difficult. I screwed so many things up and had to sit there in my impotent rage. Original Sin 2 brings back that same maddening frustration. Larian Studios’ message to all players is as such, “Learn from your successes and your failures or else you’re going to leave empty-handed. If you can’t handle that, then there’s always Skyrim :P” If I wanted to be an all-knowing, all-seeing omnipotent wizard, sure, I’d play that instead. No, I want to be challenged. I want to make mistakes. I want to see something truly spectacular happen in front of my eyes. I want to use my pet pal ability to talk to a fucking exploding sheep so I can learn about a curse that threatens the entirety of a region. And then get blown up. Fuck. | <urn:uuid:d0a4b6b0-26fd-44e0-b251-2abf10317723> | https://orionotaku.com/tag/pc/ | en | 0.940339 | 0.024588 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Dabbers in Washington are likely delighted by the plethora of choices they have when it comes to cannabis extracts. From co2 extracted wax to butane extracted terp sauce, those who love consuming cannabis concentrates have their pick when it comes to solvents and texture.
One cannabis extract product you see less of, however, is good old fashioned bubble hash. Constellation Cannabis is filling that niche with their top-tier ice-solvent extract.
Jeffrey Hubbard, the co-founder of Constellation Cannabis, spoke with The Sesh Seattle about its history and the process it takes to create its incredible concentrates.
Bailey and Jeff Hubbard, co-owners of Constellation Cannabis, are a husband and wife team. Bailey, a corporate attorney by training, is the owner of Constellation Cannabis and manages the creative. Bailey’s sister, a recent college graduate, also works for the female-owned family-operated cannabis producer processor.
“When we first went to retail shops, there were so many products out there,” Hubbard told The Sesh. “We thought it would be pretty overwhelming if you didn’t know what to look for. The one thing we noticed missing from the marketplace, was solventless concentrates.”
So Jeff and Bailey came up with their plan: offer the cannabis connoisseurs of Washington premium solventless concentrate. How Bailey developed the constellation brand is a story in and of itself.
“Bailey saw a number of stars coming together in the industry from the medical and the black market days,” Hubbard recalls. “So Bailey was able to work with a number of people that had a lot of valuable experience. A collection of stars coming together to form a new constellation, a new meaning, a new purpose.”
From there, Bailey wanted to pick a constellation to represent the brand. She picked the Serpens constellation, it’s one of 88 modern constellations. Serpens is split into two, with the head to the West, and the tail to the East. The split in the constellation served as a metaphor for the split in the medical and recreational markets.
“So what we’re trying to do with our team of stars from the medical days, is to bridge the gap,” explains Hubbard. “That’s why we have solventless based products. We want to bring the best possible products we can to the marketplace for customers looking for more than to just get high with an incredible THC dose. We’re looking for products that are full-spectrum and more enjoyable than just the THC content.”
In addition to being split into East and West, Serpens is also the constellation associated with the Greek god of medicine, Asclepius. According to Greek mythology, Asclepius, with the help of another snake, revived a dead snake by placing an herb in the dead snake’s mouth. An herb being used to revive the dead seemed like an apt symbol.
Asclepius remains a symbol in modern medicine beyond Constellation Cannabis, the ambulance symbol, the snake wrapped around a staff, is an ode to Asclepius, who is depicted as using a staff with a snake wrapped around it. This explains the Constellation Cannabis logo, which depicts one snake in the shape of a C, with another snake wrapped around it.
In order to live up to their medical-informed, healing brand, it’s imperative Constellation Cannabis produces some incredible products. And this they do, through a laborious and expert process.
Photo by Brad Sakson @highlyelevated1 on Instagram
The first step, of course, is to grow the flower. Constellation Cannabis grows their own cannabis flower, with the goal of turning it into extract. Cannabis is grown indoors in their Arlington facility, with an emphasis on density, as well as resin and trichome production. Growing the flower to these specifications is important for making solventless hash. It’s also important that the plants are harvested when trichome ripeness is at its peak.
Once the flower is grown, the fun begins. Making bubble hash involves more labor and technique than its solvent-extracted counterparts. Constellation Cannabis is up to the task, its facility is home to the largest solventless extract lab on the West coast.
The first step is to strip the plant of A, B, and C grade colas, and freeze them within thirty minutes. This helps preserve the trichome head, and preserve the terpenes. After freezing for 72 hours, which ensures all of the terpenes heads are brittle and easy to process, the cannabis is washed and processed. This is done by placing the plant matter in a micron bag with ice and water, which is known as washing. The plant matter is then agitated or moved around in the micron bag so that the trichomes come loose from the plant and make their way through the micron bags, which work as a filter.
There are several micron bags used in the process. Different sizes of microns produce different qualities of bubble hash. One to two-star bubble hash is suitable for edibles, three to four-star hash also known as halfmelt can be sprinkled over flower and smoked, or vaped.
Photo by Brad Sakson @highlyelevated1 on Instagram
Finally, the good stuff that Constellation Cannabis sells, is five to six-star bubble, or fullmelt, which is dabbable. “The term bubble hash comes from when people would test the product when buying it, by holding a lighter to it. If it bubbled, it meant that it contained THC.” Hubbard explained. Like live resin, bubble hash retains terpenes for that full-spectrum flavor and high.
The amount of labor and technique that goes into making solventless extract is probably the only reason it’s not more abundant on the market. From a connoisseur perspective, it’s the most enjoyable when done right. Luckily the stars aligned just right, for Constellation Cannabis to fill the niche, and provide the people of Washington with some high-quality solventless extract. | <urn:uuid:84416df0-69da-466d-be22-feb7e912fa6c> | https://theseshseattle.com/2019/08/06/constellation-cannabis-cosmic-origins/ | en | 0.952767 | 0.029345 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Textuality and memory
Reed, Annette Yoshiko. 2014. Textuality between death and memory: The prehistory and formation of the parabiblical Testament. Jewish Quarterly Review 104(3). 381–412.
This essay revisits testamentary texts and traditions from the Second Temple period in relation to themes of death, memory, and writing. Rather than debating the classification or morphology of the parabiblical testament, it focuses upon its determinative feature—the framing of texts as the first-person teachings of ancient biblical heroes near death. It traces some precedents for this literary choice, and speculates about the cultural worlds in which such a choice made sense. To do so, it surveys the representation and modeling of the written word as a technology of memory, first within Aramaic works with testamentary features from the Hellenistic period (esp., Aramaic Levi, Testament of Qahat, Visions of Amram) and then within some of full-fledged testaments preserved in Greek from the early Roman period (esp., Testaments of the 12 Patriarchs, Testament of Job). In both sets of works, the narrative setting of near-death teaching is used to address challenges of continuity and succession. Representations of textual practices, however, differ; in some, writing and reading are presented as necessary complement to remembered speech and ethical emulation, while in others, books function as safeguard or stand-in. In each, moreover, the intersections of death, memory, and writing are articulated in distinctive ways, often resonating with broader cultural concerns—ranging from Hellenistic ideals of “authorship” to the early Roman interest in wills.
Read the article here. | <urn:uuid:1280a7e5-d7cb-42a8-b71e-513b0b5088d1> | https://www.biblioiranica.info/textuality-and-memory/ | en | 0.930286 | 0.02322 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
online personal training & nutrition coaching
by justin ratkovich.
Which of these best describes
why you're checking out
Blue Shoes Fitness today?
I need a custom training program to match my goals, equipment, and schedule.
I'd like to learn about how to use nutrition to help improve my body composition.
I want super affordable workouts that I can adapt to my specific goals. | <urn:uuid:fc823abc-732e-42a1-a40a-b337b0892797> | https://www.blueshoesfitness.com/copy-of-home-1 | en | 0.865303 | 0.750674 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
How to Relieve Colic by Georgina Clarke
How to Relieve Colic - Georgina Clarke - Baby
How to Relieve Colic | Georgina Clarke
Okay, so I have a theory. So many people think that colic is to do with wind or gripey stomach pains and I’m not arguing that, but I also have another theory. I think that colic is a baby’s expression of their anger with you for evacuating them out of the womb!
Hear me out.
Colic tends to really come into its own from around six weeks of age. This is also the time where your baby becomes a touch less sleepy and start to notice that “holy guacamole there is a whole world out here, how did I not even realise!!”
It’s a time where you baby starts to go “well hang on a minute, there are lights and noises and smells and I’m not sure I like it… no Mummy you must hold me, so I feel safe. Oh, you don’t want to hold me? You want to make your own dinner? Well then… I’m going to scream
Colic isn’t fun.
My second baby had it and oh boy, it came as a REAL shock!
I didn’t know what to do.
We tried all the lotions and potions that you hear incredible things about, but they didn’t make a difference.
After a few weeks though I started to notice patterns. The brighter the room was, the worse the colic symptoms were. The louder things were, the worst it was. The more she was away from me, the worse it was.
If the room was darker, she settled quicker. If she was swayed and bopped lightly, she settled. If she had white noise, she settled quicker.
So that's where I started to toy with the theory that maybe they’re just not happy that they’re no longer in the womb.
I think, especially in the evenings, when you become busier and need your baby to be put down, so you can potter/tidy/make dinner… they know this. They are starting to get tired after a long day of… well, life. So, they want extra cuddles and support and they start to work themselves up. The more you try and settle them to be put down, the more they get upset and eventually they are so worked up they can’t stop crying and then because they’re crying, they are taking on air and eventually getting hysterical and they can’t stop themselves.
Ways to help with The Fourth Trimester and Colic by emulating the womb:
Remove all stimulants.
As you can feel witching hour approaching, start to wind down all stimulants. Turn the TV off, dim the lights, check for any annoying labels on their clothing (if you can, strip them down and swaddle them if they like swaddling)
Perfect your jiggle.
This totally depends on your babies’ personal preference, for us, standing and bopping Elin really worked but some babies may prefer a led down jiggle or a simple head lull. If you’re doing one thing and it isn’t calming your baby, then try other things. Just keep moving!
White Noise. White Noise. White Noise.
You don’t need a fancy white noise toy or an app, one of the best ways to create white noise for your baby is to shush in their ear. You want to be loud. You basically want to shush louder than your baby is crying, right in their ear. You’ll look a bit crazy, but it totally works.
Encourage your baby to suckle.
It's scientifically proven that suckling releases endorphins and calms your baby. For mine, the dummy was a game changer. It took some persistence and I used to have to hold it in a certain position to keep her happy but when we got there. It helped her tremendously. Whether it’s a dummy, your finger, a boob, helping your baby have something to suckle on will really help to calm them.
Invest in a baby wrap.
Once your baby calms and settles, you don’t want to poke a sleeping bear by moving or trying to settle them into a crib or bouncer. It’s easier just to baby wear them so you can carry on as per usual and they can stay in their happy place! Baby wearing may also settle them down in the first place.
Make a cup of tea.
This one's for you. Not the baby. Tea fixes everything.
By Georgina Clarke
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Heroin: The Other Wonder Drug
by Hugh Mungus
The Bayer Company - the same corporation that produces Bayer aspirin - invented, and sold, heroin. Big Pharma, baby! Puttin' it all on the line for the common man!
It was the late 19th century, and the Bayer Company was on the prowl for a cough medicine lacking addictive side effects. Although aspirin seemed promising, the corporation was far more intrigued by a narcotic known as diacetylmorphine, brought to their attention by an in-house chemist.
The drug in question induced a feeling of heroism, according to its test subjects. Since Bayer is a pharmaceutical company based in Germany, human guinea pigs used the term "heroisch" - German for heroic - to describe their experiences while under the influence of diacetylmorphine. Hence, the eventual name of the drug.
According to The Sunday Times in London, by 1899, Bayer was crankin' out a literal ton of heroin per year, and sellin' their brand of legalized euphoria to 23 different countries.
In 1907, the American Medical Association approved the drug, which today physicians know to be highly addictive, and quite often fatal, if used over a protracted period of time. Comforting, isn't it?
By 1913, Bayer reached the same conclusion, after some of its best customers suffered adverse side effects - such as death - through continued consumption of the smack. The corporation wisely chose to discontinue heroin from its product line. Bayer, instead, decided to promote another one of its inventions; the far less potent aspirin, which only causes one's digestive system - including one's asshole - to bleed.
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Thursday, March 8, 2007
Let her talk, but ignore her.
Following up on Gordon's "God Bless Ann Coulter" post. I agree with the Live Journal post that he cites in that I'm absoultely convinced that the answer to dealing with Coulter and Malkin and the other shock jocks of the rabid right is to simply let them talk and ignore them. Don't talk about how horrible they are, don't make fun of them, don't mention their names. Simply let them rant. They are all so enamored of the sound of their own voices and of the attention that they recieive, no matter how negative, that they will keep turning up the volume and the level of absurdity in their pronouncements until they self destruct. So let the be the last past pointing to their follies and let's start ignoring them. Starting now.*
*I know it will take a lot of will power, they are such easy targets, but let's at least try.
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If you’re in need of some inspiration for your next vacation destination, take a look at our list of the most beautiful cities to visit in Europe.
There are lot of beautiful cities in Europe which encompass beauty, art and nature, and are sometimes overlooked in favour of other cities around the world. Many European cities are rich in culture and feature beautiful architecture as well as the most stunning natural views. When you are planning your next vacation consider visiting one of these cities as part of your european adventure.
Bruges | Belgium
This fairy tale style city has always been a postcard perfect destination due to its picturesque cobbled streets and beautiful canals, but it was only brought to the attention of the masses after the release of the cult film In Bruges in 2008. It’s a small city but it encompasses so many wonderful pieces of architecture making it one of the most beautiful cities to visit in Europe. The Belfort, also known as the bell tower, is located in the main square and has a climb of 366 steps to the top, but once you are up there, the views are definitely worth it. You can also explore Bruges by taking one of the guided canal boat tours which run regularly during the day as they give you the opportunity to see a range of the medieval architecture on display in this city.
Porto | Portugal
Portugal is known for its warm climate and several beaches, but away from the sun-soaked shores there is a beautiful city which lies in the north of this country called Porto. This city is best known for its port and also the Douro River. The river has become a popular destination for cruises, as it provides spectacular views of the city which is home to narrow cobbled streets, beautiful plazas, medieval architecture and colorful facades. Porto’s historical center is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and features Palacio Da Bolsa, the city’s former stock exchange, which has an ornate design and houses a series of stately rooms featuring magnificent paintings and furniture. Porto is also the location of Serralves, a cultural institution which includes a contemporary art museum, a park and a villa. The museum attracts over 300,000 visitors a year and is the most popular out of all of the museums in Portugal.
Barcelona | Spain
Barcelona has many beautiful spots and is a very photogenic city. There are so many streets, buildings, cafes and terraces that you can admire, it’s no wonder that directors such as Woody Allen like shooting films here. Barcelona’s number one attraction is Sagrada Familia, which is a large roman church that began construction in 1882 and is due to be completed in 2026 when it will become the tallest church on the planet. Another prominent area is Montjuic, which is a hill overlooking the Barcelona harbour that features a range of beautiful attractions such as the Spanish Village, whose buildings display a range of architectural styles, and the Magic Fountain that hosts illuminated water shows during the summer.
Paris | France
It’s no surprise that Paris is classed as one of the most beautiful cities in Europe. With iconic structures such as the Eiffel Tower and Grand Palais, the city of light’s architecture is sure to astound all those who visit it. The River Seine and the bridges that cross it are a wonderful sight to behold, and the magnificent monuments that surround this elegant city will leave you in awe. Paris is especially beautiful during the night time as the city is illuminated with lights, including the Eiffel Tower. We advise taking a picnic and sitting on the grass underneath the tower during the evening, as a light show is projected from the tour every hour on the hour, which makes it sparkle before your very own eyes.
Rome | Italy
Rome is the largest city in Italy and encompasses so many historical sites and pieces of architecture that you could easily spend a month exploring it and still not see everything. There are many visually stunning art museums, churches, archaeological sites and ruins that you can visit, making it one of the most fascinating as well as one of the most beautiful cities to visit in Europe. As well as the landmarks, the streets are equally picturesque, and there are many enchanting side streets for you to discover as you wander round this elegant city. If you ever decide to visit Italy you must put Rome as a priority on your itinerary.
Prague | Czech Republic
Prague is a charming and visually pleasing european city which is home to red-roofed buildings, gothic churches, huge bridges and numerous cobbled streets. It has earned the nickname, ‘the city of a hundred spires’ due to its many towers and spires, however it is now estimated that there are at least five hundred of these, which has led to many people calling Prague ‘the golden city of five hundred spires’. Prague is considered a magical place by many locals and tourists due to its variety of historical buildings, sculptures and monuments that are from a range of different centuries. There is also the stunning Old Town Square which has remained virtually untouched since the 10th century and features ancient buildings and churches, including the elegant tower of the Town Hall with its world famous astronomical clock.
Budapest | Hungary
Budapest is the capital city of Hungary and is one of the most beautiful cities to visit in Europe, which is by the water. Budapest is split into two by the historic Danube River and you can cross between Buda and Pest, the western and eastern sides of Budapest, using the iconic Chain Bridge which was built in 1849. The reason this capital city is classed as beautiful is because of its enchanting castles including Castillo Vajdahunyad and the popular Romanesque style Matthias church, as well as great museums, pretty squares and many other breathtaking sights. One of the most attractive places in Budapest is called the Fisherman’s Bastion and is located around Matthias church. It is a terrace in neo-Gothic and neo-Romanesque style which is a popular place to get a panorama of the entire city so you can admire its wonderful views. | <urn:uuid:91b45767-cf28-4eec-bcfc-46fff7f1c98a> | http://lostwaldo.com/the-most-beautiful-cities-to-visit-in-europe/ | en | 0.971771 | 0.033772 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
All “Asylum Seekers” in EU are Fake
The recent admission by the European Union (EU) executive body that 40 percent of all “refugees” who invaded Europe last year have “no chance” of qualifying for asylum, ignores the EU’s own rules which clearly state that none have any right to asylum at all.
As reported in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, a “senior European Commission official” recently admitted that “40 percent of the migrants who recently entered via the Balkans route have no realistic prospect of asylum or refugee status in the European Union.”
While this admission is dramatic, it implies that 60 percent of the invaders do have a valid claim to asylum in Europe—something which is completely untrue.
In fact, they all have broken the EU’s own rules governing refugees, which specifically incorporate the legal principle known as the “first country of asylum”—a rule which says that “refugees” do not have the right to apply for asylum from a country in which they are already safe.
Contrary to liberal claims that there is no legal basis for the principle of “first country of asylum,” this concept is in fact written into the EU’s own rules, specifically the Asylum Procedures Directive (Directive 2005/85/EC of December 1, 2005).
Article 26 of this Asylum Procedures Directive reads as follows:
The concept of first country of asylum
(a) s/he has been recognised in that country as a refugee and s/he can still avail him/herself of that protection; or
(b) s/he otherwise enjoys sufficient protection in that country, including benefiting from the principle of non-refoulement;
Article 26
In other words, a “refugee” coming from a country in which they have already been granted refuge, and where they are not threatened with expulsion back to their country of origin, falls under Article 26 of the EU’s Asylum Procedures Directive.
(“Non-refoulement” is the legal term for the principle in international law which forbids the rendering of a true victim of persecution to his or her persecutor.)
This Article 26 has been written into all EU Member State legislation in one form or another, and specifically in Germany, has been incorporated into law under Article 29 of that country’s Asylum Procedure Act, paragraph 27, which reads as follows:
Section 27
Safety elsewhere from persecution
(1) A foreigner who was already safe from political persecution in another third country shall not be granted asylum status.
(2) If the foreigner holds a travel document issued by a safe third country (Section 26a) or by another third country pursuant to the Convention related to the status of refugees, it shall be presumed that he was safe from political persecution in that country.
(3) If before entering the federal territory, a foreigner lived for more than three months in another third country where he is not threatened by political persecution, it shall be presumed that he was safe there from political persecution. This shall not apply if the foreigner provides plausible evidence that deportation to another country where he is threatened by political persecution could not be ruled out with reasonable certainty.
In other words, every single “refugee,”—even those fleeing from Syria—who has entered Europe via the Balkans route from Turkey, has left that country (Turkey) which has already granted them asylum and safety.
As such, EU and German law specifically forbids them from qualifying for asylum in Europe.
These same rules apply to all the nonwhite invaders who have crossed the Mediterranean Sea to Italy and Spain. All have left “safe” countries where they were in no danger of being deported back, even if they had come from a “war zone” (which most of them have not).
The EU’s rules are thus very clear and explicit: there are no “legal asylum seekers” at all in Europe. Every last one of them has broken international and EU law.
The actions of the Merkel regime, and all other European governments which have opened Europe’s doors to this invasion, have placed them clearly outside and above the law.
All these governments are therefore acting illegally, and by breaking the law, they have now set the standard by which they can be combatted.
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1. If Merkel would only spend one week in one of these camps without her armed security to prove how safe it is her citizens would have more faith in what she dictates. Lights out at nine. Must not waste electricity.
1. It appears the EU dictators are above their own rules. When it was discovered that Greece had lied and did not actually qualify for EU membership under the EU’s own rules, a blind eye was turned to this fact for the sake of further enlargement.
Now the EU is benefiting from this lack of enforcement of their own rules. Just think, if these rules had been adhered to there would be no invasion via Greece or indeed the Greek debt problem shaking the foundations of the Euro or the EU itself.
But then again, I’m not a liberal leftist so I’m most probably wrong.
1. Why Britain wishes to remain in this lunacy is mystery. Dictators ? There is only one supreme leader in Europe. People like Hollande, Juncker, Tusk, they are all puppets. They only talk when permitted to do so and say only what they have been permitted to say. Cameron is the Neville Chamberlain of today.
2. Merkel invited them in. She breaks EU laws when she wants. Haven’t you noticed EU laws are only laws as long as the ruling elite want. If a law is inconvenient they ignore it or change it. It truly is Alice Through the Looking Glass Land. Time this ridiculous, evil, corrupt project was trashed.
3. Blimey thats going to give few people heartburn,Dave ,Merkel ,Crapbyn etc,we the plebs have been telling them this for months.
4. And once Europe tells these migrants they will be sent back , they disappear like cockroaches into a whole in the wall. Many have come on a mission to destroy Europe. How many citizens must die before Merkel says ‘this was not a good idea’ ?
1. Merkel said:”It doesn’t matter who is responsible for the invasion, now they are here”. The elite of German constitutionalists have been saying: “Merkel’s government has permanently been breaking German and European law.”
Nevertheless the German Constitutional Court has rejected without any justification the action for removal of Merkel lodged by a reputable jurist. Likewise the criminal courts have rejected actions against Merkel for high treason.
Some lawyers now advise people to take to the steets to protect the legal order of the country against Merkel.
Merkel’s government have instructed intelligence services to scrutinize the Internet for anti-Merkel propaganda.
The German pressstitute media keep mum about this situation.
And German teachers tell their pupils Germany is the freest country and the greatest state under the rule of law on the planet.
5. Looks like a great opportunity for an astute German politician to ratify C169 Convention concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries and then find a space for the Somali’s in Stuttgart, and after evacuating the place, guarantee the gentlemen the integrity of the values, practices and institutions of the Somali settlers.
6. If this is all so cut and dried legally, why is someone not contesting it in a court of law? Just the kind of thing a lawyer needs to give him/her international recognition surely?
1. Because any attempt at doing that would land you in jail for “hate speech” or “racism” or “being a Nazi” or whatever. Ask that poor professor in Germany who simply said that he was worried for his children’s future!
1. This German professor got to his feet and confronted her at a ceremony of his university adressed by the reptile who tried to justify her invasion policy. The professor was at once arrested and led out of the conference room by security guards. The reptile is accustomed to meetings with preselected participants only. Against the professor have been instigated criminal proceedings. It is to be hoped he will be let
off with a suspended sentence. To even implicitly criticize Merkel has become lese-majesty. That is the consquence of choosing a well-nigh illiterate dame “woman of the year”.
7. Mine is a very simple solution, intensive interrogation by experts or a trip back to where they came from. No lawyers, No Human Rights, No ‘phone a friend with their smart phone’, No money. All those in favour to help them sign a document to pay for them with a new tax code increasing their contribution by 20% at least. The other option is not printable.
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Original First Edition of Games People Play 1964
‘Debtor’ is more than a game. In America it tends to become a script, a plan for a whole lifetime, just as it does in some of the jungles of Africa and New Guinea. There the relatives of a young man buy him a bride at an enormous price, putting him in their debt for years to come. Here the same custom prevails, at least in the more civilized sections of the country, except that the bride price becomes a house price, and if there is no stake from the relatives, this role is taken on by the bank.
Thus the young man in New Guinea with an old wrist watch dangling from his ear to ensure success, and the young man in America with a new wrist watch wrapped around his arm to ensure success, both feel that they have a ‘purpose’ in life. The big celebration, the wedding or housewarming, takes place not when the debt is discharged, but when it is undertaken. What is emphasized on TV, for example, is not the middle-aged man who has finally paid off his mortgage, but the young man who moves into his new house with his family, proudly waving the papers he has just signed and which will bind him for most of his productive years. After he has paid his debts – the mortgage, the college expenses for his children and his insurance – he is regarded as a problem, a ‘senior citizen’ for whom society must provide not only material comforts but a new ‘purpose’. As in New Guinea, if he is very shrewd, he may become a big creditor instead of a big debtor, but this happens relatively rarely.
Most young Americans, however, take their mortgages very seriously only in times of stress. If they are depressed, or the economic situation is bad, their obligations keep them going and may prevent some of them from committing suicide. Most of the time they play a mild game of ‘If It Weren’t for the Debts’, but otherwise enjoy themselves. Only a few make a career out of playing a hard game of ‘Debtor’.
‘Try and Collect’ (TAC) is commonly played by young married couples, and illustrates how a game is set up so that the player ‘wins’ whichever way it goes. The Whites obtain all sorts of goods and services on credit, petty or luxurious, depending of their backgrounds and how they were taught to play be their parents or grandparents. If the creditor gives up after a few soft efforts to collect, then the Whites can enjoy their gains without penalty, and in this sense they win. If the creditor makes more strenuous attempts, then they enjoy the pleasures of the chase as well as the use of their purchases. The hard form of the game occurs if the creditor is determined to collect. In order to get his money he will have to resort to extreme measures. These usually have a coercive element – going to White’s employers or driving up to his house in a noisy, garish truck labeled in big letters COLLECTION AGENCY.
At this point there is a switch. White now knows that he will probably have to pay. But because of the coercive element, made clear in most cases by the ‘third letter’; from the collector (‘If you do not appear at our office within 48 hours….’), White-feels peremptorily justified in getting angry; he now switches over to a variant of ‘Now I’ve Got You, You Son of a Bitch‘. In this case he wins by demonstrating that the creditor is greedy, ruthless and untrustworthy. The two most obvious advantages of this are (1) it strengthens White’s existential position, which is a disguised form of ‘All creditors are grasping’, and (2) it offers a large external social gain, since he is now in a position to abuse the creditor openly to his friends without losing his own status as a ‘Good Joe’. He may also exploit further internal social gain by confronting the creditor himself. In addition, it vindicates his taking advantage of the credit system: if that is the way creditors are, as he has now shown, why pay anybody?
‘Creditor’, in the form ‘Try and Get Away With It’ (TAG-AWI), is sometimes played by small landlords. TAC and TAG-AWI players readily recognize each other, and because of the prospective transactional advantages and the promised sport, they are secretly pleased and readily become involved with each other.
Regardless of who wins the money, each has improved the other’s position for playing ‘Why Does This Always Happen To Me?’ after it is all over.
Money games can have very serious consequences. If these descriptions sound facetious, as they do to some people, it is not because they relate to trivia but because of the exposure of trivial motivations behind matters people are taught to take seriously.
The obvious antithesis of TAC is to request immediate payment in cash. But a good TAC player has methods for getting around that, which will work on any but the most hard-boiled creditors.
| <urn:uuid:9b6605e0-cfc1-43bd-9286-7916e1f3a70b> | http://www.ericberne.com/games-people-play/debtor/ | en | 0.978327 | 0.023142 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Lapcare 200W Portable Smart Car Charger With USB Hub
:- Lapcare 200W Car power inverter is the perfect companion for extensive car travelers. It converts the DC car power to AC current which can be used to give electrical energy to practically any device that is normally used while traveling like laptops, mobile phone charges, tabs, gaming consoles, car coolers, cameras etc. Car power inventor is an excellent solution for emergency recharging while traveling for long distances.
Rs.3,499.00 Rs.2,100.00
1 in stock
* Specifications *
1. Output Power : 200W / Input Voltage : DC12V.
2. Output Voltage 1 : DC 220V 10% / Output Voltage 2 : DC 12V 10A Max / USB Output : 5V 2.1A X 2.
3. Provided with cooling fan and universal socket with Cigarette Lighter Socket with 2 USB Port.
4. Compatible Devices : Mobile, iPad, Laptop, Camera, Portable Speaker. | <urn:uuid:c6ee8250-27fa-42d9-8643-c06c1bbdc739> | https://a2zit.in/product/lapcare-200w-portable-smart-car-charger-with-usb-hub/ | en | 0.713482 | 0.580597 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Have you ever tried to change another person's behavior? Of course, you have! We've all tried that. By now you know that it's practically impossible to change someone else. And you know that it's only a tiny bit easier for us to change ourselves. But changing our own thoughts and behavior is exactly what we have to do if we want to help someone else recover.
Michelle Siegel, Judith Brisman, and Margot Weinshel, the authors of Surviving an Eating Disorder, propose two essential guidelines for family members:
Accept your limitations: You can't control another person.
Accept the other person's right to be different from you.
But what does that mean in practice? We've all tried using logical or emotional argument to convince a loved one to give up disordered eating patterns. It didn't work, did it?! ...continue reading | <urn:uuid:812868b7-7710-4f9b-9472-aa2c18161b64> | https://arthurwagner.com/topics/relationships/ | en | 0.949241 | 0.044101 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
16,191 Pages
Eraicon-Heresy Eraicon-TWCB
PL Treasure HunterHQ He who increaseth knowledge, increaseth sorrow.
This template should be removed from the article three months after release.
PL ArtisanHQ Patience, brothers. Soon we will reveal the secrets of Assassin's Creed: Heresy.
This article is about the artifact related to the Swords of Eden. You may be looking for another artifact related to the Prophecy Disks.
"This is what I call the Heart. It’s the heart of the sword. It’s Joan’s ‘heart’ that would not burn."
Simon Hathaway talking about the Heart.[src]
The Heart was a glowing scarlet sphere that was an intrinsic part of a Sword of Eden once wielded by Jeanne d'Arc which allowed those who were worthy to unlock the weapon's true abilities. The artifacts appeared to react to those who possessed a high concentration of Precursor DNA and a strong will to achieve their goals.
The Heart is known to have been in the possession of Templar Grand Master Jacques de Molay during the 14th century. As this artifact unlocked the Sword's full potential, he was very wary of keeping the two together, reasoning that, if the two Pieces of Eden were somehow lost to the enemy, it would be better if they were apart from one another.
When de Molay was arrested, he managed to smuggle the Heart with him into the Château de Chinon, where he was imprisoned. He carved a hole into the dungeon's wall and placed the artifact inside, before covering up the hiding place with plaster. De Molay also left drawings that hinted at the Heart's location, as well as a quote in Latin: "If the heart is strong, it will not break." indicating how the Heart should be used.
Middle Ages
A century later, Jeanne d'Arc and Gabriel Laxart visited the castle, with the former finding the Heart in de Molay's cell. She kept the artifact, along with her family’s ring, in a pouch around her neck. After that she tasked Gabriel and the Assassin Jean de Metz to find a Sword only she could wield.
On Tuesday, 8 March, in a church located at the small village of Sainte-Catherine-de-Fierbois, a crowd of masons gathered and used their picks and chisels to tear up the area behind the altar of Saint Catherine and started digging. There, Gabriel and Jean found the Sword. Once they returned, they brought the accompanying Sword to her. Jeanne's high concentration of Precursor DNA and the close proximity of the Heart, bolstered by her own natural charisma, allowed her to use the weapon to its full potential.
With it, Jeanne earned victory after victory, until she eventually lost the Sword at the battle for Paris on September 8, 1429. She was subsequently imprisoned, but, while awaiting judgment for heresy, Jeanne was rescued by her friend Fleur, a former prostitute, de Metz, and other members of the Assassin Brotherhood. In order to fake Jeanne's death, Fleur sacrificed herself and willingly took Jeanne's place, being executed by burning. The Heart, along with Jeanne's other possessions, were in the pouch around her neck at that moment.
The executioner Geoffroy Thérage saw that Joan's Heart refused to turn in a pile of ashes, leading him to burn the body twice more, but still the artifact stayed whole. Frightened, he threw Fleur's remains and the artifact into the Seine river, though the actions would come to haunt him, fearing he would be damned for killing a holy girl.
Modern day
In 2016, following his discovery that the Sword in Abstergo Industries' possession was missing the Heart, Simon Hathaway traveled to Paris and managed to recover it from where he believed Thérage had cast Fleur's ashes all those years ago. He subsequently delivered both the Heart and the Sword to Alan Rikkin.
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What is your personal philosophy?
Question: What is your personal philosophy?
D. Quinn Mills: I believe that the most important things are the service that you provide to others. I think that it's very important to be objective and clear thinking, not to get lost and the two great dangers that we have. Particularly in our society, one of which is wishful thinking, we are always thinking that the world and everything is going to be better than it is and the other thing is hype. Americans tend the hype everything as the result of that, we do not have a sense of proper proportion and we overdo things. The classic example right now is the attack on 9/11. It was a terrible thing, but it was only a terrorist attack and yet the number of people in this country who were referred to this is the beginning of World War III and use that is an excuse for the military adventures that we're in abroad now is I think just astonishing. The hype in this country, the sensationalism continually confuses us and causes some enormous errors, and my philosophy is avoid those things at all cost.
Recorded on: 9/27/07
"I believe that the most important things are the service that you provide to others."
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Thierry Coquand has been awarded the Kurt Gödel Centenary Research Prize Fellowship
News: May 27, 2008
Prize-winning proof
Thierry Coquand, of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Gothenburg, has been awarded the Kurt Gödel Centenary Research Prize Fellowship of 120 000 US dollars for his pioneering research into the foundations of mathematics. The prize is personal and is a global award made to a senior researcher, whose work builds on Gödel's achievements in mathematics and logic.
Personal awards are uncommon in the world of research, and especially within research into the foundations of mathematics. Being acclaimed as a senior researcher at the age of 47, shows how rapidly Thierry Coquand has become a prominent figure. He studied mathematics and logic at the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris and gained a PhD in computer science at INRIA, the research institute. He was made a professor of computer science at Göteborg University as early as 1996. In 2001 he was awarded the Wallmark Prize by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
The relationship between computer programs and mathematical proof
Thierry Coquand's research straddles the boundary between mathematical logic and theoretical computer science, and is of a fundamental, or primary, nature. What is the structure of mathematical proof? Are there links between mathematical proof and computer programs? Type theory is one of Thierry's research fields. This builds upon Bertrand Russell's philosophical reflections and is the most exact expression of logic. At the same time, he believes that there are exciting and interesting applications, despite the fundamental nature of the subject and field.
Aiming at fault-free software development
A system that builds upon Thierry's ideas about checking proof has been developed in France. Workers at Microsoft Research in Paris have used the program to formalise a well-recognised problem and proof - the four colour theorem. It may seem somewhat surprising that Microsoft are interested in mathematical proof, but they believe that it can improve our understanding of how to develop correct software programs. The same system has also been used to confirm that debit card chips do not contain faults, or bugs. Type theory also has applications in linguistics and has an important role in the faculty's research into language technology, because type theory makes it possible to translate language segments automatically, whilst retaining meaning and correct grammar.
Thierry has lived in Sweden for 18 years and appreciates the breadth and depth of research at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, which is a joint faculty of Chalmers and Göteborg University.
He says: "Surprisingly enough, my colleagues' research into programming languages and functional programming is relevant to the understanding of the foundations of mathematics, whilst at the same time, the foundations of mathematics are important for computer science."
Thierry received the prize from Austria's minister of research at a ceremony in Vienna this April.
The Kurt Gödel Society promotes research into logic, philosophy and the history of mathematics, and also into other fields in which Kurt Gödel worked. Gödel was the twentieth century's greatest logician, and his research has improved the understanding of the foundations of mathematics. He was most renowned for his incompleteness theorems.
INRIA stands for the Institute National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique.
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Utskriftsdatum: 2020-07-13 | <urn:uuid:9321b1fe-0498-4783-ac1d-2accf2cfc824> | ERROR: type should be string, got "https://itufak.gu.se/english/current/news/news-detail/prize-winning-proof.cid810389?print=true&showMap=true&mapAlias=7800&keepArticle=true&mapTitle=Catharina+Jerkbrant%2C+kommunikat%F6r&feedbackForm=true&encodedEmail=Y2FqZUBjaGFsbWVycy5zZQ&tipFriend=true&tipUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fitufak.gu.se%2Fenglish%2Fcurrent%2Fnews%2Fnews-detail%2F%2Fprize-winning-proof.cid810389" | en | 0.90764 | 0.030134 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Ramdasia (Muslim traditions) in India
Ramdasia (Muslim traditions)
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of this people group.
People Name: Ramdasia (Muslim traditions)
Country: India
10/40 Window: Yes
Population: 3,400
World Population: 12,300
Primary Language: Punjabi, Eastern
Primary Religion: Islam
Christian Adherents: 0.00 %
Evangelicals: 0.00 %
Scripture: Complete Bible
Online Audio NT: No
Jesus Film: Yes
Audio Recordings: Yes
People Cluster: South Asia Muslim - other
Affinity Bloc: South Asian Peoples
Progress Level:
Introduction / History
Until the 20th century, the Ramdasia people were part of the either the Chamars, a very low status group of leather workers, or the Julahas, a caste of weavers. One of the ways they found to escape their low status was to convert to another religion, usually Sikhism. A smaller number converted to Islam, though the majority of the Ramdasia people remain Hindu.
Where Are they Located?
Most Ramdasia people are usually either Hindu or Sikh, but there is a small Muslim community in Pakistan and western India.
What Are Their Lives Like?
Once known primarily as basket weavers and leather workers, today many Ramdasias have advanced in areas of agriculture, business and education.
What Are Their Beliefs?
In most of the Muslim world, peoples like the Ramdasia depend on the spirit world for their daily needs since they regard Allah as too distant. Allah may determine their eternal salvation, but the spirits determine how well we live in our daily lives. For that reason, they must appease the spirits. The often use charms and amulets to help them with spiritual forces.
What Are Their Needs?
The Ramdasia people, be they Sikh, Hindu or Muslim, need to put their faith in Jesus Christ, the only one who can bless them with abundant life and eternal salvation from sin and death.
Prayer Points
* Pray for his kingdom to come and his will to be done among the Ramdasia people, be they Hindu, Sikh or Muslim.
* Pray for a movement of Ramdasia households to study the Bible and accept the blessings of Christ.
* Pray for a spiritual hunger that will drive Muslim Ramdasia people to the arms of Jesus.
* Pray for workers who are filled with the fruit and the power of the Holy Spirit to go to the Muslim Ramdasia people.
Text Source: Keith Carey | <urn:uuid:3681ae6a-5b00-4f67-9e5e-ab555679edab> | https://joshuaproject.net/people_groups/print/17669/IN | en | 0.927506 | 0.223879 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Innovation & Trends
10 tips for successful innovation teams
Imagine that you've been given the assignment of creating a new innovation team. It's your job to create a team that's able to come up with a new lucrative business idea and run it from concept to launch. This is a big task. To locate developmental areas outside the core business is difficult, especially in a company that's been making the same products for decades and which generally does not want to risk anything.
In return you have been given funds and freedom to select your dream team.
So where to start?
Carl Fudge and Joaquin Roca offers 10 tips.
1. Start by making the “box” bigger instead of trying to think outside it
The first thing you need to do is to choose the right people for your team. The best way of doing this is by making sure that your team members are capable of running every phase of the project.
An innovation project typically consists of three phases: The creative, the analytical and the development phase. With this in mind it becomes clear that it is not enough to bring along people who are capable of “thinking outside the box”. A far better strategy is to create a bigger box: Choose team members team with different competences, networks and personalities.
2. Choose your team based on WHAT they know and WHO they know
Every innovation team should have members with good networks, so they're able to quickly come up with the answer to a question or provide the resources that can help the team move forward with the process. Access to an effective network provides a wider knowledge base to support the team.
Therefore, claims the two authors, the quality of the team members’ network should be a heavy selection criteria.
You can read further on the importance of the team’s network and their ability to move “outside” the team here.
3. Pick one executive and give him or her the freedom to lead
Experiments with management duos or even trios have not been successful. A single leader is, as opposed to a team, able to claim full ownership of the vision and make the final decisions. This keeps the process going and makes it faster. In an innovational process it is often better to push the process forward, even with incomplete information, than it is to slow it down while waiting for data.
However, it's interesting that even though one singular leader is important, it should still be possible for other team members to take on the managing position, when they possess the relevant expertise in the specific subject.
4. Create a team that can find – and fill out - gaps in the market
It isn't all about getting good ideas. For an innovative product to become a success there must be people who are willing to pay for it. For identifying such needs Fudge and Roca recommends an ethnographer. An ethnographer observes consumer behavior and tries to gain knowledge on non-satisfied needs. Needs that typically mean innovational possibilities.
An ethnographer’s work of interviewing, observing and identifying consumer needs brings the needs of the consumers to the forefront and becomes what the project grows from.
5. Use people who tell good stories
The ability to talk about the new business idea is almost as important as the quality of the idea itself. Whether you present the idea to your boss, colleagues or a potential investor it's critical that they understand the concept and share your enthusiasm for the idea. A storyteller can help you with this.
Storytellers can describe problems and solutions in a way that also creates fascination and animates action. Involvement and action is what you need in order for the team’s project to go from idea to complete product.
6. Understand the difference between good and bad conflict
A conflict isn't just a conflict. In an innovative team it is important that the right type of conflict is allowed or you risk missing out on your team member’s full potential and the payoff a good (constructive) discussion is able to produce.
In order to achieve a constructive debate, you must focus on the task at hand and not the person. A constructive dialog makes it possible for team members to challenge each other’s assumptions and hypotheses to reach a better solution.
But remember that also this kind of debate is harmfull, if you're constantly challenging other people’s views. This leads to personal conflict and must be stopped as soon as possible. Constructive conflicts, however, you should encourage.
7. Ad an external provocateur
Sometimes it may benefit the team, regardless of how good a team you have, to send in an outsider. She/he can bring in new information and inspire the organization to consider new and brave ideas. The person can also serve as an “irritant” – not because she/he has to be irritating – but personality and experience must somehow contrast the team's, in at way that the mere presence of this “provocateur” gives the team with an energy boost.
8. Remember to set goals and measure progress
There are three things that are important in relation to the innovation team’s goal:
1. Arrange a shared vision for what the team wants to achieve. If the team is part of creating the goal conflicts will lessen and you will experience a higher level of involvement and responsibility.
2. Return to the goals frequently. This acts as a confirmation of your common purpose.
3. Don't list financial goals. Instead, ask a question to which you want to know the answer to. For example: Does this idea work or doesn't it? To figure out what doesn't work is also a way of measuring progress.
9. Think like an entrepreneur
Among entrepreneurs you will find a particular high level of motivation and focus. To recreate this in your team, you must nurse an entrepreneur like mindset. sometimes you can do this by turning up the motivational factors such as reward and risk. If this isn't possible, Fudge and Roca recommend that you ask your team members to sign an “entrepreneurial contract” where they commit to the project and/or the company.
10. Jump in heads first
For a team to succeed your team members must have the possibility of giving the project their full attention. If they're distracted by other assignments, it's difficult to focus whole-heartedly and the risk of defeat increases.
When a company tries to find new ways of growing, there's a place for innovative teams. Companies which spend time putting together, managing and motivating the team in the beginning of a project have a better chance of success than those that just “do the usual”. | <urn:uuid:e581d92b-cd29-4231-97c5-0e9d82fad5d9> | https://lederindsigt.dk/en/tools-templates/innovation-trends/10-tips-for-successful-innovation-teams | en | 0.961962 | 0.371137 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
This would favour the second, endogenous, hypothesis of Traveller origins." More specifically, they found that Q188R was found in 100% of Traveller samples, and in 89% of other Irish samples, indicating that the Traveller group was typical of the larger Irish population.Since Shelta is a mixture of English and Irish grammar, the etymology is not straightforward.
An early example of this mobile element in the population, and how displacement of clans can lead to increased nomadism within aristocratic warrior societies, is that of the Clan Murtough O' Connors, displaced after the Norman invasion.
In 2011, researchers at the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin and the University of Edinburgh analyzed DNA samples from 40 Travellers.
Issues with mobile sections of the population came under loosely defined vagrancy laws, ultimately of English origin.
In 19–63 government of Ireland established a "Commission on Itinerancy" in response to calls to deal with the "itinerant problem".
Current scholarship is investigating the background of Gaelic Ireland before the English Tudor conquest.
The mobile nature and traditions of a Gaelic society based on pastoralism rather than land tenure before this event implies that Travellers represent descendants of the Gaelic social order marginalised during the change-over to an English landholding society.The Commission's 1963 report defined "itinerant" as "a person who had no fixed place of abode and habitually wandered from place to place, but excluding travelling show-people and travelling entertainers".From the 2006 Irish census it was determined that 20,975 dwell in urban areas and 1,460 were living in rural areas.It is used in the US, UK and Ireland Deeper documentation of Shelta and the Travellers dates to the 1830s, but knowledge of Irish Travellers has been seen from the 1100s, as well as the 1500s-1800s.Many decrees against begging in England were directed at Travellers, passed by King Edward VI around 1551.Irish Travellers are not an entirely homogeneous group, instead reflecting some of the variation also seen in the settled population. | <urn:uuid:c409bc11-2ecd-4c8e-a0c9-4bf77e42f2c4> | https://nutri-strike.ru/dating-service-for-travelers-3223.html | en | 0.953565 | 0.037451 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Petland Mall of Georgia
Bichon Poo
Bichon Poo
The Bichon Poodle is more of a teddy bear-like breed and they are suitable to be pets and lapdogs. They are suitable for show and also serve as the classic home dogs. Since it is a hybrid, it does take all of the features of its parents. Discover more about our Bichon Poo puppies for sale below!
Breed History
The Bichon Poo is a combination of the Bichon Frise and the Poodle. More of a crossbreed if you may and they do take on the features of the parents.
The Bichon Frise is known to have origins in the Mediterranean and was used as travel dogs by the Italians who subsequently returned them to France. They were adopted as regal and they were used in shows too. They are known to be very fluffy and playful.
The Poodle, on the other hand, is known to be a water retriever and is also skilled in a lot of canine sports though it is used more as a companion and a trophy dog. The Bichon Poo is a combination of these two dogs.
The Bichon Poo breed is known to be very smart dogs and very intelligent too. They are easy to train and can be very friendly. They are loyal and will alert you if there are any noises that they cannot explain. They do well with children too and will be thrilled to play with them.
You should get them trained early enough so they know how to relate with other pets and with people. They tend to suffer from separation anxiety if left alone for long periods of time. Overall, they are active companions and fun too.
The Bichon Poo thrives in environments with a lot of people. Naturally, they are very sociable so if they are socially exposed at an early age, they may be friends to even the felines. They love attention and would love to be in the midst of children they could play with.
For the Bichon Poo, 30 minutes of exercise a day is ideal. They are more of toy dogs and could be very little so you wouldn’t want to over-exercise them. This 30 minutes could include playtime with your children who would want to run around with him.
Since they are very fragile, you shouldn’t over-exercise them when they’re very young. You could wait until they’re 6 months old before taking them out on long walks. The key is to remain fit and so whatever form of exercise should be minimal.
The Bichon Poo has a remarkable coat. Its hair is curly and it has a button like a nose that just sits right on its face. It almost looks like a teddy bear. Taking care of the Bichon Poo requires a lot of work so you could keep its coat in good condition.
First of all, you’d need to brush its coat daily and this is very important so you could avoid instances of matting which could occur. Given the fact that it has a curly coat, if it is not brushed daily, you run the risk of getting their coats matted and this could be detrimental to their health. They also need proper dental care.
So, it is advised that you give your dog a proper brush every day if you can and you could also try out some dental treats that could help them build stronger teeth and dispel any tooth problems they may have.
The unregulated breeders who are selling outside of the USDA regulations and without a license are what we consider to be “Puppy Mills.” We are committed to offering Bichon Poo puppies who will grow up to become important members of your family. We only purchase puppies from the very best sources, and we stand behind every puppy we sell.
Contact us today to learn more about the availability of our Bichon Poo puppies for sale. We look forward to helping you find your next family member. Our pet counselors can answer any questions you have about our Bichon Poo puppies.
Ten Frequently Asked Questions About the Bichon Poo
How big can a Bichon Poo grow?
This breed of dogs is more like toys and so they could be 9 to 14 inches when they’re fully grown.
How much exercise do Bichon Poos need?
Every dog needs their daily exercise and the Bichon Poo is no exception. You could exercise them for 20 to 40 minutes daily.
How often should a Bichon Poo be bathed?
You could bathe your dog once or twice a month if you are up for it. They do need enough grooming. Make sure to brush their coat only when damp and not when it’s dry.
How long can Bichon Poos live?
The average lifespan of a Bichon Poo is 12 to 15 years.
What diseases are Bichon Poos prone to?
Though a lot of these diseases are rare, it is important to be in the know of your dog’s allergies and the diseases they may be susceptible to. One of such is the progressive retinal atrophy which is hereditary because the Poodle is susceptible to this.
This disease causes progressive blindness in the eyes of the Bichon Poo. Another such disease is the patella luxation which causes dislocation of the dog bones. This could be very painful for the dog.
Are Bichon Poos hypoallergenic?
Yes, they are.
Are Bichon Poos known for barking?
The Bichon Poo mostly barks to get the attention of its owner or when there are strangers around. They aren’t known to be aggressive.
When will the Bichon Poo get to full size?
This dog attains its full size when it is about 12 to 18 months old.
Are Bichon Poos good dogs?
Naturally, these dogs are friendly and affectionate and loyal too. You could say they’re suitable companions.
How much food can Bichon Poos eat daily?
Well, this naturally depends on the owner. You could choose to feed them 4 to 5 times daily or just twice.
The Bichon Poo is an intelligent and very friendly dog and they could be suitable companions too.
Are you interested in purchasing a Bichon Poo?
| <urn:uuid:a67e1076-a626-462f-b25e-ea672a530a2f> | https://petlandmallofgeorgia.com/breed/bichon-poo/ | en | 0.968706 | 0.076742 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Free Speech, Electioneering, & Constitutionality: A South Carolina Debate
[Click here for a printable .pdf version of this report, and here for a short fact sheet.]
First, the background. The South Carolina legislature is poised to pass new regulations of political speech. While the proposed law is being spun as perfunctory regulation of election ads, it actually would go much farther than mere campaign ads to potentially cover virtually all communications critical of public officials during a broad window before an election.
The proposals offered by both the House and Senate are clearly unconstitutional, appear designed to capture all communications critical of elected officials, and would almost certainly result in a federal court challenge. The bill under consideration is House bill 3722. (See also this Senate version, a bill that’s widely thought to be dead but may not be).
This bill would clash with multiple rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court that have clearly protected political speech under the First Amendment. As the Citizens United Court said, “[b]ecause speech is an essential mechanism of democracy – it is the means to hold officials accountable to the people – political speech must prevail against laws that would suppress it by design or inadvertence.”
The South Carolina legislature is re-writing the laws governing campaign speech as a result of a 2010 federal court ruling that the existing laws were unconstitutional. The question citizens must expect lawmakers to ask is not when the people are entitled to protection of their First Amendment right, but the exact opposite: when is there a compelling reason for government to regulate otherwise protected political speech?
The legislature knows – or certainly should know – that the Supreme Court has ruled consistently to protect political free speech. Therefore, lawmakers should be treading carefully and exercising restraint with regulatory powers that courts have ruled must be narrowly limited for the purpose of allowing the public to discern corruption regarding substantial expenditures related to the election of a clearly identified candidate.
Disclosure requirements are in part justified based on the government’s interest in providing the electorate with information about the sources of election-related spending because it may deter actual corruption and avoid the appearance of corruption by exposing large expenditures to the light of publicity. In that case, government has a compelling reason to protect the public by requiring the disclosure of “electioneering” expenditures and the identities of those who fund them – only then can the public discern the corruption that is likely from a quid pro quo that emerges from a heavy financial investment in an election of a specific candidate.
Beyond the compelling government interest in protecting the public from corruption that could result from quid pro quo, there is a greater risk to the public from regulating free speech that merely engages in criticism of a politician’s position on issues.
The courts have ruled in favor of citizens’ free speech
Multiple court rulings address the line between protected free speech and speech that clearly seeks to influence the outcome of a specific election through a financial investment. In his 2010 ruling, Judge Terry Wooten outlined and quoted from several landmark Supreme Court cases and the Fourth Circuit of Appeals, both of which are “controlling” courts in that South Carolina is subject to their rulings.
The cases:
Buckley v. Valeo, which struck down several provisions governing campaign spending as unconstitutional, was decided in 1976 and still stands. Among other things, the Supreme Court said in Buckley that:
• The right of citizens and organizations to speak out on public policy issues and to hold their government officials accountable is protected by the First Amendment. The First Amendment does not permit regulation or disclosure of speech that is not campaign-related.
• Mandatory disclosure requirements were only permissible when applied to contributions made for communications that “expressly advocate the election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate.”
• Only actions “Unambiguously related to the campaign of a particular…candidate” could be regulated by campaign finance laws.
• The government interest in regulating political speech was related to corruption, defined as large contributions “given to secure a political quid pro quo from current and potential office holders.”
• That the definition of political committee “need only encompass organizations that are under the control of a candidate or the major purpose of which is the nomination or election of a candidate.”
McConnell v. Federal Election Commission ruled that speech could be also regulated that was “the functional equivalent of express advocacy.”
Federal Election Commission v. Wisconsin Right to Life clarified definition of “functional equivalent, ruling:
• “Discussion of issues cannot be suppressed simply because the issues may also be pertinent in an election.”
The Fourth Circuit noted in North Carolina Right to Life v. Leake that:
• The Buckley ruling on speech is based on the recognition that “only unambiguously campaign related communications have sufficiently close relationships to the government’s acknowledged interest in preventing corruption to be constitutionally regulable.”
• “[t]o date, the Court has only recognized two categories of activity that fit within Buckley’s unambiguously campaign related standard: a) “’communications that in express terms advocate the election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate for’ public office”; and b) “campaign communications that are the ‘functional equivalent of express advocacy.’”
Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission:
• Noted that Buckley upheld certain limits “recognizing a governmental interest in prohibiting quid pro quo corruption.”
• Rejected the contention that “disclosure requirements must be limited to speech that is the functional equivalent of express advocacy,” but also noted that any regulation testing the boundaries would be subject to exact scrutiny of the courts which “requires a ‘substantial relation’ between the disclosure requirement and a ‘sufficiently important’ governmental interest.”
Where do the court rulings leave South Carolina?
Judge Terry Wooten, relying on the above precedents, ruled in 2010 in South Carolina Citizens for Life v. Krawcheck that the state’s definition of “committee” was “overbroad” and thus unconstitutional. In his ruling, Judge Wooten noted that the proper starting point was the Buckley case, which addressed numerous challenges to the restrictions contained in the Federal Election Campaign Act. Wooten noted that “The ‘unambiguously campaign related’ standard was of particular significance in determining the scope of regulations directed at political committees.” Wooten relied upon the “major purpose” test identified in Buckley in ruling that South Carolina definition of “committee” was too broad and “contains constitutional infirmities similar to those addressed by the Fourth Circuit in Leake.”
Judge Wooten did not rule on plaintiff’s other causes that included the contention that the state’s definition of “influencing” the outcome of an election was overbroad and also that it was vague. The judge pointed out that he had already ruled on the definition of “committee,” which he said encompassed the “influencing” language.
However, Judge Wooten did comment on the matter. He noted that while the Fourth Circuit ruling that only two categories of speech under Buckley were regulable, the Citizens United case had declined to limit the definition of “unambiguously campaign related” to just express advocacy and the functional equivalent thereof. As a result, Wooten said he believed it possible that the definition of influencing in place at the time could have passed constitutional muster.
It’s important to note that the Citizens United Court did not rule that the definitions of express advocacy and functional equivalent were not the limits, but rather that the Court disagreed that they “must” be the limits. The Court emphasized that any regulation of speech outside the realm of what had been ruled regulable would be subject to exact scrutiny and must be based on a clear government interest, which the same Court defined as preventing corruption.
In addition to the Wooten ruling, a ruling by Judge Margaret Seymour also concluded that SC’s definitions of “committee” were unconstitutional, citing the Fourth Circuit’s ruling in Leake. Judge Seymour also noted that “states cannot use a gross dollar amount – e.g., campaign-related expenditures totaling $500 – as a proxy for an organization’s ‘major purpose…’”
Both courts cited prior Court rulings that made it clear states must be cautious and tread lightly when attempting to regulate political speech.
How can South Carolina lawmakers safeguard free speech and constitutionally regulate electioneering?
Whether an electioneering communication law reaches only express advocacy or its functional equivalent or attempts to go beyond that line, it is clear that non-electoral speech cannot be regulated. States wishing to avoid constitutional challenges need to avoid including speech that does not influence an election, as well as avoid overly burdensome disclosure requirements. Exceptions for communications to members, non-partisan voter guides and get-out-the-vote efforts, communications by 501(c)(3) organizations, communications that do not reference elections, voting or the fact that someone is a candidate, will help to avoid an unconstitutional definition.
South Carolina lawmakers should tread carefully. The Buckley ruling that speech may only be regulated if is is “unambiguously related” to the election of a clearly identified candidate still stands. Under that test, only “express advocacy” and its “functional equivalent” have been clearly ruled as regulable speech by the government. And while it’s true that the Citizens United Court did not rule that states must be limited to those definitions of “unambiguously related,” the definitions nonetheless stand as the only ones that have been ruled on firm constitutional ground.
The current proposals are arguably less narrowly drawn than the prior laws addressed by Judge Wooten. For example, the senate proposal has no threshold by which to gauge when a contribution was substantial enough to trigger a governmental interest. Wooten referenced this problem in his ruling, citing cases that noted a low threshold for triggering regulation – such as $500, which was the previous threshold – would subvert the major purpose test. Judge Seymour commented similarly.
It isn’t fair to use such a low threshold when $500 would likely not constitute the major spending of an organization. By the same token, applying such a standard even to individuals would trigger heavy burdens for a minimal investment. The federal government has a $10,000 threshold before electioneering regulations take effect. South Carolina should set a high threshold of at least half the federal threshold to avoid burdening citizens and organizations that engage in minor communications that do not constitute a substantial threat of corruption.
Again, the right to engage in free political speech must not be infringed upon except in the case of a substantial government interest in protecting the public, which would apply in the case of allowing the public to discern a quid pro quo from a financer of a direct engagement in the election of a clearly identified candidate.
To be safe, South Carolina lawmakers should simply define electioneering as any express advocacy or its functional equivalent. To go beyond the already-established regulable speech would risk a court challenge, and to go beyond that standard with the current proposal would guarantee such a challenge.
The current proposal merely says an electioneering communication can be defined as that which references a clearly identified candidate for office and is made within sixty days of a general election, thirty days of a primary election. The few exceptions do not protect issue advocacy such as the distribution of non-partisan candidates’ voting records or communications critical of a candidate’s position on specific issues or bills. Neither directly seeks to influence the outcome of an election but rather to educate the public on candidates’ positions. The court has ruled that discussion of issues is protected and cannot be chilled simply because it may also be pertinent to an election.
The proposal would effectively force groups to either abstain from any criticism of politicians before an election or risk exposing their donors to intimidation from powerful legislators.
Not only would that cause a chilling effect, the law could constitute prior restraint by forcing citizens and organizations to request rulings and consult attorneys before making an otherwise ordinary communication referencing a politician who also happens to be running for office.
If the legislature chooses to further restrict protected political speech, beyond what the courts have ruled clearly constitutional, then it must go as far as possible to protect free speech. Below are some ways in which lawmakers could take extra steps to protect citizens’ First Amendment right and from the damage of a long court battle:
The electioneering communication definition should be narrowly defined, and stick to those provisions that the Court has ruled acceptable, such as:
• Limiting electioneering communications to the federal definition that includes any broadcast, cable or satellite communication which is aired, broadcast, cablecast or otherwise disseminated through the facilities of a television station, radio station, cable television system or satellite system. This definition does not include mail or phone because both are difficult to track and fully control, and therefore an undue burden could be imposed on citizens.
• Limiting regulated communications to those made sixty days before a general election for the office sought by a clearly identified candidate or within thirty days of a primary sought by a clearly identified candidate.
• Ensuring that only those communications targeted to the relevant electorate for that office are included as “electioneering communications.” Otherwise, mailings that are sent to a much broader audience that happens to include a specific district could be challenged.
• Set a threshold for the cost of electioneering communications to be more than $5,000 – such thresholds are protection for citizens who merely engage in the election process through communicating with friends, neighbors and other groups – this is precisely the type of communication that is endangered by allowing mail communications to be included. Setting a threshold would also ensure that the government does indeed have a compelling interest in disclosure to guard against corruption, which would be less likely at lower amounts spent in an election.
• Define “functional equivalent” to meet court-applied definitions, such as that the communication cannot reasonably be susceptible to any other reasonable interpretation other than as an appeal to vote for or against a specific candidate. In determining whether a communication is the function equivalent of express advocacy, it shall be judged by its plain language, not by an “intent and effect” test or other contextual factors.
It should make clear exceptions for communications that:
• Are from any organization operating under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986. Such groups are already prohibited by the Internal Revenue Service from engaging in electioneering.
• A communication that is publicly disseminated through a means of communication other than a broadcast, cable, or satellite television, radio station. This would protect the Internet, the mail or telephone – all of which are virtually impossible to regulate, and thus place a heavy burden on the citizen or group to “control” completely who receives the communication (all but impossible for the Internet).
• A communication that is paid for by a candidate for federal office in connection with an election to federal office, provided that the communication does not promote, support, attack or oppose any state candidate.
• Any news, commentary, or editorial programming or article, or communication to an organization’s own members – citizens are entitled to communicate with members of a private organization.
The First Amendment clearly protects the right of citizens to engage in unregulated political speech, whether critical or supportive of public officials and regardless of the timing of an election. That citizens may do so is not in question. Rather, what the South Carolina legislature is contemplating now is under what circumstances it may regulate otherwise protected political speech. Fortunately, the Supreme Court has answered this question clearly in multiple rulings: the state may regulate political speech only when it is “unambiguously” related to an election of a clearly identified candidate, and the investment in contributions or election-related expenditures is at a reasonably high threshold so as not to subvert the “major purpose” test. In that narrow instance, the danger of a “quid pro quo” is a compelling reason for government to require certain reporting information to empower the public to discern corruption. Otherwise there is no compelling government interest in regulating protected political speech, including issue advocacy that comments on an official’s positions and voting record.
If lawmakers’ goal is truly to regulate political speech only for the very narrow purpose of protecting the public from the corruption of a quid pro quo, to vigilantly protect citizens’ First Amendment right to free speech and to remain on strong constitutional ground so as to avoid another court challenge, then it has a clear path to doing so by strictly adhering to the rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court.
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Category: Individual Liberty, Publications · Tags: | <urn:uuid:ab3480c5-b349-4cf8-bcf5-2a722a5736ed> | https://scpolicycouncil.org/research/individual-liberty/electioneering | en | 0.960299 | 0.045085 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Desync loop in the Last Maharaja
During the mission "A Good Send-Off", I am experiencing a desync loop when I try to restart from the last checkpoint. What can I do to solve this issue?
In order to prevent this issue from happening again, here are some steps you can follow:
- Start by verifying the game files (Uplay / Steam). This will repair any potential corrupted files from your game folder.
- Next, try to reduce the graphics settings in your in-game Options > Video > Display menu.
- Finally, perform basic PC troubleshooting.
If you encounter the same issue after completing above steps, don't hesitate to contact us. For better and faster assistance, feel free to attach Dxdiag and Msinfo files to your ticket.
Associated Platforms
| <urn:uuid:025b86a0-0ff7-42e4-9f98-0578d8b7322c> | https://support.ubisoft.com/en-AU/Faqs/000027298/Desync-loop-in-the-Last-Maharaja-DLC-s-mission-A-Good-Send-Off | en | 0.855235 | 0.27877 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
, , , , , , , , , , , ,
Abhimanyu heard words, he absorbed them, he remembered them forever.
Abhimanyu heard them in-utero, within Subhadra’s womb.
Was Vyas bluffing in his narration of Mahabharata? How can a formative mass of cells retain memory?
VYAS was NOT bluffing – Vyas was (as many other Indian thinkers) just miles and miles ahead of his times.
Research has now discovered, acknowledged and put into practice the knowledge that VYAS already possessed 5000 years ago in Mahabharata.
Son of Arjun and nephew of Krishn. This illustrious warrior lived a mere 16 years on Earth, but remains an icon of courage.
As per Mahabharata, he listened to Krishn (in some version, Arjun’s) description of Chakravyuh – a military formation as narrated to his mother Subhadra. However, as Subhadra dozed off halfway, he could only hear the secret to enter Chakravyuh, but not way out of it. abhimanyu
On day 13 of Kurukshetra war, Abhimanyu muscled his way into the dreaded Chakravyuh, but was entrapped within. He fought relentlessly, using every weapon he possessed – even using his chariot wheel to launch an attack. Ultimately, he faced a tragic end, being pulverised to death as he lay unconscious with fatigue.
Womb as Mother-child nexus
The womb is a protective shell, the placenta allows a mixture of mother and baby blood. The direct vibrations from diaphragm (it vibrates when mother speaks) amplify sound and relay it to fetus. Thus, words spoken by parents are heard by baby.
Garbh sanskaar or ‘womb training’ relates to this phenomenon, whereby the mother’s emotions, desires, knowledge and behavioral traits get relayed across to baby and affect the baby’s overall development. garbh sanskaar
What are positive benefits to baby?
1] LANGUAGE: Newborns can actually tell the difference between their mother’s NATIVE tongue and FOREIGN languages.
“The brains do not wait for birth to start absorbing information,” says study author Patricia K. Kuhl, PhD, University of Washington in Seattle. Her findings appear in the journal Acta Paediatrica.
2] Positive effects on fetal BRAIN DEVELOPMENT.
3] Reduces STRESS levels during pregnancy (Yes, even babies can have stress!)
4] Improves baby’s sleeping habits
5] Provides a wonderful BONDING opportunity in utero.
6] Music appreciation increases.
Indian doctors now recommend recitation of Bhagwad Gita, Gayatri Mantra and Classical music to all pregnant mothers.
All Indians should be mighty proud of Vyas’s amazing foresight. vyas
Does your gynecologist/ pediatrician encourage conversations between a pregnant woman and her baby?
Do you believe Mythology is a Reality – a History? | <urn:uuid:a2533a78-6b66-4d00-ac53-2d7991f7a150> | https://sweetyshinde.wordpress.com/2015/01/17/abhimanyus-womb-training-proof-of-garbh-sanskaar/?like_comment=2518&_wpnonce=38b7ba2ca2 | en | 0.931548 | 0.030163 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Damages in a Wrongful Death Lawsuit
May 20, 2019
Damages in a Wrongful Death Lawsuit
A wrongfully dead case is a civil action which is brought by the survivors or of the estate, which is of a person who has died due to the negligence or intentional actions of another. Each and every state has their specific set of rules which governs the wrongful death claims and it also includes the rules of identifying as to who can file a wrongful death lawsuit in the state’s civil court system. A personal representative of the deceased or the family member will be able to file the suit.
The damages available for the wrongful death claim can vary from state to state. There are many states which limit or cap the type and amount of damages and this is especially in a medical malpractice claim.
The types of damages include:
1. Economic damages: This includes the financial contributions of the victim which he/she would have made to the survivors if he/she wouldn’t have died. This includes:
1. Funeral and medical expenses which are connected to the death
2. Loss of benefits like medical coverage or pension plans
3. The loss of expected earnings of the victim
4. Loss of inheritance because there has been an untimely death
5. The goods and service value which the victim would have provided
1. Non-economic damages: Non-economic damages are less tangible and have more value than economic damages. For example
1. Damages that the survivor has faced in the form of pain, mental anguish, and suffering
2. Loss of companionship, love, and society from the deceased
3. Loss from the deceased like protection, care, advice, guidance, nurturing and training
4. The loss of consortium from the dead spouse
There are also punitive damages included which is awarded to punish the defendant for the bad conduct. These damages are not available in many states which are in the wrongful death lawsuit and it is not recoverable against particular defendants which include the government agencies. But the treble damages can be recovered against the nursing homes for elder abuse and also for the death.
In this context, Cirillo Law Firm provides the best wrongful death lawyers in Connecticut. This Personal Injury law firm New Haven, CT, has been helping the residents of New Haven and its surrounding areas since 1980. They ensure that all of the cases will be handled with sensitivity and professionalism.
All people are equal before the law. A good attorney. | <urn:uuid:34ffd661-7b60-4969-bd46-2d806239783d> | https://www.cirillolegal.com/post/damages-in-a-wrongful-death-lawsuit | en | 0.972451 | 0.318098 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
TORONTO -- As cases of the novel coronavirus continue to rise across Canada, many health workers are calling on the federal government for support in providing medical supplies and personal protective equipment to help them take care of patients.
Among the much-needed equipment are breathing machines, also known as mechanical ventilators.
Mechanical ventilators are machines attached to patients, either via a tube inserted through the mouth and into the throat, or they can be used with a tight-fitting mask that goes around the nose and mouth.
The machine forces air into patients, providing extra oxygen to support their breathing muscles. This allows the patient to relax and exhale.
Dr. Irvin Mayers, professor of medicine at the University of Alberta, says patients with COVID-19 might require a ventilator because they can develop severe respiratory illnesses, most commonly pneumonia.
He says patients aren’t able to breathe because of an inflammation that disrupts their air passage.
“The body’s response to the infection is with a lot of inflammation and it’s the inflammation in the air passage that seems to give all the problems, so you can support people with their breathing until this settle,” he told on Tuesday.
The ventilators inserted through a tube, known as invasive ventilators, are crucial in preventing infection built up in the patient’s air passage, according to Mayers.
A patient’s breathing can fail in two ways. When the breathing muscles get exhausted from working hard to move air in, carbon dioxide builds up and can cause the blood stream to become acidic, resulting in organ failure.
Or, the air passage can become infected with fluids, preventing oxygen from getting into the blood stream. In some worse cases, both can happen at the same time.
“The ventilator, by supporting your breathing muscles, can help you get rid of the excess carbon dioxide and by increasing the amount of oxygen you breathe in can help overcome the air passage filling with fluid or infection,” said Mayers.
Dr. John Granton, head of respirology for the intensive care unit at Mount Sinai’s University Health Network, said while ventilators are expensive – with prices averaging in the tens of thousands of dollars -- they allow physicians to directly attack a patient’s breathing issues.
“They are complex computers; they have a lot of features which allow us to individualize our care for each patient that comes our way,” he told on Tuesday.
For health-care workers, ventilators can be difficult to set up for patients, especially those with an infectious virus.
“It is more challenging because you do have to dress up properly to make sure your skin, and more important your eyes, nose, lips and mouth are all covered so that if there’s any droplets sprayed it wont reach those parts of your body, much like a sneeze,” said Granton.
Health-care workers must wear masks, face shields and gowns to protect themselves from this infectious virus. That’s why Granton says personal protective equipment is so important and why many health workers have concerns over potential shortages.
According to Mayers, there are no concrete projections that has determined how many patients with COVID-19 will require a ventilator. However, current estimates guess that not all patients with COVID-19 will require these breathing machines.
“It varies a lot from country to country, when you look at some places the rate of needing intensive care is low and in others it’s high and it’s not clear why. The majority are not going to go on a ventilator and with COVID-19, going on a ventilator means you’re really sick, and unfortunately those are the people who may succumb,” said Mayers.
“Some of the guesses for Canada would be about 15 per cent of people with COVID-19 infections will get into hospital and maybe five per cent will need a ventilator. Those are guesses but that might give people the idea that getting COVID-19 doesn’t mean you’ll be in intensive care and on a ventilator,” he said.
Mayers said it all depends on the region and more importantly a patient’s health conditions, age and risks.
Depending on the severity of the patients’ condition, some could be on a ventilator for a few days or even weeks.
Relying on an invasive ventilator can be as uncomfortable as it looks, according to Granton. He says most patients can become anxious about their illness and having to rely on a large machine, so physicians often have to sedate them to help them relax.
In some severe cases, patients are put in a medically-induced coma to help them relax their muscles and breathe normally.
“They can’t speak when the tube is in because it goes past their voice box so its frustrating when they begin to wake up. The other thing they can’t do is eat and swallow, so we actually have to put feeding tubes down into their nose and mouth and into their stomach so we can give them nutrition that way,” he said.
While ventilators are crucial in treating COVID-19 patients, Granton said it’s important to note that ventilators are not able to cure viral infections but can only support the body as it fights off the infection.
“Breathing machines are really there to cradle and support the person through the infection as they would carry them through surgery until they get better,” said Granton.
“We are looking at treatments for the COVID-19 infection but most of those are experimental and are being developed right now, but there is a huge global effort to evaluate different treatments,” he said. | <urn:uuid:d618c280-2e15-4ffd-bf39-c97b5b1e2792> | https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/why-ventilators-are-so-crucial-in-treating-covid-19-patients-1.4877810?cache=yes%3FautoPlay%3Dtrue%3FclipId%3D89926%3FclipId%3D104062%3FautoPlay%3Dtrue%3FclipId%3D375756%3FclipId%3D89619%3FclipId%3D89619%3FautoPlay%3Dtrue%3FclipId%3D89619%3FclipId%3D89926%3FclipId%3D89926%3FclipId%3D104056%3FautoPlay%3Dtrue%3Fot%3DAjaxLayout%3FautoPlay%3Dtrue%3FautoPlay%3Dtrue%3FautoPlay%3Dtrue%3FautoPlay%3Dtrue%3FclipId%3D89750 | en | 0.955504 | 0.054041 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Over the past few months, HYAS has observed a noticeable increase in the number of credential stuffing attacks targeting multiple verticals including the enterprise market.
“A credential stuffing attack involves attempting to use credentials that were publicly exposed during previous breaches in an automated fashion against new targets.”
Multiple customers and partners reached out to HYAS for assistance in investigating large scale credential stuffing attacks they were being targeted by. Customers reported that the attacks they were experiencing originated from very large ranges of IP addresses (25k-50k+ nodes) across multiple geographical areas.
Initial investigation of the infrastructure in HYAS Comox platform determined that the majority of the IP addresses involved in the attacks were located in Eastern Europe, Africa, South America and Southeast Asia. Using the highly granular IP location data in Comox, we were able to precisely geo-locate over 75% of the reported IP addresses.
Further analysis and fingerprinting of the attacker infrastructure revealed that a large number of the devices were Internet of Things (IOT) devices and Linux servers running vulnerable services. In particular, we were able to positively identify over 70% of the devices as running Mikrotik RouterOS.
MikroTik is a Latvian company which was founded in 1996 to develop routers and wireless ISP systems. An easy target with 9 reported vulnerabilities in the last two years, MikroTik RouterOS equipment is a prime choice for adversaries to compromise and use to conduct a host of different campaigns.
The TTP used in these credential stuffing attacks first involves the actors remotely compromising Linux servers or IOT devices. Once the attacker has gained a foothold on the device, they implement a scheduled task that periodically downloads an attack script from an attacker-controlled server. The script first shuts down or moves to a nonstandard port any vulnerable services running on the device. Next, they set up a SOCKS proxy service on the compromised device. The attackers limit access to the SOCKS proxy to certain CIDR ranges where they will be launching the attacks. The proxy is subsequently used to execute the credential stuffing attacks on the target company’s web service.
Through the additional telemetry offered by Comox, we were able to pivot from a small handful of adversary-controlled domains used to control the botnet to over a dozen malicious domains registered by the same actor group. By using the enhanced whois information features in Comox, we were able to identify multiple actors that are involved with the scheme. | <urn:uuid:fe9934ff-eaf9-4f8f-b7c6-060a26751590> | https://www.hyas.com/blog/adversaries-employing-new-ttps-to-launch-credential-stuffing-attacks | en | 0.964471 | 0.173917 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Ten years ago, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) published a groundbreaking study on the use of forensics in criminal trials. The study found that, in the “pattern matching” fields of forensics in particular, expert witnesses had been vastly overstating the significance and certainty of their analyses. For some fields, such as bite-mark analysis, the study found no scientific research at all to support the central claims of practitioners.
Since then, other panels populated with scientists have come to similar conclusions, including the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and the Texas Forensic Science Commission. In 2013, Congress and the Obama administration responded to these reports by creating the National Commission on Forensic Science, a panel of lawyers and scientists charged with coming up with standards and protocols in these fields. The Trump administration then allowed the commission’s charter to expire in April 2017.
In covering these issues, I have found that there are lots of people willing to talk about the problems with forensics in the courtroom. But solutions are harder to come by — especially solutions that would be politically feasible, findable, and fit the current framework of our judicial-legal system. So I decided to seek solutions from those who work in the areas of law, science and forensics. I sent an inquiry to 33 people, 14 of whom were willing to email answers to a set of six questions. All could be called critics of the way forensics are used in criminal cases today. You can read their full biographies here.
The questions produced some interesting results. There was much agreement on general problems: The courts have done a poor job of keeping junk science and dubious expertise out of criminal trials. The pattern-matching fields of forensics — in which an analyst compares a piece of evidence from a crime scene to a piece of evidence thought to implicate a suspect — are largely subjective, lack structure and standards, and are hobbled by cognitive bias. And the legal system is too reluctant to revisit and correct old cases affected by these problems.
When asked about the root causes of these problems, however, there was some disagreement. Some panelists have what could only be characterized as a fatalistic outlook: Our court system is incompatible with sound science, and we can only hope to minimize the damage. Some blamed our adversarial system, which they say isn’t always conducive to sound science. Others advocated for more adversarialism. There was also plenty of blame to go around — ill-informed judges, overworked and badly-informed defense lawyers, overly eager prosecutors, and under-educated jurors.
The respondents offered a wide array of ideas and some disagreement about the path forward. But a few proposals found support from multiple respondents. While there was disagreement over whether the United States should move toward court-appointed experts (as opposed to allowing the prosecution and defense to pick their own experts), most agreed that if we’re going to continue with the current system, defense lawyers should be given the same amount of money to hire experts as the prosecution, or at least enough money to hire their own competent experts. Several of the respondents pointed out that judges have a much better record of screening out bad expertise in civil cases, where all parties tend to be well-funded.
Many expressed support for the junk-science writ — a law that provides an opening to appeal for those convicted with expert testimony that was later discredited by the scientific community. Texas and California have both passed such a law. Lawmakers in Virginia recently rejected the idea.
Most panelists agreed that making forensic labs independent — moving them from under the auspices of law enforcement — would be a huge improvement, and would go a long way toward reducing cognitive bias. But there was disagreement about how easy this would be to accomplish. Some of the respondents thought it would take little effort, while others anticipated a lot of resistance from police and prosecutors. A few panelists cited the Houston Forensic Science Center as the ideal model of a science-driven, truly independent crime lab. Many also suggested the idea of a “case handler,” an independent go-between who works to ensure that analysts get the relevant information they need to do their jobs, but works to block out additional information that could bias their results.
I asked the panelists six questions. We’ll post their answers to the first question today, and to the other questions in future posts.
Question 1
Under current law, judges have been designated as the “gatekeepers” of science in the courtroom. If one side wants to challenge the scientific validity of expert testimony, the lawyers for that side can request a hearing. If the hearing is granted, the judge may then hear evidence for and against the expert testimony, and then decide whether the testimony is reliable and, therefore, admissible.
Critics say judges perform poorly at this task, and there is some persuasive evidence to back up that criticism. This makes some sense, given that most judges are trained in law, not scientific analysis. When making these determinations, judges tend to look to at what other courts have done, instead of the current state of the science.
But in a system like ours, the question becomes: If not judges, then who? Who should determine what expertise a jury will and won’t be allowed to hear at trial? Moreover, forensics has been plagued not only by scientifically dubious areas of specialization, even within the legitimate specialties, but individual witnesses have offered testimony that is unsupported by science. Some have suggested that a national committee of scientists assess the validity of an entire field like bite-mark analysis, or a common diagnosis such as Shaken Baby Syndrome. But it wouldn’t be practical for such a committee to assess every challenge to an expert during criminal trials across the country.
Obviously we need some way of assessing the reliability of scientific and expert testimony. What would the ideal system look like?
Chris Fabricant, Innocence Project
Forensic sciences should be regulated the same way medicine or consumer products are. The 2009 NAS report on forensic sciences recommended a news regulating body called the National Institute for Forensic Sciences. Life and liberty is at issue, yet anything goes in criminal courts, especially and paradoxically in capital litigation.
Sandra Guerra Thompson, University of Houston Law Center, Houston Forensic Science Center
Judges are not entirely to blame for the admission of faulty forensic evidence. Prosecutors and defense attorneys also share the blame. Historically, both judges and advocates were not aware of the problems in many police crime labs, and the weaknesses of various types of forensic evidence. Today there is far greater awareness that issues exist, but judges and lawyers still struggle to comprehend the intricacies of what is a multi-faceted problem.
Judges cannot decide on their own to exclude unreliable evidence. It is up to defense counsel to object to evidence and request a hearing where counsel can proffer testimony explaining the problems with the evidence, and to persuade the judge of the unreliability of a forensic test result.
For several reasons, defense counsel have not adequately challenged forensic evidence. Too often, attorneys may not have the scientific competence to recognize the weakness in the evidence. The endemic underfunding of indigent defense exacerbates this problem. Appointed counsel may lack investigative resources, especially funding for forensic experts to guide them, review the lab reports, conduct independent testing, and testify in court.
Even if the courts provide the resources for defense experts, finding qualified experts to assist the defense is another enormous challenge. Another problem is that too many laboratories provide barebones information and non-standardized terminology in lab reports, making it nearly impossible for defense experts to evaluate the testing process.
John Lentini, fire/arson expert
Ideally, prosecutors would not proffer invalid opinions rendered by unqualified “experts.” But that’s unlikely to happen as long as prosecutors think the opinion testimony will support their case.
Ideally, judges would take their gate-keeping duty seriously, as often happens in civil cases. That is unlikely to happen because judges have continuing relationships with prosecutors and they don’t want to annoy the prosecutors by excluding their expert, no matter how egregious the opinion might be. They don’t want to be called “soft on crime.” Judges also don’t worry too much about being overturned because the Supreme Court in the Joiner decision made “abuse of discretion” the standard for review of a judge’s decision to allow or exclude testimony. Only a tiny minority of such decisions are overturned, so they are almost never appealed.
So what we are left with are the tools of the adversarial system. Challenges to experts should be routine in any contested forensic science case either through an evidentiary hearing or, preferably, by deposition. Depositions are allowed in almost all civil cases, but only a handful of states allow depositions in criminal cases. In those states, conviction rates are no lower than they are in states where expert depositions are not allowed.
Of course, in order to properly challenge an adverse expert, defense attorneys must have the funds to hire their own expert. I have noticed that in recent years, it has become less difficult to obtain such funding, and defense attorneys, particularly public defenders, understand that the assistance of a competent expert in a complicated forensic science field, e.g. fire investigation, is an essential component of effective assistance of counsel.
Simon Cole, University of California at Irvine Department of Criminology, Law & Society, National Registry of Exonerations
I think the question overlooks the most obvious explanation for this phenomenon: outcome orientation. Most judges want the outcome of these admissibility hearings to be that the government gets to use evidence that will help them convict the defendant. I don’t think the following of precedent, for example, comes from some philosophical attachment to precedent, but rather that precedent is a convenient means to the end that most judges want: that the prosecution’s evidence can be used.
I can think of only two alternatives to the current system. One is some sort of scientific tribunal, like a “science court,” e.g., the National Commission on Forensic Science might have been able to play the role of issuing guidance about specific disciplines. Or the National Academies or some other scientific institution could do it. Such a scientific institution approach could work, but courts would need to be willing to defer to the authority of scientific institutions on matters of science.
The second would be the disciplines themselves. The disciplines themselves, or perhaps the American Academy of Forensic Sciences could more actively self-regulate forensic science, rendering legal or scientific regulation less necessary.
In my opinion, as well as that of many other scholars, the focus should be less on the all-or-nothing admissibility decision (does the expert get to testify before the jury?) and more on the content of the expert’s proposed testimony. It might be okay for many experts to testify were they not systematically overstating the probative value of the evidence every time. Judges could focus more on controlling the content of the testimony than on draconian all-or-nothing admissibility decisions. Almost every expert has something of value to say. It’s just that many experts also overstate the value of what they have to say.
Jules Epstein, Temple University Beasley School of Law, National Commission on Forensic Science
You are asking two overlapping questions: who should decide what is generally accepted, and who should decide whether a particular expert in a particular case with a particular opinion/conclusion should be admitted.
When it comes to what’s generally accepted, I am convinced that the litigation model isn’t working — it rarely has parties with equal resources, and when the process is adversarial, the positions become polarized. We’d be better off turning to scientists — the OSAC model; or scientific workgroups; or the NAS — each is better suited to assess scientific reliability/validity of a discipline. At the micro level — a particular expert in a particular case with a particular finding — a judge may be fine once the overall discipline’s parameters have been set.
Barbara Spellman, University of Virginia School of Law
Judges decide whether scientific evidence is reliable and relevant, but “credibility” is left to the jury. Reliability is what is usually in question — an evaluation of whether the science is generally accepted, has been peer reviewed, can be tested, and other factors as outlined in the Supreme Court’s ruling in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals [the landmark 1993 case that laid out the rules for assessing expert testimony].
Relevance becomes, well, relevant, when the proposed topic of the scientific testimony seems as though it is something that is already known and understood by jurors. For example, the Federal Rules of Evidence allow expert testimony when the expert’s knowledge “will assist the trier of fact.” But, for example, memory experts were often not allowed to testify because judges believed that jurors already knew how memory works. Today, memory experts are often allowed because surveys, experiments and exonerations have shown that scientists know some important, relevant things about the workings of memory that the general public does not.
Roger Koppl, Forensic and National Security Sciences Institute, Syracuse University
The gate-keeping function of judges is rooted in the theory that scientific knowledge is completely different from other forms of human knowledge. Philosophers of science, however, have been unable to agree upon any standard separating “science” from “not science.” What happens if we view scientific and technical knowledge as equal to other knowledge? Then we may see the benefit of listening to both sides of the story.
There should be a real and substantive defense right to expertise. Then each side can make its case for what the forensic evidence shows. This “battle of experts” would be no “race to the bottom.” On the contrary! The two sides in our adversarial criminal-justice system have diametrically opposed interests. Thus, any relevant fact or argument will help one side and hurt the other side. Thus, “the battle of the experts” tends to flush out all the relevant facts and arguments, leaving the judge and jury with a more complete and balanced picture than one side alone would give them. And the contending experts are given an incentive to be clear, explicit, and helpful to the judge or jury.
When monopoly experts testify — that is, a court-appointed expert beholden to neither side — they may cave to the temptation to be a powerful and mysterious wizard. “It’s all very complicated, but I the powerful wizard can see the hidden truth!” But when you are competing with another such wizard, you have to actually explain things and show the judge or jury why your opinion makes sense. Competition turns wizards into teachers. If we had a real and substantive defense right to expertise, we could relieve judges of much of their gate-keeping functions. Instead of asking them to decide what expertise is real and what is fake, we could simply apply the same standards judges use to determine the admissibility of other forms of evidence. Is it relevant? Is it prejudicial? And so on.
Brandon Garrett, Duke University School of Law
Judges are necessary gatekeepers at trial. But they have not acted like science matters in criminal cases. As Chris Fabricant and I found, it is rare for state judges in even the jurisdictions with the more modern Rule 702 (of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure) to even discuss reliability of forensic evidence, much less address unreliable evidence. The reliability rule is a myth, and the effort to educate judges has been painstaking and slow.
Keith Findley, Center for Integrity in Forensic Sciences, University of Wisconsin Law School
There is no one solution to the problem. The scientific communities — both within the forensic disciplines and more broadly within the academic research sciences — must validate and improve the reliability of forensic evidence. Judges, as gatekeepers, must be part of the solution, both to weed out the bad “science” that slips through, and to apply institutional pressures on the forensic disciplines to incentivize them to do the basic research and create the requisite standards and protocols needed to strengthen the scientific bona fides of their disciplines. The lawyers who litigate before those judges must also step up their game.
A national committee of scientists can certainly play a role, and the National Academy of Sciences has shown how that can work. Both in its pathbreaking 2009 report on forensic science in general, and in earlier investigations of specific disciplines, the NAS has brought real scientific standards to bear on the forensic sciences, and has repeatedly shown how the forensic sciences tend to come up short. More studies are desperately needed across the forensic disciplines. We could use such a study on Shaken Baby Syndrome/Abusive Head Trauma, for example. But the courts must start taking such studies seriously before we will see real change.
We also need a new national commission on forensic science. Congress has balked at creating a forensics panel, and the Obama Justice Department’s National Forensic Science Commission, which was starting to do some of this important work, was abruptly dismantled by the Trump Administration.
That said, the issues that arise in the courts are often too varied and too case-specific for any one national commission or committee of sciences to resolve all case-level challenges. Hence, judicial gatekeeping remains important.
While it’s true that most judges lack the scientific training to be real experts at distinguishing valid and reliable science from the unreliable or invalid stuff, they don’t have to go it alone. They can be educated. Indeed, the experience in civil litigation — where judges often seriously scrutinize and frequently exclude scientific evidence proffered by civil plaintiffs, suggests that it is not a lack of capacity to understand the science that has led to the utter failure to screen out bad forensic evidence in criminal cases.
Most of the fundamental challenges to the traditional forensic evidence are not that complicated. Once explained, the problems are pretty obvious and easy to comprehend. Even in more complex areas — like medical determinations of child abuse in so-called Shaken Baby Syndrome or Abusive Head Trauma cases — we now have many examples of cases in which courts have taken the time to hear extensive complex medical evidence and have revealed that they are quite capable of understanding the flaws with the underlying medical hypotheses. The real challenge here is to get courts to overcome the inertia of precedent, and to have the courage to reject forensic science evidence that in some cases will be the central piece in the prosecution of people charged with serious crimes. The courts will need a lot of support to get over those hurdles. That means vigorous litigation by knowledgeable lawyers challenging flawed forensics, and the the prospect of improved forensic evidence that can take the place of the flawed evidence.
The problem is a bit of a chicken-and-egg conundrum. Courts are reluctant to reject flawed evidence until something better is available to replace it. But the forensic science community has historically lacked incentives to create something better, because the evidence they have been producing has been accepted by the courts, and has served to convict the people whom prosecutors (for whom the laboratories typically work) are prosecuting. We need to break the cycle — we must create institutions and research opportunities to improve forensic science evidence upstream of the courtroom, and courts must create the incentives to produce a better forensic science product by rejecting expert testimony that is flawed.
Michael Risinger, Last Resort Exoneration Project, Seton Hall School of Law
An ideal system would take seriously the mandate of Kumho Tire v. Carmichael [which applied the Supreme Court’s ruling in Daubert to nonscientific expertise] to judge reliability not globally by forensic discipline, but specifically in regard to the expert claim being made and applied in the case at hand. The logic of this seems inescapable if one wants to determine the reliability of what is actually being offered in these cases. Unfortunately, this approach also is neither quick nor easy, which is why many judges prefer to make global determinations driven by precedent. Such determinations do not require them to spend time and effort learning about each expert task or application in the cases that come before them. I believe the so-called Frye general acceptance approach [the approach taken by most courts in the country before Daubert] hangs on in many jurisdictions because it lends itself to such a global, precedent-driven approach.
The second aspect of an ideal system would involve well-prepared adversaries who could find, marshal, and explain the import of various kinds of information bearing on the reliability of conclusions in the case at hand. This would include most especially research directed toward establishing the false positive and false negative error rates of the case-specific claim of reliability under ideal conditions. It would also include other research establishing the impact of context bias or other conditions present in the case under consideration which might undermine reliable performance in the individual case. Unfortunately, most specific tasks in many areas have not been the subject of formal research, and most lawyers are not good at formulating the actual task being undertaken by the expert, much less finding and marshaling the evidence for reliability, pro and con, to the extent there is any.
Finally, I see no way of outsourcing these fact-sensitive issues of reliability from judges and lawyers to some other standing body of “experts on expertise” in individual cases, even if I trusted the system to generate a properly neutral membership for such body. So unless through proper selection and training we get much more conscientious and better informed judges (on average), and much more sophisticated defense lawyers, we are stuck. The latter variable concerning defense lawyers might be the most important. In my opinion, federal judges have been much better at determining the reliability of expert testimony in civil cases, where both sides tend to have well-financed legal representation.
An ideal system would involve changes on multiple levels, and would require the cooperation of municipal, state and federal agencies in implementing reforms. While the courts decide what evidence gets admitted in testimony, it is often county agencies that decide which experts get hired to work in the forensic labs that analyze the evidence in the first place. Most criminal complaints don’t even make it to the courtroom, because defendants accept a plea bargain offered by the prosecution. They may be pressured to take such a deal because they’re being told that the forensic evidence is incontrovertible. Yet there is no way for the defendant to know if there have been mistakes in the way that forensic evidence has been analyzed. Several recent scandals involving years of incompetence and illegal activity among lab analysts have forced judges to throw out thousands of convictions and plea deals. Rebuilding trust in our forensic systems has to start in the lab.
So, on the municipal level, forensic laboratories need to be accredited by scientific agencies and required to participate in quality assurance/quality control testing on blind samples, with the results made public; they need to be funded appropriately to attract and retain certified analysts; and they need to be completely independent of law enforcement or judicial agencies. Local public defender offices need to be funded at the same level as prosecutors are, and they must be given equal access to all forensic evidence.
State governments and the federal government have their own role in an ideal forensic judicial system. To begin with, they need to implement both grants and fines as incentives to encourage a per-capita minimum investment in death investigation systems and forensic labs. And, yes, we need overarching legislative action to address the mess created by the [Missouri v.] Frye and Daubert Supreme Court decisions that, as noted, made judges the gate-keepers of scientific testimony. I believe that there should be a federally funded agency run by forensic scientists (without any input or influence from prosecutors, lawyers or law enforcement) that writes guidelines for expert testimony qualifications in designated scientific fields. Take the assessment of scientific merit away from judges, and let scientists determine whether an expert is qualified and whether their opinion is supported by the peer-reviewed literature or not. Then change the laws to allow defendants to appeal their convictions if scientific advances indicate that they were wrongfully convicted based on faulty scientific testimony.
Roderick Kennedy, retired judge, New Mexico Court of Appeals
Joe Cecil and Daniel Rubenfeld wrote an article in last fall’s Daedalus that talks about various ways to help judges make these decisions, including special masters to determine the parameters of science within which the parties’ experts will operate and give opinions that are congruent with what is predetermined to be the proven theory and acceptable practice.
Another possibility is to have judges get an adviser on science in much the same role as a law clerk, who is independent of the parties, but researches the science to lay groundwork for the judicial determination of admissibility.
There is no other provision in the law for determining admissibility of evidence, save for the judge doing it. Determining reliability by 40-year old precedent and then using Kumho’s “you can take established things for granted” language is a horrible thing that still goes on. Some of it is judicial sloth. Some of it is fear of getting into things that aren’t known. And some is a matter of bias. With all this in the mix, it can be hard to separate and address these problems.
[Britain], Europe and Australia all now have top-down regulation of forensics. In [Britain], compliance with those regulations is a foundational requirement for admissibility. The U.S. has punted even on watered-down regulation. We’ve kept all oversight of expert testimony in federal cases within the [Justice Department], and allowed prosecutors to be nontransparent in how they use science. We didn’t look for a validated path to standards, one in which a regulator proposes standards, and the disciplines affected by those regulations are allowed to comment. Instead, they let the disciplines propose their own regulations to the Organization of Scientific Area Committees (OSAC) for Forensic Science. Even the very first proposed standard was rejected by NIST for being too lax. This bottom-up approach will take far too long, and it won’t approach the sort of validation that we’ve known is needed in forensic science since at least 2009.
We need empirical, objective validation by persons not involved in day-to-day forensic practice. We also need external validation, black-box proficiency testing of both programs and individual analysts to establish baseline likelihoods of how much predictive ability these experts and procedures actually carry.
[You can read the Daedulus article here]
Frederic Whitehurst, FBI crime-lab whistleblower, Forensic Justice Project
Let’s say we decide that judges will no longer make these decisions. Who will? Will academic scientists be willing to enter into the combat of the courtrooms — to leave the comfort of academia to opine on issue that are science, as it’s practiced in the real world? Will they take the time to understand not only the words of the law, but the cultural meaning of those words? Will they be willing to enter into the vulgarity of courtrooms, where we make determinations about life and death and freedom? I don’t think so, and they have proven it by not engaging with the forensics world until recently.
Today’s judges are individuals who were one time practicing lawyers, who learned the law, but never questioned the science of the forensic “science” put before them. They’ve just always accepted that what forensic scientists were saying to them was correct. Now, despite Daubert and its progeny, can they really be faulted for not believing that they’ve been hoodwinked their entire political carers? We can find fault, but that is the easy way out. We all should be the deciders. Our forensic labs are moving quickly toward publishing protocols, quality control measures, and validations studies online. So far, much of the criminal defense bar has ignored that information, comfortable in their assessment that these “scientific” issues aren’t worth addressing. As bad as the record of judges may be, they are what we have, because very few others have stepped up to the plate.
An ideal system would be where we are headed. Governments recognizing the problems with their crime labs, and so moving toward requiring that all crime lab protocols be published on the internet. Even the [Justice Department] has demanded publication from any crime labs under its control. We should be putting these protocols in the full light of day, then encouraging anyone with an interest to join in the discussion. If crime lab managers balk, we should stop paying their salaries with tax dollars. After 30 years, I can say that when exposed to public view, you’ll see these protocols change for the better.
Itiel Dror, University College London, Cognitive Consultants International
I would say the following:
A. There is a question whether an area is scientific or not?
B. There is a question whether an expert is indeed an expert in the area in question?
C. There is a question of whether an expert in this area did their job properly (e.g., follow scientific protocols and best practices, etc.).
Of course, if 'A ' is a 'no ', end of story; but even if 'A' is a ‘yes’, then 'B' or/and 'C' can be a ‘no’. Furthermore, the answer to all the three questions above (A, B, & C) is not a yes/no dichotomy, but a continuum with many shades of gray.
Solution (or, at least a way forward): Jurors (as well as judges) need to be educated about the areas in question, their scientific basis, accuracy, as well as potential problems, such as bias in interpretation, etc. Hence, before each court case, the relevant evidence domain used in the case (e.g., mixture DNA, fingerprinting, etc.) would be presented to the jurors. That is, there should be a library of such background video information for each domain. These videos could be shown to the jurors before the trial begins. Who will make those videos? Experts in the relevant domain, with input from prosecutors, defense lawyers, the Innocence Project, judges, expert in bias, etc. — it should be a professional expert group composed from all the stakeholders.
Read more: | <urn:uuid:2febc31f-728d-4c70-93ae-ea443ca3b812> | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/06/20/we-need-fix-forensics-how/?utm_term=.3030cc82e520 | en | 0.956715 | 0.02156 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Once up on a Time
NL / FR / EN
Period preceding the date where our Belgian Battalion take stand in battle in Korea.
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The beginning of the War in Korea was a cruel war that was fought out on a mountainous and treacherous grounds, by an extreme heat and bitter could in snow and ice, mud, stench and suffocating matter, and that all in a dark far corner of the World. An American staff Officer that in the Second World War served declared: “The War of Korea was the most difficult war from the history of the United States.” The War of Korea did many fear that “ Third World War” on break out stood. An immense confrontation in a time of panic only, also of heroes courage. A time of withdraw and march, of misunderstandings and odds
Korea was in the summer and the fall of 1950 the dirtiest place where am been”, declared above quoted officer. During the years of the War of Korea, close to 4 millions of people deceased, almost ten time so much as in 10 year Vietnam. It was the most critical moment from the Cold War, a possible battlefield on which the use NUCLEAR WEAPONS was alarmingly nearby. The superpowers of the Second World War stood for the first time eyes in eyes. Today is the War of Korea almost forgotten. It was a horrible war to reminded what become on there. A Forgotten War, except for those that were there. A GI says to his friend, “We go fixed and certainly to the heaven, for now we already are in hell”.
The Asian peninsula now yet called “The Country of the Quiet Morning”, was a wakened to the being born day of 25 June 1950, through a massive unexpected attack of the North-Korean Communists. Their message was without ambiguity, clear and net:
Incorporate South-Korea unde rCommunist Government.
The North-Korean Prime Minister KIM-IL-SUNG send 100.000 good trained and good armed troops in the attack. They flowed South-Korea and surprised the brave but badly equipped Army of South-Korea. The Security Council of the United Nations takes UNANIMOUSLY, a resolution with the message that North-Korea must receive all the assistance that is necessary to push back the attack.
The President of the United States TRUMAN, thought that the invasion a derivation maneuver was for an invasion of Russia in Westerly Europe. He sent immediately, upon the advice of General Mac Arthur, legendary general from the Second World War that after the retirement of the Philippine by the Japanese invasion, had pronounced the legendary words:
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540 American soldiers from the Army of occupation of MacArthur in Japan were steered immediately to Korea under the appellation TASK FORCE SMITH. One thought that this Task Force namely better equipped was against tanks. Their mission was to stop the advance of the North-Korean tanks. One hoped that this Unity wanted not to walk as they these Russian tanks saw. It is at Osan(Korea), in July 1950, that the Task Force Smith and the North-Korean tanks confronted themselves for the first time. A column Russian T-34 tanks arrived right on the anti-tank Unity buried; With their so said anti-tank arms of the Second World War, they hit the tanks, only these remained normally further ride. There was a very large disillusionment by the Americans that were submerged.
ThumbnailIn all, 155 victims fell and the others withdraw themselves. The morale of these men collapsed and they were the fray to the BUG-OUT Fever, the disease the more contagious that can declare itself among the soldiers. The from this coming panic worked fast and fundamentally. In the rain and the chaos, many men wandered summon flattened long over the country and tried to reach the safe rear. The men were hysterical of fear and run gotten lost through the streets. An American war correspondent that been by the Marines in the Second World War, could its eyes do not believe. It was pitiful to see the American soldiers to be so beaten. There was misery and frustration. The strongest large power of all the times was, 5 years after the glorious victory on Japan , humiliated and beaten in a country that a lot of these American soldiers did not even know that it existed.
What are we coming to do here and why?
To half of July, the North-Korean Army push on with its tanks towards the South, just as the Blitzkrieg of the Germans in 1940, that wild crossed Belgium and France .The Americans and the South-Koreans see impotently closed and prepared self for on the most awful. Now only, people discover where was situated Korea and immediately came the question:
When the affair became critical, the Council of the United Nations named the more powerful man of Asia as Commander in Chief, the General MacArthur. This General move immediately its favorite Division, namely the 7th Cavalry Division US. However, he lived yet in a fuddle of victories and estimated the situation in Korea wrong in the thought that de North-Koreans aborigines and further forgot he, that its Army no longer that of 5 year before was. The North-Koreans laminated the ROK ( Republic of North-Korea ) Army and the American troops, and these were repressed to 50km of the harbor City of PUSAN . The Americans thought that they fast will be pulled back from Korea .
ThumbnailThen, a Brigade of US Marines was thrown in the battle. On the hills of the South side of the river NAKTONG, the Americans position held good despite of violent attacks and the mortal artillery shots. General Walker pulled no meter more back and that was the beginning of the counter-offensive. The occupied the hills near WAEGMAN (first halt of the Belgian Battalion in 1951).It did a suffocating heat and they fought for every hill. The fight waved up and down.
Thought a dared landing in INCHON , the United Nations troops took the initiative in hands. The Communists had to pull back past the 38th Parallel. The Americans sat them on the heels. The United Nations troops became strengthens already with the Canadians, the French, the Britons, the Turks and the Dutchmen.
ThumbnailEnd of November, the total victory is almost obtained, but MacArthur is unaware of the rumors that the Chinese leader MAO would have sent Chinese troops of a force of 250.000 men, for fear that the Americans do not invade China.
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On November 27 1950 , the 10 th Army Corps US runs in the trap. 100.000 Chinese lie to wait them in the mountains around.
The valiant US Marines were assails by a biting cold of minus 40 degrees. They lost 10.000 men. The 7th Infantry Division also got heavy blows. An aerial dropping fell, in the hands of the Chinese and the retirement road towards HUGARU is cut.
The Chinese that had invaded Korea hunted the troops of the United Nations, that supposed to bring dramatic consequences. THREATS OF A NEW WORLD WAR.
MacArthur had an enormous EGO. He wanted to have never wrong and sticks the debt on the Government TRUMAN. But the horrible retirement begins. The 10th Corps groups together itself in inhuman circumstances and reach the harbor of HUNGNAM of from which they can escape. Exhausted but nonetheless determined. The wave of Chinese Assault graft continues his way. They drive away the United Nations troops till under the 38th Parallel. The panic installs itself, luck exists of a total defeat for the UNO. In its large EGO, MacArthur asks:
50 ATOMIC BOMBS. !!!!Thumbnail
Truman is disposed to give the permission for he had already uses the nuclear bomb twice against Japan . But the Allies were frightened, the nuclear war in Europe would unavoidable be there. The first Minister of England ATLEE flies to the United States and can of thought do change Truman. The United Nations troops withdraw themselves completely and Seoul falls for the second time in the hands of the North-Koreans and Inchon is totally destroyed by the Americans
A strange coincidence is the beginning of the alteration of the invasion of South-Korea by the North-Koreans.s.
Thumbnail On December 23 1950, the General Walker, Commander of the 8th Army Corps, dies in an accident and is followed through General RIDGWAY an Airborne Officer that had distinguished itself in the Second World War in Sicily, Normandy and the Ardennes (Belgium). He gets the complete support of General MacArthur. This General Ridgway reestablishes the fight spirit in the 8th Army of an amazing and short manner. The troops gets better food, equipment, ammunition and weapons. Its tactics: Attack the Chinese in the hills. And it gave bewildering results. Also the Commander of the Chinese troops makes a complete fault of estimation. Its troops too had shifted themselves, so that the supplying way became too long, in addition their spirit left and the troops are unwilling and bad trained militiamen. Then came also the tremendous aerial supports that did as the Chinese no longer dared to attack in broad daylight and hid themselves in of big tunnels. This absurd war turned again totally. The Chinese are pushed back till where they had begun, but these perished yet 54,000 soldiers of which 107 Belgians and also 148,000 civilians.
After the discharge of General MacArthur, becomes he in April 1951 Commander of the United Nations troops in Korea and came there in the Korean War a kind of blow count through which the peaces negotiations begun, that however two years lasted.
General consideration.
Thumbnail On the far Asian peninsula is the World barely escapes at an inconceivable disaster, that million and million victims would have demanded, perhaps well the end of us consist in Europe . The paid price, would be millions of human lives, in an infernal war that tested the capacity of the people to survive, to tolerate and to withstand. Yet very few people know the history of the Korean War, do not understand or do not want to understand. Soon there will be no longer any veterans of Korea , I fear then also as the presents “forgotten War”, will become the “disappeared War”, what may, but never cannot be forgotten, those that gave their live for the PEACE.
Thumbnail2nd Lt Dillen Jan, platoon leader in Korea , webmaster of the site. Documentation ( Retreat Hell- War and peace different sites
Translation in English BY Korean veteran G. Van Athenhove
written by G. De buck honorary commandant and Honorary Colonel Stafofficer Marc Watthé
G. De buck platoon leader 50/52 (photo left )- vice president of the association of the volunteer Corps for Korea
On June 25th. 1950 the North Korean Army invades the South with hundreds of tanks and the support of a large number of aircraft, with the intention of obtaining the forced unification of the country under communist rule.
How did we arrive at this situation ?
After the defeat of Japan in 1945, Korea was liberated after forty years of Japanese occupation. The world was then divided into two opposing spheres of influence. (The Yalta conference in February 1945. The USSR occupied the Northern part of the country, whereas the Americans spread their influence over the Southern part of Korea.
The United Nations decided to hold democratic elections all over the country, but met with a refusal from the USSR. Thus the Republic of Korea was founded in the Southern part of the country. The communists created the " DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF KOREA " in the North. The "iron curtain" fell between both parts of the country, along a dividing line that ran more or less along the 38th parallel
The communist raised an army of 10 divisions, equipped with hundreds of tanks and aero planes of Soviet manufacture. In South Korea, the American Military Advisors (KMAG) were the nucleus of an army that was so badly trained and poorly equipped. It was therefore this South-Korean army that was forced to abandon the capital of Seoul to the enemy, after heavy rearguard fighting.
On the same day, 25 the June, the United States asked for a reunion of The Security Council of the United Nations, witch, in the absence of the USSR, condemned the communist aggression and asked the members states to support South Korea, although that country itself was not a member of the UN. South Korea received the support of 22 countries, 17 of which furnished army, air and naval forces, 5 other taking care of medical support . The USA were given command of the UN armed forces.
It is a fact that a third world war was prevented thanks to the decision of the UNO to save democracy from extermination
The Belgian interventione prin
More than 2000 candidates were examined by the Selection centra of Ghent and Namur, and on the 18th September the officers and the non-commissioned officers arrived at the Commando Training center in MARCHE-LES-DAMES in order to receive their first and rigorous training. Approximatively 700 accepted volunteers came to the LEOPOLDSBURG CAMP on the 2nd October, and at the 7th October, the unit- a slightly modified battalion of a mixed language type - was given the name "VOLUNTEER CORPS FOR KOREA" B.U.N.C. Belgian United Nations Command, as the American command knew them.
A platoon, consisting of volunteers from the GRAND DUCHY OF LUXEMBURG also joined.
On the 3rd November 1950, the standard was allocated and presented with due ceremony by the Royal Prince BAUDOUIN (later King of Belgium) on the 8th of November 1950.
A short but very advanced training, due to the realism of the exercises, was given by the instructors of the PARA-REGIMENT and concluded by the award of
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A short but very advanced training, due to the realism of the exercises, was given by the instructors of the PARA-REGIMENT and concluded by the award of THE BROWN BERETS later to become so famous. This beret wears the insignia representing the two Belgian Communities : A GOEDEN DAG "means good day) for the FLEMISH and a FRANK AXE for the WALLOONS. The crusade the volunteers were to undertake being symbolized by the knight's helmet of BRABANT over the BELGIAN LION. The sleeves of the jacket wore the " BELGIUM " badge
On the 11th of November, the whole Battalion paraded before the UNKNOWN SOLDIER MONUMENT in Brussels.
The training was concluded in the Camps of ELSENBORN and BRASSCHAAT were exercises were conducted with live ammunition and under barrages.
The Belgian- Luxemburg Battalion left Antwerp on the 18th December for the long crossing aboard the less than adequate KAMINA ship, arriving in PUSAN on the31th January 1951.
This was the time of the Chinese intervention and the setbacks of the UN-forces in Northern Korea. During the voyage, the Belgian wondered if they were going to arrive in complete disarray or too late. Luckily enough, the Battalion would given a chance to prove its combatively and professional efficiency under various circumstances, thus gaining the respect and confidence of all allied nations.
Battalion Commanders in combat :
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28/09/50 - 21/11/51
(LtCol = Lieutenant Colonel ; SBH = Staff Officer )
- after the cease-fire
13/02/53 -12/07/53
23/02/52 - 13/02/53
21/11/51 - 23/02/52
PS : Between 19.12.1953 and 27.5.1954, Major Brichant became CO a.i of the battalion
His Standard
The standard bears the following citations in letters of gold
Four Belgian ones, one Korean and one American
IMJIN : battle on the Imjin from 22nd till 26th April 1951
HAKTAG-NI : From 10th till 13th October 1951
CHATKOL : Continuous fighting during March-April 1953
COREE-KOREA : In action from 31st Jan 51-27th July 53
These four citations obtained the " fourragère " of the order of Leopold for the colors
The gilded Cross of Honor for Military Merit was bestowed on the standard by the Government of the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg and conferred on 27th May 1994.
The Battalion executed all offensive and defensive operations in a very difficult and broken terrain, under an unfavorable climate, with burning and dusty summers, very cold winters, rain pouring down all day and the omnipresent mud from the MOUSSON.
The enemy was fanatic, very superior in numbers, better used to the climate and active during the night, which exacted an exceptional psychic and physical resistance from the Belgians.
3171 Belgians and 78 Luxemburg volunteers signed on for Korea
2636 volunteers tokes part of the fights
2801 volunteers signed up for one year 352 for 2 years en 18 for 3 years
The war against the communist absolutism has exacted a heavy toll; South Korea suffered about 1.300.000 casualties, the United Nations lost 187.000 KIA and 800.000 wounded . The country was utterly devastated.
Casualties of the belgian-luxembourg battalion
Killed in action : 101 Belgian - 2 Luxemburg's en 9 Korean soldiers
Missed in action : 5 Belgian soldiers
wounded : 478 Belgian soldiers
More then 1350 volunteers passed away after they came home from Korea
50 Years ago
Honorary Colonel Stafofficer Marc Watthé , platoon leader at the C Coy and later on officer of communications (pronto) of the battalion from 1953 till 1955
n July 1955 200 Belgian volunteers left Korea and returned to Belgium. The followed article describes the last days of the battalion in Korea but also the history of the battalion after the seace-fire until the end of this famous battalion .al.
Go further | <urn:uuid:dc70e595-44ec-4670-8820-632821f3c308> | http://belgian-volunteercorps-korea.be/geschiedenis_eg.html | en | 0.955208 | 0.039075 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
TRUE BLOOD 4.12 ‘And When I Die’
The Dead rise in Bon Temps as Sookie and her friends make their last stand against Marnie.
Blair Marnellby Blair Marnell
Episode Title: "And When I Die"
Writer: Raelle Tucker
Director: Scott Winant
Previously on "True Blood":
On the cusp of her final confrontation with Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer) and Eric Northman (Alexander Skarsgard), Marnie (Fiona Shaw) killed one of her own coven members, alienating the spirit of Antonia (Paola Turbay) within her. Marnie used a spell to bind Antonia to her body and prevent her departure into the afterlife, making Jesus Velasquez (Kevin Alejandro) realize that he had to resort to a dangerous spell to end the standoff. Marnie used Sookie as leverage against Bill and Eric by convincing them to commit suicide to save her, but Pam (Kristin Bauer) refused to let Eric die and she fired a rocket launcher at them. Marnie and Sookie were unharmed, but Jason Stackhouse (Ryan Kwanten) was seriously wounded.
Jessica (Deborah Ann Woll) used her blood to heal Jason and they reconciled. But Eric was so angry about the potential harm to Sookie that he ordered Pam to get out of his site. Inside the Moon Goodess Emporium, Sookie neutralized one of Marnie's spells against the vampires and she was nearly burned alive for it. However, Jesus and Lafayette Reynolds (Nelsan Ellis) completed their spell and freed Antonia from Marnie's body. Bill and Eric then killed Marnie and her last protector, freeing the coven and ending the war with the witches.
At least that's what they thought. Later, when Lafayette was about to go to sleep, the vengeful spirit of Marnie appeared and forcefully possessed his body.
The next morning, "Lafayette" is strangely quiet as Jesus makes him breakfast and apologizes for bringing him into the world of magic before he was ready. Marnie makes her presence known by stabbing Jesus' hand with a fork. Across town, Sookie has a vision of her grandmother's dead body on the kitchen floor, a replay of events that happened years ago. She speaks with her best friend Tara Thornton (Rutina Wesley) about the supernatural weirdness in their lives and Tara states that she looks forward to sharing the porch with Sookie when they're both grandmothers. In related news, it's Tara's last day on the force and she just bought a boat called the "Live-4-Ever."
Back to Marnie and her new body, Lafayette manages to break free for a few seconds before Marnie regains control. She demands that Jesus surrender his hereditary supernatural powers. At first he claims that he can't, but when she cuts Lafayette's chest he relents. Jesus shows her his demon face and she stabs him with a knife and drinks his blood, gaining a demon form of her own as Jesus starts to die. Elsewhere, Jason tracks down Hoyt (Jim Parrack) and confesses his affair with Jessica. All things considering, Hoyt takes it fairly well and he only beats the crap out of Jason instead of coming at him with the chainsaw.
Hoyt's mother, Maxine Fortenberry (Dale Raoul) joins Sam Merlotte (Sam Trammell) at Tommy's funeral and eulogizes him as having a good heart despite his devious streak and the fact that he stole some of her clothes. Sam relates that Tommy never learned how to love anyone without hurting them and Maxine says that Sam has the same problem. She invites Sam to call her Mama and she tells him that they are family from now on. Sure, she says that now, but wait until she finds out that Tommy sold her land out from under her… At Merlotte's, Sookie meets up with Sam and she gets her job back after he realizes that his brother fired her while impersonating him.
Alcide Herveaux (Joe Manganiello) meets Sookie at Marlotte's and he tells her that things are over between himself and Debbie. He makes a pitch to Sookie that they should pursue a relationship with each other, but she tries to lightly let him down before he is called away on urgent business. Later, Tara discovers Jesus' body and she realizes that Marnie has possessed Lafayette. She warns Holly Cleary (Lauren Bowles) and Sookie and she wants to get to Lafayette before Bill and Eric discover Marnie's return and kill her host body. But the vampires are already well aware of Marnie's plans, because she murdered Bill's security team, captured them and she is about to burn them at the stake.
The three women confront Marnie and at Holly's direction, they chant a spell summoning the dead as Eric and Bill burn. Several ghosts rise from their graves, including Sookie's grandmother. Antonia even appears and puts out the flames of the pyre while saying that even the vampires have their purpose. Gran tears Marnie from Lafayette's body and she insists that Marnie leave her negative emotions behind because there simply isn't any room for them in the next life. Before she leaves, Gran tells Sookie that she shouldn't be afraid to be alone. Later, Sookie uses her blood to heal Eric and Bill before breaking off her relationship with both of them rather than hurting one of them by choosing the other.
Outside of Merlotte's, Arlene Fowler-Bellefleur (Carrie Preston) has a terrifying encounter with the ghost of Rene (Michael Raymond-James), the father of her child and an accomplished serial killer. He warns her that the ghosts of her husband, Terry Bellefleur (Todd Lowe) won't stay buried forever. Elsewhere, Jason and Jessica have another sexual encounter before she tells him that she doesn't want a relationship with him… just sex. Jason doesn't have a problem with that, but after she leaves, the anti-vampire Rev. Steve Newlin (Michael McMillian) arrives at his door… with fangs!
In his bedroom, Lafayette is visited by Jesus' spirit who promises to always be with him. At Sam's house, he bids Luna (Janina Gavankar) and Emma (Chloe Noelle) goodbye before a werewolf appears behind him presumably ready to attack him. At Bill's mansion, Nan Flanagan (Jessica Tuck) shows up with armed guards and tells Bill and Eric that she's rebelling against the AVL and she wants their assistance or she will out Sookie's part fairy status to the vampire population who would drink her dry. So, Eric kills her men and Bill gives Nan the final death that she deserves.
At his old construction site, Alcide discovers that a vampire glamoured his foreman and released the Vampire King of Mississippi, Russell Edgington! And at Sookie's house, Debbie Pelt (Brit Morgan) shows up with a shotgun and blames Sookie for her breakup with Alcide. Just as she's about to blow Sookie away, Tara dives in front and takes the fatal hit. Sookie wrestles the shotgun away from Debbie and blows off her face. Then she cradles her dead friend and cries out for help.
Wait… both Tara and Nan got killed off in the same episode?! It's like Christmas in September for me!
Nan was definitely overexposed this season and she never seemed to have the chops to become a regular character. If she's telling the truth and there really is a death order on Bill and Eric it could make things very interesting next season. Bill and Eric may have to fight her war whether they want to or not. And the AVL should already have Nan's replacement in mind: the newly vamped Rev. Steve Newlin. His return was one of the more surprising moments in the episode.
Also surprising was the apparent return of Russell Edgington. Denis O'Hare was nowhere to be seen, but that empty concrete block and discarded chains were chilling because it meant that Bill and Eric's most dangerous foe is free again. And there are only a handful of vampires who could have released Russell. At the top of my suspect list is Pam, who disappeared for a long portion of the episode. She knew exactly where Russell was buried since she had to free Eric from the same spot the year before. And she may be using Russell as a way to get rid of Sookie without leading back to her directly.
The other strong possibility is that Nan Flanagan ordered Russell's release when she rebelled against the AVL and the Authority. If she needed a symbol of vampire discontent and someone that the militant vamps could rally around, that description would fit Russell perfectly.
Nelsan Ellis gave his best performance of the season as Marnie in Lafayette's body and the buildup to the last confrontation was terrific. Holly proved to be unexpectedly useful when she summoned the dead with Sookie and Tara, but that last part was disappointing. There were so many ghosts brought to the pyre but only Gran and Antonia played any part in ending the situation. I was hoping to see almost every character who ever died on this show come together to bring down Marnie. It could have been so much more compelling than it actually was onscreen.
Sookie's decision to not choose between Bill and Eric felt like a cheap way to keep the love triangle alive, but it may lead to a new alliance between Bill and Eric… especially if they hope to survive deal with Russell's return and the AVL/The Authority.
For once, I enjoyed a scene with Arlene when Rene's ghost finally made an appearance. The whole possessed baby./evil doll storyline would have been better served if it had at least some direct tie to Rene. The downside of this scene was that it suggested another long subplot for Terry and Arlene based on the return of his military buddy.
I've never been a fan of Tara's character, so I wasn't unhappy to see her take the shotgun blast from Debbie. I'm more upset that there's been any thought to the possibility that she'll still come back to the show next season. On the other hand, I felt that Debbie's death was kind of a waste. She was a lot of fun as Sookie's apparent ally against Marnie while secretly trying to leave her behind. And there never was any proper follow up on that or consequences for Debbie over breaking Marcus' orders regarding interference in the vampires and witches war.
Overall, it was a very solid season of "True Blood" with a few great episodes scattered around in the run. Most of the cliffhangers in this episode were very compelling and I'm already eager to see where the story will go next season.
Crave Online Rating: 8.5 out of 10. | <urn:uuid:b030abca-8c28-4ba5-bda5-e8074e9c3db7> | http://www.craveonline.co.uk/site/174130-true-blood-412-and-when-i-die | en | 0.975368 | 0.053548 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Adventures in Comic Books: Startup Escalation 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 November 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 .
The Boys of November
I got this friend Wyatt who writes stories, and lots of them. He writes me into some of them, maybe you read one. He says I should try it sometime, actually he challenged me to. He'll publish them for me on computers, and polish them up and add cross-references and stuff. Well, I never backed down from a challenge before, and I ain't starting now. So let's go.
My name's Hudson Ramo, I work at DuoPolarity of Boston. Wyatt used to work here, he still drops by for a drink sometimes.
Last time he's in town, we go out to The Rat. You know, the Ratskellar, but everyone calls it The Rat. He likes the fancy "Brew Pub" down the street, but the Rat still has cheap beer, at least till the bands start playing.
Then we start catching up on what we done this year. He tells me his story, and lemme tell you, it's a roller coaster ride. He's up, he's down, and now he says he's off the train. Poor kid, but he's still alive and he's still got most everything a guy his age could want out of life. Or at least an even chance to get it if he wants it bad enough, and ain't that what life's about.
Then I tell him my story. DuoPol ain't been the same since our pal Ted died back in '99, but life goes on.
We found a couple of brains to do Ted's job. There's Stephen Oliver Samuels, the famous boy hero SOS in WW2. He just turned 72 this year. I hope I'm healthy like him ten years from now.
Then there's Erika van Cognos, transferred over from DuoPolarity van Rotterdam, and says she's been measured as the world's smartest woman. EVC and SOS don't always get along, but Ingrid keeps them in line, God bless her.
There's some new people to do Wyatt's old job on the electronics and computer stuff, Sureshkumar and Deepthi Prabhatha. They're from India, like you couldn't tell from the names, and they're married, like you couldn't tell that too. But we call them Suresh and Deep, and they're fine with that. They came over from our new office, DuoPolarity of Bangalore.
Suresh and Deep been working lately on framework powered skeletons, you can use them for training. They say it'll be great for construction work, and firefighting, and maybe soldiering. They were all ready to start at the top, with a model for doctoring, doing operations and stuff. But I said, maybe they should start at the bottom, with stuff just for fun, so people don't get killed if there's a fuckup. Why not baseball?
Well, why not baseball? We work just around the corner from Fenway Park in Boston, and we had lots of fine afternoons at the park. Baseball never hurt no-one, and it's a lot of fun.
Anyway, Ingrid said, good idea, and Suresh and Deep got the idea. So now we got a powered skeleton that trains in baseball.
Lemme tell you, Major League Baseball didn't like that news. Sure, some of the best players helped train the frameworks, we even got Pedro Martinez to help do the pitcher model. But once MLB caught on we could maybe manufacture star pitchers, they though we might be monopoly busting or something.
Gimme a break. Everyone wants to be a Major League pitcher, and some people will even train for it. So how is helping the ones who really want to train gonna hurt baseball?
So the framework was ready for a real game, but MLB said wouldn't let us train it against any of the major leaguers. What now?
Well, that's where my story ended that night. But then Wyatt says, "Maybe if you found superhumans to play the suits against, they might be enough of a challenge."
I told him it wasn't a real good idea, 'cause it could really fuck up the armor for Major League play, but Wyatt said we could do a meme merge or something between superhuman baseball and Major League baseball. That's where he lost me, but I sure couldn't come up with anything better.
So, I went back to work the next Monday, and told Ingrid about Wyatt's bright idea. She said sure, why not. So, I called up Total Conversion.
I talked with Julie Wolcott there, you know, the wife of Ellipsis. Sweet kid, been through a lot of trouble in her life. She almost went crazy from wearing the same kind of battlesuit that killed Ted. Finally she lost the suit, but she almost died then. Now she's better, but they say she has Seasonal Affective Disorder. That means you hate winter, but they call it a disease for some reason. Too bad her foundation moved to Greenland.
But when Julie heard about the "baseball suits", she perked right up. The kid loves baseball, and really loves the New York Yankees. 'Course, that makes her the enemy of all right-thinking Red Sox baseball fans. But that gave us just one more reason we had to beat them.
Total Conversion used to have a lot more supers than they do now. 'Course, that was before the UN took over most of the supers, and put them in a team called "Paxis". But Totalcon still has some left.
So, who could we field? Well, we don't have a lot of staff. There's me, and Ingrid, and her little sister Karen, and EVC and SOS and Suresh and Deep, and our latest temp secretary Sandy. We talked our old secretary Shelly into showing up with her husband and the whole family, but only one of them could play ball for old time's sake, with the other watching the kids and all, so Shelly played. That made nine.
Me, I was hoping Wyatt'd show up for old time's sake and to help us out as a relief batter, we even had a suit saved for him. But he was busy with friends on a farm in Illinois, and couldn't make it. So our team was light.
But then Karen came through with a referral. She knows this woman Norma, an aerobics instructor who used to work out with her and Wyatt. Hell, at least she's used to exercise. So we got our ten.
We had some extra prep for the game, once I heard how fast Stonewater's pitches were. Maybe we can handle getting beaned by a 95 mph fastball, but not a supersonic pitch. So we had to armor-plate our suits. 'Course, that meant tuning the motors inside them and stuff, we had a few late nights getting that done.
We also argued about whether their side could fly, to field hits and stuff. It's our game, and our side can't fly, so why should they be allowed to. But they said, what about their guys who can jump real high? And what about guys who fly better than they run bases, can they fly the bases? In the end, everyone else said we could beat 'em anyway, so I caved.
We picked a field in Norwich, Connecticut to play on. Convenient to Boston, but the Yankees have a farm team there, so good compromise.
People were worried about the weather, seeing as how it was November. But the weather never stopped no football fans, so I didn't see why to let it stop us. Besides, Ingrid and Julie said maybe they could call in some favors with the people who run the experimental Nexrad II weather control radars.
I know you're thinking, that kind of stuff costs money. That's why we decided to sell tickets. Lot of demand, too. The President bought a block of seats, and so did the UN. We built some bleachers just so we could sell the extra seats, and it paid off and more.
I know you want to hear everything about the game, who played what, who batted when, the works. Wyatt said he'd include a program and a commentary with all that stuff. [Editor's Note: Hudson thinks you want to know all that crap, but I promised him I'd put it in. Follow the hyperlinks. Happy browsing! Wyatt]
We had a coin toss for playing order. Our team won, so I had us batting after Totalcon each inning.
I want to say, the game was a real pitcher's duel. I had Karen pitching, and Totalcon had their ninja girl Jill on the mound. Best choices we could have made, and they did their job right, just like pros. Most innings were no runs.
But the batters came through too. Totalcon got two runs the second inning, but we answered them with six.
I could see, players were getting better throughout the game. Our Karen was doing that, 'cause up on the mound she was getting all the action, and our suits were training her right. But Totalcon had people learning too, as fast as our Karen, and lots more of them too. There was ninja Jill figuring baseball out, and famous some-say-magic boxer Lucianus Autonomus, and especially the mutant supergenius Steve Wolcott. They even brought back Leo the superhuman Yankee! Could have been, our 6-2 lead wouldn't hold.
Then there were the injuries. On Totalcon's side, Walt Rubenstein, they call him Superjew, pulled a muscle in 4th inning. Lucianus was their backup for him, but they'd already brought him in to replace their lawyer guy Dave Brizitski. So they had no backup, other than bringing Brizitski back. And that was no help for them.
On our side, it looked for a while like Karen's suit was crapping out. She let a couple of runs through in the 7th, so it was only 6-4 us, and we hadn't got a run since the 2nd. Karen wasn't happy, but we brought Norma in as relief pitcher. And that "meme merge" stuff let Norma's suit learn everything Karen's suit knew.
Anyway, we even got a couple more runs in the 8th, thanks Deep and Shelly. And Norma kept the lid on, you should've seen her when she struck out Unholy Mary and Crusher Joe while they still had two runners on base in the 9th. So it came out DuoPol 8, TotalCon 4!
Rematch next year? You bet! But we gotta give our Red Sox their own chance to break the Boston curse first, their own way.
(13 November 2003, 24 October 2004)
The author thanks the gamers of Worcester, Massachusetts for their many contributions to the superhuman universe herein. Doctor Lithium is a character created by Doug Robinson. Leo is a character created by Ray Conrad. SuperJew and Dave Brizitski are characters created by Rick Desautels. Megaphone is a character created by Bernie Lisewski, rest in peace. Crusher Joe Corrigan is a character created by Joe Fucile. Red Dragon / Mary O'Hanrahan and Akibono are characters created by Darryl Hunt. Arcane is a character created by Adam Johnson. The Doom Koala of Speed and Little Billy and Big Bob are characters created by Vaughn Gross. All other characters in this fiction are copyright © 2008 by Eiler Technical Enterprises. | <urn:uuid:59526950-f08e-4a5e-9f93-055e6c6bb4ba> | http://www.eilertech.com/stories/november.htm | en | 0.984128 | 0.085733 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Lincoln Murphy
Sales Master Class: Customer Success Driven Growth
Lincoln Murphy is the Growth Architect at Winning by Design where he creates customer success blueprints and playbooks. In the past he founded Sixteen Ventures, led Customer Success Evangelism at Gainsight and has helped enterprise software companies like SAP, HP and Cisco rapidly accelerate their growth and retain valuable customers over time.
Sales Master Class: Customer Success Driven Growth
Morgan Mackles: I'm really excited about this subject and about having Lincoln here. Lincoln is a former executive at Gainsight, which is company that a lot of us in the room are familiar with. He moved on to become a highly successful consultant and speaker, and most recently he co-wrote this book on customer success with Nick Mehta, who is CEO of Gainsight.
Pretty serious stuff here, Lincoln. I'm very impressed. I love the book. I'll let you talk a little bit about what you're up to, and then we can dive in to some of the concepts from your book.
Lincoln Murphy: Thanks for having me here. Thanks for coming out, guys. What I do all day long, all the time, and what I love, is helping companies grow by focusing on customer success. That's what we're going to talk about, is customer-success-driven growth.
What I'd like to do is just throw out there my definition of customer success. It's part of my introduction of me. Now you don't have to agree with me, but at least you'll know where I come from when I talk about customer success.
My definition is really simple. Customer success is when your customers achieve their desired outcome through their interactions with your company. There are a couple things in there that you might wonder what those mean. Desired outcome is something I think we'll talk about in a little bit, so we'll certainly unpack that for you.
The other thing is through the interactions with your company. I deliberately don't say, "They achieve their desired outcomes through the use of your product."
The use of your product is just one set of interactions with your company. There are lots of other things that go on. If you think about interactions with your company, that actually goes back to the first time they interact with your marketing content, the first time a BDA or an SDR from your company reaches out to them.
Customer success is a life cycle thing. It's not just a department. It's not customer success management software. It's really an operating philosophy.
The best companies out there have customer success as their operating philosophy. The best of the best have it as their operating model, and we'll talk about that, too. Just want to throw that out there so you understand where I'm coming from. It's really something that your company needs to have at it's core, I believe.
Desired Outcome
MM: One of the things that really resonated to me, from the book, is when you're speaking about the operating philosophy. One of the things I really like is you have a two-prong or two-tier sort of definition of what that means.
LM: Desired outcome is made up of two pieces. One is the required outcome, it's the thing that your customers need to achieve. It's not, and let me be really clear, it's not the use of your product. We have to get out of our own way because we've built a product and we want people to use it.
That's great, but they're not signing up for your service in order to simply use your product. They're trying to get something out of it, right? So that's the required outcome, and as long as we keep that in mind, we're going to be much better off than thinking that using your product is the only thing that matters.
The other piece is appropriate experience. This is the game-changer piece of it, because if you don't think about this, you'll focus only on that required outcome. I could help you achieve your required outcome, but if you don't achieve it in the way that is appropriate for you, you might not feel like you were successful. And I said feel, but literally there would be boxes that you didn't check when saying, "Was this successful?"
The example I always like to give is commercial airline travel. I live in Dallas, TX, and I fly out here a lot. That's a three-and-a-half, four hour flight. That can't be downtime for me. Actually, it's one of my most productive times of the day, when I'm flying. But because of that, my appropriate experience is going to be different than the appropriate experience of somebody who's going on vacation and just needs to get from point A to point B.
In a commercial airline analogy, the required outcome is get me from point A to point B safely. And when I fly, let's say, Southwest Airlines, I know that they helped me achieve that required outcome, got me from point A to point B safely. Because when I get off the plane, I'm swearing and complaining about the experience because it was completely inappropriate.
There was no assigned seating. There was no room to work. The plane didn't even have Wi-Fi, right? So it was a completely inappropriate experience, but that's okay. I'm not Southwest's ideal customer. I fit in better with Virgin America or something like that. So we can take that same thinking to software, to what we do.
Let's assume you have something like email marketing, just a very simple thing that we can all wrap our brains around, even if we don't do that. Let's say that I needed to get more people to this event. I could actually achieve that required outcome in lots of different ways.
I could print out flyers and go hand them out outside, and I might get some people here. It might not be the right people, but hey, it turns out I have an email list, right? So I'm going to maybe go to an email marketing solution. Right there, my required outcome, I've chosen a method to achieve that.
Now let's say I'm an early-stage, technology startup. Maybe I want to integrate that into my product, so I really just need an API, some lightweight docs, that tell me how to do it, and maybe a Slack channel for support. That's it. I don't want to talk to anybody. I want it to be completely self-service.
On the flip side, let's say I'm in a department in a Fortune 500 company. I have an event; I need to get people to the event. I have an email list, so required outcome method, but my appropriate experience is going to be very different. I probably need a full-blown graphical UI. I need support, real 24/7 support. I maybe even need to be able to buy it on a three year contract.
If you don't take into consideration those two things, required outcome and appropriate experience, you're going to be in trouble. Unfortunately, the companies that are not really thriving, they tend to create an appropriate experience maybe for their early adopters or their favorite customer segment, and then they try to sell it to everybody else. What happens is they alienate all of the other customer segments.
I see this a lot with, we'll say, technology startups that don't really want to talk to the customer. They'll try to create a normalized experience they think is going to work for everybody, and it ends up really working for nobody.
It doesn't resonate with anybody, and so they might be helping the customers achieve their required outcome, but a lot of those customers are just hanging out until they can find another solution that meets their appropriate experience.
Long story short, desired outcome is one of these really simple concepts that is absolutely transformative once you really understand it.
MM: That's incredibly pertinent here at a developer-services based program. Very cool. Definitely something we can ask about in Q&A, because I think that that's really a topic we could talk about forever.
Another aspect of the book that really jumped out at me, that I liked a lot, is your philosophy about customer success as a revenue lever. Tell us a little bit about that.
Customer Success as Revenue Lever
LM: I just think we have to get away from thinking of customer success as simply a way to mitigate churn. There are lots of ways that you can come to customer success, that you can realize that you need it.
For some companies, it's going to be because they have a churn problem, right? The thing is with churn, and I want you guys to really think about this and just really, really understand this: Churn is a symptom of a bigger disease, an underlying disease. You can treat the symptom.
Try to figure out a way to reduce that churn, but as long as you focus only on that symptom, you're always going to have churn to deal with. Because you're not actually taking care of the underlying disease.
The underlying disease is that we're not helping our customers achieve their desired outcome. That's generally it. Unless your customer goes out of business or they're acquired, the only other reason they churn out is generally because they didn't achieve their desired outcome.
We have to get away from thinking of customer success as simply churn mitigation. Let's start looking at it as a positive. What if I come in, treat that underlying disease? The symptoms of churn go away. Are we done? No, not at all. In fact, as the economy and markets tighten up, and money doesn't flow from investors as much, they're looking for more efficient growth.
The real key to success, or the way that they would measure success now, is not having low churn. Investors don't want your customer base to just be stagnant. Even if they're staying, even if they're not churning out, we don't want just a bunch of customers that are renewing at the same level every year. We want those customers to be growing, to be on what I call an ascension path.
I want customer success to be that revenue lever, that understanding that when a customer comes in, we know where this customer should go, if we do everything right, and we can grow right there with them. It's not forcing things on them at the wrong time. It's understanding that when they reach this, there's going to be different success milestones.
When they reach a certain success milestone, that might have a logical upsell with it, and we can operationalize around that. It's a really awesome way to be able to actually look at your customer base and say, "Here's the revenue we can get from this, from our existing customers." Talk about predictable revenue, that's fantastic.
That's not something we can generally do, because most of the time, we're just guessing. We're hoping. But if we can actually build a logical model around that, then we have a true predictable revenue model within our existing customer base.
And that's all powered by customer success. Your customers that are not successful are not going to take an upsell offer, at least not willingly.
Expected Churn
MM: Now, in one of the aspects of our lives, as startups here in the SaaS world, that you mentioned was churn, right? One of the things that is well known about you is you have kind of a provocative point of view about the concept of churn and what an expectation level for churn should/could be.
LM: I get a lot of people who push back and say, when I say you should have 5-7% customer churn annually, and people are having 5-7% monthly, they push back and say, "That's too low, Lincoln. We can't do that."
Look, here's the thing, and I see this a lot, and this is actually really disturbing. Instead of saying, "Let's figure out why 45% of our customers turn over every year, or whatever, we just say, "Well, that's how it is. That's how it is in our market. Customers churn."
In the B2C world, you're going to have sort of transient customers. Some of those customers will leave, and some of them will come back. So you might have higher churn. But in the B2B world, especially infrastructure, especially anything that really touches multiple parts of an organization, you really shouldn't have that much churn. What I want you to do is to say, "Is the churn that we have avoidable or unavoidable?"
The level of truly unavoidable churn that you have is much lower than you think.
Unavoidable churn is, again, when your customer goes out of business, or whatever. You go back and you look at your churn, and you say, "How much of it is truly unavoidable?" That's going to be lower. That means we have only a few of our customers that were truly unavoidable churn. That means the rest of it was avoidable.
What does avoidable mean? It means that we messed up. Something we did or didn't do kept our customer from achieving their desired outcome. If we focus only on acquiring customers that have success potential, that we know are going to be able to get value out of our product, if we're deliberate about who we go after and acquire, then two things should happen.
One, avoidable churn should go down because we're acquiring good-fit customers, and then we're going to work to make them successful. Unavoidable churn should go down because we're only acquiring good-fit customers, right? Churn should be much lower than it is in almost every case, and I believe you can get, from a customer churn standpoint, you can get to near zero.
The best companies on a revenue churn, from a revenue churn standpoint, are what we call net revenue retention. They're actually in the 130%, 150% net revenue retention, which means they're ending the quarter, ending the year, with more revenue from their existing customer base than they started. That's where you want to be.
Some people call that negative churn, or something like that, and I think that that term needs to die. I hate it because that's what we're measuring success on, right? But churn is, in itself, a negative term. So I want to get that out of here.
Net revenue retention is a much better term, and I think it's also just more accurate in what we're doing. I think negative churn is something we've got to get rid of.
MM: That's a perfect segue for some of your growth terminology and metrics. You mentioned NRR, net retention revenue. Give us some of your philosophy on land and expand.
Land & Expand
LM: Land and expand is, I guess, the model du jour. It's certainly on everybody's mind, and that's because, again, if I can acquire a customer and then grow within that customer account, that's ideal. Not just because it's cheaper, which is what you hear a lot of, right? It's easier to retain a customer than acquire a new one.
It's actually better if we can expand our footprint. I like to say if we can get the customer to invite us in to other parts of their company, that's fantastic, and we can operationalize around that.
As the customers achieve certain success milestones, that's the time, after they've done something where we know they're both successful and probably emotionally happy, we can reach out and say, "Hey, could you advocate for us internally, get us into other parts of your company?"
That's just a great way to grow, and that's what investors are looking for right now. They want that land-and-expand potential, and so success potential is one thing you really have to look at. That's not going to happen if you acquire customers that aren't successful.
They're not going to say, "Yeah, it was so great that you sold to us, and we didn't really get any value. Let me go introduce you to the accounting department or whatever." That's just not going to happen. Maybe they were introducing you to the accounting department for them to tell you they're not going to pay their bill, but certainly not for them to use your product.
Land and expand is one of these really key concepts I think that everybody's focused on right now, especially investors, and it is 100% powered by customer success. You see companies out there that have a sort of self-service, land-and-expand model. Something like Slack would be a good example. But if you listen to the way that they build their product and really their philosophy, it's all about customer success.
It's just built into the product: Their experience, their customers, their users are very much within the product. But enterprise customers, vertical-specific customers, may not be all self contained nicely in the product. It doesn't mean the rules don't still apply. Land and expand is huge, but 100% powered by customer success, though.
Deliberate Installed Base Expansion
MM: One of the terms that I've heard you use is "deliberate installed base expansion."
LM: I use "deliberate" a lot, because very often we have a customer base that we just got. Certainly in the early days, we'll say, "You know, we have all these customers that just came to us. We had a lot of traffic." And then we say, "Well, let's go back and look at those customers and figure out who is the best customer. And that'll be our ideal customer. We'll really go to market with that."
But the thing is they were just random people that found you, and they may not be the best customers that you really want to go after. I think this is true, certainly in my experience, that this is the number one reason companies fail to get the traction that they really should get, whatever that means, generally it's going to be some sort of growth, is not being deliberate. Not being deliberate in who you go after. Not being deliberate in the way that you operationalize everything. Just hoping things happen.
I'll tell you this, and I think you guys from the infrastructure-and-developer-centric model here, I'll push back on CEOs in that space a lot on this, you're so process-driven, but when it comes to the success of your customer, you're just based on hope and faith. That doesn't make any sense, right?
So apply the same logic, the same process-driven mentality, to ensuring your customers achieve what they need to achieve from your product. It's a pretty simple process to apply. You just have to do it. You have to think about it that way.
Hiring for Customer Success
MM: I wanted to ask you a question that I heard you answer very articulately this morning. A situation that I think is very realistic here at Heavybit, for a lot of the member companies is, "Hey, things are going well. I'm Series Seed moving towards A, and Lincoln, I think this customer success thing, it's really for me. So at what revenue point should I be actually caring about customer success and thinking about hiring people? When should I care about them?"
LM: You either want to start thinking about customer success, at least, as your operating philosophy, either right when you start your company, or now. Whichever is sooner.
I mean, that doesn't mean you go out and hire CSMs or even build a customer success organization from day one. That may not be what's needed. But absolutely going into this with that as your operating philosophy and eventually moving that into your operating model, I think is the key to success, certainly going forward.
Caring vs. Customer Customer Success Mindset
MM: That answer really struck me, and it was interesting to see how many sophisticated startups really didn't get that message, I think, right away. But what about this: Is there a difference between intending to take care of your customers, and loving your customers?
To me, it feels like that's not really enough, right? You speak a lot about, as you said, "deliberate, organized, systemized, memorialized." What's the difference? Everybody here, everybody in this building, wants their customers. But what's the difference?
LM: First and foremost, you can say you're customer centric, and you can say that you love your customers. But what are you actually doing to ensure that they're going to be successful? A lot of times it's, "Well, we built the product. We built this great product. Why isn't that enough?"
Well, it might be enough in the early days with early adopters that are going to figure out how to be successful with your product, in spite of what you do. But at some point, we want to move away from that. We want to start doing things because of what we do. Things happen because of our efforts, and not just in spite of them.
The main thing is really understanding that our customers are the entire reason we exist, you know? This is why we're here. This is why I think we have to talk about this stuff. It's not just product centric, right? It's not just the product.
We have to think about everything that's going on in their world. Everything that they have to do outside of our product. Everything they have to do to get to the point where buying our product makes sense. Think about that whole experience. That's customer success.
A lot of people aren't there. They're not thinking about that, but hopefully we'll get them there.
Seed to A or B Series
MM: You're very familiar, obviously, with our developer services space, but what advice would you give these guys as they are moving from Series Seed into the Series-A and Series-B worlds?
You might be thinking, especially as you start taking on more funding and you start having to focus on delivering something to your investors, a return at some point, you might fall into the trap of thinking that's why you exist. That's why your investors put money into your company. That's not actually why you exist in the market, right?
Your customers, they don't care about that. You exist because they believe that you will help them achieve their desired outcome, that you will give them the result they want or need in the way that they want or need it.
As soon as you take your eye off that ball, you're going to be in trouble. So there are lots of reasons going on behind the scenes that you exist, but it's all about the customer.
MM: That's great. Thank you so much, Lincoln. Really appreciate it.
LM: Absolutely. Thank you, guys. | <urn:uuid:92a06ada-601b-4beb-b619-f7647aeb19c9> | http://www.heavybit.com/library/video/sales-master-class-customer-success-driven-growth/?utm_content=buffer3c799&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer | en | 0.982371 | 0.776026 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
What's Old Is Always New in Mobile Technology
06/01/2014 18:49 | Updated 08 March 2014
There is an old saying that a good idea will always be a good idea. And the same is true about technology. Fads in technology tend to happen almost as quickly as when it comes to the fashion world. One season's must have clothes are yesterday's news when it comes to the newest threads on the block. Yet you can be certain that somewhere down the road, they will be back again.
With technology, different hardware functions come and go with the latest models. Rubberised cases as standard, keypads, even colours are features that have been popular, gone away, only to come back again. You need only look at the iPhone 5C which has reintroduced different colours for handsets. It's something Nokia's were famous for, but as suddenly as they arrived, they were gone.
Time will tell if the iPhone 5C will make colours cool again. But if these technology trends are cyclical, then what could be the next blast from the past to be given a makeover in the age of the smartphone? Well, like any fashion designer would, let's look back at the past, take an idea and give it a new spin.
The biggest boom for mobile phones in the UK came at the turn of the century. Mobiles, once seen as yuppie accessories, started to gain a foothold. The price of the hardware came down, and the competition with the providers exploded. Now, everyone could have a phone, including teenagers and young people.
It's around this time we saw the craze for personalisation really take off. You could set a ring tone for a friend. Download wallpapers with images of your favourite signer of football club. Compare scores on Snake (and Snake II). Or you could set a piece of music for people to hear when they called you.
If you look at that era, pretty much all of it has been reinvented since then. Personalised ringtones are easily downloadable. Personalised wallpapers have been replaced by apps created for the incredible cameras phones now boast. And the days of Snake have long since been replaced by gaming apps which have eaten into the traditional gaming market. But no one has looked at ringback tones. It seems odd that with so many options to customise your phone, other people's first interaction with your phone has been left untouched.
Ringback tones are the noise you hear when you call someone. That tired, monotonous 'brrringgg, briinggg'. That noise is owned by the service provider and aside from a few limited experiments, has been left pretty much untouched for years. When you think that worldwide there are about 12 billion calls made to mobile phones each day, and the average time a ringback tone will last for is ten seconds, that's a lot of space to be creative. If you take these ten seconds, multiply them by 12 billion calls made a day, you can work out there are over two billion minutes of time that is waiting to be given the smartphone era redesign.
Like flares from the 70s or shoulder pads from the 80s, maybe it's here where we are set to see the next big comeback from technology. | <urn:uuid:259e1bd1-c12b-4e56-91c4-36bbb37f34e9> | http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/richard-n-c-jackson/whats-old-is-always-new-in-mobile-technology_b_4549319.html | en | 0.97374 | 0.169327 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
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The Nun's Priest's Tale
Extracts from this document...
"Even within the predictable fable structure, Chaucer is still able to entertain an audience and create comic tension." To what extent would you agree with this judgement in relation to The Nun's Priest's Tale? Your discussion should include close reference to Chaucer's narrative methods. As The Nun's Priest's tale is a predictable fable structure, Chaucer needs to use comedy to entertain his audience. Comedy combined with tension helps create an entertaining tale with a moral meaning. There is a moment of comic tension near the end of the tale, when we see the scene between Chauntecleer and the Fox. As an audience, we know Chauntecleer's fate because of the dreams etc, as does obviously the Fox. We are waiting for Chauntecleer to be snatched by the Fox and therefore the conversation between the na�ve cock and the sly fox makes us tense. ...read more.
In a way, this is an attack at the higher class, as they see themselves, and their appearance as the most important thing, however the way they are has consequences, and leads Chauntecleer to come close to being eaten! This could be seen as quite comical. Another moment of comic tension is in the scene between Chauntecleer and Madam Pertelote when they are discussing Chauntecleer's dream. Chaucer builds up tension by short, sharp sentences, and in a way stichomythia is used between the two birds. We imagine Chauntecleer getting worked up whilst telling the story because of Chaucer's language, for example: "my heart yet jumps with sore affright. ?Now God," cried he, "my vision read aright and keep my body out of foul prison!" ...read more.
It still has a sense of tension because the audience are still engaged with the tale, wondering what is going to happen between Chauntecleer and Pertelote and their relationship. However there is a sense of comic here because it's the stereotypical woman who wants her man to be nothing more than brave and courageous, yet Chauntecleer proves himself to be a coward. The audience may find it comical because they can relate to the tale as it being a human instinct, yet it's portrayed through animals. To conclude, it could be said that although The Nun's Priest's tale is a beast fable, this by no means stops it from being a comical poem with elements of tension throughout. As examined, there are two clear moments of comic tension, and most probably more which are portrayed as tragic, but have a deeper meaning, that of comic tension. ...read more.
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improve your own work | <urn:uuid:418b23dd-4547-479e-85a1-84bfcf3bad6d> | http://www.markedbyteachers.com/gcse/english/the-nun-s-priest-s-tale.html | en | 0.961042 | 0.022772 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
What’s with all this subnet stuff?
| September 25, 2010 | 2 Comments
The idea behind subnetting a network and the use of subnet masks isn’t an incredibly difficult concept, but the details surrounding network subnetting have changed a bit through the years. Subnetting has practically nothing to do with network security, and it has little to do with minimizing the use of IPv4 addresses. Subnetting is simply a way to design and interconnect groups of networks.
Why subnet?
You might think, why subnet at all? Let’s just all use separate IP addresses and not worry so much about splitting things into smaller chunks. Unfortunately, we quickly run into problems when my IP address in Tallahassee needs to talk to your IP address in Sydney. It’s practically impossible for our Internet routers to maintain an entire table of everyone’s individual IP address; the lookup process would be painfully slow, and the amount of memory needed to maintain such a massive list would be impractical. Instead, most routers have a much smaller table that contains groups of networks, or subnets. These network routing tables provide routers with the information they need to pass the packets along in the right direction.
This is a concept that’s similar to old-school telephone systems in the United States. The entire county is split into “area codes,” and we have individual “exchanges” within a single area code. If 212-555-1212 needs to call 305-555-1212, the telephone switches in the 212 area code simply pass the request to the telephone switches in the 305 area code. The 212 phone switches don’t have a list of every possible phone number in the 305 area, and they don’t need to. The 305 phone switches transfer the call to the local 555 exchange, which then can direct the phone call to the local 1212 number.
IP Classes
One of the legacy terms that we often throw around is a “class” of subnet, and the topic of class-based IP networks is important enough to appear in your certification exam requirements document. However, designing your network subnets using terms like “Class A,” “Class B,” or “Class C” is completely antiquated. We haven’t subnetted networks using strict classes since 1993.
When the Internet was relatively young, we didn’t need to define specific subnet masks at all. You could simply look at the first four bits of an IP address, and you’d automatically know the subnet mask based on predefined “classes.” As the Internet grew, we quickly realized that we would need a more precise way to split our networks apart, and we moved from class-based addressing to a more flexible addressing scheme called Classless Inter-Domain Routing, or CIDR (pronounced “cider”). Note the use of the word “classless” there.
To help continue our confusion around class-based subnets, we sometimes fall back on some of these ancient subnetting names when we refer to some of our modern subnet masks. We’ll sometimes say that a network has a “class C subnet.” This is a shortcut to describe our subnet mask as without having to say the entire thing. It takes a long time to say “two-fifty-five dot two-fifty-five dot two-fifty-five dot zero!” Instead, we say “it’s a Class C.” What we’re really saying is “the subnet mask for this network is coincidentally the same as the old-style class C addresses.”
Real-world Subnetting
Here’s how subnetting is used in the real-world. If you were connecting a company to the Internet for the first time, you’d hire an ISP to provide you with a network connection. You’d connect this Internet connection to a router, and you’d connect your company’s internal network to another port on the same router. The Internet provider will provide you with a single IP address. Notice that I didn’t say an IP address range; IPv4 addresses are at a premium, and you probably don’t need more than one “public” IP address in most situations. Nearly every company uses a feature in their router called Network Address Translation to translate every internal IP addresses to this single public IP address.
This ability of our routers to provide network translation means that network administrators can split the company networks into as many pieces as they’d like. This works perfectly with RFC 1918, which provides blocks of private IP addresses that can be used for internal or “private” networks. These private IP addresses are not routable over the Internet. Even if you tried, the Internet routers would drop your packets immediately.
One of the address ranges provided in RFC 1918 is Without any type of subnetting, this CIDR block describes a single network address that can have over sixteen million hosts. That’s not practical on anybody’s network, so it makes perfect sense to split this up into smaller chunks.
This is a critical point when building a network. How do you split the network up into subnets that can efficiently route and separate traffic, but not so small that the networks can’t grow? You want to consider the size of your company, the number of devices that you’d ever need on a single subnet, and the estimated growth of your organization. You really don’t want to get this one wrong; you’ll spend a lot of time later on reconfiguring your entire network with a different subnetting scheme.
Let’s say that you have 1,000 remote locations, but none of the remote sites are very large. Your headquarters location has a few hundred people, but they all work on different floors (and you’ll put each floor on different subnets). Given this information, you might want to use a subnet mask that will split the network into thousands of pieces that would allow for a couple of hundred users on each network.
If we used a subnet mask of with our network address of, we would support over 65,000 users per network but we could only have about 250 networks. Since we have over 1,000 remote locations, this subnet mask wouldn’t work for us.
A commonly seen subnet mask for this configuration would be You could even use, or perhaps even, but we don’t often do that because of the math involved. Us human beings try to use subnet masks that use all ones or all zeros in a single octet because it’s easier to calculate the network information in our heads. This probably shouldn’t be a consideration when deciding on your company’s network subnetting scheme, but it’s one of those things that you often see in the real world.
With a network address of and a subnet mask of, you would have a lot of networks! The range of your networks would be through This would allow you to have over 65,000 networks, and the remaining octet would allow for 254 different host addresses on each network. This fits perfectly with our need for over 1,000 networks and a requirement of a couple of hundred users per network.
How the subnet mask is used
We now have an IP address and subnet mask scheme, and we can start rolling out IP addresses to different networks. Let’s say that we’ve assigned a network address to a remote location of With our subnet mask of, this means that a user’s workstation might be given this configuration:
IP address:
Subnet mask:
Default gateway:
Here’s an interesting fact about subnet masks; unlike IP addresses, the subnet mask isn’t transmitted in the traffic flow between devices. The subnet mask is only used by the local computer, and it’s only used to help the computer determine which network it belongs to.
In our example, the combination of our computer’s IP address of with our subnet mask of means that the computer knows to send local network traffic directly to devices in the IP address range of through If the IP address of a destination computer is ever anything different, the computer knows that the traffic needs to leave the local network and it will send the packet to the default gateway of The default gateway is IP address of the local router, and the router has the all of the information it needs to send packets from the local network to other networks (and perhaps the Internet).
Tags: , , ,
Category: Professor Messer After Class
• Gary Allen
I am finding it hard to get my head around the CIDR concept. In the Cidr address of does the 8 mean that the first octet refers to the network with the remaining octets being available for hosts. I am a bit unclear as to how you use the subnet mask in conjunction with the CIDR address.
• (keep in mind that I’m learning this stuff too, so someone correct me if I’m wrong…)
DHCP is what the computer uses to get it’s (local) IP address and a list of the address of other devices in it’s subnet. When you type google.com in a browser and the computer can’t find it in it’s list of local addresses, it sends it over to the default gateway to search outside of your subnet or local network.
In the above example where the PC’s IP address is, the Subnet mask of masks or restricts what address the PC communicates with. In this case it tells the PC to only communicate with hosts that have address starting with 10.25.6.x, which includes,, … etc, up to
Since the default gateway ( in this case) falls into that range, the PC can communicate with that device as well. The default gateway is the PC’s “gateway” outside the local network/subnet, usually out to the internet. For example, most people have a cable-modem/router that acts as their gateway to the internet. | <urn:uuid:8b86b42f-2162-4365-a738-eb7e032bf733> | http://www.professormesser.com/after-class/whats-with-all-this-subnet-stuff/ | en | 0.941628 | 0.263487 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Accessibility links
Captured Pakistan Taliban Commander Dies in Jail
The Pakistani military says a Taliban commander known for brutality has died in custody from wounds suffered during his recent capture.
Security forces said last Wednesday they had arrested Pakistani Taliban leader Sher Mohammed Qasab.
Authorities say when they arrested Qasab in the Swat Valley, he was wounded and three of his sons were killed in a gunfight.
Officials say Qasab died of his wounds on Sunday. He had a reputation for beheading prisoners. Qasab is an Urdu-language word for "butcher."
His capture and death come as Pakistani authorities have been arresting key Taliban commanders in the Swat Valley, including Muslim Khan, chief spokesman for the Islamist militants.
A missile attack last month in South Waziristan killed Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP and AP. | <urn:uuid:29f168a3-6000-40d9-a9b5-5a5ef985c995> | http://www.voanews.com/a/a-13-2009-09-20-voa11-68821972/364716.html | en | 0.980699 | 0.046208 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Magnus in the Middle
Am I crazy for thinking this? Could Magnus Paajarvi be tried out as a potential center?
The left-wing position in the top-nine is beginning to fill up with Hall, Hartikainen, Paajarvi, and the re-signed Ryan Smyth and Lennart Petrell. Now Petrell is an easy waiver casualty if the Oilers decide to keep both the Swede and the Finn on the roster if we have a 2013 season.
The center position, however, has some gaps that may open up if this CBA takes shape under the current NHL proposal. If the CBA allows for a one-time contract buyout available prior to the beginning of whatever smoldering remains there are of this season, then it is very likely that Shawn Horcoff is the bearer of that one contract.
Currently the center depth chart is Nugent-Hopkins, Gagner, Horcoff, and Belanger. Chris Vande Velde, Anton Lander, and Marc Arcobello are the professional options after that. Of those, only Vande Velde is a player one would describe as large or capable of playing a physical game.
Should Horcoff be bought out in a cap amnesty, that would likely herald the promotion of Belanger to the 3rd line. Meanwhile, the 4th line position would go either to Vande Velde or Lander (my preference is for the former at this stage). Despite this, the Oilers do not appear enamoured with Sam Gagner as their future 2nd line center, based on contract negotiations and his signing a one-year deal this past summer.
All three of these players are likely short-term options. Vande Velde will become an RFA at the end of this season, while Belanger has one season remaining after this one and there have already been rumours of his wanted to move on.
Arcobello is an RFA as well, and the Oilers will need to determine whether he has NHL potential and is worth a contract spot on the reserve list.Call me a cynic, but even if the young man does display enough talent and skill to play in the NHL, I tend to think that the Oilers will pass him over in search of size.
The fact is that the Oilers have coveted a large-bodied center since Oct 4, 1991 when they traded Mark Messier.
I think the Oilers were really hoping to address this last June when they tried to trade up to take Henrik Samuelsson at the draft. Phoenix knew they could get him and weren’t interested in what Tambellini was offering, although we have no idea right now how high the bidding went.
Trading for that big-bodied center is an option, but at what cost? Considering that the Oilers are still working at winnowing their draft wheat from the chaff, I suspect they would be reluctant to reduce their prospect numbers right now to address this situation. Also, when the entire hockey world hears about your great wealth of forward talent, what do you suppose an opposing GM is going to ask for in trade negotiations? It isn’t going to be Tyler Pitlick and a 3rd round pick.
Jakub Voracek would be nice. Brayden Schenn. Even Sean Couturier, if it could be done. But none of those players are coming this way because the Oilers don’t have the assets needed to pry those players loose without parting with one of their key young players. Nor do they have enough surplus assets to deal for a player who could, in turn, be flipped for any of those young players.
I’ve wondered if they could make a deal for Jay Bouwmeester and then move him for Couturier or Schenn, or some such Byzantine arrangement, but that all seems a little too far-fetched.
What to do?
This leaves me wondering, are there internal options that could be explored.
Crazy Talk
So would it be worthwhile for the Oilers to try Paajarvi at center?
He is a large body. His skating is superb and he has shown a penchant for carrying the puck up the ice, as well as proving that he has some underrated playmaking ability. He isn’t a bull in a china shop, but he does fit a few of the oft-cited criteria for which fans and the team appear to be looking. Paajarvi began his hockey career at defense, but was converted to forward when he was still fairly young to take advantage of his skating and size. To this day he appears to have retained his defense-first mentality.
From Todd Nelson via an interview with Jason Gregor "I think he’s probably, pretty much, a playmaker. He gets opportunities in the game. Scoring goals doesn’t come natural, like maybe it would with Jordan Eberle. He has to work for everything he gets."
There’s a center in there. Hard work, big body, quick skater, mind of a playmaker, defensive reliability sometimes to the detriment of his offensive game. Sounds like the kind of guy who used to get a tonne of ice time under the old MacT coaching regime.
In his rookie season, 2010-2011, his numbers ran 80gp, 11g, 144 shots, 48 saves, 30.3 average shooting distance, with a very low 5.4 shooting percentage. If he were a blueliner we’d say that is a pretty promising rookie season. As a winger it wasn’t even all that bad. The shooting percentage would rise, wouldn’t it? He’d learn to shoot more, and from closer in. He’d learn to take the puck to the net.
He didn’t and his sophomore season was less impressive. The 2011-2012 season, he played 41 games, 2g, 64 shots, 20 saves, 29.2 average shooting distance, and his shooting percentage was actually halved from the previous season to 2.3%. He has been a plus player in every one but three of his professional seasons, two of those being his time on a dismal Oilers squad, though, so scoring aside, his play away from and around the puck would seem to indicate that he is someone who understands the game well enough to earn ice time and opportunity.
Paajarvi’s post-season in the AHL got some attention as he began to take shape as a playmaker. He was creating plays, and bringing success to his linemates. Paajarvi’s ability to read the play, as developed from his defensive mindset, began to be used to anticipate and be proactive in his offensive game, rather than reactive as a d-man is required to be.
There is a player here. Of that I am certain.
When Paajarvi was sent down to Oklahoma City he was positive and mature in his perspective on the move. Where there is often a common perception of demotion to the AHL, even the term implies the negative, Paajarvi embraced the opportunity to get more ice time, play a more prominent role, and try to work on the aspects of his game that were lacking. He has been a good soldier, and there is value there.
Now, to be clear here, I am not suggesting that Paajarvi could switch from LW to C and suddenly go from being a third-line option to a 2nd line center. I’m saying that if he could make the switch he might become a better third-line center than winger, and knocking the other centers, current and potential, down the depth chart can only help.
Trade Bait?
What would Paajarvi’s trade value be at this moment? His numbers and performance haven’t lived up to expectations and his "curb appeal" right now may not be that high. Could he be moved for that big center the Oilers want? Or a top-pairing defenseman? Unless Steve Tambellini is planning on using some compromising photos of an opposing GM as leverage, I’d guess not. However, and this is where my mind tends to go when discussing trading any of the Oilers’ young players, in two or three years’ time, when the Oilers are looking to add depth players for a playoff run, and need a large-bodied, defensively responsible, healthy forward who can kill penalties, provide some small measure of offense, and fit into the dressing room chemistry, might they not be looking for a player similar to Paajarvi?
I understand the need to divest themselves of some player assets in order to address areas of need, however, this only works if it does not create a weakness in another area. I would prefer to see the Oilers trade Yakupov or Hemsky in a year’s time as it would likely provide a greater return and draws upon an area of greater depth that can better absorb the loss.
Recently Paajarvi has shown some chemistry with Hartikainen and Lander in Oklahoma City. It suggests that the two Swedes have not forgotten how to play hockey, they just needed some time to find it again. Hartikainen, apparently, can play crash-bang hockey with anybody.
What Am I Getting At?
Many of us have wondered if Taylor Hall could be converted from left-wing to the middle because Mark Messier did it and we all so badly want Hall to become our next Moose. Hall is Hall, he will be what he is – a very good winger and a force on offense.
But why couldn’t Magnus Paajarvi do it? Or am I crazy for thinking this?
• 24% body fat
If he is replacing horcoff, fine. We have no established left wing depth so why would we try to move on unestablished to a number two center. Same thing with moving hall to center. Once hartski or maggy establish themselves as nhlers than you can try hom as third line center. Do not move gagner until you have a proven 50 plus point center or top 3 pick at center to replace him.
• Oil Vice
I think offensively he would be great at center.
Defensively would be the problem .A center has to battle for the puck in his own end.MPS would be there but wouldn’t battle.
I think you give Arcobello the chance.He has shown the skill and grit at the AHL level.
• striatic
Arcobello has taken advantage of playing with highly skilled guys like Eberle & Hall! Has Paajarvi been given that chance, even in the AHL? Nope! Also, Arcobello is an itty bitty player who will be demolished in the NHL, MPS has proven he can play in the NHL & despite what you say he will fight for the puck!
• DSF
Actually, Paajarvi started in the 1LW spot in the AHL this year and did nothing with it. During the few games he had in the NHL on scoring lines last year, he also did nothing with it. He was given the chances because of draft pedigree and tools. Arcobello, on the other hand, has had nothing given to him but consistently proves that he deserves a shot, and when given one, he produces. No one else has produced as well as he has when given time with the elite players, which is why he maintains his spot.
That being said, absolutely Paajarvi should be tried at centre. What’s there to lose at this point? If he has ten games and shows no signs of learning at last you know. Centre depth on the Oilers is terrible, and Gagner is probably the player with the most trade appeal who isn’t untouchable to get another D man. Everyone who has any sort of centre potential should be given a try right now in my opinion. Paajarvi, Pitlick, hell try Hamilton.
• 24% body fat
So replace an established nhl player with an even smaller player, is not younger, and has never played an nhl game?????
Also maggy is known for cheating on defense. Third line center could justify his cheatng and lack of production. | <urn:uuid:ffa3af87-c83a-4daf-bbba-fc7c86e9ff0b> | https://oilersnation.com/2013/1/2/am-i-crazy-for-thinking-this/ | en | 0.978258 | 0.032318 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
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dimarts, de novembre 13, 2007
It was another long Tuesday evening. The day had been hard for all of us, struggling to make our students learn some English. Probably knowing this, tim decided to start the lesson with a kind of joke, English humour? Could be. He pretended to tell us a story with a happy ending which happened to have a terrible and shocking ending, in fact. It was a story about an Englishman killed by the elephant he thought was a friend of him. Nice, isn't it?
After this funny introduction, we began working seriously. Tim told us to reviewed the stories we had seen in the previous lessons: the letter by Ian Brown: "The Old Days", the article about the Pacific Islanders and the story of The Rabbits. We did the following:
First, we discussed the topics or ideas of the stories in groups of two. Then, we tried to find common ideas for two of the stories and finally, we looked for the common point in all three stories. This apparently simple activity led us to a wild discussion about changes in society, about nature and civilization, about good and bad… and so on. Therefore, when Tim saw that the discussion was becoming wild and philosophical, as if Plato or Rousseau had abducted us, he had the excellent idea of stopping us. At that time, we really needed a break!
After the break, being more relaxed, we continued with the lesson. We began working on "The Crocodile Blues", which we had read in a previous lesson. Tim gave us the texts we had written about the story and while he was reading his own version, in pairs, we edited our texts making some changes we thought were suitable. At the end of the activity, Tim made some comments about the importance of making our students interact with texts. As an example, he told us to make our students write not the exact words we are dictating, to make them do some paraphrasing.
The lesson ended with a game intended to make us remember the onomatopoeic words we had learnt with "The Crocodile Blues" story. Tim read a poem, "The Sound Collector" then we were divided into two groups. One part of a group had to remember, without writing, the onomatopoeic words they were hearing and the others had to remember the household items associated to these sounds in the poem. At the very end of the lesson, Tim read the poem "Gruesome". And that's how the lesson finished, with some of us wondering what "gruesome" meant, others not knowing what was better: nature or civilization, and some others probably thinking they had to improve their onomatopoeic vocabulary. I
Carolina Rodriguez Contreras | <urn:uuid:09c7b962-0c62-40cb-a622-0a0d5e9f07c3> | http://ambitlinguistic.blogspot.com/2007/11/working-with-stories-common-points.html | en | 0.982036 | 0.039832 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
We're Ready for BB17!!
BBDish! Ya Gotta Have it!
BB17 Starts June 24th!
Monday, July 29, 2013
The Overnight Report
Good morning, BB Lovers! Happy Monday! Today in the BB House, the HGs will have the PoV Ceremony. Candice is likely to go up, although Aaryn is concerned about how bad it will look for her.
Whole lotta scheming going on in the Big Brother 15 House Sunday late night.. In a nutshell...
• Howard is trying to pull together votes to get Amanda out, instead of him, under the guise of protecting Candice, for whom he offers to fall on his sword in the event she goes up. He also wouldn't mind if Ginamarie went up and out.
• Helen and Elissa plan to drive a wedge between Aaryn and Jessie by showering Aaryn with attention, so Jessie will be much less gung ho about keeping Aaryn in the game forever.
• Helen and Andy reconfirm that Howard's got to go.
• Helen bucks for GMs jury vote.
• Amanda and McCrae hit a big snag in the trust department.
**6:30am Eastern - I'm hitting publish now for the east coast early risers, and I'll continue adding to the post. Please refresh when you get to then end, and more will magically appear.
Camera 1
Aaryn, Amanda, McCrae, Ginamarie
(come back to get more)
Amanda: The important thing is, now they'll be against each other. So Spencer purposely hurt Candice, and when she finds out, she'll be against him. And now, if Candice gets HoH, she'll put up Spencer, and we're all safe.
Spencer comes up. Everyone scatters.
Spencer: What up with you?
Aaryn: Nothing. I'm stressed. I'm stressed about being a target. I don't wanna go home. I was having a good conversation with Jess, not game, just life, and then Jess left and more people came up, and started talking game.. and I don't know who to trust and it's really stressing me out, and I don't feel like I can trust anybody.
Spencer: I know exactly what you feel like.
Aaryn: And Howard came up here, and he was laughing. I just feel like, he's such a good guy. I don't want him to go home. Please don't tell anybody that. I'm putting Candice up as the replacement. I want candice to go home. She will do anything to be here. She will sell your soul. If she's been Miss Louisiana twice, why does she care to be here.
Sp: I don't know, man.
Aaryn: For someone who's literally won a Miss USA pageant to do some of the things she's done to behave like she does is disgusting to me. People in those pageants have integrity.
GM returns
Aaryn: Oh my gosh.. I just don't even want to think.
GM: Like my toes?
Aaryn: Yeah. Like, the nail party was fun.. and Candice wasn't up here.. and Howard made us cookies..
GM: How'd the pool thing go?
Spencer: Howard won.
Aaryn: I think I'm gonna get all the ducks and bathe with them, because they're the only people who don't lie steal and cheat. The ducks are the only people here with souls.
Spencer: Why's everybody actin so weird?
GM: Amanda was talkin' to Candice and she got a little spooked.
Cam 3
Amanda, Helen, Andy, Jessie
Amanda: By the way, don't confront Spencer about this.. He's a vote.
Helen: I wont.
Amanda: Cuz he's so vindictive.
Helen: I brought up the conversation, and she said Spencer's the one who told her to come corale votes for Howard.
Amanda: He's gonna be really nice to me, he's gonna follow me, he's gonna change his tune and be super, overly nice..
Helen: He told Candice to tell me..
Spencer opens the sliding glass door.
Helen: ..and anyways it was a really fun time at Disneyworld.
Cam 1
Checking in the kitchen, chatter about being a Have Not 2 weeks in a row..
Cam 3
Drunk chatter..
BB: Amanda, please come to the Diary Room.
Jessie: ♫Andy put a lime, put a lime in the pool.. Andy put a lime, put a lime, put a lime, put a lime in the pool..
BB: Jessie...
Jessie: Yes, Big Brother?
Jessie: Lemme read your future.. This is your life line.. You're gonna have a really big decision to make in life, when you're 50 or 60, that'll either send you one way or the other way..
Cam 1
Upstairs in HoH, Aaryn's collected all the duckies, and she's preparing to take a bubble bath..
Creepy Clown looks on from the other room.
Cam 4
The backyard crew is killing the Spanish language.. months, numbers, colors..
**my ears are bleeding.
Andy: Andrew Scharm, my Spanish teacher, best teacher in the world.. He loves Big Brother. Every summer we write on each other's walls.
Andy: We're music soulmates. You agree Pitbull ruins anything he touches.
Jessie: Yes.
Judd: You didn't like his early stuff? Like "Culo"?
ALL: We love Jodi!
Andy: How would you feel if you went thru everything we went through and then got kicked out after the popsicle comp?
McCrae: And then had to come back for the bikini pictures.
Andy: I bet she'll be back for AllStars.
Cam 1
Bubblebath time...
Cam 1
Helen, Elissa, Candice
Helen notices a typo on a Kroger spice bottle. This drives the conversation for the next 3 minutes.
Cam 4
Jessie has joined Aaryn in the tub. Aaryn's bonding with her Ducky alliance.
Jessie: I don't think she's that smart.
Aaryn: She is. She's the first one who sniffed out the alliance.
GM: That's not technically smart.. that's just seeing something obvious that we didn't see. Like noticing a dead fish in the tank.
McCrae and Judd come up.. Aaryn gives them beer.
Cam 3
Andy: There's a black fish at the very bottom of the tank.. What is he doing?
McCrae: I think he's dying.
Aaryn: oh noooooo
Jessie: Oh nooooo...
Andy: Can we eat him?
Jessie: He's really struggling.
Aaryn: He's dying.. Oh noooo... I'm so scared.. Every time I'm up here, a black fish dies.
Jessie: He needs help.
Aaryn: Look, his eyes are turning bloody..
Andy: Maybe he's just really full. He knows he's on tv. He wants tv time.
Cam 1
Helen and Elissa
Helen: See what I'm trying to do?
Elissa: Play mind games with Jessie.
Cam 3
Aaryn: Andy.. Everybody thinks I'm racist and the only black people in the house are gonna be on the block. This is not good.
Andy: People are gonna watch and know this is the best move..
Back to the dying fish..
Andy: He lived a good life.. He lasted longer than Kristin.. He's the Rachel Reilly of the fish tank.
GM: Usually when you put em in a toilet bowl, they come back to life. Seriously. It works.
Cam 1
Helen and Elissa
Elissa: She's like, I definitely thought I would be the girl that everyone would be jealous of in the house.. I'm always the girl people are jealous of.. So if we start saying how cute and fun Aaryn is, it'll drive her crazy.
Helen: I think Aaryn wants to be friends with us, and I'm cool with that. The second Jessie feels like she's being replaced with Aaryn, she'll want her out again. Jessie's insecure. We have to play on that a little bit.
Elissa: Should we be like, It looks like Aaryn and Judd are getting pretty close.. hehe
Helen: Do yoga with Aaryn.. It will drive Jessie insane if she thinks we love Aaryn.. and I do kinda love Aaryn now. She wants us to take Aaryn out. I want her to take Aaryn out.
Cam 1
Amanda comes in as they're leaving to brush their teeth.. They lie and say they were talking about Candice..
So they do.
Cam 1
Andy, Amanda, McCrae
Andy: Candice is 100% gonna stay.
Amanda: Not only is she, but now she's gonna be mad at Spencer.. I explained it to her, and Helen was there to back me up..
Andy: I'm not gonna lie. I'm so over Ginamarie..
Amanda: I basically made it look like I was helping her..
Andy: If I get HoH next week, I'll do it.. (get Spencer out)
**but you wont.. you don't need to..
McCrae: Don't drop until one of us has it..
Andy: I wont.
Jessie joins, then Judd..
Jessie: I just asked her if she was ok outside, and I feel like she was mad at me..
Amanda: noo.. It's ok to not be involved in something like that. It's a good thing.
Andy: So what do we do now?
Amanda: Helen was like, he's going home this week.. And I said, if you and I stay here, we both want the same people out.. 4 days..
Judd: 3.. cuz Thursday's gonna go by fast.
Amanda: So he still has 3 days to manipulate people..
Jessie: When I walked out, he was saying something.. they were all excited..
Amanda: I think the fact that Candice and I found common ground.. Helen came to me and she was like, it's so good that you said that. Obviously Ginamarie.. Spencer is trying to play people still. He's so stupid. Why doesn't he see it's a sinking ship?
Jessie: She's not talking.. I just don't want her to take her negativity out on me.
McCrae: She thought you were a floater. She thought Amanda was on the opposite side.
Jessie: I'm just like, what do I have to do?
McCrae: Nothing. Keep that floater position.
Amanda: don't get involved. Try to stay clear of Howard. She's not mad at you. She's mad at Spencer. Howard's trying to get people mad at Candice, so she leaves instead of him.. That's his game.
1:25am -- Spencer Enters. Jessie leaves.
Checking Camera 3, Ginamarie is talking about Nick.. Helen is encouraging her.. I'm out.
Cam 1
Andy: Ginamarie hates Candice and Judd tonight.
Amanda: Why Judd? It always goes back to Judd. He messes her with her like he does with everyone else, but she doesn't get it.
Andy: I think we're music soulmates.
McCrae; I think we're everything soulmates.
Andy: (is tickled)
Chatter about how he's attracted to McCrae..
Andy: I think I'm being portrayed as an idiot. They talk about my strategy as popping into rooms..
**It is! 1-800-ASK-ANDY
After brief fishies, we return to Andy, Spencer and Amanda lightly mocking Candice.. Aaryn comes in with a piece of pizza.. Candice chatter continues for another moment, then talk turns to the types of houses they grew up in. Judd enters, snuggles up to Amanda..
Cam 1
Amanda: One of you guys made a Nick comment.
Andy: I did.
Amanda: She was livid, not happy about that.
Andy: That's why I want to evict her.. So i can make all the Nick jokes I want.. So sad.. RIP.. He was gonna win this.. Gahh..
Andy: I wanna cut up that Nick hat so bad.. I wanna burn it. I hate that hat.
Amanda: I think we all do.
Aaryn enters..
McCrae: Were you there when she wrote his name in raisins.. and they pointed to the camera.. Look Nick..
Aaryn: no.. seriously?
Amanda complains that she came in here to get some alone time with McCrae, and everyone came in. Spencer says maybe he wants some space..
Amanda: Do you want your space?
McCrae: no. I want your space. I was gonna go take my key.. and put it in your keyhole a bunch..
Aaryn wants to go out to the hammock, and she wants company.. Judd joins her.. Then Amanda..
Aaryn: I'm trying to make him feel like I'm low on the totem poll.. just to get him off my back.
Amanda: He's just so dumb. Let him shake a little. McCrae's so annoying right now.
Judd: Cuz he's drunk.
Amanda: I love him, but..
Aaryn: Helen said that I'm probably not gonna make it to jury, because I wont be a jury vote for Elissa.
Amanda: ELissa and Helen will go before you. Don't you dare say that to anyone.
Judd: mm hmm
Aaryn: I wont. Helen for sure thinks she's gonna win. Obviously, I'm not gonna tell her otherwise. I'm not stupid. But Spencer came up and told me, if I put you up next to GM, are you gonna stay? I was like, I don't know.. He's like, I think Candice used to be the biggest target and now it flipped back to me.
Amanda: Why would he think that? When he came out before, he was like, did Candice just get murdered in Candy land? I was like, no, we just had a really nice conversation.. a really nice conversation..
Aaryn: He already came up into the room, and I was drunk, and I'm like trying to focus on his face.. I don't understand.. the fact that he told me he's gonna put me up against GM if he wins. He thinks me and him are tight, because.. I'm pretending. So he thinks I have his back.
Cam 1
Helen and GM
Helen: I wanna give it to someone whose life will be changed by it.. You are so unique and special.. You just keep being shiny Ginamarie every day.
GM: And it wont just change my life, it'd change the girls I work with.
Helen: And if you play in a PoV with prizes, you should take them! Not if your game is on the line.. If you make it to the end.. I think it would change your life.. At that point, I want you to turn to me, and be like, Helen, I am damn f'in smart. We came here to compete, not fight..
GM: Absolutely.
Helen; I'm telling you, if you make it to jury, I really think you're gonna get America's Favorite Player. If I was a viewer, I would be giving that to you. Do you hear me, America?
**Yes, we hear you bucking for her jury vote loud and clear, Helen.
GM: I'm just happy I'm here.. If I could leave with something, even better.
Cam 3/4
Judd and Aaryn
Aaryn: I'm just scared of Candice taking herself off the target list. Helen just told GM she's gonna win America's Favorite.
Judd: She's blowing smoke up her ass.
Aaryn: I have a feeling, that because of all the shit I went through, I have a a good shot at it.
**I'll give you a moment to stop laughing.
Aaryn: So now.. Helen trusts me and Elissa trusts me.. and they don't trust Candice.. Elissa's gonna hate me no matter what, but at least she'll start to see that I'm not as bad as Candice made me out to be. I feel like I've been fighting for my life here.
Judd: You're in a good spot now. Not only did you stay, it was a 9-0 vote.
Aaryn: I knew we were good the first few days.
Judd: I've always trusted you, I just didn't trust some of the people you were aligned with.
Aaryn: I don't blame you. I don't even trust GM.
Cue GM. She joins them on the hammock. 2:09am
Cam 1
Howard and Helen
Howard: Me, as a man, and morally, unless it behooves you to pull Aaryn's chain, and have her put up someone who just doesn't matter.. If she's gonna put up Candice, I would ask you to please, get everyone to send me home.. if you're not ready to send Amanda out.. I would feel better and much richer, because that woman is the only one who went to bat for me.. I'm ready to go.. If I stay, I'ma try to cut off heads. I cannot stay here, knowing she took up for me, at the expense of her game.. Have her heart be taken advantage of, just for me. If she does go up, please ask everyone to vote me out. I'll walk out the door happily. OK?
Helen: ok.. Howard, you know..
Howard: It's a big decision, but it's a simple decision.. I can't out talk my conscience when I sleep. If that's the case, I respect the game.. I'm not worried about them..
Helen: I want you to know something.. Any puppeteering that's going on.. This is very hard for me. I love you as a person, and I love Spencer as a person. Even if I was able to switch a few people, I can't switch enough..
**to get Amanda out.
Howard: I get it. I know who's pulling the strings. Especially if everyone's afraid to get Amanda out, even though she's one of the power players, pulling the strings. If that's the case, I want Candice to stay over me.. Unless someone's ready to step up and do something about it.. That's my gift to her.
Helen: Even if I wanted to take Amanda out right now, I don't have the votes. I've already put feelers out.
Howard: I understand.. You're scared.. People will take advantage of it. I'm just asking you to protect Candice. That would do my heart good, and that will let me go home and face my people..
**who will slap you upside the head for throwing your game away for her.
2:19am Howard exits.. Helen takes a moment..
Helen: (sigh) Man, this game..
Cam 1/2
Helen joins Andy in the cockpit.
Andy: I'm not gonna lie. I listened to a lot of it. He's gotta go
Helen: I know.. His pleas are just making it really hard. It makes me sad.
Andy: He's the nicest guy. I know. That's why he has to go. We all have to remain unified.
Helen: I fully agree. I just feel bad for him. Every time he talks to me, I just feel sad.
Andy: Our weak spot is that we care.
Talk turns to hypotheticals..
Cam 3
Howard and Candice
Candice is berating Howard for not standing up for her. He's apologizing to appease her. She's got her condescending voice on..
Howard: I sincerely like you. I'm glad that we met here. You keep bringing it up about "i'm hurt i'm hurt i'm hurt." What else can I do? I an't said nothing against you.
Candice: But you haven't said anything for me.
**♫What have you done for me lately? -- well, he just laid down his game for you at Helen's feet. Why? I have no idea.
This is ongoing. Howard is too much of a mensch to tell her what he's just done.
Cam 3
Howard: Don't politic for me no more, or against her..
Spencer: I never was.
Howard: I said, since you love me, Spencer and Candice so much, but your arch nemesis, Amanda, you're gonna keep here.. She's like, I don't know if I can get the vote. Yes you can. THey follow you. If you're not gonna send Amanda home, send me home. That's my thing to Candice.. cuz she's so hurt. I can't do it no more. She's better at it than me. I'm not saying you did anything maliciously..
Spencer: Candice f'd it up.. by going at her harshly.. She told them she was gonna go after them.
Cam 1
McCrae, Andy, Amanda
Amanda: Obviously, Helen in like Elissa, that day she was supposed to put up Howard and put up Spencer.
Andy: She's not. I know everything she is thinking. She thinks her and I are going to the end together. Even over Elissa.
Amanda: How can she even think Howard's a good guy?!
Andy: He's a manipulative game player.
Amanda: It's 4 days til eviction.
Andy: Believe me. Don't pull a Judd. Let's just make a final 4 with her and solidify it.. I'm gonna talk to her a lot more. I think she wants to get with you two, or Judd and Jessie.. We have to make sure it's you two. She's already thinking ahead to double eviciton.
2:44am - Andy leaves.. Amanda and McCrae remain talking a minute.. then head out.
Cam 3
Howard, Judd, Spencer
Howard: So that's what's up.. I just told Helen.. Either you gon stand up, or not. Other than that, i can't send Candice home..
Judd: So if I do vote for her, you gonna be against me?
Howard: I just told Helen I'd rather leave.
Judd: Don't do that. People'll be like ok. You didn't even know Candice before this.
Howard: But right is right.
Howard is pulling heart strings, saying he'd rather be sent out than see Candice go, while pushing for Amanda to be evicted by calling it a big move..
Howard: All I'm saying is, all of us are gonna get picked off unless someone makes a move.
Judd mentions how he's never talked game with Candice.. and would really prefer to keep Howard in the house.
Andy enters..
Judd: You've got your heart too much in the game.
Spencer: Fill him in..
Howard: Basically, the relationship me and Candice have is real. People say she's demonstrative or bullying.. With her saving me the past 2 weeks..
Andy: You need to just tell me names.
Howard: Helen has a lot of pull and a lot of followers. What she says, 4 or 5 people are gonna follow. Candice is in a position where she's hurt, because she's formed a bond... Helen told Candice that you and Jessie don't like her.
Andy: What??
Howard: That's why it got heated. That's what pisses Candice off.. And on top of it, she's gonna say, Howard has to go home. And I'm not talking against Amanda, but the last 2 or 3 weeks, people were ready to vote her out.. Now no? And on top of that, Candice is about to go up.. When you're controlling the Hoh, why can't you tell her to put Ginamarie up, instead. You're gonna put up 2 people you like.. I can't look at myself in the mirror knowing something I did sent Candice home. There aint but a few grown people in here. Us, Helen, Amanda and Candice.. If aint nobody gonna do nothin', we all gonna get picked off.
Andy: So.. 8 people voting.. me, judd, spencer, helen, elissa, mccrae, Ginamarie.. You know that I want you and Candice here. you know that. Part of me trusts Helen, but part of me doesn't if she's saying stuff like that.
Howard: I aint tellin' y'all to rock the boat, but.. You next.
Spencer: I know. I've already been told I'll be on the block every week until I go home. Ya'll know, and I know ya'll feel the same, that you don't wanna lose this dude.
Howard: As the outsider dwindle, it's gonna be you going home.. If they aint talkin' with you... If you aint involved in those HoH conversations..
**but they are.
Spencer: I've been told the best I can hope for is 1st jury member. Ya'll are looking at losing 2 or even 3 close allies in the next couple weeks, and where does that leave you? What sucks is there is possibility of Ginamarie going up.. and going out.. and that leaves the 7 intact..
Howard: More than a physical threat, I'm grown, and if I win HoH, I'm gonna turn the house upside down and get the people who've been running everything out.
**1 of them.. You only get to evict one.
Andy: If it's 4 to 4, Aaryn breaks the tie, and we're f'd.
Howard: It just depends whose going up tomorrow. I even talked to Aaryn..
Spencer: She was up in HoH crying.. I asked why, and she said she was literally arm behind her back forced to put up who she did..
Howard: Ya'll keep saying it's Big Brother. Make it Big Brother. it's strategic to tow the line, but only if you're on the inside.
Spencer: Judd, if Candice and Howard both stayed, she would be diehard Judd til the end. There is strength here..
Howard: If the boat is not rocked and the power source is not switched, I'm going home, and you all are too. I want everyone to have a chance.
**now that the Moving Company is no more, and I'm on the line.
3:09am -- Howard and Spencer continue working on Andy and Judd..
** Stretch! brb
Howard: If you ain't gonna vote Amanda out, make sure Candice stay. You aint got tot tell nobody. You just go in there and vote.. and then watch all the damn faces. Amanda aint won nothin'.
Spencer: I know I got an HoH in me. Maybe not this week (endurance) but next. I'm a f'in good person. I'm a loyal person.
Andy: You don't have to convince me of that.
Spencer: You know that when you're in bed with me, you're with an honest person. You can' ask this man here. Moving Company aside.. I came to Howard and said, we cannot stay with these people.. He said go to McCrae. He'd already flipped. Now I've got shit on me I can't wash off.
Andy: I feel like I'm in a position where I'm ready to move.
Judd: I need to sleep on it.
Howard: I know from a game standpoint, you can't really trust no one.
Spencer: You can trust me, and you can trust that man right there. I do know how Ginamarie will vote.
Howard: Even though GM don't like Candice, she's loyal and she's real.
3:22 -- they all file out of the cockpit. Howard says he's heading to the shower.
3:24am Amanda and Spencer Brush their teeth.. Then Amanda heads into the cockpit to snuggle and talk with McCrae.. Andy comes in to the cockpit when called.. Andy says he's going to bed, and closes the door behind him. McCrae tells Amanda she shouldn't have called him in like that when Spencer was right there.
Amanda: Why do you not want him to know?
McCrae: HYou tell everyone every f'ing thing.
Amanda: I don't need this. Like seriously. Make a f'in mountian out of a molehill. You should get pissed at me right now. It's a great idea.
Amanda leaves McCrae and goes out to the Hammock.
Cam 3
Howard and Judd
Judd: I'm definitely considering it. I have to think about it over night. But I'll let you know tomorrow for sure.
Judd: Where's McCrae?
Amanda: He's in the cockpit.
• Amanda's still on the Hammock..
• McCrae's solo in the cockpit..
• Judd and Spencer cover the pool table and head inside for bed.
McCrae and Spencer
Cam 3
McCrae: GM I feel will definitely go on the block..
Spencer: There's always a possibility of putting me up too.. That sounds like Amanda coming in.. Let her be worried, but comfort her.
Amanda enters.
Spencer: I'm gonna let ya'll have your peace.
McCrae: He said that there's never been a bad word that's come out of my mouth about him, and he appreciates..
Amanda: You don't trust me now. You can't even look at me. What's wrong? What are you thinking about?
McCrae: Nothing.
Amanda: What is wrong with you? You're acting so weird.
McCrae: You stormed out and walked away from me.
Amanda: You make the biggest thing out of nothing..
McCrae: As soon as Andy told me, I came and told you.
Amanda: I didn't think it was such a big deal.
McCrae: Like, why would you even say, what other deals do you have.. Using your very own logic..
Amanda: I'm a f'ing Have Not and I'm on the block.. and I don't want you to be mad at me for something so stupid and little! I trust you. It's just like, scary. I do trust you.
McCrae: I trust you. The part I'm pissed about is when you said, Do you have any other secrets?
Amanda: I'm just nervous.. I trust you.. You know I trust you.. You look at me.. Do you trust me.
McCrae: I do.. It's just.. annoying.
Amanda: You are making a bigger deal about this than I made about the Moving Company. One little thing that you can easily mend, you're turning into a huge ordeal.
McCrae: You said, what else aren't you telling me.. Why would you even ask me are we final 2 or not..
Amanda: I just don't wanna look stupid. I know you have a final 2 with Judd.
McCrae: Why would I ever tell you??
Amanda: Just a little thing, just blurting out "is there anything else," that's what you'r egonna hold on to?? I am SO stressed. You know I trust you. It was just words.
McCrae: I'm just thinking.. About what it means..
Amanda: What are you talking about? You're talking like f'ing Howard right now..
Amanda gets up and moves closer to McCrae.
Amanda: I trust you. I love you. I wasn't even thinking.
Fishies, briefly
McCrae: It's a big deal if 2 of the alliance members aren't on the same page.. I lied to you about the moving company, but I lied to Andy and Judd too.
Amanda: You didn't lie. Did he ask you flat out?
McCrae: No.. He said I'm thinkin' about..
**removing skippy's trigger finger?
McCrae: That's understandable.. That's fine, but it's gonna look really badly on me.
Amanda: It doesn't look bad on you, it looks bad on Judd.
McCrae: But we've always known he was a shady f*cker. But now I'm the asshole.
Amanda: I'm sorry. I'm cranky. I'm on the block. You don't understand.. Every time a door closes with Howard and Spencer, I feel like I'm being plotted against.
McCrae: But me and you come as a pair.
Back and forth with weepy proclamations of trust..
Amanda: It's just scary that people are already talking about who's going to jury. It's too early. THey're playing too hard.
McCrae: But you're playing equally as hard. There's no point to telling Andy. There's no reason.
Amanda: Ok.. but I already did it. I thought alliances were open and honest with each other.
McCrae: Of course. That's why, when I get lef tout of the loop, I'm not happy.
Amanda: I'm sorry.
McCrae: I know. It's ok.
Amanda: You're really worrying about something that's not a big deal. Andy doesn't not trust you.. Judd..
McCrae: Judd doesn't trust any of us.
Amanda: Please stop worry about it. How about worrying about me staying in the house.
McCrae: You're staying in the house. That's pretty much done. Howard said he's not gonna campaign against Candice.
Amanda: Andy and Judd were in here a long time with them.
McCrae: It doesn't matter. They wont flip. Judd's too big of a pussy to flip.
Talk turns to Judd's relationship with Aaryn, and how he'll keep her over Amanda..
Amanda: I need you to hold me and kiss me. Don't be mad at me.
McCrae obliges..
Amanda: There's gonna be another love triangle..
McCrae: I know.
Amanda: Aaryn said she wants Judd..
McCrae; That's weird.
Amanda: I don't think it's a game thing. I think it's an emotional thing.
Tearful proclamations of love and trust.. from Amanda to McCrae...
Amanda: (still crying) This is more than just a game to me, because I have you. You're the only real thing to me in this entire f'ing game. So if I feel like you don't trust me, then there's no point. You're all I have in this game.
Amanda: Why aren't you talking? I just don't want you to think anything bad.
McCrae: I don't. I swear to God I don't think anything bad.
Amanda: Ok.. I can't control this. I should let it go. This is a control thing. You are the only person I care about in this game. I care about you more than I care about myself in this game. I want to have a life with you. Why am I so __ right now? What are you thinking?
McCrae: Nothing.
Amanda: I knew you would be mad, but I didn't think it would compromise your trust for me.. If anything, it just makes you and Andy closer.. I think that conversation with Candice was really good today.
McCrae: Super good.
Amanda: I think she's starting to trust me now.. It's different that it was before. I can see it in her eyes.. Evryone in this house has to target someone.. but just as long as they don't target us together.. I'm really sorry. It was so stupid. I shoulda told you right after.
McCrae: It's gonna be fine.
Amanda: It doesn't matter though.. Andy is more loyal to us than he is to anyone else. Just say, I didn't know she had told you already. If you're tired, you can go to bed.. I just can't let things go.. Like, it's gonna f'in eat at me.
McCrae: It's fine.
Amanda: I feel like I haven't seen you all day.. and you got drunk without me..
McCrae: Tipsy..
Amanda: I love you so much.
McCrae: It's gonna be ok.
**What are you thinking, McCrae?
Amanda: I don't think you were plotting against me..
McCrae: I tell you everything.
Amanda: I know.. and I tell you everything too. I was just being defensive. I f'd up.
McCrae: It's gonna be fine.
They've hit the spin cycle on the one.. perhaps more than once already. Amanda and McCrae have run into some trust issues, but it seems they'll work through it. Although this is ongoing, it's definitely lather, rinse, repeat at this point. Amanda's brain is not her friend right now. It needs protein.
Amanda: I just need you to be supportive and loving to me this week.
McCrae: I told Helen I'll take all the blood off her hands, as long as you stay here. I trust you.
Amanda: I'm sorry..
McCrae; It's fine. Don't worry about it. Everything's gonna be fine.
Amanda: I can just tell you that I love, I would never lie to you, and you are the most important thing to me, inside and outside of this game. And you can believe whatever you want to believe.
McCrae: I believe you.. You're not going anywhere. I wont let it happen.
4:58am -- McCrae and Amanda finally head towards their separate beds..
This concludes the Overnight Report! I'll see you when BB wakes the HGs to get ready for the Veto Ceremony!
Blogger Holli said...
Yay! Thank you!!
July 29, 2013 at 3:41 AM
Blogger Cindi said...
G'morning Carolyn! Thanks for another stellar TOR! I hope you enjoyed your Sunday Sanity Break! I've been looking for an appropriate parting gift for Howard, and this is what I came up with:
ebay dot com/itm/JSLV-Shady-People-Muscle-Tank-Top-Shirt-Black-/330947601810?pt=US_Mens_Tshirts&var=&hash=item4d0e03a592
July 29, 2013 at 4:29 AM
Blogger Debbie Ravelo said...
Is anyone else bored with line 'em up and shoot 'em down? It would be nice to see Amanda go instead of the entire house against one person every week. Seems strange to me that everyone just falls in line with whatever Helen and Amanda want. I guess Howard goes then Spencer etc.... Yawn.
July 29, 2013 at 4:34 AM
Blogger Lucky13 said...
Good morning Carolyn and BBDishers!! I'm in the middle of my morning work routine... reading TOR, and I have the feeds going on my phone. I can't wait to get to the cause of Amanda's crying episode. It looks like I missed quite a bit last night! Well, back to TOR. Will check in after. Everyone have a wonderful day!
July 29, 2013 at 4:34 AM
Blogger paddy028 said...
Vote Amanda out so we don't have to watch her and McCrea any more.
July 29, 2013 at 4:52 AM
Blogger curlerchick said...
Morning Carolyn, thanks for the TOR. Do you think Judd is serious about thinking about voting out Amanda.
If he is getting closer to Aaryn maybe Amanda will go?
July 29, 2013 at 5:47 AM
Blogger Darlene said...
I am wondering how long it is going to take the houseguests to realize that Helen is running the show and to vote her butt out of there !!! Who do you think will speak it first.. I think Judd or McCrea..
July 29, 2013 at 5:52 AM
Blogger Lucky13 said...
Well first I must say Thank You Carolyn!! Great TOR as always and now I'm fully caught up and in the know. My thoughts:
Helen & Elissa - Mean Girls 2.0??? Seems to me they got too much of a kick out of planning to pit Jessie against Aaryn. And speaking of Aaryn, it's (not) funny how she's slowly being replaced as the NEXT target as this game really heats up. All is not forgiven or forgotten for me. She's toned her nastiness down a bit, but it's still there simmering... And for her to think she could ever be America's Favorite... I'm still laughing!!!
I will be soooo upset if Howard gives up his game for Candice. Doesn't he realize that she'll probably be the next to go anyway?? I like her, but I wouldn't be sad if she did get evicted. She CHOSE to campaign for "Howie". If she was more interested in having him stay so she can have someone to snuggle and climb all over then she should suffer the consequences. AT this point, I don't think she cares if she wins the game or not, as long as she can spend time with Howard. So frustrating! Howard is trying to make a good point with Andy and Judd, though he's not expressing it clearly. Bottom line, each person on "the other side of the house" needs to realize their position in the group. Know where you rank and you'll pretty much predict your exit week. If they think they have a chance at the money by sticking with the McManda duo, sadly they are wrong. I must say Amanda's meltdown needed to happen. Her tears and insecurities don't phase me a bit. In fact, if America gets MVP again, I hope she goes up again IF the house doesn't flip and get rid of her Thursday. I guess this makes me a mean girl too. She just annoys me. On top of the fact that she's jacking up McCrae's game. That's what he should be thinking of. He's done more talking to the house since she's been on the block, than he has the whole time they've been there. He has made no individual bonds with anyone other than Amanda. If she goes, he'll be a lost puppy. Well I guess he thinks she's worth it.
Okay, I've gone on a long rant. Just wanted to share a few thoughts. Again, everyone have a great day!!
July 29, 2013 at 6:07 AM
Blogger syeda smith said...
Make it more interesting and vote out Amanda this is getting boring.I hate when one side feels they rule the game and I hate when one side doesn't play anymore. You must fight until it's over... all the way over! Bb bring the spice back!!
July 29, 2013 at 6:57 AM
Blogger Shi Shi said...
Good Morning Carolyn, Cindi, Debbie, Lucky13 and Paddy. Just stuck my head in to say hello before I go back and read the TOR.
Be back in a little while.
Hello Gaytor if you are out there lurking in the swamp! lol Its damn hot here in Louisiana isn't it! You are still in New Orleans right.
July 29, 2013 at 7:16 AM
Blogger GaYToR said...
Good Morning Goddess. Can I get you new ears, new fingers, new eyes, fresh ice, a new keyboard? I don't know how you do it morning after morning. I see who is talking on the quads and go to the least painful people to watch. That's not easy.
Carolyn blogged...
Amanda: I love you so much.
McCrae: It's gonna be ok.
**What are you thinking, McCrae?
I can tell you exactly what he is thinking. 'How do I get away from this control freak without causing myself bodily harm.'
I think it is very telling when one of a couple says 'I love you' and the other one doesn't return the sentiment. McRae wants out but Little McRae is ruling over the situation right now. When a guy can get it all day, any time of the day, and all day long, he doesn't want to turn it lose until he has something on another hook. McRae is a typical 23/24 y/o. Once he got used to getting it so easily he doesn't want to let it go until closer to the end of the game. He knows within 36 hours he will have painful blue balls.
Someone in chat asked why women feel the need to attach themselves to a man so quickly and basically make fools of themselves over the situation. I can answer that in short order. The woman hasn't found the right vibrator so she looks for a substitute. Amanda has hers.
I'm so sick of ending every night with sucky face and moans and groans. Just one season I'd like to see no one have a showmance, romance, bromance, any ance. I watch the feeds to learn what is going on in their heads in regards to the game and how they think it should be played. Once the sex starts all that goes out the window and the man's brain turns to mush, which is exactly how the woman wants it. She can control mush much easier than she can control an individual and original thought.
WoW! Did I go off or what? I now return everyone to their fully upright and locked positions. Thank you for flying GaYToR AiR. We know you have a choice and we appreciate your patience when we have a lucid thought. We try not to let it happen more than 2 or 3 times a season.
July 29, 2013 at 7:20 AM
Blogger Jumbo said...
Rule #1 for BB showmances should be : force yourself to hangout with other people
July 29, 2013 at 7:24 AM
Blogger GaYToR said...
Debbie Ravelo I am bored with it too. I had so much hope for the MVP nomination as a way to shake things up and have a vote split 3 ways even if it didn't end in a tie and force the HoH to decide who goes. Actually I would hope a third nominee would prevent that from happening.
I don't understand the gang mentality of BB and it's been this way for many seasons. They all agree on one and try to make it unanimous.
Maybe it will happen this season. Maybe it won't.
Anyone want to take bets on it?
July 29, 2013 at 7:25 AM
Blogger Patti Z said...
Thanks again for TOR, Carolyn.
I am wondering if McCrae might be starting to wonder if America nominated Amanda and what that might be doing to our perception of HIM. I'm not really convinced he has that much game, although Amanda is shielding him, so maybe that IS his game. But meh, not impressed with him as much as others seem to be. And if the HGs don't break them up soon, I think they'll live to regret it. I'm interested to see which one of the powerful women players, Helen or Amanda, will go first.
July 29, 2013 at 7:29 AM
Blogger Jumbo said...
Elissa has no game. None. But its kinda cute how clueless she is about things. Does she get stoned in the DR?
July 29, 2013 at 7:34 AM
Blogger Jumbo said...
How did the 3rd vote note go to Helen? For real
July 29, 2013 at 7:43 AM
Blogger Mappy said...
Thank you Carolyn. You're a saint!
July 29, 2013 at 7:46 AM
Blogger Jen said...
I really don't understand what Howard or Candice have done to make themselves shady or targets as "strong game players."
July 29, 2013 at 7:54 AM
Blogger Jumbo said...
Apparently, the only way to play BB is the Howie way. BB doesnt really start until we get to the jury
July 29, 2013 at 7:55 AM
Blogger YKW said...
What a great job you do for us ~ huge huge Kudo's TY TY TY ~ if I have to hear Candice say one more time "its cause I have a big heart am seriously going to PUKE! Howard now is showing America how stupid he is ~ anyone that says vote me to go home instead of Candice ~ cripes its a game PEOPLE!! what I want Judd and Jessie final 2 ......
July 29, 2013 at 7:55 AM
Blogger Melissa Skinner said...
Who is Jodi?
Also I couldn't figure out where it was that Amanda made McCrae mad? Also it's so awkward how she confesses her love & he never says anything back.
July 29, 2013 at 8:04 AM
Blogger NaturalGrace28 said...
I just tweeted earlier this morning that something needs to happen that will shake up Helen's little safety net.
July 29, 2013 at 8:13 AM
Blogger Carolyn said...
Good morning Holli! :)
Good morning, Cindi! :)
Good morning, Debbie! :)
Good morning, Lucky13! :)
Good morning, paddy! :)
Good morning, CurlerChick! :)
Good mroning, Darlene! :)
Good morning, Syeda! :)
Good morning, ShiShi! :)
Good morning, GaytOr! :)
Good morning, Jumbo! :)
Good morning, pattiZ! :)
Good morning, Mappy! :)
Good morning, Jen! :)
Good morning, YKW! :)
Good morning, Melissa! :) - Jodi was 1st evicted last season.
July 29, 2013 at 8:19 AM
Blogger Carolyn said...
Psst - It's wakey wakey time.. Look out for a new top post. :)
July 29, 2013 at 8:19 AM
Blogger ala said...
I would so love to see Amanda walk out that door. I want to see BB game played not a love in.
July 29, 2013 at 9:04 AM
Blogger Smitty Smith said...
So sick of the showmances and also sick of the BB cameramen who think anything Amanda does is worth air time. Seldom see Jessie, Howard, or Spencer on camera because they will leave the camera on auto whenever Amanda arrives. Even if someone is about to say something gamewise they will shift to Amanda lying in bed.
July 29, 2013 at 11:44 AM
Blogger syeda smith said...
Awww Thank you!!! I have loved you for years..
July 29, 2013 at 12:39 PM
Blogger syeda smith said...
Yessssss! !!! This follow the leader is getting so boring!!
July 29, 2013 at 12:40 PM
Blogger Jumbo said...
Was evicted the very first night in the house last season
July 29, 2013 at 4:05 PM
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Saturday, July 3, 2010
"A Crisis in the Crib" Carnival: How can we save the lives of black babies?
"Disparities are differences that ought not be..."
Did you know that the United States is ranked 29th in the world when it comes to infant mortality? That over 400 babies under the age of 1 died in Shelby County, Tennessee in 2006 and 2007? That black babies are three times more likely to die before their first birthday? That in some places, like Memphis and Milkwaukee, the infant mortality rates for black babies are more in line with third world countries than the wealthiest nation in the world?
These are some of the sobering statistics brought to light by the "A Healthy Baby Begins With You" campaign, created by the US Office on Minority Health and featured in the documentary A Crisis in the Crib.
As we see in the documentary, the campaign has taken a unique approach to helping lower the infant mortality rates. The campaign focuses on pre-conception health, hoping to improve health outcomes for babies by making sure their mothers and fathers are as healthy as they can possibly be before they even decide to have children. To this end, Tonya Lewis-Lee, the face of the campaign, traveled around the country speaking to high school students about why taking care of themselves is so important. In one scene, when she asked if anyone in the room knew of someone who had lost a baby, several hands went up, including one teenager whose sister had died at 5 months of age after weighing a mere 12 ounces at birth, and never leaving the NICU.
In addition to having Tonya Lewis-Lee as the spokesperson, the campaign also created a Pre-Conception Peer Educator Program (PPE) which trained minority college students to go into the community and speak to people about pre-conception health, including preventing STDs and how a father's health can impact the health of his babies. They gave people pamphlets and hosted free health screenings. I loved the grassroots outreach and think this is a great way to reach people where they are, as well as educate college students about healthy habits, which let's face it, most of us were not too concerned with.
So after reading all of this you're probably thinking that it's outrageous and sad that there are still such health disparities, but that poverty is a huge factor here and that these disparities won't disappear until families pull themselves out of poverty. Eh eh. As shown in the documentary, black women who are middle class, college-educated and have access to health care are also three times more likely to lose their babies in their first year of life.
Let that marinate for a minute. For black women, the greatest determining factor of whether or not their babies will die in the first year of life is their race. In fact, studies have shown that black educated women had higher infant mortality rates than white high school drop outs. I think that this is one of the most powerful messages of the film, that even if we were to get everyone in our communities healthy and seeing a doctor regularly, that racism would mean that our health outcomes would always be worse. The stress of being a black woman in America trumps healthy habits.
And while I think that pre-conception health is vitally important, that battling systemic racism in the healthcare field is a lofty goal, and that preventing babies from being born too small and too early is going to make a huge difference in these numbers, I was sorely disappointed that the words "breastfeeding" and "breast milk" were not uttered once in the entire film.
Increasing breastfeeding rates in the black community is actually not even one of the campaign goals, which I certainly find to be strange. The film shows several families who have babies in the NICU and not one mention of these moms pumping breast milk for their babies or how breast milk can literally be the difference between life and death for a preemie in the NICU. As I sat and watched a couple in tears, sitting next to their baby in an incubator, talk about how they spend 24 hours a day in that hospital and wish there was something they could do to take the baby's pain away and make her better, I was shocked that breastfeeding was not mentioned as a way to save the lives of black babies. In fact, I only caught one mention of breastfeeding and only because I am eagle-eyed and was really looking for it. At the 29:58 mark, there is footage of a health fair where a pamphlet from the Shelby County Breastfeeding Coalition is sitting on a table, next to some bottles, a hand pump and breast shells. That's it. Sigh.
Although "enjoy" seems to be the wrong word, I really did learn a lot from this documentary and I would encourage you to take the 30 minutes to watch it. If you know a young person of color who is a college student, send them some information about the PEP. More people need to understand how prevalent infant mortality is and that simply by being black you are at a greater risk of losing your baby before his first birthday.
This is an important film and a topic that is not discussed nearly enough amongst activists. While some spend their time getting enraged over what are deemed to be unnecessary interventions during labor, we'd all do well to remember that across this country sisters and their babies will be at a disadvantage before they even get to the hospital, and even if they have a perfect, intervention-free birth. Our babies are dying and they don't have to be. These disparities ought not to exist.
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Kamis, 09 Juli 2009
Desktop Wallpaper Bali Indonesia
Bali is an island in Indonesia, and became one of the provinces of Indonesia. Bali lies between Java and Lombok Island. Provinsinya is the capital of Denpasar Bali is a majority of the population embraces Hinduism. The world famous Bali as a tourism destination with a unique variety of art-budayanya.Bali also known as Pulau Dewata.
Bali residents about a number of 4 million people, with the majority 92.3% profess Hinduism. Other religion is Islam, Protestant, Catholic, and Buddhist.
Apart from the tourism sector, people living from Bali also agriculture and fisheries. Some also choose to become artists. The language used in Bali is Bahasa Indonesia, Bali, and the UK, especially for working in the tourism sector.
Bahasa Bali and Bahasa Indonesia is the language most widely pemakaiannya in Bali, Indonesia, and as other people, most of the Balinese people are bilingual or even trilingual. Although there are several dialects in Bali, the community use of the same shape Bali Bali sexual language as an option in communication. The tradition, the use of various language dialects Bali chess set based on the color system in the Hindu Dharma, even if the implementation of tradition tend to decrease.
English is a third language (and the main foreign language) for many community Bali, which is influenced by the needs of a large tourism industry. Employees who work at centers in the Bali tourist information, often also understand some of the foreign language competence is sufficient.
bali another wallpaper
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Some families are deeply rooted in their communities. They have been present in their respective city or town for multiple generations, and have built themselves to be the leadership in the community. In other instances however, families do not have this opportunity. When families have parents who are serving in the armed forces, they are frequently moving, getting deployed, or re-stationed at different bases.
Partially for this reason, military bases are communities in and of themselves. They are fully equipped with housing, schools, grocery stores, superstores, police forces and fire departments. They have designed these bases in a manner in which if a person did not desire to leave the base, they would not need to. The families in the military seem to be almost constantly moving. They uproot from one base and move to another, pulling the children out of one school, and starting them fresh somewhere else. The children need to make new friends, and re-establish themselves in the social pecking order at their new school. The parents basically need to do the same thing in the adult social pyramid. Parents will need to make new friends, and find new activities to occupy their time. The challenge of frequent moving is a daunting task to say the least.
Moving to a new place is intimidating to say the least. For which ever family member is in the military, the task is a little less stressful, because they are going to the new location already set with a job. Another thing which makes moving with the member in the military less stressful is that the military covers the cost of the move or make the move for the family, pack the belongings and take them to the next base. The non-military family members however are faced with not knowing what they will be faced with when they get to their new destination. Will they be able to make new friends? Will they find people with whom they can get along or who share their interests? These are questions which they will each be wondering about, questions which will cause them significant amounts of stress.
Not all of the military families live on base, and our armed forces are the ones who allow us to live the lives which we do without significant worry. So if you are familiar with a military family, keep in mind that they are always moving, and more so keep in mind why they are moving. Do your best to welcome these families and to make them feel comfortable. Think of how you would feel if you were the one who was in a new situation, and try to make these families feel as you would want to feel in a new place with new people.
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Dive Dry with Dr. Bill
028: Triggerfish
My diving in the Gulf of California has given me an opportunity to more closely observe a fish also found in our waters, the finescale triggerfish. This species and its relatives are not usually native to our temperate waters and kelp forests, but to the warmer waters of the Gulf of California south to Chile. They were first noted here during the extreme 1982-84 El Nino event when stronger currents from the south brought much warmer water into our region. Although these conditions were not good for our kelp and the species dependent on it, it sure was nice to dive in warm water off Descanso Beach! With predictions of a milder El Nino this year, it will be interesting to see if our local triggerfish population receives some new immigrants, either as adults or planktonic larvae and young.
The triggerfish have remained in our waters since then, and are occasionally seen from the glassbottom boats in Lover's Cove. I have observed them there briefly while diving, but they tend to be skittish and remain at a distance. Since our waters are much cooler than they are accustomed to, many have questioned whether they are able to reproduce off Catalina. I can't answer that question without a scientific study. It is possible these fish are long-lived, and new individuals may also have arrived during subsequent El Nino events. I'm just glad that humans can reproduce (or not as they choose) in any climate!
While diving SE Asia and the South Pacific, I familiarized myself with many other species of triggerfish. My favorites were the beautiful clown and Picasso triggerfish I followed frequently while snorkeling and diving the waters of Moorea, one of the Tahitian islands. Many other species were there as well. On my first dive in Moorea, I was fascinated by but not concerned about the nearly 100 sharks of four species that continuously circled my group. What really concerned me were the giant triggerfish in those waters. It was mating season and this species is well known for its aggressiveness in defending its nest.
If it were only the nest they defend, avoiding these large (up to 30") fish would be fairly easy. However, like many triggerfish, the giant defends not just the nest itself but a funnel-shaped territory originating at the nest and increasing in diameter upwards to the surface. Giant triggerfish will attack anything, including divers, that enter this territory. They are known to bite through swim fins and even take chunks out of a diver's legs. Fortunately I was able to prevent an attack by kicking my fins in their face when they approached (the recommended defense).
Although the finescale triggerfish also defends its nest in similar fashion but there appears to be no similar danger in Lover's Cove here. Perhaps it is because the waters are too cool to mate and form nests, and therefore there is nothing to defend. Possibly something is lacking in their diet here to produce the hormones that "trigger" aggressiveness. Here on Catalina I consider myself lucky just to get a glimpse of them. However in their Gulf of California home waters, these fish, although still skittish, were far easier to approach. I was able to get good video footage from both Isla Santa Catalina and "neighboring" Isla San Francisco using a slight telephoto lens. Most of the individuals there were often blotched with large dark spots on the side of their body. Ones I've seen in our waters tend to be more uniform, and there were a few like this intermingled with the others in Mexico.
Triggerfish are named because of the prominant first spine on their forward dorsal fin (see pictures). They propel themselves primarily with the secondary dorsal and anal fins, and are fairly distinctive if seen while swimming. Although found over sandy bottoms here and In Mexican waters, they seem to prefer rocky reefs where they can quickly escape into the crevices whenever the infamous Dr. Bill approaches with his video camera! I guess I need to pay them and get them to sign a model release for some tight portraits!
Image caption: Blunthead triggerfish (upper left) and finescale
triggerfish in the Gulf of California, Mexico
This document maintained by Dr. Bill Bushing.
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Robert Reich vs. Income Inequality
Bill Clinton's secretary of labor explains why the growing economic divide between rich and poor is bad for everyone
Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)
AP Photo/Jeff Chiu
Robert Reich rallies the crowd at an Occupy San Francisco demonstration in 2011.
The documentary Inequality for All is often described as the Inconvenient Truth of the economy.
Like Al Gore's Oscar-winning climate-change flick, it's an improbably entertaining film that's based on a lecture by a former Clinton administration official.
Sign up for the AARP Money Newsletter
Here, it's Robert Reich, the U.S. secretary of labor from 1993 to 1997, warning about another potential cataclysm: the growing gap between America's richest and poorest citizens, which is among the highest in the developed world.
Reich, a political economist who is now a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, spoke with AARP Radio's Mike Cuthbert about why too much money at the top is a problem for everyone. Following are excerpts from the interview.
Q: Why should we worry about income inequality?
A: The middle class is shrinking in America. Most of the gains have gone to the very top. This is not about class warfare: I tell people, even wealthy people, that they'd do better with a smaller share of a rapidly growing economy than a large share of an economy that's barely growing.
Q: But corporate profits are at record highs. Where's that money going?
A: It's going to buying back stock to prop up share prices, or into expanding production abroad, where there are new consumers. Companies aren't using their profits to build capacity in the United States.
Q: Why is this so hard to address?
A: In the last 150 years, every time we got to a point of inequality close to what we have now, reformers stepped in to save capitalism from its own excesses. Today we're so wrapped up in divisive politics that we may lose sight of the big issue that should unite us all — making sure our economy is working for everybody, not just a few.
Listen to the full conversation by using the audio player above.
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Bodypainting Festival Austria
WHAT some people will do for art.
Around 30,000 people gathered in Austria for the weekend for the 15th World Bodypainting Festival.
The three-day event is held in Poertschach in south-central Austria each year.
More than 200 artists from 44 countries showed off their creations in the hope of taking home a prestigious World Award - the equivalent of a world championship title.
The event was created in 1998 by Alex Barendregt who was working in a local travel agency and was given the task of organising a new summer event.
He chose body painting on a whim after seeing a photograph about it.
The artists compete different categories including brush and sponge, airbrush and special effects.
Click here to see more photos from the festival
Bodypainting Festival Austria
Bodypainting Festival AustriaSource:AFP
Originally published as Colourful characters at bodypainting festival | <urn:uuid:79ad2884-fb5a-490f-9f21-604fb242bfb5> | http://www.news.com.au/travel/world-travel/painted-ladies-and-men-at-15th-world-bodypainting-festival-in-austria/news-story/4b380af98f3db5c2a2c76addac32acd0?from=public_rss | en | 0.949419 | 0.020471 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
SciELO - Scientific Electronic Library Online
vol.7 número2Editorial: Continuous Improvement of JTAER through Monitoring Performance IndicatorsThe Importance of Individual Characteristics on Consideration Sets for Online Auction Buyers índice de autoresíndice de materiabúsqueda de artículos
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Journal of theoretical and applied electronic commerce research
versión On-line ISSN 0718-1876
Journal of Theoretical and Applied Electronic Commerce Research
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VOL 7 / ISSUE 2 / AUGUST 2012 / 1-12 © 2012
Universidad de Talca - Chile
This paper is available online at
Distrust, Fear and Emotional Learning: An Online Auction Perspective
Glenn Robert Bewsell
University of Wollongong, School of Information Systems and Technology, Wollongong, Australia,
This exploratory research explores the emotional perspective of online distrust, where distrust is a fear. Fear is one of the negative emotions where the situational state is motive-inconsistent and uncertainty is present. A review of literature explores distrust as a fear, emotions, emotional learning and identifies cognitive dimensions consistent with fear. These cognitive dimensions are motive-inconsistent situational state, uncertainty, goal-path obstacle, effort, and agency/control. Textual data is collected from an online auction community website to support this research. The dimensions consistent with fear are identified within the data collected and analyzed using qualitative analysis. Goal-path obstacles are identified within the data as; value incongruence, user isolation, user inefficacy, and financial. The goal-path obstacles identified are consistent with types of fear. The research findings are discussed in terms of the theory and offers suggestions to practitioners to improve the design of online auctions by reducing the effects of fear and emotional learning.
Keywords: Fear, Distrust, Emotional learning, E-commerce, Online auction, Community website
1 Introduction
Users make decisions to form online transactions based on incomplete information, such as dubitable online histories and a lack of personal knowledge. The placement of trust online is problematic, and the lack of trust is regarded as a major barrier to transacting online [15]. Current research mainly focuses on efforts to understand and improve online trust [13], [29].
Research into distrust is limited [14] and distrust may be even harder to define than trust [6]. Previous research into distrust investigates distrust as a construct [6], [8], [11], [14], [19], the relationship between distrust and trust [19], fears related to e-marketplace adoption [11], and fears related to economic loss and social harm [8]. The emotional perspective of distrust is worthy of research. A better understanding of people's emotions, fear and distrust can help address people's concerns with transacting online.
When compared with other transactional domains, online auction is a good domain to explore and address these gaps. At online auctions, buyers and sellers are virtually anonymous, not expected to have personal knowledge of each other, and form transactions based on incomplete information.
This research considers distrust as a motive-inconsistent situational state that is consistent with fear. This research attempts to address the questions: what factors are consistent with the negative emotional state of fear, what are the main obstacles when transacting online, what are the main types of fear when transacting online, and what builds fear when transacting online? Qualitative research and content analysis of data collected from the user community is used to identify factors related to fear and distrust at online auctions. The contribution of this exploratory research is to expand the emotional perspective of distrust. This research explores key cognitive dimensions to emotion and fear, explores emotional learning and provides practitioners with a better understanding of distrust as a fear.
2 Theoretical Perspective
This section discusses trust, the main perspectives of distrust, trust and distrust, emotions and fear, emotional learning, distrust building in eCommerce, and the motivation to study distrust at online auctions.
2.1 Trust
The two main perspectives of trust are trust as a psychological state and trust as choice behavior [16].
Trust as a psychological state relates to cognitive processes and "perceived vulnerability or risk" [16] p. 571 and relates to "motives, intentions and prospective actions of others on whom they depend" [16] p. 571. Trust is forward looking and is normally considered as an expectation prior to the formation of a transaction [8], [19]. Trust is "favorable expectations about what other people will do" [10] p. 726 and to be willing to rely on the other person based on those favorable expectations [10]. The main trust beliefs relate to: benevolence and caring about the others welfare; and credibility, competence, honesty and integrity [2], [8], [11], [15].
Trust as choice behavior is where "individuals are presumed to make rational, efficient choices (i.e. to maximize expected gains and minimize expected losses from their transactions)" [16] p. 572. The benefit of studying trust as choice behavior is the ability to observe the decisions made. There is a growing body of literature to support that choices are made within a social structure and relational environment and these choices are not always based on a rational calculation [16].
Current trust research focuses on the logical and cognitive aspects of trust. However, online transactions do not always behave as expected, trust can be betrayed and trust once placed is difficult to rescind.
2.2 Main Perspectives of Distrust
Distrust beliefs are negative expectations [8], [11], [12], [19], and distrust can be viewed as a psychological state or as a choice behavior.
Distrust as a psychological state is a feeling or a perception just as trust is a feeling or a perception. Distrust concerns confident negative expectations or things feared [17], or an "expectation of injurious action" [18] p. 72. Distrust is a suspicion, a doubt, a lack of certainty or a lack of confidence [8], [19]. Distrust is a belief and a fear, "with feelings of relative certainty or confidence" [20] p. 885. In-flight service monitoring links fear and distrust as "flight attendants came to fear and distrust their passengers" [16] p. 591. In an integration of previous distrust literature, distrust is an "unwillingness to be vulnerable" [8] p. 367 on the other party due to expectations of reckless behavior, violation of obligations, not caring, intended harm and ineptness [8]. Distrust is linked to areas of the brain associated with negative emotions [8].
Distrust as choice behavior is where an individual makes a rational choice to avoid or minimize expected losses and harm. An individual may choose to distrust and be unwilling to rely on the object of focus due to confident negative expectations or things feared, and an individual may decide that better options are available to maximize one's interest. Distrust-related behaviors minimize the dependence on others by being less cooperative, distorting information, introducing or increasing controls, formalizing agreements and an unwillingness to transact [19].
Previous research indicates a range of distrust beliefs based on expectations, refer Table 1. McKnight & Chervany [19] present a typology of distrusting beliefs and fears where expectations relate to a lack of competence, benevolence, integrity and predictability. Dimoka [8] presents an experimental behavioral study where expectations relate to fears of economic loss and social harm. Hsiao [11] investigates e-marketplace adoption where expectations relate to task-specific reliability and an incompatibility between employees' expected values and organizational values. Lewicki et al. [17] define distrust in terms of fears, whereas Hsiao [11] in their model of e-marketplace adoptions suggest that reliability-related distrust and value-oriented distrust impact reliability related fears and value-oriented fears respectively.
Table 1: Distrust beliefs based on expectations
The main distrust expectations identified from previous research relate to competence, benevolence, integrity, predictability, discredibility (economic loss), malevolence (social harm), reliability and values.
2.3 Trust and Distrust
Current research mainly considers trust and research into distrust is limited [14]. One explanation for this imbalance is the ongoing uncertainty related to trust and distrust as constructs. Literature typically defines trust and distrust as the opposite of each other [19], [20]. However, it is an assumption to consider that designs that build trust will decrease distrust [5], [14]. One should not assume that distrust is the antithesis of trust.
Is trust and distrust opposite ends of the same construct or two separate and distinct constructs [17], [19]? The two conflicting views of trust and distrust as constructs are that an online user may: i) either trust or distrust the object; or ii) trust and distrust the same object at the same time. In an attempt to resolve these conflicting views of trust and distrust, Komiak & Benbasat [14] empirically tested recommendation agents and McKnight, Kacmar & Choudhury [21] empirically tested dispositional trust and distrust. Empirical evidence to date is insufficient to support either view.
The main concern with trust and distrust as opposite ends of the same construct is the definitive relationship between trust and distrust and the drastic change between trust and distrust around the mid point of the continuum. Distrust, fears, doubts and suspicions may be more persistent and not easy to change around a mid point. A doubt means that one is not sure if something is true or not, and a suspicion is where one doubts or suspects without clear grounds. So, either distrust can exist on both sides of a theoretical mid point or the theoretical mid point is difficult to define. For example, a person can face fear, doubt and suspicion and still be willing to bungee jump from a platform, bridge, balloon or helicopter.
The main concern with the co-existence of trust and distrust is the conflict between the two (2) psychological states [14]. The conflict between the two psychological states can be explained as states of tension that arise and are not easy to resolve in multifaceted and multiplex relationships [17]. Researchers consider trust as a cognitive construct [17], [19], [20], whereas researchers define and research distrust in terms of fears and emotions [8], [17], [20]. Trust is fragile [16], whereas distrust is frenzied and fiery [20]. Frenzied and fiery are terms that convey emotion.
A growing body of evidence from cognitive neuroscience and information systems supports that trust and distrust are different and separate constructs. Studies into online banking and the use of ATM machines support the coexistence of trust and distrust [3], [28]. Trust and distrust as separate constructs is supported by a four quadrant framework of trust and distrust as: high trust/low distrust; high trust/high distrust; low trust/low distrust; and low trust/high distrust [17]. High trust and low distrust is where one forms an eCommerce transaction on a particular website [17]. Low trust and low distrust is where one is willing to use a website for information gathering [17] and there is no intent to bid or to buy via that website. Low trust and high distrust is where one fears the transaction is ill-defined or the incentives to defect are high and the potential buyer is not willing to bid or to form a transaction on the website [17]. High trust and high distrust is where one is willing to form a transaction on the website and the person continually requests the seller for assurances or the buyer continually fears a particular aspect to the transaction [17]. For example, the buyer may have ongoing fears related to the type of payment required such as payment by money order.
This research takes the perspective that trust and distrust are two separate and distinct constructs, and processes that build trust are different to processes that build distrust. Trust is more cognitive and distrust is more emotive.
2.4 Emotions and Fear
The study of emotions dates back to Aristotle and is based on the common sense idea that people have emotional experiences [27]. The Oxford English Dictionary Online describes an emotion as "an agitation of mind; an excited mental state. Subsequently: any strong mental or instinctive feeling, as pleasure, grief, hope, fear, etc., deriving esp. from one's circumstances, mood, or relationship with others". People experience different emotions.
Researchers found a cognitive aspect to emotion where cognition is heated up and colored emotionally [4]. Emotional experiences are linked to one's cognitive appraisal of the environment [27]. This cognitive aspect to emotion is termed hot cognition [1]. Smith and Ellsworth [27] find a strong relationship between a person's circumstances and their emotional state along six (6) different dimensions: pleasantness; anticipated effort; certainty; self-other responsibility/control; attentional activity; and situational control. Smith and Ellsworth [27] consider the dimension of goal-path obstacle and combine items from this dimension with pleasantness and effort. Roseman et al. [24] consider dimensions of situational state, motivational state, probability, power, legitimacy, and agency. Roseman et al. [24] find empirical support to link one's appraisals of cognitive dimensions to one's emotions. The author posits goal-path obstacle is more salient and better differentiated in goal related events such as eCommerce transactions.
Researchers have shown support that people experience emotions when they recall a past emotional event or read information that elicits emotions. Subjects can recall past experiences to enable researchers to study emotion [24], [27]. Dimoka [8] uses functional neuroimaging and manipulated online auction seller feedback to study; distrust, fear, and emotion.
Fear is one of the emotions. The Oxford English Dictionary Online describes fear as "to apprehend; to frighten; to feel alarmed or uneasy lest (something should happen); to be afraid of (a person or thing as a source of danger, an anticipated event or state of things as painful or evil); to have an uneasy sense of the probability of (some unwelcome occurrence in the future)".
There are two (2) components to fear, dispositional fear and situational fear [9]. Dispositional fear is one's tendency to react with fear and situational fear is fear one actually experiences during an episode [9]. One's fears might be moderated by self-efficacy where one believes they have the ability to cope with a fearful situation [9]. This suggests that users will develop less fear where processes and technology allows a user to be responsible for and maintain control over negative situations that do arise and the user is able to resolve their concerns.
Uncertain outcomes lead to emotions such as hope and fear [24], perceiving oneself as weak can lead to fear [24] p. 902, and fear draws attention to the source [27]. An unpredictable situation draws and demands more attention than a predictable situation. Fear is described as an unpleasant state that demands extreme amounts of effort and is associated with maximal uncertainty [27]. Fear is also associated with situational control and other responsibility control [27]. Fear relates to unpleasantness, uncertainty, effort and control.
Roseman et al. [24] support that appraisals of higher uncertainty leads to fear and hope and appraisals of motive-inconsistent situational states compared with motive-consistent situational states distinguish between fear and hope. Emotions such as fear and hope are produced when attention focus is on an "event rather than its agent" [24] p. 911. For instance one fears the event of being attacked or bitten by a dog rather than the dog. The attribution of causes to agents elicits different types of emotions such as love, anger and dislikes [24].
The distinction between an event focus and an agent focus is relevant for eCommerce transactions where one generally does not know the agent. The focus of fear is related to possible events related to the transaction or the transaction itself. The emotion of surprise relates to events that are so unlikely as to be unknown [24].
Of interest to this research are cognitive dimensions consistent with one experiencing negative emotions and fear. The cognitive dimensions of interest to this research are appraisals of: motive-inconsistent situational states, goal-path obstacle, uncertainty, effort, and agency/control. Motive-inconsistent situational states are states that are unpleasant and elicit negative emotions. Goal-path obstacles are the obstacles and events surrounding the problematic states. Uncertainty relates to probability and indicates the uncertainty of events and event outcomes. Uncertain outcomes lead to fear [24]. Effort relates to the time and effort to achieve a desired result. Agency/control is the location of responsibility and control; self, other, and environmental.
2.5 Emotional Learning
Emotional reactions in animals and humans can be conditioned such as pairing a tone or a foot shock with an aversive event [22]. The tone or foot shock acts as a stimulus. Once the stimulus is linked to an aversive event, the stimulus by itself can bring on the emotional response associated with that event. The responses are learned and the learned responses can include heart rate increases, blood pressure increases, startle responses and stress hormones [22].
In humans, people learn fear by; experiencing the aversive event, conditioning where a stimulus is linked to the aversive event, instruction where one hears about the aversive event, or observation where one sees an aversive event [22]. Even pictures of spiders, snakes and angry faces have been used to demonstrate fear conditioning [22]. Fears are learned through real and imagined experiences. Fears and fear reactions can be learned and maintained even though the person never experiences the aversive event [22]. Fear learned through experience impacts one's disposition to fear [9]. Fears are continuously learned and one's disposition to fear changes over time. The more one experiences the fear the more likely the impact on one's disposition to fear.
Encoding, retention and recall are more likely for stimuli and events that arouse an emotional response than for stimuli and events that are more neutral [22]. Emotional arousal such as fear is thought to enhance the consolidation of episodic memory [22]. Intense and highly emotional events impact flash-bulb memory and enhance the subject's confidence with their remember judgments [22]. The magnitude and duration of the learned links are due to episodic memory, flash-bulb memory, and repetition. Users learn fear over time or more quickly where events, images and instruction are more intense. Malevolence is one of the intense negative emotions [8] and is likely to trigger flashbulb memory.
2.6 Distrust Building in E-commerce
Suspicions, doubts and fears can arise during e-commerce transactions. Distrust is built when expectations are not met or the compatibility of beliefs and values are called into question [26]. The disconfirmation or violation of expectations builds distrust [8], [14], [19]. The author posits that a person only needs to perceive that expectations will be disconfirmed or violated to build distrust.
Komiak & Benbasat [14] studied distrust building in recommendation agents and argued that a process view of building distrust relies on a disconfirmation of a user's expectations. The main evaluations relate to awareness of the unknown, incompetence and expectation disconfirmation, refer Table 2.
Table 2: Distrust building
Prior to an e-commerce transaction, individuals form expectations, and place trust to form a transaction. During a transaction, trust can be betrayed, disconfirmed or violated and this violation of trust can build distrust [8], [19]. Once distrust is engendered an individual's choices and behaviors can be impacted. Distrust related behaviors include a reduction in the dependence on others by being less cooperative, a provision of distorted information, an introduction of or increasing the level of controls, and to change or formalize agreements [19]. The author posits that individuals may exhibit distrust behavior to cease, change, curtail or minimize fears and expected losses.
2.7 Motivation to Study Distrust Related Behavior at Online Auctions
Online auctions contain a number of characteristics that make them suitable for this research. The number of buyers and sellers that operate within online auctions tend to be large [2], [8]. User anonymity provides an environment of greater uncertainty than environments where buyers and sellers are known to each other [2]. The norms, rules and regulations at online auctions tend to be less known and more variable than other trading environments where users are more experienced [2]. User knowledge gained from other environments may not be readily applied to online auctions and actual trading patterns may not meet user expectations. Current feedback mechanisms provided at online auctions are not ideal and there is a need for alternative reputation mechanisms [2], [8]. Online auction is a suitable domain for this research.
3 Method
Archival information was captured from an online auction community website. This website allowed people to post and share real life information and experiences about 'fraudulent auctions'. This website was available to anyone globally with Internet access. The website was not named here for anonymity and was described as independently operated [25]. The phrase fraudulent auctions was not defined on the website and each user decided what information to post. Fraudulent is wronging another person by false representation, cheating, dishonesty and deceitful means (Oxford English Dictionary Online).
The website provided a more natural online setting where information is posted in the form of a case and shared with the user community. Each posting was called a case. Each case contained a unique number or case identifier, information about the poster of the case (posted by and email details), information about the other party (screen name, name, email, phone and address details), free format case textual information provided by the case poster, and free format textual additional comments. The additional comments were added to a case after the initial case was raised and allowed online textual interactions between the case poster, the other party and community members. The additional comments could include; questions to the case poster, advice or comments from community members, rebuttals or denials from other parties, and additional information from the case poster. The case information available on the website was less structured or unstructured.
Cases captured from the website were entered into NVivo8 [23] in preparation for qualitative analysis. The primary researcher checked the suitability of the cases to be included in the data set for this research. Each case was checked to ensure the case related to online auctions, the case information was legible, each case related to distrust, the case information was sufficient for analysis, the same case number was not duplicated, and the case information was not duplicated across case numbers. 370 cases out of the initial 452 captured cases were found suitable for analysis, and the balance of this research was based on those 370 cases.
The primary researcher reviewed each case and identified and named each concern and linked that concern to the appropriate text with each case. Each type of concern was reviewed for similarity, accuracy, consistency and to avoid overlap. The number of cases that supported each concern was counted. In this way, NVivo8 supported this research for the analysis, to gain insights into and to make sense of the textual information collected as part of this study.
The concerns were arranged into concept maps to group concerns into major themes based on the dimension of interest to this research. The dimensions of interest were motive-inconsistent situational states, goal-path obstacle, uncertainty, effort, and agency/control. The research method supported the identification and understanding of concerns that build fear at online auctions.
4 Data and Results
This section presents the analysis and results of the data collected from the online auction user community website. Of the 370 qualified cases, 91.4% of cases named only one online auction site, 1.4% of cases named more than one online auction site and 7.3% of cases did not specifically name an online auction site. Based on the address details, the predominant countries were 82.4% from the United States of America, 6.2% from the United Kingdom, and 3.0% from Canada.
Even though every transaction required a buyer and a seller, there was an imbalance of cases logged across buyers and sellers. 87.3% of cases were logged by buyers, 9.5% of cases were logged by sellers and 3.2% of cases were logged by other parties, such as potential buyers, investors and traders. The imbalance indicates more obstacles were experienced by buyers than sellers.
118 cases (31.9% of cases) contained one or more additional comments and 377 additional comments were added to cases in total. Of the 118 cases that included additional comments, 84.8% of cases included additional comments from community members, 36.6% of cases included additional comments from the case poster, and finally 20.3% of cases included additional comments from the other party. The data collected was rich textual information from complainants, online auction community members and the other party. Only one case indicated that the problem was resolved to the case poster's satisfaction, albeit slowly.
The textual data included emotive words and formatting. Formatting that conveyed emotions were capitalized text, exclamation marks and other emotive indicators. Words that conveyed emotion were words such as; beware, suspicious, stay away, bad experience, ripped-off, cheated, fraud, fake, thief, liar, scam, scammer, rotten, manipulates, unhappy, dishonest, victimized, upset, dislike, help me and fear. Overall the postings conveyed a range of emotions.
Based on the analysis, the data fitted the dimensions of fear identified: motive-inconsistent situational state, uncertainty, goal-path obstacle, transactional effort and agency/control responsibility. The data supported that the probability of achieving the transactional goal during the transaction was uncertain. The data supported the presence of other emotions as well as fear. Other emotions supported may include; dislike, disgust, surprise, frustration, and anger. Each dimension of fear found within the data will now be presented and discussed in more detail, refer to Table 3. A contextual perspective of fear emerged and major themes were identified within goal-path obstacle.
Table 3: User dimensions of fear supported based on website analysis
Motive-inconsistent situational states related to expected rewards that were absent or incomplete or unexpected punishments that were present. The absent or incomplete rewards were: i) auction items that did not meet expectation such as specifications and assurances; ii) retracted bids; iii) non-payment; and iv) non-return of items after a refund was provided. Punishments were: i) threats of negative feedback such as for fear of negative backlash; ii) being reported to the auction house; and iii) threatening and vulgar emails.
Uncertainty related to the uncertainty or the probability of events and outcomes. This dimension included uncertain transactional outcomes and uncertainty in the steps to resolve transactions. During transactions, buyers were uncertain that: items were shipped; items would be received; received items would meet specifications; transactional assurances would be supported; replacement items would be forthcoming; refunds would be provided; replies would be received; correct information would be received; recourse would be productive; sufficient cases were accessible and available to obtain recourse; the other party was still operational; the other party would be physically identified; or the other party would disappear such as fear this seller maybe disappearing.
Uncertainty existed until a transaction; was resolved (only 1 case), or refunded (3 cases). Where transactions were unresolved, events and outcomes were uncertain and the actions of auctions sites were uncertain. Users expected auction sites to punish or ban others and to improve their auctions site processes. Users and community members identified the non-actioning of events as a concern especially where the same user was found to continue trading under the same or different user identifiers. Uncertainty appeared to reduce over time especially where the expressed emotions were consistent with more certainty such as anger.
Goal-path obstacle relates to the difficulty to acquire auction items that meet expectations. The obstacles are non-responsive communication, types and values of items auctioned, poor auction listings, inability to identify users, lack of validation across users, changes in user behavior and transparency of user behavior. One hundred and thirty-four (134) cases contain non-responsive communication, such as "Seller has refused to call me back, and his email address quit working. Beware", and "She never replied. I've emailed her 20+ times, phoned her twice". Seventy-four (74) cases relate to problematic brands and precious stones found to be copied, fake and falsely advertised, such as: "4 rings tested, they are fake gold plate and glass". Seventy-one (71) cases contain inaccurate and dishonest auction listings, such as "used description of higher quality unit but shipped totally different item", and "claims the picture he posted...was sufficient to tell me what it was". Thirty-eight (38) cases relate to high value items, such as: "builds up positive feedback by selling many less expensive items; when she changes to more costly items". Items of high value increase the financial gain for opportunistic sellers. Thirty-seven (37) cases relate to a lack of validation of users, such as: "I filed complaints for fraud, shill bidding, using multiple IDs with [auction site]. Nothing happened to the [user account] they are still using it" and "Im sure they have a new ID already". Thirty (30) cases contain false advertising, such as "failed to provide a clear valid title to the vehicle". Twenty-eight (28) cases relate to sudden users changes in the types, values, numbers of items being auctioned and feedback. Twenty-eight (28) cases relate to the transparency of user activities, such as "They were pretty slick, and managed to list several of these BUY IT NOW auctions in a 30 day period, before the [negative] feedback started to show". Twenty-five (25) cases relate to ineffective controls. Twenty-two (22) cases relate to the transparency of actions taken by auction sites, such as "I also found out the seller was suspended from [auction site]". Nineteen (19) cases relate to communications channels that stop working. Seventeen (17) cases relate to the shipment of large items. Fifteen (15) cases contain no exchange or refund provided for items returned to sellers, such as "told me to return it to them.I never heard back, never got the promised shirt". Sixteen (16) cases relate to linkages between physical and online identities, such as: "IP address and physical address should be available to buyers who were ripped off"; and "make sure you get confirmation on address and home phone as it is amazing how far someone will go to rip you off". Fourteen (14) cases concern the efficiency and effectiveness of mediation, such as "I filed with [the mediator].he responded and said he would refund some of the money or send the item...I got nothing".
The obstacles relate to transactional events, the other party or a combination of the two. Words such as lair and scammer indicate people oriented obstacles, whereas words such as scam and fraud indicate event oriented obstacles. Many cases contain both event and people oriented obstacles. This suggests that even though other users cause an obstacle the impacted user can change their focus from the other user to the event. This supports that users fear both events and the other party's ability to cause more events. The user may consider a motive-inconsistent situation many times and from different perspectives.
The goal-path obstacles can be grouped into four (4) main groups as; value-incongruence, user isolation, user inefficacy, and financial.
Value incongruence obstacles are undesirable, unprofessional and unacceptable activities, such as unsupported assurances, deceptive listings, and unwarranted reputations. Inadequate qualification of and cross-referencing of users allows users to possess multiple and independent online identities to support concerning activities. Users regenerate themselves by moving from one online identity to another.
User isolation obstacles include: technology isolation; role isolation; and informational isolation. Technology isolation is where the technology is problematic. Technology can allow a user to hide their physical identity or provide inadequate links between online users and physical locations. Transactional communication channels can become unresponsive, become problematic or stop. Role isolation relates to socially constructed roles where a user becomes isolated from mediators, police, arbitrators and payment authorities. Inadequacies in payment and mediation networks isolate and distance users by: i) leaving the user to prove and/or resolve their own problems; or ii) creating barriers to users such as requiring a certain number of cases prior to actioning a complaint. Information isolation is where access to information about user activities is not transparent or hidden. The transparency of user information is problematic especially where: i) other users do things out of the ordinary such as the other user suddenly changes the quantities, types and values of items being auctioned; ii) the other user receives recent negative feedback; or iii) the other user's account becomes suspended.
User inefficacy obstacles are where the user does not have the power to adequately address and resolve obstacles. User interactions with the acquisition network, the auction site or the mediator do not provide acceptable results. The user lacks the power to resolve the obstacle and user inefficacy and self-efficacy are impacted.
Financial obstacles result in sunk costs and irrecoverable costs. Costs expended by users are sunk and can be unrecoverable such as payments for items won at auction, cost of shipping, and cost of returning goods for exchange.
Effort relates to the users time and effort. User effort is required to access and verify transactional information, identify potential courses of action, to resolve transactional problems and to complete transactions. The effort is salient to the user in terms of the current impact or future impact. The user expends effort logging and tracking cases on the community website. Twenty-five (25) cases relate to the time and effort used, such as "incredibly hard to get legal persistent and make a lot of phone calls.a lot of research online". Fifteen (15) cases contain items returned to sellers, such as "told me to return it to them.I never heard back". Nine (9) cases concern the number of cases required to obtain effective recourse, such as "If you are filing a claim against [this seller] please contact me".
Agency/control responsibility relates to the agency or location responsible to resolve an inconsistent state and a problematic event. Who or what causes the situation and subsequent responsibility for and control of the situation. The seller is identified as the responsible party in the vast majority of cases primarily because the transaction is linked to the seller and the seller initiates or causes the goal-path obstacle. Three hundred and twenty-three (323) cases identify the seller. In 29.6% of cases the responsible party clearly moved from the seller to other parties involved in the transaction. Seventy-seven (77) cases refer cases to authorities, auction site, mediator, escrow agent, postal service or payment authority, such as "Police have been notified", and "filing complaints with the FBI, Postal Service". Thirty-five (35) cases identify the buyer as the responsible party because the transaction is linked to the buyer and the buyer initiates or causes the goal-path obstacle. Twenty-five (25) cases relate to mediators and authorities experiencing similar difficulties as users in communicating with the other party. The responsible parties within the data set are auctions sites, authorities, mediators, agents, technology and processes used by these parties. These parties often place responsibility back onto the user to provide more adequate proof, to trace the other party or provide sufficient problems for prosecution.
The environment has agency/control responsibility in some cases. The online auction environment includes the Internet, remote transactional environment, technological environment and legal environment. At online auctions, the transactional environment is remote whereas the legal environment is more local, regional and country oriented. The legal environment includes the police and twenty-two (22) cases refer cases posters to the police and specifically police local to the other party.
5 Discussion
This research supports that online auction users and community members experience negative emotions such as fear, dislike and anger. The dimensions of user experiences are consistent with the emotion fear and users use the word fear in some cases. This section discusses the implications of this research for theory and practice.
5.1 Implications for Theory
This research considers distrust as a fear and provides an alternative way to consider distrust. This research better considers and integrates extant literature on emotions and the dimensions of emotions into Information Systems (IS) research. This research considers and integrates the broader literature on fear into distrust and supports the dimensions of interest as motive-inconsistent situational states, goal-path obstacle, uncertainty, effort, and agency/control. This research provides new insights into distrust as a fear where fear is a belief, a feeling and a tendency to react with fear. One's tendency to react is dispositional fear [9] and includes reactions of fight or flight.
This research supports four (4) main goal-path obstacles perceived by online auction users and community members prior to and during online auction transactions. These obstacles are; value-incongruence, user isolation, user inefficacy, and financial obstacles. These goal-path obstacles are consistent with fears: i) fear of incongruent values is where the values of the parties differ; ii) fear of user isolation is where users are distanced by technology, socially constructed roles and a lack of information; iii) fear of inefficacy is where the user is powerless to fight and obtain satisfactory actions and results; and iv) financial fears is where users perceive sunk costs and irrecoverable costs.
The author suggests that financial obstacles and financial fears include opportunity costs or the cost of lost opportunities such as where opportunities are missed due to unresponsive systems and technology. Opportunity costs are relevant to the manual bidding and purchasing of shares online where the cost of shares varies rapidly over short periods of time.
This research supports that online auction users learn from fear and fearful experiences. Users experience, share and discuss with others events that convey negative emotions and the cognitive dimensions of these events are consistent with fear.
This research also supports that unsatisfactorily resolved events that contain motive-inconsistent situational states support emotional learning. Users' experience events consistent with fear, the users posit text online about the events experienced and the events are discussed online. Emotional learning occurs where a user links a stimulus or stimuli to a fear either through direct experience or vicariously. The conditions support the existence of emotional learning, however the magnitude of the links between the stimuli and fear are unknown.
The stimuli supported by this research are the goal-path obstacles perceived by users consistent with motive-inconsistent situational states such as blurred images, copied listings, communication problems, high value items, precious stones, lack of transparent information, changes in the types and value of items auctioned. Theory indicates that users can link these stimuli to fear through direct experience and vicariously. Once a stimulus is linked to a fearful event, the fear is learned, the actual fearful event does not need to be re-experienced, and the stimulus is sufficient to reinvoke the fear [22]. Experiencing a stimulus prior to a transaction can reinvoke fear and a reluctance to participate in an online transaction. The author suggests that a stimulus learnt from other domains can trigger fear at an online auction. For example, a fear of buying second hand items offline is expected to transfer to the online auction environment.
Fears are more likely to develop and increase one's disposition to fear where responsibility and control is transferred to other parties and users perceive value incongruence, are isolated, feel inefficacy, expend effort and incur costs. Fears learned through these mechanisms can be re-experienced through real and imagined situations.
5.2 Implications for Practitioners
This research supports the need for practitioners to consider distrust as a fear and to improve the focus on the hot cognitive and emotional aspects of distrust. The intensity and repetition of a user's direct and vicarious experiences impacts the user's ability to recall previously learned responses.
Practitioners can focus on efforts to reduce goal-path obstacles that relate to value incongruence, user isolation, user inefficacy and financial obstacles. There are two levels of isolation that practitioners should be aware of; the first level is transactional isolation, and the second level is systemic isolation where the user becomes isolated from system improvements that are directed to improve online auctions. Practitioners who allow users to become isolated run the risk of user fear which can permeate online auction sites. Practitioners can improve user involvement in the resolution of transactional disputes and keep users better informed of and more involved with system improvements.
This research does not support that practitioners should educate users to expect distrust-related behavior [17]. This research supports that fears relate to stimuli and events as well as people. Educating users to expect more deviant behavior from another user is expected to increase the likelihood of a fearful event, and increase that user's disposition to fear. Increasing a user's disposition to fear impacts that user's fear and distrust. Educating users to expect more deviant user behavior may: i) reduce the user's uncertainty and the user becomes more certain of an unsatisfactory outcome; and ii) increase the likelihood of other negative emotions consistent with increased certainty. Negative emotions consistent with increased certainty include; distress, sorrow, frustration, dislike, and anger [24]. The impact of other negative emotions is outside the scope of this research.
Practitioners can provide technological solutions to allow users to feel powerful to overcome problems that do occur and to be in control of problematic events through to problem resolution. Easy to use and useful [7] controls should allow users to resolve problems with less effort. User efficacy and self-efficacy are expected to increase, and increased user efficacy and self-efficacy are expected to reduce fear. Users are expected to feel more powerful where the user has access to technology, processes and information to improve their capability to: i) recover their transactional consideration and transfer the burden of proof to others; ii) physically identify problematic parties; and iii) identify sufficient problematic cases to trigger socially constructed roles to take action. For example, practitioners could automatically refund parties who receive incorrect items, practitioners could improve user access to online intelligence and authorities could have access to information that makes it easier for users to initiate action.
Practitioners can provide more stringent responsibilities and controls to increase user efficacy. However, more stringent responsibilities and controls can isolate other users, increase the distance between the two (2) original parties to a transaction and increase a user's fear of isolation. The preferable approach is to be able to increase user efficacy, increase user responsibility and control and at the same time reduce distance between the two (2) parties concerned. A more novel approach for practitioners is to introduce and integrate social networking concepts and socially based interests within online auction sites. Such a novel approach may reduce social distance, reduce the fear of isolation and foster more cooperative remote working relationships between the parties concerned.
Practitioners can reduce the impacts of emotional learning: i) by avoiding intense events, images and text that are likely to trigger a user's flash-bulb memory, for example, malevolence is an intense value incongruence fear that is likely to trigger a user's flash-bulb memory; ii) by reprogramming and cognitive reappraisal to reduce negative unforgiving responses [30], or iii) by providing positive reward based controls rather than negative punishment based controls that are likely to trigger a user's negative emotions. For example, practitioners could avoid, reduce or minimize users' feelings of malevolence by better managing user-to-user communications or by helping users to reappraise malevolent events. Malevolent events could be reappraised into events that: create learning; trigger beneficial system responses; lead to system improvements; and provide community benefits.
6 Limitations and Future Research
The representation of online auction users, data reduction and the magnitude of effects are potential limitations for this research.
Data and information used within this research may not represent all online auction users. There was a higher representation of buyers than sellers, and certain types of users may not have been aware of the community website or may have been unwilling to place information on the website. There may have been other ways to view the rich textual data contained in the long narratives rather than to reduce the rich and detailed collected as part of this research.
This research identified goal-path obstacles consistent with fear rather than measured the magnitude of effects of these obstacles on fear and distrust. Quantitative research could develop and test a model of fear and distrust based on this research. This study focused on distrust as a fear whereas, other negative emotions could be salient and investigated such as doubt and dislike. Further research could consider additional factors such as age, level of education and experience.
7 Conclusion
There is growing evidence that trust and distrust are separate constructs, and current research into fear and distrust is limited. If this is correct, distrust and the antecedents of distrust need to be better understood in order to properly manage websites on the Internet.
This exploratory research considers cross disciplinary literature to extend the consideration of fear within online distrust research, to investigate factors that affect fear and to identify the main types of fear at online auctions. The dimensions of fear supported by the data collected are: motive-inconsistent situational state, uncertainty, goal-path obstacle, transactional effort and agency/control responsibility. New insights into fear and online distrust are supported with four (4) high level goal-path obstacles and fears as; value incongruence, user isolation, user inefficacy, and financial.
This research supports that fears do exist in the online environment and that fears are learned through direct experience and vicariously. There is a need for a richer theoretical understanding of online fear and distrust to help practitioners better manage fear and distrust, and to reduce the impacts of emotional learning.
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[21] D. H. McKnight, C. J. Kacmar, and N. L. Choudhury, Dispositional trust and distrust distinctions in predicting high- and low-risk internet expert advice site perceptions, e-Service Journal, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 35-55, 2004. [ Links ]
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[30] C. Van Oyen Witvliet, N. J. DeYoung, A. J. Hofelich, and P. A. DeYoung, Compassionate reappraisal and emotion suppression as alternatives to offense-focused rumination: Implications for forgiveness and psychophysiological well-being, The Journal of Positive Psychology, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 286-299, 2011. [ Links ]
| <urn:uuid:31544d57-c491-4921-a7b8-436e7b2c302f> | http://www.scielo.cl/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0718-18762012000200002&lng=es&nrm=iso&tlng=es | en | 0.92123 | 0.067721 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Readers' Voice: Jan. 29, 2014
Express your opinion on any subject you wish. Not all comments are published. Call 304-357-4451 or email the water meter being read or are they just estimating it?When you give Obama credit for starting zero wars, don't forget the asterisk. Remember, he drew the line in the sand and tried to start a war in Syria; the problem was that nobody, not even our troops, would follow him into that mess, which is none of our business.If Mother Nature doesn't hurry up and get over her PMS, then we're all gonna die.
I'm curious. When you say in your editorial that "the U.S. press hardly noticed the disclosure" of Operation Northwoods, you do realize that's you, right?Below zero degrees here in West Virginia, but warm enough in Alaska to force cancellation of an Iditarod sled race qualifier. Global warming does produce extremes in weather patterns.To the partially disabled and homeless senior citizen from Wyoming County who wonders why the state won't help: The answer is, because government is moving to take away all elderly benefits, property, health care, etc.A recent study shows that, on average, Americans living in red states have lower wealth per capita are more likely to be living in poverty, have shorter life expectancy, higher rates of infant mortality and lower overall well-being. West Virginia could be a poster child for red states. To those readers who don't know the meaning of global warming: Global warming will result in extreme weather patterns, both hot and cold over our planet.Every time I dodge a pothole, I hit three more. Already lost two fillings out of my teeth.If same-sex couple are worse parents than straight couples, why have I never heard of them rejecting their child because he's straight?For some people, wealth comes from exploiting weak regulation. It's legal but sick if you are the person responsible for regulation. Manchin, Capito, take note!
The problem with guns is that gun owners keep killing people.You really have to hand it to Congressman Rahall for his taking the time to benefit his constituents by visiting the Corps of Engineers beach renourishment projects on Padre Island, Texas, during the most recent cold snap and water crisis.With help from an ex-WVU football coach, Doc Holliday was hired to coach the Herd's football team and winning a "who really cares" bowl game, the Marshall A.D. should hire a basketball coach from WVU to help the basketball team win in C-USA.
Has anyone pondered what would have happened if terrorists had poisoned the water of 300,000 people. The outrage and disbelief would have been unbelievable.Manchin, Capito and Tomblin all fighting the EPA's efforts to prevent more disasters. Thanks!Never, never has a president been treated as has our first black president, but surely not the last black president. I do not need a history lesson to know that.No Labels for Joe Manchin means no principles.What good are the cameras on [the] West Virginia 511 [travel information system] if they don't work during the recent snow and ice storms? I haven't been able to use them for several days.We had a state school superintendent, a woman, who had great evaluations. She was fired and was replaced. No job advertisement or interviews were conducted. Now in Harrison County we have the same situation. A woman, with good evaluations, was fired and replaced quickly, without job advertisement or interview. Sexism? Cronyism? What might they have in common?
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who does ball jump he cue?
who does ball jump he cue?
why does ball jump the cue. he is a dik and this description is just giving a nice explanation aboyuy the quiz that will proceed this description.
published on March 11, 20147 responses 2
10 people, what do you do?
make it 11 by joining them
take one and make it 9
tempt them into entering you
tempt them into entering your shop to buy turkish delight. not the crap version that comes with the commercial exponential increase in foreign delights, but the good stuff from market stalls that has shaved coconut on top and smells good
tall or short trees in your garde,
no garden
hipster or elbowshaker
don't mind nickelback
like swag
harry pearce is a hipster no question one answer its a shay given
is 1 bigger or smaller than 1.0001
the same as you round down using boundaries
take five?
nah il gos second break thanks not hungry
yeah at the end before lesson 2
give 6
not possible too mnay people in thw world
1 billion peoplei n china, not one great cricketer | <urn:uuid:d7d122ef-1a10-436e-8bda-5cdf918e2483> | https://www.qfeast.com/personality/quiz/21805/who-does-ball-jump-he-cue | en | 0.932135 | 0.821117 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Monday, September 20, 2010
Back to reviewing new books as I've fallen behind on some stuff that's come out in the past two weeks. There's a lot I'd like to discuss this week seeing as there's so much going on in the wonderful world of comics. I've got some Brightest Day, some Shadowland and of course some new number one issues, so without further delay...I'VE GOT SOMETHING TO SAY!
Things are finally taking shape in this book. The issues are becoming more focused on certain characters as opposed to being so wide spread dipping into all twelve characters stories.
This issue focuses mainly on Aquaman, Mera and the introduction of the new Aqualad as well as Martian Manhunter's quest to find the other green Martian. After Deadman's visions of the what the white ring wants from all those returned, he pops up in the water next to Aquaman and tells him and Mera about his vision of a boy who could control water and that they need to find him.
In Star City, Martian Manhunter makes his way to the mysterious forest that's grown in the ashes of the bombs Prometheus set off. In the forest, just like when Green Lantern entered it in the pages of Green Arrow, Martian Manhunter's powers go on the fritz and he loses control. He begins to lash out unable to control himself and his powers. Finally Ollie shows up and manages to get him back in control of himself and able to leave the forest but not after having visions of his own and realizing all the clues lead him back to where it all began..Mars. Just when you thought things couldn't get any worse, Black Manta has resurfaced and he's looking for the same boy that Aquaman is, he though knows something more now with the help of Mera's sister, The boy he's looking for his is SON!
Picking up from last issue, Aquaman and Mera are on the hunt for the boy who can control water. He is the key to the mission Aquaman must complete as part of his resurrection. Also in this issue, Ronnie and Jason find that they hold the big bang that started the universe and if agitated that they can also end the universe, becoming the most powerful being ever.
Jackson is just a teenage kid with a secret that his parents have hidden from him his whole life, he's not theirs and he's from the sea, today is the day that he finds out the secret and meets his father Black Manta in a battle to the death. Jackson can defend himself but not without the help of Aquaman and Mera. Back at Star Labs with Professor Stein, he explains to the boys that the Firestorm Matrix holds the energy that created the big bang that jump started the universe and that with a little push, the two boys can be the destroyers of the universe. Again, just when you thought things couldn't get any worse, the voice in the back of their heads comes back, only this time a lot louder and it finally breaks free..unleashing the Black Lantern Firestorm!?!?
This issue in particular, I really liked because after so long we're finally given the "semi" origin of the Firestorm Matrix. What it is, what it's done and what it can do. I really liked how Professor Stein explains how back in the 80's how Firestorm became an elemental being due to his merging with Ronnie. This book is nothing short of awesome, Geoff Johns and Pete Tomasi are really digging in deep in the history of these characters and finally tying up all the loose ends that have dangled for years.
5 out of 5 for both books! If you're waiting for the trade, do yourself a favor and go get the ten issues that have come out and take a night in to sit and enjoy this fantastic book.
Guess who's going to hell? Guess who's getting a new number 1? Guess what other clawed mutants are also getting new ongoing's in the wake of his demise...That's right you've guessed right..Wolverine, X-23 and Daken all got new books...
One of my favorite writers Jason Aaron takes over the reins of everyone's favorite mutant and takes him to no better place for the both of them...Hell.
I'll be totally honest, I really wasn't looking forward to another Wolverine series after "Origins"
and "Weapon X" finished but when I heard that "Weapon X" scribe Jason Aaron was going to be penning the book I got a little excited. I'm glad I only got a little excited because quite honestly I really didn't enjoy this first issue at all. It's very cryptic which is good because you don't want to give everything away in the first issue but it really didn't tickle my fancy. Wolverine is talking to Wraith (you know Will i am's character from the Wolverine film) about the past and mistakes they've made..etc.. and the next thing you know Wolverine's soul is in hell while his body is inhabited by some demon running amok on earth. I was hoping for a little more shock and awe from Aaron but I guess I've gotta give the guy a chance to get the story going before he drops any real "oh $^^t" moments.
3 out of 5
Ugh..I really love this character.. I just don't like the way Daniel Way and Marjorie Liu are writing him in this first issue. He's been hunting his father; Wolverine for years, working for Romulus, only to have his father take away his chance at killing him and Romulus and taking over Romulus' empire. Now after being a "Dark Avenger" and playing all the sides, he's out in the world on his own for the very first time. His character is naturally very cocky and over the top with his plots and every detail being thought out and every possibility thought through but it's almost as if they're trying to write him like he's the Paris Hilton of the Marvel Universe, at least that's the way it seems to me. He uses his pheromone powers to entice an Italian designer to create a new suit for him almost as if he's using his "feminine ways" to lure the man into doing work for him. He talks on the phone with Johnny Storm like he's gabbing about gossip with a girlfriend. Maybe it's just me but I would like to see the more serial killer side of Daken. I'd like to see him do what he's set to do since he was first introduced, kill everyone just for the sake of killing and take over as some kind of depot along the lines of Doctor Doom. Again, this is only the first issue so again, the story really needs to be laid out before I can really pass judgment.
3 out of 5
X-23 #1
Finally after so long, X-23 gets her own series!
I really dug this book for a lot of reasons. I really like this character, I've followed all the stories chronicling her life from her beginnings at Weapon X to her time with the "New X-Men" to X-Force. At this point, things pick up with everyone knowing all about X-Force and what they did and that scares all of her old team mates because they realize that she's not just a pretty face but a serious killing machine who could possibly snap at a moments notice. In this first issue, writer Marjorie Liu shows just how much the kids on Utopia are now almost terrified of their former team mate and just how mad they are at her about what she's done in the name of mutant kind. Storm and Cyclops attempt to help the girl through these troubled times but to no avail, their words fall on deaf ears. Recently, X, has been having dreams about battling back hell for her soul. It mirrors Wolverine in almost every way with him regaining his memories and looking back on the years and only now being able to atone for what he's done whereas X has the opportunity now to step back and reflect on what she's done up until this point and make a difference one way or another.
I really loved this book and I hope you do too, I just hope the other two "Wolverine Family" books follow suit.
5 out of 5.
Now, back to the streets of NYC where Shadowland is currently in progress....
What happens when Daredevil becomes the vessel for The Hand's Beast and now his best friends and fellow super heroes become his worst enemies?? You get this awesome continuing tale brought to you by Andy Diggle.
Picking up inside Shadowland, The assembled heroes make a plea for Matt aka Daredevil to stop whatever he's doing and to think about how his being the leader of The Hand is really affecting Hell's Kitchen and it's inhabitants. Of course, everything goes horribly wrong and what started out as a simple plot to try and talk Matt down becomes a battle for their very lives. Matt lifts the ban on killing and let's it be known that you're either with The Hand or you're dead. After escaping just barely, the heroes come to the conclusion that they must either kill Matt or find out who or what's controlling him and kill IT. The saga continues in this midway point to what will be the end of Matt Murdock and his days as Daredevil.
I can't say enough good things about this mini-series and this storyline as a whole. I said it before and I'll say it again, I really wish that at the end of this that Matt becomes a real deal super villain and does nothing but terrorize his former friends.
I can't wait to see what happens next as I'm sure you can't either.
5 out of 5!!!
This I feel is a really important issue that some people may have overlooked with all the tie-ins and what not going on with "Shadowland". Johnny Blaze is the spirit of vengeance and in being such an entity, he's also bound by magic to stop the suffering of innocents, in this case, he's been summoned by Wilson Fisk aka The Kingpin to head to Japan and to kill the heads of The Snake Root Clan hiding amongst The Hand.
In a twist of events, Ghost Rider heads to Japan but can't just walk in a kill people, he has to have a reason to. This is where if you're a Ghost Rider fan you'll love how he goes around that little loop hole.
From start to finish this one shot was worth every penny from the awesome dialogue to the amazing artwork. This is the epitome of a sweet issue that really holds weight in the greater story.
5 out of 5!
No comments: | <urn:uuid:7208c645-89ad-4687-8138-38be3ff27be0> | http://comicblogjones.blogspot.com/2010/09/off-with-top-of-my-head_20.html | en | 0.979927 | 0.021185 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Bench gives Pistons unexpected edge
AUBURN HILLS, Mich. -- The 2005 Finals have confounded us in countless ways, from the four straight blowouts to Tim Duncan's struggles to San Antonio's unusual 3-point dominance. Thursday night's contest provided yet more evidence of how this series has run counter to our expectations: the difference in the benches.
Entering the Finals, the conventional wisdom was that San Antonio's second unit held a huge advantage. Spurs coach Gregg Popovich was comfortable using 11 players, and his second unit included seasoned vets like Robert Horry, Brent Barry and Glenn Robinson. Meanwhile, Larry Brown's Pistons had used an eight-man rotation in the postseason, and only one reserve, Antonio McDyess, had scored with any consistency.
That advantage hasn't held up, however. The Spurs' subs have been outscored 96-60 by the Pistons through four games, including a mammoth 35-12 edge for Detroit in Game 4. "The bench was awful," Popovich said. "We got nothing off the bench [Thursday] night in any way, shape or form at either end of the floor."
Hang on, Pop, it gets worse. | <urn:uuid:a95ee2e1-f6ae-4132-b614-982f727e7437> | http://insider.espn.com/nba/playoffs2005/columns/story?columnist=hollinger_john&id=2088848 | en | 0.966919 | 0.043932 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Increased Compassion towards Others
meditation-image-24The mind, body and spirit are all interconnected, and a compassionate attitude is an integral part of this connection. A study published in the journal Emotion indicated that practitioners of loving-kindness meditation have an increased positive connection towards others, allowing meditators to be more grateful and selfless in their everyday interactions. Researchers explain that this form of meditation trains the mind to focus on compassion and positive thoughts towards others, strengthening individuals’ sense of social connectedness in the world. Other well-being benefits of meditation include better concentration, which means a better connection to the world, better sleep, which leads to a more promising waking life, and a longer life coupled with meaningful connections with others. | <urn:uuid:3df3a03c-bc99-42a7-8489-2b664a7324bd> | http://meditationpracticessite.com/2014/01/increased-compassion-towards-others/ | en | 0.919049 | 0.699914 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Monday, November 14, 2011
How to Troubleshoot Blue Screen 0xA IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
The Debugging Tools for Windows are required to analyze crash dump files. If you do not have the Debugging Tools for Windows installed or dump files are not being generated on system crash, see this post for installation/configuration instructions:
Before we can start the discussion of why this exception occurs, it is necessary to understand a little bit about how Windows works with regard to interacting with devices. When a device requires the attention of the processor for the system, it generates an interrupt that causes the processor to give the device attention and handle the device's request. The Windows hardware abstraction layer (HAL) maps the hardware interrupt numbers to software interrupt request levels (IRQLs). IRQLs provide a mechanism that allows the system to prioritize interrupts, where the higher numbered interrupts are processed first (and preempt processing at all lower IRQLs). After the interrupt is handled, the processor returns to the previous (lower) IRQL.
The IRQLs are defined in the wdm.h file in the Windows Driver Development Kit (for me this is \WinDDK\7600.16385.1\inc\ddk\wdm.h).
#if defined(_X86_)
// Interrupt Request Level definitions
#define PASSIVE_LEVEL 0 // Passive release level
#define LOW_LEVEL 0 // Lowest interrupt level
#define APC_LEVEL 1 // APC interrupt level
#define DISPATCH_LEVEL 2 // Dispatcher level
#define CMCI_LEVEL 5 // CMCI handler level
#define PROFILE_LEVEL 27 // timer used for profiling.
#define CLOCK1_LEVEL 28 // Interval clock 1 level - Not used on x86
#define CLOCK2_LEVEL 28 // Interval clock 2 level
#define IPI_LEVEL 29 // Interprocessor interrupt level
#define POWER_LEVEL 30 // Power failure level
#define HIGH_LEVEL 31 // Highest interrupt level
#define CLOCK_LEVEL (CLOCK2_LEVEL)
#if defined(_AMD64_)
// Interrupt Request Level definitions
#define PASSIVE_LEVEL 0 // Passive release level
#define LOW_LEVEL 0 // Lowest interrupt level
#define APC_LEVEL 1 // APC interrupt level
#define DISPATCH_LEVEL 2 // Dispatcher level
#define CMCI_LEVEL 5 // CMCI handler level
#define CLOCK_LEVEL 13 // Interval clock level
#define IPI_LEVEL 14 // Interprocessor interrupt level
#define DRS_LEVEL 14 // Deferred Recovery Service level
#define POWER_LEVEL 14 // Power failure level
#define PROFILE_LEVEL 15 // timer used for profiling.
#define HIGH_LEVEL 15 // Highest interrupt level
There are 3 sets of IRQLs defined (x86, x64, and ia64). I focus on x86 and x64 because these platforms comprise the vast majority of systems. Maintaining an IRQL of 0 (PASSIVE_LEVEL) is one of the main goals of the device drivers and the system because all user mode code is executed at the passive level. The thread scheduler for the system operates at IRQL 2 (DISPATCH_LEVEL) and generates interrupts to change the currently executing thread. Device interrupts occur at level 3 and above (and thus prevent the scheduler from switching threads). A direct implication of this interrupt behavior is that device drivers operating at or above DISPATCH_LEVEL cannot access paged memory (due to the context switch required for the file system driver to pull the memory page from disk) and can only use memory from the non-paged pool.
Bugcheck code 0x0000000A (10 in decimal) occurs when a driver attempts to perform a task that can only be performed at a lower IRQL, such as reading paged memory or performing a task using a call that the thread scheduler can preempt. Since the system as at or above Dispatch (DPC) level, the thread scheduler cannot force required context switch and crashes the system through a call to KeBugCheckEx (this causes an interrupt at HIGH_LEVEL, 31 on x86 and 15 on x64 and prevents any other device interrupts while crash information is saved to the hard drive and the system is brought down safely). The call to KeBugCheckEx results in a blue screen of death (BSOD).
IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL can often be resolved by updating (or downgrading in some cases) the driver that caused the crash (Note, this error is also very similar to 0xD1 DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL. In some cases the BIOS may also need to be updated. The following is an example process for debugging this issue.
Note that this is only an example, the driver causing your error will likely be different.
First, open the crash dump with WinDbg. Click here for instructions on opening a crash dump.
Next, execute the !analyze -v debugger command. Some output including the bug code, stack trace, and suspected driver are output. Details on each part of the analyze output are discussed below.
The !analyze -v output starts out with a description of the parameters passed to KeBugCheckEx. In this case, this crash was caused by the driver attempting to read invalid (or paged) memory at DISPATCH_LEVEL:
2: kd> !analyze -v
* *
* Bugcheck Analysis *
* *
caused by drivers using improper addresses.
If a kernel debugger is available get the stack backtrace.
Arg1: 00000004, memory referenced
Arg2: 00000002, IRQL
Arg3: 00000000, bitfield :
bit 3 : value 0 = not an execute operation,
Arg4: 83227b06, address which referenced memory
Debugging Details:
READ_ADDRESS: GetPointerFromAddress: unable to read from 82f7b718
Unable to read MiSystemVaType memory at 82f5b160
83227b06 8b4104 mov eax,dword ptr [ecx+4]
Next we see the address of the trap frame, registers, and stack trace at the time of the crash. For this error, this is less relevant because the driver is well identified. In some cases it may be necessary to dig in further using the driver verifier or by following the trap frames in a full or kernel memory dump to fully rebuild the call stack.
TRAP_FRAME: b8732af0 -- (.trap 0xffffffffb8732af0)
ErrCode = 00000000
eax=88b81740 ebx=88caf280 ecx=00000000 edx=00000000 esi=89cbc420 edi=88a4b5f8
eip=83227b06 esp=b8732b64 ebp=b8732b6c iopl=0 nv up ei pl zr na pe nc
83227b06 8b4104 mov eax,dword ptr [ecx+4] ds:0023:00000004=????????
Resetting default scope
LAST_CONTROL_TRANSFER: from 83227b06 to 82e5982b
b8732af0 83227b06 badb0d00 00000000 8a3fc504 nt!KiTrap0E+0x2cf
b8732b6c 8c80e653 88b81740 00000000 00000000 hal!HalPutScatterGatherList+0xa
b8732b88 92530159 88a4b5f8 00000000 89cbc420 ndis!NdisMFreeNetBufferSGList+0x27
b8732be8 9252ca0e 88ca6000 88caf280 0000000a e1k6232+0x16159
b8732c58 9252b093 88ca6000 00000000 b8732ca0 e1k6232+0x12a0e
b8732c74 8c860309 88ca6000 00000000 b8732ca0 e1k6232+0x11093
b8732cb0 8c8416b2 88a4b67c 00a4b668 00000000 ndis!ndisMiniportDpc+0xe2
b8732d10 8c828976 88a4b7d4 00000000 8b43f0e8 ndis!ndisQueuedMiniportDpcWorkItem+0xd0
b8732d50 830216d3 00000002 9f4c557c 00000000 ndis!ndisReceiveWorkerThread+0xeb
b8732d90 82ed30f9 8c82888b 00000002 00000000 nt!PspSystemThreadStartup+0x9e
00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 nt!KiThreadStartup+0x19
Finally, we get some information on the symbols and what the debugger suspects the faulting module is. In this case, it is related to the Intel Wireless card in this laptop (using the driver e1k6232.sys).
92530159 ?? ???
SYMBOL_NAME: e1k6232+16159
FOLLOWUP_NAME: MachineOwner
MODULE_NAME: e1k6232
IMAGE_NAME: e1k6232.sys
FAILURE_BUCKET_ID: 0xA_e1k6232+16159
BUCKET_ID: 0xA_e1k6232+16159
Followup: MachineOwner
In some cases, it may be desirable to check the BIOS version. USe the !sysinfo machineid debugger command to get this information about the BIOS and the make/model of the machine that generated the dump. This was caused by a Dell Latitude e6410 and it is running a BIOS from 2010. In this case, the BIOS is out of date and an update may help resolve the issue that caused this crash.
2: kd> !sysinfo machineid
Machine ID Information [From Smbios 2.6, DMIVersion 38, Size=3634]
BiosMajorRelease = 4
BiosMinorRelease = 6
BiosVendor = Dell Inc.
BiosVersion = A05
BiosReleaseDate = 08/10/2010
SystemManufacturer = Dell Inc.
SystemProductName = Latitude E6410
SystemVersion = 0001
SystemSKU =
BaseBoardManufacturer = Dell Inc.
BaseBoardProduct = 0667CC
BaseBoardVersion = A01
The dates of all of the drivers loaded at the time of the crash can be determined using the lm n t debugger command. More information about a specific driver can be gained using the lm vm drivername command. This can be helpful to identify whether an old antivirus or an older driver might be contributing to the crash.
2: kd> lm n t
start end module name
80bac000 80bb4000 kdcom kdcom.dll Mon Jul 13 19:08:58 2009 (4A5BDAAA)
82e13000 83223000 nt ntkrpamp.exe Fri Jun 18 21:55:24 2010 (4C1C3FAC)
83223000 8325a000 hal halmacpi.dll Mon Jul 13 17:11:03 2009 (4A5BBF07)
924e1000 9251a000 dxgmms1 dxgmms1.sys Mon Nov 01 20:37:04 2010 (4CCF7950)
9251a000 92553000 e1k6232 e1k6232.sys Tue Apr 06 01:36:16 2010 (4BBAE470)
92553000 9259e000 USBPORT USBPORT.SYS Mon Jul 13 17:51:13 2009 (4A5BC871)
2: kd> lmvm usbport
start end module name
92553000 9259e000 USBPORT (deferred)
Mapped memory image file: c:\symbols\USBPORT.SYS\4A5BC8714b000\USBPORT.SYS
Image path: \SystemRoot\system32\DRIVERS\USBPORT.SYS
Image name: USBPORT.SYS
Timestamp: Mon Jul 13 17:51:13 2009 (4A5BC871)
CheckSum: 0004BC3B
ImageSize: 0004B000
File version: 6.1.7600.16385
Product version: 6.1.7600.16385
File flags: 0 (Mask 3F)
File OS: 40004 NT Win32
File type: 2.0 Dll
File date: 00000000.00000000
Translations: 0409.04b0
CompanyName: Microsoft Corporation
ProductName: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
InternalName: usbport.sys
OriginalFilename: usbport.sys
ProductVersion: 6.1.7600.16385
FileVersion: 6.1.7600.16385 (win7_rtm.090713-1255)
FileDescription: USB 1.1 & 2.0 Port Driver
LegalCopyright: © Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Getting further help
If the debugger output references the NT kernel (ntoskrnl.exe, ntkrnlpa.exe, ntkrnlmp.exe, and ntkrnlpamp.exe), the driver verifier may be necessary to further pinpoint the problem.
After analyzing the dump, if you have not been able to solve your issue, then you seek help from the hardware vendor, the forums, or directly from Microsoft. The hardware vendor is the most preferred out of the three. If the vendor determines that there is a bug in the driver, then they may ask for a kernel/full memory dump to help them analyze the problem.
If you seek help in the forums, then be sure to upload the dumps for your system in an accessible location and post a link to the thread that you create. See this post for more details. Users in the forums can rarely tell you more information than is in this post.
Microsoft may not be helpful unless this is related to a Microsoft device driver or a kernel bug, which they will generally tell you it's not a Microsoft bug. Microsoft support is also relatively expensive.
Best of luck!
Have an idea for something that you'd like to see explored? Leave a comment or send an e-mail to razorbackx_at_gmail<dot>com
Mark Russinovich, David Solomon, and Alex Ionescu. Windows Internals: Covering Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista. 5th edition. Microsoft Press
Microsoft Windows Driver Development Kit
1. Can you please make also a version for ppl with less IQ xD I dont really get it, please just write it like:
1. Download bla bla bla
2. Run it
3. Open this file
Etc. with pics please
Ive got the bluescreen problem to, but mine closes when i try to update the game called
Hope for more help please :)
2. I agree with Ranger.
I just got this error yesterday, and now it won't stop. Every time my computer starts, in safe or normal mode, I get this screen. I tried several different ways to try to fix it, and then finally turned to the internet when none of those worked.
I'm sure this page would be helpful if I knew more about computers, but I'm not getting much out of it. It seems to be over my head.
3. Received a BSOD and found your website. It's awesome! I agree with the other posters that you go deep into detail. Thank you for that! If we really want to solve a BSOD on our own you make it much more feasible. | <urn:uuid:2278dea4-9991-4348-811c-3751ed15ffb4> | http://mikemstech.blogspot.com/2011/11/how-to-troubleshoot-blue-screen-0xa.html | en | 0.743857 | 0.037001 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
How to Cope With Urges to Cross Dress
by eHow Relationships & Family Editor
Most cross dressers can't control the urge to cross dress. They feel they need to dress up as the opposite sex. Often trying to control the urges only makes them worse. However there are some ways to fight the urge to cross dress.
Realize that the urge to cross dress only gets worse if suppressed. The scientific view is that urges to cross dress are caused by boys' suppression of feminine traits in the early years. Many scientists believe that this suppression leads to an explosion of sorts, causing the feminine side to overpower the masculine side of a cross dresser. But coping with the urge to cross dress doesn't have to mean suppressing it altogether.
Understand that cross dressing isn't always appropriate. While the lifestyle is nothing to be ashamed of, chances are your daughter doesn't want her father coming to her wedding dressed as her mother. Think about where you're going and decide if it's appropriate to cross dress.
Wear women's underwear underneath your men's clothes. This way, you can appease your urge to cross dress without being in full drag.
Accessorize with a fancy wallet or nice cuff links. Cross dressing is usually about wanting to wear pretty things, so wear pretty manly items instead of a dress. A new pair of shoes usually makes any cross dresser happy.
Talk to a counselor about your urges if you can't control them on your own. You can also ask friends who cross dress how they deal with their urges. | <urn:uuid:02f75423-6c1c-4d68-a204-65fc196db986> | http://oureverydaylife.com/cope-urges-cross-dress-2145917.html | en | 0.967555 | 0.34279 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |