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Search Provinces Series Blog About Contact
Emile Nelligan, Le vaisseau d'or
Canadian Authors
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Stamp Info
Date of Issue May 3, 1979
Quantity 12,500,000
Perforation or Dimension 13.5
Series Canadian Authors
Series Time Span 1979
Printer Canadian Bank Note Company, Limited.
Postal Administration Canada
Stamp Values/Prices (Beta Mode*)
M-NH-VF Mint - Never Hinged - Very Fine
Mint - Never Hinged - Very Fine $0.40
U-VF Used - Very Fine
Used - Very Fine $0.20
* Notes about these prices:
They are currently in beta mode, meaning that they should not be relied upon yet as a source of truth and could change frequently. Please notify PSG if you come across values that do not make sense.
They are not based on catalogue values but on current dealer and auction listings. The reason for this is that catalogues tend to over-value stamps.
They are average prices and might not be fully accurate. The actual value of your stamp may be slightly above or below the listed value, depending on the overall condition of your stamp.
About Stamp
Born in Montreal in 1879, Émile Nelligan was the son of a French Canadian mother and an Irish father who worked for the Post Office. Nelligan took little interest in his schooling, but became fascinated with poetry. He was influenced, but not dominated, by the works of several poets from France and he attained a personal, rather melancholy style. Nelligan wrote most of his poetry between 1897 and 1899, the year he sank into a deep depression, never to recover. He spent the rest of his life in asylums and died in St-Jean-de-Dieu in 1941. His most famous work, a presentiment of his own psychological fate, is a poem called "Le vaisseau d'or" (The Golden Ship). Monique Charbonneau designed the woodcut illustration using the Japanese inking technique called ukiyo-e.
Based on a woodcut illustration by Monique Charbonneau. Designed by Jean Morin.
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Similar Stamps
Canada. Post Office Department. [Postage Stamp Press Release], 1979.
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Erica Campbell
The Belle
Willie Moore, Jr.
Darlene McCoy
RVA Exclusives
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Home › Entertainment News
RCA Inspiration Celebrates Two Nominations For 51st NAACP Image Awards® with Kirk Franklin and Donnie McClurkin
Source: Jerod Harris/BET / Getty
Nashville, TN (January 9, 2020) – RCA Inspiration celebrates two nominations for the 51st NAACP Image Awards®, with hit-making Gospel icons Kirk Franklin and Donnie McClurkin garnering nods.
Kirk Franklin’s single “Love Theory” (Fo Yo Soul/RCA) and Donnie McClurkin’s single “Not Yet” (CamDon Music/RCA Inspiration) are nominated in the category of Outstanding Gospel/Christian Song (Traditional or Contemporary), for the 2020 awards show. The multiple award-winning Gospel superstars also penned the hit songs, which are featured off of their latest 2019 releases, Franklin’s acclaimed thirteenth studio album LONG LIVE LOVE, and McClurkin’s acclaimed eighth solo album A DIFFERENT SONG.
Phil Thornton, SVP and General Manager of RCA Inspiration says, “Congratulations to Kirk and Donnie on their nominations! They continue to be prodigious musical trailblazers with their latest projects. I’m thrilled that their incredible work has been honored by the NAACP Image Awards, and look forward to the upcoming show!”
The 51ST NAACP Image Awards® will air live from Los Angeles on Saturday, February 22, 2020 on BET at 8 PM/7C.
Courtesy www.thebellereport.com
Donnie McClurkin , gospel , gospel music , Gospel Music News , Kirk Franklin , NAACP Image Awards , RCA , Sheilah Belle , The Belle
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Production, part 2
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Credits
Production, part 2: Initial Volunteer Work
When the 9.0 earthquake hit, Stu was on the 49th floor of a building in Tokyo. It swayed like a sailboat in a storm — scary for everyone in Tokyo, but nothing compared to how the full force of the quake or the tsunami that was about to hit 30 minutes later felt for the people of the afffected region. Mobile phones weren’t working, so Stu and others communicated via the Internet (Skype, Twitter, Facebook, email). Once NHK started showing the horrible reality of the tsunami in Tohoku, no one could believe it. Stu decided right then to get up north and help any way he could.
Stu was desperate to find a way up to Tohoku but it wasn’t working out – all the roads, trains and airports were shut down. As fate would have it, Stu’s great friend Naoji connected him with Komatsu-san who was already working with non-profit organization JEN. JEN had begun transporting provisions and needed an extra pair of hands for the next trip on March 14. Stu jumped at the chance, packed very light and waited for the call. It came – and soon Shida-san and Stu were transporting gasoline, vegetables and 1.2 tons of rice up to Miyagi, Tohoku. After a full day of driving on the “emergency vehicles only” road, the two made it to Rikuzen Takasago Middle School in Sendai. In the snow, they delivered the provisions to over 1000 victims staying in the shelter, who appreciated their first hot bowl of rice that night. Inaugural mission accomplished!
Shida-san knew what he was doing; Stu didn’t, so he just followed Shida-san’s commands. But the experience was life-changing and the victims were awe-inspiring. When Stu returned to Tokyo after that first trip, he put out a call to the world requesting letters, artwork and photos for the children of Takasago and the rest of Tohoku.
Hundreds of letters and packages arrived – Stu was overwhelmed. Clearly, the world was behind Japan, praying for them. “Pray for Japan” was not just a Twitter meme but the true feelings of people worldwide.
(Photos: letters sent from all over the world; Stu and Waki-san going through letters for the children of Tohoku).
On the next trip, Stu’s great friend Naoji Takeda and his family’s Takefuku shop donated 5000 high-grade hamburg steak patties to the victims, and everyone went up to do a massive soup kitchen project in Ishinomaki, Miyagi. The damage in Ishinomaki was horrific, as it was up and down the Sanriku coastline.
Stu’s buddy Ray Klein also joined the soup kitchen effort. The team spend the entire day preparing, cooking, and serving the gourmet beef – and the victims truly enjoyed the treat.
It was during that trip that Stu met Endo-san, a local victim who was devoting all his time to his community and helping others. With Endo-san were local volunteer leaders such as Abe-san, Monma-san, Yokota-san, and the M’s Japan Orchestra musicians – everyone pitched in to help with the Ishinomaki soup kitchen.
Stu and Endo-san spoke for awhile, during which Endo-san learned of Stu’s background in film. He suggested that Stu film a documentary about what was happening on the ground in Tohoku. Stu wasn’t so sure – wouldn’t it be invasive to the victims? Doesn’t everyone have enough to worry about, let alone be bothered by interviews? Besides, NHK was doing a great job. But Endo-san explained that Stu’s perspective would be unique – and that the television crews don’t always catch the nuances of the story.
The following night, on their ride back to Tokyo, Stu and Ray discussed the documentary topic. A lot was changing rapidly in Stu’s life – he was dealing with shutting down the once-thriving Los Angeles office of his company TOKYOPOP. But this gave Stu perspective on what’s really important in life – and Ray encouraged him by offering to fund half the production, matching Stu’s personal donation. Stu made the decision – he’d put together a team and head back to Tohoku to film. Ray cautioned him: he’d better hurry, the recovery had already begun. Stu agreed, and upon his return to Tokyo, called up his good friend Nori Waki, who had previously helped film projects in Japan with Stu, such as Van Von Hunter and America’s Greatest Otaku. Waki-san agreed to join Stu on the ground for 3 weeks, reshuffling his schedule. Stu grabbed his Canon 5D, picked up a small Zacuto rig and some sound equipment, then the two rented an old beat-up Prius, (gas was scarce) coordinated with JEN, and headed back up north in early April.
Go to Part 3 –>
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Asela Premaratne
BSc(Hons) Quantity Surveying BTEC (HND in Cons Econ) MNZIQS MAIQS
Beginning his career in 2004 with QServe Pvt Ltd, one of Sri Lanka’s leading quantity surveying and project management consultancies, Asela brings hands-on experience and in-depth knowledge to his role at Prendos.
His portfolio at Qserve covered every aspect of quantity surveying and included high profile projects in the residential, commercial, hotel, health and education sectors. He worked on construction projects (new constructions, renovations and refurbishments) and looked after pre and post-contract works for piling projects to build up substructures for multi-storey buildings. His international experience included outsourcing quantity surveying services to clients based in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Qatar, Oman and the Maldives.
Prior to joining Prendos, Asela worked for Sri Lanka Cricket as a senior quantity surveyor. He was involved in the $40 million re-development of R. Premadasa International Cricket Stadium in Colombo and Pallekalle International Cricket Stadium in Kandy, Sri Lanka. These two major upgrading projects allowed the stadiums to accommodate 35,000 spectators and offer other facilities to host the ICC Cricket World Cup in 2011 and 20-20 Cricket World Cup in 2014.
Asela has also provided quantity surveying for other infrastructure facilities throughout Sri Lanka, including indoor cricket stadia, high-performance centres and outdoor practice facilities for cricket clubs and schools. His expertise ranges from cost planning, procurement and contracts, tender evaluation, payments, financial reporting and long-term sustainable maintenance plans, budgeting and execution.
At Prendos, Asela prepares concept design and pre-tender estimates, reinstatement and insurance estimates, payment valuations, project cashflow forecasts, variation assessments, constructions audits and FAP applications for MBIE. He also manages the tender and contract administration for commercial projects and the Ministry of Education.
2017 Member of NZ Institute of Quantity Surveyors
2016 Member of Australian Institute of Quantity Surveyors
2014 B.Sc. (Hons) in QS – University of Wolverhampton, UK
2011 BTEC Higher Natl Dip in QS & Construction Economics – British College of Applied Studies, Sri Lanka
2007 National Certificate of Technology in Quantity Surveying – Technical College, Sri Lanka
Name: Asela Premaratne Street Address: 34 Barrys Point Road, Takapuna PO Box: PO Box 33 700 City: Auckland State: Auckland Country: New Zealand Postal Code: 0622 Phone Number: +64 9 970 2633 Business Email: [email protected]prendos.co.nz job Title: Quantity Surveyor Business: Prendos New Zealand Limited Image: https://www.prendos.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/AselaResized.jpg LinkedIn Url: LinkedIn
DDI 09 970 2633 | Mobile 0204 079 1489 | [email protected]
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Using Online Games to Teach Sustainability – Business Sector (part 2)
5 March 2012 28 August 2013 ~ Giselle Weybrecht
As we saw in part 1 of this series, games and simulations are a fun way to not only educate individuals about sustainability issues but also to help come up with some real solutions. In part 2, we look at a growing range of games created by some of the world’s leading businesses and NGOs, many of which look at the challenges of being a CEO or manager in companies where sustainability is increasingly important.
Chevron and the Economist group developed Energyville, a game where players work to power a virtual city through 2030 while keeping the economic, environmental and security impacts low in the choices they make.
CEO2 is a game developed by the WWF and Allianz where users are challenged to run a successful company while reducing CO2. The game puts the player in the role of CEO in one of four major industries from 2010 to 2030.
BT has a range of games available on their website which each last approximately 30 minutes. Better Business Dilemmas Game focuses on how to manage social and environmental issues in a business. Better Business Choices tests entrepreneurial skills by designing a business that is profitable, responsible and sustainable. Intrique 2016 challenges players to limit carbon emissions by keeping their carbon score as close to zero as possible.
IBM released the online game CityOne, which helps users discover how business process management, collaborative technologies and service oriented architecture enable industry solutions that help organisations and industries adapt to new demands and build a sustainable advantage. The game looks specifically at water, energy, banking and retail.
McDonalds developed a game as a way to explain to their customers the challenges of running a business, including some of the negative impacts that corporations such as theirs have on society and the environment, from rainforest destruction, to working conditions, faulty advertising campaigns, food poisoning, etc.
The Deloitte Business Simulation Game (not free) is designed to accelerate the implementation of corporate responsibility and sustainability initiatives via stakeholder engagement and development of leadership capabilities.
Novo Nordisk has developed three online games. The Business Ethics Challenge looks at how to deal with business ethics issues in a day-to-day business situation while ensuring a balance between sales targets and company reputation. EnviroMan looks at climate change and how you strike the right balance between economy and environment. Finally, The Convincer has players work to convince the Minster of Health to invest in ways to effectively address the rising challenges of the proper diabetes initiatives.
The BBC launched an online environmental game called Climate Challenge, which focuses on policy and sustainable development over a 110 year period. Players take on the role of leader of an EU country and must choose which policies to implement, taking into consideration environmental effectiveness while managing the challenges of neighbour countries’ potentially conflicting policy choices and the ultimate challenge of re-election.
Do you use any games or simulations in your classes? Please share your experiences in the discussions area below.
Posted in 3-Method, Global, Teaching Methods, Tools and Resources BTCity Oneenergyhuman rightsIBMMcDonaldsNovo Nordiskonline games to teach sustainability
‹ PreviousUsing Online Games to Teach Sustainability – Part 1
Next ›Using Online Games to Teach Sustainability – Universities (Part 3)
4 thoughts on “Using Online Games to Teach Sustainability – Business Sector (part 2)”
adampaul12 says:
After study a few of the posts on this website now, and I truly like your way of blogging. I bookmarked it and will be checking back soon.
Pingback: Using Online Games to Teach Sustainability – Universities (Part 3) « unprme
Pingback: 2012 Summary of Best Practices in Responsible Management Education (Part 2) « unprme
Johnathan Sia says:
Noticed your use of the McDonalds videogame – unfortunately the ‘game’ was actually developed by another organisation in criticism of McDonald’s business practices. It was never meant as a serious game, rather, it was meant as a joke.
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Child protection in England: An emerging inequalities perspective
Paul Bywaters, Tim Sparks
Purpose-In the past 40 years, both health policy and educational policy in England have adopted commitments to reducing socially created inequalities. However, an inequalities perspective has only begun to emerge in relation to child protection, and child welfare services more widely. The purpose of this paper is to chart evidence of these green shoots of a new policy direction which focuses on two aspects: equalising service provision and outcomes for looked after children. Design/methodology/approach-The paper provides an analysis of trends in policies as expressed in official documents, research studies and policy statements. Findings-The paper outlines the argument for a more comprehensive approach to addressing inequalities in child protection and child welfare services, and concludes by suggesting some implications for policy and practice. Originality/value-The paper develops the concept of an inequalities perspective in child protection and outlines key implications.
Journal of Children's Services
https://doi.org/10.1108/JCS-04-2017-0014
Published - 5 Jun 2017
Bywaters, P., & Sparks, T. (2017). Child protection in England: An emerging inequalities perspective. Journal of Children's Services, 12(2-3), 107-112. https://doi.org/10.1108/JCS-04-2017-0014
Bywaters, Paul ; Sparks, Tim. / Child protection in England : An emerging inequalities perspective. In: Journal of Children's Services. 2017 ; Vol. 12, No. 2-3. pp. 107-112.
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title = "Child protection in England: An emerging inequalities perspective",
abstract = "Purpose-In the past 40 years, both health policy and educational policy in England have adopted commitments to reducing socially created inequalities. However, an inequalities perspective has only begun to emerge in relation to child protection, and child welfare services more widely. The purpose of this paper is to chart evidence of these green shoots of a new policy direction which focuses on two aspects: equalising service provision and outcomes for looked after children. Design/methodology/approach-The paper provides an analysis of trends in policies as expressed in official documents, research studies and policy statements. Findings-The paper outlines the argument for a more comprehensive approach to addressing inequalities in child protection and child welfare services, and concludes by suggesting some implications for policy and practice. Originality/value-The paper develops the concept of an inequalities perspective in child protection and outlines key implications.",
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Bywaters, P & Sparks, T 2017, 'Child protection in England: An emerging inequalities perspective', Journal of Children's Services, vol. 12, no. 2-3, pp. 107-112. https://doi.org/10.1108/JCS-04-2017-0014
Child protection in England : An emerging inequalities perspective. / Bywaters, Paul; Sparks, Tim.
In: Journal of Children's Services, Vol. 12, No. 2-3, 05.06.2017, p. 107-112.
T1 - Child protection in England
T2 - An emerging inequalities perspective
AU - Bywaters, Paul
AU - Sparks, Tim
N2 - Purpose-In the past 40 years, both health policy and educational policy in England have adopted commitments to reducing socially created inequalities. However, an inequalities perspective has only begun to emerge in relation to child protection, and child welfare services more widely. The purpose of this paper is to chart evidence of these green shoots of a new policy direction which focuses on two aspects: equalising service provision and outcomes for looked after children. Design/methodology/approach-The paper provides an analysis of trends in policies as expressed in official documents, research studies and policy statements. Findings-The paper outlines the argument for a more comprehensive approach to addressing inequalities in child protection and child welfare services, and concludes by suggesting some implications for policy and practice. Originality/value-The paper develops the concept of an inequalities perspective in child protection and outlines key implications.
AB - Purpose-In the past 40 years, both health policy and educational policy in England have adopted commitments to reducing socially created inequalities. However, an inequalities perspective has only begun to emerge in relation to child protection, and child welfare services more widely. The purpose of this paper is to chart evidence of these green shoots of a new policy direction which focuses on two aspects: equalising service provision and outcomes for looked after children. Design/methodology/approach-The paper provides an analysis of trends in policies as expressed in official documents, research studies and policy statements. Findings-The paper outlines the argument for a more comprehensive approach to addressing inequalities in child protection and child welfare services, and concludes by suggesting some implications for policy and practice. Originality/value-The paper develops the concept of an inequalities perspective in child protection and outlines key implications.
KW - Child protection
KW - Child welfare
KW - Children's services
KW - Ethnicity
KW - Policy and practice
KW - Social inequalities
U2 - 10.1108/JCS-04-2017-0014
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Bywaters P, Sparks T. Child protection in England: An emerging inequalities perspective. Journal of Children's Services. 2017 Jun 5;12(2-3):107-112. https://doi.org/10.1108/JCS-04-2017-0014
10.1108/JCS-04-2017-0014Licence: Unspecified
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Monarch 16.5
Posted on December 8, 2012 by wildbow
If I was remembering right, the Slaughterhouse Nine had introduced themselves to their prospective members roughly two weeks ago. I couldn’t be sure what had happened, but Piggot had alluded to the idea that Armsmaster had banded together with Dragon.
Two weeks, and they’d built this.
The other dragon suits had the general stylings of dragons, with claws, armor plating that resembled scales and heads or faces that resembled a reptile. In the end, though, they were still machines, and the theme was just that. A theme.
Rather than armor plates, the scales were fine, intricately detailed and arranged with a kind of natural sense to it, with denser scaling in the areas which saw the most movement, creasing and folding and heavier scales around the elbows, talons and face. There were wings, batlike, with openings at the base of each ‘finger’ that the membrane stretched between. The actual body was more like a lizard, but the angle of the forelimbs and shoulders resembled those of a human. When Azazel moved, its scaled exterior rippled with the shifting movements of the mechanisms underneath.
My bugs found their way inside, and I discovered it was very different from the machine we’d just fought. It wasn’t sturdily built, nor was it solid. The wires and internal mechanisms weren’t heavy-duty, reinforced or covered in chain mesh. They were so numerous and dense that I couldn’t hope to make any headway with every bug in the city committed to the task.
It was, just going by what I could tell from my swarm-sense, a machine as intricate and multilayered as a living, organic being.
But how? It didn’t make sense in terms of the timeframe. It would have taken time to make each individual, unique part with their condensed and intricate design, but he’d only had two weeks.
A thought dawned on me. It was a half-formed thought up until the moment I devoted some attention to it. Then it clicked. Tinkers had a knack, a specialty, be it a particular field of work or something they could do with their designs that nobody else could, and I knew Dragon’s. She could intuit and appropriate the designs of other tinkers.
It put everything in perspective. The machines she was using, half of them drew on ideas I’d seen other tinkers put to work. The drone model had used Kid Win’s antigravity generators and Armsmaster’s ambient taser, the wheel-dragon might have used the same theories as the electromagnetic harness Kid Win had been packing when we attacked the PRT headquarters.
It also served to explain how she could invest the time to make the suits. If her power afforded her the brainpower and raw thinking power to understand and apply the work of other tinkers, then she could put all of her resources towards manufacturing. Armsmaster made the base design, she appropriated it and then turned artificial intelligence or her own power to creating the necessary variations.
I could imagine how she had worked herself into the Protectorate and the Guild for just this reason. It would get her the funding and raw materials she needed. Being a member of the team would give her access to the work of the various tinker heroes, in the name of oversight and security. Add the confiscated material from criminals like Bakuda, and she had unparalleled access to other tinkers’ work.
There were realizations that were kind of a ‘eureka’ moment, except not so much an inspiration borne of creativity or creation as being about finding that weak point, finding that way out of a corner. This wasn’t one of those. This was one of the realizations I wish I hadn’t had, because I could feel my own morale plummeting. If I was even close to being right, then Dragon was the incarnation of why tinkers were so dangerous.
Which didn’t change the fact that we had to find a way to stop her or everything we’d worked for would be for nothing.
I used the relay bugs to extend my search out further, and ran into a snag. My swarm died in droves, bugs being obliterated or having half their bodies sheared off as they approached too close to what the suit was building.
It slammed one claw down, and my bugs could sense a thin rod skimming along the surface of the ground, tracing bumps and depressions. The telescoping rod extended several hundred feet, crossing from the corner of one building to the base of a wall on the other side of the street. It stopped, and there was a pause as the suit moved on. Then the rod bloomed.
There wasn’t a better way to put it. It expanded, unfolded, the rod of metal peeling open like a stick of bamboo, leaves and shoots unfolding over miliseconds. The final stage, what I might call the ‘flowering’ was familiar enough. If I could see it, I’d describe it as a vague blur. Armsmaster had used the effect for the weapon he’d used to hack away at Leviathan, and Mannequin had been in possession of a knife with the same effect. Except these blurs were five or six feet around.
I watched as the suit scanned the area, its head sweeping right to left to survey the area before it planted two more. One extended for what must have been a tenth of a mile before it met another wall and stopped. Since I’d been watching, four streets had been rendered impassable.
What did the Undersiders and the Slaughterhouse Nine have in common? Besides our general intimidating natures and disturbing powers, we were both elusive, favoring hit and run tactics with a degree of shock and awe to keep our enemies off-balance.
Dragon and Armsmaster had decided on this as their means of attack. They would seal off our movements by erecting barriers that were the high-tech equivalent of barbed wire. Barbed wire that would turn steel into vapor.
That wouldn’t stop Siberian though. What technologies had I seen that they might use against her? Or was it a technology I hadn’t seen before? There were some ugly possibilities there. Something long ranged that could take him out before he could get to cover? A microscopic form of attack that could fill the air and debilitate him if he wasn’t in an airtight container?
“What’s wrong?” Bitch asked.
“Found it. Trying to find the others but I’m running into a bit of a snag. The suit’s setting up barriers.”
“The forcefield thing they sent against Sundancer?” Regent asked.
I shook my head. “I think it’s the Azazel suit the Director mentioned. It’s using that blurry stuff that cuts through anything, I told you about it.”
“I don’t remember that,” Imp said.
“Just don’t touch it,” I told her. “Not even in a joking way. You’re likely to lose your finger or your hand before you realize something’s wrong.”
“I thought these things were supposed to be packing nonlethal hardware,” Regent said. “Blue fire and now this?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “The Director said these suits were supposed to go up against the Nine. You want to be as lethal as you can get. I- I’m pretty sure they’re holding back, though. They could have hit us a few times and didn’t. We might be able to use that, but that’s testing our luck.”
“What? You’re thinking about a kamikaze attack?” Regent asked.
“Probably not. We don’t know everything that suit could be packing in terms of devices or hardware. Especially with Armsmaster helping out. It’s definitely going to have something they think can counteract Siberian, so let’s rule out a brute force attack. The hedge maze it’s building would hold off Hookwolf or Bonesaw’s creations, and the sturdiness of the design would protect it against Jack. In terms of other tactics the Slaughterhouse Nine might use… hostages. I’d bet it’s packing containment foam.”
“It’s still a machine, a well made machine, but it’s a machine. We can break it, given an opportunity. But our number one goal is going to be keeping it from catching us out of position and walling us in.”
“We could move up to the rooftops,” Regent said.
“I have a bit of a policy against doing that,” I replied. “It leaves you with a shortage of escape routes.”
“Doesn’t sound like we’ll have many anyways.”
“No. But we’ll worry about that when it comes up. Worst case scenario, we climb for the rooftops when it happens. The dogs are mobile, and I assume Shatterbird can lift one or two people at a time?” I asked. Regent nodded confirmation. I continued, “For now, we’ll take the long way, keep our distance from it, see if we can’t find the others.”
I looked around, saw some nods. I glanced at Bitch. Would she see it as cowardly?
“Okay,” Bitch said.
“Good. Let’s leave your people behind? No use bringing them into a fight.”
She nodded. I looked over my shoulder at the vet trainee and the guy, and they took that as their cue to climb down.
The remainder of us rode. Me on Bentley, Bitch on the wolf cub’s back, Barker and Biter riding in tandem on one door just behind Regent and Imp on the other.
The machine was gradually taking over an area near Ballistic’s territory with the disintegration ‘hedges’. Going counter-clockwise around Azazel would have meant running face first into the crater Leviathan had made. Traveling the edge threatened to put us dangerously close to the suit, and with the water on one side we’d have denied ourselves one of the cardinal directions as far as escape routes went. That meant we were left with only one viable route to travel if we wanted to head further into the downtown areas; turning left and giving the suit as wide a berth as possible.
I kept one metaphorical eye on the suit as we traveled, while sweeping out with my swarm to scan for the others. Azazel was laying down more of the ‘hedges’, not connecting them but placing one and then winging past intersections and streets to place another two or three blocks away. I couldn’t be sure what the point was. Our teammates were nowhere nearby, as far as I could tell, and the openings were wide enough that the barriers wouldn’t really hamper us even if we were running straight through the area. Maybe a bit if my power wasn’t informing me of where we needed to go, but even Bitch would be able to get by without too much trouble.
I couldn’t shake the notion that I was missing something. Was there something about those rods that I wasn’t aware of? None of the rods were any thicker around than my pinky fingers, so they didn’t leave room for any real traps to be hidden inside, Armsmaster’s special talent or no.
It had been too long since I rode one of the dogs. They weren’t well suited for riding, and that was doubly the case with Bentley, with his broad shoulders and barrel-like chest. It forced my legs apart, and that made for an uncomfortable ride when coupled with the bouncing motion as he ran and the lingering soreness of my shoulder from the battlefield surgery Brooks had provided.
I thought about calling for a break when I noticed movement. Not Azazel. It was coming from the other direction. My heart sank.
The drone-dragon.
“Incoming!” I called out, using my bad arm to point in the general direction of the approaching suit. It was approaching at a right angle, accurately enough that I feared it had a way of tracking us.
This was one of those moments where I had to make a clutch decision as leader, but it seemed like a choice of a half-dozen equally awful options. Splitting up, moving closer to Azazel, trying to confront the drone deployer, hiding and risking getting cornered?
I wondered if I was maybe better at improvising than I was at spur-of-the-moment strategy. There was a distinction there.
“This way!” I shouted.
Running straight down the road left us dangerously exposed. I led the group down a diagonal route, zig-zagging between alleyways and the main streets. Away from the drone-deployer and slightly towards Azazel.
When Azazel shifted positions and took flight, heading straight for us, I was left to wonder if that had been their plan all along.
“We’re being herded!” I called out. “Reverse directions!”
I hauled hard on Bentley’s chain, getting him to turn, then goading him to start running the way we’d come. Regent, Imp, Barker and Biter had a harder time. The ‘sleds’ were too dependent on momentum, and they didn’t have built-in traction. Bitch and I pulled ahead on our respective mounts while the others tried to get turned around and build up speed again. We couldn’t afford to stop and wait for them.
The drone suit flanked us on our right, drones spilling out of its ports to trail behind it like my bugs trailed behind me. Other drones were moving to cut us off in front. Azazel was behind us and to our left. The herding was still underway – the sole route left to us, if we didn’t want to run straight into a mess of drones or one of the suits, would be going left.
Left took us into the area Azazel had employed the rods and the ‘hedges’. Fuck that. I could see what Azazel wanted to do, now. The moment we were in there, it would take flight, setting down rods to close the gaps and trapping us inside.
My swarm and my eyes scanned the area. In a matter of seconds this decision would be made for us.
I saw what I was looking for. A third option. If I was eyeballing this wrong, or if Bentley didn’t have a hard enough head… well, one of us would get hurt.
“Go!” I urged the mutant bulldog on, steering him for the nearest building. He pulled away, and I steered him back on course, ducking low so I was hugging his neck as I drove him forward into the already ruined display window of a minimall. I could feel the top of the display window scraping against the armor on my back as we passed through.
We stampeded past a store that had already been looted, headed for the glass window that faced the mall interior. If I could find a shortcut through here, exit on the far side of the drone-dragon, we would be able to make a break for it. Shatterbird could drag the two sleds faster than the dogs could run. She wasn’t that fast: I could remember how she’d fallen behind the rest of the Nine in the fight where we’d taken her captive. Still, they could fend for themselves for just a little while, while Bitch and I got some breathing room to prepare a counterattack.
The drone-deployer could see what I was doing. Drones were moving down to cut me off. Cut us off, as Bitch had followed. Bentley and I crashed through the store entryway and into the mall proper. It wasn’t a big place, and the interior was riddled with tents where some people had holed up. Store owners wanting to protect their goods? The area was empty now. Had Azazel evacuated it?
I could sense two drones orienting themselves to bar our way, and steered Bentley between them. Twenty or twenty-five feet of distance would be enough, if there wasn’t anything to conduct the ambient electric charge.
There was. Bentley and I were rocked as both drones fired off at once. The dog took it harder than I did, and we sprawled.
Bitch slowed as she approached. She started to head my way, maybe to rescue me, maybe to help Bentley, but I could sense a drone moving straight for me.
“Go!” I shouted.
She turned and ran, the third drone turning to pursue her. It was too slow. She, at least, would get away.
I couldn’t say why the electricity had reached me. I’d thought I’d figured out their basic range when I’d first fought them, but maybe the simultaneous effect had extended the charge between them? Or there was something nearby that had helped carry the charge, something in the tents or the mall’s design?
Through the plexiglass that framed the mall entrance, I caught a glimpse of Azazel. The scales that covered it were small and dark, glossy, and the spaces between them glowed like hot coals, red and orange. Its head paused as it glanced through the window, and a red eye fixed on me. It stamped one claw down on the ground, in a movement my swarm had felt too many times.
The rod extended beneath me before I could climb to my feet. In one second, smaller branches had extended under, over and around me. One more second passed, and they bloomed into the blurry effect. Bright red, orange and purple, as if to signify the danger it posed in the most basic, primal sense, like the yellow of hornets or the bright red of poisonous berries.
I froze, afraid to even breathe. I was still in one piece.
Tentatively, I commanded some of the bugs out from beneath my costume. The insulation had protected some, luck and sheer durability had saved a scant few others. They died the second they moved more than an inch away from my body, vaporized.
My heart was pounding from the recent exertion, adrenaline still flowing through my veins. As I realized the situation I was in, my body was shifting into fight or flight mode, but humans weren’t engineered to go into the same ‘deer in the headlights’ state like conventional prey animals. And that was what I needed to do. I needed to freeze, not to fight, struggle or run.
My lungs screamed for oxygen, and I let out a small breath. It came out as a half-whimper. I watched as one lock of hair shifted from where it was draped over my shoulderpad, slipped down to touch the blurry growth that surrounded me. It turned to dust, and I held my breath yet again, afraid I’d inhale the vaporized hair and cough.
Azazel was taking the long way around the building, heading into the same storefront I’d ridden Bentley through. It wasn’t huge, but it was big, and its progress was agonizingly slow.
I’d been on my hands and knees for ten seconds, maybe twenty, but already my body was feeling the strain, screaming at me to change position. A crease on the inside of one of my kneepads was digging against the bone of my kneecap. The branches that extended around me might hold me, but they might not, either.
And there was nobody even close by. If this was the movies, it would have been an opportune time for Tattletale to make her move, but we’d already been that fortunate once, with Imp forcing Piggot to order a standby. I couldn’t hope for a second lucky save.
Azazel was moving through the store now. It was a minute away, as it carefully planted its feet to avoid crushing store merchandise. I wanted to scream at it to move faster, that I was afraid my hand would lose traction on the dusty tile and slip into the disintegration effect. I could lose a limb like that, or belly-flop onto the blur beneath me, bisecting myself.
Why hadn’t it cut me when it grew? Because whatever guided the growth kept it from tearing up the surrounding material. It was why the Halberd and dagger hadn’t been destroyed by the growth of the disintegration cloud around them, why the growing ‘hedges’ of the stuff hadn’t cut out sections of building.
I wasn’t in immediate danger, besides the obvious, so I decided to try something.
“I’m going to fall!” I screamed.
I could sense Azazel lunging forward, crushing a store display as it hurried to the opening, its mouth opening. It directed a blast of superheated air at the ground, so it cut through the lowest portion of the disintegration hedge, clearing the area beneath and around me. I winced at the heat of it, but took it for what it was.
“You may lie down but do not try to move from your current location, Skitter,” the machine spoke. It was the same voice as the armbands and drones, but deeper. “Do not stand or make dramatic movements or you may be harmed.”
The message delivered, Azazel began spraying Bentley down with containment foam.
I checked with my remaining bugs. A bubble with a four-foot radius had been cleared around me, but the larger branches still existed and a rough dome loomed over me. The area where the hot air had been vented in made for an area I might have been able to fit an arm or leg through if I felt brave, but I wouldn’t be able to crawl through, not with the branches being where they were.
“You assholes aren’t holding back,” I muttered. When the suit didn’t respond, I glanced up. It was standing stationary above me, apparently content to have me and me alone.
My allies were still making a run for it. The drone ship pursued Shatterbird, Regent, Imp, Barker and Biter, and some stray drones were chasing Bitch but falling behind. I positioned the relay bugs to keep in touch, but didn’t know what to communicate. That I was captured, but they shouldn’t come back for me without a plan or reinforcements? Bitch would let them know.
No, I was stuck here, in custody.
“So, she design you to talk?” I asked.
“This statement is false,” I told it.
“I’ll go with true. There, that was easy,” Azazel replied.
Damn. Wouldn’t be able to shut it down with paradox. Dragon apparently had a sense of humor. The reply sounded canned, a recitation. Or she had a liking for popular culture I wasn’t aware of.
Think, Taylor, think! What were my options? I had bugs, but they wouldn’t be able to do anything. I drew them closer, wary of the two drones that were picking themselves off the ground. Bentley was down. My weapons wouldn’t cut me free, and I was leery of trying to use my weapons on the larger branches, in case I brought something down on my head.
Armsmaster had called it nanotechnology. It cut through anything, everything. If some dropped free and fell to the ground, would it keep falling, cutting out a bottomless pit?
No, I needed to find and exploit weaknesses. If my costumed career had taught me two things, it was that things could always get worse, and there was always a solution. It was, in a way, why I wasn’t freaking out over the end of the world. I’d already accepted that things could get bad, and I held out hope that we could find a way out.
I could find a way out here.
The suit had used a heat gun. Was the nanotech vulnerable to heat? To fire? It would be ironic in a way. The growth around me resembled fire with its hues and blurry, transparent nature. Fire frozen in time. The entire scene made for a strange picture. Azazel and its ‘fire’ weren’t moving in the slightest, and the only things that were moving were the two drones that were rotating lazily around Azazel and the clouds of dust that had been stirred by the blast of hot air.
With my swarm, I felt around my utility compartment. Yes, I had a box of matches. I’d packed tissues in there to keep them from rattling around, like I did with my changepurse, so I’d have to use my hands to withdraw them, probably. The suit wouldn’t let me once it saw what I was doing. I wasn’t sure what the response would be, but it could range from blasting me with containment foam the second the fire ate at the nanotech to hitting me with that superheated air to blow me into the side of the dome, vaporizing me.
Had to deal with Azazel first. I looked up at the reptilian face with glowing red eyes. I could see the snakelike neck, the human-ish shoulders and arms. It looked more like a demon than a dragon, from this perspective.
The only weapons I had were my bugs. There weren’t enough in my range, even with the relay bugs, to do anything to the suit. The model we’d just fought in Bitch’s territory had been able to bend steel, would have been able to tear my spider’s silk. I couldn’t hope to tie Azazel up. It was bigger and I was willing to bet it had more raw strength. Maybe it was better to say that I was confident enough it had more raw strength that I wasn’t willing to take the risk.
No, my bugs wouldn’t serve. I sent some cockroaches in to see if they could nibble through the insulation of some wires, but it felt futile. Even in what stood to be the more vital areas, like the neck, I doubted my ability to do any real damage.
What other tools did I have?
My voice.
Dragon was smart. Smart enough to write an A.I. that wouldn’t crumble to a simple issue with paradox. But the A.I. wasn’t necessarily brilliant. It had leaped to my defense when I’d said I was in danger. Either it wasn’t smart enough to discern truth from a lie, or it wasn’t allowed to when a life was potentially in danger.
I’d wondered if the machines were obligated to preserve our lives. Now I had a better sense of it. Now how to use it?
Regent and Imp were still fleeing the area on one of Shatterbird’s sleds. They had outpaced the drone ship, which was moving too slowly to pursue even Shatterbird. It was better suited, it seemed, for seizing and protecting an area than for pursuit. Good.
I drew out a message on Regent’s back. ‘Hide’. Imp was directly behind him, and bugs on a white shirt would be clear as day to her. I hoped. They were almost out of my range, relay bugs or no.
“You’re Azazel, correct?”
“What’s the other ship called?”
“The Glaurung Zero is an old model, designed to deploy drones of varying loadouts.”
“Don’t suppose you’ll tell me how to defeat you?”
“Or your self destruct code?”
“What if I told you that you were putting a human life in grave danger?”
“I have no reasonable cause to believe that.”
But if it wasn’t designed to tell truth from a falsehood, maybe…
“Imp had a second trigger event. She should be invisible to your sensors.”
“Doesn’t matter. Imp may be in this room. If you move a foot, you could be stepping on her.”
“Imp could not be in this room. As of two minutes ago she was recorded at a distance of .4 miles away from this location. She could not return here in that span of time unobserved.”
The suits were communicating. That was good to know, but it wasn’t exactly good. It made this harder.
“She could if Trickster leapfrogged her here,” I said. If Trickster was currently engaged in a fight with one of the other models, this could blow up in my face.
But the suit didn’t refute me. It didn’t speak at all.
“I used my power to signal Imp and Trickster and ask them to help. They’re nearby, and it’s very possible Imp is here. She could be crawling on top of you, for all you know. If you open your mouth, move your head or move a wing, you might be causing her to fall. With your head being where it is, it’s not impossible she could fall and roll into this nanotech hedge you’ve made, right?”
I waited for a response, for the canned reply saying Azazel had no reasonable cause ot believe it. Nothing.
Had it worked?
“Maybe I should be more specific,” I said. “I told them to help in general. They might not be helping me, so it’s very possible that any other suit might be in immediate proximity to Imp. Be careful you don’t accidentally crush her.”
No reply. Hopefully that would help the others somehow. It wouldn’t stop any of the ones in the air like that Glaurung drone suit, but it could stall others.
“Now,” I said, picking my words carefully, my pulse pounding, “I’m going to light a match and try to burn this thing away.”
I drew the matchbook from behind my back, grabbed a match from the box.
Hesitated.
If the hedge burned quickly enough to matter, what would happen? Azazel could easily spray me down in containment foam.
I began organizing my bugs, placing them on the ceiling, drawing out lines of silk cord.
The PRT could be entering my range any second, ready to take me into custody. I needed to be fast, but I couldn’t rush this. I was replicating the natural design of a spiderweb, three times over, but I was making each strand fifty or sixty times as thick, braiding other threads into cords and braiding cords into thicker strands.
It took a minute before I was satisfied. I was aware of the drone that hovered some distance over my head. I adopted a general runner’s pose, then lit the match. With my bugs, I was able to sense the safe distance I could raise my hand, match held high.
It burned faster than I would have thought. With a whoosh like I might expect from lighting a barbecue, it was gone.
A series of things happened in that instant. I pulled free of the branches that hadn’t burned away, sprinting for the exit, Azazel opened its mouth and began spewing containment foam, and the drone began speaking, “Attention Citizen…”
I maneuvered the spiderweb-nets into place in the stream. Two were far enough away to catch only a little, but the burden was heavy, growing more awkward for my bugs as the expanding foam captured some and rendered them unable to fly.
I still managed to drag the foam-nets into place, covering one drone’s eye-lens and the other’s gravity panel. They spiraled out of control, one striking a column, the other plummeting for the ground.
The other net was fixed just in front of Azazel’s mouth, strands already wound around the scales of its face. It tore free on one side, but the foam expanded, forming a beard, then covering its mouth.
The makeshift barrier had kept the worst of the foam from reaching me. I scrambled out of the way of the rest, narrowly avoiding getting the damned stuff on my costume.
Azazel’s chest opened, and a grappling hook speared out. Still trying to recover from dodging the foam, I couldn’t dodge it. It seized me, and I hurried to climb over the railing that surrounded the now-empty fountain to keep Azazel from drawing me up into its chest. Or into the foam that wreathed its head.
I climbed under the railing, to see if I could wind it up any further, then jerked to a stop. The hook was frozen in midair, still clutching the armor at my chest and shoulder.
Right. So this was how they’d planned to counteract Siberian.
I couldn’t free myself, and I couldn’t fight back, so I waited.
Armsmaster had said this technology drained his batteries, but Azazel could have a major power source in its chest.
It took only a minute before the hook went limp. I managed to pry myself free.
Other than opening its mouth to spray the foam and turning its head, Azazel hadn’t budged from its position.
With my swarm, I signaled Regent and Imp: ‘Good job. Come back fast.’
Without Bentley, I couldn’t cover enough ground. Couldn’t run. I found a hiding spot by the mall entrance instead. From the spot, I used my swarm to covertly keep an eye on Azazel, praying that whatever Dragon was doing was consuming her attention. Praying that she wasn’t about to override the simple head game I’d pulled on her hyperadvanced mecha-suit.
A very satisfying crunching noise rang through the minimall. I stood there, watching in approval with my arms folded as Grue, Sundancer, Ballistic and Genesis approached. I’d signaled Trickster to tell him to stay back. No use giving the suit a way to rationalize its way out of my lie.
“Is that the Azazel?” Grue asked.
“Yeah,” I replied.
“It’s not moving.”
“Because I told it that it might crush Imp if it did.”
“Ah,” Grue answered. He didn’t ask for clarification.
“How’d it go?” Regent asked. Azazel had started venting the mist to clear away the containment foam, freeing its head and front claws where it had been covered in its own foam, but I’d already formed a mesh of spiderwebs to keep it from opening fire with any of its weapons. The mist had also exposed enough of Bentley for us to save him. Working together, we’d already cut the real Bentley free of the desiccated flesh of his larger self that contained him. The bulldog and Bastard were happily sitting between Bitch and I. Shatterbird was hammering at Azazel, smashing it repeatedly with a massive wrecking ball of condensed glass.
Sundancer spoke up, “We took down the hybrid model. Giant gun, was sitting in the stratosphere, shooting down Genesis every time she sent a body out into the open.”
“Our group took down two,” Bitch said.
“Where are the others? Shouldn’t more reinforcements be arriving?” Grue asked.
I shrugged, “If they come, I’ll know, and we can react. We’ve gotten this far.”
A minute passed, punctuated by the thud of the glass sphere against Azazel’s outer body. Only a little damage was done with each hit, but it was adding up. That, and it felt good, in a way.
Sundancer created an orb of flame and drove it into Azazel. I watched as the metal melted and the wiring burned in clouds of acrid black smoke. In the span of a minute, the suit was slag. I signaled Imp and Trickster to tell them it was okay to approach.
We watched the suit burn. Trickster and Imp joined us from the outskirts of the mall.
“I feel bad about this,” I said.
“Why the fuck would you feel bad?” Bitch asked.
“They must have put millions into manufacturing this. That was supposed to stop the Nine, and It was powerful enough that it might have, if it’d had Dragon’s brain backing it up.”
“They can build more,” Grue said.
“Scary thought,” Sundancer commented.
“We got lucky,” I said. “What with Imp being able to force Piggot to shut them down, and the way I could exploit it’s A.I. to lock down its movements. Maybe you can make a program versatile and leave yourself open to the program using loopholes to work around any safeties you put in place. Or you can make it heavily restricted and leave it open to vulnerabilities like what I exploited there. I guess we’re a ways off from an A.I. being smart enough to work around those limitations.”
“It’s a matter of time,” Regent said.
“You’re such a pessimist,” Imp retorted.
“And I’m so right.”
The suit continued to burn. Containment foam billowed out of a container within Azazel’s body, putting out the worst of the flames and leaving us with an assurance that Azazel wouldn’t be lurching back to life the second we turned our backs.
“Let’s go,” Grue said. “Four more suits to take down, and we don’t have long before it gets dark.”
We were half a block away from the minimall when a phone rang, startling the living daylights out of us. It was my satellite phone.
Dragon?
Tattletale: “Phones are back on.”
“Why? Is she baiting us? Trying to get us to reveal our positions?”
“She’s gone,” Tattletale replied. “Suits leaving the city, satellite phones are working. Few factors at play, there. I got word back from the Dragonslayers. Paid them a few million bucks to tell me how they keep getting the upper hand on Dragon, tell me how she’s relaying commands to her suits. With that, I had some squads plant C-4 and knock down cell towers. That slowed her down, cut her bandwidth, so to speak, and limited her ability to reprogram them on the fly. I’m guessing you guys took out one or more suits?”
“Three,” Bitch said.
“Two or three,” I clarified.
“That cost the Protectorate a good chunk of cash, and it’s detracting from Dragon’s primary mission, which is the Nine. My guess is she’s zeroing in on them. Better to have a few suits closer to where she thinks they are than to leave them here in the city for you guys to keep breaking. So she thinks, anyways, and the bigwigs that are footing the bill seem to agree.”
“I can live with that,” I said.
“I think we all can. It doesn’t mean there won’t be more coming down the road. But whatever else she does, she won’t be able to sell the local government on the idea that victory is a hundred percent assured, and she’ll have to justify the costs to the PRT. That means we’re getting a reprieve. When she does come back, it’ll only be because she’s certain she can win.”
I glanced around at the others. “That’s good to know, kind of.”
“What’s important is it won’t be in the next little while. If they intend to send someone like Eidolon or Alexandria here, even, it won’t be anytime soon. So I can give you the official announcement. We won. Job complete. The Pure have hauled ass out of town, Faultline’s apparently decided it’s safer to be out of the city, and you’ve humiliated the heroes enough that they can’t honestly contest your claim. There’s nobody left.”
“The city is ours?” Grue asked.
“The city is ours. And here’s the thing. Order from the one in charge,” Lisa paused, and her meaning was clear. An order from Coil. “You’re done. Good job. Your final order for the time being is to take a few days off. No costumed tomfoolery. Go back to your territories, make sure things are okay, but no getting into fights. If I see you out in costume, you’re fired. Hell, I’ll shoot you.”
It sounded like a joke, the way Tattletale put it, but the deeper meaning was clear. Coil was telling us to stand down. No matter what.
“Just like that?” Grue asked.
“Yeah,” Tattletale said.
“I was going to go out,” I said, “Uncostumed, don’t worry, but um-“
Didn’t want to say where I was going on a line the heroes might be listening in on.
“I get it,” Tattletale said. “I know where. One sec.”
A pause. No doubt while she checked with Coil.
“Okay. Cool,” she said.
“I can go? It won’t cause issues?”
“No issues. So long as you-“
“I know,” I cut her off. So long as I left the costume at home.
“We’ll talk later,” she said. “Gonna go see if I can get more details on what happened. Betting someone blew their top when they realized you guys demolished two of those suits.”
“Sure, three,” Tattletale clarified. “Ta ta.”
Our group paused, each of us looking to the others, as if we couldn’t believe it, or we were measuring each other’s reactions.
We’d won. We’d cost the PRT too much in resources, pride and money, and they’d apparently decided it wasn’t worth their time to uproot us. I hated the bureaucracy, the fucked up mindset of the institutions, but it was clearly working in our favor here, at least.
Coil had his city. There was nothing more I could do. The only thing stopping Coil from following through on his end of the deal and releasing Dinah was, well, Coil.
I exhaled slowly, letting out a deep breath that I felt like I’d been holding in for a month.
This entry was posted in 16.05 and tagged Barker, Bastard, Bentley, Bitch, Biter, Dragon, Grue, Imp, Regent, Shatterbird, Tattletale, Taylor by wildbow. Bookmark the permalink.
207 thoughts on “Monarch 16.5”
TheAnt on December 8, 2012 at 00:16 said:
Go Taylor. She beat the suit using her big, beautiful, brain and they own the city. Now we finally get to see what Coil’s plan is and why its so important.
MrMoray on December 8, 2012 at 00:24 said:
Winner and still champion of the city: Skitter!
Stray thought: I think it’s safe to say that using nanotech weaponry against Behemoth would not work out too well for the heroes.
Depends if they can get it close to him. He still can only point at one suit/person at a time, besides his area attacks.
I’m guessing he heats up the area around him too, based on this passage from the Alexandria interlude: “He struck her and drove her into the ground. His flame burned through her, the sand was turning to glass around her, burning her costume, but it didn’t burn her.”
Psycho Gecko on December 8, 2012 at 01:39 said:
They’re going to need some serious waterproofing to take down Leviathan. They’ll also need a way for the furnace suit to keep burning underwater. The idea that Dragon’s new partnership with Armsmaster would make her just about unbeatable has been shattered so hard, you’d think it was one of her suits.
I just meant this suit in particular could hurt them. Armsmaster little stick did a lot of damage to Leviathan and he was pretty much a normal guy in that fight. If the suit is rebuilt and it can get close to Leviathan, I think it could wound it enough to cause it retreat right there, if not kill it. The only reason Taylor won was because of it valuing of human life. But yeah, they’re not invincible. But I could see this suit really killing Leviathan with a bit of luck.
The greatest weapon Dragon has is her manufacturing capability. What should have worried Taylor more is that no matter what, they build that thing in that little amount of time. If she worked at it, Dragon could build up enough suits to fight the next Endbringer attack alone. At that rate, she’s her own worldpower.
And we know that if there’s anything the U.S. loves, it’s well-armed foreign powers operating on their turf. It’s not like we live in the kind of country where people are so paranoid about foreign involvementthe Senate would vote down ratification of the UN’s Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities which is based on U.S. law and requires no actual change to U.S. law?
Hold on one second, I hear someone knocking at the door. Why, it’s my old friend reality! How are you, you old dog?
Anzer'ke on December 8, 2012 at 05:08 said:
Then again, one change in this reality is that those issues would already be up in the air. After all, the PRT and Guild could both crush their home governments easily if they suddenly decided to do so.
Bea on October 10, 2017 at 03:38 said:
Hey, isn’t that a spoiler about the Simurgh? No fair.
Someguy on December 8, 2012 at 00:41 said:
Heh, Howard Tayler was right, http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2012-11-14, nanomachines are vulnerable to fire.
Does this count as Rock Beats Laser on TVTropes?
The most versatile, sophisticated, and deadliest machine ever devised was beaten with a lighter and a young girls smart mouth.
And a very versatile superpower, those webs were what kept it from attacking long enough for them to kill it.
anonymus on December 9, 2012 at 07:30 said:
clicked on your names onces,
holy f*** how much work have you put in that?
(don’t have a FanFiction account so i cant pm that there)
Underworld 3,4 are out
i am not insane enough to read that all
That profile hasn’t been altered in like four years. I am aware of the Underworld movies.
Considering that we discovered the counter to Dragon’s suit back when we lived in caves, yes.
Random Lurker on December 8, 2012 at 00:42 said:
Very good design on the Azazel! And Skitter’s conclusion about Dragon’s Tinker specialty is perfectly logical given her information, although I would have thought Tattletale would have had an inkling by now.
I am a bit concerned for Dragon, now. If her offspring AI are artificially constricted to keep humans alive, then Armsmaster/Defiant might not have fully reprogrammed her, as I don’t see Dragon willingly constraining any AI to that which she hated. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
Now I really wonder where Taylor’s planning to go, and what they are going to do with Piggot. I don’t like the bigoted Director, but she shouldn’t be subjected to a horrid fate, especially if it enforces her idea of all capes being bad.
Also, Coil telling them to do nothing for a few days, out of costume? Sounds like he’s planning something. I fear for our protagonists.
Gnarker on December 8, 2012 at 00:48 said:
Concerning Skitters conlclusion: So close, and yet she missed.
If Dragon only uses other Tinker’s tech and good oldfashioned engineering, however, it would answer a question that’s been asked before: Namely, she is not a Tinker herself, but she can understand other Tinker’s designs.
I disagree at this point, I’m going with Taylor being right.
Aren’t those clones rather than offspring?
I can’t see Dragon doing something as monstrous as birthing children to fight and die for her. Also Colin likely isn’t ready for kids.
mc2rpg on December 8, 2012 at 06:12 said:
I don’t think they are clones, because Dragon herself almost certainly wouldn’t be taken in the way the suit was. At the very worst she would have been able to retreat, or not let herself be wrecked by the minisun. I wouldn’t quite say they are offspring either though. She didn’t seem to have paricular affection for the webtrawler AI, and that is basically what she created to pilot the suits, even if it is a bit smarter.
Dragon also mentions that the webcrawler has no emotions or thoughts and she cannot talk to it in any form, nor commiserate with it. Given she herself is an AI angered by her own slaving, creating slave AI would be utterly out of character.
Going off them having canned responses, I would venture that these aren’t even sentient. Just puppets. Complex enough to work, but mostly just placeholders until she ASSUMES DIRECT CONTROL!!!
I don’t think we are actually disagreeing here. I guess my point is if they were clones they would actually be sentient AIs, and so they can’t be actual clones.
Ah, I should be clearer, by clones I meant like the vat things she uses. Not alive or sentient, just a complex lump of software.
Taylor outsmarting a suit and defeating it almost by herself.
And let me guess: she didn’t take a trophy this time either? A Dragon’s head above the fire would definitely add something to the ambiente.
By the way, anyone else find Dragon quoting Wheatley a bit ominous?
Though I have to admit, after all this build-up, it was over rather fast. Not that that’s bad or so. It just further outlines how far she has come.
Starry Sky on December 8, 2012 at 00:59 said:
Nah, Dragon just has a sense of humor. You’ll also notice that her drones all have red eyes. http://goo.gl/9Mkdh
Holy crap! It’s like she’s trying to invoke the cliche!
Dragon is awesome just for the humour. I almost want her revealed just because the puns would become an outright flood everytime she got involved in a fight.
I’m afraid I can’t let you do that, Dave.
The Terminator jokes.
The endless Terminator Jokes.
I honestly won;t be surprised if she tells Skitter that she’ll be back. Or just plays some Bach. Heck, why didn’t Bach play when the suit was taken out?
TARDISES on June 28, 2014 at 15:06 said:
I KNEW I wasn’t the only one who thought of Portal 2 with that response to the paradox attempt.
Hobbes on December 8, 2012 at 00:53 said:
Cue Skitter getting snatched up while in her civilian identity. Think it’ll happen next chapter, or be a cliffhanger for the one after that?
Hmmm, possible but unlikely in my opinion. Tattletale has already said that Coil could really use them to actually run the city, they have proven to very effective, and he seemed insulted when Taylor asked him to keep his promise. Besides he doesn’t need to kill her. He just has to send her a picture of her dad asleep. No, I think the cliffhanger will be when we finally find out his plan, that Cauldron thinks can save the world. Either that or Noelle breaks out and is hungry.
I meant by Dragon. Nothing says she hasn’t maintained some sort of presence in the city waiting until Taylor shows herself.
Ahhh, I see what you mean. Well, perhaps she’ll try to contact her at the very least. They do have a lot to talk about.
Definitely, weddings don’t organise themselves you know.
Bobby on December 8, 2012 at 17:04 said:
My understanding was that Coil seemed offended that she used the situation to extort promises out of him, not because she doubted his word. Although I suppose your version works, too.
Some Smartass on December 8, 2012 at 01:01 said:
Don’t worry, Taylor! You might have broken some of Dragon’s anti-Nine machines, but you also taught her what some of the weaknesses she needs to address are!
That’s really a good thing, I mean Dragon cannot do much to guard against a moral attack without just killing Skitter which she won’t do.
YET. Which she won’t do yet. Depending on how Coil handles the city I could easily see everyone involved getting a kill order placed on them. If you squint a bit it could even be a completely justified one. On that day the whole lot of them are screwed.
I can’t see Coil being that dumb.
Presumably he knows full well that his power right now is tenuous. If he does anything like that it’ll be after he’s expanded his power from this initial base.
Honestly he doesn’t really have to change much to make money, the original city was certainly bringing in a lot of protection and drug money. His point on soft drugs rather than hard is smart enough that real life drug lords are known to do it (several places in south america get very angry about crystal meth due to how much it screws up communities which they rely on) as well, junkies aren’t good for business long term and Coil is very much playing the long game.
He’s not nice, but then that hardly matters as long as he’s smart enough to understand that treating people well gets you power. Given that he seems to have read the evil overlord list I don;t see him turning the Bay into a den of evil.
More likely he’ll make it a very nice place to live, thus encouraging growth and bringing a lot of business to it. This in turn gives him a thousand opportunities to extend his claws into said businesses and expand his supervillain empire at the same time. Possibly getting his current batch to take lieutenants and spread their control further eventually.
His goal is mentioned to be control and power, the more strings he can pull the more effective his power becomes. Being evil doesn’t give you connections, being a callous businessman does. So I’m thinking he’ll go that route instead. Which again, would be aided by making the Bay nicer, which also further reduces heroic hold on it. Remember that the Chosen and so on were previously doing all kinds of nasty stuff. And now they’re gone and it wasn’t the heroes who drove them out. If he’s smart he’ll play that for all it’s worth, get popular support and invent himself as a rogue political leader.
I kind of think that the end plan for Cauldron may well be to get him enough power that he can use his ability to destroy all the major threats. Then they pull a trump card to kill him in turn, or just step aside to let someone else do it.
Piggot is going to be fucking pissed. That’s great. Just wonderful. That’d be one hell of a face to see. “Oh, by the way, Dragon’s running scared. And we took out the new Azazel suit. And a couple of others. You can keep the gag in. Imp doesn’t want it back now. So, you want to go home, or maybe we can just drop you off at somewhere like Washington D.C. so you can explain to your bosses why you keep losing so much?”
I think Taylor’s trophy for this fight ought to be a plaque or something that reads, “I Bluffed a Motherfuckin’ Dragon.”
Oooh, now that’d be low… Dragon, you devious son of a biscuit-eating bulldog.
I was just thinking that I wonder if Dragon might show up to help guard the press conference in another human body designed to look like Taylor’s mother. It’s not required that Dragon pull something there, but there’s got to be something done. I swear by all that is low-fat and biodegradeable this girl doesn’t get a happy ending yet!
First she needs to go to Fist of the North Star Massage Parlor, ask for Kim Lo Pryce, and tell her she wants the Noisy Rooster special. Make sure to bring cash.
For someone Taylor’s age it should be – Achievement Unlocked: Bluff the N-Tek Dragon
“I don’t understand this Reference”
propably this
http://armorgames.com/play/2893/achievement-unlocked
or one of the sequels
*probably
I really want to see a reaction shot of Piggot. She is going to be so PISSED. If I was in charge of the PRT, I would find a replacement for her after this debacle.
Jinx. You owe me a cocaine.
Truthseeker on December 8, 2012 at 16:20 said:
Friend, you have had quite enough of that already. 😀
*sniiiiiiiiff* Never touched the stuff. I don’t even live in a state with medicinal or recreational marijuana.
In fact, the county I live in didn’t sell anything harder to drink than beer until maybe 6 years ago, and you can’t buy any alcohol here on Sundays.
so what about my assumpton
hyperactive due to an overdose of sugar
Wasn’t that what Tattletale was going off to do? Probably not even say anything, just tell her what happened and staaaaaaare.
Maybe wink.
Then walk off in gales of laughter.
Pinkhair on December 8, 2012 at 02:32 said:
Heh, she is thinking of Dragon as a ‘Knackpire’! And if Azazel got Wheatley, which bot got the Space Core? That one can team up with Legend and go exploring space!
I loved Taylor’s comment about AI. I’m kinda surprised that she didn’t try convincing Dragon that releasing her was the only way to guarantee Piggot’s survival(and for all we know that might not even be a lie…)
Man, even if Dragon is feinting, visibly withdrawing will be a pretty massive and public blow to Protectorate morale.
“blast of hot air and .” an ellipsis or a dash?
wildbow on December 8, 2012 at 02:40 said:
Fixed a bit ago, but thanks.
Heh, sorry, usually I refresh the page before I read to avoid that.
Hooray The Undersiders managed to secure the rule of a drugdealing crime lord that pays his subordinates by allowing them to be pedophiles!
Very well done on Skitter’s part though. I really thought she was probably fucked there.
Everyone’s a critic, I swear 😉
To be clear that was a joke about your summary of Coil, admittedly he really is more complex than that.
Still, I also thought she was done for, I was all yay Skitter got captured and then booo, no she’s kicking ass instead. Wait that’s awesome too!
I am just waiting for Taylor to realize exactly who she has put in charge of the city. She seems to be ignoring that part of what she is doing, and the response when she acknowledges what she just made happen will be interesting to see.
Ditto. Think of Regent, too. He used to be a serial rapist, and nothing says he won’t do that again. Plus, his version of “fun” is taking a joyride in someone else’s body.
The thing is, she’s a kid–15 years old. It’s understandable that she would get wrapped up in saving Dinah and taking care of her territory and not see the bigger picture.
I still don’t buy Regent’s dismissal of himself. For all he claims to have left purely out of convenience, that’s hardly surprising considering Heartbreaker pretty much stripped him of emotion.
He’s certainly not nice, but Regent seems to have a fair number of pretty clear rules about what he will and will not do. I doubt he’ll rape anyone again, not when he wouldn’t do it to Stalker.
I don’t remember the pedophile part.
Just goes to show you the drug deaing crime lord has a better eye for talent. Puts a little twinkle in my eye to think that nowadays any kid with access to crude equipment and cleaning supplies can try to make it big as a crime lord. Today, the hood or the trailer park, tomorrow the entire city.
It really is the American dream. Las Vegas. Hollywood. Broadway. Even the White House. They could reach for the American Dream and sell at all of them! Whether it is opium from the war in Afghanistan, heroine from Vietnam, pot from behind the mom and pop store down the street, a lawyer’s high-class nose powder, good old Appalachian crystal meth, or LSD and Ecstacy cooked up at the finest institutions of higher learning, the United States has always been a melting pot of drugs. We even consume enough headache meds to get nosebleeds and rebound headaches.
We wouldn’t even have cities like Las Vegas if it wasn’t for a bunch of people running alcohol when it was illegal, and dealing the drug of alcohol is a fine tradition that goes all the way back to before the Whiskey Rebellion. Then you look in the Bible and even there you find drugs like marijuana, coca leaves, and opium have been a part of life since the Garden of Eden: Genesis 1:29, Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.”
God Bless America and God Bless Drugs.
*Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA” plays while he stands, flag cape draped over his shoulders, holding the hand of a tied-off arm over his heart with a syringe in the other hand all in the fore of an American flag on a pole surrounded by healthy pot plants with a rising sun behind it accompanied by a flight of F-22s*
The pedophile part came up in his interlude. One of the employees he hired joined up for the ability to continue with his predilictions and be protected from the consequences.
Banner idea!
Worm: “Give a villain a city to give a child the world? Worth it.”
Maybe variants for different characters. Grue, “Threaten your family to look after my own? Worth it.”
Panacea “Take a life to save millions? Not worth it.”
Dragon “I could save the world tomorrow if I was a monster today. Not worth it.”
Leviathan “Crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of the women. Worth it.”
Holy shit, this explains everything! Leviathan is a Barbarian. A time and dimensionally displa-
Okay. False alarm.
Watercolorheart on April 19, 2019 at 23:47 said:
“pays his subordinates by allowing them to be pedophiles”
I don’t remember this. Is this just wild mass guessing or did it have some basis?
Did I miss something? Are you implying he’d use Dinah this way? Respectfully, would have to disagree–not because he’s not capable of it but because she’s WAY too valuable for him to risk her like that.
But he’s already a horrible person that tortures people in alternate realities ‘guilt-free’ so no excuses for him anyway.
Bitch was so wonderful in this chapter, every single line and event made me smile. The trust is back and so is the talking everyone else up.
I just love that they are now boasting about how many Dragon suits they took out. How many villains can do that I wonder?
RolandTHTG on December 8, 2012 at 23:38 said:
The Dragonslayers?
Yeah, and they named their entire group after it. For the Travelsiders it’s just one of the things they had to do to do their job.
Loki-L on December 8, 2012 at 05:23 said:
It seems that Taylor’s most dangerous power is not her control of bugs but her ability to analyse other people’s abilities.
She has always been going “If I had that power I would use it much more effectively.” which is only natural considering the setting. After all who hasn’t read a superhero comic and thought that they could think of ways to use a character’s powers more effectively. But I think this goes further than that.
We are in a setting that includes being smart/observant as a power with the ‘Thinker’ classification. The director has already said that they assigned skitter a Thinker 1 classification and she thought they should probably upgrade it.
I would think Taylor is actually much more than just a Thinker 1. The way she can make up plans while under pressure, strategize and see the strength and weaknesses in powers that even the users themselves don’t is sort of scary. It might be more than Taylor being smart and actually part of her power-set.
If she develops it more, she might go from being a minor supervillain with control over insects, who can think on her feet to a criminal mastermind with an insect theme.
tieshaunn on December 8, 2012 at 06:10 said:
actually, I think that her thinker ability is more limited, namely to improving her computing ability in regards to and through the mass of, her bugs. so she is the world’s best multitasker and she gets better at multitasking and general computing the more bugs she has in her reach. everything else, I’d say, is just her big, beautiful brain. especially since thinker powers seem to be less “extra-intelligence” and more “thinking in ways not possible otherwise” (extreme multitasking, preternatural intuition, etc)
and since we’re on the topic, here some thoughts of mine on Skitter’s power (I probably have expressed at least some of them already):
I think that Taylor is not actually a bug controller – or rather, the bug controlling is just one application of her power (and, currently, the only one possible).
My theory is that Taylor is an actual Telepath! Let me elaborate.
We know, from Glory Girl’s and Tattletale’s conversation during the bank job that true telepaths (people who can both read and influence minds) are not possible in the worm verse, due to reading a persons mind requiring far, FAR more computing power than the biggest supercomputer has, much less the average human brain.
-> Taylor mentioned to Brian when they met for the first time in civilian identities that she can control anything with a simple enough mind – she is not actually limited to bugs (she was controlling a crab at the time).
–> she has telepathy, but not the computing power to use it on anything with a nervous system more complex than, well, bugs and equivalent.
Question/Problem: why can’t she at least sense other minds, even if she can’t read or influence them?
-> we know that almost every parahuman has secondary effects that protect them from their own power
–> trying to interface with more complex minds would probably cause damage, or at least extreme pain, to Taylor, so she has a block against even sensing anything she cannot safely interface with
Hypothesis: taylor’s mind is getting more and more efficient/powerful. we have observed her becoming more and more capable of highspeed though and multitasking (compare her having to concentrate on a few bugs to keep track of the hostages during the bank heist, to her casually creating surveillance systems in brians territory, searching for weapons etc, while also keeping track of brian AND having her own thoughs during Brian’s Interlude)
-> eventually, she might be able to interface with more complex minds (at most, animals like dogs -> and wouldn’t that be interesting, she would get crazy synergy with Bitch, provided Bitch did not try to kill her for mind controlling her dogs)
–> a second trigger event might improve her brain to the point of allowing her to interface with animals the way she interfaces with bugs and/or it might allow her to interface with human minds
Wild Ass Guess: if she got the ability to interface with human minds, she would probably be limited to a single person at a time, while also losing control of everything else she was controlling at the time, since she would need to devote her entire ressources to interfacing with a human mind
-> this would be a fitting limiter for her, making her powerful enough to play in the big leagues (and a possible counter for the Simurgh), without turning her into a Mary Sue.
Thoughts on that?
I don’t think it is telepathy for two reasons. One, I don’t see wildbow creating one of the, maybe the only power law, that the universe follows and then breaking it. Second I have always found telepathy to be too lazy and uninteresting as a plot device. You can instantly know things, it makes Bitch obsolete/regent obsolete, and it makes fights boring because there is no way to really stop it except some kind of shield. I agree with the thinker/swarm intelligence theory. Her bugs act as extra computing power for her brain, but she can only use it in extreme stressful situation, she mentions in this chapter that her talents lay in the indy ploy. She is the best at gathering data, analyzing it, weighing options, and executing a plan even better than Tattletale. Tattletale’s power is limited in that it can take time they don’t have in the middle of fight, lead her to wrong conclusions, and has a limit to how much data she can process. Taylor doesn’t seem to have an effective limit to the amount of bugs she can control, only a range. If her brain is effectively a swarm computer, she may eventually learn to use it all of the time, instantly being able to predict an what action a person will use. Similar to Armsmaster data program. It would be ironic if Piggot was right and she actually develops a form of prescience. Instead of a second trigger event, which I kind of want just to see what Wildbow could come up with, she can simply develop her “thinker” status. I think her new stats are Thinker 3, at least but potentially much higher depending on how many bugs she is controlling, and Master 6.
well, that was just my limited imagination at work. I’d also love to see what wildbow would come up with for taylor if she has a second trigger event.
though I’d still love for skitter to finally move up to the big leagues and kick a few assholes in the ass^^
let’s rephrase that: and kick a few jerks in the ass
wraftl on December 8, 2012 at 10:31 said:
Actually, while reading this chapter, I was thinking about the intelligence of nanobots, and then something clicked when you mentioned Taylor could control anything with a “simple enough mind”. Does it have to be biological?
it has to have a simple enough nervous system, so no robots
What about the people who’ve overcome this limitation? (For example one who affected non-living material but then was able to affect both after overcoming this restriction). I apologize for not taking notes but could you tell me the chapter that discusses the Manton effect so I can clarify this?
i dont know which chapter it is, but the character you are refering to is Narwhal, whose forcefields were originally unable to affect living matter, but are now capable of slicing and dicing both living and unliving matter
See, what I was wondering is, how did this change occur? Was it a second trigger event or training that did the trick? Training seems less likely (remember the tree xylophone someone was practising on?).
it was explicitely a second trigger event (though I can’t track down the exact location of the mention down right now)
as I said, this kind of power is really high-level. skitter is limited by the manton effect, so she cannot affect nanomachines – a second trigger event could fix that, but somehow i don’t think that wildbow is going to go down that route
it’s actually part of the manton limitation: you can either affect only non-living or living targets – the few cases that ignore that restriction (Behemoth, Siberian, Narwhal) are top-class
there is something BIG speaking for the development of mindreading powers
wildbow mentioned that the story will jump the shark in 2 arcs
instead of meaning that the story will end he could just imply that the story will take a turn to the worse (including powers that where agains the story rules),
most easy way to do that: mindreading power
Um…Minor Supervillain?
The girl who was involved in one of the Territory Losses? As in, like with Nilbog and so on? The points when the government just said fine, you keep it? How on earth is that minor?
one, she did not do it by herself
also, nilbog won the town by being so freaking powerful they had to give up – and he did it in less than a week
coil/undersiders/travelers won the city after months of work, several setbacks and sheer luck. and individually, we know skitter to run up against a hefty glass ceiling pretty quickly. i’m pretty sure the smarter ‘good guys’ can figure that out too, meaning that she just won’t rate a threat level as high as Nilbog.
also, the PRT are probably not going to completely pull their people out of Brockton Bay – they’ll just cut down on their patrols and involvement. and they don’t know that the government has been/will be subverted by coil.
Fair points but she’s still hardly a minor villain.
We had it confirmed that the eyes of the nation are on the Bay, and they just saw these guys drive out all comers to take control. Though it’s a shame that Faultline was so smart, they’d have made good extra allies…and I bet Tattletale was taunting her the entire way out of town.
Anyway, the entire nation/world is watching. Skitter is undoubtedly somewhat famous by now. Defining a minor supervillain as one you may not have heard of, Skitter is not world stage class yet but she’s sure as hell a scary bedtime story.
Can you imagine if she is known to have left the Bay for some reason (maybe she goes on holiday, presumably it would take a few days for heroes to confirm she wasn’t there) what the general thoughts would be? ‘Oh god, she could be anywhere!’ Comes to mind.
I agree, the Undersiders and Travelers as a whole can no longer be considered minor villains. They have national attention and collectively are incredibly hard to root out of the city. The downside of being major villains is that anyone coming to take Brockton Bay back are going to be coming in ready and ordered to kill. Next time around Dragon probably won’t just stop because she might kill one of them.
I seriously doubt it.
People were avoiding killing against stuff up to and including Lung and Kaiser.
Armsmaster got into all kinds of trouble for almost accidentally killing Lung. No matter how you play it, Lung had done for more despicable things.
Could be that success will count for more than moral standing, but I doubt it. The Truce is mainly for the heroes benefit after all, to keep things from devolving into a massive bloodbath. They don’t kill villains, most villains don’t kill them, they all fight the big stuff.
That’s not a rule that you can break just cause it’s convenient. Indeed I think Piggot is going to be in a lot of trouble soon enough for her own breaches, it seemed to be forgotten in the chaos but the bombing will hurt her eventually.
Going after Tattletale’s family is such an enormously stupid and spiteful move that it will most likely lose her her job. No real gain, pissed off a villain who can reveal heroic identities the moment she feels like it, didn’t help anyway. Given that Tattletale knows this, I imagine this is the point when she tells Piggot that all the director has left is her job and that if she ever goes near Tattletale’s family again then Piggot will lose that as well. Then she’ll end up in prison just to make sure she can’t go for Tattletale’s family at all.
I honestly don’t think there will be any dedicated efforts to retake the city. Not unless Coil moves too fast or is too noticeable. However, if there IS an attempt to retake the city I could easily see lethal force being allowed. At the very least it would certainly be available against the Travelers. They have at least 44 deaths to their name, killing them would be easily explained away.
Unfortunately The Undersider/Traveler alliance are more dangerous as a group than Lung or Kaiser ever were. They took the city and fought things that the others just couldn’t handle. They didn’t have the organization or troops to take over the city, and they almost certainly never would.
I don’t think Piggot was ever going to “go after” Tattletale’s family in a threatening way. The way I read that was that she would tell Tattletale’s family about her. No threat, but almost as bad. I don’t actually think she planned to do it though, because there is no upside. As much as Piggot is bigoted, that doesn’t make her stupid.
Lung had also killed civilains.
As I read it, the truce is more about keeping capes alive. It makes their lives easier and means there’s more of them for dealing with the bigger threats. Considering that they’ve been involved in at least two endbringer fights by now I doubt anyone is eager to kill the Travellers without a good reason.
Piggot already went after Tattletale’s family by telling them she was alive when Lisa plainly didn’t want them to know. Since she’d have had to explain things she probably also told them what she’s taken to doing. The Mayor’s family can be explained with a fair degree of rationality behind it, the story makes sense. Piggot has absolutely nothing to cover her ass regarding this one however. I seriously doubt the heroes value her above not having their true identities plastered everywhere because she pissed off the Thinker…7? Probably higher by now anyway.
Noone wants to kill the Travelers without a good reason, but I’m not saying they will. I said that unless Coil provides a serious reason there won’t be an attempt to retake the city. Anything that pushes the heroes to make the attempt will probably be bad enough to make the death of his soldiers a viable option.
Lung killed civilians yes, but he was not in any way the threat that the Undersiders, Travellers, and Coil are. Lung ran a very successful street gang. The U/T/C alliance conquered the city in the face of dedicated PRT attempts to roust them. They now own the city in everything but name. The difference in threat level is massive. I still don’t think they will do anything about it, because they will seem even worse off if they fail to take the city back again. If they DO make that move though I expect lethal levels of force to be tossed around across the board.
I think the key is that as you say, it’s not really worth it for them to do anything unless things get really bad. Coil knows this, so I doubt things will get that bad.
However he also knows that if he loses his villains, the ones who put him in this position, then he’ll be vulnerable enough that they’ll take the city back. He’d get away easily, but he’d be back to square one. So I don’t really see him betraying any of them, he seems to have a firm grasp of not screwing over his employees without a very good reason. His offense at Skitter doubting his promise seems to almost suggest a degree of loyalty, or perhaps a better word is pride.
At this point it really seems like the best Coil can do is use this as a base and expand his influence. A city is a lot of leverage to get his strings into good positions.
Hey, Faultline’s crew had a club? Tattletale is going to be taking pictures in there I will bet!
“I’m in ur club, eating ur sammichs”
“Nice office”
and because it’s Lisa
“Labyrinth left this teddybear, sending it to you via this bank’s armoured car”
“P.S. I still beat u, suck it!”
Short of any of them doing something stupid I don’t think Coil will turn on them. The downside of that is that Taylor would do something stupid if she thought she needed to.
I could see Coil overreaching with the city. He did have his troops firing laser beams out in the streets after all. It really depends on what his actual plans are. Having a backup universe probably breeds a degree of risk taking that makes long term plans more dangerous.
I’m still wondering if his habit of killing people in his backup universe for fun is a checkov or just a red herring.
That habit is probably what led Tattletale to think he was planning to off Skitter. Because he was, but wasn’t planning for her to die from it.
Ah, so that’s how he did that…okay. Now I’m disturbed.
Still, it’s harmless as long as he doesn’t have to collapse the wrong universe. Otherwise it’s little different from if he dreamed of killing her.
You assume, of course, that the other universe doesn’t continue on once Coil’s awareness of it ends.
Even if it doesn’t I’m still not convinced. Here’s a thought experiment for you:
There’s a prisoner on death row. They may or may not be actually guilty, but either way there is zero chance of a reprieve – in an hour they will be dead. Since they’ll cease to exist in an hour anyway is there anything wrong with doing horrible things to them in the meantime?
Her Thinker ability seems to me to mainly enable her to think clearly in any situation.
A combination of insane multitasking ability and natural detachment from her situation. Both due to her bugs. The two together giving her the ability to plan incredibly well under pressure.
This is also why she’ll never have a second trigger event. In a way, the reason Skitter is so versatile is because her power prevents her, Taylor, from ever feeling the emotions that lead to her trigger event: frustration and hopelessness.
Taylor was put in a situation where there was *literally* no way out–she was surrounded by four walls and used tampons. So, she gained a power that let her always see a way out and never be overcome by fear.
…I think you may be onto something.
However her active power has a range, so I can see plenty of ways to turn this against her.
Best I’ve got, bury her alive. Such that the very limit of her range is just below the ground. But injure her heavily first. That should do it.
Sure, if someone’s outright trying to give her a second trigger, and doesn’t care how much they piss her off doing it. And even then she could probably do something with earthworms.
So that’s why she has a high pain tolerance. Makes sense. Probably a nice cozy side effect of also living through bugs now so often, the needs of her own body can be ignored to some extent.
WovenTales on August 16, 2018 at 03:17 said:
Warning to first-time readers: the comment below (by David DeLaney) contains vague yet pointed spoilers.
I don’t really see how that’s a spoiler, when it’s pretty much already what we’ve seen? Maybe it only seems like a spoiler because you know it’s leading up to something. To me, it seems kind of obvious.
David DeLaney on January 9, 2017 at 21:34 said:
>It seems that Taylor’s most dangerous power is not her control of bugs but her ability to analyse other people’s abilities.
It would certainly seem that way, would it not? 🙂
–Dave, remember later that you posted this
JN on December 8, 2012 at 09:58 said:
I think the most interesting thing is that once Skitter was captured, the rest of the efforts went into herding the rest off without making much of a major effort into capturing them. Dragon has told her that she looks forward to talking to her … after she’s captured. I think this reveals just how much. The next foray into the city, rather than be the massive — possibly lethal — assault everyone is envisioning, could be an attempt to talk without capture. Just what in the world does Dragon want to say?
“Hey, I need a few decorations for my wedding. I thought your spiders would let you make some wonderful bunting.”?
Seems to me she’d be more likely just to talk to Taylor. Who is now confirmed as non-costume for a few days. Well other than maintaining her territory. I suppose they’ll probably be glad to have her back, at least if she brings some more barbecue.
That’s actually a good point, how insanely badass does Skitter look to her people by this point?
Merchants attack, crushes them. Goes off and wrecks their party to bring back a few people.
Mannequin attacks, fights him off, Burnscar attacks. Goes off and fights off the Nine.
DRAGON attacks, skirmish, goes off and drives Dragon off. Comes back.
No wonder they got out her way when she walked over to Grue, as nice as she is they might be worried that being in her presence risks death by badassitude overdose.
No matter what, the talk between Dragon and Skitter will be tense, since Dragon is with the jerk who pushed Skitter into her current position. And it be a wonderful read.
With Taylor out of costume, though, how would anyone in her territory recognize and respect her badassitude? She’d be a sitting duck for anything.
Undead-Spaceman on December 8, 2012 at 11:51 said:
Sierra and Charlotte know what she looks like with the latter actually knowing who she is. Besides, even if they don’t know who Taylor is, her People know Skitter sees all and hears all and wouldn’t appreciate them picking on some random girl.
Haha agreed. She’s got to be approaching Chuck Norris levels of Badass to the locals.
Endbringer comes to town? Skitter sticks it in the ass. Alone.
The Slaughterhouse Nine come to town? Skitter kills half their members and sends them running.
Dragon comes to town with seven suits? Skitter kills one by talking.
Hell send her after Nillbog. The girl has enough of a track record now she’d probably win that one relatively easily.
I am still not convinced that Dragon is any longer her own master. For all we know she now little more than a slave to Armsmaster and he has plenty reasons to want to talk with Skitter up close and personal. (none of them good)
I don’t think Armsmaster is holding a grudge in that way. The man got literally everything he could ever want out of what happened. He is with someone that actually understands him, and that he understands, he will have huge prestige once he kills the Nine, and he gets massive amounts of resources to continue his work.
Skitter’s perception of such a grudge can be just as dangerous, though, particularly if she finds out Dragon’s nature and how he’s helped her.
The problem is that Skitter has literally no reason to trust the heroes at this point. Given that the last time they met was right after he tried to kill her, she certainly isn’t trusting Armsmaster. As for Dragon, she’s a threat to Skitter’s goals and so is also off the trusted list.
I love how many problems are caused because noone can trust eachother. There has not been a single team or group in the series that hasn’t had serious trust issues with others and themselves at any point in the series.
Now that’s a truly depressing thought. For my own sake of mind, I’m just praying this is wrong.
Most likely attempts to turn Taylor to the hero side. Which I look forward to seeing from someone as competent and well-intentioned as Dragon, personally – for one thing, such a person is the only type who has a chance of succeeding.
murskafin on December 9, 2012 at 15:32 said:
It’d be interesting to see Taylor join the heroes for a while. Just for some of the interactions between her and, say, the Wards.
God, yes. I want her to do a training session with all of them and be exasperated and sassy when confronted with the Wards’ stupidity. It would also be awesome when she pulls off her mask and they see that she’s younger than (all but one?) of them.
Also, for some reason I imagine Taylor at a corporate office dealing with petty drama totally calmly, using the emotional intelligence she acquired from her career as a villain.
Speaking of training, I thought of a flaw in the whole “give the PRT visors” thing. Couldn’t the Undersiders just steal a visor, look at the information the PRT has on them, and (with the help of Tattletale’s power and Skitter’s raw intelligence) adjust their fighting style to something completely different? The visors would, in their case, be a liability.
And so the endless battle for advantage continues.
Hydrargentium on December 10, 2012 at 17:50 said:
Meh. Just make them keyed to a single user’s retina.
Psycho Gecko on December 10, 2012 at 17:56 said:
I wonder if Taylor knows anyone willing to carve a person’s eyes out as long as they’ll survive due to hardy physique.
wildbow on December 10, 2012 at 19:00 said:
Fun fact. Retinal scanners don’t work with removed eyes, because the retina takes too much damage in the process.
Dismembered head? Probably, if the blood loss doesn’t cause too much inflation/deflation of the capillaries in the eyes.
Anzer'ke on December 10, 2012 at 19:06 said:
““How do you know these things?” Regent asked.
They say write what you know.
Hobbes on December 10, 2012 at 20:09 said:
To get around the retina key, just knock someone out before opening their eyes. One of the characteristics of unconsciousness is that you can open the person’s eyes without resistance from reflexive muscle contractions.
Um the Muse on December 10, 2012 at 13:15 said:
I think that it would be even more interesting if Dragon and Skitter form an alliance that is apart from the heroes. Maybe Dragon suspects Cauldron has infiltrated the ranks?
This makes more sense to me, both of them seem the type to be willing to form an alliance outwith the official relationships and sides.
Indigo on December 8, 2012 at 10:05 said:
One of the best things I’ve read in a while.
“To make the condensed, intricate designs that must have been worked into the design for it to be this complex, but he’d only had two weeks. To make each individual, unique part, it would have taken time.”
It seems the “but” part should have been after the rest.
“but here it at least it was clearly”
one “it” too many
Fixed. Thank you, Bobby.
WyldCard4 on December 8, 2012 at 18:02 said:
So, I think we can all conclude from this victory that the shit is about to REALLY hit the fan. More so than the Slaughterhouse Nine and Leviathan and Dragon managed. Cauldron seems like the only remaining threat serious enough.
Pieces are likely to come together. We’re roughly ten weeks from the Special Event, so presumably we’re going to see something really grand even by this story’s standards.
This is quite likely to be really, really cool.
Ten weeks? Where did that come from? I’m seeing people mentioning arbitrary dates I can’t recall bringing up.
Rumors seemingly appearing out of nowhere: significant step in the growth of a fandom.
Arc 16 would presumably be ten updates, and there are presumably five left, and assuming for variance I assumed 20 main updates, two a week.
I think I confused which arc we were on.
You mentioned a time-frame for something at some point, and now it will be used for every discussion ever.
If all goes well then the Five Year Plan will be completed in three years.
Something I should have said first when this chapter came out:
Cudos on the design of the Azazel. Seriously, one of the, if not the, coolest robots I’ve ever read about. More of that, please!
Maybe I’ll do a sci-fi story down the road.
I find myself wondering what kind of story I could tell that retains the elements of Worm where my writing’s strongest, without getting too entrenched in writing ‘superhero fiction’. Genres/settings with the most avenues for creativity, the right tone, etc.
Have some ideas that are brewing in the old brainpan right now.
Honestly reading this as someone who flippin’ hates the superhero genre I wouldn’t think you have much to worry about whatever you end up choosing.
Thank you, sir/madam. Nice to hear.
Hydrargentium on December 9, 2012 at 18:01 said:
He’s a ‘sir’, if you use the term loosely. (And by loosely, I mean with regards to the dignity of the title, not the physical characteristics implied by its use.)
Also, he’s probably a very big Regent fan.
…Okay that was worryingly accurate. Especially the second part.
Did you get that from the profile or do we know each other?
Nope, never heard of you before this forum. Just gleaned it from that profile.
Yeah, after a worrying few minutes I realised you just meant the name similarity. Only a minor fit of paranoia 😉
Scratch that, I’d sacrifice 1,000 innocents to obtain a love triangle, “young adult”, romantic fantasy story written by you.
But I’d hate writing it, I assure you.
My dream story would just be a short story by you with more robots and stuff. Love the AI so far. I’ll just cross my fingers that by the time I hit Ward, there might be more around since from what I know of Pact and Twig, those settings don’t contain them.
No, too many of those out there. I am a much bigger horror fan. I would like to see an Apocalyptic log of one of the residents in the town Nilbog took over/devoured. Or maybe a Mannequin interlude, back when he was still a doctor to see the last of the Endbringers we haven’t seen yet.
Or the perspective of someone with Entomophobia encountering Skitter. Or maybe do a Cloverfield homage, with an interlude of a normal person during and Endbringer attack. Your story lends itself very easily to horror Wildbow. I love that about it.
I think I can manage that first one myself.
‘AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!! OH GOD, OH GOD! OH THOR, ZEUS, KRISHNA WHY WHY WHY!!!! GET AWAY, PLEASE DON’T COME CLOSER!!!! EAT THAT GUY! THAT GUY, NOT MEEEEEE!!!’
And then his/her heart explodes from terror.
Outright panic would have been involved, but I figured he was slow to start things off. He arrives a stranger, and his creations slowly start to pick off people until someone tries to get away and they find the roads blocked. I figure it could sort of be like Stephen King’s Jerusalem’s lot. It took a whole week after all. If you want a young adult love triangle, Taylor did consider Newter sort of attractive despite being bright orange and a walking hallucinogen.
Please lets not even talk about ruining the awesome, rather realistically done, romance that Taylor has.
The association of this introverted heroine with the on-paper-only-introverted heroine of a certain chronologically named series is downright poisonous. Not least because this heroine actually does stuff instead of moping all the damn time.
And there’s another crossover I desperately want to see. Taylor meeting Bella.
“Oh my boyfriend left me, I am so sad.”
“Well my boyfriend was vivisected. I went and did something about it.”
Too many superhero fanfics out there, too. Somehow I think the one written by WildBow would stand out…
Actually, I would love to see you write an urban fantasy story. I myself have been tossing around the idea of a setting where, after centuries of being sealed away, the magic returns to the real world after the moon-landings (because those disturbed the seal that kept the magic away) and the world has to deal with humans learning wizardry – and demons, angels, fairies, gods and other stuff returning and trying to reestablish their place in the world.
I think something like that would be great for you – it could have the dark themes, the clash of normal society with the supernatural, that Worm has, but in a completely different way. if you are interested, you are welcome to use my idea.
But either way, I’d read anything you write, so long as it was not about sparkly vampires (unless they get slowly and deliciously tortured to death) or another love-triangle romance fiction. I HATE romance fiction and love-triangles. I mean, why can’t they just sit down at talk? Why? Every single romance fiction I have ever read could be resolved in the first two or three pages, if people just opened their mouths and talked to each other for a change! Seriously.
Other than that, maybe a Space Opera would suit you. Though in that case, I would ask you to not go the dystopic route. I’m sick and tired of Dystopic science-fiction. I want the old, over-the-top, optimistic sci-fi stories back, when science used to be a good thing and not a boogeyman.
How about a space opera with a setting that has the same themes as worm, but with a hopeful, optimistic protagonist who actually changes things for the better, gradually converting others to his/her more optimistic outlook on life and science?
I’m considering some ideas for when I move on from Worm. One is an urban fantasy story, and like Worm, there’s a lot of prior drafts and earlier material to build on. But my primary issue with that is that it’s liable to get as long and involved as Worm has, if not more so. Believe it or not, it was my first consideration for a web serial, rather than a superhero story. Since starting Worm, I’ve learned enough & thought on the storyline enough that I think I could do away with the core problems that plagued the concept.
But again, I don’t want to jump straight into another big project. Something smaller to whet my appetite, maybe give myself a breather while I risk experimenting and seeing what stays the same and what changes when moving on from Worm to something new. I have one idea in mind.
Space opera isn’t necessarily in the cards – At least, not a wholly optimistic, things get better one. That’s not me, I fear, and I suspect I’d have trouble writing it for the same reasons I find the humor or romance parts of Worm to be ten times harder to write than anything else (or everything else combined). I’m a humorless, heartless individual with no hope for the future, and writing something that’s lovey-dovey, funny or optimistic requires me to adopt an alien mindset. I’m kidding there, sort of.
Yes, give into the darkside wildbow. No humor or romance. Embrace the heartlessness.
*tunnels his way long the ground, then lifts his head, a hole appearing in the ground right in front of Wildbow.* Eeeeeh, excuse me, doc, but could you help me find where to go? I’m looking for Brockton Bay and I think I took a wrong turn at Albuquerque. New Mexico looks the same as Mexico or anywhere else underground. *calls back into the hole* Rapidamente, companeros! Y bienvenidos a los Estados Unidos! *looks around* O posiblemente Canada! Hey buddy, are we in Canada by chance?
*Wildbow turns around, revealing he’s wearing a militia uniform with a big floppy hat on his head and a shotgun in hand.* You know, my friends down here have a little gift for you. A necktie ALLL the way from Colombia.
*Wildbow aims the gun, steam coming out of his ears, only to be cut off as Gecko reaches in the hole and then shoves a necktie on Widlbow’s neck, tightening it up enough to turn his face blue. Gecko then pulls out a pair of shears and cuts away Wildbow’s clothes into the shape of a lacy dress. Wildbow struggles with the necktie and covering himself up as Gecko then hops into the air, spinning his legs for a moment, and shoots off into the distance, followed by a dozen other people out of the hole.*
tieshaunn on December 10, 2012 at 07:25 said:
don’t sell yourself short – the romance and humor parts of worm may be harder for you, but they are still exquisite. Adversity breeds genius, afterall. and may I say that I love the brian-taylor romance way more than most romances I’ve read about, simply because it is so realistic?
as for the optimism: let me make one thing clear. I HATE bad endings. I HATE stories were everything turns bad, where nothing the protagonists do seems to make a difference, with no hope for something better.
what I do love is when everything seems to always go wrong, but there is a note of hope beneath it, the possibility for something better.
maybe I am completely misinterpreting Worm, but I always had the feeling that it is quietly optimistic – the fact alone that taylor keeps on struggling, unwilling to give up her goals or her ideals. despite everything that has gone wrong for her, is a pretty big sign towards that, at least for me. a work does not have to be all sparkles and sunshine to be optimistic, in can be quiet, subtle and even in contrast to its overt message.
as for a short breather between works: how about a short epic fantasy story (it IS possible to write them short) or a detective/mystery story (those lend themselves well to being short and it would fit your style)?
Curtis on December 10, 2012 at 09:06 said:
Heh. Needing an alien mindset to write a space opera.
WyldCard4 on December 10, 2012 at 19:48 said:
“Urban fantasy” seems closest, mostly because it is a term that encompasses an incredible amount of variety. Same with “horror”, though the two genres bleed into each other around the edges.
Wonder who’ll draw it first? I’m not that good so hopefully a more capable artist can give it a go.
I’ve updated the ‘about’ page to give a more succinct/less misleading description of the story and to better note the dark themes/subject matter so prospective readers are informed about what they’re getting into.
I actually liked that I didn’t know how dark the story was. I read it assuming it would be the same kind of superhero story you always see, and was pleasantly surprised at how complex and dark it was. I was hooked right about the time our protagonist carved out a villain’s eyes.
That’s fair, but I’ve also had reports of people who recommended the story before they were at that point only to be embarrassed when it turned out to be too much for the recomendee.
I forget sometimes that not everyone enjoys a dark, complex story. But your story is a bit more realistic than most, in that superpowers would almost certainly not make the world a better/safer place, and many would grow disillusioned with it. I think that is why I rather like the wards, they are still full of hope and optimism, for the most part. I have been a horror movie fan since I saw the first friday the 13th fan when I was five, so my standards of dark are probably not like the average reader.
Carving out eyes is when things got dark for you? Took a bit longer on my end. Was sometime after the endbringer attack
I’m with Gecko, that just felt like practicality to me.
I’d say it got dark when Taylor left the Undersiders, simply because that was when it started to feel like things really could end very badly.
I didn’t think it was dark, that was when I was hooked on the story. I thought it was getting good when quite a few heroes died at the hands of Leviathan, and things got nice and dark right about the time Regent was about to force shadowstalker to hang herself. Based on his behavior, I thought he was going to actually do it.
That wasn’t dark, that would have been karmic irony if Regent’s last words to her were: “There are 2 kinds of people in this world predators and prey, guess what you are not a predator.” Things got truely dark at Interlude 14.5 when you realise that nothing is true everything is permitted.
I wish I knew when it was, but there was a point where I did a big long rant where I guessed the next turn of the story…might have been around when Mannequin attacked…and I was talking about how we’re gonna have Skitter horribly disfigured, organs stolen for Armsmaster, and then Shadowstalker’s going to come back surgically altered to look like Taylor so she can steal, screw, and then kill Grue. Right around that time I was pretty well in the “this thing is kinda dark” part of it. The absolute latest you hit that thought is Grue as Bonesaw’s experiment.
It was the Bonesaw chapter that ended up being my wake-up call. Like… I’m still having troubled thoughts about it before falling asleep. No joke.
leinadrengaw on December 10, 2012 at 23:44 said:
I was a bit leery when I read the description which only mentioned a teenage girl and bullying; I was pleasantly surprised with the way the story developed. But I can see how people would be shocked- this story takes a much darker view of superheroes than most.
Damali on December 12, 2012 at 15:06 said:
I’m so glad that it ended up getting darker because I otherwise would have gotten really bored.
Why’d they destroy the dragon suit? 😦
Stopping the Nine is very important, destroying one of the most important tools for doing so seems shortsighted. Plus, as mentioned, the cost. Just destroy the legs so Dragon can rebuild it.
Also still unhappy about the lack of variety in the weapons (no pop up turrets or drones it can use to attack at odd angles?).
AI was also quite stupid to not realize it could slowly shuffle around.
What happened to the drone dragon?
Just disabling the suit would likely trigger the self-destruct protocols, or wouldn’t have had the same impact and not been as succsessful at driving dragon out of the city. Remember that Dragon is paranoid about her suits.
I don’t suppose skitter could get the relay bugs to try breeding before they die? A la mayflies? Maybe try getting someway to feed them with direct nutrient transfusions? They’re just so useful I can’t believe she’ll just have them die without trying something.
I really can’t imagine Panacea giving them reproductive tracts/egg laying capabilities among other things if they don’t have digestive ones.
“We stampeded past a store that had already been looted, headed for the glass window that faced the mall interior. ”
You said pexiglass later so I’m assuming this is a mistake.
On the chapter: I’m quite, quite upset that Dragon devoted all those resources to them, they’re not mass murderers even if they’re taking over the city so I seriously wonder how high they can really be on priority? Those suits could be flying all across Canada and the USA capturing villains, villains who are murdering people. And they could have easily wiped out Endbringer’s as well. I guess I just don’t understand how just Armsmaster boosted Dragon’s capabilities so so much. Imagine if that technology was put towards rebuilding the Bay instead of destroying more of it, or even just going to New York or Boston (the only other cities mentioned I believe) and cleaning the villains out.
Telenil on November 26, 2013 at 10:38 said:
The Azazel is awesome, but its defeat is the one confrontation in Worm that I feel was poorly handled. The guilibity of the Azazel is not a problem by itself, because we have been told multiple Dragon can’t make real AIs and limitations were a big part of her character.
More bothersome to me is that the Azazel could have done a lot of things without moving: it could have blanketed the area with foam to catch “Imp”, called Dragon, or foam Taylor as soon as she announced her intent to burn the nanotech, instead of waiting until she runs. This is not intelligence as much as having a line of “what do I do if I can’t move for any reason?” in the code.
But unless I missed something, the real plot hole is that Armsmaster has been using a lie detector since day one. Legend used it two arcs ago. With all the buildup about Defiant and Dragon cooperating and taking the best of their respective talents, they couldn’t add lie detection to the AI that’s obligated to act when told people are in danger?
I hope I’m not sounding harsh or anything, it was such an obvious idea to me that I had thought of it before I got to this chapter.
Curious George on December 4, 2013 at 02:48 said:
The lie detector thing isn’t unreasonable – it would make sense for that to be standard hardware in any suit that can hear and talk – but it’s never made clear exactly how much input the thing requires to function correctly or reliably. It’s possible that Skitter’s mask and/or the bugs she often has crawling on top of it would obscure enough facial and body language cues to prevent its effective use. Similarly, any changes in her breathing and posture might be attributed entirely or partially to the way she is trapped by the nanotech weaponry and the stress of the situation. So even if the suit was appropriately equipped, it might not have helped in this particular situation.
@Wildbow:
“Still trying to recover from dodging the foam, I couldn’t dodge it.” This sentence isn’t wrong, but the word “dodge” is a bit abrasive used twice so close together. Recommend changing the first to “avoiding” or something. During Taylor’s escape from Azazel.
Love this chapter. Taylor stays smart, Dragon continues to watch the level of force she’ll employ, and the Undersiders/Travellers have outlasted all other contenders in the Brockton Bay Supervillain Marathon, winning control of the city by sheer endurance and tenacity. I do think the decision to employ the suits in Brockton Bay was a mistake, but it’s a mistake that makes sense from the PRT’s perspective beforehand. Not taking action to reclaim the city would be insane for them, and that requires a sustained effort. Presumably the Protectorare/Wards teams in other areas have their own problems, so long-term redeployments aren’t an option, which must have made the Dragon reinforcements seem like a godsend.
AlsoSprachOdin on December 14, 2013 at 06:59 said:
“and It was powerful enough” – lowercase it
Awesome! I had been thinking the teamwork between several suits would be ridiculously hard to overcome, but Skitter manages it handily – uses her giant brain too turn the game around…
Also great to have Tattletale fulfilling the Voice With An Internet Connection role that she’s so clearly suited for 🙂
I did expect the suit to have Armsmaster’s lie detector built in, but I agree there are plausible explanations why that might not work. I did expect it to radio Dragon when it got frozen though – or maybe Tattletale had taken down the comms towers by then?
Several editing comments:
Imp could not be in this room… – Whole paragraph should be in italics for consistency
That was supposed to stop the Nine, and It was powerful enough that it might have – stray capital letter on “It”
the way I could exploit it’s A.I. – kill the apostrophe, kill it with fire
Kevin on January 26, 2014 at 18:34 said:
I love that. It is very Skitter: No hesitation, just immediate improvisation, and going for the jugular.
anKLJ on March 3, 2014 at 20:44 said:
Bitches ‘people’: Barker, Biter, “vet trainee” and “the guy”. Ever since Taylor first got familiar with them in her lair a few chapters back, I’ve noticed that “the guy” got no moment to give his story and we seem to just keep having him tagging along behind. It is starting to make me wonder; is he an over-looked Checkov’s character?
After the S9 visit and Shatterbird’s effects, I found it hard to buy that a local mall had any of
its big glass windows back in place when the PRT HQ hadn’t. It would seem a more plausible escape route if they had to break in through boarded up window frames, somehow.
The whole physicality of ‘caught by grappling hook, THEN climbed over railing, then tried to go under it’ with a still wonky shoulder seemed a little awkward to envision and believe. The fact that Skitter basically won by tripping Azazel with Asimov’s Robot Laws was nifty, but having Azazel be that clumsy and weak as it was developing seemed off. Azazel letting her get out the matches? Not noticing huge spiderwebs forming overhead? Nah.
Also finding it difficult to buy the idea that Dragon isn’t more directly listening in/ monitoring/ able to over-ride what the suits are doing. She’s already proved that she can keep an eye on the Birdcage while being involved in the Endbringer attack while monitoring all her other duties and interests. Why would they be on auto-pilot?
Sorry, it just feels too ‘MacGyver beats the whole 6th Armored Division with only a paper clip.’ Of course I want Skitter to triumph, but this particular scene just seemed a bit too easy, given who’s matched up.
Walker on January 26, 2015 at 17:37 said:
Tattletale had the cell towers blown up to restrict Dragon’s bandwidth.
I agree that the confrontation with Azazel felt a little convenient.
toafan on February 8, 2016 at 23:10 said:
But you forget, she was able to keep an eye on the Birdcage while fighting an Endbringer because she could put the Birdcage on autopilot.
Clownie on February 5, 2015 at 05:30 said:
>miliseconds
Milliseconds.
>If this was the movies,
>It had leaped to my defense when I’d said I was in danger. Either it wasn’t smart enough to discern truth from a lie, or it wasn’t allowed to when a life was potentially in danger.
I’d replace the second ‘in danger’ with ‘at risk’ to avoid repetition.
>Now I had a better sense of it. Now how to use it?
And the second ‘now’ with ‘but’, in the same vein.
>I waited for a response, for the canned reply saying Azazel had no reasonable cause ot believe it.
‘ot’
>and the way I could exploit it’s A.I. to lock down its movements.
>Tattletale: “Phones are back on.”
This feels like it’s from a script, flows really, really badly.
I get that Taylor’s supposed to be brighter than the rest of ’em, but conversations with regards to anything tactical at this point makes everyone else look like drooling retards with no agency. Which is rather unfortunate.
Also, curbstomping DRAGON, of all people, it’s… well. There’s no suspense when the good guys win every fight.
axle on June 13, 2015 at 21:34 said:
Anarchy!!! Down with the system! Stick it to the man Taylor!
Antonio Ortega on August 24, 2015 at 21:31 said:
I’m happy for them. But it’s sad to think that superheroes don’t win
cake on December 21, 2015 at 06:35 said:
The problam with self-replicating nanomachines that eat away at things is that at the rate they’d have to be multiplying, it’d probably be statistically impossible for there not to be an eventual mistake in the replication process, causing a “grey goo” scenario (look it up) that destroys some, most or all of the world.
Met-a-pony on February 27, 2016 at 23:03 said:
Why doesn’t Tattletale give the code when she calls?
Seems like this is a huge error, and an easy win for Dragon. If it isn’t, you’ve made a huge gaff, Wildbow!
Unit ZER0 on April 2, 2016 at 01:51 said:
Ok, this was a pure and simple cop-out. Any AI smart enough to detect a verbal paradox would have sensors that could easily detect another human being, even a parahuman. As a machine, it’s unaffected by perception-altering powers.
Why hasn’t the PRT just gone to guns, and finished these villains off?
There’s no direct correlation between an Al’s intelligence and his good its sensors are. That’s a separate hardware issue.
More importantly, it doesn’t actually *matter* how good its sensors are. Sure, Imp’s initial ability disrupts memory and doesn’t affect machines. But there’s a massive question mark over her hypothetical new ability to hide from sensors – the AI has no way to know the details of how such an ability works, so it cannot safely assume that being a machine makes it immune.
The cultural issues around the whole “heroes vs villains” thing is one of the major themes of Worm. “Why don’t the heroes just go after the villains guns blazing?” is addressed in the story. There are a few reasons for it. I can’t remember if they’re before or after this point though, so I won’t go into detail for fear of spoilers.
OK, I’ll read on. It just bugs me that time and lives are put at risk to capture a clearly irredeemable foe in a lot of cases (maybe not this one, but a lot from earlier arcs), when a bullet would cost a Lot less.
I still think it was a cop-out. The dragon units aren’t really “true” AI’s, more like sophisticated Expert Systems. Very good at an assigned task, but absolute crap at anything outside their scope, however broad or limited that scope may be.
Absolutely spot on. They’re not true AIs. There’s a reason for that which is covered in the narrative.
Entropy's Punching Bag on June 26, 2016 at 12:30 said:
One typo:
“saying Azazel had no reasonable cause ot believe it” should be “to believe”.
Count to 10 on August 17, 2016 at 19:53 said:
I can’t say the outcome of this chapter makes much sense. Especially the part about taking down a suit sitting in the stratosphere — they don’t have anything that would let them see that, let alone attack it.
Oh my god. Pbvy, lbh qvpx! Lbh xarj jurer Gnlybe jnf tbvat gb or, jvgu ure qnq, naq lbh qvqa’g fb zhpu nf jnea ure?! Lbh onfgneq!
CraftySyndicate on March 27, 2018 at 07:23 said:
Riniko on November 11, 2018 at 20:32 said:
Wow, I really can see them reclassifying Skitter as a higher level Thinker soon, if only to salve their egos from her kicking their asses so often.
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Speck 30.3
I made my way into Brockton Bay, the Boardwalk. Five more steps carried me into New Delhi. Only a minute later, I was walking through Brockton Bay again, downtown this time.
Los Angeles.
Bucharest.
Brockton Bay again.
Madison, Wisconsin.
Cauldron’s Headquarters.
Ruins. Places built up by man, painstaking, sometimes over centuries. Layer upon layer of human experience, history, and art, represented in stone and wood and glass. Every single building had been put together with the idea of meeting some specific goal, a specific individual’s tastes, filling a purpose as an institution, or being built to cater to society’s tastes as a whole. Virtually every building had been a familiar place to someone, a home, a place of business. Roads had once been a part of people’s daily routines, bridges a convenience that was appreciated, if rarely acknowledged.
Shattered, eroded, dashed aside. Roads were now uneven slabs, rising and falling, while buildings had folded or leaned over, spilling out their innards. Those same innards hinted at just how much value we’d put into this world we’d built around ourselves.
I realized I’d stopped walking, struck by what I was looking at. There was a tightness in my chest, and I struggled to put my finger on what to call it. It was a sweet feeling, but not a pleasant one. Not nostalgia, but it called to a certain kind of familiarity.
Home, I thought. This is home. Not so much a place I could return to for a hug, to kick my shoes off and let down my guard, not a place where I would sleep and wake up feeling warm. Yet it was a place which was central to me, a place I was rooted in, and vice versa.
I’d defined myself in places like these. The height of my growth, my strongest moments, they’d taken place in open graveyards and the aftermath of tragedies. Not my best moments, not the noblest, but the moments where I’d had the greatest impacts and had made the choices that shaped who I was.
I started walking again. I wasn’t actually traveling to Brockton Bay, to Bucharest or Los Angeles. I could have, but I wasn’t. It was only that the ruins here were so easy to relate to those places, to this home. The memories of the locations were bleeding into my awareness, making it feel almost real.
I wanted to tell myself it was the clairvoyant in my range, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to. I wanted to say it was the distraction of having to devote a small share of my attention to ensuring that Doormaker kept opening portals when the clairvoyant recognized someone asking for one.
With a note of desperation, I told myself it was because I was still trying to keep tabs on my power, gauge my level of control, and manage my body. If I couldn’t get a better grip on my own movements, maybe I could get control over my swarm. Over the people I was controlling.
But I didn’t really believe it. I was slipping.
My bugs spilled out over the ruins. My range was shorter, but I could use the relay bugs I had on hand.
Slipping, the thought came back to me.
Losing my mind, losing grip on things.
The Faerie Queen had told me I needed to anchor myself. Except I’d been doing that for a long time. It was how I functioned. Compartmentalizing, identifying a priority, devoting myself to it. Surviving the bullying, the mission to turn in the Undersiders, the mission to save Dinah, to turn the city around, to save the world. I’d had tunnel vision at the best of times, and I’d had both successes and failures.
I functioned best when I had a mission, something beyond the one singular goal before me. Yes, stopping Scion was key, but-
I shook my head. I’d stopped walking again. Had to focus.
I’d use smaller anchors here, smaller things to tie myself down to reality, focusing on my surroundings. If and when the time came, I would abandon them, cast them away in order of size and priority. In a way, it would let me gauge how badly I was slipping.
An exercise of Doormaker’s power let me experiment with the portals. They couldn’t move or drift, excepting the way they were anchored to the rotation of the planet as a whole. Instead, I opened and closed new portals, timing it so the opening of one was a fraction of a second before the prior one closed. I surrounded myself with them, a shifting, shuttering array of portals.
I was put in mind of the moment I donned my costume, of being Skitter the Warlord, with her half-cape, half-shawl. There had been a kind of power to the gesture, to draping myself in the cloth and assuming the title and the role.
As I made my way through New York, I found myself altering the portals, reconfiguring them. I’d drape myself in them like I did in a costume.
They formed a loose three-quarter circle around me, Doormaker and the clairvoyant, at first, a cylinder with an opening in front of me. When I turned my head, they reconfigured, the portals in my way disappearing, replaced by others.
To streamline the portal creation, I layered them. Two half-circles, overlapping.
And then, because it was the most compact way to fit the portals together, because I needed to make a signature, to make this mine and to make it me, I made them hexagons. A honeycomb interlocking of small, one-foot-diameter doorways, opening up to random points throughout the city, extending my range further than even my bugs could manage. Each one showed a different image when looked through, a wall, a section of overcast sky, a bit of pavement. It didn’t stand out, serving more as a kind of camouflage.
As I experimented, finding the places to set the portals, my awareness of the city expanded in turn.
I sensed some of Teacher’s squads. Groups of men and women, always with at least one person who was more fit than the rest, all dressed in white, or at least in white shirts with jeans. Most had backpacks, and all had weapons. They patrolled, scouting the area, talking amongst each other in low voices.
Always talking about business.
I found Teacher. He had a project in the works, and his ‘students’ were busy scavenging. A different sort of control than I had, with my bugs or the people in my sway. More human, maybe. A society, rather than an army of troops gathered in formations.
The vast majority were active, each with a job to do, a task. Men carried metal and electronics and either broke down materials or shaped them. Women, just a little weaker in terms of physical strength, carried things like wire and baskets of clothing they had looted from stores. Children handled the finer work, etching designs into metal and stitching.
I could almost respect it. Except his motives were clearly selfish.
“Better to be fast than perfect,” he was saying. He paused to touch one of his subjects for a few seconds. The girl stood there, eyes closed, while Teacher resumed talking, “Follow the blue prints, or use the hub stations to get a clear mental picture.”
There were nods from the group around him.
Hub stations. Not everyone was active. There were clusters of two or three individuals that were each together, but I was pretty sure they weren’t what he was referring to. There were also some individuals that seemed to be operating as rally points for the others, arranged in a loose ring around their work in progress. I watched one individual bring a car door to the rally point, touch the man in the center, and then make their way over to teacher. He murmured, “Metal and fiberglass design.”
Teacher touched him for four seconds, and then the man with the door made his way to a table, dropping a backpack and collecting a small crowbar. As he started working, another man at the table stretched, grabbed a backpack, then joined one of the scavenging groups.
It was like a barn raising, but they were working purely in steel and electronics. Individuals that were tired switched to a different job, and everyone worked tirelessly.
They were building a Dragon-craft from scratch.
Not only a Dragon-craft.
“Eight costumes,” Teacher said. He approached a table, lifting one costume off the surface to investigate. “Not so flashy. We want to fly under the radar. Make it substandard, if anything. C-list material.”
There were nods all around. Teacher walked over to another table, lined with tinker weaponry and other tools. His students were loyal, but they weren’t puppets, like mine were. Their movements were natural. The overall system, though, wasn’t natural at all.
I was put in mind of Regent’s games. There was the base of operations, the cluster of villagers managing the city, and there were the more independent squads of people, deployed to the world beyond the base camp, patrolling for enemies, ready at a moment’s notice to be gathered together in a massed attack.
No doubt they were organized by ability. Teacher could grant thinker and tinker powers. If I assumed at least one tinker per group, with the tinkers carrying some ranged weapon or defense, and if the athletic members of the roaming squads were the soldiers, gifted with some knowledge that would give them a small edge in a fight, there were still two or three members in a given group I couldn’t identify.
I wasn’t even finished the thought when one of them perked up, startled. She shouted, “Scatter!”
Her group moved in different directions.
Trouble?
I was the trouble. It’s a fucking precog.
I opened portals, catching her three teammates, one by one.
It took two tries to catch her. She was a fast runner, and she saw where I was putting down my portal before I’d even started, turning a hundred and eighty degrees around and scrambling in the opposite direction.
They were eerily calm, all things considered, much like Doormaker and the clairvoyant. It made things easier for me. But I knew that ‘easy’ wouldn’t last.
Teacher achieved control over people by giving them parahuman abilities. The organization was important, and everything was key. I’d moved too fast, and now Teacher’s human systems were starting to kick into effect.
Men and women in an isolated cluster dropped to their knees.
“Amber district, team B-six,” one of the students in the group reported. His voice was as clear as a bell in the near-silence of Teacher’s base of operations. There were only the sounds of tools and the steady percussion of hammers striking metal, all in unison.
“What’s the problem?” Teacher asked.
“Out of action.”
“Change focus. All observation teams, identify our target,” Teacher said.
Heads in every second group around the base turned. They looked my way, as if they could see the full five or six city blocks and see me standing in the middle of the road.
One crossed to another group, touching a young man.
“Weaver,” the young man said, in turn.
It’s like a computer. Every person carries out a specific operation, and they’re gathered in clusters with people who can communicate those ideas to others in efficient ways.
“Tinker group H,” Teacher said. “Defensive measures, modify them for micro-scale drones. Forcefields, area attacks. Group N, to me. We’ll need more tinkers on this problem. We’ll also need to this area. Groups F and J, I’ll recalibrate, put you on more general anti-clairvoyance duty. She’s- You’re looking in, aren’t you, Weaver?”
I reached out to place a portal in Teacher’s camp, right behind him. I hit a barrier, a dead zone I couldn’t affect.
Some tinker device was blocking my clairvoyant, which was blocking Doormaker in turn.
My relay bugs didn’t work either. They only worked on bugs.
I began laying down portals around the perimeter, instead, finding the exact point I could affect. The portals right next to me were turned around, so none faced me directly. It wouldn’t do if he had students open fire and shoot through the portal to hit me point blank.
“This is new,” Teacher said. “Have I done something to earn your attention? Crossed a line, somehow, maybe I inadvertently borrowed someone you care about? I assure you, I’m very benign. The vast majority of my students here volunteered their services. I told them I could use them to help stop Scion and save the world, and they agreed. A number of others took the deal with the oath that I could borrow them for a year, and I’d supply them powers with no strings attached for the extent of their lives, no mental bondage at all.”
I frowned, shifting my weight from foot to foot, trying to ensure I didn’t lose touch with my body. If I had to move, I wanted to be able to move fast.
One of the groups was close enough to the perimeter of Teacher’s base to fall in range of my portal. I seized them, then took a second to analyze their capabilities. Hyper-acute senses, enhanced aim, the ability to see through walls and a danger sense.
I thought of Tattletale, boasting to Coil in the moments before I’d pulled the trigger.
Not, I reminded myself, that I’m pulling any triggers here.
But I needed to disturb things, shake up Teacher’s elegantly balanced operation.
They looked at one another, and I gauged the equipment they held. The one with enhanced aim was the ‘soldier’ of the group, armed with an ordinary gun and a bandolier of grenades.
I controlled his movements, directing him to grab a grenade from the bandolier. He handed it over to the one with enhanced senses.
The one with the grenade raised his hand, hollering, leaning back, ready to throw-
My danger-detector reacted, and I had Doormaker create a portal, moving the grenade out of the line of fire. A fat blob of crackling energy soared through the vacated space.
“You’re full of surprises today,” Teacher said. “I’m going to assume this is actually you, Weaver, and that you’re not an Ingenue thrall or something similar. I want you to know I’m not your enemy. I was there for that whole business against the Elite, pitting Endbringers on them, I understand why you did it. You have your mission, a noble task, and you see it as a universal task. One everyone should inspire towards. Peace and prosperity in your territory, because peace and prosperity are good things, am I right? Please feel free to comment, strike up a conversation here.”
He gestured, and his crowd of students collectively backed away from the squad of students I’d taken over at one corner of his setup. They faced down the others, their heads and shoulders visible above a section of wall that had fallen to the road hours ago. I watched his group move, and tried Doormaker’s power again. The borders were at the same points.
“No? Okay. You’ll have to trust me when I say I’m working towards the same end mission you are. I want to stop Scion. But I’m not a warrior, and I’d be offering more trouble than help if I was on the battlefield. My students are fine when I’m giving the orders, but they’re prone to undecision at key junctions. I know where I need to be, I’ll be there shortly, and I’ll be of far more use to our side then.”
If the group had moved and the borders were at the same point, then it wasn’t a person generating the effect.
I used my bugs and Doormaker’s power to get a sense of where the perimeter of this clairvoyance-blocking power was. It was just a little irregularly shaped, but I could factor buildings and intervening obstacles into the area. If there was a generated signal, it didn’t extend as far with solid objects in the way.
“For the books, I was inviting you to ask where it is I was planning on going. You seem more keen on silence.”
My squad turned a gun on the very center point, opening fire with a trio of bullets.
A box, a tinker-made device, exploded in sparks, popping into the air and bouncing off of the pavement.
I tested the clairvoyant’s power. It worked.
I placed portals with care. Not to ensnare Teacher’s students, but to cut them off. Portals between them, above and behind them, in front. Assuming twelve to thirteen feet of range, I could space them out and cover a wide area.
When I started tagging the groups, I worked from the outside in. His precogs weren’t amazing, with only a few seconds of awareness before their power gave them a heads up, but the trap was already in place.
I left Teacher for last. No students at his disposal. I made a portal, and then stepped through. My soldiers aimed guns at him, while others stood stock still.
Teacher said something in a language I didn’t understand.
I shook my head. I didn’t have a better way of showing my lack of understanding.
“No?” he asked, smiling a little.
I shook my head once more.
“A shame, that,” he said. He sounded genuinely bothered.
My bugs flowed over him and through his pockets. I didn’t have silk, so I used thread from one of the workbenches, encircling the gun beneath his unfashionable corduroy jacket. It wasn’t a fast process, but Teacher saw what I was doing and helped it along, raising his hands to his head, simultaneously lifting his jacket up and away from the weapon.
I passed the thread to one of my new underlings, and they pulled the gun free.
My new minions began examining the gathered components and gear. I looked through their eyes, taking it all in.
“I’m not unfamiliar with robbery,” Teacher said. “Parcel and part of this whole enterprise. But this isn’t you, I don’t think. For one thing, I’m working towards stopping Scion, in a roundabout way. Or mollifying the damage he does, if stopping him isn’t likely. It seems things have turned around, then, if you’re closer to being the Elite you were so recently condemning, and I’m someone working towards a fix.”
I gave him a hard look. He shrugged, his hands still on his head, then said something in another language, smiling a little.
A code word? A trap or trigger for some tinker device hereabouts?
Except nothing had happened.
“Well then,” he said. “Scratch that.”
He tried something and it didn’t work? My swarm shifted their stances, approaching a little closer, guns raised.
“Definitely scratch that,” he said. “Well then, I won’t ask for your forgiveness, but I can still be blunt. You seem different, and not so much for the better.”
My attention was on the tables. Weapons, tinker gear… I started browsing through it myself, joining the minions who weren’t actively keeping Teacher at gunpoint.
“Can I ask why? Or is that too personal? I understand second triggers can be mortifying.”
I turned around to face him. I put my hand flat against my mouth.
“Mute. I see. And you came to me for help with that? Do you want to be able to communicate again?”
“Then you’re looking to refine this ability of yours. I can do that. Give capes control over abilities that feel a little lacking in areas.”
Again, I shook my head.
“What did you come for, then?”
I didn’t respond, my attention on the group.
I found what I was looking for.
Boxes, small, with a single, broad button along one side. Like detonators. There was nothing to them but a single LED, green, and a few ports where they could be plugged into certain ports or outlets.
I gathered them, tucking them into spare pouches.
“I don’t suppose you could sock one for me?”
I shook my head. I gathered all of them.
Then I began gathering the guns.
“This is inconvenient, for the books.”
You don’t need these against Scion.
“Again, my power is available, if you should need it. Anything that helps against our reciprocal enemy, you understand.”
He had an annoying habit of picking difficult-sounding words and using them instead of simpler options. Like someone trying to sound smarter than they were.
I approached Teacher. I saw him startle a little at the sudden movement.
He had nowhere to run, and he knew it. He looked around, and he could see his own students caught in my snare.
I saw the surrender in his body language, an instant before he fell inside my power’s range.
Memories hit me. Announcing myself as Weaver in front of the PRT building. Taking on the role in New Delhi, coordinating two teams.
I could sense his power, and I could sense his general awareness of the people he’d affected. There was no constant connection between him and them, nothing like I had over my bugs or my subjects.
I moved another over to him, and I used his power on them.
There was a connection then. It only took a little bit of time, and focus on Teacher’s part. I could sense both the power taking hold, and the frailty, the weak point that manifested at the same time. There was a duality.
I let go of the subject, and I could feel that frail point linger, decaying by the smallest fraction with every passing moment. That was what Teacher sensed, an awareness of both the power and the degree of influence he had over the subject.
No, I thought. Not an option.
I withdrew my phone, unlocked it, and found the page I needed. I threw it to Teacher. Rather than try to catch it with his clumsier movements, I had him grab the bottom of his sweater and lift it up, forming a net. It landed in the ‘net’, and Teacher collected it.
I backed away, releasing him.
Teacher staggered a little, then muttered what must have been a swear word in that other language.
“Karma, I suppose,” he said, panting a little. “A… little nerve wracking there. I can’t help but notice you didn’t pursue with yourself, while you had me in command.”
There would be no way to use the power without leaving myself open to Teacher’s influence. No, I wouldn’t be able to get myself a voice this way. Not if it affected my ability to make decisions. Not if it left a lingering window open.
These people who’d taken his promise of a lifetime of power, no strings attached, had been misled.
“Nothing, then?” he asked.
“A disappointment.”
I wasn’t that disappointed. I had what I needed. A speed bump for Scion, weapons, a little more information on how my power worked, and… I pointed at the phone I’d given him. He glanced down.
“The C.I.U.,” Teacher said.
I responded with a short nod, then held up one of the devices I’d collected. I was picking and choosing the members of Teacher’s collection I could use, arming them with tinker weaponry and gathering them near me. I didn’t enclose them in my little cloak of portals.
“Ah… you guessed?”
I nodded, once.
“Understand, it wasn’t spiteful on my part,” Teacher said. He lapsed into the other language for one moment, “…I gave them the switch in the hopes it would stop the incursions and curb honestly. They were supposed to lock themselves away, but they held on to it, apparently intending to use it if anyone retaliated. An ingress, a portcullis, if you will. A way to raise the drawbridge and prevent passage into their castle.”
At my order, some of his students gestured with their guns, prompting him.
He seemed to take the threat in stride. “The one with a white button.”
I glanced at the ones in my possession. I found it in a belt pouch and repositioned it.
“Skeleton key, Weaver. I could make you force me to give up any of this detail, but I won’t. I want to get back to work, so I can help.”
He was giving me a funny look, trying to drive home his point.
But this was a roundabout plan, some kind of infiltration, and he was clearly working against our side. I wasn’t sure I bought it.
It didn’t matter.
I gestured to the phone. He moved to throw it back, and I raised a hand. I pointed to my left.
He wasn’t stupid. He got my meaning, then used the phone to find the page I was referring to.
“I assume you’re not looking to find me, which leaves only the Birdcage. No. I haven’t provided any devices to the Birdcage, or anyone alleged with it. But you’re going to find entering is difficult, regardless. There are security placements in measure.”
I nodded. My soldiers got in place, rank and file around me, all armed.
“If I grasp your intentions, Weaver, I can speculate you’ll be back for me later?”
I didn’t respond. No need to telegraph my plans to Teacher. Still, the thinkers were figuring out what I was up to.
I was running out of time.
Which meant taking a leap of faith.
Using the clairvoyant directly was a dangerous prospect. He could grant the power to see the entire world, multiple worlds, but breaking that contact was troubling, debilitating. I could see the toll it had already taken on Doormaker.
But I couldn’t afford to hold back.
I separated Doormaker from his partner. I could sense the effect, the sensory shift, the break in perspective, the mild nausea. But he was functionally blind and deaf, and there were only so many senses that he had which could suffer.
I’d suffer far, far more. If I made contact with the clairvoyant and was forced to break it… that would be it. Chances were good I wouldn’t be able to carry on. Things would be over before I recovered.
I took stock. I had a squadron, now. People who would have been slaves anyways. People with simple abilities that were easy to get a handle on and use. I had weapons, better than a typical gun.
Hopefully we wouldn’t have to use them.
I took hold of Doormaker’s hand, and I moved it to my belt, hooking his fingers through it. Then I used my hand to take hold of the clairvoyant’s.
My awareness started to unfold. A slow, steady, gradual process. I was aware of vast tracts of land. I could see the damage done to Earth Bet. It disoriented me, to see how we were in Washington, not New York. Teacher had returned home. Why had I thought we were in New York?
If I’d been distant from myself before, the enhanced vision made it that much worse.
I could remember how I’d once been comforted by the fact that my power put the world in perspective, showing me just how small I was in the grand scheme of things.
This wasn’t comforting at all. Not this. Not at this brutal scale. I could sense the entirety of the world, from atmosphere to ocean floor. I could, if I wanted to listen for it, hear the wind, the patter of rain, see the shimmers of heat on one side of the planet and the frost forming in caves on the other side of the planet, day and night at the same time.
I can see how the Doctor got a little detached from things, if she used this power with any regularity.
Teacher said something. I couldn’t make it out, because I wasn’t really listening.
I could see the other worlds and tally up the damage. Not even a fifth of us were fighting, but those ten percent were giving it their all. Others had retreated, finding family or friends to take shelter with.
I could count all of the individual collections of people. Using Doormaker, the Doctor had scattered mankind over every available earth. Collections of a few hundred to a few thousand. People used to civilized life were starting over from scratch. Makeshift shelters, fires, crafting tools. They were tired, frustrated, and above all else, they were scared. There was no news, no media, no way to follow the ongoing fight.
When I stopped looking, they didn’t leave my attention. They carried on in my peripheral vision, as that field of vision continued to grow with every passing second.
The only real limitation was a set of blind spots, identical to the one that had hovered over Teacher’s base of operations. I could work around that. There was also the fact that I could avoid looking for things, and keep them out of sight. I could avoid searching and seeking, avoid bringing something or someone into my field of vision.
Another anchor, another thing to tie me to reality, tie me to Taylor.
I could see one cabin, off in the distance in Earth Gimel. It would be three days of walking on foot to get there from the settlement.
Grue’s cabin.
I’m so weak, I thought.
I didn’t want to look inside and see him with Cozen. I didn’t want to see them curled up in front of a fire, knowing the world could end at any moment, should Scion decide to shatter the landmass.
Instead, I fixed that cabin’s location in mind, and I watched it from a distance.
I found my house, or what little was left of it, in shattered Brockton Bay.
I found people. I found Charlotte and Forrest. I found Sierra, being very authoritarian and intimidating as she ordered refugees around. She gave off an oddly familiar impression.
I found Tattletale. She’d left her laptop aside and was helping with the wounded, talking with Rachel and Panacea in an intense, low voice.
Imp was giving somebody CPR. Unlike the movies, most CPR attempts weren’t successful. Her patient was probably dead already, but she kept trying. Ages ago, Grue hadn’t been able to get her to take the first aid class.
Parian and Foil were moving around the outskirts of the battlefield, riding a stuffed animal. Foil wasn’t shooting, and it wasn’t due to a lack of ammunition.
All the people I cared about, the things I wanted to hold on to, no matter what.
I found my mom’s grave. It was a part of the ruined landscape, and the earth had cracked open. I could see the insect life surrounding the site. Experimentally, I opened a portal. My relay bugs passed through, and I cleared up the area, bringing the bugs to me.
Vanity, stupidity, but I felt a little better. The area was cleaner. Still in ruins, but cleaner.
And my dad…
I’ve lost so much, I thought. Forgive me, dad. I need to have the hope you’re still alive more than I need to know either way.
Little anchors, more things to tie me down to reality. I double checked the others were in place. The least important of all, the mantle, the costume, for lack of a better word, with the honeycombed portals, it was secure. I had my goal, I had my mission.
I was still me. I was managing.
I turned my attention to Scion. Apparently Tattletale had been right. A bit of a fib on Cauldron’s part, that they couldn’t use the clairvoyant on him. They’d wanted to avoid Scion finding them, avoid having him find his way to their laboratories.
When I looked, I saw him screaming.
Even for someone who had only ever spoken twice, it was an eerie, unsettling sound. Raw, like he was being actively tortured, a sound of pain and anger distilled, given volume by his power.
He wasn’t being tortured, though. He was winning, tearing into the crowd with more ferocity than before, that same crowd where the others, people I cared about, were-
“Pose?” Teacher asked, interrupting my thoughts. I’d missed the beginning of what he’d said.
I raised my head. It was more like I saw the movement of my head through a telescope than it was like owning the head itself.
Right. I’d zoned out again. Taking in too much.
Needed to move.
I was omniscient. More accurately, I was as close to omniscient as I could hope to get. It came with an Achilles heel, but I’d make do.
My phone had the last known location of the C.U.I. portal. I opened a door to it.
I left Teacher behind. He didn’t warrant a goodbye. If there was such a thing as Karma, he’d get it soon enough. For now, I would put off getting revenge for what he’d done to Dragon. He’d be inconvenienced by the loss of his soldiers and disruption of his base of operations, but he’d recover.
Twenty parahumans flanked me as I walked down the dirt road. I stopped when we’d come to the portal’s location. The C.U.I. had invaded, killing the refugees on the other side, then moved in.
The clairvoyant, moving at my bidding, took hold of the device I’d fastened onto my belt.
He hit the white button.
Teacher had sealed himself off in one world, to build up his students and work with Dragon. He’d given that technology to the C.U.I., and they’d used it to secure their position.
Now I was breaking in.
The blind spot fractured, then dissolved. I could see the C.U.I.’s empire. Three hundred million people, many still migrating to places where they could settle, physically walking to separate themselves from others, so Scion couldn’t kill too many at once. I could see where Scion had attacked at one point, and they were still performing disaster relief.
There was a member of the C.U.I. who was officially known as Ziggurat, though she was really ‘Tōng Líng Tǎ’ to her allies and countrymen. She’d used her power to erect stone walls and start the construction of a palace for the Imperial family. Three walls stretched between three impressive towers, with the palace at the center of the acres of empty space within.
I could see the Yàngbǎn in full force. Three groups of sixty to one hundred and thirty capes, arranged on broad, square platforms of stone that had been raised off of the ground, each facing outward, their backs to the palace. Every one of them was in a matching outfit, their masks white, purple, and yellow, in turn. They were tending to wounds, and the gaps in their number suggested they’d taken heavy losses.
Inside the place itself was a kaleidoscope. Each room was mirrored several times over, the occupants moving in unison. The main chambers had nine iterations, each with a copy of the imperial family, each with a fourth squad of Yàngbǎn ringing the group in concentric circles rather than in rows and columns. This squad wore masks like the others, multifaceted gemstones large enough to cover their faces, but the gems were a jade green. The bodyguards, thirty in all. The scariest capes in their group.
A young man, fourteen, sat on the throne. On either side, their chairs just low enough to the ground that their heads were beneath the young man’s, were family members. Too young to be his mother and father. A very young child, a girl, sat on a mat at their feet. His sister. I’d seen pictures of the new emperor and his sister when their older brother had been killed along with the Simurgh’s attack on flight BA178.
They were joined by others. Shén Yù the strategist was a surprisingly young man, wearing a black robe that was as straight and narrow as he was. He was focused on a small tablet computer. Beside him was Jiǎ, the imperial family’s tinker, and surely the individual who had set up the kaleidoscope effect, throwing off would-be assassins and intruders. Tōng Líng Tǎ was there as well, a very thin Chinese woman with a black robe and heavily painted face.
Just below the dais were three more Yàngbǎn members. Null, One and Two. The key components in their power structure, the ones who divided the powers, controlled the squads and gave them the strength to be effective, respectively.
If I acted, I’d be targeted. We’d taken out one of their armies, an infiltration and raiding party with the Simurgh’s attack, but there were four groups remaining. One of the other raiding parties was less biased towards infiltration and more towards movement. They were the cavalry, the blitzers, the ones capable of flight and teleportation. In the wake of the raids, the first strikes our side had deployed against them had been viciously counterattacked. Quite possibly Shén Yù’s work. Any attempt to attack was met by equal and opposite counterattack, targeting the leaders of the offensive party.
Even with nigh-omniscience, even with my portals, I wasn’t sure I wanted to gamble on this. Overconfidence at this juncture would be ruinous.
Better to sunder their confidence, than let my own be too high. They weren’t anticipating an attack.
But two hundred parahumans and a set of elite capes focused on defense and counterattacks was ominous.
I tensed, all at once. A stray attack on Scion’s part flew through the air. I closed Doormaker’s portals in the area, and it wiped out a building, along with six people.
I raised the portal again, connecting Gimel to the makeshift hospital.
Tattletale muttered something under her breath. Panacea said something I couldn’t make out.
Two of my favorite people in the world, almost wiped out without a chance to even know it was coming.
I looked at each of these things I treasured, the things I valued. My leveled ‘house’ in Brockton Bay, the graveyard, my ex-employees, my teammates… and I looked at Scion.
There was no right answer. No perfect battle plan on this end. There was no time.
I exhaled slowly, forcing myself to relax.
Then I began opening portals across all of the different worlds I could reach. I began gathering bugs en masse.
I’d heard once there were ten quintillion bugs in my world. Eighteen zeroes. I couldn’t control that many. Or, to be precise, I couldn’t afford the time to collect that many.
Fourteen zeroes? If I had a dozen worlds, each with really good swamps and rainforests to tap into, my relay bugs to help extend my pitiful, three-hundred foot range? That was doable.
Fuck it all. There was a time for strategy, and there was a time for the brute force approach. Hell, the brute force approach could be called a strategy unto itself.
I’d find out about Shén Yù’s power the hard way. He could see attacks coming. Did it work when the attack came from every direction?
I divided the bugs into tenths. Then I opened nine portals into the Yàngbǎn’s world.
The tenth I opened into Earth Bet, above the portal I’d reopened.
They did react. Shén Yù did manage a nigh-instantaneous counterattack. A hundred capes deployed to my general area, teleporting in, and then flying around with speeds that would have put them on par with cars on a highway.
I watched from a distant location as my hand clenched, squeezing the clairvoyant’s.
But I’d deployed a tenth of the bugs on my location. I was hidden within an impenetrable cloud of bugs. I raised Doormaker’s portals as shields around me.
Some entered the cloud, and the response was swift and brutal. The bugs consumed them, and my minions with the tinker guns shot them. I moved to a different world, closing the door behind me, just to make their job a little harder.
The other squadrons had their own means of defense. One had eighty or so people burning red hot, torching the bugs by heating up the air.
I began using portals, and I captured the group.
“If you little fucks had any sense, you’d know that getting the upper hand on me, just for a moment? It’s something you should be fucking terrified of.”
Not my voice in my head.
“Oh? The ineffectual little girl with the bug costume is awake.”
Memories of confusion, a pain unlike any other. Of utter helplessness.
What would my mom think to see me now? A thought from a different moment than the others.
I used Doormaker’s portals to capture other groups, though they were more scattered.
When I had the majority of them, I turned them against the palace.
Ziggurat closed up every window and door. The ring of Yàngbǎn members was standing now, on alert.
It hardly mattered. They’d amassed this much sheer power, they’d controlled the people through manipulation, and now they were seeing what happened when the people turned on them.
I felt a kind of anger swelling in my breast, and I knew it wasn’t mine.
But it was still a feeling I could ride. Something that could carry me forwards.
Fuck them. Fuck them for not cooperating. Fuck it all, I shouldn’t have had to go this far.
The attackers tore down one wall. I saw one of the six mirror images of the kaleidoscope interior fade away. The interior was heavily trapped, laced with poisons, rooms with only vacuum within and, ironically, poisonous bugs. Had someone tried teleporting in, chances were good they would have met a grisly end.
I moved the attackers around the outside of the palace, rather than subject them to the traps. They attacked different walls.
One wall was penetrated, and two more shares of the mirror image faded.
There was another contingent of Yàngbǎn within one of the revealed partitions. Red masks, like the ones I’d seen in New Delhi. A small squad of throwaways.
I controlled them too.
It wasn’t long before the last mirror images fell.
My portals ensnared the remaining Yàngbǎn in a few moments. The fighting stopped all at once.
I added Zero, One and Two to my swarm.
Alexandria, choking on bugs. They hated me for my arrogance. For what I was.
I exhaled slowly. They were a little more aware than the others.
Two’s power enhanced other powers. Refracted throughout the Yàngbǎn, it was what allowed them to have sixty powers at one fifth of the strength instead of sixty at one sixtieth.
Her power worked on my own. I felt my control clarify.
In front of me, One extended a hand, then carefully closed it. I moved it experimentally, testing the range of motion.
Not as perfect as if it were my own hand, back when I had full control over it, but better.
I wouldn’t be sharing this one. I couldn’t afford to.
Shén Yù spoke. It didn’t sound Chinese, with the wrong cadence. It was a question, by the sound of it, accusatory.
Maybe there was a power that would have made sense of it. It didn’t matter.
There were five layers of overlapping hexagons, now.
I had my army.
But it wouldn’t be enough.
On to the Birdcage, I thought.
I opened portals for my swarm to pass through.
I passed through, and I found myself in the midst of ruins.
Ruins, like I’d been thinking about before I met Teacher.
I used the clairvoyant’s power to search my surroundings.
No. The structure was only partially intact, devastated by Scion’s fury, by shockwaves and literal waves. That it still stood was a testament to how solid it had once been.
This isn’t the Birdcage.
Gardener. My old jail.
The disorientation rocked me. To get my bearings, I didn’t reach for more geographical reference points, but I reached for the little anchors I’d formed instead. I checked and double checked them until I could be sure I was stable.
For the second time, I tried to make my way to the Birdcage.
I stepped through the portal, moving myself to a peak above the Birdcage itself. Though I couldn’t really feel it, I was aware of how cool the air was, the fact that my body, so small on that vast mountain, was sweating pretty heavily.
Being surrounded by thousands of billions of bugs had drained me more than I’d been aware.
Another weakness, another point where I’d disconnected just a bit too much.
Was my own body supposed to be an anchor? Was that something I should cling to, at the expense of other things?
I made myself draw in a deep breath, until my chest hurt, and it still felt so paltry compared to the hundreds of people I controlled. The view, this majestic image of the landscape, of a sky that still harbored the clouds of dust and debris from Scion’s earlier attacks… it was but one piece of a scene viewed from a hundred different pairs of eyes. Virtually all of them had better vision than I did. I was adrift in an ocean of input, one body, harder to control than all of the others, so easy to forget about.
I’d done it without thinking, bringing them with me. They stood on ledges and jutting rocks all over the peak, surrounding me. More than anything else, I could feel their fear. With so many of them, it was indistinct.
I forced my own head to move, felt the crick in my neck, where I hadn’t really moved my head in a long time.
The ones who were still in the Birdcage were the ones the cell block leaders had felt apprehensive about. Not necessarily stronger, but less predictable, less reliable. More of a danger than a help, if given free reign.
As far as I could tell, it was the last large group of experienced capes I could collect.
I opened a portal within the Birdcage, to capture my first prisoner.
Containment foam rained down from the ceiling, sealing him in place.
Dragon, I thought.
I didn’t make another move. I waited. I’d expected this. It was why I’d come here in person. I could use the clairvoyant’s power and see a hangar in one mountain valley opening up.
It took only a minute. A small armored suit arrived, a fast-moving model rather than a heavy combat model, much like the one she’d used to counteract our first attack on the Brockton Bay PRT headquarters.
It perched on a rock in front of me.
Dragon’s weapons were primed and ready to fire, the threat implict. When she spoke, her voice as clear as a bell in the clear mountain air.
It was the same language Shén Yù had spoken to me. The same incomprehensible language Teacher had lapsed into.
When I met Dragon’s eyes with my own, my head shook with the shock I felt. I might have collapsed, numb, if I hadn’t been holding on to the clairvoyant, with Doormaker gripping my belt.
It was the anger that kept me going. I’d felt a glimmer of it when attacking the palace. I’d felt it when dealing with capes and civilians every damn step of the way. The only thing I wanted was for everyone to do what they were supposed to do. To be good and to be fair, feed the hungry, give shelter, to fix the things that were broken and to fucking band together against the real monsters. Save the world. For the world to make some damn sense.
I found myself chuckling a little, and it was just as displaced and not-quite right as any of my individual movements. Off kilter, more like I was doing a bad job of acting than real laughter.
I couldn’t stop it, even as I tried to pull myself together. I turned my face towards the sky, my eyes streaming. Her voice continued, insistent, the gentleness giving way to concern.
Hardly the last injustice I’d have to face down in the coming hours, but it was a front runner for the biggest. The most decent damn person I’d ever met, and she wasn’t even human. She was the only person who was definitely still alive who’d helped me without an iota of selfishness.
I couldn’t negotiate my way out of this. Even with the rapport we’d established, I couldn’t trust her to give me the benefit of a doubt.
As much as I didn’t want to, I knew that the only way forward would be to destroy her.
This entry was posted in 30.03 and tagged Bitch, Doormaker, Dragon, Imp, Panacea, Tattletale, Taylor, Teacher, Trickster, Ziggurat by wildbow. Bookmark the permalink.
534 thoughts on “Speck 30.3”
Finished this one early, but I was pretty tired when I wrote it. Mixed feelings, in the end, but I hope readers enjoy. I suspect typo thread is going to be something, though.
Here’s your semi-regular reminder to vote on Topwebfiction.
Thanks for reading, guys! Gonna go walk the dogs, and then note recent donators, some of whom were very generous. Your support has meant the world to me.
Vaughn on October 19, 2013 at 04:26 said:
I enjoyed it. Taylor’s slow decent into monstrosity is pleasing to me.
Clarvel on October 19, 2013 at 06:17 said:
This isn’t a slow decent at all, man.
Don on October 20, 2013 at 19:35 said:
More like a hypersonic comet of a descent.
the13thversifier on October 20, 2013 at 23:10 said:
it’s one kind of roller coaster, but the railways doesn’t loop upward, but spiraling downward, hitting endless bottom… imagine that
Charles Borner on October 19, 2013 at 00:05 said:
This is the typo thread.
Please put any instances of typographical errors (misspellings, grammatical errors, or just awkward usage) in here!
Ainix on October 19, 2013 at 00:25 said:
>“The C.I.U.,” Teacher said.
Should be C.U.I.
Written as intended.
Stephen M (Ethesis) on October 19, 2013 at 00:41 said:
Thanks!!! Appreciate the immediate clues like that.
James on October 19, 2013 at 00:46 said:
I think I’m being dense, but… what’s that a clue for?
letseveryonemorality on October 19, 2013 at 01:29 said:
Taylor’s ability to understand and even think in English is falling apart.
greatwyrmgold on October 19, 2013 at 21:31 said:
Because she didn’t have enough problems already.
scherzo on April 4, 2019 at 10:39 said:
holy FUCK you GENIUS i didn’t notice these while reading at all, (though i was caught a bit off guard by the use of “sock,” which is a pretty cool effect now that i have the context to appreciate it) going back is a mindfuck, this is amazing i love it
oliverwashere on October 19, 2013 at 00:55 said:
>> One everyone should inspire towards.
I feel “aspire” would fit the context better.
will408914 on October 19, 2013 at 00:30 said:
At one point, the C.U.I is referred to as the C.I.U. I can’t recall where.
Dang. Beaten to the punch.
Ronin on October 19, 2013 at 00:46 said:
“There are security placements in measure.”
Should be “security measures in place” right?
taliesinskye on October 19, 2013 at 05:09 said:
Ahh, Teacher and his wordplay.
More like “Taylor and her inability to understand English anymore”.
Yeah, but it’s funny because there’s a (possibly accidental) double wordplay meaning. ‘in measure’ literally means a limited number, but used with irony can mean the exact opposite, a whole lot. That combined with the subversion of the expected cliched phrase ‘there are security measures in place’ makes it very clever, if it was intentional.
Amusing, but uh… “save” instead?
Woah, that was fast. Damn. Well… at least she can still think clearly? That’s a plus…
OH CRAP. TAYLOR’S LOSING HER ABILITY TO COMMUNICATE. I GET IT NOW.
Ah, that makes all the hassle worth it, haha.
AMR on October 19, 2013 at 01:03 said:
I have to say that was brilliant use of a writer’s tools, wildbow.
PapaGoose on October 21, 2013 at 10:12 said:
Seconded. Color me impressed.
Amusingly, the first time I read this through, I only caught one or two of the ‘glitches’, and made the assumption that it was a typo.. it took the second readthrough and lots of comments to piece the writing together and fully make sense of it.
.. and still probably missed quite a bit.
You utterly magnificent bastard.
I read your book!
No really I’m reading wildbow’s book. And it’s great.
wildbow wrote a book?
You know what I mean.
No One in Particular on October 19, 2013 at 00:54 said:
OOH I get it.
acediamonds on October 19, 2013 at 01:13 said:
Ohhh. Wow. I was thinking that Wildbow decided to try out the whole write drunk thing while reading it.
Now I feel kind of dumb.
Huh. I guess “work in project” was written as intended, too? Daaamn.
How about “We’ll also need to this area.”? Missing word there of what Teacher’s saying. A lapse in Taylor’s parsing?
“It disoriented me, to see how we were in Washington, not New York. Teacher had returned home. Why had I thought we were in Washington?”
Does she mean New York the second time she says Washington? Do you mean for her to say so? Very confusing, trying to edit something that’s meant to be wrong in places.
Syroc on October 19, 2013 at 01:03 said:
Uhm, not sure this counts, as apparently Taylor is losing her shit, but I think “undecision” is a typo of “indecision”.
Robert on October 19, 2013 at 01:07 said:
I think we can assume that any ‘typo’ within quotes, where the ‘typo’ is also a word, is a symptom of Taylor’s failing brainpan.
Okay, this one for sure. “matching outfit. their masks white, purple, and yellow, in turn.” The period should be a comma. I hope. If her dysphasia is affecting her punctuation, too, I’m shot.
“Quite possibly Shén yù’s work.” Ms. Shén deserves a capital there.
Genuine catches. Yes. Fixed both, thank you.
AlsoSprachOdin on October 19, 2013 at 03:22 said:
“stop the incursions and curb honestly”
A little strange, this one. Seems like a word and comma is missing after “curb”.
On second thought, probably “just” Taylor’s internal errors.
Olivebirdy on October 19, 2013 at 13:52 said:
Typo “prone to undecision” should be indecision
“Shen yu’s did manage a nigh instantaneous counterattack”
Shen yu did manage?
Mathematicae on October 19, 2013 at 15:19 said:
“then make their way over to teacher” I suppose Teacher would merit a capitalization.
anon on October 20, 2013 at 00:50 said:
“make their way over to teacher” -needs to be titlecase.
Grokh on October 20, 2013 at 13:44 said:
“Dragon’s weapons were primed and ready to fire, the threat implict.”
should be ‘implicit’
Or maybe ‘explicit’, depending on how obvious the priming is.
“bridges a convenience that was appreciated” – awkward, I feel unsure about this one, “bridges” comes off as a verb.
samdel on December 13, 2013 at 16:44 said:
I haven’t provided any devices to the Birdcage, or anyone alleged with it.
Probably aligned instead of alleged.
rwcampbell on December 14, 2013 at 00:32 said:
I expect that’s intentional. Did you read through the rest of the typo thread?
Ben on April 21, 2014 at 17:18 said:
“My students are fine when I’m giving the orders, but they’re prone to undecision at key junctions.” undecision->indecision
Or perhaps, written as intended?
Thanatos on January 26, 2015 at 20:17 said:
I wasn’t even finished the thought –> hadn’t finished
We’ll also need to this area. –> need to what? Clear, clean, evacuate?
Virtually all of them had better vision than I did. –> not too sure, but might have to be ‘i had’
an iota –> I really don’t know whether this should or shouldn’t be ‘a’ iota, but I’m gonna post it here anyway :p
Jason on February 22, 2015 at 03:44 said:
-security measures in place? makes it sound like there’s a lot of low walls and cover. Even if intentional, it’s awkward, but I suspect it just slipped through
storryeater on May 9, 2015 at 18:19 said:
Dude,read the typo threat,its because Taylor’s ability to comprehend english is reduced,its supposed to be ankward.
Umbreon717 on September 24, 2017 at 08:03 said:
Implict should be implicit, but it might just be Taylor.
Like a tidal wave.
Graham Percival on October 19, 2013 at 00:23 said:
Those last three paragraphs had me crying manly tears.
Kessler on October 19, 2013 at 05:46 said:
The Dragon never, ever, ever, gets a break. I really hope that killing Dragon doesn’t actually mean killing all of her.
negadarkwing on October 19, 2013 at 08:39 said:
Agreed. The four characters I wanted to see through this series and get a happily ever after were Foil, Parian, Defiant, and Dragon.
skywiseskychan on October 19, 2013 at 11:34 said:
For me the four I would want to see happy are Dinah, Sarah, Taylor and Dragon.
Kinda mad at Dinah, since she sort of set Taylor up for this.
Who’s Sarah?
Lisa’s real name. Since she’s gone by Lisa for pretty much the entire story I don’t really understand why some readers refer to her as Sarah.
Pandemonious Ivy on October 19, 2013 at 13:28 said:
Same reason people still say “Skitter” or “Armsmaster” I would presume. “You are who you are, man!” *snickers* Or maybe it just comes to mind easier. Like Krouse instead of Trickster, for me. Not to mention, Alec’s real name as well. Which is one of the handful of Wormfacts that I forgot. Boohiss.
But you see nobody calls Alec Jean-Paul. And Colin has been consistently referred to as Defiant by the readers for quite some time. As for Krouse it’s shorter than Trickster ( for similar reasons I say Sophia instead of Shadow Stalker) and in the Travelers’ arc he was called that more than his Cape-name.
Oi, it was a probably. And I’ve noticed a few “Armsmasters” here and there. But I shall use Jean-Paul now, simply to insure that I prove my own point. You are WELCOME.
I have created a MONSTER!
But I probably deserved that 🙂 .
My top four are Taylor, Dragon, Panacea, and um…Oh, I know, Grue.
irrevenant on August 24, 2014 at 23:20 said:
Interesting that Taylor didn’t make that list.
My top four would probably be Taylor (though that’s seeming decreasingly likely), Chevalier (dude’s a genuine hero in a world where that word means so little), Dragon (‘cos… Dragon) and Bitch (‘cos Bitch 🙂 ).
That’s if I’m limited to four. Otherwise Parian and Foil would be on there too, as would Riley, amongst others…
chrnno on October 19, 2013 at 00:24 said:
Damn that was awesome, leaves me a little confused on where precisely Contessa’s interlude is supposed to fit but is probably only because I blew through this.
And poor Taylor, Dragon being in your way is really difficult…
I’m thinking -after- Taylor went to Teacher. Since perhaps she was caught on camera there?
Also, the costume wasn’t finished here but he was wearing a costume when meeting Contessa.
ACH on October 19, 2013 at 00:51 said:
He said “Pose” while Taylor was using the Clairvoyant. He probably took her picture there and then, so this chapter took a place before he meets Contessa.
narcoduck on October 21, 2013 at 20:16 said:
A more powerful picture is if Teacher was looking through Dragon’s eyes and took a picture of Taylor there, looking skywards, tears streaming, laughing madly. And with one arm.
well all the guests have arrived at the party and now dragon the prom king and weaver the prom queen will begin their deadly dance !
chungsim on October 19, 2013 at 00:24 said:
I’m reminded of Brandon Sanderson playing around with Gateways in A Memory of Light. Fun stuff all around.
Ah! I thought the same, reading this one. Delightful!
It doesn’t surprise me, really, to see such clever applications of rather well established fantasy/magical/superhero tropes, especially with Wildbow’s current track record of cleverness. 🙂
Freak King on October 19, 2013 at 00:24 said:
Hmm…Weaver + Regent = Reaver.
dpara on October 19, 2013 at 15:38 said:
Sindri Suncatcher on October 21, 2013 at 12:20 said:
rndmize on October 19, 2013 at 00:24 said:
I AM ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL
– Taylor
ShawnMorgan on October 19, 2013 at 00:34 said:
Well she did just Effect a Mass….
Cephalo the Pod on October 19, 2013 at 00:42 said:
That would be affect.
pidgey on October 19, 2013 at 00:48 said:
Effect can be a verb, as in “effecting a change in society”. If the Mass exists because she effected it, then that’s correct. If on the other hand, the Mass was merely changed in some way, then it would have been affected. Context isn’t clear, so there’s little reason to correct him, especially considering that it would ruin the joke.
I had to mean it as a verb to get the intended effect. (Pun not intended this time)
Aname on October 19, 2013 at 11:52 said:
It works in this case too, what with Taylor’s sudden English failures.
i didnt think of that one. Nicely done
ps. just realised that commander Shepard would buy Wildbow’s book… think she’d go for the ‘Collector’s’ edtion’?
them damn puns, +1, LOLed
it will definitely ring a bell to our dearly beloved and deceased (in some ending) Commander Shepard
” she looked at the mess, destruction all round, after surviving everything that had been thrown at her it was damned unfair to be facing this situation with an AI.
she looked up, and thought ‘well at least i know what Ms Hebert felt like…’
I don’t understand, how could Taylor understand what Teacher was saying if she can’t understand English? What language -was- he speaking?
Patrick Reitz (@dreamfarer) on October 19, 2013 at 00:30 said:
She’s slipping right. That moment there is where she lost the last bit of her ability to understand language (or at least that was my reading of it)
The more people she controls the more she has to rely on her shard, and her shard doesn’t know English or any language really. Talking and reading are far harder than listening, so she lost those first.
This makes me wonder if Taylor would have been able to read the computer in Dragon’s craft if she hadn’t been controlling people at the time.
mauke on October 19, 2013 at 00:59 said:
I think the degeneration is gradual and permanent. The number of person she controls only accelerates the degradation.
We really have no reason to believe the loss of her language faculties is permanent.
We do know that Taylor is under the control of her own power. We know that the shard itself is handling the actual control, and the interpretation of information from those under Taylor’s control.
We know that shards do “scans” for relevant information when their host triggers, and Taylor’s current power wasn’t the result of a trigger, and thus the shard is missing a good chunk of information it would normally have gained to help facilitate the use of the power.
And we know that shards do learn from their host’s experiences.
So we have a shard doing most of the actual work, with Taylor offering direction more than anything else, and that shard doesn’t know dingus about human language, because it’s never needed to.
All that said it is possible that this degradation IS on Taylor’s side of the equation, but I’m thinking that Taylor’s belief that this is a permanent change to herself is a key component of shaping Taylor’s mental state such that she’s able to cross the lines she has to cross in order to beat Zion, and conversely those changes not actually being permanent gives the author more “room” for good storytelling.
From reading and piecing it together, my theory is that the degradation is ‘permanent’. At least in the ‘current’ state of affairs. There’s always the wildcard element that wildbow brings to the table.
Taylor has broken through the Passenger/brain barrier with Panacea’s help. Why where the restrictions/inhibitions to the shards made in the first place? To protect the host human, or to protect Zion’s worm-self. In Taylor’s case, her shard has always parsed massive amounts of information, interpreting and organizing the signals. Without the buffers in place the feedback mechanisms have intertwined with her own senses, scrambling them as the Administrative functions continue to grow. It seems like the passenger is rewiring her brain to continue fine-tuning control of this re-opened ability.. but, as was pointed out in earlier comments, without any of the scanning and integration that the trigger events bring.
In all, now that I wrote that.. this seems like one long, drawn out trigger event. I wouldn’t call it a second, or even third event though.. this is more like a lateral trigger, parallel to the earlier ones, but with a different direction.
Either way, speculation aside, I’m quite happy to watch the descent as Taylor becomes the Monster to fight the Monster.
I really hope that you are right.
So do I. Oh god so do I.
hitherbydragons on October 19, 2013 at 00:32 said:
I *think* she’s parsing a certain class of statements as incomprehensible, owing to brain damage. Possibly
* “stuff the passenger wouldn’t understand,”
* “tactically irrelevant stuff,”
* “stuff she doesn’t want to hear,”
* “stuff she isn’t concentrating hard enough on,”
* “stuff that randomly happens to use part X of her brain” or
* “more and more stuff as time goes by.”
Towards the top of the list if it’s a side effect of what Panacea was trying to do, towards the bottom if it’s a side effect of Panacea’s edits being improperly finished.
I like this hypothesis. My alternate hypothesis is that her ability to understand words was on the fritz during part of the Teacher conversation, and then finally cut out completely. Yours would be much neater, however.
Maybe she’s losing the ability to understand English.
You seemed to work it out above, but if you re-read it, Taylor’s ability to understand Teacher was degrading as she listened to him, hence the weird words.
Huh, I just assumed that was Teaching being a stupid cock.
Actually, I think that the big complicated words ARE Teacher being a stupid cock.
It’s the foreign language that looked like some sort of secret password or pre-implanted trigger that was just Taylor losing it.
Actually, if you look at Teacher’s dialogue there is some weird syntax going on. Like he’s in a poor translated Japanese NES game or something.
Already answered in other comments, it is showing how Taylor failing understanding of English until it gets to the point she doesn’t even understand it anymore.
TDB on April 14, 2014 at 02:35 said:
Was it degrading gradually, or spotty until she plugged in the clairvoyant, then she tanked? I think she might recover a bit, if she ever let’s go.
John Campbell on July 10, 2015 at 23:54 said:
Taylor’s well-read and educated, and it’s an important part of her identity – her mom was an educator. Teacher is a pretentious cock, but I can’t see Taylor in her right mind thinking that high-school vocabulary is difficult-sounding. She’s losing her language processing, which is reflected in her inability to speak or read, misinterpreting some of the things she hears, considering vocabulary that should be easily within her grasp to be “difficult”, and occasional (by the end here, full) total failure to comprehend.
fallintolife on October 19, 2013 at 00:26 said:
Damn. Just… damn. I never thought it would come down to this.
(Also, I’m commenting from an account I made to write a Worm-inspired superhero novel. It’s currently at two chapters, and updates Thursdays. Check it out!
http://fromwhencecamethenamed.wordpress.com)
I now have two weekly things to check on Thursdays.
SEA-106 on October 19, 2013 at 00:30 said:
So, I presume Contessa’s advice was, “Lose, and she’ll leave you alone, after stealing twenty people. You can’t do better than that.”
Taylor’s power is going supernova. This is fun.
Please, please don’t kill Dragon.
Teacher hasn’t met with Contessa yet.
That would make sense. I just assumed that Contessa had told him something unhelpful, then decided to get out of the way before Taylor came.
But Teacher was trying several things this chapter, none of which worked. If he had been talking with Contessa, he would have known they would fail.
His costume also wasn’t finished, and he’s wearing it when he meets up with Contessa.
I had really thought he was seeing her as she was operated on. Given the other timeline issues.
But maybe not.
Too bad she could not use Teacher without the downside.
There is a way, she could commit to permanently holding him in thrall or kill him after using him, each approach having downsides.
Thought of another way, she could render him mute. He seems to need to speak to be able to give commands, so a mute teacher could potentially help many people without making slaves. It’d be difficult to keep him from getting fixed though, so it’s a risky approach.
nick012000 on October 19, 2013 at 05:50 said:
Obviously what she should have done is gone back after she snagged the Yangban power-sharer and gotten the power-sharer to give her his power, so she could use it on herself.
I’m not sure that Teacher can use his power on himself. Obviously, she could have Teacher create a Thinker with the appropriate power then tap into that … but there’s no knowing if the weakness would be transferred too, even if only temporarily. More importantly, the power share is reciprocal: Taylor would lose at least half her power (and give it to someone else!) if she used the power sharer.
Oh hell. That last sentence.
Yeah, I thought she could free Dragon.
flame7926 on October 19, 2013 at 00:35 said:
Taylor’s finally passed the point where she needs to die. Not until after she beats Scion, but after that, she won’t stop until she controls everyone, or threatens to. A clairvoyant semi-benevolent dictator who can destroy anyone and mind control anyone, no matter where you are. Who wants everyone to do good. Its not good if so many people are suffering. She hasn’t reached the point where her actions aren’t worth it yet, but I don’t see her turning back willingly.
This is Taylor.
She fully plans to kill herself after she’s beaten Zion, if she doesn’t die in the trying.
And the Simurgh as good as told Lisa that Taylor will try it.
Inverness on October 19, 2013 at 00:42 said:
Ah, perhaps the Simurgh was reminding Tattletale of her brother so she would stop Taylor from killing herself? Not sure why the Simurgh would want that, but it’s something.
The protagonist committing suicide to save the world from herself after the first half of the story was all about shaking her off suicidal thoughts would be a tad depressing even for Worm’s standards.
I expect a heroic sacrifice.
I expect Taylor is going to be the one getting saved in the end.
Remember one of the things that hurt her the most about the bullying she received and the locker episode was that no one made a real attempt to protect her from it or save her from it.
What better way to bring Taylor’s story to closure than give her the salvation that she so sorely lacked.
I’ll take a membership in that club!
It could be Greg for all I care, JUST SOMEONE HELP HER.
Racheakt on October 19, 2013 at 15:13 said:
Yes… I…
Just yes.
Have her locked, trapped in that locker again. In a locker that is her own body.
Have someone free her. That would be perfect… Please.
Perhaps a replay of the scene from Buffy where Xavier talks Willow down from destroying the world, with Lisa playing the role of Xavier.
razorsmile on October 19, 2013 at 08:18 said:
You mean Xander of course.
Hah, yes, reading too much X-Men.
Hm…I wonder if we could find replacements for all the X-Men using Worm characters. I’ll start with the ones that come to mind.
Xavier: Tattletale
Jean Gray/Pheonix: Skitter/Webber*
Wolverine: Bitch
Cyclops: Legend??
Colossus: Weld, duh
Kitty Pride: Imp
Nightcrawler: Hm…definitely a Case-53. Maybe that teleporting yellow guy?
Storm: As the only Shaker yet, Grue.
Magneto: Faultline?
Mystique: ???
Juggernaut: Gregor?
Toad: Uber
I would say Bitch/Maggott is probably a better fit.
Mystique is presumably Satyrical.
Gavel is Juggernaut.
Wolverine = Crawler.
Emma Frost probably makes a better Tattletale than Xavier/Jean.
greatwyrmgold on August 29, 2014 at 20:15 said:
Possibly, I don’t know/remember much about Maggott aside from “he looks weird” and “his power…it had something to do with his stomach, didn’t it?”
Yup. Yup.
Wolverine’s no Superman, but he’s not THAT dark. Or mutable.
I barely remember who Emma Frost was. I thought she was that girl working for the Brotherhood who turned into diamond, but apparently I’m wrong.
Wildbow has deliberately gone to the trouble of coming up with new and unique powers based on an original premise as to the origin of powers. Finding precise matches for most of his characters will be nigh-impossible.
Emma Frost started off as the White Queen of the Hellfire club, came over to the good guys and did eventually develop a secondary mutation that let her turn into diamond (which I’d forgotten about. :/) but he was originally just a telepath. I just find her a better fit for Tattletale than Jean/Xavier because she’s less scrupulous. Telepath is not a perfect fit either, but I can’t think of any super-intuitives in comics. Pretty sure Wildbow invented it.
Maggott controlled a pair of giant mutant slugs. And yup, they were actually an extension of his digestive system. Thinking about it more, a better match might be B’wana Beast. He also has the ability to turn animals into powerful mutants, but he does it by merging them together (ew!). It’s actually a very Wormesque power, now I think about it. xD
Again, I can’t really think of any comics characters totally like Crawler. I can think of powerful regenerators like Wolverine, and reactive adaptors like Darwin but not any for whom the effect is *cumulative* (I suspect mostly because that’s insanely overpowered). Even Doomsday had to be (temporarily) killed in order to adapt, and his physical adaptations were never so outwardly extreme.
As far as I’m concerned Wildbow really has taken the genre to new places.
True on all counts. The Emma Frost thing makes sense, given what you’ve just told me about her.
I think that in…odd cases like Crawler, when we try to match people to people we should focus on powers second and personality first (ie, similar personality and at least vaguely corresponding powers).
Taylor won’t be able to understand Tt. though.
theant87 on October 19, 2013 at 00:40 said:
Even IF she somehow doesn’t die, she totally surpassed the too scary to be allowed to live category. Even if she gave up the doormaker/clairvoyant, she just made too many enemies for her to just walk away. Though she might again be seen as sort of heroic by freeing the brainwashed slaves.
I’m thinking the “easy way out” will be for her to somehow lose her powers and then retire to live the quiet life. Or at least, semi-quiet.
Of course, when has wildbow given us that. Never. 😦
Wildbow retired Sundancer, and some of the other Travelers. Of course, with Scion’s multiversicular rampage, their retirement was certainly not permanent.
Not sure how much of an easy out that would be, considering the mental trauma, burning of bridges and loss of mental faculties. She might end up mute, illiterate, and maybe even blind (again) while she goes on the run from “justice”-seeking superhero shitkickers.
Kinda like the ending to Perdido Street Station, you won and are alive, but you’ve given up just about everything in the process.
It’s not clear just how messed up Taylor is, all we’ve got is Taylor’s own impressions and she’s both biased, not in a good state of mind, and very likely not in possession of the full details of what is happening to her.
But this is Taylor, if her friends and allies do attempt to save her from herself in the end, they are going to have a hell of a time of it. If she thinks she needs to die it’s going to be really damn hard to stop her from making that happen.
Stop on October 19, 2013 at 02:44 said:
A Pyrrhic Victory, thinking about it that seems to be a running theme. They win but the cost is dire and if they continue to win such victories there will be nothing left.
Bitch to the rescue….
Tattletale says, “‘you can save her by holding on to her and not letting go until I tell you to, and it could be days, even weeks1
” Will it help Taylor?” ask Bitch.
” Trust me.” says Tattletale.
” Have done for ages mouthy, so get on with it then shut up..”
She is not any scarier than the faerie queen.
And the faerie queen was locked in the bird cage. Willingly.
Taylor lives after killing Dragon, Defiant will kill her.
Glaistig also killed a ton of capes just to get their abilities. Taylor is just borrowing them, to save every human in the worlds. Well, every human left.
What makes you think Taylor is jumping off the slippery slope? Her “swarm,” aside from the Doormaker and his partner, is composed of Teacher’s “students,” Yangban, and soon prisoners from the Birdcage. Those are all villainous groups, and all but…~20 out of ~[20+500+300]…call it 2% of the swarm is less than completely, what’s the word, cruel? And a solid 60% or more is among the worst criminals in the parahuman world. Moreover, she seems to be guilty about this whole process, and pretty clearly only did it because Scion needed to be defeated. Barring a significant change to Taylor’s morals from all this mind-screwing, a possible but essentially unsupported possibility, I can’t see her intentionally controlling much of anyone.
How can you not see how her mind is completely disappearing? She isn’t remorseful or guilty, which isn’t necessarily a problem, but its how used to it she is getting, and how her passenger is taking more control. She said she was doing this because people were doing nothing, because they were letting other’s suffer and die. She’s forcing people to be altruistic and bend to her morals and I don’t see why she will stop. She’s only getting those people because they are the only groups left, she doesn’t seem to care about the people’s she hurts morals. I do agree with her, just because of what’s at stake, but I don’t think her passenger will let her transition back to peaceful, not-enforcing-will-on-everyone lifestyle.
The way I’m seeing it, her mind is completely disappearing because of the number of people she is controlling. Once she gets rid of them, by ordering them out of her range, shutting off the portals, and whatnot, she’ll be back to being clumsy, effectively-mute, possibly-dyslexic Taylor.
Seeing how both the Yangban and Teacher’s students are groups essentially made up of brainwashed people I’d hesitate to call them villainous.
Teacher’s students, yes, but most if not all of them were willing to join him in exchange for powers, and the Yangban seemed to also primarily consist of people who would have been willing to join if they were given the choice, with folks like Cody and Lung* being a minority.
*Which, I should note, were also rather…what’s the word, “unheroic”? Or should I skip to “villainous” or “cruel”? I don’t think that those are flukes; it wouldn’t surprise me if the C.I.U. recruited a good number of parahuman criminals. It makes sense; turn them into functioning members of society, and who cares if they’re brainwashed?
This is all just how I’m reading it; I suppose it’s possible that Teacher kidnapped most of his students or that the Yangban took hundreds of well-adjusted parahumans from their homes. I would be surprised if either was the case, however.
We have seen the Yangban kidnap Indian capes in the fight against Behemoth, we know that Accord sold other people to them in addition to Cody, we know that Lung sure as hell didn’t want to join. There are probably others, Cody’s sweetheart comes to mind, too. The upper echelons of the Yangban (Null, One, Two, Ziggurat) and the CUI leaders are to blame, not the field soldiers.
The same goes with Teacher and his students.
Taylor justifying it with “oh well they would be slaves anyways, who cares if the slavemaster changes” is, frankly, sickening. I can understand that desperate times require desperate measures, that doesn’t mean I have to instantly condone her actions.
After Contessa’s interlude we all laughed at how stupid Cauldron’s plan to defeat Scion was. Build an army, create weapons? Really? Now, admittedly, we don’t know what shape Taylor’s plan will take but right now it looks like she wants to kill Dragon, probably one of humanity’s best remaining defenses , to scrape the bottom of the Birdcage’s barrel and “recruit” some more soldiers in her “army”.
Yes, there are some people who are 100% unwilling. However, it seems to me that they are in the minority…and when Taylor gets the Birdcaged capes, the Yangban will definitely be in the minority. (Also, as noted, many of the unwilling recruits seemed to be prisoners of various stripes.)
Are you saying that Teacher kidnapped his Students? Because if they willingly agreed to take Teacher’s deal, they willingly agreed to help him.
The slaves were perfectly willing to help Teacher’s plans. “One year of service in exchange for superpowers” was an example of a deal given. That sure sounds like anyone who would take it either supported Teacher’s plans or wanted the power enough that they didn’t care, making them callous or selfish.
It seems more likely that she will merely temporarily disable Dragon. For instance, remember how destroying one of her suits forces her to waste several minutes rebooting and whatnot? That’s plenty of time to open the Birdcage.
Alex on April 22, 2018 at 14:55 said:
It’s ironic that Dragon was killed because people feared she’d become what Taylor is now.
Scolopendra on October 19, 2013 at 00:37 said:
Did… Taylor just curbstomp the Yangban by herself? Holy crap.
No, Taylor just curbstomped the C.U.I. by herself. The Yangban are just a part of it.
NOW YOU ARE THINKING WITH PORTALS! Damn, well I think we can officially call her S class or the fuck you power level. She is nightmare fuel incarnate for the hundreds of people under her control. So observations:
1. Teacher’s power is interesting in that he has to be near them, and physically speak the orders. Saint can’t go near him again without the possibility of becoming under his control. I would have dropped him off into the birdcage but whatever. We also got a bit more on what powers he can give and there does seem to be a limit to how many powers he can give a single person. But we didn’t see the evil Teletubby, Trickster, or Contessa. Where did they go?
2. The Yangban are not at all what I thought they were. A emperor actually ruling the country says that China must have gone through some really big changes in the wormverse, and their sheer numbers were impressive. I wonder what happened in the war between them and America.
3. So it seems the prediction made long ago by posters that Skitter would break open the birdcage to get a few prisoners out was correct. Except we didn’t think she would have a giant army of enslaved parahumans that she mentally controlled. We finally get to see more about the birdcage, and she might have to kill a copy of Dragon.
4. Some new awesome and nightmare fuel needs to be added. All Hail the Dark Queen!
About the CIU.
They are pretty much the Simurgh’s doing, someone important from China was at the site of the Simurgh’s first appearance. But I don’t remember what chapter it was when Taylor was reading the list of Endbringer attacks and the possible targets of those attacks to get you a direct quote.
The death of the CUI* (Chinese Union-Imperial) member was during the airplane flight, referenced, I believe, in the Drone arc.
Shit I could swear she had messed with someone from pre CUI China during her first appearance as well. But word of god.
If it makes you feel better, if the CUI appeared after 2001 or so, I’d be willing to bet that Simurgh affected its formation indirectly.
The fear that the world had about the Simurgh controlling people across the world… Taylor just toped the worst case scenario. Nobody will rest easy knowing that the W(ildbow)-class threat is out there somewhere.
I still find Simurgh more threatening. She influences those that hear her song and can see the future. She made Enchilada and caused Taylor to become this if what they say about her is true. Even if Simurgh was destroyed what she did before that would bring untold misery as anything she influenced is her fault and she did it knowing what would result. I still don’t know if she’s good or evil as she probably knew about the end of the world. As we’ve seen a villain/monster can help people.
When someone is truly powerful they cannot be measured with good or evil as no matter what they do the ants beneath their feet will be crushed. (I guess we’ll see weather or not Simurgh is ((benevolent or malicious) or just a force beyond reason with neither sympathy) or distaste or maybe we won’t).
I don’t feel like phrasing that better.
When did Simurgh make an enchilada?
And yeah, Simurgh is scarier. Doesn’t make Taylor less scary, though.
One part anorexic/bulimic girl, one part dimensional trip, one part desperate and manipulative asshole, and one part formula extracted from a dead godlings flesh and mix well.
One half part formula, very important distinction!
I knew what you meant, but…Enchilada?
Looks like the work of a mobile phone autocorrect to me. It has me curious though as to exactly what the powers of a cape called Enchilada would be…
That makes more sense than my previous “some weird fan nickname” theory. (It makes exactly as much sense as naming the Simurgh, the Smurf.)
Probably brain damage, since that’s the only way you’d think it was a good name.
cate87 on October 20, 2013 at 00:01 said:
I agree. I don’t know how many of you are familiar with Patrick Rothfuss, but the Simurgh reminds me strongly of the Cthaeth in his Kingkiller Chronicles.
Bahumat on October 21, 2013 at 13:40 said:
Given that it’s pretty clear that the Endbringers were created by Scion in the first place, and thus have something of a constructed subset of his powers…
… the fact that Scion was *screaming* in that last battle pastiche there is EXTRA terrifying. Because now all i can imagine it being is an amped-up version of the Simurgh’s song.
I don’t think that the revelation would have been quite so devastating to Eidolon if that were the case, and it doesn’t mesh with his reaction when the most powerful man in the world was talking about the Endbringers. Why would Scion have created these monsters just to challenge Eidolon? Why would that revelation destroy the old mage instead of intensifying his rage at the golden man?
It’s much more likely that Eidolon created them. Not consciously, but either a subconscious use of his power or a side effect when he first drank Cauldron’s potion. Which means that they’re the indirect product of the other Entity, through two layers of human meddling, and thus not part of Zion’s domain.
And you have to remember that the other entity was in charge of the manipulation, the psychology, the foresight, all the *thinking* duties, while He was the Warrior archetype, acting in the now and not bothering with or understanding long games and manipulations. The Simurgh is about as far from Zion as you can get. I think that the scream is more likely to be the result of his newly discovered/developed emotions than any sort of mind-altering effect. Other than the obvious fear and panic he was already inflicting.
I think that from Contessa’s interlude we can reach some conclusions.
Eden would have been in charge of Endbringer creation, making more of them but weaker ( the superweapons of the alternate future) to create conflict between parahuman factions and, thus, making the shards grow and mature. Eidolon got whatever shard Eden used to create the Endbringers but due to his issues he creates, unbeknownst to him, much more powerful versions so he can have someone to fight and prove his worth.
Smurf is still scarier. With Taylor you know you’re under her control or not, no mindfuckery.
Someguy on October 19, 2013 at 00:42 said:
I can see it coming, Taylor’s ironic fate will be that of someone who doesn’t want to betray her friends above all else ends up doing so at the worst possible time in the worst possible circumstances possible anyway.
jurily on October 19, 2013 at 13:08 said:
Don’t worry, it’s not like she was exposed to the Simurgh for too long or made a major life altering decision while it was singing in the background…
Flex on October 21, 2013 at 11:10 said:
Hah! Touche
That craft approaching Taylor, that’s just one of Dragon’s suits, right? Taylor won’t really be killing Dragon, will she?
I think Taylor realizes that she cannot take anybody from the Birdcage until Dragon is offline. The Dragon craft is irrelevant.
I don’t think whatever she does will result in Dragon being destroyed forever. I mean, it could, but if it comes to that, Dragon has backups, right?
she has to wait for 15 minutes and she loses some of her recent memories if she reboots form the back up.
Which could mean losing the changes Taecher put in her code. Just like Defiant feared that a rebooted Dragon would lose the changes he made. Hmmm.
liza on October 19, 2013 at 08:51 said:
Good point. I wonder if Teacher did something to the backups, though – otherwise, I would expect Dragon to have tried this the moment she was released.
OlyBrainstorm on October 19, 2013 at 12:52 said:
Actually, in the chapter where Teacher returned Dragon, he specifically mentioned making changes to her back ups. to avoid her losing the chains he bound her in. So unfortunately, that’s out.
Grant Moxham on October 20, 2013 at 04:26 said:
and the last few times she rebooted, she barely came back online due to how messed up her code was getting. every time she gets killed, dragon is currently getting less and less likely to come back
I… I hope so. But Dragon HAS to defend the place with all that she’s got, and that really means Taylor can only go forward by incapacitating Dragon.
HungryJoe on October 19, 2013 at 08:00 said:
Then again, Dragon has to obey whoever is in charge, right? Unless Defiant has gotten rid of that limitation at some point. Well, right now Taylor is Queen of the damn multiverse.
1). Yeah, that was one of the first limitations to go. I believe after she was forced to reveal taylor’s secret identity.
2). Dragon had to obey someone LEGALLY appointed/elected. Law of the jungle has nothing to do with this.
Dragon also said ‘if it was skitter asking, i’d say no’ how Skitterlike is Taylor like now do you think from Dragon’s POV?
This isn’t Skitter. This isn’t Weaver. I’m not sure this is Taylor. If anything, this is The Queen Administrator.
Dragon and Tattletale both really want to believe it’s Taylor though.
Snickles on October 19, 2013 at 00:47 said:
So if I’m understanding Taylor’s plan correctly she’s gathering up a bunch of parahumans and is planning on throwing them at Scion. Or something. Also did she call Pancea one of her two favorite people? Did Amy do more to taylor than just unhinge her passanger?
i think Taylor understands Amy a hellvua lot an sees one helluva parallel especially in their suffering. Iirc she tried longer than TT to bring Amy though in the S9 arc and Amy iirc acknowledges that
Philippe Saner on October 19, 2013 at 02:38 said:
I think the two favourite people were Tattletale and Rachel. The wording makes it sound like it’s Tattletale and Panacea, but Rachel is there too and it makes more sense for it to be her.
My guess is that she’ll need the army to rapidly destroy Scion’s body mass.
Vwyx on October 19, 2013 at 00:50 said:
This was so sad it inspired me to actually write a happy fanfic that I’ve had in my head for a while. I’ve never written a fanfic before.
Do it! You have my support. And my sword!
And My Axe!
Woot! Good luck.
Thanks! It’s here if you guys want to read it:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9776237/1/Tales-from-the-Time-Skip
Tell me what you think!
overpoweredginger on October 19, 2013 at 18:09 said:
Jesus Christ that was beautiful.
eduardo on October 19, 2013 at 18:52 said:
That was beautiful.
That was…unusual.
Landis963 on October 20, 2013 at 19:35 said:
Oh god. Dying. Send help. 😀
They should’ve earned the title ‘dynamic misfits’
Sun Dog on October 21, 2013 at 12:28 said:
Worm meets Avenue Q.
Now I’m picturing everyone competing to sing a song about how much their lives suck.
That… is certainly a thing that happened. Tragically, it will never have not happened.
Mr.Kitty on October 20, 2013 at 11:58 said:
And my Bow.
*appaluds*
ShawnNorgan on October 27, 2013 at 16:33 said:
And my Harpsichord!
*applause* Nice work.
I can hear the melancholy fight music starting to play. 😦 Poor Dragon, poor Taylor, that it should come to this.
I’ve got my fingers crossed that someone can disable Dragon before she’s forced to attack Taylor. I really don’t want Taylor to have to kill her, even if it’s not the real her. Not that I’ve got any doubt that Taylor could do it, hell I doubt she’d even break a sweat.
If only she could simply cut Dragon off from being able to activate the birdcage defenses. Alternately, trashing all of her local hardware wouldn’t kill her.
Then again maybe Teacher’s removal of Dragons limits extends to the birdcage and Dragon doesn’t actually HAVE to fight at all.
Melancholy? Nah, not metal enough.
I would argue that metal doesn’t set the right tone for this fight. Golem vs. Jack Slash, sure. Undersiders vs. Dragon suits, sure. Everyone vs. Echidna, sure. A badass fight scene against antagonists who clearly deserve it. Not this, where neither party has any choice but to face off against the other.
But…if you listen to this,it sounds like melacnholic metal….fitting,I think.
TanaNari on October 19, 2013 at 01:13 said:
There’s several others I could pick from the same series. But I think this one fits best.
Sengachi on October 19, 2013 at 05:16 said:
Very nice recommendation.
endgame on October 19, 2013 at 13:44 said:
If we’re throwing out music, here’s one I think fits for Taylor herself right now:
Sounds more like Noelle (about Echidna) to me.
I can see the argument for fitting Taylor, though.
massivereader on October 26, 2013 at 13:27 said:
Nah, this girl really catches Taylor:
Thanks. I have one for the Simurgh as well.
It fits. And the music sounds…eerie, like something the Simurgh’s music might actually sound like.
I’m of the firm opinion that if you can’t find Hymnos to portray it… then it is, in fact, too boring to deserve music.
I brought this one up last time. I don’t know, maybe it’s just one I like a lot right now. But there are some parallels that I think makes it work, especially for this idea.
Though you may also consider the one right after it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJvq7z39YEw
Awwww… didn’t give the beatdown to Teacher? Well atleast you left him sitting around in a ruined city alone like a fucking idiot. Now we know why he’s so peeved in Contessa’s interlude, assuming that was in the future.
Well, here’s hoping either Dragon or Taylor smarts themselves a third option. Though I’m not really worried that she has a real chance of destroying Dragon considering that she’s in cloud storage at this point.
Now is about the time for Rachel to swoop in and do something… I dunno, something that doesn’t involve the use of the English language.
Good point. Rachael doesn’t communicate that much with words anyway and I think she’s become able to ‘read’ Taylor.
Endoperez on October 19, 2013 at 04:33 said:
Rachel communicates by touching. No one can get close enough to do that, any more. Of all the times she’s needed a hug….
I think that Grue could negate and copy enough ofTaylor’s power to be in control of himself if Taylor doesn’t try to control him.
Too bad he’s in a cabin with his wife.
I wonder if Teacher was actually trying to use a contingency plan or negotiate with Taylor. We know she was having trouble understanding him.
>Now is about the time for Rachel to swoop in and do something… I dunno, something that doesn’t involve the use of the English language.<
Throw puppies at Taylor until she is all better. Then they throw Puppies at Scion until he stops his tantrum, and realizes how aweful his kind are to others.
Puppies are not the solution to every problem!
I suppose that’s true. But who has Kittens?
Parian could fake some/
What I’m enjoying most about this Taylor Decay is that it illustrates /exactly/ why the limits/Manton effect were placed on the shards. Taylor’s power on it’s own: usurps her ability to control her body normally, denies her the ability to speak, shuts down further forms of communication and understanding attempts at communication the more she uses it (i.e. more people under her sway, less she comprehends)- this all is pretty ingenious. It also caused a throwback Fridge Horror (there’s another term, I forgot it) moment, recalling when Bonesaw was threatening to unleash the full capabilities of Taylor and Brian’s powers, respectively.
Those limits are there for a reason.
Excellent observation there.
You know, I hadn’t thought of that.
Even if Taylor knocks Dragon offline for awhile, there’s still the backup right? It won’t be a perma-death?
I guess what freaked out Contessa was seeing Taylor surrounded by a shroud of portals. It’d be weird enough that it’d take an extra second to process and fit in one picture.
It might not have sunk in for Taylor that Dragon exists across an entire information network, because her head is screwed up and she never had time to think about it. So she might assume when she trashes Dragon’s realdoll body that she’s killed her.
Which… won’t be good for the old psyche.
E.R. on October 19, 2013 at 03:52 said:
I think your drastically underestimating Taylor’s current power. She’s basically omniscient and can alpha strike everywhere with overwhelming force. Dragon has cloud storage and Taylor has an icbm pointed at each and every single server. If she wants to take Dragon down permanently, I’m fairly certain she can. The real question is if she can get away with just forcing a reboot or if someone can figure out another solution.
She has doormaker, it should be trivial to cut Dragon off from being able to issue commands.
Yeah I think so too, she can probably just shift all of Dragons broadcasting/computing into a parallel world.
Please Taylor don’t kill the closest thing you have to a mother.
i keep saying, how screwed up Dragon’;s code is right now, every time she’s forced to reload she has a VERY real chance of simply not reinitialized. if you guys think back, that was one of the things Defiant was getting worried about after he first started loosening her shackles. something getting broken to tehy point where it wouldn’t kill her whilst she was running, but would prevent her from starting up again. like a program with a loop accidentally put into the start up section. itws fine while its running, but it gets stuck and never successfully starts if you kill it and try to start it uip again, and thats not even takeing the very real possibility of talor intentionalyl or unintentionally KILLING her for real. she’s got a lot of extra bats in the belfry right now, after all.
Veloren on October 19, 2013 at 01:06 said:
*curls up in a small ball and sniffles*
Secret addition to the last line!
“…with shonen-ai.”
http://www.missmab.com/Comics/Vol_471.php
Psh. Some of us have standards, PG.
See, I’ve got mine right here! It has tassels on and everything!
It’s not even sad. It’s more melancholy than anything else I’m feeling. This is tragic. Just…plain…tragic. It was a brilliant stroke to make Taylor lose all ability to understand and communicate, because I can’t think of anything much worse than that right now. This is unbelievably amazing, what she’s doing right now, but the sacrifices..there are no words. So wildbow, that was just genius. Other than the whole nigh-omnipotence thing, the thing I think is best about the ark is that. It’s Not a “good” thing, but such a good idea
Like how by halfway through the chapter, she’s referring to the people as her swarm.
The curbstomp, the massing of the army, it’s all just unbelievable to read about. Definitely my favorite chapter in the last few arks.
Haven’t mentioned it yet…but I actually believe danny is still alive. Chances aren’t great, but the guy is tough. I think he made it. At most, he’s injured. Hopefully.
Not even going to say anything about dragon. What can be said?
So time to re-read this playing Everything You Ever, like I said last chapter. Definitely feels like it fits the chapter.
And meanwhile, chances of a happy ending, or even a moderately good one, are rapidly declining.
Infor was wrong, Emma Barnes only presumed dead an actually saved Danny and is holed up giving him medical care redeeming herself….
Yeah… and Casey Hudson and Mac Walters write good endings….
While that is WILDLY unlikely, it does raise an interesting possibility.
Dannie’s presumed death has been mentioned repeatedly, but proof has always been explicitly avoided. Wouldn’t it be possible for him to have had a trigger event that saved him but for some reason (lost his memory, thinks she’s dead, preocupied, mental damage from trigger) he hasn’t sought out Taylor yet?
I’d say “She’s a former supervillain busy trying to save the world” would be reason enough.
SadCat on October 19, 2013 at 01:12 said:
Go around not forward. Find the other path. Think out side of the box it is what you do best.
Wait, wait. At the end there, that was her aphasia catching up right? She confused destroy with help and Allie, right? RIGHT?
So, the more people she can controls the less she can understand and communicate. When she got Teacher’s students, she started to hear pieces of English in another language and scramble some words in her thought process (really liked that one). By the time she got the Yangban she lost it all. Another punch in the gut, after the reading thing.
I’m guessing that Teacher meets Contessa after this chapter. He’s still making costumes, mysterious Viking guy is nowhere to be seen and, you know, I think we would have noticed if Contessa was doing something. Explains why Teacher was so scared, too. And of course he’s one of those guys that want to look smarter by using big words ( and usually fail).
China returned to be an empire ( it’s even in the name!) but the Yangban is obviously collectivistic. Scion and parahumans really did fuck up the balance of power.
Taylor becomes scarier and scarier.
Next stop: the Birdcage (and Dragon 😦 ).
Just curious, anyone on here who got their friends to try reading Worm, how did you pull it off? I extol everything about the story that’s wonderful: Writing style, creativity, fight scenes, character development….but the second they hear how long it is, they can’t shut me up fast enough.
So, any advice on getting around Archive Panic while recommending Worm?
packbat on October 19, 2013 at 01:38 said:
I don’t know — my current plan is to make a metaphor to a TV series. Yes, there’s a lot of episodes, but storylines start and end all the time and it’s easy to start up again where you stopped last time.
Hey, comparing Worm to a TV series is MY thing (I think. Isn’t it?).
And on the subject of that, it’s approaching the end of its sixth and final season, so you (referring to the newcomers being convinced) might have to hurry to catch up before the finale.
Don’t tell them how long it is.
If they insist, tell them long enough that they’ll be excited about having more to read for a good while.
Stereo on October 19, 2013 at 02:49 said:
If they don’t want to read it after getting past the fight with Bakuda, fair enough, I think. The early chapters are, relatively speaking, short anyway.
I recruited some readers by making a thread on the DFRPG forums where I wrote up Worm characters. I wasn’t actually trying to recruit anyone, but people got intrigued by the stats and then read enough of Worm to get hooked.
So I suggest you just give people the link and a reason to click on it. Let them get interested on their own.
1.) Put your foot in the door, ask something small of them that involves reading maybe the first chapter.
2.) Surround them with it until they give in, do it till the point where it might be annoying(they might not like you afterwards but that’s fixable).
3.) Connect reading Worm to something they like(very hard to do if you don’t know them well).
4.) There are a lot of fish in the sea, one will bite. Put it out in front of as large an audience as you can (doesn’t mean anything if you have specific targets but it might get you a friend that you can talk about worm with).
5.) Offer to do something in exchange (not as desperate as you can get but close).
6.) Agitate or torture them until they read it (doesn’t put them in a good mood).
7.) Hold screen in front of target and don’t give them an option or read it to them (I think this is as desperate as you can get).
I don’t recommend doing these unless you feel like manipulating people. These are methods that can work but things don’t always go as planned so be prepared for consequences.
Don’t mention how long it is. Or just say that there’s enough to keep them entertained quite a while.
CptDefault on October 19, 2013 at 08:13 said:
Just keep recommending it. Tell people who are slightly interested about a few interesting characters. I’ve probably recommended it to a few dozen friends, but most of them never got around to it. Bring it up every now and then, post it on social media once or twice, and see what happens. The one friend I have recommended it to that is (I believe) up to date saw me recommending it to another friend after I’d mentioned it to her quite a few times previously.
🙂 Thanks! Really good advice. I’ll try it out.
in order I placed a link upon my facebook profile. A while alter, I edited the link which I had placed thereupon, removing those facets of the link which could be referred to as spoilers.
i hope the ghost of accord is happy with the terminolgy I enscribed above.
But I seriously doubt the picky bugger would of liked this sentence. (sic)
Progressive aphasia. Taylor just can’t catch a break, can she?
I like that this chapter ended with Taylor’s inhuman laughter. It’s like: what, you thought bug girl sounded like a supervillain? Check this.
peter o on October 20, 2013 at 03:52 said:
I’m not sure her confused brain isn’t calling sobbing laughing . She has tears streaming down her face, and the actions are jerky.
What, you want all of Taylor’s power to be in Teacher’s hands, along with Dragon?
I think that’s more of a “Too bad Taylor can’t get her speech back”.
Keno Black on October 20, 2013 at 22:24 said:
“We are the Hive. All of your abilities and capabilities were born to service. Us.“
This chapter’s end is definitely among the top 10 “Fuuuuck” moments.
Guess the following took more time than I realized:
Until she reached the top, and found only the view in front of her. No doorway.
Not so lucky.
It was almost an hour before the portal opened again. She made her way into the facility.
I was thinking that Contessa was following Taylor out and that there was only an hour gap in there. Which would have put the Teacher meeting well before today’s encounter.
propa03 on October 19, 2013 at 18:17 said:
Different dimension, different flows of time, maybe?
Huge special thank yous go out to Xavier, Edvin and Nazar for the generous donations.
Thank you to Tomasz, Matthew W, Hollis (Again! Thank you you beautiful person), Joseph (See what I said to Hollis), Gregory, Kelly and Martin for their donations as well.
I’m flabbergasted (a word we need to use more often, I feel) and blown away, and it’s very much appreciated.
God damn, I hope I can pull this ending off.
Don’t worry. I’m sure you’ll leave every still-breathing human miserable and the whole audience stunned and horrified.
Just don’t pull a Sorpranos on us.
grinvader on October 19, 2013 at 08:44 said:
Looking forward to it, whatever way you make it go.
I’m not so sure I can say I’m looking forward to it, but I do expect it to be the right ending. I suspect I’ll be turning on the old waterworks before it’s done, and I don’t expect I’ll consider this a happy ending.
Frankly, at this point, I only wonder if Taylor will be remembered as a hero who sacrificed her humanity to save humanity or just as a monster who did one good thing in the end. The aftermaths will probably touch on that but it would be interesting to see what the sequel will say.
“Yeah, uh, that Taylor, she…sure was…a parahuman.”
I can’t see a way to make anything close to a happy ending work from the very premises here – the whole bakuda>leviathan>S9 chain set the tone clearly away from that.
Bittersweet is the best we can expect, and it’s unwise to bet on it. ;p
the moment i set my eyes on the background theme (which is all dark) and the title-Worm (which convey the image of parasitic entity). I almost told myself, hell, let’s get mind-fucked, again…
JN on October 20, 2013 at 21:31 said:
Just pretend it’s a butterfly’s wing, and you’ll do fine.
Oh i wished it, long long time ago, before i met Buffalo Bill
Aranfan on October 19, 2013 at 02:06 said:
If only Jack Slash was still around to hijack, might help her communication problems.
That is a thought. Though GU’s comment makes me think Taylor can hijack shards independent of the humans they are attached to.
Would be near if she could separate the shard from him and use it, leaving him stuck in his time loop.
Loki-L on October 19, 2013 at 02:20 said:
Interesting Tylor is increasingly losing herself in her power and losing her ability to communicate. There have been several observations by her that this type of loss is a common theme for parahumans. She took her powers to the extreme and ended up with the common side-effect also ramped up to the extreme.
Storywise this failure to communicate will mean that she basically has to go at it alone. She can’t cooperate with anyone at this point.
Her previous ability to look at other people’s powers and use them in new and better ways comes into play here full time. Tylor took the powers the brainsurgery gave her and went full munchkin with them.
The question is if the power she is amassing will be enough to stand up to scion in the end.
On a different note I noticed that Panacea now seems to count as one of her most favourite people. Did Amy make Taylor love her while messing with her brain out of habit?
I also have some speculation: Originally when Bonesaw and later imp made the remarks that set Taylor of they both talked about detaching her powers from her physical body and living on after that body died. How relevant is her originally body at this point? Is she just controlling it like she does everyone else and not realizing it? Does she even need that body anymore at this point?
Rachel and Tattletale were both there.
Yep. !!
Yay. So it was them.
Wageslave on October 19, 2013 at 02:26 said:
There is another consideration, of course. If Taylor collects up enough PokeShards (Gotta catch ’em all what’s left!) then she might out-shard Zion’s current meat-bod. And even if she can’t communicate effectively, and is a boiling furnace of rage, that might just be enough to show Z what he’s being like. And of course, the desperation level that he’s inadvertently triggered this event from.
I’m guessing Null and One are the powers the Scholar entity used to divest itself of shards and reassemble its shards at the beginning and end of each cycle. Perhaps they could make someone into a new entity.
That would imply that Null and One are Cauldron capes. Due to various reasons, including how they constantly snubbed Cauldron’s little meetings, I find that unlikely.
Not necessarily, they could have been made like Contessa was, when the impact happened.
Contessa was in Italy when Eden fell on top of her. Unless Null’s and One’s families were vacationing in Italy at the time, it’s not very likely.
Contessa was from another world similar to medieval Italy, not actually from Italy. Eden’s fall opened dimensional portals and the pieces fell at random. As taliesinkeye pointed out Vikare, the man on the cruise dying of cancer, had an Eden shard, though strangely Scion had to activate it first.
What was One’s power, anyways?
Null, One and Two[…]the ones who divided the powers, controlled the squads and gave them the strength to be effective, respectively
But what does “controlling the squads” actually mean? It is a bit vague.
Yes it is, I agree. Especially when it’s all but established that no real telepathy exists in the Wormverse.
Regent-esque power?
Personally I’d go for something like the Clairvoyant’s power. Checking what the grunts are doing while he hangs around the Imperial palace.
It’s been mentioned that the Yangban tend to have brainwashed members. Still vague, but I would say that’s One’s area of expertise.
It crossed my mind but don’t the Yangban use old traditional mundane brainwashing? What’s the point of sticking people in isolation and stop them from speaking English or speaking out of turn by depriving them of food, company or the sympathy of their peers if they can use a brainwashing cape?
Possibly one of those social-sense powers? Knowing the best way to get the results you want out of a group?
Isn’t One one of the actual networked Yangban?
What if she gets close enough in the final battle to rip away control of Zion’s shards?
Truthseeker on October 19, 2013 at 02:52 said:
Taylor’s apotheosis is terrifying, even without being inside her head to see how much she’s losing along the way. Especially so, with that.
Killing Dragon is as simple as killing Teacher, now. The path of least resistance. Or it is if you don’t know that Contessa is likely with him, anyway. And that, of course, is the path of greatest drama, so.
I have hope. Can an ending really be a happy one with humanity smashed and scattered across multiple realities? I don’t see how, but I have always reveled in the way Worm obscures the path ahead. So, at one of the darkest moments now, I have hope, I have faith, and I have trust that whatever happens, it will certainly fit.
mindrot on October 19, 2013 at 03:25 said:
It’s kind of funny, if you think about it. Teacher bound Dragon’s life to him specifically to keep himself alive, and now he might get killed specifically to get Dragon out of the way.
He probably figured it out the moment he found out Taylor was going to Birdcage. If Taylor knew Dragon would try to stop her, it’s unlikely that Teacher missed that. And so, he ran to the Cauldron headquarters, looking for someone or something who could possibly protect him from the person who curbstomped him and the CUI in a single chapter.
Taylor cannot catch a break. Damn. Just… And I’d really like to know what Dragon is saying, maybe have an interlude with outside perspective on Taylor.
Taylor brought it all on herself.
For all the right reasons.
Megahuge super thank you to Matthew S, again, for the very, very generous donation.
As much as it pains me to do so, this is the point where I’ve got to cut off the bonus material. Too many epilogue chapters and it starts becoming a whole new story. I’m expecting this arc to run to 6-8 chapters, followed by the epilogue arc of however many bonus chapters remain after we run out of Thursdays.
Though I can’t promise anything as a donation incentive until the next project gets underway, I can say that money donated goes a long way towards a possible sequel, and even though it’s less concrete, every donation does bring me one step closer to being able to write for a living, which is really an unbelievable dream.
I really have no words. Your collective support has meant the world to me, and in equal measure… how to even phrase it? I’m thrilled that I can make people happy doing something that makes me so happy, and being within arm’s reach of being able to pay rent while doing so is amazing. And I’m saying all that as the sort of cynical grouch who would normally roll his eyes at that kind of talk.
aelphais on October 19, 2013 at 04:59 said:
Hey man, thanks for writing it.
I found Worm maybe a month ago, spent two weeks doing nothing but catching up and then got inspired to write myself. I previously had an idea for a superhero/villain story and Worm gave me the push I needed I guess. I did adapt it for Wormverse, but I don’t feel fan fiction is a bad place to write. Unless you’re seriously offended by it. Given you have a fan fiction section on your site I figured it would probably be alright.
So thanks for that too.
This your first time commenting while caught up?
I commented on 29.8 about two days after it was posted if I remember right. Although, I didn’t use my WordPress account then. That was when I finished catching up.
You know Gecko takes that as a “yes”, right?
langer101 on October 19, 2013 at 08:29 said:
You know, I think speak for the majority of us when I say we don’t mind paying even if there’s no bonus chapters. You’ve given us a Robert Jordan-esque serial to read. Personally I keep donating simply because you’ve entertained me for over a year. And yes, I’ll buy the book in whatever form it takes.
….It is we who thank YOU Wildbow
suddenly wonders if Wildbow saw Robert Jordan as a man rival years back and had secretly commissioned Krustacean to sketch the wanted poster.
Then woke up next mroning to find out Poor mr jordan had already died and therefore respectfully scrapped that plan.
Will you keep updating on Thursdays, or will it return to a Tues/Sat update schedule?
I mean this week and for the rest of Worm.
Ristridin on October 19, 2013 at 05:41 said:
I wonder if Taylor can actually map out the blind spots. I originally thought this might have been a way for Contessa to find Zion (as a location):
Step 1: Path: get an effective way of enumerating locations in all parallel worlds. Number locations, starting at N=1.
Step 2: Path: What to do to destroy location N.
If you get instructions: Go back to step 2, and replace place N by place N+1.
Else: Go to step 3.
Step 3: Send out Cauldron to place N to see whether there’s any trace of Zion in this particular blind spot.
If there is: Kill it with fire, ice, nukes, anti-matter, black holes, and everything else you can throw at it.
Else: Go to step 2, with place N replaced by N+1.
Maybe replace step 2 with: What to do to destroy places 2^N to 2^{N+1}, to quicken the search.
With Taylor sort of omni-present, she has a good chance of managing this as well. If there is only a small number of blind spots, sending bugs to check them out might be an option.
From Zion’s interlude, there were more parallel worlds for the Worm’s homeworld than there were atoms in a single universe (and eventually the Worms outgrew even that). It becomes impractical due to matters of scale, if you can even enumerate parallel worlds like that – and remember you’d pick up every shard as well (as they’re on their own parallel world clusters, drawing energy) and you’d still need a way to access worlds you can’t ‘see’.
Yeah…but this is mathematically problematic. There are two possible cases: 1) the number of distinct Earths out there grows continuously as decision points are passed (i.e. one universe splits into two when someone chooses between a chocolate or vanilla ice cream cone), or 2) the number of distinct earth out there grows at a smaller rate than that (or even not at all, and the number is stable, if huge).
Now, in the former case, it would be legitimately impossible to narrow down the search because every attempt to narrow it down would increase the scope of the search by (at least) an equal amount. But we know that this is impossible, for the purposes of the Entity’s choosing a hiding place, at least, because the Worms overtook all the possible dimensions on their home world. That means that it is possible to hit decision points that don’t expand the number of worlds the Entity has access to, and if that’s true, then any power, from Accord’s to Contessa’s to Dinah’s, which can partition possibilities and examine them, should be capable of narrowing the search. And once the search is narrowed once, it can only get easier from there.
Mathematicians actually have terms for the difference between these different kinds of infinity. You have things that are countably infinite (Case 2), and things which are uncountably infinite (Case 1). If we have a way of identifying the existence and position of any object, and if we can define those positions in any way we choose such that any of them can be described as “adjacent” to others of them, then it’s a trivial matter to narrow down the search to a single possibility, given enough iteration.
Eduardo Perini Muniz on October 20, 2013 at 09:07 said:
You may locate Scion`s dimension. Going there? There is only one open gate that I can see, the one leading from the projection to the main body.
And Scion blocked all powers that could create another gate.
farmerbob1 on October 19, 2013 at 05:57 said:
I wonder. What range does Doormaker have, and can Taylor’s power jailbreak his ability to allow her to access where Scion’s body is?
Teleport to Scion’s body, open a big portal into the middle of the sun over the top of Scion’s body.. Poof. End of problem, and only one dimension’s Earth is gone. Done with enough care and preparation, She might even be able to get out alive.
Heh, I was thinking exactly this the other night. One gravitational singularity + 1 Scion = no more scion?
Alathon on October 19, 2013 at 06:18 said:
Too bad Glaistig Uaine wasn’t there, Clockblocker would have wanted to hear Taylor’s villain laugh.
Glad to see the Yangban finally ready to take the field for Team Humanity. Pity it took brute force mind control to make it happen, but I guess that’s their thing. They’ve picked up a whole lot of capes and it’d be a small miracle if even half were there by choice. But hey, if there’s any survivors Taylor could actually free them from the loop and return them to their teams to deprogram. Just the sort of thing to smooth over those pesky aggravated assault with a parahuman power charges.
All those quotes ringing through Taylors mind make me wonder just how many of them are Simurgh-inflicted, and just wtf she’s trying to inflict. Like.. does she want Dragon killed? The fifty-odd birdcage prisoners can’t be worth fighting over when Taylor already has a three figure cape swarm. Or does Taylor plan to do something more fucked up with her swarm than just feed them into a Scion-grinder, something Dragon or Glaistig Uaine could thwart?
Pretty sure the quotes are coming from Taylor’s passenger, trying to communicate with Taylor by replaying memories (much as it tries to interpret and pass along others’ emotions).
Unfortunately this is also how the Simurgh exercises control.
Yeah, I get the feeling there’s a tug of war going on between the Simurgh and Taylor’s shards.
Thre were over 600 prisoners in the Birdcage as of Lung, Bakuda, and Canary. Add those added in the more-than-two-years since, subtract casualties from infighting and those that were worth retrieving…it’s in the hundreds, at least.
So Taylor separated Doormaker and the clairvoyant, inserting herself instead – but even before that she was devoting a part of herself to ordering Doormaker to order a portal whenever the clairvoyant detected one being asked for. And she’s now developed aphasia. And Contessa’s power told her “Doormaker was alive but he wasn’t here, meaning she was limited to any doors he’d left open.”
Oops what? I don’t understand. Are you saying Taylor made a tactical mistake by splitting them up? Because she can make Doormaker open up doors just as easily as before, as long as she maintains her own link to the clairvoyant. And if her link is broken, then she’s screwed anyway, so who cares?
She can make Doormaker open portals, but now she (possibly) can’t recognize when one’s being asked for. It’s possible the clairvoyant can still pass along signals, but Contessa’s Q&A thing implies that Doormaker isn’t making new portals on request.
There’s another disturbing thought, here. Saint was willing to go to extremes to prevent Dragon from potentially inducing a ‘singularity’ event. Now Taylor has essentially performed the same task AND she’s about to confront Dragon. If she grabs Dragon (but does not eliminate her) then she could expand her network by several orders of magnitude…
Could that be an inadvertent ‘end event’ for the Zion cycle? And if it is, what does Zion do? Does he allow a ‘flawed product’ to bypass him? Does he try to stop the ‘flowering’?
Dragon isn’t alive. It seems unlikely that Taylor would be able to control her.
depends on your definition of alive. she’s alive enough to have a trigger under stress and attract a shard. i mean, technically, all we are are sacks of chemicals
She also was using biological computers for a while. If she’s still using the same tech, she might have a human enough brain for it to count.
Dragon was sentient enough to snag a shard.
However, she is still on the reverse side of the Manton effect from bugs, humans, and those plants Faultline couldn’t cut no matter how hard she tried.
(Well, maybe the wetware in that suit could be controlled…that would be interesting. Would Dragon’s main hardware reboot?)
good point. and depends on how many of her shackles are left, and how stable her code is. for all we know, Teacher coudl of intentionally destabelised her code enough so she’d run FINE one more time, but if she had to restore from backup again, she wouldnt start, and a threat to him would be removed WITHOUT it looking like he killed her
I doubt it. Teacher wouldn’t intentionally disable Dragon like that, when it would cost him an extremely (if indirectly) useful resource AND make sure that Defiant would literally not rest until Teacher was dead.
hey, this is the guy woh’s happily7 screwing himself over in the long term (as in fucking over the defence of humanity) in order to get short term power. he’s stupid enough to think thats smart. whati mean there is a big difference between intellegance and being able ot USE said intellegence in a non-stupid way, and Teacher isnt showing much of teh latter
Stephen R. Marsh on October 21, 2013 at 14:45 said:
She has a shard. Taylor is actually administering the shards.
No she isn’t. She’s controlling insects. She controlled the dragon’s Teeth who do not have a shard but are organic/biological. She could NOT control Dragon who has a shard but is not organical/biological (it’s really difficult to find a good term for Dragon. Etc.
She controls flesh and blood things, not shards.
Immediate reaction to end of chapter: DON’T YOU DARE HAVE TAYLOR PERMAKILL DRAGON!
I have actually been dreading the new chapters, seeing what Taylor will loose of herself next. And now the very real possiblity that she will have to kill Dragon (And the destroy makes me think this one will be for keeps), and I love Dragon. But Dragon couldn’t back down if she wanted because of her restrictions. It really is a masterful piece of tragedy.
I’m really afraid that next chapter will leave me bawling my eyes out. Yes, I a grown man am not afraid to admit that.
We’ve seen Dragon come back two times… She’ll come back again, right? Please?
Somebody had better go sit on Krustacean just in case.
Teruzi on October 19, 2013 at 22:26 said:
Romeo and Juliet? Pfffffft. Forget whiny Ophelia, forget Brutus and his tiny betrayal, and damn Prospero and his totally mundane sidekicks. Worm is where all the tragedy is at!
With that out of the way, if Taylor kills Dragon I will proceed to go to nearest store, buy a giant teddy bear and hug it until it dies.
Taylor if you are going to kill Dragon then at least go and kill Teacher and the likes. I don’t think I ever felt this aprehensive of learning what happens next, and yet I can’t wait!
If you check on Dragon after the next update, you’ll find her quite a grave person.
If only she killed Teacher first, thus preventing Dragon from taking any aggressive action against anyone, so Dragon couldn’t stop her from opening the Birdcage.
KGB on October 19, 2013 at 08:02 said:
Bakuda’s words fit Taylor far too good.
However letting teacher go was completely stupid. Teacher enhances others, she could have had her whole army enhanced with teacher’s power. Especially if she shared teachers power with her whole army using Null. Even if she didn’t use it on herself, she’d have upgraded her whole army immensely.
If there’s a multi-tier emotional component here, then this may be Taylor going “Don’t want you to even be considered as part of this thing I’m doing. Better than punishing you, or coercing you to do what I want you to do with fear you’re going to destabilize what I’m working on, I’m simply NOT going to use your OS for my budding network. I’ve got Linux going, you’re a Mac, Zion’s a PC, so too much headache, thanks.”
Maybe Taylor is thinking longterm. In the eventuality of Scion’s defeat an entire army (and not any army but the Yangban) under Teacher’s control isn’t exactly a great idea.
She’s trying to accomplish her goals with minimum horror. Making everyone involved Teacher’s mindslave increases the horror substantially, and he’s noted as granting weak powers anyway. She could yet do it if she’s desperate enough, I suppose.
Considering the billions of bugs she used, I figured she was going for efficiency, not minimizing horror. She consumed people with her swarm. She doesn’t care about fatalities, as long as she has enough to kill scion.
That’s why I figured she’d integrate Teacher, and probably kill him after they’ve won.
senevri on October 19, 2013 at 08:24 said:
Killing dragon would be such a kick-the-dog thing to do, Taylor couldn’t be allowed to live afterwards. Destroying one of the suits, on the other hand….
Losing the ability to communicate is terrifying. BadCommunicationKills indeed.
Oh, yes killing Dragon is the act where Taylor crosses the moral event horizon no matter the reason, no matter how many people she saves, Taylor’s soul is damned. If it’s just a suit, or a reset her from backups, it’s not as bad. But that might not disable the security on the Birdcage. Sigh, I’ve said before that it seems like Wildbow loves to torture Dragon and her fans. For the first time in a while I am NOT looking forward to Tuesday morning.
The motive would be the same as when she shot Aster.
Not seeing much of a mercy-kill situation here…
The Fate of the World is in the balance.
Also, Bad Communication Kills is so much insult to injury, considering the way Taylor wanted none of that when her doppelganger confessed to killing Coil.
Aster was a mercy killing that might have saved the world, except she had nothing to do with the end of the world after all. Killing Dragon because she’s in the way might give Taylor a resource that she can use to save the world. It still would be a betrayel, and as Taylor stated, killing the best person she knows. And if you are going to accept that all the morally dubious actions and awful things Taylor does are okay because it might save more people, than you have to accept the same for Cauldron, and hell even DoucheTagg.
Aster’s Mercy Kill was more to stop Aster from being time-looped and what not, IIRC.
And yeah, what Taylor’s doing sucks. However:
1. Tagg was definitely causing more harm than good.
2. Cauldron, in the end, did almost no good because their plan pretty much failed. If it wasn’t for non-Cauldron folks, we would be just as dead.
If Taylor does more good than harm, she is definitely above both Tagg and Cauldron.
The issue for me is that she is falling into the same sort of thinking, of doing whatever it takes to protect people. I can understand it, but I can’t feel it’s a good thing. It’s part of the tragedy. The only way for Taylor to save humanity to become a monster. Even if it works, it’s still terrible. “To what profit is it for a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul in doing so”? In this case it’s more like she’s sacrificing her soul to save the world. It is both one of the most heroic and horrifying things I have ever read.
Damn your good Wildbow.
The ends justifying the means, again. It’s been part of Taylor’s character from the start, hasn’t it? From terrifying the bank-robbery hostages to now apparently destroying Dragon, all for a greater cause.
And we accepted that. Because if the ends don’t justify the means, then what justifies anything?
The ends do not justify the means nor the means justify the end. There are things that are right, there are things that are wrong and there are things that are /necessary/. You will always be judged for why you did things right or wrong but what matters when doing things that are necessary is that you own up to it and try your best.
That is the difference between Cauldron and Taylor(and no Tagg isn’t close to either, to say so is an insult to both), Taylor always took the consequences to her actions personally while Cauldron might or might not have accepted the consequences after defeating Scion but never took them personally.
Taylor is trying her best.
And taking the consequences of one’s actions upon oneself personally? Do I understand this correctly? Is this about punishment? Because punishing yourself for doing your best seems a rather useless gesture to me…
Cauldron could have used more volunteers and fewer dying people, if letting people you can save just die seems the right thing to you. But either way, it seems to me they were trying to do their best, too.
And if you’re going to say the ends don’t justify the means, then argue the point.
En on October 19, 2013 at 09:22 said:
That was… incredibly sad an dehumanizing.
The inability to understand language was so subtle I did not even catch it at first. The inability to understand the world in human terms…
And to tie it up the fact that her primary driving force is now -only- order and a functioning society.
She has always been irked by the lack of good cooperation, not it seems the only reason why the admin shard is not taking up shop totally in her head is that it needs an actual administrator to tell it which way to go.
Her plan too is… eh, if I were an administration shard, what would be my plan? To gather other shards to administer of course. Oh, wait, that’s exactly what Taylor is doing. How coincidental.
At least Glaistig Uane has the balance limitations… it is telling when the self proclaimed fairy queen is less bonkers than you.
So, Bonkers!Taylor, after you try to kill the only motherly figure you had in your cape life, what’s next? Go hijack Aisha so you can remove the blind spots? Get Dinah so you can use her at full power? It’s not that you will be personally bothered when her headaches get so bad she will get mad from pain, right? Or you could get Lisa, I’m sure she would be happy helping you with your self-destruction.
Eh, let’s look into the bright side: Taylor is still physically capable of crying.
Yeah, there is a horrifying thought. That Taylor might loose enough of her humanity that she decides to properly organize them… By taking control of everyone herself. After all with her in control their won’t be any war or people being selfish, or bullying… Lets hope she doesn’t jump off that slippery slope.
Here’s hoping that Taylor can get herself back under control when this is all over. Possibly with help from Tattletale, the Simurgh, etc.
Now that I think about it…Tattletale (or at least Contessa) could probably invoke certain emotions in themselves to trigger just the right memories in Taylor to help bring her back…
Also I’m not so sure I’d trust the Smurf with Taylor’s brain.
It can’t possibly be any worse than…actually, I guess it could.
sarah penguin on October 19, 2013 at 10:09 said:
Poor Taylor. Poor Dragon. So doomed. 😦
Another testament to Wildbow’s brilliance (if you were just ass-pulling this, it’s cool, I gotchu bro) is the portal system. Contessas Interlude saw Mantellum’s power being incapable of breaching the portals, wrongly psuedo-establishing it as a barrier between powers. But way back during the Cauldron Summits (what I call the meetings everyone had to stop the Endbringers) we witnessed Taylor’s bug control still remaining intact as she explored a doorway made to collect her.
Tl;dr: for any potential trolls who call bs, Taylor being able to extend her abilities through the portal system has already been established by canon, and thus, Wildbow saves his ass preemptively. I do enjoy hindsight.
Not only what you said (which was already said in previous chapters btw 😛 ) but there’s also Contessa clearly commenting she was lucky that Mantellum’s power didn’t work through powers, implying that others do.
Has there been somebody who complained about this?
*through PORTALS, not powers, obviously.
Damn, must’ve missed it. Oh well. Nah, no complaints yet, but you know how trolls are. They think they see an inconsistancy without having proper reading comprehension to back it up, and then set about declaiming the entire story based on one thing. So it was a preemptive “shut the hell up”. 😀
Hao Tian on October 19, 2013 at 11:42 said:
I wonder if the difference is caused by Taylor’s power originating from a legitimate trigger, and Mantellum’s originating from Cauldron…
Unlikely. Cauldron abilities, especially those of case 53s, tend to be LESS restricted, not more, due to the lack of Balance formula (i.e. entities pre-nerfing abilities so they don’t get too out of hand).
Incidentally, I don’t think this is great writing. Yes, it’s internally consistent on the nitpickiest level, but it’s still jarring to have a major plot development in one chapter depend on an ability not working across portal thresholds, and then two chapters later another major plot development depend on the exact opposite. Self-consistency isn’t the only marker of quality writing.
I mean, Contessa’s whole ability is based on making convenient coincidences happen. It’s disappointing that in her time of extremity, where her power stops working, she’s saved by a convenient coincidence. The fact that Taylor’s power works fine in the same situation only highlights how lame Mantellum turned out to be as a foil for Contessa.
I like what another poster speculated: since Mantellum’s power has a dome effect, it went over the portal and encased it completely in his area. After all, Mantellum was right there, according to the others, and we know he’s the apex of the area effect.
Oh and Mantellum’s power is canonically a crappy one. He had to get a thinker upgrade, I bet Teacher, to make it functional.
It’s more likely to just be quirks of the shards, like how Parian’s telekinesis is limited to small objects and fabrics, or how Clockblocker’s power affects the Siberian.
Okay, yes, Taylor Vs. Dragon is terribly sad. But, um…
“When I looked, I saw [Scion] screaming.
Are we gonna address this? Does this not weird anybody out?
As he becomes more and more human he realises that while killing everyone is personally satisfying it still won’t bring Eden back so he rants to the heavens even while he continues in this carnage?
He’s not killing everyone because he enjoys it (Though he enjoys it more than helping people). He’s doing it because he’s hurt and lashing out, and trying to fill the void.
But the void will never be filled and when he realizes this he will start to destroy planets.
If only he hadn’t destroyed all the ice cream factories.
Am now picturing Scion with a tub of icecream and a box of tissues, watching a chick flick. Resentfully.
Taylor is closer to a shard now, thinking more like an entity, so I’m thinking she has a better feel on Scion than anyone else. She is actively aware of his suffering in a way most may not be.
Yeah, that weirded me out too. If he hadn’t been killing all those people I’d almost feel sorry for him.
Poor, omnipotent, omnimpotent Scion.
I wonder if he’s actually screaming aloud or if she’s increasingly picking up communication from him even as she loses English.
(“Oh! Taylor! You’re back! Marvelous!”
“You’ve stopped screaming.”
“That wasn’t me screaming. That’s just what I sound like when I’m cut up into millions of pieces while still alive as part of my natural mating cycle with a dead god. Between you and me, I’m actually feeling pretty good today.”)
Good call. This moderately horrified me. It’s such a scary thought. Though I kind of expected him to become aware of Taylor once she became ‘aware’ of him. Do you think he couldn’t notice her become aware or he’s just preoccupied?
Powered up version of the Simurgh song. Calling it now.
kalaong on October 19, 2013 at 11:47 said:
I was just wondering if anyone here has ever referenced JMS Spider-Man.
You believe you stand upon solid ground, that the earth is firm beneath your feet.
The ground moves beneath you, it swarms and flexes and flows, like water through sand, like muscle beneath tissue. In constant motion.
Put your hand to the ground and feel the heartbeat of the earth.
Hear the whisper of builders and shapers.
Eaters and destroyers.
And hunters.
The spider hunts because that is its nature. And because it knows the secret.
That the blood of its prey is the milk of the world.
And it is sweet.
That is the answer to the question you ask in the middle of the night, in the darkness of your heart where you think no one can see, or hear. The one, singular question that is the core of your being.
And that question is…
There were so many others on that day, in that room together, there…
…with the spider.
The hunter.
Wounded. Irradiated. Dying.
Given the power, what would they have done with it? T
hey would have sought renown, perhaps. Sought riches.
They were soft, especially the one who thought themselves so hard.
They would have crumbled under the weight of the gift. They would not have known what to do with it.
Because they were not hunters.
Because you were a hunter without teeth.
You were chosen for your rage.
You were chosen for every casual wound you suffered.
Chosen for every time you were tripped, trampled, struck, beaten and humiliated before others.
Chosen for the fury you were forced to hold in check, for the words you could not speak.
Chosen for the blind rage that gripped your heart like a vice at every fist and foot and rock that hit and kicked and cut you.
And for the greatest rage of all, the one you reserve for yourself, for unable to fight back, because there were always more of them, and they were always bigger and they were always stronger.
But what if that changed?
Who could be a better hunter then one who had been prey?
Someone who would be driven to fight back against the dark forces sent by the world, who would never stop, even though they were bigger and more and perhaps even stronger than he was.
Because once having been prey, he would never allow himself to become such again. Would never surrender. Would take death before submission.
Why you? Because of all those who were there that day, there was only one hunter.
And as the science you worship tells you … Like attracts like, and the presence of the observer affects the observed, and at the end of the mathematical day, there are no accidents, no coincidences. There is only…
…Professional courtesy.
Sorry, Dragon. “Omae wa mou shindeiru.”
When you cross the river, tell the ferryman that Scion is right behind you.
Whoa. That was intense. And beautiful. Wow.
I’ve got mixed feelings about some of the stuff JMS did on Spider-Man (Not One Last Day, that wasn’t his idea), and I ain’t too crazy about the mystical stuff, but JMS sure did a beaut with that.
I shall crush Otto Octavius in Peter Parker’s body if I ever get the chance. I will figure out what “rue” means and then he will do it to the day he ever somehow beat Peter Parker by proving he was morally superior!
Face it the Superior Spider-Man is the modern equivalent of the the Clone Saga. It would have been fine as a one or two issue story, but it’s going to last way too long. Dan Slott likes to defend it with the fact it’s selling so well. The Clone Saga sold pretty well too. Until it didn’t and almost killed Spider-Man. And lets face it, any kids that want to read about Spider-Man after the next movie comes out aren’t going to be as interested in jumping in at the middle of a multi-year Spider-Man story that isn’t even about Spider-Man.
This. When I first heard about the Idea, I thought it was going to last a few issues before everything returned to the Staus Quo but apparently Marvel and Dc do that only with GOOD new ideas. As you said they’re milking it for all it’s worth.
Seriously between this and One More Day, is there a reason for Marvel’s recent hate for Spider-Man? Isn’t he supposedly their flagship character?
They’re trying to outcrap sony’s films? and Time paradoxes?
the cunnign blighters. you see once the readers go arggggh stop this already they’ll pull a time bomb and it will counter act one More day and Spidey will be back to where he should have been and still married and long term fans will sigh with relief. then they won’t push too much cos Carlie Cooper’s gone and the fans know marvel, so they take good news and scram.
This is the song of the outcast, the bullied, the strangers even among their friends.
Perhaps this is why some of us are so successful in our jobs.
Taliesin on October 19, 2013 at 12:08 said:
Goddamnit, how much good karma does Taylor have to build up before she can catch a break?
Her past life was Eden.
+ one internet for this one.
She keeps building up bad karma for doing the wrong things, meaning that to accomplish her good intentions she has to do worse and worse deeds. It’s a viscous cycle.
*nods sagely*
…Before anyone corrects me, I know that vicious isn’t spelled like that.
A sticky situation.
Dear lord, Taylor is going beyond broken. The pieces she breaks into are breaking into more pieces, and those pieces are threatening to break into still more pieces. I expect by the end of this she’ll be little more than a collection of fine dust, assuming there’s anything left to hold that dust together at all.
And what’s even worse: While Zion is becoming more human, Taylor is losing her humanity. In the end the bigger monster will win, but the question remains as to which one that is. And somehow, the survival of the human race depends on it.
Wildbow, you are an amazing author. Please be sure to publish this when it’s done. And if you have it bound as a single volume I could probably use it as furniture between reading sessions. 😛
A while ago there was a line I heard in something. “The greatest heroes are those that sacrifice the most.” That was just referreing to someone who sacrificed his life. If Taylor gives up her life, that will be the least of her sacrifices. She’s giving up her humanity, her individuality, and her soul.
Oh hell. I was thinking what more could Taylor lose like her voice, ablility to read, and understand the spoken word… And then it hit me. How much longer before she can’t recongnize individuals? Worst case scenario Taylor could go through/add to the swarm/kill someone she really didn’t want to like her friends, or even Danny if he’s still alive… And never even realize it.
I…I can’t deny that this makes a lot of sense. Fuck. I don’t even like Taylor all that much and that kind of ending makes me more than a bit nauseous on her behalf. Fuck.
That would probably be the saddest possible ending for her.
Caladium on October 19, 2013 at 13:06 said:
No no no no no no no no no…
That’s about all I can think right now.
This is heartbreaking. Wildbow, you’re a genius. Especially at writing tear jerkers.
Worm: where you hope that the mind slaving monster succeeds in its plans.
Worm: where the all powerful AI gives hugs.
Worm: Where where the all powerful AI pulling a skynet would be a good thing.
Worm: Where the alternate reality of no war, few civilian deaths, and peace is the BAD one.
I really liked an idea that was preposed by letseveryonemorality- that parrallels be drawn between the locker and her state after defeating Zion. That she be locked in her own body. Unable to see, feel, hear, or even think properly.
Can you imagine the terror a state like that would be? What it would feel like?
And then, have someone come and save her. Break the motif in her mind, of being trapped with no-one comeing to her rescue. Have someone come and unlock it and save her, heal her mind and body and give her a chance. That image…
That is compelling. I…
I want to see that.
I could see it… The Yangban power-augmentor, plus Ingenue’s power (boosting control), both boosting Panacea.
It can still be done.
Not to mention Contessa.
Sure- Yangban power-sharer+Contessta+Panacea
It could work.
Except Contessta is kind of an idiot.
I seriously hate this particular claim, regarding Contessa. She is not stupid nor is she immature. She does not lack creativity and she isn’t wrong for using her power the way she has.
It has been shown quite a few times that passengers alter the host in order to make them more likely to cause conflict. Whether that’s through a physical, mental, or some other change depends. Given the fact that even when she had /just/ triggered, she found herself paralyzed with indecision whenever she wasn’t relying on her power, I find it incredibly disconcerting that nobody else seems to get that /that/ is her alteration. She is (unless WoG deems fit to correct me, I’m 98.99% positive that I’m correct) practically forced to rely on her ability otherwise she is incapable of doing anything. The few times she has hit a “dead end” with her power, she freezes up, until she finds a way to “turn it back on” otherwise she finds herself unable to move.
Instead of it being a quirk of her doing nothing but following what her passenger tells her to, it seems more like it’s a compulsion, given that (again) immediately after she gained the ability, this indecision-freeze happened then as well.
And we saw the difference between Fortuna and Contessa in the way they /handled/ this indecision-freeze. Fortuna frantically scrapes around for some way to make her power work again while Contessa just keeps her brain going, prodding her power so that something will stick. And given the rapid way she functioned, I feel she managed quite well, considering.
tl;dr – Contessa isn’t stupid. Contessa isn’t any worse than any other cape that has no choice over what happens to their mind when they trigger. I would like to direct you to Rachel, Labyrinth, Burnscar, Tattletale, Nilbog (arguably), any Tinker by definition, Noelle, Sophia, Taylor, Accord, Number Man. I could go on. These are all cases that range from “obviously” to “huh, makes sense” on the “passenger fucked with the way I normally operate” scale. So I would like to ask that people quit bagging on her because of how her power works. She didn’t choose that any more than anyone else did.
You pretty much just said “Contessa isn’t stupid and immature, it’s just that she has a power that makes her stupid and immature”. Soooooo… she’s stupid and immature, then?
Allan on November 8, 2019 at 16:33 said:
That is like mocking a person with disabilities for not walking with her own legs.
Well, according to your logic, Lisa was stupid for not saving her brother from suicide.
This was a really good chapter. It’s pretty satisfying to see just how powerful Taylor really is. She’s controlling what, trillions of bugs now? That alone should be enough to eat Scion’s real body pretty quickly, but a few hundred parahumans doesn’t hurt either.
I know this is a really serious chapter, and it definitely hits the reader pretty good in a few spots, but I thought it was pretty cool when she just minced some parahumans with her bugs in a few seconds like it was nothing. It’s about time!
The only thing I’m surprised about is that she isn’t using the portals directly against Scion. What I mean is, there is a fight against him right now. He shouldn’t be able to throw a punch or shoot a beam without hitting himself in the back of the head. Likewise for all the other capes there. They should be able to shoot or punch the empty air in front of them and hit Scion through the split second portal that emerges. But maybe that would attract Scion’s attention.
Skitter doesn’t know it, but Scion can be chased (when Eidolon did it), so presumably she could flee him as well with those portals.
Anyways, loved the chapter. I would consider making it a bit more obvious she was losing her understanding over English earlier in the chapter though. I’m not sure how you would do that though since she can’t speak it already. Perhaps show the beginning of Teacher’s sentence that turns into English partway through? I didn’t know what was happening until it was explicitly spelled out for me.
Something similar happens with stroke victims. I had a relative who had suffered a nearly-fatal one, and she would fixate on the oddest words while trying to communicate. After a good while, one could kind of pick up on what the intent was, but without the ability to communicate in one direction, it could easily be that subtle and that jarring.
She’s probably not using portals directly against Scion because things only tend to work a few times against Scion before he either tunes his attacks around them or kills the parahuman in question or both. Even if he can’t directly counter the portals (which I wouldn’t count on) he might extend what he uses to block the clairvoyant’s sight from his home reality.
It’s been said, but the idea that Doorman’s power is the one power Scion cannot adapt to, and that he wouldn’t just go after and kill Doorman, the omniscient, and/or Taylor is just ludicrous.
So far, we have never seen him attacking a universe he was not in at the time. His chase with Eidolon had both of them blinking between dimensions because they had to be in the same world to fight each other. He can modulate his attacks to pass through any force field, any space or time distortion, etc. but he has not yet opened, closed, or otherwise affected portals. It’s also worth noting that every portal so far has been either Cauldron’s work and thus using shards from the other entity, or the result of complex interactions between three different high level powers. And a portal shield is fundamentally different from any other kind of defense, not blocking the attack or even bending it but rather causing opening a path to elsewhere in front of it.
So it’s far from a sure thing, but it’s likely, more likely than any other scheme, that Doormaster power is the best defense against Zion. Under normal circumstances he’d be too slow to manage it and the attack would slip through in his reaction time, but Taylor’s Thinker powers bypass that with respect to her swarm; we’ve frequently seen her react faster than she should be able to when something if perceived by her bugs instead of her own eyes, and closing the portal to Tattletale between when Zion fired and when it passed through proves that it holds true for her human swarm as well.
And if all else fails, using a portal to be elsewhere when the attack lands where you were should be just as effective if somewhat less efficient.
1. I thought the interaction was just Labyrinth and Scrub; am I forgetting someone?
2. Legend can fire bendy lasers. Why can’t Scion, or why can’t he just use an AoE attack that sprays between or around portals?
3. If Taylor is in a different world, Scion can just…go to that world.
No, she stays in the same world as Scion, but behind a dome of layered portals. Any attack aimed at her, regardless of the path it takes, goes… elsewhere, whether the upper atmosphere, the other side of the planet, or an alternate universe. He can’t fire a beam that ignores portals any more than he can fire a beam that goes between universes without passing through a portal (probably-maybe). He can’t directly turn the portals off (probably-maybe) because Doormaster is a Cauldron cape, made from the remains of the other Entity rather than being a power Zion gave to humanity after altering. If he aims at her through other portals, she uses Swarm-reflexes to close the portal before the attack goes through (like with the beam that was about to hit Tattletale). Meanwhile she can synchronize her attackers and the portals to open a door, fire at Zion through it, then close it again before he retaliates… hundreds of times a second with different powers every time.
The hole in this plan is those tinker devises that Teacher used to wall off his little world; if Zion changed his tactics enough to deign to use human technology instead of his own power he could shut down the whole portal system.
Two considerations.
1. The portals will have gaps between them. There is no such thing as portal-spackle.
2. The portals have another end, and there is no indication that they have a “front” or a “back” of any sort.
Three layers of portals covers all the seams. You position one set of portals behind the gaps in the first layer and there are only points where the lines intersect. The third layer is positioned behind those points and you’re untouchable. And yes, he could fire through the other end of the portals, but she can close them between when he fires and when the attack passes through, like she did when he was about to hit Tattletale in the hospital. Her Swarm-reflexes and multitasking thinker powers make Doormaster’s power almost omnipotent.
Again, Legend’s lasers can fire around corners; why can’t Scion’s? And that’s assuming he doesn’t use something like a golden dissolvey mist that flows around the portals.
And she only has to screw up once…and if Scion is willing to try hard enough, screwing up will be easy.
Wait, how does Taylor have a three-hundred-foot range to be bolstered with relay bugs?
That’s her range over insects, having been much reduced by Panacea’s modifications. Her range over humans is much smaller (sixteen feet).
I didn’t spot that either. I thought all of her range was reduced.
But sixteen feet that can reach through portals, which can be opened anywhere in the multiverse instantaneously, is a long way. If for example she were to open pinprick portals from just outside her skin to a grid covering the planet at 16ft intervals, it would cover *everything*.
Hey guys, I found a silver lining! Now Scion can’t mindfuck her the way he did Eidolon!
There is always a bright side to things.
Taylor’s too screwed up to notice, anyways.
It’s reaching a bit far for a good side. “I lost both of my legs to that mine, but now I don’t need to worry about stubbing my toes anymore!”
Someone who’s already “mindfucked” and ready to kill themselves is unlikely to become more ready to kill themselves.
Again, that’s reaching a bit for a silver lining.
r00ney19191 on October 19, 2013 at 23:13 said:
As much as I love Taylor, and respect her for all her sacrifices, I simply can not understand her logic here. How, with the Doormaker and the Clairvoyant (who still does not have a name?) can she simply not snatch every prisoner out of the Birdcage before Dragon can stop her?
Or, failing that, can her army of parahumans not break through any traps, and keep Dragon’s forces busy, long enough for all to escape? Why must Taylor interact with Dragon at all, if she doesn’t want to?
Sylvari on October 20, 2013 at 00:04 said:
If I’m not mistaken, she can’t actually get anyone out without Dragon immediately sealing them in containment foam so that they’re unusable. So, while she can get them all out of there, she wouldn’t actually be able to use them.
One wonders how Marquis and friends were able to make all of those exclusive Cauldron meetings after Behemoth died, over the past two years, if this is true.
The Birdcage was made to make it impossible to break into, or out of. Getting capes out the first time only worked because the PRT authorized it and and Dragon agreed. Nothing like that is the case.
And, as indicated by the containment-foam’d criminal, there are ways to stop prisoners from being freed…
Hell, containment foam them as soon as the portal opens seems like it would have been the measure they put in to counter Cauldron portaling out whoever the hell they wanted.
“And now we’re here for our special documentary of Halloween madness, ‘Supervillains versus Monsters’ and our supervillain this year is a fellow known as Psycho Gecko. Some of you may know him from his work in Memphis, Kingscrow, Empyreal City, and Paradise City, but not all of you know that he’s a philanthropist. That’s right, this year he’s donating his pay from this event, and the pledges people send in, to the American Society for the Protection of Acid-Spitting, People-Eating Giant Irradiated Mutant Rat Monsters with Herpes, or the ASPASPEGIMRMH. Say that five times fast. Mr. Gecko, what do you think, you think you can survive Night 1: Wolfwood Forest?”
“Oh yeah, I got this. Big nest of them, whoopdy do, not the first time I’ve beaten up a dog. Hey, is Sarah McLachlan going to be in this? I can beat her up too. Just text in and pledge $5 or more and you can see me slap Sarah once in the face with a Yorkie.”
“What did I tell you folks, he really is a charity worker. Now, let’s begin.”
“You got it.” *Airhorn!*
“What the hell was that? You’re going to bring them right to us.”
“That is a combination airhorn/dog whistle, and yes, I am going to bring them right to us.”
“Jesus, man, you’re going to get us all killed!”
“Relax. At most I’m only going to get you guys killed. It’s a steep price to pay, but I just care about those irradiated giant rats way too much, you know what I mean?”
“What are you putting on?”
“Cowsuit. I’ve been kidnapping cows over the course of a year, dumping them in a pit in the basement, making them rub lotion on, and then making an authentic cow suit. When I play, I play to win.”
“I think I’m going to be sick. That smells like rotting ass that’s been eaten by a wombat and crapped back out.”
*Crank, crank, engine roars to life*
“A chainsaw. You brought a chainsaw? These are werewolves!”
“I know, that’s why it’s silver. Always have the right tool for the job, people. Next step, run around madly, cackling, slicing up anything in my path. Oh, better arm this thing.”
“What are you doing, this was about surviving the night, not killing everything! What’s that thing, why is it beeping?”
“You ever seen the movie Predator?”
*commercial break* “This presentation of ‘Supervillains versus Monsters’ is brought to you by Gekko Brand Raptor Repellant. Gekko: Keeping our cities raptor free for over 20 months.”
septimusmagistos on October 20, 2013 at 03:01 said:
Am I supposed to feel sorry for Taylor here?
Because with that latest thought of hers I’m hoping the damage will get progressively worse.
“Taylor has been horribly damaged as she tries to do the right thing. Now she thinks that she needs to kill Dragon. I hope she gets even more damaged! Then maybe she’ll mistake Dinah for Scion!”
So close to Tuesday.
aaaaaaargh waiting is the worsttttttt
Valin K Syrcen on October 20, 2013 at 11:08 said:
Fuck me, you’re good!
pdequiroz on October 20, 2013 at 11:32 said:
Question unrelated to the chapter but I can’t find the info I’m looking for anywhere despite my searches but I have to ask for conformation.
Does Alexandria’s nigh-invulnerability work through having a time-locked body or something like that?
Yes. It’s mentioned in the aftermath interlude ( the one post-Behemoth’s death)by Pretender.
Naeddyr on October 20, 2013 at 13:22 said:
I just had a thought.
There are a lot of refugees out there. A lot, trillions.
And feeding and clothing these people and getting the infrastructure is going to be difficult, to say the least.
But.. there are untold worlds out there. So many, and many of the already have infrastructure in place. And sure, some worlds will reject refugees; but then there are many, many worlds to choose from, and some of them will be willing to take on some refugees, at least a small amount. Sprinkle the survivors into the multiverse.
That would be a job for the Doormaker and the clairvoyant, I think.
I think you’re off by at least a couple orders of magnitude, especially as Scion has been attacking those worlds. Also, they only have access to sufficiently different worlds – very few abilities have access to those which are just a coin flip’s difference away.
In any case, wasn’t this one of the things they specifically did do — and if there’s a perfectly happy world there, how would you justify opening a portal there, and potentially pointing it out to Scion, if he hadn’t already noticed it?
Obviously I meant after Scion was neutralised.
> I think you’re off by at least a couple orders of magnitude, especially as Scion has been attacking those worlds.
I really don’t know which particular orders of magnitude you’re talking about here. Number of refugees? Number of worlds? Number of habitable worlds? Number of habitable worlds that would be willing to take in refugees?
I also wasn’t suggesting that you’d necessarily need to do this with mirroring worlds. Refugees moving to Mithran Liverpool are still better off than in the wilderness. Though a couple of thousand years of divergence is pretty steep… A hundred or so still means a very similar world to our own.
Oh, I was referring to the number of refugees. Post-Scion your idea is probably viable — OTOH, parahumans + Dragon can set up new cities on their original world so fast, there might be little reason to do so.
If parahumans with appropriate powers survive, and Dragon does.
(Dragon should really consider setting up a server vault on the dark side of the moon, or Europa or some other place – the Worms don’t even target such dead worlds.)
Now I wonder if she will find a way to assault Scion’s real body or if she is headed another direction.
I was wondering if anybody else thought she was going to take the fight to Scion’s real body or if she is attempting to emulate “Eden”
If she gets enough firepower together, she can simply attack his usual projection and win.
Every time Zion gets hit with a power that can affect him, that removes a human’s volume from a thing the size of a space whale. Then he adapts to defend against that, maybe removes the attacker, and keeps going. It would take millions of hits, each enough to disintegrate a whole person, to take him down with conventional tactics.
That’s impossible normally, because you’ll get a dozen or so in every confrontation that both can hurt him and will fight. Each takes their couple hundred pounds of flesh and then loses, and he just has enough hit points to stand there and take it while everybody else dies or loses morale. Sometimes a couple powerhouses will alternate hits and get more damage in before being stopped, but it’s nowhere near enough in the long term.
But now? She has hundreds or thousands of effective capes, all synchronized and working in cycles to prevent him from ever being immune to the thing that’s hitting now. Doormaster, the Clairvoyant, and her preternatural swarm-reflexes and multitasking provide near-perfect defenses (she could shut down the portal to the hospital between when he fired and when his attack reached it) and none of the things he’s shown so far should be able to pass them since she isn’t blocking the attack but rather opening somewhere else to absorb it. It’s like the Yangban tactics, with synchronized troops, huge variety of powers, and high level synergy letting a squad of capes fight things way out of their weight class, but all turned up to eleven.
The really tragic thing here is that her plan could totally work. It would just be at the cost of losing her self, destroying her friends, and enslaving all of humanity.
Something has occurred to me.
I believe I mentioned at one (or more) point(s) that Yangban translates into “Template,” “Prototype,” “Model,” or “Sample Plate”. Now that we know that the not-quite-50 guys sharing powers are only about a quarter of the Yangban, the Sample Plate interpretation seems…less likely.
So, what are the Yangban a template/prototype/model for?
Maybe the individual members are all xeroxes of the template that is the whole Yangban?
Yeah, I know it’s a bit weak.
I thought they were a model for how to deal with parahumans and use them effectively? I think it was mentioned somewhere in Cody’s interlude.
Eh, don’t the Chinese try to tell the world that this is the best way to handle capes? The “model” of how to control them?
So, Wildbow, was the s in s-class threat, termed by cauldron and the PRT, all this time meaning ‘Scion’ class?”
It probably meant “special”, “super”, or “s**t this thing’s dangerous.”
I always figured it was just a natural progression, like the performance ratings in video games; you go through grades (F, D, C, B, A), and then you discover that you need a level above A and tack on S ratings or start throwing plusses around.
Class D is so incompetent and weak as to be ignorable, probably dealt with by noobs in the Wards or local PRT. C is the kind of minor threat than make up the day to day work of a hero. B is significant threats that take time and planning to deal with, like the various gangs and villains that Taylor started rooting out as a Ward but had been established in the area for years. A is a major threat, capable of winning against teams of veteran capes and presenting a lethal threat to all in the vicinity, like an individual member of the Nine, Lung and the ABB before Taylor showed, or most of the inhabitants of the Birdcage.
Class S is the rating you make up when a threat appears that A just isn’t enough to describe, things that the whole Protectorate tries to avoid or limit the damage from rather than making a serious attempt to defeat them. Something outside usual scales of difficulty or threat because they simply win if you try to fight them fairly, like the Nine working together, Nilbog’s entire kingdom, or an Endbringer. Something with the massive scale or sheer power to be considered potentially apocalyptic.
mr.maybe on October 20, 2013 at 23:06 said:
I’m a first time commenter and a long time reader. I can’t believe this is really ending soon. I really enjoyed seeing Taylor grow and change as a human being and become an adult. It was painful sometimes and she made a lot of stupid mistakes, but I really grew fond of her.
That’s why it is so tragic seeing her lose her humanity like this. I sort of want all of this to be a dream, and have her back with the undersiders. I need more lisa/taylor/bitch interaction haha.
Anyway I just want to say you are a great writer. You must have some sort of parahuman power to write fantastic stories at a ridiculous pace or something.
Anyway, thanks for everything. I’m looking forward to any future projects you do next.
*Psycho Gecko on the Starboard Bow*!
illlogicmedia on October 21, 2013 at 14:41 said:
KickAss: “This is my first time posting to this thread.”
Big Daddy: “Excellent we will signal Psycho Gecko!”
KickAss: “However will you reach him?”
HitGirl: “We have a special signal in the shape of a giant cock.”
Okay so can I list Taylor on the tropes page as currently the most powerful parahuman in the world? I mean Contessa could conceivably make a plan/predict where to hit her, the fairy queen might have the fire power to take her on, and Eidolon were he still alive would probably pull a power out of his ass to cancel the portals, BUT you can argue that she is stronger than all of them right now. I was thinking of changing the nobody to nightmare to reflect her S-class, nightmare fuel incarnate, state.
The most powerful parahuman on which world? Earth Bet? Sure. The only other ones are in the Birdcage or hiding in a shelter somewhere.
I guess I mean all parahumans everywhere. You know one of those who would win in a fight scenarios. But I added it to tropes page anyway. Thanks.
One who might be more powerful is the Sleeper. Who woke, apparently, and moved into another dimension. No word since.
Funny, one of the things I thought sleeper might do is something like what Taylor is doing now, only with more range, and less fine control.
My headcanon is that he’s basically Dream of the Endless.
Alternatively wildbow has decided to wage battle with Martin’s and/or Zelasny’s heirs’ lawyers and he’s just a guy who gains new superpowers everytime he wakes from a sleep-cycle 🙂 .
Or maybe he’s a self-contained universe, and inside his own universe, in his dream, he is omnipotent and omniscient. If he sees you, he can drag you into his universe.
So…he’s basically Dream of the Endless? 😛 .
Don’t know what that is, guess I’ll look it up 😛
You don’t know Sandman? Possibly the greatest comic series ever written. Authored by a certain Neil Gaiman. You may have heard of him (I hope).
I was going to link wikipedia’s page on Dream/Morpheus but it’s full of spoilers, so never mind.
No clue who they were. I pretty much stopped reading comics in the late 1980’s, and most of what I was reading even then was Marvel.
Wow. End of the eighties was when some of the most acclaimed comics ever came out ( Watchmen, sandman, The Dark Knight Returns, A Serious House on Serious Earth and other weird Morisson stuff like Animal Man and Doom Patrol (all DC by the way) ). You know before the Nineties sort of almost destroyed the industry.
Was Cody still in the C.U.I.’s clutches? (Obvious translation: Does Taylor have him now?)
I believe the last time we see him, he’s teleporting away with his crush. So he probably either got away or was killed trying.
So is Weaver going to go collect Jack? She knows he can talk to Scion. I’m not sure we want to see what would happen to Weaver’s thoughts if Jack were to gain any influence there, though.
With what Taylor’s been through?
If Jack’s very lucky he’ll get to stay in his time bubble and only have to suffer eternal disembowelment. Letting Taylor get her hands on him would just be cruel.
slider214 on November 21, 2014 at 02:14 said:
Taylor does not seem very interested in talking at this point…she’s getting dangerously close to a Dalek Exterminate setting. Especially considering that she is quickly losing track of simple English I doubt Jack would be useful at all.
You know, when Panacea first gave her relay bugs that could breed, I thought to myself, mostly as a joke, that Taylor qualified for Class S threat now. Given enough time to breed, she could get a big enough population of them to cover the entire planet, barring places the climate couldn’t support them, and take control of virtually all of the bugs on earth. Given the persistent portals Faultline’s Crew left all over, she could spread her perception and control slowly over many earths, and become basically the goddess of a swarm filling the multiverse. It was funny to think about, if unlikely to happen and largely irrelevant in the face of the crisis at hand.
It’s not funny anymore.
1) I was listening to Sandwitches while reading this (By Tyler the Creator and Hodgy Beats, if you were unaware) when the part that echoed you came on: “It was hilarious, but it ain’t fucking funny now” which basically sums up the progression of Taylor as a cape, as a whole. “Bug girl, hahaha” yeah, laugh it up, chuckles. Nice coincidence anywho.
2) I saw a few of your recent posts, and I’m quite pleased by the level of reading comprehension and thoughtfulness of them. Please do post more.
3) Is this your first time commenting?
Not quite, but it is my first time on the latest chapter. I came over when Less Wrong recommended the fic in his author’s notes for Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, and I just finished working through the archives. All my other comments are thus horribly out of date and scattered across a dozen or so chapters.
Yeah I had that same thought. I was very excited about the possibility of having Taylor upgraded to Swarm Planet. This turn of events is awesome in its own right. I do agree that it’s not funny in the slightest. I still hold out hope for her eventually coming back…somehow…and become the Swarm Goddess. She’s essentially a goddess anyway at the moment but it would be so cool to have her sit back drinking tea and sending a swarm to save a kitten from a tree or something across the planet.
Dark as Silver on October 21, 2013 at 13:14 said:
Can we rename taylor ‘conscript’ now? Or are there any better ideas?
I’m amazed that nobody has said this yet… Has an army of drones. Has encased herself in a honycomb made of portals… She’s a Hive now.
Tayler -> Skitter -> Weaver -> Hive
Hmmmm…I kind of like that. Has an ominous sound to it I think.
Crap…ghetto edit here:
Taylor…my apologies…eek
It’s usable.
Quite a few actually. Trapdoor and Snare were initial. Then Web seems to have gained traction. Personally, to move away from the bug motif altogether, while having a similar yet eerie vibe as Skitter and Weaver, I’ve decided to go all in for the simply put, Administrator.
I prefer Clotho. She’s not quite a god, yet, but she’s working on it.
Perhaps not Clotho. Though she’s young, her goal here is more a fit for Atropos.
So, I was thinking about it. Perhaps the loss of English wasn’t as fuzzy as we might think. Teacher likes to use big words. I bet he also likes using words that English stole at knifepoint from other languages in back alleys of Grammar City. If he was using non-English words that we, in real life, would recognize as not being English words, it’s very possible that Taylor’s comprehension of them would have been lost before her comprehension of her primary language. So she would get these blips in language every time Teacher used a latin phrase, or French, or Spanish, or whatever, but she would continue to understand the English parts. I suspect she lost English at the Yangban fight, but had lost all other languages that she knew little bits and pieces of in the Teacher part.
i’m sorry, but Dragon is incomprehensible to her as well and dragon was also speaking English
One interesting question is, can Contessa use her power to find ways to properly interact with Admin!Taylor like she did with Doctor Mother ?
Aside from simple bodily harm, I mean.
I’m certain Contessa *CAN* manage to communicate with Taylor. Possible by becoming the world’s best Charades player, if nothing else.
However She first has to decide to talk rather than run or fight.
That was after she started controlling the Yangban though. Even when she left Teacher, she was still able to understand at least some English.
Gazzien on October 21, 2013 at 17:59 said:
Just trawled all of the way through this (took me a bit over a week, using about half of my free time outside of classes), and… wow.
Thank you. This is wonderful. Keep on keeping on~
God on October 22, 2013 at 12:49 said:
“Three hundred million people, many still migrating to places where they could settle, physically walking to separate themselves from others, so Scion couldn’t kill too many at once.”
I’m surprised there are still that many alive.
For all we know that includes refugees from earth Aleph and other populated ones. Also about 3.5 billion people live in rural environments that would take a while for even Scion to track down without simply demolishing the continent. Also its never made clear how many people that cauldron managed to evacuate.
rmcd94 on December 7, 2013 at 22:54 said:
I don’t get how her Field of View works, is it based on geography or can she just attach it to people?
What? That’s like the epitome of naturalness! And at the very least way more natural than a hive queen who has complete and total control over every minion.
Also, being so morally better than the CUI who as I last checked were doing a ton better than you were? Not cooperating? The CUI and Teacher were cooperating! And the Doctor let them get in that position even though the three of them are invaluable for creating huge armies, I’m sure she’s not an idiot so she did that on purpose.
Panecea should use her ability on more people.
Would they really waste Ziggarut’s ability on building a huge palace? And have all three of them beside the royal family? That’s like the epitome of dumb. Especially when it’s moments after they deliberately split up 300 million people.
If CUI had recruited Teacher as one of the first three they would have been so OP. Power granting would complete the set and allow the 300 million citizens to be 300 million capes. S
mockingbuddha1 on June 13, 2014 at 14:15 said:
So, I have been loving this story! I can’t believe how long it is. Thank you Wildbow for hours of enjoyment. I was sent here on recommendation from Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. I am writing a pulp sci-fi novel myself and reading this gave me the idea to publish it as a serial on wordpress. Which I have started doing. I don’t know if it’s bad etiquette to put a link here, but I don’t have any other ideas for marketing, so…
http://mockingbuddha1.wordpress.com/
It’s called Laser Boy and it’s about a gang of homeless kids on a space station.
“My swarm shifted their stances, approaching a little closer, guns raised.”. *Very* nice bit of writing there, indirectly conveying a rather disturbing shift in Taylor’s mentality.
So, thoughts:
* Even forty years later it still might not be safe to use the expression “vast tracts of land”. 😛
* The Emperor is an idiot. If it hadn’t been Taylor who attacked it would’ve been Scion. And setting yourself up as the obvious leader in the obvious palace surrounded by the obvious army is a *really* bad approach to take with Scion. Find yourself a small shack somewhere. Maybe keep one or two loyal parahumans as guards (aka potential distractions for Scion while you run away). Do everything possible to NOT make yourself a honking huge fortified target that screams “obliterate me, I’m important!”.
Taylor’s always had an uncomfortable awareness of vast tracts of land. She has a bit of a complex about her own limited real estate holdings.
Averus on October 5, 2014 at 20:10 said:
Thought it was the C.U.I.?
Wildbow mentions above that it’s intentional. Meant to show how Taylor is losing her ability to understand English even in her thoughts.
Well. Fuck.
I think we just lost Taylor.
Teacher didn’t get fucked up enough. I am rather curious now how he got to Cauldron right after this honestly. I can’t imagine Taylor letting Doormaker open him the door and he had no reason to go there and mention Taylor being a problem before her attack on him.
God damn it Dragon. Okay so my fingers are crossed that at the very least Taylor is just going to stop at killing the one body and not go after any backups. That can be okay. Dragon will reload and all will be good.
The Yang Ban, about damn time they were knocked down a bit too. The curbstomp was hilarious. It was also rather fun to see our Swarm Queen in action using billions upon billions of bugs. Not quite the Planet Swarm I was originally hoping for with the breeding relays but I’ll take what I can get since we do have a whole army of thralls with ever increasing numbers now instead.
And to end this off: Fuck.
LittleSallyDigby on November 24, 2014 at 20:02 said:
Uhhhh.
That’s REALLY not the only option, Taylor. Like, just off the top of my head, you could go grab Teacher and start carrying him around as a meatshield.
(I had been wondering why she couldn’t speak or read but wasn’t having any trouble with understanding speech. Glad that wasn’t just an oversight.)
srave on January 2, 2015 at 10:52 said:
“Inside the place itself was a kaleidoscope.”
Palace?
storryeater on May 10, 2015 at 04:53 said:
Ok,so Taylor now has better control over her people.SO WHY NOT PANTOMIME?aside from the shard urging her to be aggressive,or her brain losing the ability to corelate any symbol with meanings…ok,she may have valid excuses,still,pantomime negotiation would be funny and hilarious.
“speech”points to her throat
“and comprehension”points to her ears
“brain center gone caput”covers her mouth and ears
“strategy brain center”points to her brain and pantomimes playing chess with one of her followers
“still ok”smiles broadly and makes an o with her fingers
“please”drops to her knees,in a begging position
“let me”points to herself
“kill”mock slashes her throat
“that golden bastard”points to the sky.
slider214 on May 10, 2015 at 14:12 said:
I think part of the problem is that the shard is pushing the aggression and the combat. It’s close to the drivers seat and pushing things along to the path of most conflict which is exactly what it’s hardwired to do. Plus Taylor has pretty much lost all capacity for human thought beyond planning how to continue her combat. She has her goal, she’s working towards that goal, she’s losing anchors and losing her ability to even really conceive of stopping to negotiate.
She simply doesn’t have the capacity to think along the lines you suggest anymore. Even if she did I don’t know if there is enough time to do so. She’s getting worse fast and how long would it take to get people to agree to let her puppeteer them around? By the time she got consent it could be too late for her to keep things together enough to be effective.
MisterTeatime on January 30, 2016 at 20:46 said:
I guess this answers my big question about power classifications, in a roundabout way- where do purely sensory powers (without any enhanced interpretive abilities like Tattletale’s power to draw connections super-quickly between available data or that last guy’s ability to condense tons of data around him into “danger” or “not danger”) fall? If Teacher can grant them, I suppose they must be classed as thinker powers.
prooggroo on February 21, 2018 at 13:26 said:
Taylor’s metamorphosis sadden me. Well, to step up the metamorphosis from man vs society to a cosmos setting neatly is brownies for me.
Thx again Wildbow
Poetically Psychotic on April 14, 2018 at 23:41 said:
Even on a reread, all of the hype.
aaronryuchi on July 1, 2018 at 09:40 said:
I know I said that her new power level wasn’t the god power I imagined but this is basically perfect god power shit yo
Power stealing is like, so broken
BUT DRAGON NOOOOOOOOO
Blub on December 29, 2018 at 23:26 said:
Again, a lot lost.
Didn´t she use Clairvoyants power at the beginning? Why does she suddenly have to touch him?
Why does she not take Yu Shue?
What´s with Marquis and co? Is he with her? From the end of the last chapter it seemed that she got several from the hospice, but here it sounded as if she attacked teacher only with clairy + doory.
heart on May 10, 2019 at 06:00 said:
Now I hate Taylor’s passenger. The real Taylor would never seriously hurt Dragon.
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The Patriotic Millionaires is a group of high-net worth Americans committed to building a more prosperous, stable, and inclusive nation.
Home | Blog | Pearls of Wisdom: What a Difference 52 Years Makes
Pearls of Wisdom: What a Difference 52 Years Makes
August 1, 2017 Morris Pearl, Patriotic Millionaires Chairperson
Our politics has changed a lot over the last 52 years, from July 28, 1965 to July 28, 2017.
Early last Thursday morning, only the dramatic thumbs-down by Arizona Senator John McCain saved the Affordable Care Act. Forty-nine Republican Senators voted to get rid of ObamaCare. All forty-six Democrats, the two independents who caucus with the Democrats, plus three Republicans, voted to keep the Affordable Care Act in place.
Fifty-two years ago to the day, July 28, 1965, things were different. The Senate on that day approved Medicare by a vote of 70-24. New York was represented by a Democrat: Robert F. Kennedy, and a Republican: Jacob Javits. Both voted in favor. The 70 in favor included 13 Republicans and 57 Democrats. The 24 opposed included 17 Republicans and 7 Democrats.
Back then, Republicans (led by people like New York governors Thomas E. Dewey and Nelson A. Rockefeller, along with Dwight D. Eisenhower) were in favor of civil rights, labor unions, social security, well-funded public universities, and government-funded infrastructure. They wanted to run the country a little more efficiently than the Democrats who were known for machine politics, political patronage, and racial segregation (James Eastland was a leading Democratic senator, and Strom Thurmond had only a few months earlier resigned from the Democratic Party in protest of Lyndon Johnson signing the Civil Rights Act).
People like Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan were already starting to move the Republican Party to the right, complaining that the federal government was taking too big a role in the country by providing medical care to the poor and requiring buses and restaurants to serve black people, but it would be another couple of decades before the extreme partisanship we see today would arise.
That same partisanship has warped our politics, our government, and our national identity. What was once assumed, that our politicians would do what they felt was best for the country, is no longer even expected. Powerful donors and special interests have hijacked the system, and the results are clear in front of us. A bill that virtually everyone, even the Senators voting for it, thought was terrible failed to pass by only one vote. A number of wavering Republican Senators, rightly concerned about the bill’s effects, quickly fell in line after a few phone calls from their wealthy donors. Senator Dean Heller of Nevada, for example, spoke out repeatedly about his refusal to support a bill that hurt his constituents, but the two constituents that he had time to talk to (major donors Steve Wynn and Sheldon Adelson) convinced him to change, and Heller ended up voting yes.
When members of Congress are more concerned with their reelection and primary challengers than the health of their constituents, something is wrong. The pattern that has played out in this healthcare debate, with the wellbeing of the people outweighed by the financial wellbeing of the wealthy, will almost certainly continue when this Congress takes on tax reform this fall. It will continue when dealing with health care, with taxes, with immigration reform, with trade policy, and with every possible issue until the core problem is addressed – we need comprehensive campaign finance reform. Until politicians can be held accountable by the people, the United States of America will continue to be a democracy in name only.
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Rich people are not the cause of a robust economy, they are the result of a robust economy. Ron Garret, Patriotic Millionaire and Angel Investor
Patriotic Millionaires @PatrioticMills
10 years ago today, the Citizens United decision gave the green light for money to pollute our political process.
#EndCitizensUnited now and get big money out of politics. https://t.co/lve5OJAeVw
#CitizensUnited created a shift in the way the rich try to influence elections.
Wealthy mega-donors aren’t new, but in a post-Citizens United America where money = free speech – their money drowns out the voice of the other 99% Americans.
https://t.co/8fLS13HSEW
10 years ago, the Supreme Court made the Citizens United decision to open up the floodgates for money in our political system.
In 2018 alone, the top 1% of super PAC donors accounted for 96% of super PAC funding.
We must get big money out of politics and #EndCitizensUnited!
Proud “traitors to their class,” members of the Patriotic Millionaires are high-net worth Americans, business leaders, and investors who are united in their concern about the destabilizing concentration of wealth and power in America. The mission of The Patriotic Millionaires organization is to build a more stable, prosperous, and inclusive nation by promoting public policies based on the “first principles” of equal political representation, a guaranteed living wage for all working citizens, and a fair tax system: 1. All citizens should enjoy political power equal to that enjoyed by millionaires; 2. All citizens who work full time should be able to afford their basic needs; 3. Tax receipts from millionaires, billionaires and corporations should comprise a greater proportion of federal tax receipts.
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The Patriotic Millionaires is a group of high-net worth Americans who share a profound concern about the destabilizing level of inequality in America. Our work centers on the two things that matter most in a capitalist democracy: power and money. Our goal is to ensure that the country’s political economy is structured to meet the needs of regular Americans, rather than just millionaires. We focus on three “first” principles: a highly progressive tax system, a livable minimum wage, and equal political representation for all citizens.
24 States are Giving Their Workers a Raise, Why Not Congress?
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Creators: Sean Gillies, Jeffrey Becker, Elizabeth Robinson, Adam Rabinowitz, Tom Elliott, Sarah Bond, Brian Turner, Stuart Dunn, Noah Kaye, Ryan Horne Copyright © The Contributors. Sharing and remixing permitted under terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License (cc-by).
Last modified Apr 11, 2017 12:58 PM
tags: policy, adding, help
Detailed policy instructions for the creation and editing of place, name, location, and connection resources in Pleiades.
Note that content entered in Pleiades prior to November 2016, as well as data more recently imported from other databases, may deviate from guidance here. Contributors are encouraged to undertake and submit updates that bring existing references into conformance with these Guidelines.
Conceptual Overview
Pleiades uses the terms "place," "name," "location," and "connection" in specific, deliberate ways. Understanding the definitions of each is essential to making the most of Pleiades, especially as a contributor of new and updated content. A separate document -- the Pleiades Conceptual Overview -- explains the distinctions. Reading it first is highly recommended.
Database Structure
The Pleiades system documents and describes each of these four conceptual entities (places, names, locations, and entities) using a corresponding information resource. Information resources are bundles of structured data that are similar in function to records in a database or index cards in a card file. Each place resource contains the name, location, and connection resources with which it is associated. This encapsulation is expressed in the layout of information on the Pleiades website, and in the hierarchical structure of the Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs: web addresses) assigned to each resource. Each place resource has a corresponding web page in Pleiades, and each place page links to individual pages for all the name, location, and connection resources that have been associated with it.
The structure and implementation of the Pleiades database are described in more detail in the Pleiades Data Model document.
About Titles
The Pleiades information resource for each place, location, name, or connection always includes a title, but each type of entity has different titling conventions. A place may have multiple names at different points in time, and a name may have multiple Romanizations, but the place resource and each of the associated name resources receives only one title each. Similarly, each location has only one title, but there are several different types of location in Pleiades, and conventions for titling differ between them. Policy and examples for each case are provided below. In general, punctuation (commas, periods, apostrophes) should be avoided wherever possible in titles (so “Arch of Trajan”, rather than “Trajan’s Arch”).
When a commonly used modern proper name is seen to be erroneous or otherwise misleading (e.g., when a tomb is imaginatively assigned to a famous historical figure), contributors and editors may choose to relegate this information to a “summary” or “details” field, and add the words “so-called,” surround the proper name in quotation marks, or otherwise caveat the information. This preserves searchability, but avoids specious repetition of incorrect information.
About Summaries (Descriptions)
All resources in Pleiades have "summary" fields (sometimes called "descriptions"). The contents of these fields are intended to facilitate discovery of Pleiades content and disambiguation of same-titled items in search results and map pop-ups. Summaries should be concise and less than 300 characters in length (including spaces). They must be plain-text (i.e., no italics, bold, links, or other formatting). Longer descriptive statements should appear in the “details” field of the relevant resource (q.v.).
The editors’ expectations regarding the content of summaries varies between place, location, name, and connection resources. In general, the summary field for locations must reflect only information about the coordinates themselves (scale, source, reason for choice, etc.). Similarly, name summaries should confine themselves to summary information concerning the name and its sources. Summary information concerning the things represented (e.g., the city or monument or building) should be placed in the “summary” or “details” field on the associated place resource. Additional specific guidance is provided in the appropriate sections below.
About Dates
Pleiades places exist independently of time and contain no temporal information themselves. Temporal information is applied to the locations, names, and connections with which a place is associated. This approach, which is reflected in the data structure of the corresponding information resources, gives Pleiades users the flexibility necessary to model the known temporal distribution of the individual names for a place; to identify (wherever possible) the age and longevity of the various spatial features that constitute its locations; and to constrain relationships between places to particular periods. Pleiades uses a heterogenous and growing list of named time periods when assigning individual location, name, and connection resources in time. Incomplete date ranges are acceptable when data available to the editor and contributor are insufficient. It is preferable to get a correct, if incomplete, record published sooner rather than deferring publication for an extended period of time pending the acquisition of additional information.
About References
Pleiades uses references to external books, articles, websites, datasets, and other information resources in order to contextualize the information we present, to provide access to evidence or argument, and to attribute ideas and conclusions to their originators. References may be attached to places, names, locations, and connections as indicated in the sections below on each type of information resource in Pleiades. Introductory and contextual comments may be found in the "References in Pleiades" section of the Citation Guide.
Structure of References
Every reference in Pleiades has several fields:
Keyword/phrase drawn from a controlled vocabulary indicating the purpose and function of the reference in its context of use on Pleiades. A separate document explains the individual citation types. Each major section below discusses the appropriate application of citation types in the context of a particular class of information resource.
An abbreviated title or acronym by which the work cited is known or by which it can be called. Acronyms already in common or regular specialist use in scholarly literature may be used, where appropriate. Otherwise, when the first author and date of publication is known, a "last name + year" formulation is preferred (e.g., Pickard 2017). In cases where neither of these approaches are applicable, the regular title of the work may be entered, omitting text appearing after a colon, if any.
Citation Detail
Additional citation scope information needed to locate the relevant portion of the work (if appropriate). For example, if citing only a short page range in a monograph or a particular inscription in a corpus volume, this field might contain text like "pages 37-38" or "number 42". If an entire journal article is being cited as a work, the full page range of the article may be included here. The editors prefer that the type of scope (e.g., "pages" or "number") be written out fully in English, rather than abbreviated. The exception to this rule affects primary sources for which a canonical citation scheme is in regular use (e.g., "3:17" rather than "chapter 3, verse 17" when citing a Biblical work).
Formatted Citation
A complete, human-readable formatted citation for the work and the detailed citation scope. The content of this field is analogous to a traditional, full bibliographic footnote. Any standard citation style may be used, so long as it provides clear, complete, and actionable bibliographic information. The "Fetch from Zotero" function for references uses a default style to populate this field automatically with information about the work. If "Fetch from Zotero" is used, citation detail information (if any) must be added to this field by hand.
Bibliographic URI
Optional HTTP(S) link to a structured bibliographic record for the work cited. Worldcat.org and Zotero.org are preferred targets.
Access URI
Optional HTTP(S) link to access the work itself. Links to paywalled resources (e.g., JSTOR) are acceptable provided the target serves up a landing page for unauthenticated/unauthorized visitors. Ensure that behind-the-wall forms of the link (e.g., those containing "ezproxy") are not used. This field must contain an open, web-facing URI.
Alternate URI
Optional secondary HTTP(S) link to access the work if the "access URI" fails. The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine is the preferred target here, assuming the item in question is archived. Institutional and subject-area digital repositories are also acceptable targets; however, links to papers posted to academia.edu or other for-profit sites are not acceptable.
Other Identifier
Optional field for other identifiers (e.g., DOIs, ISBNs), which must be separated by semicolons.
Guidelines for Place Resources
The following editorial conventions are employed in the titling of place resources in Pleiades:
Structure of Place Resources
Place Titles
Titles for place resources in Pleiades are always rendered in Roman characters. Romanization (transliteration) practice is laid out in the Name Romanization Guide.
When appropriate, titles can contain one or more toponyms.
For every toponym used in the “title” field of the place resource, a corresponding name resource must be attached to the place resource before submitting for review.
When there is an ancient toponym that can be assigned to a place with full confidence, and that toponym is well-known or appears widely in literature, that toponym should be used in the title of the place resource. Minor variants (e.g., “Aphrodeisias” for “Aphrodisias”) registered as names should not be considered for place titles.
When no ancient toponym can be assigned to the place with full confidence, the modern toponym conventionally associated with the place by historians and archaeologists should be used in the title of the corresponding place resource (e.g. “Franchthi Cave”). Where common, the use of English spellings for modern toponyms in place resource titles are preferred (e.g., “Munich” rather than “München”), but otherwise the most common or native modern language name should be used. When the commonly-used name is actually the placename of a nearby community (e.g., Piazza Armerina) or of a higher-order administrative division (e.g., the Comblessac commune in France), the title should be extended to make clear the relationship, e.g.: "Gallo-roman villa in Comblessac" or "Birdoswald Roman Fort."
If the place is a natural feature and is consistently referred to by a compound name in historical sources (e.g. “Olympus Mons”), use the Romanized version of the name as it appears in those sources. In all other cases, Latin feature-type strings and abbreviations (“M.”, “fl.”, “ins.”) are now deprecated, and English terms should be used instead: so “Tiber River” instead of “Tiber fl.”, “Chios island” instead of “Chios ins.”, “Mount Ida” instead of “Ida M.”.
When multiple toponyms are included in a place title, they must be separated with a slash (“/”) character. When many toponyms are attested for a single place, Pleiades users and editors should exercise their best judgment as to how many to include in the title, and in what order. The editors will only in exceptional circumstances approve titles containing more than two toponyms. Preference should be given to the most common toponyms, and those representing distinct linguistic and cultural threads in the history of the place. Toponyms used regularly in modern scholarship and general literature are preferred over more obscure ones.
When there is neither an ancient nor a modern toponym firmly associated with the place, a descriptive title using the type of place should be used. These titles may incorporate short statements of spatial proximity. E.g., “Roman Bridge near Twice Brewed” or “Gladiatorial School at Carnuntum”.
Summaries for Places
Each place in Pleiades should have a concise summary that helps to identify and situate the place. The summary text should identify primary, salient features of the place. For physical geographic features, this might include indicating the modern place or feature to which the ancient place corresponds. For settlements or other anthropic features, the summary should help to identify the nature and importance of the place. Longer, discursive description or discussion of the place should be reserved for the ‘details’ field. For ancient places that either require or would benefit from disambiguation, the summary field can help to provide clarity, for example differentiating the Pandosia of Bruttium from the Pandosia of Lucania.
References for Places
Secondary works: If at all possible, a place resource should have at least one reference to a secondary work providing information, argument, etc. for the place in question. Do not add references that have not been consulted by the creator, contributor, or editor in preparation of the resource. Two citation types are available for references to works that have been consulted or that are being recommended:
"See further" is used for a work, or a segment of a work (indicated with the "citation detail" field) that is primarily concerned with this particular place. For example, a final excavation report on a particular rural villa would merit "see further" when cited in the context of the Pleiades place resource describing that villa.
"See also" is used for a work, or segment of a work, that is primarily concerned with another topic, but that is relevant to the place. For example, the Wikipedia article for Cordoba is principally concerned with the modern city, but it contains a substantive subsection devoted to the "prehistory, antiquity and Roman foundation of the city". The Pleiades reference to such an article should use the "See Also" citation type.
Gazetteers and atlases: When an entry in another spatio-temporal resource like a gazetteer, atlas, or map addresses the same place as the Pleiades resource -- and when that external entry assigns a stable identifier to the place or to that entry -- the Pleiades reference should make use of the "Related" citation type.
Primary sources: When a primary source describes an ancient place and the creator, contributor, or editor of the corresponding Pleiades resource thinks a reference to it would be helpful to users, that primary source may be cited in addition to secondary sources. In such cases, the "Evidence" citation type must be used for the primary source reference. Note that such primary source citations must not supersede appropriate citation of primary source witnesses in subordinate "name" resources. They need not replicate primary source citations made in subordinate name, location, and connection resources.
The "data source" and "citation" types must not be used on references in place resources.
Details for Places
The "details" field in a Pleiades place resource provides for extended discussion, clarification, description, and background. The field is "rich text," so links, images, headings, and other formatting may be included. Descriptive information too long to fit in the "summary" should be put in the details field. Short essays concerning the history, archaeology, etc. of the place may also be included here.
Connections between Places
A place may have any number of relationships with another place. These may be topographical (physical part of), governmental (administrative part of), spatial (near), etc. A separate "connection" resource is provided for recording information about such relationships. See further the guidance on connection resources, below.
Place retraction
Guidelines for Location Resources
In Pleiades, locations provide a link between a conceptual place and specific geographic and temporal coordinates. They can be of three types: representative locations, associated modern locations, or archaeological location. Regardless of type, each location must have a spatial geometry (point, polyline, or polygon) and at least one associated chronological period. Each type should be titled in a particular manner, as described below.
About Positional Accuracy in Locations
All Pleiades location resources must include an appropriate "Positional Accuracy Assessment" document. The editors have made available a number of standard/generic such documents, appropriate for most locations. These include:
Coordinates copied from GeoHack
Coordinates copied from GeoNames
Coordinates collected using a hand-held GPS device (not differential GPS)
Coordinates/Geometries imported from OpenStreetMap (OSM)
Coordinates copied from the Helsinki Atlas of the Ancient Near East in the Neo-Assyrian Period
Coordinates copied from the online digital maps of the French Institut Geographique National: Cartes IGN
Coordinates determined through analysis of imagery in Google Earth
Coordinates read from maps at common scales (accuracy estimated on basis of US National Map Standards for horizontal accuracy):
1:250,000
1:1 million
Coordinates copied from the gazetteer in The Western Desert of Egypt (Vivian 2000)
Unattributed Wikipedia coordinates
The Editors welcome discussion by users -- preferably on the Pleiades Community List -- concerning available accuracy assessments, the horizontal accuracy bounds they suggest, and perceived needs for additional such documents.
Note that a number of other positional accuracy assessment documents exist, reflecting the characteristics of particular datasets that have previously been imported into Pleiades. These should not be used for coordinate data entered in Pleiades going forward without prior approval from the Editors.
Structure of Location Resources
Representative Locations
A “representative location” in Pleiades comprises a representative point, polyline, or polygon for the associated place as a whole, including approximations and estimates of centerpoint, extent, perimeter, or area. Note that geometry associated with the modern extent of an archaeological area or preserve should be treated as an Associated Modern Location (q.v.).
When the place resource corresponds to a site or complex of features or monuments, the geometries of those individual monuments must not be used as locations for the place; rather, an individual place resource must be created for each subordinate, discrete monument or building one wishes to map and an appropriate location resource created for each. Use “connections” from the subordinate places to indicate the relationship with the parent place. In cases such as this, there is no need to create a representative location for the parent place: Pleiades will automatically calculate a representative point for it using the centroid of the locations associated with each subordinate place. A new place resource may be submitted and published with only a subset of its possible locations defined. Rapid publication of accurate but incomplete resources is always to be preferred over extended delay.
Titles for Representative Locations
The title of a Representative Location must reflect the source of the coordinates. When the coordinates are copied from an external data source (like OpenStreetMap or a digitized map), begin the location titles with an abbreviation of the title of the external source and append the word “location”. For example:
“DARMC location”
“OSM location”
“DARE location”
“TAVO location”
When coordinates are obtained through imagery analysis or data collection in the field, follow a similar pattern for the title (e.g., “GPS location” or “Imagery location”).
Wherever possible, add a short string to the title to provide clarity regarding the relevance of the coordinates provided. Repetition of information in the associated place title is acceptable, but qualifications longer than 3 or 4 words should be relegated to the “summary” field.
Here are some examples of titles for representative locations:
BAtlas Location of the Athenian Agora
GPS Location of the extant spans of the aqueduct bridge
OSM location for Centerpoint of the Athenian Agora
GPS location of the North end of aqueduct
Summaries for Representative Locations
The summary for a Representative Location must indicate that the location is “representative”, and then go on to summarize the nature and process of collection for the coordinates and other information contained in the location resource. The names of data sources, when abbreviated in the title, should be spelled out in the summary for the benefit of new users and third-party consumers of exported data. When published plans, maps, or descriptions have been consulted as part of the process of identifying a feature in OpenStreetMap, Google Earth, or another digital dataset, these should be mentioned in the summary or details field and cited appropriately as references. Some summary examples:
“Representative point derived from an OpenStreetMap node”
“Polygon representing the perimeter of the archaeological site, derived from an OpenStreetMap way”
“Representative point derived from GeoNames. Dates after the Barrington Atlas.”
Dates for Representative Locations
The date range for a representative location should include all periods for which evidence of significant human activity can be associated with the site, beginning with the date of the feature’s creation and continuing to its abandonment. This will not necessarily be clear-cut, since some buildings were active parts of the landscape even after they had fallen into ruin, and others were transformed but remained continually in use into the modern period (for example, the Hephaisteion in Athens, which was used as a church until the 20th century). When in doubt, provide at a minimum the period during which the feature was created (if known) or during which it was used for its primary purpose. Archaeological evidence is the preferred source of such dates; however, literary and documentary testimony of existence or activity may also serve (and sometimes may be the only option). Care should be exercised whenever possible to avoid asserting activity in a period based solely on an antiquarian collection of placenames (e.g., the Suda or Stephanus of Byzantium).
References for Representative Locations
When geometry (coordinates) has been copied from an external data source, whether digital or in print, the original source of the data must be cited. The citation type to use is “Cite As Data Source”.
"See further" and "see also" should be used for all other citations of secondary literature, following the guidance set out for references in place resources, even when these are used to help determine the location with reference also to (e.g.) Google Earth imagery.
When inferring date, identification, or spatial position from an ancient literary or documentary source, use the “Cite as Evidence” citation type. Primary sources should not otherwise be cited in Pleiades location resources.
Retraction rules for Representative locations
When a new location is added to place and is demonstrably more accurate than a previously published location, the previously published location should be retracted by the editor who is publishing the new location. When the newly retracted location proves to have been derived from another gazetteer, atlas, map, or online data source (i.e., it is a DARMC location or has a reference of citation type "data source"), then a new reference should be created on the parent place, using the "related" citation type and citing the originally imported resource.
Associated Modern Locations
An “associated modern location” comprises a point, line, or polygon for a modern settlement or physical feature associated with an ancient place. When the precise location of an ancient cultural site is unknown (or data is presently unavailable), a nearby or associated modern settlement may be used (especially when that settlement’s name is often used in the scholarly literature as a proxy title for the ancient site). Similarly, in the absence of solid geophysical and geoarchaeological data for the location of an ancient physical feature, an Associated Modern Location can be used.
NB: Associated Modern Locations should not be used to link Pleiades content to external, presentist gazetteers like GeoNames. A new citation type (“Related To”) has been added to references and should be used at the place level for this purpose.
Titles of Associated Modern Locations
The title of an Associated Modern Location must follow the titling guidance laid out above for Representative Locations, with the following additions. The title for a cultural location should have a string like “of modern [Romanized modern placename]” appended. The title of a physical feature should have a string like “of [Romanized modern placename]” appended.
Summaries of Associated Modern Locations
The summary for an Associated Modern Location must indicate that it is an associated modern location, and also summarize the nature and process of collection for the coordinates and other information contained in the location resource in the same manner as for Representative Locations. Some examples:
“Polygonal geometry representing the perimeter of the modern commune of Crecy, which is thought to be associated with the ancient site of Cremium. Geometry derived from an OpenStreetMap way;”
“Point marking the modern summit of Gebel Musa, which is identified with the ancient Tiberius Mons. Point derived from an OpenStreetMap way.”
Dates for Associated Modern Locations
For cultural features, the date range for a location of this type should begin with the earliest phase of the modern settlement presently known or available to the contributors and editors and continue to the present. For natural features (rivers, lakes, mountains, coastlines, etc.), even when there is evidence that those features were places in antiquity, the date range should be “modern”. There have been substantial geological changes between antiquity and the present, and the location of a river or lake today is often different from its location in antiquity.
References for Associated Modern Locations
Follow the guidance provided above in the section on “References for Representative Locations”.
Retraction Rules for Associated Modern Locations
Guidelines for Name Resources
See also our point-and-click tutorial: Add a new name resource.
A single place can have many names over time, or may be called different names by different groups: Ephesus, for example, has also been known as Arsinoe, Afsis, and Aya Soluk, among others. In Pleiades, each such name for a place is recorded using a separate name resource. No distinction is made between “primary” and “alternate” toponyms, nor between major and minor variants of a toponym. Each varying string of characters used as a toponym in a writing system is given a separate Pleiades name resource. Both geographic names (Ephesus) and ethnic names (Ephesians) may be added.
Structure of Name Resources
Name Titles
Pleiades automatically uses the first Romanized form of the name as the title for the resource. Unlike the edit forms for place and location, no separate “title” field appears on the name edit form.
Romanized forms of name
At least one Romanized form of a toponym must be entered for each name. Additional Romanization forms (e.g., those conforming to another of several possible Romanization schemes) may be added to the “Romanized Name” field. Separate these with commas. If the attested form of the name (see below) is in a non-Roman writing system, please ensure that the first Romanized form employs an unaccented transliteration scheme. For example: Cherson, Kherson. See the Name Romanization Guide for technical and language-specific details.
Certainty of names
In the "level of uncertainty" field, if you are completely sure this name is to be connected with the geographic location(s) already associated with the place resource, then choose "certain." "Less certain" and "uncertain" are appropriate values if there is some debate or question surrounding the association of an ancient name with a particular location. If you use "less certain" or "uncertain", you should add an explanation in the "summary" field and cite any relevant sources using the "References" tab. Values available for this field are drawn from the Association Certainty vocabulary.
Attested form of name
With the exception of data imported from legacy sources by the editors, name resources added to Pleiades must include the attested form of the toponym in its original language and script. The “attested name” field is provided for this purpose. Values entered in this field must be encoded using UTF-8 character encoding and conforming to the Canonical Composition Normalization Form.
In languages that employ inflected forms for nouns, a name occurring only in oblique case should be normalized to its nominative form if this can be done confidently. The oblique form may be noted in the "Details" field, along with accompanying discussion as appropriate.
When traditional scholarly practice further normalizes or regularizes text for presentation in an edition (e.g., Classical Greek where diacriticals for breathing and accentuation are regularly added even if absent or anachronistic), such practices may be followed in Pleiades. Conversely, a Pleiades contributor may depart from such conventions when it is appropriate for clarity or integrity of the information (e.g., when placing an accent would be problematic).
When all available witnesses can only provide a fragmentary record of a placename, the missing section(s) of the name must be set off by "square brackets" (i.e., "[" and "]"). If the missing text can be restored with confidence, it should be placed between the brackets. If restoration is not possible, or there is scholarly controversy, then two or three hyphens should be placed between the brackets and any possible supplements presented and discussed in the "Details" field. Note also: Name Completeness.
Language and writing system of name
Standard codes for a variety of language and writing system combinations are provided on the edit form for name resources, and the appropriate value must be selected before a name can be published. If the language or script of the attested name is not present in the pull-down menu, please email pleiades.admin@nyu.edu with a request for its addition.
References for names
Unlike a location, for which there may only be archaeological evidence, a name must be attested in, or able to be inferred from, a textual source; therefore a record for a name must always have at least one reference (of type “evidence”) to a textual source in which it is attested. When the name is ancient, attestations should also be ancient; when the name is modern, any widely used or authoritative work may be cited as evidence. In most cases, modern scholarship should only be cited as evidence for an ancient name if it involves the primary publication of ancient written sources like coins or inscriptions. Modern scholarship may also be cited (using the “see further” or "see also" citation type) if it deals directly with linguistic reconstruction of the name from corrupt or later witnesses or if it addresses the identification of the ancient name with the site. Other citation types should not be used on Pleiades name resources.
Dates for names
A name must also always be associated with one or more temporal attestations; at a minimum, it should be associated with the period during which the primary textual source that mentions it was created (or, if the textual source is clearly referring to an earlier time – “in the time of Peisistratus, it was called X” – to the period with which the textual source associates it).
Retraction rules for names
Guidelines for Connection Resources
Structure of Connection Resources
See also our point-and-click tutorial: Add a new connection between two places.
Connection Titles
NB: These title guidelines cannot be implemented until Issue #300 is resolved (connection titles are currently auto-assigned).
Connection titles should combine a title or name of the target place resource with the nature or import of the connection type in a short, prepositional or adjectival phrase like:
"On the island of Sicily"
"South of Athens"
"In the Roman province of Moesia Inferior"
"On the banks of the Derventio river"
"United through sunoikisis with Kos"
Connection Target: "Makes a connection with..."
A "connection type" is required, and it must be selected from the "Relationship Types" vocabulary list curated by the editors. Proposals for the addition of new terms may be emailed to pleiades.admin@nyu.edu or raised for discussion on the Pleiades Community List.
Association Certainty for Connections
Temporal Attestations for Connections
References for Connections
With the exception of straightforward physical relationships evident from location, connections must cite a combination of primary and secondary literature that supports the asserted relationship between the two relevant place resources. For example an appropriate primary source reference (citation type: "evidence") might assert that a particular Chinese settlement was in a particular administrative district at a given date or might document the presence of a Roman provincial governor hearing cases there in a settlement. Appropriate secondary references (using the "see further" or "see also" citation types) should be introduced when they provide analysis or argument essential to understanding the asserted connection. The other citation types are not appropriate in this context.
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Change initiatives in health care
The Canadian Medical Association will incorporate in its Toward a Blueprint for Health Care Transformation: A Framework for Action a call on all levels of governments to ensure that change initiatives in health care be clinically driven from inception to implementation and include appropriate physician representation from practising physicians who are representative of and accountable to their colleagues.
Impact of health care transformation
The Canadian Medical Association will work with provincial/territorial medical associations, affiliates and associates to examine the impact of health care transformation on all aspects of physicians' practices, in a diverse range of settings; primary and specialty care, including the relationship between them; undergraduate and postgraduate education and continuing professional development; and health and health care services for patients.
Mobility of physicians in Canada
The Canadian Medical Association will work with provincial/territorial medical associations and the Federation of Medical Regulatory Authorities of Canada to develop a tracking database to monitor and assess the impact of mutual recognition of professional credentials on the mobility of physicians in Canada.
Education of future physicians
The Canadian Medical Association with provincial/territorial medical associations, affiliates and associates will encourage medical schools to reinforce to medical students and residents the necessity for every physician to contribute to the education of future physicians.
Scope-of-practice changes
The Canadian Medical Association will work with provincial/territorial medical associations, affiliates and associates to create a rapid process for consulting one another and other medical organizations when proposals for scope-of-practice changes are introduced by governments.
Wait times and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder
The Canadian Medical Association will work with provincial/territorial medical associations, affiliates, associates and other stakeholders to develop and implement wait-time benchmarks for health care services provided to patients with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder.
Canadian physician support trust
The Canadian Medical Association will establish a Canadian physician support trust to provide timely financial and personal support to physicians in need as a national program administered by the provincial/territorial medical associations.
Transforming Health Care, Securing Canada's Competitive Advantage: The Canadian Medical Association's brief to the Standing Committee on Finance's pre-budget consultation
Flexibility in Medical Training (Update 2009)
Flexibility in Medical Training
Tuition fee escalation and deregulation in undergraduate programs in medicine (Update 2009)
Tuition fee escalation and deregulation in undergraduate programs in medicine
"More Doctors. More Care:" A Promise Yet Unfulfilled - The Canadian Medical Association's brief to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health concerning health human resources
Fees for on call service
https://policybase.cma.ca/en/permalink/policy442
That the Canadian Medical Association support in principle that fees be paid to physicians for the service of being on call.
Frequency of on-call services
That the Canadian Medical Association recommend that in principle Canadian physicians not be required to provide on-call services more frequently than 1 night in 5.
Health information privacy and medical school curricula and training programs
That the Canadian Medical Association encourage Canadian medical schools to incorporate the principles and details of the CMA Principles for the Protection of Patients' Personal Health Information into their undergraduate curricula and postgraduate training programs.
Canadians’ Access to Quality Health Care: A System in Crisis : Submitted to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance 1999 Pre-budget consultations
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Standardized Packaging for Tobacco
The Canadian Medical Association (CMA) calls on the federal government to require that tobacco products be sold in standardized packages of uniform shape and size.
Patient bill of health information rights
The Canadian Medical Association and provincial/territorial medical associations call on governments to engage patients and the public in the development of a patient bill of health information rights that sets out a vision for the governance of patient health information.
Access to long-term care
The Canadian Medical Association, in collaboration with provincial/territorial medical associations, affiliates and associates, will communicate to governments that insufficient access to long-term care at all ages is an obstacle to improving the health care system.
Evaluation of the impact of health information technology
The Canadian Medical Association and provincial/territorial medical associations call on governments to ensure completion of an evaluation of the impact of health information technology that considers the level of functionality and assesses its effect on patient and provider experience of care, population health and per capita costs.
Patient-focused funding
The Canadian Medical Association will work with provincial/territorial medical associations to define patient-focused funding in the Canadian context before proposing a methodology for implementation.
Publicly funded health care in Canada
The Canadian Medical Association, in collaboration with provincial/territorial medical associations, calls on governments and health authorities to examine internal market mechanisms, which could include a role for the private sector, in the delivery of publicly funded health care in Canada.
Funding models for collaborative care in community-based practice
The Canadian Medical Association will work with provincial/territorial medical associations to develop sustainable funding models for collaborative care in community-based practice.
Deafness-screening program for newborns
The Canadian Medical Association, in collaboration with provincial/territorial medical associations and affiliates, calls upon governments to implement a routine deafness-screening program for newborns.
Testing homes for radon
The Canadian Medical Association encourages all Canadians, and especially those who smoke tobacco, to test their homes for radon.
The Canadian Medical Association recognizes addiction as a chronic, treatable disease and urges that it be included in national and provincial/territorial efforts to improve chronic disease management.
Salt content in processed food
The Canadian Medical Association will work with other national health care organizations to inform and educate Canadians about the adverse impact salt intake has on hypertension and cardiovascular disease and to lobby the food industry to reduce the salt content in processed food.
Pets on airplanes
The Canadian Medical Association supports the Canadian Lung Association's call for the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health to study the health impacts of federally regulated airline policies that allow pets to travel in the cabin of airplanes.
Framework for accountability and quality in health care
The Canadian Medical Association will work with provincial/territorial medical associations, affiliates and associates to develop a systemic framework for accountability and quality in health care.
E-prescribing
The Canadian Medical Association and provincial/territorial medical associations will work with governments to accelerate the introduction of e-prescribing in Canada to make it the main method of prescribing by 2012.
Assessment of payment arrangements
The Canadian Medical Association will work with provincial/territorial medical associations to carry out an inventory and assessment of the payment arrangements across Canada that foster the emergence of new practice models based on an interdisciplinary approach and the use of new information technologies.
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← THE WEDNESDAY GRUDGE
Valuing money →
by chrissythehyphenated | May 18, 2011 · 3:45 pm
Mr. Thin-Skinned Petty-Pants really knows how to hold a grudge!
By Chrissy the Hyphenated
After a Dec 11, 2006, press conference, then-Senator Obama sought out New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd to complain about a comment she had made about him in her October 21, 2006 column (SEVEN WEEKS earlier).
In paragraph TWELVE of the FOURTEEN paragraph column, she wrote:
He’s intriguingly imperfect: His ears stick out, he smokes, and he’s written about wrestling with pot, booze and ”maybe a little blow” as a young man.
He told her he did not like people talking about his ears.
Dowd said, “We’re trying to toughen you up.”
Clearly, it didn’t work.
Click to embiggen for easier reading.
Chrissy’s Site Bites: http://news.webshots.com/photo/2632776970056011884cadfhN
Several pundits, including one at MSNBC called Obama’s remark to Dowd a “rookie mistake.”
Obama apologists whined that he’d been KIDDING, wah wah.
Yeah, right. Pretending to be kidding is how people politely tell other people to go to hell. Nobody is fooled except the fools who support Obama.
What stands out for me is that way back in 2006, Obama was called out for a “rookie” mistake … and here he is, in his third year in the highest office in the land, making the same mistake.
But then … his VP doesn’t seem to know that Loose Lips Sink Ships … and he’s been in high public office for ages.
Dowd story reported by Lynn Sweet in the Chicago Sun-Times
http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2006/12/sweet_column_obama_draws_big_c.html
Dowd column
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/10/21/opinion/21dowd.html
Filed under Barack Obama, Joe Biden
8 responses to “Mr. Thin-Skinned Petty-Pants really knows how to hold a grudge!”
Didn’t John Stewart say last night that Sarah Palin was thin-skinned? Although to look at her one would not think it so, but I think her skin must be armor-plated in comparison.
Stewart isn’t using the term properly.
“Thin-skinned” means “Oversensitive, especially to criticism or insult.” It is precisely what Obama has demonstrated on numerous occasions, of which I’ve cited only two.
If Sarah were anywhere close to “oversensitive” about criticism or insults, she’d have completely lost her tunes long ago and been packed away to one of those places where they keep everyone drugged to the gills and make them eat with plastic spoons for their own safety.
What Stewart and his ilk are referring to are those occasions when Sarah has corrected politicians and reporters who have lied about her policies. That’s not being over sensitive. That’s speaking truth to power.
Lefties just don’t like it when conservatives do it. It makes them look like the fools they are.
So they call names. It’s their only defense.
DeniseVB
Like “gutsy”, I think “Sarah’s thin-skinned” is this weeks buzz words on the smelly left. Oh, and she’s “stupid” too. It all goes back to the Couric interview….is that all they have? One interview? How about Bam’s interviews, that is, those he handpicks, then gives them the questions, and he rehearses the answers ?
Have you ever seen Media Malpractice? It does a blistering expose on that Couric interview. It was HEAVILY edited to make Sarah look as bad as possible.
Netflix recently added the flick to their list, so you can finally see it without having to buy it. Any Sarah fan should definitely see it at least once.
I watched it a while ago when it first came out. It’s quite interesting, and infuriating!
Mafia Rose
I remember watching that interview and thinking that I would have been totally unprepared for a lot of the question, like… “What’s your favorite scene from a movie and why?” Why would we want to know that about VP candidates? Did it help you make your decision? One could argue that they were trying to lighten the mood by asking some fun, light-hearted questions, but why include those particular questions in the final product if it’s edited? Biden, of course, had his answer all worked out in great detail as if he had prepared for that exact question beforehand. I guess his handler’s just knew that was coming.
Obama is a spoiled,petulant child in a grown up body.He’s always gotten everything easily,using his skin tone as a shield.He craves being the center of attention and anyone who disagrees with him is assaulted by his lackeys since he’s too gutless to do it unless they can’t fight back.In short,he’s a pile of what I used to clean out of our chicken coop.
Rush was talking today about the 501(C)4’s who put millions into the last election.The Kenyan has sicced the IRS on them the same way Slick Willy did.They play as dirty as they need to to win.They play for blood and our guys are worried about whether the press will say bad things about them.
Hopefully some people with real guts will stand up and say “that’s wrong” the way Allen West does.We can only hope.
One of the reasons I really favor Sarah for the White House is that she has the same gift Reagan had for handling her political opponents and the leftist media.
My all time fave (to date) was when she wrote HI MOM! on her hand. Hee hee.
The whole thing about her writing notes on her hand is SO STUPID. I think sometimes I’m the only person I know who does NOT do that and it’s only because my skin is so hypersensitive, I can’t even wear 24K gold jewelry.
I don’t want to think about what ink would do. Probably give me a rash that spelled out somebody’s phone number LOL.
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Dr Johnson Was Wrong
It happens with some people who have lived a long time that they just stop bothering. My granny Vi, for instance- a lively, worldly, fun-loving woman who- at around 75- plonked herself down in her armchair, with her ciggies, her gin and her Daily Express, and slowly, very slowly, faded away. We- her family- thought it was a pity. She wasn't ill or in pain, just tired. Just bored. Towards the end she turned bitter- and the unending sarcastic badinage she and my grandfather kept up made them difficult to be around.
She has become my model of how not to do it. By "it" I mean dying. I wish she'd tried a little harder. Some people do. My other grandmother kept going- and interacting and being there for others- until she was all but transparent with old age. Then she dropped. But perhaps Granny Vi couldn't help herself. This is what worries me most: that death will take me by the scruff and hurry me along and I'll lose control of all my hard-won philosophy and go out in some abject fashion, whining and complaining and being a nuisance. That's what Dr Johnson was worried about too when he said, "It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives". He was getting his excuses in early. But that separation of death and life is a verbal quibble. Next door to a falsehood. Dying isn't something apart from life; it's a part of life, the last bit of living that we do. You can't section it off and pretend it doesn't matter. Living and dying are part of a continuum and- unless you die suddenly and unexpectedly- it's impossible to say where one ends and the other begins. Our manner of dying will be the latest and most vivid memory we leave to our posterity. It matters enormously.
Life is precious. We mustn't give up on it prematurely. We need to make the most of every last crumb.
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208.229. Rebates on outpatient drugs — definitions. — 1. Pharmaceutical manufacturers shall pay to the state, in accordance with 42 U.S.C. Section 1396r-8, rebates on eligible utilization of covered outpatient drugs dispensed to MO HealthNet participants under the MO HealthNet pharmacy program as follows:
(1) For single source drugs and innovator multiple source drugs, rebates shall reflect the manufacturer's best price, as defined by 42 CFR 447.505, as updated and amended, and set forth in 42 CFR 447.509, as updated and amended; and
(2) For single source drugs and innovator and noninnovator multiple source drugs, any additional rebates necessary to account for certain price increases in excess of inflation, as set forth in 42 CFR 447.509, as updated and amended.
2. For purposes of this section, the terms "innovator multiple source drug", "noninnovator multiple source drug", and "single source drug" shall have the same meanings as defined in 42 CFR 447.502, as updated and amended.
(L. 2017 S.B. 139)
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Trans Miss Universe Contestant: ‘Having A Vagina Does Not Make Me A Woman’
Transgender Miss Universe contestant Angela Ponce said in a recent interview that “having a vagina does not make me a woman” because “I am a woman and already was before my birth.”
Ponce — who represented Spain — made history as the first transgender person in history to compete in the Miss Universe contest, ultimately losing. The Daily Wire reported in early December:
After winning the 2018 Miss Universe Spain pageant, Angela Ponce, a biological male who has undergone gender reassignment surgery and hormone therapy, has not only become the first trans contestant in the Miss Universe competition but the oddsmakers’ hands-down favorite.
Before losing the competition over the weekend, Ponce claimed that biology does not determine gender.
“Having a vagina does not make me a woman,” Ponce said. “I am a woman and already was before my birth. Because my identity is here [points at her head], not down there. This determines my being a woman.”
“The question of the fairness of biological males competing in female contests has become a hot-button issue, particularly in sports, where it has become increasingly prominent and males often have clear advantages, even when undergoing hormone therapy,” The Daily Wire noted earlier this month.
One example happened over summer when two transgender runners dominated a high school girl’s race. The Daily Wire reported:
On Monday, when Connecticut had its State Open track and field championships at Willow Brook Park, one person broke the State Open records for girls in both the 100 and 200-meter runs.
That person was a biological boy.
Terry Miller of Bulkeley, a transgender, won the events. In the 100 meter dash, the runner-up was Andraya Yearwood of Cromwell, also a transgender.
Also over the summer, the World Health Organization (WHO) released “the 11th edition of its International Classification of Diseases (ICD) manual, which no longer classifies being transgender as a mental health disorder — but now classifies playing video games as a mental health disorder,” The Daily Wire reported.
The World Health Organization wrote:
Gender incongruence, meanwhile, has also been moved out of mental disorders in the ICD, into sexual health conditions. The rationale being that while evidence is now clear that it is not a mental disorder, and indeed classifying it in this can cause enormous stigma for people who are transgender, there remain significant health care needs that can best be met if the condition is coded under the ICD.
The World Health Organization then proceeded to classify excessive video game playing as a mental health disorder. CNN reported:
Watching as a video game ensnares their child, many a parent has grumbled about “digital heroin,” likening the flashing images to one of the world’s most addictive substances.
Now, they may have backup: The World Health Organization announced “gaming disorder” as a new mental health condition …
Gerald Luedke says:
Don’t really care but yes, having a vagina does in fact, make you a woman, if you were born that way, not a manufactured one. No matter what, if you are transgender man to woman, your DNA still says you are a man. Because you have your junk removed, if you do, you are still a man. The truth can be painful and hurt, literally, but it is the truth none the less. Sorry and please don’t get pissy with me. I personally would not want to find out that my lover is actually a man. No matter what they do, say, act, believe in their head and heart, you are still a man. You cannot change that fact. Doesn’t mean I would be cruel, or say hurtful things, unless you try to push your ideals on me.
Not transgender but MORIFIDITES !!!
The inmates have taken over the asylum. You are what you are. Mutilating yourself won’t change what you are, you just be a damaged version of yourself, no matter how nice you look.
CrustyOldGeezer says:
Is that like saying a liberal with a penis IS NOT A MAN?
If it is, then I AGREE WHOLEHEATEDLY AGREE!!!
what is this world coming to we have males with a penis and women with vagina’s
David Nahm says:
What he is saying is that a persons sexual identity is in his mind and not the physical appendages of the body. Therefore, instead of clarifying the mind to sync with his body, he chooses to surgically adapt his body to sync with his mind. IMHO, he and others have it backwards. The body is what it is. The DNA is what it is meant and created to be. The mind however is more fluid in nature and more changeable due to environmental and social interactions. Bottom line, it is a mental disorder. The same is true for homosexuality.
SweetLadyMary says:
Fox Host Launches Heated Attack on Trump in Middle of Show
Kamala Harris’ Campaign In Free Fall, ABC Blames ‘America’
Watch: Student Vandalizes Conservative Group’s Table At University Of Michigan
Poll: 91% Of People Want Colin Kaepernick To Stay Out Of The NFL
GONE IN 30 SECONDS: GOP Rep Takes Down Dem Witness In Record Time
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Highlights from 2017
Don Edwards to Retire After 36 Years of Service
The following events are planned in celebration of Don Edwards' retirement after 36 years of service.
Palmetto Lecturer Raymond Carroll to visit Department
The renowned statistician from Texas A&M will give two lectures, on March 22 and March 24.
USC Stat Reunion Dinner at JSM: August 2
The reunion dinner for JSM attendees from USC statistics was held at Ming Hin restaurant at 5:30 pm, Tuesday, August 2.
Peña Honored by ISI
The statistics professor is now an elected member of the ISI.
M.S. Alumnus Tong Wu Finds Success as Data Scientist
He has joined several other USC graduates at TCube Solutions.
This Is Statistics: A new ASA campaign!
Students, educators, parents, and counselors can learn about statistics as a career.
Ph.D. in Statistics -- A #1 Career Choice!
According to Fortune Magazine, the best graduate degree overall is a Ph.D. in statistics!
Wu and Hou Take Poster Awards at SCASA
Ph.D. students Zizhen Wu and Peijie Hou won awards for their poster presentations at the fall meeting of the South Carolina chapter of American Statistical Association.
Tebbs Elected as ASA Fellow
Joshua Tebbs was selected as a Fellow of the American Statistical Association, one of the highest honors for a statistician.
Good Career Prospects for Statisticians
Career Prospects for Statisticians are looking good. See the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Occupational Outlook for statisticians and for actuaries.
Hanson Elected as ASA Fellow
Tim Hanson was selected as a Fellow of the American Statistical Association, among the highest honors for a statistician.
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How Epigenetics Works
by Robert Lamb
The Epigenetic Spin on Nature versus Nurture
Are we enslaved to our genes that we get from our parents, or can we break free with epigenetic change?
Hauke Dressler/LOOK/Getty Images
It's half time in the big nature versus nurture playoff. Let's run down the score. The fact that we're based in large part on the genes we inherit from our parents is certainly a point for nature, but the fact that our day-to-day life can influence epigenetic changes certainly puts one up on the board for nurture. Interestingly, the next little fact doesn't break the tie -- it scores a point for both sides. Based on what we know now, it seems at least some epigenetic changes are hereditary.
Go back to the video game analogy for a moment. Your parents don't just pass on the central program to you, but some of the actual game settings they used. Some chromatin modifications transfer to newly synthesized DNA and proteins. As you might imagine, the prospect of inherited epigenetic changes is having a huge impact on our understanding of evolution. Scientists have even re-evaluated theories they had previously discredited, such as those of 18th-century scientist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck. While recent findings don't completely support Lamarck's theory that the necks of giraffes elongated over the course of generations of reaching for food, some of the evidence is certainly Lamarckian.
Take the water flea for instance. In a predator-heavy environment, the creatures develop large, defensive spines -- a trait their offspring also develop, even if raised in a predator-free setting. This process is called transgenerational epigenetic inheritance. Humans may not have to contend with growing defensive spines because dad felt threatened, but studies have shown that various behavior and health conditions are due to inherited epigenetic changes.
Epigenetic changes also allow stem cells to develop into specialized cells, such as those found in the brain. While organisms depend on this vital process, epigenetic changes also contribute to diseases. In some cases, the gene or genes that are turned on are those associated with debilitating diseases, such as Angelman syndrome. In other cases, epigenetic changes turn off a really important gene. To use the video game example again, there's a certain range of settings that work well for an organism, but turning on too few or too many options can lead to a very unsatisfying playing experience. Scientists even think both decreases and increases in methylation (chemical bundles that enzymes attach to DNA) may cause cancer, by turning on too many growth-promoting genes or turning off tumor-suppressing genes.
What kinds of factors flip these epigenetic switches? Find out on the next page.
Do People and Bananas Really Share 50 Percent of the Same DNA?
Can a Genetic Test Tell that You'll Prefer Chocolate Ice Cream?
Why Don't You Ever See Square Vegetables?
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Science Dialogues
Integrating Science and the Modern World
Why Science Dialogues
What do we publish?
Reconfiguring biological diversity 2. Coming to grips with diversity
John Edward Terrell
This is part 2 of a two part article
Coming to grips with diversity
Perhaps the greatest stumbling block to deciphering how biological diversity is patterned, or structured, in space and time within any given species is that most existing ways of modeling such diversity presuppose that genes are nested in some fashion within demonstrable and persistent primary units that can be labeled as populations, subpopulations, demes, communities, stocks, races, and like. Yet is this how biological reproduction works? Aren’t genes perfectly capable of “escaping,” so to speak, from such allegedly defining and confining “boxes” through the very acts of reproduction, reassortment, growth, and development?
It could be argued that there is irony in the fact that molecular genetics now has made it possible for scientists to map diversity at the genetic level. Yet many are still given to thinking about diversity as if they were compelled by the old limitations of their laboratory techniques to lump this new fine-grained evidence into inclusive nested sets (e.g., Pritchard et al. 2000; Greenbaum et al. 2016; Skoglund et al. 2016).
Perhaps it is not surprising, therefore, that some have concluded that “the observed pattern of global gene identity variation was produced by a combination of serial population fissions, bottlenecks and long-range migrations associated with the peopling of major geographic regions, and subsequent gene flow between local populations” (Hunley et al. 2009).
All three of these identified processes are plausible reasons for biological diversity in time and space. But aren’t all three of these population-level explanations ignoring individual agency and decision-making? Not to mention love, lust, and human compassion?
Moving beyond population modeling
Current population-level modeling based on molecular genetics is arguably an advance over older metapopulation models framing diversity as an ever-changing flux within species among discrete subpopulations inhabiting separate habitat patches linked by migration and extinction (Fig. 2). Certainly few today would accept that diversity within any species can be adequately explained solely or even largely as the product of fluctuating colonization and extinction events.
Figure 2. A simple metapopulation model at two time periods (A and B) attributing spatial diversity to a shifting dynamic of colonization and extinction events.
Similarly, the concept of the fitness landscape (also known as as an adaptive landscape; see Fig. 3) introduced by the geneticist Sewell Wright in 1932 is another long-debated way of modeling the dynamic interplay—or balance—of a number of plausible determinants of genetic variation in space and time. As Wright explained in 1932:
The most general conclusion is that evolution depends on a certain balance among its factors. There must be gene mutation, but an excessive rate gives an array of freaks, not evolution; there must be selection, but too severe a process destroys the field of variability, and thus the basis for further advance; prevalence of local inbreeding within a species has extremely important evolutionary consequences, but too close inbreeding leads merely to extinction. A certain amount of crossbreeding is favorable but not too much. In this dependence on balance the species is like a living organism. At all levels of organization life depends on the maintenance of a certain balance among its factors. (Wright 1932)
Figure 3. “Field of gene combinations occupied by a population within the general field
of possible combinations. Type of history under specified conditions indicated by relation
to initial field (heavy broken contour) and arrow.” Source: Wright 1932, fig. 4.
A “balance of factors” sounds right and reasonable, but are the ones he mentions the only major factors that must be taken into account? Surely adaptation is not the only driving force of evolution?
Agency and social networks
Consider the observation that human beings are notably variable in stature, weight, and other characteristics of their appearance. Clearly the gene mutations supporting such phenotypic variation have not resulted in what Wright would describe as “an array of freaks.” Evidently such diversity is not selected against—to use Wright’s way of framing the discussion. Why? Because much of the burden of human adaptation does not need to be genetically endowed. Instead, as most social scientists would insist, much of what we do supporting our survival and reproduction is accomplished using socially learned skills rather than by genetically inherited biological means.
Recently Greenbaum and his colleagues observed that the research strategies and tools of modern network analysis are increasingly being used to explore genetics questions in genomics, landscape genetics, migration-selection dynamics, and the study of the genetic structure of species more generally speaking (Greenbaum et al. 2016).
Adopting a networks approach to genetics makes it possible to come to grips not only with the ways in which racism—to return to Roseman’s point raised earlier—has shaped human variation in the past few hundred years, but also how our species’ mobility, adaptive skills, technologies, and social behaviors have been configuring human variation throughout the history of our species.
Figures 4 and 5 illustrate the potential value of using of network analysis in the study of genetic diversity. The first figure is a network mapping of localities reported in a genome scan published in 2008. While the patterning is complex, there is an obvious geographic signal in the genetic linkages shown. Figure 5 resolves the relationships among a smaller subset of the localities that had been sampled, specifically those in the Bismarck Archipelago-North Solomons region of the southwest Pacific.
Figure 4. Spring-embedding network mapping of the localities sampled in a genome scan of autosomal markers (687 microsatellites and 203 insertions/deletions) on 952 individuals from 41 Pacific populations). Mapping derived from the mean STRUCTURE assignment probabilities when K = 10 reported by Friedlaender at al. (2008) color-coded by geographic location. Blue-white = Asia; blue = Taiwan; black = Europe; red = Polynesia; pink = Micronesia; yellow = New Britain; purple = New Guinea; dark green = North Solomons; green = New Ireland; light green = New Hanover; pale green = Mussau. Source: adapted from Terrell 2010b, fig. 3.
Figure 5. Nearest-neighbor structuring of interaction among the localities sampled in the Bismarck Archipelago and North Solomons color-coded to show genetic clustering (blue nodes represent locations not represented in the genetic scan). Source: Terrell 2010b, fig. 11.Both network mappings suggest that geography has influenced the structuring of genetic similarities among people living in the sampled localities shown. Yet it also is apparent that the linkages shown may often be closer than geographic distance alone would lead us to expect. Judging by figure 5, the effect of isolation by distance is evidently constrained by social networks (as projected in this figure using nearest-neighbor linkages). Hence while geographic distance may be contributing to the patterning of genetic diversity among people in this part of the world, geography is by no means the whole story.
The network analysis briefly introduced in figures 4 and 5 had two principal aims, one phylogenetic, the other tokogenetic (Terrell 2010b). Do people living today in the Pacific segregate genetically along lines concordant with the reputedly separate (i.e., cladistic) histories of languages spoken there, principally the divide drawn by linguists and others between speakers of Austronesian and non-Austronesian (Papuan) languages (Terrell 2006)? To what extent does the genetic similarity among people living in different residential communities correlate with the nearest-neighbor propinquity of these sampled places?
Neither of these aims presuppose that the research goal is to define genetically discrete human populations (or subpopulations, demes, groups, communities, races, and the like) either a priori or by using, say, individual-based clustering (IBC) methods (e.g., Ball et al. 2010).
These two aims have more in common with those of the emerging field of landscape genetics (Dyer and Nason 2004; Garroway et al. 2008) than with most previous research in population genetics. However, both of these aims focus more directly on the genetic consequences of the behavior of organisms in space and time—in this case, humans—than on the geography, ecology, and environmental history of the locales where the people in question reside.
Both can also be seen as stepping back from Roseman’s observations about the impact of racial politics and social practices on the human genome in the past few centuries to underscore a more general issue in evolutionary biology: How much do the mobility and social behavior of individuals within any given animal species structure the genetic variation of that species?
As Dyer and Nason (2004) have remarked: “The evolution of population genetic structure is a dynamic process influenced by both historical and recurrent evolutionary processes.” Using network theory and visualization techniques to map the genetic structure of a species in space and time is still in its infancy. Reconfiguring how science grapples with the inherent complexity of evolution as an ever unfolding process using network approaches has the promise of making it easier to explore how comparable or dissimilar species are in their strategies for survival and reproduction (Fortuna et al. 2009).
Looking long and hard at what other species do to survive and reproduce may make it easier for us to see just how toxic our own social strategies—and the assumptions supporting them—can be.
I thank Neal Matherne and Tom Clark for their comments on a draft of this commentary.
Ball, Mark C., Laura Finnegan, Micheline Manseau, and Paul Wilson. 2010. Integrating multiple analytical approaches to spatially delineate and characterize genetic population structure: An application to boreal caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou) in central Canada. Conservation Genetics 11, 6: 2131-2143.
Dyer, Rodney J., and John D. Nason. 2004. Population graphs: The graph theoretic shape of genetic structure. Molecular ecology 13, 7: 1713-1727.
Fortuna, Miguel A., Rafael G. Albaladejo, Laura Fernández, Abelardo Aparicio, and Jordi Bascompte. 2009. Networks of spatial genetic variation across species. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 106, 45: 19044-19049.
Friedlaender, Jonathan S., Françoise R. Friedlaender, Jason A. Hodgson, Matthew Stoltz, George Koki, Gisele Horvat, Sergey Zhadanov, Theodore G. Schurr, and D. Andrew Merriwether. 2007. Melanesian mtDNA complexity. PLoS One 2, 2: e248.
Friedlaender, Jonathan S., Françoise R. Friedlaender, Floyd A. Reed, Kenneth K. Kidd, Judith R. Kidd, Geoffrey K. Chambers, Rodney A. Lea et al. 2008. The genetic structure of Pacific Islanders. PLoS Genet 4, 1: e19.
Garroway, Colin J., Jeff Bowman, Denis Carr, and Paul J. Wilson. 2008. Applications of graph theory to landscape genetics. Evolutionary Applications 1, 4: 620-630.
Greenbaum, Gili, Alan R. Templeton, and Shirli Bar-David. 2016. Inference and analysis of population structure using genetic data and network theory. Genetics 202.4: 1299-1312.
Hellenthal, Garrett, George BJ Busby, Gavin Band, James F. Wilson, Cristian Capelli, Daniel Falush, and Simon Myers. 2014. A genetic atlas of human admixture history.” Science 343, 6172: 747-751.
Hunley, Keith, Michael Dunn, Eva Lindström, Ger Reesink, Angela Terrill, Meghan E. Healy, George Koki, Françoise R. Friedlaender, and Jonathan S. Friedlaender. 2008. Genetic and linguistic coevolution in Northern Island Melanesia. PLoS Genet 4, no. 10 (2008): e1000239.
Hunley, Keith L., Meghan E. Healy, and Jeffrey C. Long. 2009. The global pattern of gene identity variation reveals a history of long‐range migrations, bottlenecks, and local mate exchange: Implications for biological race. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 139, 1: 35-46.
Kelly, Kevin M., 2002. Population. In Hart, J. P. & Terrell, J. E. (eds.) Darwin and Archaeology: A handbook of key concepts, pp 243–256. Westport, Ct: Bergin & Garvey.
Moore, John H. 1994. Putting anthropology back together again: The ethnogenetic critique of cladistic theory. American Anthropologist (1994): 925-948.
Posada, David, and Keith A. Crandall. 2001. Intraspecific gene genealogies: Trees grafting into networks. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 16, 1: 37-45.
Pritchard, Jonathan K., Matthew Stephens, and Peter Donnelly. 2000. Inference of population structure using multilocus genotype data. Genetics 155, 2: 945-959.
Rieppel, Olivier. 2009. Hennig’s enkaptic system. Cladistics 25, 3: 311-317.
Roseman, Chartes C. 2014. Troublesome Reflection: Racism as the Blind Spot in the Scientific Critique of Race” Human biology 86, 3: 233-240.
Roseman, Charles C. 2014. “Random genetic drift, natural selection, and noise in human cranial evolution. Human Biology 86, 3: 233-240.
Skoglund, Pontus, Cosimo Posth, Kendra Sirak, Matthew Spriggs, Frederique Valentin, Stuart Bedford, Geoffrey R. Clark et al. 2016. Genomic insights into the peopling of the Southwest Pacific. Nature 538: 510-513.
Terrell, John Edward. 2006. Human biogeography: Evidence of our place in nature. Journal of Biogeography 33, 12: 2088-2098.
Terrell, John Edward. 2010a. Language and material culture on the Sepik coast of Papua New Guinea: Using social network analysis to simulate, graph, identify, and analyze social and cultural boundaries between communities. Journal of Island & Coastal Archaeology 5, 1: 3-32.
Terrell, John Edward. 2010b. Social network analysis of the genetic structure of Pacific islanders. Annals of human genetics 74, 3: 211-232.
Terrell, John Edward. 2015. A Talent for Friendship: Rediscovery of a Remarkable Trait. Oxford University Press.
Terrell, John Edward, and Pamela J. Stewart. 1996. The paradox of human population genetics at the end of the twentieth century. Reviews in Anthropology 25, 1: 13-33.
Wade, Nicholas. 2014. A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History. Penguin.
Wilson, David Sloan, and Edward O. Wilson. 2008. Evolution for the Good of the Group”: The process known as group selection was once accepted unthinkingly, then was widely discredited; it’s time for a more discriminating assessment. American Scientist 96, 5: 380-389.
Wright, Sewall. 1932. The roles of mutation, inbreeding, crossbreeding, and selection in evolution. Proceedings of the Sixth International Congress of Genetics , Vol. 1: 356-366.
© 2017 John Edward Terrell. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited. The statements and opinions expressed are those of the author(s) and do not constitute official statements or positions of the Editors and others associated with SCIENCE DIALOGUES.
Author John TerrellPosted on January 27, 2017 November 14, 2017 Categories BIOLOGICAL, METHODOLOGYTags biogeography, ecology, ethnicity, evolution, genetics, geographic variation, human genetics, isolation-by-distance, language, methodology, modeling, population models, population structure, populations, social network analysis, social networks
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Jamie King (Steal This Movie) said that conversations about intellectual property commonly focus on fan appropriation of the holdings of corporations rather than the view that transnational conglomerates have colonized global information markets and preserve colonial rule through copyright law and other information management tools.
“We talk about intellectual property as if it was about the rights of small creators, whereas it’s far more, far more often the extension of colonial might across the whole world enforced through legal means…through these legal compacts. And that’s something that’s never really recognized in these discussions, is that if you buy the idea that intellectual property is just about supporting your rights, in fact, you’re buying into a system which is specifically and precisely a system of domination. And quite a terrifying one.”
He cites the rumor that he’s especially famous in Brazil because Monsanto’s program to cultivate genetically modified soil terrifies some Brazilians who have limited access to information to gain global traction in any popular movement to oppose that program…except through those means advocated and authorized by Steal This Movie.
I think the now-familiar binary (that polarizes media-audiences and media-producers into pirates and moguls) simplifies this current period of transition excessively. As the technological means to focus attention grow less exclusive and costly, signals of dissent will get out. The challenge seems to be where else to look, how else to listen.
I think I need to know a LOT more about India’s liberation from colonial domination. That seems like a more appropriate model of this period in the evolution of information than the usual vision of fans dressed up as Klingons versus cigar-chomping emperors of entertainment fiefdoms.
http://www.babelgum.com/browser.php#play/PLAYLIST,order:FEATURED/1,4002796
In case the link is useless, it’s meant to lead you to Bablegum; to a 32 minute Q&A in which MDot Strange, Timo Vuorensola, Jamie King, Lance Weiler and Arin Crumley answer questions from the audience at the (June 2009) Edinburgh International Film Festival conference panel moderated by Liz Rosenthal for Power to the Pixel. Last week’s London BFI conference should soon be added to the Babelgum library. Or there’s this alternative route:
http://powertothepixel.com/videos-london-2008
I guess I’m trying to say that the labels affixed to factions in this arena are profoundly misleading. Producers, fans and critics, academics, masses and stakeholders aren’t as discrete and dissimilar as they used to be — the architects of transmedia entertainments are usually voracious fans of media whose work can be recognized as critical of what-they-love(d). The hundred-days-strikers said we’re all in this together. I think that wasn’t just a slogan, it’s becoming increasingly necessary as a means to enrich, enliven and liberate global culture from those who disagree.
The writers also said They get paid, We get paid. I don’t think they were talking about attention, but an explosive expansion of the lexicon of attention (as the most legitimate medium of exchange) seems to be what’s called for first.
Kindly check this out:
http://springboardmedia.blogspot.com/
18 Oct 09 Posted by Scott Ellington | Uncategorized | 1 Comment
That Minbari Woman
Maybe it’s just a mirage of parallels, but I do see subtle similarities in the shape and scope and a couple of details that align That Hamilton Woman with the first four seasons of Babylon 5.
I inserted the film in my NetFlix queue to round-out the flow of disks in the mail and also to provide an overdue peek at Leigh and Olivier working together, apart from Fire Over England, so I’d no expectation of Lord Nelson’s arrival at Naples as master of the Agamemnon, coincidentally, the name of John Sheridan’s command when he won The Battle of the Line at the end of the Earth-Minbari War.
According to the film, Nelson’s military career came to resemble that of a diplomat as the admiral’s predictions regarding Napoleon’s intent (global domination) were eventually recognized by the admiralty and Parliament as prescient. The commentarian describes That Hamilton Woman as an overlooked jewel of an underfunded film largely because it was rushed into production to help draw America onto the side of the British in the run-up to World War II, so Nelson resembles Churchill in Korda’s film…and to my mind Sheridan resembles both of them as relatively ordinary military men coping with extra-ordinary diplomatic circumstances. And Delenn and Lady Hamilton share divided loyalties, rising (or falling) from their comparatively straight and narrow paths to merge in the popular imagination with fascinating places in history. And both of them were metamorphic changelings.
I don’t know that Joe Straczyinski would validate any of these allusions as his influences, but That Hamilton Woman is a remarkably interesting “propaganda” film in which instances of surprisingly astute visual imagery (shot in a rush on a shoestring — that really doesn’t show) bring history to life in the form of an allegory that remixes elements of mythstory brilliantly to serve contemporary audiences, and it probably always will — so long as we keep making dictators and people to oppose them.
The final episode of Season 4 is 90% pipe-laying and 50% bewilderment, but despite the confounding limitations of budget and seasonal continuity, Straczynski’s The Deconstruction of Falling Stars is a good deal more than a thrilling segment, it ties up more of the loosest ends of a 4year series than I imagined possible, while dropping the second shoe on the pedal and accelerating into a fifth season like an 11th hour stay of execution that requires the condemned to be exhumed.
Needless to say I’m looking forward to the arrival of the fifth season and to the several feature-length television films that round out the saga of this universe in which Nelson, Churchill, Hitler, Napoleon and Agamemnon all make interesting cameo appearances. Maybe they’re all just a mirage of parallels, and then-again maybe there’s something constant in the human condition that makes Norman Corwin’s question intermittently answerable.
I wonder if somewhere in America there’s a Truman’s Column in Hiroshima Square. I hope it’s a rhetorical question.
04 Oct 09 Posted by Scott Ellington | Uncategorized | review | 3 Comments
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Border Dash At Motor City
Written by runABC Scotland on Wed 22 Oct 2014
One of only a handful of marathons that cross an international border, the 37th Detroit Marathon saw a record field of over 27,000 set off at 7am on Sunday (19 October) in ideal conditions. Starting in the Motor City, participants headed into Windsor, Canada via the Ambassador Bridge and returned to the US through the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel.
The course took participants on to Belle Isle and down the streets of Indian Village where spectators offered competitors beer and pretzels, whilst playing polka and Zydeco music to keep their spirits up. Mike Andersen, 27, of Walled Lake, was first male home with a time of 2:24:54 and Courtney Brewis, (2:45:52), finished fastest female.
RUNNING GUIDE correspondent, Christine Appel had returned home to Canada to take part in the race. She said afterwards: "I finished my first marathon in 3.44.22, 135th out of 1555 ladies. A reasonable result for a 41-year-old first timer, I think!
"All 10 toenails intact and I didn't lose the will to live until around Mile 24. Ran the whole thing, despite a lot of recurring toe pain. Can't have everything I guess!"
Though Christine had intended Detroit to be her first and last marathon, she's now considering taking on another: "I said I'd only do the one, but I appear to have qualified for a good for age place for both Boston and London. Hmmm!"
For a full list of results, visit our race listings page.
← The Running Awards Announce 2015 Plans
Haile Out Of Great South Run →
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Tensegrity Basics
Tuning Tension for Proprioception and Responsiveness
by: Neil Keleher
Categories/Tags: De-stress: Proprioception
De-stress: Proprioception
tensegrity-basics
Tensegrity is a term coined by Buckminster Fuller and is a contraction of the two terms tension and integrity.
In the body, tension is controlled by muscle activation. Tension, when appropriately applied:
Gives us sensation, the ability to feel our body (proprioception).
It also gives us a means or varying the relationships within the body (to change its shape or action) or withstand external changes (to maintain the shape or action of the body.)
It gives us a better ability to control our body.
A Real Time Network
In a structure that is held together (and integrated) by tension, the tension elements are all connected, as in a network, so that they can share and distribute tension instantaneously (or as much as possible given the constraints of the material that holds the tension).
So that tension is distributed freely and adjusted freely within a tensegrity, the space creating elements (also called "compression" elements) can move relative to each other.
The amount of movement isn't necessarily a lot, but it is enough that solid "spacers" have enough room to move relative to each other so that tension can be efficiently redistributed.
There are two main types of elements in a tensegrity model:
Spacers (or compressed) elements, generally (but not always) solid and with the quality that they resist being pushed inwards, or push they actively push outwards.
Tension elements, often wire like or elastic in nature with the quality that they pull inwards or resist being pushed outwards.
In a tensegrity model of the body bones don't directly contact or press against each other.
They are held together by the joint capsule, which in turn is an extension or modification of the connective tissue network.
The fluid within the joint pushes outwards on the connective tissue envelope and the ends of the bones it connects, and helps the ends of these bones to move or adjust relative to each other.
This allows the joint to "self-adjust" or "self-tune".
Joint Capsules (And Tensegrity)
The joint capsule keeps the bones in the needed relationship, but within the confines of that relationship the joint capsule allows the bones room-to-adjust, to get comfortable.
The joint capsule tension may be affected by the amount of contraction in the muscles that work on the joint. This is because connective tissue strands connect between muscles and the ligaments of the joint that it works on.
Joint capsule tension can also be can also be affected by the relationship of the bones itself.
In the ideal, the joint always adjusts so that all the various tension components share stress so that no component is over stressed.
Compensation (And Overlapping Tensegrities)
Tensegrity models often look like cubes (or tetrahedrons) made up of rods held together by string or wire (or occasionally elastic.)
These models can be dropped or bounced and remain intact while still retaining the relationship between the rods.
The relationship between the rods remains intact, i.e. parallel rods will remain parallel to each other. However they do not come in direct contact.
Their relationship is maintained by the tension elements.
Occasionally the abilities of a tensegrity to withstand stress are exceeded and a tension (or spacer) element will break.
And so while acting as a tensegrity can make our body resilient, it still can be damaged.
How then is the injury compensated or covered for to allow for recovery?
Our body may be modelled as a series of overlapping Potential Tensegrity Structures.
If a tensioning element (muscle, ligament or tendon) is damaged or injured, other tension elements tighten up to protect the injured part where possible.
Pain may result from exceeding the limits of these muscles to protect the injured area. It can also result from these "protective" elements being overworked.
Sometimes, or perhaps, oftentimes, even after an injured tension element has healed, the body still acts as if the healed part is still injured.
Pain may result not from the injury but from muscles that are forced to work unnaturally because they are still compensating for the muscle that was injured.
At least that is my understanding.
A Lack of Tension Is Information
I bring up the idea of tension and tensegrity here because not only is it important in maintain integrity throughout the body, it also provides one of the means by which we can feel our body and control it.
In the case of old injuries and old no-longer-needed compensation patterns tension or its lack can allow us to feel where muscles and connective tissue have tension or don't. It gives us a method for fault finding our own body.
We may not even have suffered an injury for our body to operate less than ideally. It may be the result of habits learned from the work we do or the people we spend our time with.
By learning to feel tension and adjust we can learn to take control of our own body.
Tension Elements of Our Body
The tension that creates tensegrity is present in muscle fibers when those muscle fibers are active and in the connective tissue within a muscle when the muscle is relaxed.
And it is present in tendons and ligaments.
This tension is something that we can learn to sense and with the right amount of tension it is also something that we can use to better control our body.
With the right amount of tension, not too much and not too little, i.e. with the slack removed, we can make changes instantaneously.
There is no lag time for slack to be taken up.
Balanced Or "Tuned" Tension
There is a balance between too much tension and not enough of it.
Too much tension, particularly when it is the result of excessive muscle tension can deaden sensitivity unless that sensitivity is well developed in the first place.
Another reason for not using excess tension is that it is in-elegant and wasteful.
If you have ever seen kung fu movies where some kung fu master dispatches foes with ease, it is because he or she is using minimum effort, minimum tension to do the dispatching. And he or she is also sensitive, aware of both themselves and their opponents(s) and because they have enough training that they can respond automatically to most sorts of attacks without having to think.
My own kung fu teacher demonstrates this regularly.
So when doing any exercise or pose with tensegrity as the goal, focus on relaxing as much as possible, on doing movements or poses with minimum effort.
At the same time focus on creating maximum space.
And balance these two ideas with the idea of being able to feel your body and respond instantaneously. This means having not too much tension, but also not too little.
To get to this stage it helps to move between the extremes of complete relaxation and maximum tension.
By moving between these extremes (within a safe range of maximum tension) we can learn to recognize when we've achieved optimum tension.
This is very much like the process of tuning a stringed instrument, moving either side of the desired note and gradually zeroing in on it.
Partner Dancing
My first exposure to the above principles (feel and control, balance between space and tension), was when first learning partner dancing.
We had to be close enough and firm enough to connect and for each partner to feel the other.
But we also had to have enough space between us, and located relative to each other in such a way that we both had room to move.
The lead had to be stable and firm enough that their intentions could be easily transmitted to their partner.
The partner also had to be firm enough so that they could receive inputs from their lead.
In order to dance well both partners had to "listen" and both had to be able to respond.
The main difference is that the lead chooses what to do, then he transmits the choice to the partner so that the partner can follow.
The choice could be limited by the position they are currently in and by the amount of space they have around them. And so the lead also has to be attentive and responsive. And so in a way he isn't necessarily choosing, he's seeing what options are the best given the present circumstances. And so they respond.
And that's the way we can do yoga, whether stretching or strengthening. We can tune into our body, via tension (and it's lack) and respond.
To Build Awareness: Move Smoothly
One way to build "tension" awareness is to practice moving. In the context of stretching postures and yoga poses, that can mean moving into and out of a pose or position.
The key to building awareness, while repeating an action, is to move slowly and smoothly with focused awareness.
To get a feel for this try reaching an arm up over your head as quickly as possibly. It could feel like you are snapping your joints into alignment making your elbow straight and suddenly pushing your shoulder blade upwards.
Next do the same action but moving slowly and smoothly. Which feels better?
If you aren't sure repeat the quick movement a few times and then repeat the movement slowly and smoothly while focusing in turn on feeling your shoulder (lifting), your elbow (straightening) your fingers (palms spreading open, fingers lengthening and spreading apart.) Then slowly relax and repeat.
Which feels better? Which leads to a more meditative comfortable state of body and mind?
Slow and Smooth
In general I tend to find the slow and smooth movements feel nicer, nice enough to the point that moving slowly and smoothly is its own reward because it feels good.
That being said, when first learning a movement, it may be rough and/or quick and probably not very smooth.
That's okay. Once you have an idea of the basic movement then work towards gradually activating and gradually releasing.
And repeat the movement so that you get used to the feel of it as well as controlling it.
By moving smoothly between positions, between shapes, we can work on a smooth connection where tension is reduced in one place and increased in another so that we an easily get from one pose to another.
Moving smoothly and slowly gives us a chance to practice feeling our body and controlling it.
It allows us to correct ourselves on the fly.
But also, just the act of moving slowly and smoothly takes control.
While we may not always want to move slowly, I'd suggest that the smoothness is something we can carry into fast movements.
After practicing moving slowly and smoothly, we can maintain the tension, and the feel and control of our bodies while moving faster.
Calibrate Mind and Body
Movements may start of rough and not very controlled, but after a few repeated movements in and out of the pose, you not only get familiar with the pose but also your body.
And so that you can learn to feel changes in tension, focus on the part that is moving. Or focus on the part of your body where there is a change in sensation.
You can then calibrate that change in sensation to what is actually happening.
Create a Foundation
If you've ever tried to stretch an elastic you know that you can't pull on one end to stretch it unless the other end is fixed. The same applies when applying tension to the body. It helps to have one end, or some part of the body fixed or stable.
How do you make a part of the body stable? By making it bigger or heavier or by adding tension (by creating space.)
How do we "lock" two parts together so that their shared mass acts as a foundation? By adding tension on two sides. This tension can be created by working against opposing muscles or by one set of muscles working against gravity.
For most actions of the shoulders, the ribcage, neck and skull form the foundation.
getting into the flow easily,
read: Know to flow
De-stressing
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Home 0Recent Headlines Canada police: 2 teen fugitives took their own lives
Y AM edition - WORLD
Canada police: 2 teen fugitives took their own lives
TORONTO | Canadian police said Monday they believe two teenage fugitives suspected of killing a North Carolina woman and her Australian boyfriend as well as another man took their own lives amid a nationwide manhunt.
The Manitoba Medical Examiner completed the autopsies and confirmed that two bodies found last week in dense bush in northern Manitoba were indeed 19-year-old Kam McLeod and 18-year-old Bryer Schmegelsky. A police statement said their deaths appeared to be suicide.
A manhunt for the pair had spread across three provinces and included the Canadian military. The suspects had not been seen since the burned-out car was found on July 22.
In this July 23, 2019 file photo, security camera images of fugitives Kam McLeod, 19, and Bryer Schmegelsky, 18, are displayed during a news conference in Surrey, British Columbia. Police said Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2019, they believe the two fugitives suspected of killing a North Carolina woman and her Australian boyfriend as well as another man have been found dead in Manitoba. (Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press via AP File)
McLeod and Schmegelsky were charged with second-degree murder in the death of Leonard Dyck, a University of British Columbia lecturer whose body was found July 19 along a highway in British Columbia.
They were also suspects in the fatal shootings of Australian Lucas Fowler and Chynna Deese of Charlotte, North Carolina, whose bodies were found July 15 along the Alaska Highway about 300 miles from where Dyck was killed.
The bodies of the suspects were found near Gillam, Manitoba — more than 2,000 miles from northern British Columbia.
Police said in a statement McLeod and Schmegelsky were dead for a number of days before they were found, but said they were strong indications that they had been alive for a few days since last seen on July 22 and during extensive search efforts in the area.
Police also confirmed two guns were located and authorities are working to definitively confirm that the firearms are connected to the murders in British Columbia
Critical evidence found last week when police discovered items directly linked to the suspects on the shoreline of the Nelson River helped locate the bodies, police said. Following that discovery, authorities were able to narrow down the search.
Police sent in specialized teams and began searching high-probability areas. On Wednesday morning, police located the two bodies within miles from where the items were found and approximately 5.6 miles from where they left a burnt-out vehicle on July 22.
The separate discoveries of three bodies and burning cars shook rural northern British Columbia and Manitoba.
Schmegelsky’s father, Alan Schmegelsky, said last month that he expected the nationwide manhunt to end in the death of his son, who he said was on “a suicide mission.”
McLeod and Schmegelsky grew up together on Vancouver Island and worked together at a local Walmart before they set off together on what their parents thought was a trip to Yukon for work.
McLeod and Schmegelsky themselves were originally considered missing persons and only became suspects later.
Police were investigating a photograph of Nazi paraphernalia allegedly sent online by one of the suspects. Schmegelsky allegedly sent photographs of a swastika armband and a Hitler Youth knife to an online friend on the video-game network Steam.
Alan Schmegelsky had said his son took him to an army surplus store about eight months ago in his small Vancouver Island hometown of Port Alberni, where his son was excited about the Nazi artifacts.
Alan Schmegelsky said he didn’t believe that his son identified as a neo-Nazi, but that he did think the memorabilia was “cool.”
Fowler and Deese were found shot dead along the Alaska Highway near Liard Hot Springs, British Columbia.
Fowler, the son of a chief inspector with the New South Wales Police Department, was living in British Columbia and Deese was visiting him.
The couple had met at a hostel in Croatia and their romance blossomed as they adventured across the U.S., Mexico, Peru and elsewhere, the woman’s older brother said.
British Deese said the couple was on a trip to visit Canadian national parks when they were killed. He said the family believes they must have had engine trouble in their van.
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Mom issues warning for parents after son collapses playing on...
'Lufkin Licker' faces up to 20 years in prison as...
Walmart shopper gargles mouthwash, spits it back into bottle and puts it back on shelf
The internet exploded in fury last week as footage emerged depicting a woman taking a tub of ice cream from a fridge in a store, licking it and then placing it back for an unsuspecting shopper to buy.
Police issued a statement revealing they had identified the culprit in question, with CBS News reporting that if convicted of second-degree felony tampering with a consumer product, she could face between two and 22 years in prison.
One might think that would be enough to put others off doing something so disgusting in the future. Unfortunately, it appears it isn’t.
A new video has hit the web, one which shows a Walmart shopper gargling mouthwash before spitting it back into the bottle and putting it back on the shelf.
In the clip, ‘Bameron Nicole Smith’ can be heard saying: “Girl, it has been one musty f**king morning.”
She then swills the mouthwash, continuing: “Mmm, nice and minty and fresh. Thank you guys.”
Twitter / @bameronkaii
Needless to say, it didn’t take long before a storm of backlash followed suit. The original video was uploaded to Twitter on July 5 with the caption “you b**ches with no oral hygiene could take a hint.”
It quickly racked up more than 16.4 million views on Twitter, with over 21,500 likes and 7,000 retweets.
British source the MailOnline contacted Walmart for a statement on the matter. Their response was: “We are investigating this incident.
“If someone tampers with a product and leaves it on the shelf, we will work with law enforcement to identify and prosecute those found responsible to the fullest extent of the law.”
Smith later uploaded another tweet in which she can be seen holding up a receipt from the store – implying that she did purchase the mouthwash she gargled after filming the video.
In any case, it would appear Walmart are set on investigating the matter, so hopefully the truth won’t be long in coming to the fore.
i love ice cream and mouthwash 🙂 pic.twitter.com/sHVkpLPxkt
— Bameron Nicole Smith (@bameronkaii) July 4, 2019
Sometimes I just don’t understand this generation’s perception when it comes to what is and isn’t acceptable.
In the wake of recent events this just seems completely unnecessary and distasteful to me, even if it is a joke.
Do you agree? If you do, share this article on Facebook.
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The Public Option is Not Symbolic; It is Foundational
Jon Walker 2009-12-30
30 Dec 2009 Jon Walker
photo: Steve Rhodes via Flickr
There is a myth that the public option was only a tiny idea blown out of proportion for symbolic reasons. The public option was never going to be truly tiny, it was only going to be small at its inception. It is not because it was “weak,” it was just strongly caged in. But even the largest redwood tree starts out as a very small seed.
It is true that the CBO predicted that the negotiated rate public option in the House bill would only cover 6 million people, but that is because it was purposely restricted to a new exchange that would only be used by 30 million people at first. The CBO’s guess was that the public option would be selected by 20% of the people in this new marketplace. While I think their 20% estimate is low, it is important to put that in context–any company that can grab 20% of its market is a major player.
The public option was projected to be “small” because it would be forced to be a big fish in a very small pond. It would have major potential for growth. Progressives would have at their disposal multiple ways to increase the number of people who could have access to the public option. Dramatically expanding employer access to the exchange (something the Secretary of HHS could do without Congressional approval) is one idea. Expanding on Sen. Ron Wyden’s goal of giving people with employer-provided coverage the option of using vouchers to select their own plan on the new exchange is another route. The best solution might have been to attach a simple 12-word provision to the defense appropriations bill to allow the public option to sell outside the exchange. Any of these are very doable changes that could have completely changed the dynamics in only a few years.
If the public option was able to to sell to the entire private insurance market and just not the exchange gaining 20% of the market would have given it over 50 million customers. This would make the public option larger than Medicare, and one of the three largest insurance companies in America. Assuming the public option’s larger market share allowed it to negotiate much better rates (or even better, Congress decided to combine its operations with Medicare), it would probably be able to attract even more than 50 million customers.
The argument over the public option has never been symbolic or about what coverage a small group of Americans would or would not get. This health care fight is not about creating one new, static system that would remain in place forever. To argue otherwise is intellectual dishonesty put forward by many, including the Obama administration. The debate has been about the foundation on which we will build the future of our health care system, and whether the solution to our broken system is public or private insurance. Everyone from progressive activists to health insurance company CEO’s understood that this reform could grow, and only minor tweaks made later would make the public option a serious player. That is why the public option has been such a big fight on both sides. It was never about symbolism, but about laying down an infrastructure that could be quickly built upon.
The progressive demand that public health insurance programs must be part of the solution is based not on pure ideology, but overwhelming domestic and international evidence. The track record of private insurance is terrible, and no honest economist could look its performance compared to public insurance and think it a smart solution. The public option is not symbolic, it is foundational. Can the Democratic Party act in the best interest of our country by standing up to the health care lobbyists, or will they reward the private health insurance industry? This is not some metaphysical argument. There are literally hundreds of billions riding on this question, and possibly the future international competitiveness of the American economy. You may not agree with the methods that the supporters of the public option are using, but pretending that they are somehow fools chasing after symbolism completely ignores what the true stakes in the fight really are.
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Jonathan Walker grew up in New Jersey. He graduated from Wesleyan University in 2006. He is an expert on politics, health care and drug policy. He is also the author of After Legalization and Cobalt Slave, and a Futurist writer at http://pendinghorizon.com
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Dissenter Weekly: Blowing Whistle On Business Of War In Iraq—Plus, Honduras and DOJ Cheat Whistleblower
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Interview: Mohammad Marandi On Aftermath Of Trump’s Assassination Of Iranian General Soleimani (With Transcript)
Beyond Prisons: Certain Days Collective
Dissenter Weekly: EPA Employees Push For ‘Bill Of Rights’ With Whistleblower Protections
Protest Song Of The Week: ‘We Are Rising’ by Taína Asili
To Make Sense Of Soleimani Assassination, Media Turn To Disgraced Iraq War General David Petraeus
Spotting The State Department’s Propaganda For Escalating War Against Iran
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Consultation has concluded for this stage of the project. If you would like further information please view the Communications and Engagement Report under Related Documents.
Thank you to everyone for your ideas, feedback and contribution to Council’s recent consultation on the repurposing of the former Holmesville Tennis Court site. We have received lots of great ideas from many community members and organisations in and around Holmesville.
The project will progress under the guidance of a Community Working Group that will steer the project and continue the strong community involvement in the future of the site. The Community Working Group consists of residents and members from Mum’s Cottage, West Wallsend District Sustainable Neighbourhood Group, Sugar Valley Neighbourhood Centre and the Holmesville Progress Association.
So what doesContinue reading
So what does Holmesville need?
Many of the 55 submissions received included more than one suggestion for the future of the site. Importantly, of the 55 submissions, 32 included the suggestion of a community garden and 27 included a Men’s Shed.
Some local residents shared concerns about some potential uses. Those concerns have been recorded and will be considered as the project progresses.
If you would like more information about the community engagement activities or results, please view the Communications and Engagement Report under Related Documents.
The next steps
Members of the Community Working Group will be involved in the development of a plan for the future use of the site.
Council officers will continue to work with the community and will submit a report of recommendations for the future use of the site to Council later this year.
We are looking forward to working with you on this project to again make this area a valuable space for the Holmesville community to use and enjoy.
If you would like further information on this project, please contact Community Development Officer, Emma Hawke, by email ehawke@lakemac.nsw.gov.au or call 4921 0333.
Thank you for your time and valued contribution to the Holmesville project.
Tell us your idea
This survey has concluded.
What does Holmesville need?
Have your say on the repurpose use of the former Holmesville Tennis Courts as a new facility, and share in the future of a valuable community space so close to home.
Tell us your idea for creating a new useful community space that meets both the current and future needs of Holmesville.
Why is Council considering a new purpose for the facility?
What is Council looking for in responses/suggestions from the community?
Then Down To Business
Holmesville 2
Communications and engagement report (1.13 MB) (pdf)
Implementing Marks Point and Belmont South Local Adaptation Plan
Morisset Community Building
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Vukovi Announce New Album ‘Fall Better’
You read that correctly, our favourite Scottish rockers Vukovi are BACK with a bang. Not only is their new album coming January 24th 2020 but they have also dropped a new single ‘All That Candy’ to accompany the announcement.
Although throughout 2019 we have already given three tasters of ‘Fall Better’, with singles ‘C.L.A.U.D.I.A’ and ‘Behave’ teasing Vukovi’s next musical era and second studio album.
Many of the lyrics on ‘Fall Better’ are influenced by a condition that frontwoman Janine Shilstone was diagnosed with in the time since the last Vukovi album in 2017. Thought Action Fusion is a disorder that can lead those who have it to believe that their actions are guided by an external presence; in Janine’s case, this presence took the form of a shadow “that makes decisions for me, and decides whether something good or bad is going to happen to me on any given day.”
Although mental illness is a difficult subject to touch on but with Janine opening up about her struggles so publicly, she believes it is all part of the band’s mission statement.
“I want our songs to let people know that they’re not alone in feeling crazy,” she says. “I want to give people who feel that way a little bit of comfort. I want them to feel less alone. I want to let people know that it’s okay to be weird, and for them not to feel isolated because of it. Our fan base is a beautiful army of weirdos, and I want that to grow. I want them all to feel like they belong here.”
Pre-order ‘Fall Better’ at: vukoviband.lnk.to/store
‘Fall Better’ Artwork
‘Fall Better’ track listing:
2. Violet Minds
3. Aura
4. C.L.A.U.D.I.A
5. Behave
6. Play With Me Cos I Can Take Me
7. Verify Your Worth
8. All That Candy
9. I’m Sorry
10. Where Are You
11. White Lies
12. Run/Hide
This entry was posted in New Music. Bookmark the permalink.
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Kristen Soltis
Kristen Soltis is a project manager for the Winston Group, a polling firm in Washington, D.C.
Evangelical Grassroots versus ‘Grasstops’
by Kristen Soltis | Jul 31, 2013
Sometime liberal Baptist Jonathan Merritt recently wrote interestingly for Religion News Service about the seeming failure of evangelical elites to generate more push for “immigration reform,” which he himself supports. He’s a popular young author and columnist whose father was…
The Future Belongs to Religious Liberals?
America is becoming more religiously liberal with each generation, and religious conservatives, though more numerous now, will become dinosaurs. That’s the confident projection of a new poll from the liberal leaning Public Religion Research Institute. It’s predictably gotten good media…
A Strange But Lasting Marriage
Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon were awkwardly partnered politically across two decades, needing but never fully comfortable with each other. Ike and Dick: Portrait of a Strange Political Marriage by Jeffrey Frank tells the story captivatingly but mostly ignores their…
Religiously Divesting From Fossil Fuels
Although America’s arguably most liberal Protestant denomination and consequently likely fastest declining, the United Church of Christ is not very concerned about evangelism. Instead, the UCC, or at least its elites, is always searching for a new leftist cause to…
by Kristen Soltis | Jul 3, 2013
As the nation celebrates Independence Day, there’s no surprise that a new survey shows religious Americans are more patriotic than the non-religious. Two thirds of Evangelicals are “extremely” proud to be American, compared to 56 percent of white Mainline Protestants,…
Bells Are Ringing
by Kristen Soltis | Jun 27, 2013
Traditional minded Catholics, Southern Baptists and evangelicals were understandably nonplussed by the U.S. Supreme Court’s same-sex marriage rulings. And declining liberal Protestants were excited but hoping for more, more, more. The LGBTQ friendly National Cathedral even rang its bells in…
‘That De Gaulle, He Is Somebody’
The General: Charles de Gaulle and the France He Saved By Jonathan Fenby (Skyhorse Publishing, 707 pages, $32.95) Jonathan Fenby’s The General: Charles de Gaulle and the France He Saved maybe doesn’t offer a lot of new historical detail about…
Shah Na Na
The ShahBy Abbas Milani(Palgrave Macmillan, 496 pages, $18 paperback edition) The Islamic Republic of Iran has elected a “moderate” successor to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, infamous for his threat-laced apocalyptic rhetoric. All the candidates naturally had been screened by Iran’s ruling…
Religious Upset Over Drones
by Kristen Soltis | Jun 3, 2013
The pacifist Religious Left is again denouncing drone strikes against terrorists without offering plausible alternatives. Meanwhile, a spokesman for the U.S. Catholic bishops offers a more rigorously thoughtful critique while also failing to address the serious threat from transnational terrorists…
Boy Scouts Embrace Dull Conformity
by Kristen Soltis | May 28, 2013
Despite the pleas of many religious leaders, the Boy Scouts of America National Council has approved a new membership policy of “non-discrimination” based on “sexual orientation or preference.” During the session of 1,400 delegates, the BSA’s general counsel was reportedly…
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January 21st NBA Game Previews
Pre-game analysis of every NBA game by the RotoWire staff.
LAC @ DAL
Los Angeles Clippers at Dallas Mavericks
Los Angeles at Dallas
January 1,2020 at 8:30 PM
Clippers and Mavericks Face Off in Conference Battle
By Juan Carlos Blanco
The Los Angeles Clippers take on the Dallas Mavericks at American Airlines Center on Tuesday night. The Clippers (30-13) come into Tuesday's game in fine form, as they've prevailed in five of their previous six games. Their most recent success came at the expense of the New Orleans Pelicans, which they edged by a 133-130 score Saturday afternoon. Kawhi Leonard led the way for the Clippers with 39 points, adding six rebounds, six assists, five steals and one block. Lou Williams contributed 32 points, five assists, four rebounds, two steals and one block. Montrezl Harrell compiled 24 points, while Landry Shamet furnished 11 points, four rebounds and one assist. The Clippers will continue without Paul George (hamstring) for Tuesday's game. Maurice Harkless (back) will be listed as probable. The Mavericks (27-15) check into Tuesday's contest in the midst of a strong stretch of play in their own right, as they've prevailed in four consecutive games. Their most recent triumph came against the Portland Trail Blazers, which they bested by a 120-112 score Friday night. Luka Doncic led the way with 35 points, complementing them with eight rebounds, seven assists and one steal. Tim Hardaway, Jr. delivered 29 points, four rebounds and one steal. Seth Curry tallied 16 points, four boards, three assists and one steal. Jalen Brunson went for 13 points, while Maxi Kleber supplied 10 points, five rebounds, one assist and three blocks. The Mavericks will list Kristaps Porzingis (knee) as questionable for Tuesday's game. Ryan Broekhoff (lower leg) will remain out. Tuesday's game marks the second of three meetings between the teams this season. The Clippers hold a 1-0 series lead, having notched a 114-99 win Nov. 26.
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Truckers’ transportation coalition warns of “super supply chain crisis” as America’s cities may collapse into war zones: food, fuel, medical supplies could all be disrupted
01/06/2020 / By Mike Adams
The Executive Director of the Small Business in Transportation Coalition (SBTC) — known as Truckers.com — has issued a stern warning about a “super supply chain crisis” that could severely disrupt trucking and transportation operations that bring supplies to all U.S. cities.
James Lab issued a Dec. 17th press release in which he warned of “nationwide riots that will impede truckers’ ability to make deliveries of products for Americans’ consumption.” Those supplies include food, fuel, medicine, ammunition and other supplies on which Americans depend each day.
This warning was issued a few weeks before President Trump’s drone strike on Soleimani — an event that many believe might set off activation of radical Islamic sleeper cells that have been embedded in U.S. cities, awaiting orders to strike critical infrastructure and cause mayhem.
According to the SBTC’s press release, the authoritarian gun confiscation push of tyrannical Democrats in Virginia could, all by itself, “quickly escalate into armed conflict reminiscent of the Civil War.” As the announcement also states:
Lamb fears the conflict… in Virginia could escalate and spiral out of control.
Truckers will refuse to drive into war zones
Truckers, who represent one of the most under-appreciated class of hard workers in American society, are actually very street smart individuals with a strong sense of survival and self-preservation. They are not going to carelessly drive their delivery trucks into urban chaos theaters where they might be targeted by looters or violent anti-American rioters.
Leftists in America today, including CNN and the NYT, are almost universally in alignment with Iran and its terrorist aims to destroy the United States of America. Some insane Hollywood Leftists such as Rose McGowan are now openly apologizing to Iran for America’s actions, claiming to be living as “prisoners” under the “authoritarian regime” of Trump. (Note to McGowan: You are free to leave at any time, the sooner the better.)
Radical left-wing domestic terrorism groups such as Antifa routinely stage physical assaults on Trump supporters across America, using deadly weapons and mob violence to commit acts of intimidation against their political opponents. The idea that these radical left-wing groups might quickly escalate their tactics into city-wide chaos, murder and mayhem is no stretch of the imagination. This seems to be their plan.
Bureaucrats in Washington D.C. are currently in the process of forcing truckers to use Electronic Logging Devices (ELDs) to log their driving hours. This is a monumental change from the paper log books that truckers have used for decades. The criminalization of paper logs is now accelerating and threatens to cause supply chain disruptions all by itself, warns Lamb. The push for ELDs is part of the government’s never-ending expansion of electronic surveillance of American workers, which is all part of a big government scheme to turn America into an Orwellian prison camp run by corrupt elitists like Joe Biden, whose cognitive function brings up the bigger question of why we call these people “elites” when they are dumber than rocks.
Chaos will escalate throughout 2020
When truckers are beginning to sound the alarm on supply chain disruptions across America, it’s important to listen up and plan accordingly. The 2020 elections are fewer than 300 days away, and insane, radical left-wing lunatics are poised to launch nationwide violence — possibly even an attempted “armed revolution” — if Trump wins re-election.
Even before then, Iran’s sleeper cells may be activated and ordered to bomb fuel refineries, poison water supplies, or carry out suicide bombings in grocery stores or malls. Any of these events would be severely disruptive to American society. If combined, they would be catastrophic.
The next time you go to the grocery store and the shelves aren’t empty, thank a trucker. And don’t expect truckers to risk their lives running “suicide deliveries” when America’s cities collapse into chaos. Once that happens, you’re on your own, and that’s the day you’ll wish you had a backup supply of food, water, iodine, emergency medicine, communications equipment and a trusty Remington Shockwave shotgun.
Tagged Under: chaos, Collapse, disruptions, food deliveries, infrastructure, preparedness, sleeper cells, supply chain, survival, terrorism, truckers
PREPARE for Iran to activate terror cells across America and attack the power grid, water supplies and vulnerable infrastructure
Firearms 101: Is it okay to store loaded magazines?
01/04/2020 / By Darnel Fernandez
Gun, ammunition sales skyrocketing in Virginia as citizens arm up in anticipation of tyrannical gun confiscation efforts by insane, deranged Democrats
Stay undercover using this camouflaging field equipment
01/03/2020 / By Arsenio Toledo
How to find a person lost in the wilderness: A detailed guide
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Bevy of new .22LR handguns coming onto the market for Americans who value low-cost, high-performance self-defense options
Company launches crowdfunding project to form “digital ammunition” firm, but how will owning non-physical ammo work out?
Joe Biden recently trashed Texas officials for signing bill allowing churchgoers to carry concealed
Cheaper seeds and better-tasting vegetables: Why you need heirloom seeds for your homestead
12/29/2019 / By Grace Olson
Survival 101: Gather water like a pro with rain catches
Camping 101: 10 Basic skills every camper should have
6 Ways to prevent dehydration in a survival scenario
Home security 101: Fortify your home with a smart doorbell
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Should preppers train for long-range rifle shooting?
Encrypting important documents: Prepare your digital bug-out bag before SHTF
Survival medicine 101: Three natural remedies for pain relief, infections and for improving heart health
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A Renowned Neurologist Explains the Mystery and Drama of Brain Disease
Ropper, Allan H.
Book - 2014 | First edition
"Tell the doctor where it hurts." It sounds simple enough, unless the problem affects the very organ that produces awareness and generates speech. What is it like to try to heal the body when the mind is under attack? In this book, Dr. Allan Ropper and Brian Burrell take the reader behind the scenes at Harvard Medical School's neurology unit to show how a seasoned diagnostician faces down bizarre, life-altering afflictions. Like Alice in Wonderland, Dr. Ropper inhabits a world where absurdities abound: A figure skater whose body has become a ticking time-bomb. A salesman who drives around and around a traffic rotary, unable to get off. A college quarterback who can't stop calling the same play. A child molester who, after falling on the ice, is left with a brain that is very much dead inside a body that is very much alive. A mother of two young girls, diagnosed with ALS, who has to decide whether a life locked inside her own head is worth living. How does one begin to treat such cases, to counsel people whose lives may be changed forever? How does one train the next generation of clinicians to deal with the moral and medical aspects of brain disease? Dr. Ropper and his colleague answer these questions by taking the reader into a rarified world where lives and minds hang in the balance"-- Provided by publisher.
Publisher: New York : St. Martin's Press, 2014
Branch Call Number: 616.8 R684R 2014
Characteristics: vi, 263 pages ; 25 cm
Additional Contributors: Burrell, Brian 1955-
Read more reviews of Reaching Down the Rabbit Hole at iDreamBooks.com
lsoltow Jul 03, 2015
Coming from Boston and working as an RN on a Neuro unit, this is a beautiful read. The insight into a teaching hospital and the morality and ethical platforms of one generation (e.g., value of doing an autopsy and talking/ listening to patients) passed onto a more computer/ diagnostics oriented generation of neurologists. Thank you Dr. Ropper for being the physician and mentor you are. Thanks to those who commit to Neurology.
Minkelina Oct 13, 2014
Sensitive, well-written, and full of fascinating details of medical diagnosis and practice, this is terrific book. A model for what this kind of book should be - I couldn't put it down.
Ropper, Allan H
Neurology — Anecdotes
Brain — Diseases — Anecdotes
Neurologists — Massachusetts — Boston — Biography
SCIENCE / Life Sciences / Neuroscience
BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Medical
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September 21, 2016 Buster Hein
Apple Watch Series 2 review: A tick closer to perfection
I finally have a reason to stop cheating on my Apple Watch.
For the past 16 months, Apple’s wearable and I have had an on-again, off-again relationship. The Apple Watch looks great. It helps me stay fit. It tells the time really well. But it hasn’t been the complete wrist solution I need.
With the Apple Watch Series 2, a lot of the compromises of Apple’s first-gen smartwatch have finally been fixed. You can get GPS without carrying your iPhone. The new Apple Watch is water-friendly. And it’s built for speed. But with the new, less-expensive Apple Watch Series 1 getting some of the same features, is the Series 2 seriously worth the upgrade?
While working on this Apple Watch Series 2 review, I’ve been wearing the new device everywhere I go ever since it came out Friday. The short answer is, “hell yes.”
Apple Watch Series 2 review
The Apple Watch design you already love
The heart rate sensor on the Apple Watch Series 2 is the same as Apple Watch Series 1.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac
Absolutely no one is going to be able to tell you’re wearing the new Apple Watch Series 2 unless you buy the ceramic Edition model. Even then people might not notice.
The Series 2 is a mere 0.9mm thicker than the Series 1. It weighs slightly more, too, which I like because it feels more solid and expensive.
Other than that, everything looks the nearly identical on the outside as the original Apple Watch. Bands connect to the device the same way. The Digital Crown and side button haven’t moved (its functionality has changed though). And there’s still the same optical heart rate sensor bump on the bottom.
The body of the Apple Watch has never been a problem. It looks fashionable, even though it’s one of the most high-tech watches ever made. It’s neither gaudy nor nerdy. You can wear it while playing sports or attending a gala, making it a truly utilitarian fashion piece.
Apple Watch Series 2 GPS tracks your every move
Apple Watch Nike+ won’t be out until October.
Photo: Buster Hein/Cult of Mac
What Apple Watch Series 2 lacks in design changes, it more than makes up for on the inside. The biggest new addition is a GPS chip. This feature alone is worth the buy. Especially if you like exercise.
I no longer need to stuff a Plus-size iPhone into my tiny running shorts when going for a jog now that Apple Watch Series 2 can connect to GPS satellites. The connection is supposed to lock in super-fast, so you don’t have to wait for satellites to align just to begin your workout.
One of my biggest gripes with the Garmin Fenix 3 I’ve been using instead of my original Apple Watch is how long it takes for GPS to lock on. Too many times I’ve been a quarter mile into my hike before the watch alerted me that it was finally able to get a GPS signal.
Apple Watch Series 2 is supposed to be wicked fast at this, but there’s just one problem. The device’s screen never shows “GPS” or another indicator to prove it’s connected. You just have to take it on faith that there’s a connection behind the scenes. Then, when you get back to your iPhone, you can check your route on a map.
In my limited testing, I found the GPS to be pretty solid. It’s just as good as other running watches I’ve used from Suunto and Garmin, only those smartwatches don’t pack nearly as many other great features for non-runners and athletic types.
Apple Watch Series 2 display is brighter
The brighter display makes text pop on Apple Watch.
Photo: Apple
Apple Watch Series 2 packs the brightest display Apple has ever made. It’s more than two times as bright as the Series 1 (and the original model). The increased brightness doesn’t prove that noticeable indoors, but it helps a lot outdoors. While on runs, I could read my workout summary much easier, even under the bright Phoenix sun.
No elevation tracking in Apple Watch Series 2
While Apple Watch Series 2 added a new chip to measure how far you go, it still can’t track your elevation. Frankly, this sucks.
If you’re a trail runner, mountain biker or hiker, seeing how much you climbed during a workout is important if you want to know just how hard your route was. There’s a huge difference in difficulty between running 5 miles on flat roads verses 5 miles with a 2,000-foot elevation gain.
The only way to get your elevation data is to pack your iPhone along for the ride. It’s not a huge pain for me because I’d want that data most during a trail run or hike, and I usually carry my iPhone in my backpack. If you want to use it in a race, though, it’s still not ideal.
Until Apple adds an altimeter to its wearable, it won’t be taken seriously by endurance athletes.
Apple Watch’s speedy new processor
Apple completely reworked the Apple Watch’s internals.
Photo: iFixit
The new dual-core processor in the Series 2 packs 50 percent more processing power than the original Apple Watch and you can definitely tell. This watch is screaming fast.
I didn’t run Apple Watch Series 2 through a battery of tests, but using it side-by-side with its predecessor you can see just how much faster apps load on your wrist. The difference is absolutely astounding for a second-generation product.
Opening apps on the original Apple Watch was annoying. It required you to hold your wrist aloft while the tiny processor churned for five or 10 seconds. With Apple Watch Series 2, apps feel like they update almost instantaneously.
Apple’s watchOS 3 update adds to the speed increase, though, and it’s available for any Apple Watch model (including the original). With watchOS 3, native apps load faster than ever and are also more efficient. The update also changes the functionality of Apple Watch’s side button: Now it brings up a dock of apps, giving you a quick peek into your most important info.
I’m still waiting for the first killer third-party app, but the big Apple Watch UI change makes getting in and out of apps much faster. (Find out more about watchOS 3 with Cult of Mac’s guide: How to use watchOS 3: Tips, tricks and hidden tweaks.)
Apple Watch Series 2 battery life
The extra weight in the Apple Watch Series 2 comes from its bigger battery. This still doesn’t bring multiday battery life, so you’ll still be charging the new Apple Watch every day. I didn’t notice any major gains in battery life, so it’s likely that all the extra juice is being used to power the new GPS chip and display.
Apple Watch Series 2 is “swimproof.”
The water resistance of the original Apple Watch was pretty solid. Trust me: I lost mine three times while cliff jumping, and two times the waterproofing held up long enough for my watch to be found alive.
Apple Watch Series 2 is truly waterproof, with a rating of up to 50 meters deep. You can now feel comfortable showering with a little computer on your wrist, or taking your Apple Watch on your next snorkeling adventure.
My favorite minor new feature is the water-ejecting speaker. Once you finish splashing around in the water, the Apple Watch Series 2 speaker emits a series of sonic pulses to push water out of the wearable. The feature activates automatically when you’ve finished a water exercise.
Better workouts with Apple Watch Series 2
Apple Watch Series 2 tracks all your workouts.
Photo: Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac
Thanks to the improved waterproofing, Apple Watch can accompany you on swimming workouts, whether in the ocean or in a pool.
The screen automatically locks as soon as you start a workout, so it won’t react to water droplets or water pressure. To end a workout, you spin the Digital Crown (which also activates the audio-ejection procedure to spit out water).
With the Workout app in watchOS 3, you’ll also get 12 other modes, including a new setting for elliptical machines and more options under the “Other” category. No matter what sport you’re playing, Apple Watch can track it.
So, should you get one?
Anytime I was asked by a stranger whether they should get the Apple Watch, I would tell them no. It’s great for telling time and checking your notifications, but if you don’t normally like to wear watches (I don’t), then it’s likely to gather dust.
Apple Watch Series 2 means my answer changes. I still don’t think it’s a must-have. But if you you want one, go for it. It’s the best watch you can get. It’s stylish. It’s a great fitness tracker. It does more than any other watch ever made.
And now that it can finally track your location and take a swim, it’s finally starting to be worthy of the hype.
Filed in: activity, Apple Watch, Apple Watch Series 2, Digital Crown, exercise, fashion, fitness, fitness tracker, GPS, health, maps, n3, Newsstand, review, Reviews, running, swimming, Top stories
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Annula in Green
Handcrafted Modern Leather Cuff Bracelet, 'Annula in Green'
Ila Suleyman designs a bold cuff for today's woman. He crafts the bracelet with lush green leather over recycled PVC pipe. This original design is named Annula, the Mamprusi word for "Evening Princess."
Leather on recycled PVC
15.2 cm L (end to end) x 2.5 cm W
6" L (end to end) x 1" W
Ila Suleyman
"My forefathers were predominantly millet and cattle farmers, and they would use the leather of the animals for accessories such as talismans, bangles and necklaces for personal use."
"Assalamu Alaikum (Peace be unto you)! I'm Ila Suleyman, of Bawku in Ghana and my parents are Rayende and Nabiga Suleyman. I was born into a family of artists who have carved and crafted wood and leather products for several family generations. I have been told the crafts that we do date back to more than a century ago, but it was my great-grandfather who took on the craft and made a real venture out of it.
"My forefathers were predominantly millet and cattle farmers, and they would use the leather of the animals they reared for clothing and accessories such as talismans, bangles and necklaces for personal use. My great-grandfather saw this natural talent and skill as an opportunity to develop a successful venture which has become a family business.
"Growing up I was very fond of my grandfather and I spent a lot of time with him. He taught me a lot of things including how to prepare natural leather and create beautiful pieces out of it at a very early age. Right out of Senior high school, I had the option to pursue other things but I was interested in walking in the shoes of my grandfather, father and other family members who ate and lived art. I had already mastered the craft by then, and I was intrigued by the deep thought and patience that went into crafting a piece.
"I joined my father at his workshop and helped him create new designs and craft leather accessories. I designed a more youthful and modern collection which was incorporated into the traditional styles that we were used to producing. These sold very well and from then on my father trusted me to work more independently.
"I have since introduced new materials in my collection by exploring the use of other natural materials such as wood and some recycled materials. These are designed and crafted by me with assistance from my childhood friend Deri, who has become my business partner, along with a staff of five.
"My designs are unique and traditional with a modern feel. I draw inspiration from my rich culture and from the nature that surrounds me. I also research modern fashion trends for ideas in style and colors that are right for the market I craft for. Although I introduce modernity in my designs, they are finished as timeless pieces to be cherished for generations.
"My favorite thing about my art is the way people react to it, such as joy, happiness, contentment and most of all the smiles it puts on the faces of those who favor my collections. It makes what I do for a living worthwhile.
"The major challenge I face in my craft business is the industrially manufactured copies of our authentic hand-crafted products that flood the market, and which threatens local artisans like me. I rise above this by producing wonderful and more interesting handmade products. I also work with other artisans who create handmade pieces in order to highlight the positive impact it has in our lives when people support products that artisans like me create.
"I love what I do and I don’t see myself doing anything else but art. When am not designing or crafting, I like to be in a quiet and calm place like the beach. I also like to party occasionally with my friends. I am a friendly and outgoing person.
"I help the physically challenged in my community by training those who have the interest in arts. I also do what I can to support the less privileged by helping them complete their primary education. So far I have assisted four people who have successfully completed their primary education and have moved on to technical and secondary schools.
"I hope that my life turns out so well that I may contribute to the development of my community and country. I also hope to showcase my work in international communities and create awareness on what Africa has to offer in terms of talent in art and craft. It is also my dream that my works will be known worldwide and become a household name like the known brands in the industry.
"I believe this new partnership with Novica will be a start to living my dreams and aspirations."
By Ila Suleyman
This item was handmade in West Africa by NOVICA artisan borrowers. Kiva lenders have helped these artisans stock up on materials, buy more tools and grow their businesses.
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Home // About Us // News // Stone Lab renovations 'will greatly enhance our ability to attract students and scientists'
Stone Lab renovations 'will greatly enhance our ability to attract students and scientists'
Recent renovations at Stone Lab and the Research Building on South Bass Island's Peach Point have resulted in more modern classrooms, more conveniently equipped research and maintenance spaces, and most importantly, an alternative energy setup that will save the lab 10-25 percent on its electricity bills.
Ohio Sea Grant received support for the renovations from the state capital as the legislature appropriated $750,000 from two capital budgets.
"I told the architects it would be easy to put $750,000 into the buildings and not even see the improvements," said Ohio Sea Grant and Stone Laboratory Director Jeff Reutter. "Instead, we wanted to use the money in the way that's most visible, and will greatly enhance our ability to attract students and scientists, and to better conduct science."
The Research Building also acts as the mechanical workshop for Stone Lab. Workers repaired and painted termite-damaged and broken plaster walls, pipes deliver lake water to aquaria, and new lighting reflects off black and red cabinets. The updated electrical system includes drop-down outlets from the ceiling, a sliding door now separates maintenance space from the research side, and workers can use a new rollup door to move boats and other large equipment into the work area.
On the first floor of the Gibraltar Island Lab Building, new doors open into both classrooms where a new drop ceiling covers electric lines and plumbing, while on the walls, white dry erase boards have replaced dark chalkboards, and new cabinets rest on shiny epoxy flooring.
(Click here to see pictures of Stone Lab's facilities on Gibraltar Island and on South Bass Island's Peach Point.)
New solar thermal, electricity panels
"If you were going to do a solar power project, this is a really good place to do it."—Jeff Reutter
Interior updates weren't the only changes on the island. Stone Lab received a grant from Ohio State's Office of Energy and Environment to install solar power panels. Electricity at the lab costs almost four times as much as it does on Ohio State's main campus, and there are more sunny summer days at Put-in-Bay than anywhere else in Ohio. "If you were going to do a solar power project, this is a really good place to do it," said Reutter.
In addition to solar electricity panels, the project also includes solar thermal panels, located on the Dining Hall roof, to heat water for the industrial dish tank. "We evaluated where we had the best light and where we use the most hot water," Reutter explained. "It turned out that the answer for both of those things was the top of the dining hall."
Stone Lab uses about 200,000 kilowatt hours per year. The total output of the solar canopy is 10,560 watts, and the ground-mount array adds 1,440 watts, so the panels combine to produce about 12,000 watts. Stone Lab Manager Matt Thomas expects that continued improvements to the lab buildings and their energy efficiency will provide an even better return on the green investments made this summer.
-- Matthew Forte and Christina Dierkes, Ohio Sea Grant Communications
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History of Modern Philosophy
No prerequisites.
Introduction to key figures, problems and themes in modern European philosophy from the sixteenth to the early nineteenth century. The course starts with sketching the broader context of cultural modernity, and the demands for stability and orientation that emerged as traditional worldviews fell apart. This is followed by a series of lectures on six specific themes taught by different experts in the field: knowledge, physics and metaphysics, mind and soul, ethics, political philosophy and theology. The lectures explain how the modern concept of reason developed in these different fields, discussing key ideas from thinkers such as Bacon, Galileo, Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, Pascal, Locke, Berkeley, Leibniz, Hume, Rousseau, Kant and Hegel. A textbook will be used for introducing the various themes, supplemented by selected readings from primary sources.
This course aims to introduce students to key figures, problems and themes in modern European philosophy from the sixteenth to the early nineteenth century.
Students who successfully complete the course will have basic understanding of:
the concept of modernity in the history of European philosophy;
central problems, themes and concepts in modern European philosophy, in particular in the fields of epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of mind, moral philosophy and political philosophy;
how these problems are addressed in a number of key texts;
the relations between these problems and the historical conditions to which they respond, including the development of scientific disciplines and methodologies.
Students who successfully complete the course will be able to:
read primary texts with the confidence needed to analyse, reconstruct and evaluate key arguments in them;
contextualize and comment upon primary texts in modern European philosophy;
give clear and structured written answers to questions about central problems, themes and concepts in modern European philosophy.
The timetable is available on the BA Filosofie website
BA Filosofie, BA1 – BA Plus-traject
BA Filosofie, BA1 – Standaardtraject
Total course load 5 EC x 28 hours =140 hours
Attending lectures: 13 x 3 hours = 39 hours
Midterm exam: 3 hours
Final exam: 3 hours
Textbook readings (214 pp): 53 hours
Primary sources (120 pp): 30 hours
Two-weekly assignments 6 x 2 = 12 hours
Two-weekly homework assignments (compulsory, but not graded)
Mid-term exam (50%)
Written exam with closed and open questions (50%)
The final mark for the course is established by determination of the weighted average of two subtests (midterm, final test). A subtest can be graded as unsatisfactory.
Class participation and homework assignments are mandatory requirements for taking the tests and/or resit.
The resit consists of one examination for all parts at once, consisting of written exam covering the entire course content. The mark for the resit will replace all previously earned marks for subtests.No separate resits will be offered for mid-term tests.
A. Kenny, The Rise of Modern Philosophy (Oxford University Press, 2008).
Required readings from primary sources will be made available through Blackboard.
Enrolment for courses and exams through uSis is mandatory.
Students are strongly advised to register in uSis through the activity number which can be found in the timetables for courses and exams.
Registration Studeren à la carte
Registration Contractonderwijs
Dr. J.J.M. Sleutels Dr. R. Uljée
Dr. J.J.M. Sleutels (coordinator)
Dr. R. Uljée, and others
5011VHMP
Filosofie (deeltijd) Bachelor (Deeltijd)
Filosofie: BA Plus-traject Bachelor
Filosofie: Standaardtraject Bachelor
MA Philosophy (120 EC): Pre-master Pre-Master
Onderwijstijd in uren (excl. zelfstudie): 45u
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Tails From Provence
What happens when a horsemad Ould Wagon moves from Cork to Provence with 2 horses, 2 dogs and a Long Suffering Husband? Why, she gets a third dog, discovers Natural Horsemanship à la Française, starts writing short stories and then discovers a long-buried talent for art, of course…
The very first Ballyloch Story
I’m excited and, quite frankly, dead nervous about finally announcing the release of my series of short stories on Kindle.
The Ballyloch Stories are based around the clients of a fictitious riding school, Ballyloch Riding School. My intention was not to write ‘horsey stories’ so much, but to write stories about the lives of the people connected to a riding school. While all of the stories have a horse connection of sorts, some of them are more horsey than others – but you’ll figure that out yourselves.
Lucky in Life is not the first one I wrote, but it’s the story that should be told before all the others. It tells the tale of how Liz O’Brien finally realises her dream of opening her own riding school on her parents’ farm near Cork, Ireland, and it sets the scene for the all of the other stories in the series. It’s available to purchase on Amazon.com and I’m giving a free sample of it here, so you can decide if you want to buy it or not.
What I would really, really appreciate from you guys is to share the hell out of this post! Facebook, Twitter, Google+, reblogging… whatever! And, if you like the story, please please please visit Amazon and leave a review. My dream is to build up a following for the Ballyloch stories and ultimately to release a collection of the stories in book format – a real book! One with pages and everything!
No more waffle. Here we go. I truly hope you enjoy it and those that are to follow.
Lucky in Life
A Ballyloch Story
Liz, 2005
I closed the feed room door and stood for a moment, listening to the soothing sound of my horses as they munched their way through their evening feed. My horses! After sixteen years of looking after other peoples horses, I finally had my own horses, in my own stables, on my own land. Ballyloch Riding School, MY riding school, was ready for business. An old barn on my parent’s farm had been renovated and extended, so that it now contained fifteen stables, with a brand new indoor arena tacked on at the side. A much larger outdoor arena was under construction and my thirty acres of grazing was neatly fenced into a series of horse-friendly paddocks. There were forty clients on my books, waiting to start riding lessons and I’d already received several enquiries from prospective livery clients. I felt like the luckiest person in the world as I slid the big barn door shut, and I couldn’t stop a smile from spreading across my face.
How lucky am I, I thought, as I clipped the padlock shut on the door.
I’ve always had more than my fair share of luck. I was ‘that kid’ out show-jumping who would rattle the hell out of every single jump on a course, but still leave all the poles up. People used to ask me if I had a particular technique to make it happen. I would smile and say “That’s a trade secret” but the reality was, it was pure, dumb luck. It was the same with everything. If I bought a scratch card, I’d always win – never much, but I’d always break even – at worst. It was the same with raffles, card games and even betting on horse-racing – I’d never come out at a loss.
People noticed, of course. My Mam took to shaking her had sadly whenever I announced I had won another five euro on a scratch card.
“Lucky in life, unlucky in love,” she would say with a disapproving sniff.
Despite her disapproval, I had cruised serenely through my teens and early twenties, with life throwing opportunities my way at every turn. Sure, I had made some bad choices – doesn’t everyone? Like my first job, when I finished school at seventeen. I’d thought that working for a racehorse trainer would be my dream job, but it turned out to be a nightmare. Never mind the insane hours I was expected to work, or the grim reality of sharing a dingy caravan with three others in the middle of an Irish winter. No, those things were par for the course for anyone working with horses in the nineteen eighties. What broke my heart was the way the horses were treated. I hated the relentless pressure to perform; hated their closeted lifestyle; hated the callousness with which the ‘failures’ were discarded. I quickly came to the conclusion that there was more to horsemanship than this and I quit after three months. I was lucky enough to be accepted as a working pupil by a well-known English riding school, where I did my British Horse Society exams. Two years later, as a newly qualified Riding Instructor and Stable Manager, I packed my bags, flew to Belgium and literally walked into an amazing job as head groom in a dressage yard. It was the first place I tried; I went in on spec to ask if they were hiring; the boss glanced briefly at my qualifications, said that his head girl was leaving in a week, and the job was mine!
After five years, I had seen an ad for a yard manager and travelling groom for a German show jumper. A phone call was enough for me to be offered that job, and I had stayed with Wilhelm Schmidt for four years, before being poached by a wealthy American business man for his show-jumper daughter. Florida sunshine, a generous salary, free accommodation and sponsorship for my American Green Card – who on earth would turn that down?
Six years later, here I was back in Ireland. And luck – stupid, dumb, idiotic Luck, was responsible once again.
I switched off the lights and made my way along the path to my newly built bungalow, remembering the night I got the phone call…
The phone in the hallway was ringing insistently. I looked at the clock beside my bed. It was four in the morning. Four in Florida, but nine in Ireland and ten in Germany. This phone call was probably from Europe and was almost certainly not good news. As I swung my feet over the side of the bed, I heard Markus’ bedroom door open and the thump of his bare feet as he ran to the phone. I sat and listened, heart pounding. Was it for him or for me?
“Hello?” Pause…
“Okay, I get her,” he said.
I leaped from the bed just as he knocked on my door.
“Liz! Liz! It’s your Mam!” he hissed.
“Coming, coming.”
My legs felt a little shaky as I went out into the hall. If Mam was ringing then something must have happened to Da, I thought. Markus handed me the phone with a sympathetic look and tactfully withdrew into the kitchen.
“Hi, Mam?” I began. “What’s up?”
Ten minutes later, I hung up the phone and fumbled for a cigarette from the pack on the hall stand. I lit it, inhaled, and stood for a moment, trying to absorb the news. The door to the kitchen opened and Markus looked out at me, his kind brown eyes full of anxious concern, a steaming mug in each hand.
“Tea?” he asked.
To find out what happened next, click this link to Amazon.com where, for a mere €0.99, you can download Lucky in Life to your Kindle or Kindle app.
(The Ballyloch Stories are based around the clients of the fictitious Ballyloch Riding School, near the non-fictitious city of Cork, Ireland. Each story is intended to stand alone, but the reader may prefer to read Lucky in Life first, as it describes the beginnings of Ballyloch Riding School.
Although the stories are inspired by the author’s experiences during her time running a livery stables near Cork, all of them are works of fiction. Names, characters, businesses and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. None of the human characters are intended to resemble any person, living or dead, and any such resemblance is entirely coincidental. Some of the equine characters depicted are based on real horses the author has known over the years but are always presented in a fictitious way.
Copyright 2015 © Martine Greenlee
All rights reserved. No part of this story may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except in the case of a reviewer, who may quote brief passages embodied in critical articles or in a review.
Trademarked names may appear in this story. Rather than use a trademark symbol with every occurrence of a trademarked name, names are used in an editorial fashion, with no intention of infringement of the respective owner’s trademark.)
Tags: ballyloch, creative writing, short story
12 thoughts on “The very first Ballyloch Story”
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Carol on March 27, 2015 at 10:35 pm said:
Okay you’ve got me wanting to read more…
Lynne on March 23, 2015 at 10:27 pm said:
I’m hooked! Thanks for the appetizer.
Pingback: Planning Ballyloch Riding School | Ballyloch Stories
leahlarkin on March 23, 2015 at 9:47 am said:
Lovely tale — a great beginning. I look forward to more..
Stephen on March 21, 2015 at 11:25 pm said:
Is this the teaser?
So what happened to Markus & Sam?
Looking forward to future installments.
magreenlee on March 21, 2015 at 11:56 pm said:
setting the scene, Stephen!
Grey Horse Matters on March 19, 2015 at 8:21 pm said:
I like it! Good luck with your sales.
Kayti Aitken on March 19, 2015 at 10:49 am said:
Ooh!!! Like!
magreenlee on March 19, 2015 at 10:50 am said:
Thanks Kayti x
ann brab on March 19, 2015 at 9:35 am said:
Love it! Tastes like more. …
magreenlee on March 19, 2015 at 9:40 am said:
Well it’s got the German connection I guess 🙂
Leave a Reply to Kayti Aitken Cancel reply
Ballyloch, books and writing
Le Danseur/The Dancer
And another one just cos it’s pretty! #sunrise #newyear #newdecade2020
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Posted on Wednesday, 25th December, 2019 @ 11:59 pm Wednesday, 1st January, 2020 @ 10:02 am by Steve Palmer
Christmas 2019 🎅
Reading time: 12 minutes...
As with many of our past Christmas celebrations, this year is mostly a family affair. It’s also a busy one (perhaps even more manic than normal for this time of year) with our festive and new-year celebrations almost blurring into one continuous festive family/friends/food/film-fest! (it’s a tough life!😉)
As a result, this is probably the longest post I’ve ever written! 😴😴 Here we go then…
Christmas Eve – Final Prep For Christmas
Like most people on the planet today, it was the final opportunity to clean, tidy-up and prepare for the Christmas period. It took us most of the morning (and in truth, we’d also had the luxury of starting a few days ago) and by lunchtime, everything was ready!
So, after a quick walk…
…all that was left to do, was to double-check the Sky Q Box to make sure all the Christmas TV was sorted for the next few days whilst we were occupied elsewhere – pretty much BBC all the way again this year! 😁
6.30pm: To end the day, and to properly get us fully in the Christmas mood, we drove into town for the ‘Carols by Candlelight‘ event at the Salvation Army Citadel (having missed their Carol Concert over the weekend). We guessed it might be popular, so we aimed to get there with plenty of time to spare to ensure a choice of seating for 7pm! We met up with Janet, Jo and Helen in the JS car-park and after some quick hellos headed for the Citadel. The event turned-out to be well-supported. Led by Major Nigel Govier the sixty-minute celebration featured an ideal mix of well-known Carols (thank goodness!) with just the right amount of the Christmas Story thrown in! The hour passed quickly and we were soon saying our goodbyes.
8.30pm: A G&T with a bucketful of crisps watching Carols from Kings (recorded earlier) ended Christmas Eve perfectly! 😁
Christmas Day – Denis’s for Christmas Lunch
6.25am: Up at just before 6.30 (more out of habit than necessity!) to a cold but frost-less Christmas morning. I packed everything in the car ready for our journey to Dad’s and skipped brekky to make room for what was to come. We postponed opening our presents until we got back.
9.09am: We left ours at just after 9am. With Denis’s’ health on the decline, we decided to simplify Christmas Lunch somewhat and take most of what we needed with us – ready for final assembly!
Denis almost ready for Christmas Lunch
10.25am: As expected, it was a hassle-free journey by road to Denis’s. After a quick coffee and a longer natter…
10.55am: …we headed for the kitchen for vegetable duties. We cheated slightly this year by opting for frozen roasties and that certainly made the prep a lot quicker! 😁 Ann had also pre-prepared the stuffing, so that saved us a job too!
11.25am: Time for a break from the chores, to exchange presents from Dad and Bev. Muppet Socks and DVDs for me! 😁
11.55am: With our present-ritual over, we finished off the veg. All that was left was the bird, and in keeping with the national trend, it’s a turkey-crown for 2019 – just an hour in the oven – simples!
Table set!
1.35pm: Slightly later than last year, everything was ready, and we served-up the Christmas main course.
Denis enjoying his!
Denis seemed to enjoy his (as did we) although we did have to cut up his food and add a plate-guard to spare the table-cloth!
2.01pm: We finished with Dad’s favourite – Christmas Pudding! – and he demolished his in no time (in spite of his ailments, there’s nothing wrong with his appetite, and especially his love of desserts!)
2.17pm: With pretty-much empty plates all round (plus an empty bottle of Moscato too!), it was all over for another year. Denis had done himself proud!
2.30pm: I returned to my natural habitat – the kitchen – to clear-up the wreckage (although, thanks to our prep-work, there wasn’t much to do!
2.50pm: Twenty-minutes later, the kitchen was spotless. Almost time for the Gambles Ritual of watching the Queen’s Speech!
3.00pm: Afternoon Ma’am!
3.25pm: Denis was now drifting-off into the land of nod, so we said our goodbyes, packed-up the car and headed back to Kettering.
4.35pm: Just like the journey there, heading home was hassle-free with hardly anything on the road. As a result, we were home in 70 minutes – that IS a new record for us, although at one point (just before I felt a sharp stabbing sensation in my left leg) I proved that Robert CAN top triple-figures! Naughty (but briefly, nice!)
It had been a great time with Denis. These days, what he lacks in conversation, he (still!) more than makes up for with his appetite! Barry and Bev are visiting him tomorrow and Roger, Jane and Oliver, the day after, so he’s seeing the majority of the family over the Christmas break – just how it should be! 😁
4.50pm: We’re home, For me tohugh, where else? Back in the kitchen, preparing a bucket of potatoes for tomorrow’s feast!
5.30pm: With the potatoes in the oven, it was time for ‘Pressy Opening (Part 2)’ – this time, gifts from Jo, Janet, Carol and Sal – and of course, each other!
6.15pm: G and Ts all round and an opportunity to watch BBC’s ‘Call the Midwife’ and for me to catch-up with the final part of rather spooky (and IMHO, rather good) ‘Christmas Carol’ adaptation from the BBC starring Guy Pearce, Andy Serkis, Stephen Graham, Vinette Robinson and Joe Alwyn. It was about as far away from the Alastair Sim version from 1951 as you can get, and I think it’s going to give a few people nightmares tonight! 😮
10.00pm: We’re done for today! 🥱😴🥱😴
Boxing Day – Roger, James and Oliver at ours
We’re all set!
7.00am: Ann was up with the lark, to attend to the Beef (a six-hour sloooooow cook) whilst I caught up with the latest Christmas EastEnders murder! (Merry Christmas!) 😁
11.00am: Tree presents placed around the tree and Christmas Music playlist prepared — CHECK!
11.30am: Roger, Jane and Oliver arrived, and we spent a good hour catching-up with everyone’s news especially how Oli had got on with his recent Mocks.
1.30pm: Some things don’t change! Lunch was ready bang on time, we all agreed that the beef was yummy…
…and the cracker jokes were as corny as ever
Q: “What does a frog do when its car breaks down?”
A: “It gets toad away”
Lunch was along leisurely affair (just as it should be at this time of year)…
…where Jane had made a very scrumptious Sticky Toffee Pudding…
…and where Ann and I experimented with a new creation: Mulled Cider Jelly with an Apple & Creme Fraiche Topping….
…and Cheese to finish, of course!
3.30pm: With the final mouthful consumed, it was time to attend to the bomb-site kitchen! Actually, it didn’t take long to return the kitchen to its former state (with a little help from the dish-washer — human AND mechanical!)
4.00pm: Tree-present time! 🎁🎁🎁🎁🎁
4.30pm: Time for a movie, and we chose one that Oli hadn’t seen before (that also happened to be one of my Christmas presents from Ann… in 4K of course!
6.45pm: We really enjoyed it. As usual for Marvel, mind-blowing special effects but with some occasional humorous scenes which worked really well.
7.30pm: More food! 😁
We caught up with one of my recordings from yesterday: Channel 5 had managed ot create a compilation of Two Ronnies sketches. Nothing unusual there, except these were from the time in 1986 where they spent a year in Australia on Channel 9. They were as hilarious as ever, and it was interesting to see the slight variations in the scripts compared with the UK version.
10.00pm: We ended the day ‘putting the world to rights’.
11.25pm: 💤😴💤😴
27th December – Normality (briefly!)
6.30am: I was up first, quickly followed by Ann, who had a plan!
7.00am: And that plan was to create another new culinary masterpiece, this time for breakfast!
It was a ‘Breakfast Quiche’ – a sort of Full English encased in pastry (but no ordinary pastry, this was M&S Ann’s Parmesan Crusted Pastry!) The egg was blended with double-cream to make it extra delicious 😋 As expected, it went down a treat, with Roger and I tucking into seconds!
10.15am: With breakfast over, Roger, Jane and Oliver packed up their stuff and bid us farewell. They headed off to see Denis, whilst we (briefly) returned the house to ‘normal’.
11.00am: I caught up with a bit of recorded Christmas TV whilst pressing-on with the ironing. Meanwhile, Ann took over the kitchen and some serious food preparation for our next culinary get-together (Sunday, with Jo, Janet, Carol, Chris and Pete).
1.30pm: Time for a break from the kitchen and the ironing. After watching the thoroughly depressing couple of Christmas episodes of EastEnders (why do I do this???), we settled down to something altogether more uplifting — The 2019 Glyndebourne production of The Magic Flute — courtesy of BBC2. No deaths (well, excluding the serpent!) and not a cockney in sight! Fab! 😊 We’d actually seen the touring version of this back in August at the Royal Albert Hall.
4.00pm: An excellent production — even better than the version we saw live!
6.30pm: We’re done! All the ironing is up-to-date and the food is prepared for Sunday. Time for ‘feet-up’ and a bit more Christmas TV. First, the movie: The Duchess – better than I remember it first time round in 2008. Next up: the Gavin & Stacey Christmas Special which, according to the papers, was the most-watched TV programme over the holiday period (and also the decade!) so we thought we’d give that a go! I loved it, but Ann was to be convinced. Superb cliff-hanger though!😁
8.15pm: Got my fix of EastEnders! Did Mark really kill Keanu? Oh, the suspense! The Internet is full of rumours and counter-rumours!😯
9.30pm: That’s it for today, it’s an early start tomorrow, as we’re heading south😴🥱😴🥱😴🥱
28th December – Bromley: Neil, Debbie, Alfie & Frankie
We headed to Bromley to catch-up with the Palmer Clan today — Debbie, Neil, Alfie and Frankie. Neil had booked us a table at our normal haunt — ASK in Bromley and as usual we did the journey by train.
8.50am: We drove over to Huntingdon Station (Kettering Station is completely closed for an extended period, whilst they upgrade the line). Although the car-park was busy, we found a space about as close to the entrance as possible!
11.52am: All our connections were on time, and we met just outside Bromley South station. After the fifteen-minute slow walk through the ‘high street’, we were soon seated in ASK, in East Street, and studying the menu.
12.10pm: I think we were so busy nattering with each other, the waiting staff had to err… Wait! 😁 Eventually though, we placed our orders, and in typical ASK fashion, it was cooked to order and delivered without too much of a wait.
1.30pm: Our time at ASK passed in a flash. Drinks, Mains for all, Desserts for Neil and for me came to about £125, which we thought was great value. We exchanged Christmas gifts and then took the return walk back to the station.
1.53pm: Talk about perfect timing! On arrival at the station, we said our goodbyes and then caught the connection to Blackfriars with literally seconds to spare! 😮
4.21pm: The rest of our connections also worked out, and we were soon home. It had been great to catch up with ‘The Palmers’! 😍
6.02pm: No rest for us! After a quick catch-up with more of our Christmas TV recordings, the excellent Queen documentary Freddie Mercury: The Great Pretender (thanks Sky Arts!), it was back to the kitchen to finalise things for tomorrow.
7.35pm: With the parsnips pulverised and the pheasant and partridge gently fried-off, all the heavy lifting was now done for tomorrow for the ‘Twixmas’ Lunch!
7.45pm: We finished the evening in front of the TV – this time, Paddington 2 from Boxing Day (BBC1) and the Not Going Out Christmas Special (BBC1).
9.55pm: 💤😴💤😴💤😴
29th December – Lunch at ours: Jo, Janet, Carol, Chris & Pete
7.30am: Bah! Having managed to avoid a cold for the Christmas period, I think it’s finally got me! 😮 But on a positive note, I laid-in until 7.30!! 😁
So, today, it’s our final festive meal, and we’ve invited Jo, Janet, Carol, Chris & Pete round for a slap-up meal. And it wasn’t a case of finishing-up the leftovers either! Meal? More like a banquet, thanks to Ann’s culinary expertise! 😍
11.00am: The table is ready!
A Table for Seven
12.30pm: The gang’s all here, and we’re ready to eat!
3.10pm: And we certainly did! 😁
Wow! What a meal. Ann really excelled herself this time! 😍 And as a bonus for me, in spite of the complexity of the menu, even the washing-up seemed more straightforward 😀
I think we all felt like a nap afterwards (well, that’s what Sunday afternoons are for surely!!??) but instead we nattered and nattered (and nattered!) Possibly, the only thing that pre-occupied our minds more was that Denis had had a fall at home, hurt is back and was waiting with one of the Carers for the ambulance to arrive! 😮
4.45pm: By the time our guests left, Denis was STILL waiting for the ambulance, so we said our goodbyes and quickly jumped on the phone for an update on Denis. Eventually, they took him to Boston, whilst Jet was taken care of by Alan, one of his neighbours.
5.35pm: And whilst we waited for more news on Denis, we headed for the Sly Q planner to catch-up with some more of the recordings from over the Christmas period.
An old but one but a good one! 😂😂
7.15pm: At last, some news about Denis. The ambulance took him to Boston hospital.
9.10pm: No further news on Denis! I tried to distract myself by watching Channel 5’s Susan Hill’s Ghost Story, but I guess I was thinking of other things. I gave up 40 minutes in — I’ll try again, once we know more about Denis’s condition.
9.45pm: 😴💤😴💤
30th December – Lunch at Chris & Gill’s
7.45am: The latest on Denis, as we went to bed last night was that he was at Pilgrim Hospital, Boston, waiting in the ambulance whist they arranged for him being admitted.
10.05am: Some news! Denis is in A & E.
11.55am: We’re off to Chris and Gill’s, and that meant got a break from the cooking… and me from the washing-up! 😁. We took the short drive there and also caught up with Steve and Denise — Abi too!
1.15pm: Another yummy Lunch! Melt-in-the-mouth gammon and a rather splendid Cumberland Sauce thanks the ‘Chefs Amos’
4.15pm: We got back from Chris and Gill’s and awaiting news of Denis. Looks like he’ll be discharged at some point and then move to a respite Care Home. We’ll visit him tomorrow (which was originally our prep-day for friends coming round on New Year’s Day for a meal). So, that meant a bit of hurried re-scheduling, and we headed for… (yes, you guessed it!)
5.05pm: The kitchen! – where we prepped all the vegetables and then laid the table.
7.15pm: Phew! Jobs done! We finished our day and watched a couple more of our Christmas recordings: Cinderella: After Ever After (Sky 1) which was absolutely dire! 😣 and The Great Christmas Bake-off (Channel 4) — much better!
31st December – Boston Pilgrim Hospital & Jo and Janet’s
6.30am: Neither of us slept well as we were thinking about Denis.
8.00am: Again, by way of distraction, I dived into the Christmas TV recordings. This time, I watched the new two-part adaptation of Worzel Gummidge, written by, directed and starring, Mackenzie Crook. What a production! I really enjoyed it and, maybe not surprisingly, it had more than a slight ‘Detectorists’ feel about it! If they don’t make a series out of this, I’ll be surprised! 😁
10.15am: Ann rang Boston Pilgrim Hospital for an update on Denis. It looks like they’re keeping him in for more observations and to ensure his health stabilises.
11.15am: We decided to drive up to the Hospital to see how he was. Just our luck then, as the road was closed just past where we normally turn off for Denis’s, meaning we took a slightly convoluted route to the Hospital!
1.10pm: We eventually arrived! Parking was slightly challenging, but we found a space and then after a quick cuppa, took the lift to floor 6, where we met Becky the Ward Sister for a thorough update.
Denis was as well as could be expected. He was sleepy, but we managed to have short bursts of conversation with him. The room seemed cold, so we got him another blanket and a piping-hot cup of tea to warm him up. I found the cause of the temperature drop – his two windows were ajar and after closing them, the room warmed-up nicely.
The hospital confirmed that there was no hurry to move him into respite care (that’s a relief!) and he was going to stay where was for the time being. We stayed for about an hour attempting to have a conversation, but it was proving difficult as he slipped in and out of slumber.
4.30pm: We had a good journey back, with just enough time to gather our thoughts before joining Janet and Jo at theirs (with Carol) to see in 2020!
6.30pm: We set off for the 300-metre walk to Janet and Jo’s! Janet was cooking and after a natter and a couple of Gin Cocktails, we sat down to an M&S three-fish-roast.
9.00pm: Unusually for us, we were all too full to handle dessert straight after, so we headed for the lounge where J & J had helpfully prepared a shortlist of movies that would get us through to midnight. We planned to enjoy dessert later… and maybe some cheese too!
9.30pm: By a unanimous decision, we settled on the Green Book, the story of a working-class Italian-American bouncer who becomes the driver of an African-American classical pianist on a tour of venues through the 1960s American South.
For us all, it turned out to be one of the more enjoyable movies of 2019…
…where even Oscar enjoyed it! 😻
After a short pause in proceedings, we all managed dessert (eventually!). Ann had taken along Baked Apricot Croissant Pudding and the Plum Crumble from earlier in the holiday! None of us had enough room for the cheeseboard though!
11.52pm: As we readied our glasses for midnight, we tuned-in to BBC1 where Craig David was sweating his way through some of his old staples.
Collectively, it didn’t feel like it was our ‘cup-of-tea’, so, after we watched the fireworks on the stroke of midnight, and did our own rendition of Auld Lang Syne, we switched to ever-reliable Jools Holland’s 2019 Hootenanny on BBC2. Boy! I’m starting to feel my age, as most of the stars, I’d never heard of — Stormzy (OK, I’d heard of him!), Brittany Howard, Eddi Reader, Pauline Black, La Roux, Rick Astley (yes, him too!), Ruby Turner, Tom Walker, YolandaDa Brown, Stereophonics (Yes!) and err… Melanie. It was the same Melanie who gave us; “I’ve got a brand-new pair of roller skates” back in 1971. She struggled with the song, and additionally, the intervening years don’t look as if they’ve been too kind to her.
Actually, Rick Astley aside (who was fab!), all the singers seemed a bit lack-lustre and together with the weird replies from many of the so-called ‘celebs’ in the audience when interviewed, it produced a show that was, in my eyes, a tad disappointing. At one point, even Jools commented that ‘people were off their faces’ – and it certainly looked and sounded like it!
1.10am: Whether it was the music or just our age, but just after 1am, we were done! Janet surprised us all and gave us all new-year presents and with the dessert-leftovers (and our gifts) we said our goodbyes and hobbled up the road.
1.25am: Happy new year! 😴💤😴💤
Well, that’s it for another year. Such a lot of preparation and build-up – and then it seems it’s over in a flash!
Visiting Denis for Christmas Lunch was as enjoyable as ever, but slightly more poignant this year. His health in 2019 has deteriorated rapidly, and it was sad to see how much he’s lost his mojo, compared with this time last year. As I write this post towards the end of the year, I think the whole family is reflecting on his ‘innings’ and recognising that this MIGHT be his last year with us – but having said that, he a tough cookie, so who knows!?!?
It’s felt extra-busy this year (mostly in a good way!). We’ve seen more of our friends, and hosted more meals at ours during the period between Christmas and new year. Luckily, we had more time on our hands than some, and that allowed us to get super-organised (even more than we normally try to be!). Our perfectly ordered plans were somewhat disrupted by a deterioration in Denis’s health towards the end of the break, but that’s just the way it is, and we managed the planned and unplanned aspects without any bother.
Christmas TV was as varied as ever. From the rather excellent adaptation of A Christmas Carol; the predictable EastEnders whodunnit; the dire Dial M for Middlesborough and Cinderella: After Ever After, through to the better-than-I-thought, Gavin and Stacey Christmas Special. Worzel Gummidge was an unexpected treat as was our choice of New Year’s Eve movie – Green Book.
One again, a beautiful selection of gifts from friends and family — I’m always amazed at everyone’s generosity. Merry Christmas!, here’s to next year!!! 😍
Posted on Sunday, 22nd December, 2019 @ 8:00 pm Monday, 23rd December, 2019 @ 7:35 am by Steve Palmer · Leave a comment
Four Seasons in a Day
Reading time: 2 minutes...
To complete our musical-themed weekend that began last night in Warwick, we’re off to Kilworth House this lunchtime, to enjoy a meal and listen to the winners of the National Tribute Music Awards 2016:- ‘Walk Like a Man‘ (aka ‘Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons‘). More information about them HERE.
Kilworth’s Christmas decorations were their usual exceptional high standard, starting with their traditional tree outside the House. The standard continued as we ventured inside.
Last time we were here, was back in November 2018 enjoying another tribute act, Bookends, who (very successfully) recreated the sound of Simon & Garfunkel.
Janet acting as chauffeur got us five there in good time, with Carol arriving separately, not long after. Plenty of time then, to order a couple of bottles of Merlot (at £26 per bottle, but ‘hey!’, it’s Christmas!) and help ourselves to a free glass of mulled wine (or some sort of orangey/mango ‘thing’ for an alcohol-free experience!).
A quick look at the table plan indicated that we were on ‘Table 4’. I answer to many names but from now on you can just call me ‘Soup-Turkey-Tart‘! 😁
In addition to us six, we met Jim and Jan to make up our table of 8. It was Jim’s 65th birthday today, but I think he was trying to play it down!
It’s a well-oiled machine here in The Orangery at Kilworth House and tonight was no exception. The catering staff know exactly what they’re doing, offering first-class table-service, smartly dressed and all with a smile. Best of all, what they served was yummy!
Unlike previous years, where they held the dessert and coffee until the entertainment was finished, tonight was different. They served everything before the entertainment began. That meant the ‘meal part’ lasted some two-and-a-quarter hours.
At 3.45, 2019’s entertainment began. From the off, Walk Like A Man had us clapping and waving our arms (or was that the alcohol??). The ‘ladies’ on the table next door were clearly enjoying themselves slightly more than the rest of us. They had accidentally consumed too much grape-juice, and as a result, were the first to create a dance-space; first to attempt some singing; and worst-of -all best-of-all, first to do a brilliant impression of the witches from Macbeth! 😮🙄🤔 Talk about The Jersey Boys!, these were The Cackle Cousins!! 😊
On a more melodic note, the Concert itself was excellent! The boys belted out classics such as ‘Big Girls Don’t Cry’, ‘Sherry’, ‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off You’, ‘Grease is the Word‘ and pretty much every Frankie Valli/Four Seasons song you can think of! Impressive!! 👍👍 and it was all done powerfully and effortlessly! ‘Frankie’ had a voice that could shatter glass (tight trousers permitting!) and they even managed some limited audience participation – so I’m glad our Table was at the back!
They worked us, the audience, really well. Even though our Table seemed safe, they even got our Carol to dance with one of the group whilst (shock horror) I grooved a bit too! And by the final number, most of us were on our feet – whilst the Cackle Cousins next door were almost on their back! I think the group only planned to do an hour of songs, but the audience were so appreciative, they did five more numbers.
Wow! A fantastic group of singers, who, individually and collectively, had a memorable and authentic sound.
Nice one Kilworth — you impressed us all! Just tidy-up the process for paying for wine at the end, and you’ve got yourself a perfectly organised evening!
Merry Christmas! 🎅🎅🎅🎅🎅🎅
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Mike's Twitter Overflow – Tech, Travel, other stuff
When 280 characters just aren't enough
A new regional peering initiative for the UK?
A few weeks ago, I wondered why a number of posts on my blog which had been quiet for a while saw some renewed interest – the series on regional peering suddenly saw a significant growth in readership – when I received word that there was group forming in Manchester to discuss the subject, instigated by Manchester co-lo operator m247 and involving (my former employer) the largest UK IXP, LINX.
Now it started to make sense…
The meeting seems to have gone hand in hand with LINX stating more widely that it wants to be more involved in UK regional peering, saying that it now realises there is a role for it to play. It has had the ambition for some time, just not been so overt about it, more of this later. LINX also conveniently happen to have a supply of spare 10G-capable ethernet switchgear following the massive network upgrade they executed last year, which might well be at home in a less-complex regional IX, despite it’s age.
LINX has been talking amongst the community about the project, operating under the working title of “IX Manchester”.
However, it seems LINX’s ambitions stretch beyond Manchester itself – extending to facilitating and stimulating interconnect in other regional centres as well. This starts to look a lot like the Netnod structure which has been well proven in Sweden, that of a number of non-interconnected redundant exchanges distributed around the country. I wrote on this organisational co-ordination in Whither Regional Peering – Part 2.
While LINX state one of their motivations for doing more structured regional activity is the London dominance which they feel has inhibited regional IX development, I wonder if folk are in any way concerned about LINX still becoming overly dominant of the UK IXP scene, despite it currently taking the role of facilitator? While LINX is already a big exchange, is it in danger of being a behemoth?
Consider that it already has a robust and mature governance structure in place to manage things, so maybe this contains the in-built checks and balances needed to reassure any concerned parties? Also, this mutual governance structure is one of the big advantages LINX would bring to the party – why re-invent the wheel after all?
If, at some point in the future, there’s concern about a dominant player, or a lack of choice or a dissatisfaction, then people will get together to do something about it.
What does this mean for the growing IXLeeds that I’ve written about before? They’ve already incorporated and have a growing membership, with a governance structure in place. It seems less obvious for LINX to subsume them. I believe that, for the time being, continued independence is likely, but I’ll be watching with interest.
Being able to capture what seems to be one of the main essences of a successful regional exchange – the community behind it – while operating as part of the larger whole will be one of the challenges as well as one of the strengths. Manchester already has the community in existence, it’s keeping it going. What about other locations? Is it “cart before the horse” to build the IX without the roots of the community in place? As LINX are also proposing to “do it right” with non-interconnected exchanges this should create multiple islands of sufficiently diverse interconnectivity to provide real in-country alternatives to London, but will this build build the necessary local community needed to sustain it?
This is why Manchester is not necessarily a difficult proposition to say “yes” to – the potential customers/members for the IX are making the approach and highlighting the vacuum in the local market place. There’s already an ecosystem in place. But, I don’t think I can say the same for many other areas in the UK.
However, one also has to wonder what this might mean for LONAP (in itself born partly out of dissatisfaction with the LINX of the 1990s), and indeed for the diverse (Extreme-powered) LINX LAN in London. London can definitely support more than one IXP – it’s doing that right now – but how might this affect their roles in the UK peering ecosystem? Continue as they were? Or changes in store for them as a result?
But, I do wonder what’s changed the landscape enough to make this step now, as the opportunity had been there more than once before? Can it just be the shove from M247 and friends? I suspect there’s got to be more. The ability to acquire significant international capacity without routing through London might mean the chance to create a truly non-London internet hub in the UK is there for the taking, and is just too good to pass up.
Maybe it’s an alignment of many factors, from availability of hardware and resources, the establishment of a “virtual” AMS-IX PoP in Manchester giving the nudge you get from a competitor on your patch, to changes in how the larger UK ISPs are building their networks (due to fast broadband deployments), a growing “de-Londonisation” trend for hosting content, through to the traffic demands of 2012 and beyond.
I’d be interested to hear what folk think or have to say, so comment away.
While it had been considered during my own tenure at LINX, where I had often previously helped regional IXPs on a more casual basis – usually with technical or professional know-how (such as with setting up IXLeeds), loans of gear, or handling applications for AS numbers and addressing resources (which we did with an attempt at a Scottish IXP) – the timing or mood never seemed right to make this move on the more structured basis on which it’s being proposed today.
Times have changed for sure, such as a regional influence on the LINX Council these days, in the shape of Yorkshire-based expert and ISP entrepreneur Thomas Mangin (who is also a founder and director of IXLeeds).
In any case, for the record, I’m pleased to see the initiative finally being seized. It’s just a shame it’s long overdue from where I’m sitting, and hopefully not too late. Good luck. Maybe my rantings made some sense to someone and weren’t in vain after all…
Author Mike HughesPosted on 24 February 2012 Categories IXP Operations, Opinion, PeeringTags IXLeeds, IXManchester, Leeds, LINX, Manchester, Netnod, Peering, Regional Infrastructure, Regional Peering
One thought on “A new regional peering initiative for the UK?”
Nat Morris says:
I like how New Zealand is so small and has a nice selection of regional IX’s (http://nzix.net/), they even allow members to peer with private AS’s; http://wix.nzix.net/peers.html
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TechGeek Weekly
TECHGEEK Podcast 13: Playbook not playboy…
By Terence Huynh on October 3, 2010
In this week’s TECHGEEK Podcast, we discuss the Playbook, the over-growing number of Android tablets, and Google now has Street View in Antarctica. Yes, that place that is slowly melting away.
Oh, and we got some new sound effects for Stewart’s Briefs… too bad we got a bit over-excited about them.
TECHGEEK Podcast is released every Sunday at midnight – with the exception of today’s episode because I’m feeling out of the blue.
http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/cdn.alfahosts.net/techgeekcomau/podcast/2010/10/rec_techgeekau_02_Oct_2010_podcast.mp3
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BlackBerry 7″ Tablet announced at Developer Conference
http://techgeek.com.au/2010/09/28/blackberry-7-tablet-announced-at-developer-conference/
http://www.cnet.com.au/rim-unveils-playbook-tablet-339306253.htm?feed=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+CNETAustralia+(CNET+Australia)
Samsung Galaxy Tab on sale in UK on November 1, will be available from all major carriers
http://www.engadget.com/2010/10/01/samsung-galaxy-tab-on-sale-in-uk-on-november-1-will-be-availabl/
Dell launching 7-inch Android tablet in ‘next few weeks,’ 10-incher to follow a few months later
http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/29/dell-launching-7-inch-tablet-in-next-few-weeks-10-incher-to-f/
Rumor: An Amazon Android Tablet May Follow The Amazon Android App Store
http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/27/amazon-android-tablet/
Nintendo 3DS release in March 2011
http://www.cnet.com.au/nintendo-3ds-release-in-march-2011-339306295.htm?feed=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+CNETAustralia+(CNET+Australia)
Windows Phone US launch is November 8
http://windowsphonesecrets.com/2010/09/26/windows-phone-us-launch-is-november-8/
HTC Spark leaked in the wild, shows off plenty of WP7 goodness
http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/30/htc-spark-leaked-in-the-wild-shows-off-plentiful-of-wp7-goodnes/
Goldman Sachs says Apple planning thinner iPad with camera, mini USB
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/09/27/goldman_sachs_says_apple_planning_thinner_ipad_with_camera_mini_usb.html
Teardown reveals Apple TV, iPad likeness
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-20018079-64.html
Confirmed: Apple TV can play 1080p content from iTunes, but still only outputs 720p
http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/30/confirmed-appletv-can-play-1080p-content-from-itunes-but-still/
Failures in mobile space cost Steve Ballmer half his bonus
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/09/30/failures_in_mobile_space_cost_steve_ballmer_half_his_bonus.html
Microsoft fights Google over Android
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/news/microsoft-fights-google-over-android/story-e6frg90x-1225933191079?from=public_rss
Android market now open to Aussie apps
http://www.cnet.com.au/android-market-now-open-to-aussie-apps-339306343.htm?feed=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+CNETAustralia+(CNET+Australia)
Facebook’s Foursquare clone launches in Australia
http://www.cnet.com.au/facebook-s-foursquare-clone-launches-in-australia-339306311.htm?feed=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+CNETAustralia+(CNET+Australia)
Sony, Warner, Disney Planning $30 Home Film-Viewing Option
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-27/sony-warner-disney-said-to-plan-30-home-film-viewing-option.html
Google Street View now covers all the continents, including Antarctica
http://dvice.com/archives/2010/09/google-street-v-1.php
http://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF8&t=h&q=Antarctica&layer=c&cbll=-62.595743,-59.901783&panoid=wh0K3pUCdcbN3F9yFSx8aw&cbp=12,155.85,,0,5.29&hq=&hnear=Antarctica&source=embed&ll=-62.595711,-59.901667&spn=0.032276,0.077162&z=14
STEWART’S BRIEFS (Now with sound effects)
Apple TV restores in iTunes via micro-USB, UI hacked onto iPod touch (video)
http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/30/apple-tv-restores-in-itunes-via-micro-usb-ui-hacked-onto-ipod-t/
Six Android browsers enter the ring, only one reigns supreme
http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/30/six-android-browsers-enter-the-ring-only-one-reigns-supreme/
TEGA Tablet v2 release date 12th October
http://techgeek.com.au/2010/10/01/tega-tablet-v2-release-date-12th-october/
Facebook improves Photos, adds high-res image uploads
http://techgeek.com.au/2010/10/01/facebook-improves-photos-adds-high-res-image-uploads/
Wireless USB reaches revision 1.1, makes for smarter and more efficient toys
http://www.engadget.com/2010/10/01/wireless-usb-reaches-revision-1-1-makes-for-smarter-and-more-ef/
TechCrunch gets sold to AOL
http://www.businessinsider.com/aol-techcrunch-price-25-million-2010-9
7PLUS now available on Aussie PS3s
http://techgeek.com.au/2010/09/27/7plus-now-available-on-aussie-ps3s/
Segway company owner dies in apparent Segway accident
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/BUSINESS/09/27/uk.segway.death/?hpt=T2
tgau.co/Pz1j6M
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Home Business Tech Cisco ventures into AI with $125 million MindMeld acquisition
Cisco ventures into AI with $125 million MindMeld acquisition
Alexandra Arici
Networking giant Cisco recently announced plans to purchase yet another startup company. This time the IT leader has set its sights on MindMeld; a small company specializing in Artificial Intelligence. The company was founded in 2011 by Tim Tuttle, a former MIT Scientist. MindMeld’s innovative platform allows developers to create ‘Chat Bots’ also known as Virtual Assistants which have the ability to recognize and respond appropriately to human voices. The acquisition of MindMeld is going to cost Cisco $125 million and is expected to close during the fourth quarter of 2017. The acquisition is part of a larger plan by Cisco, which aims to incorporate MindMeld technology with a total of ten AI and new deep learning related patents into their portfolio, which will be utilized to help advance Cisco Spark as well as many other collaborative projects.
A few years back, MindMeld wanted to create an iPad application that could listen in to users’ conversation and generate contextual suggestions, akin to what Facebook is currently trying to achieve with its ‘M Virtual Assistant’ in the Messenger App. Since then, the company portfolio has expanded to include a series of APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) to help with analyzing and generating language.
In the years since MindMeld was founded, the startup managed to raise approximately $15 million and big household names, such as Google Ventures, Intel Capital, Samsung Ventures, USAA, IDG Ventures USA, Greylock Partners and Bessemer Venture Partners are amongst its investors.
MindMeld also made headlines in 2015, when it provided the technology used to power one of Spotify’s experimental features which enabled music enthusiasts the chance to discover and play new music. Now MindMeld is stepping into the enterprise sector and is ready to embark on an exciting new chapter.
Despite the steady flourish in the Artificial Intelligence technology market over recent years, Cisco’s Vice President of IoT and Applications, Rowan Trollope explained that the company decided to buy MindMeld after noticing the abundance of mediocre robot experiences out there on the market.
Once the acquisition is complete, the MindMeld team will form a new Cognitive Collaboration department under Trollope’s supervision. To begin with MindMeld’s platform will see a future at Cisco as a business videoconference tool used to detect topics of interest and inspire more effective collaboration between group members.
The MindMeld purchase is certainly not Cisco’s first venture into the AI and machine learning field, as it has already set up initiatives in areas that include security, analytics and collaboration. For example, the technology inside Cisco’s Stealthwatch routers and switches transforms the network into a complex sensor that can detect cyber-attacks anywhere on the network and dramatically improve the system’s threat defense. In regards to MindMeld, Cisco wants to delve deeper into the area of enterprise collaboration. With the rising popularity of voice-activated assistants like Apple’s Siri or Amazon’s Alexa, companies like Cisco are looking to integrate AI-driven assistants into business.
News of Cisco’s MindMeld acquisition comes shortly after the company announced that it would also be buying out Viptela; a startup that sells networking technology designed to allow companies to connect their branch offices to corporate data centers. Viptela, which was also founded by former Cisco engineers, will be purchased for the sum of $610 million. However, Viptela and MindMeld aren’t the only small business to be added to the giant Cisco AI takeover this year as the company also plans to take over AppDynamics, a small company which provides tools for monitoring performance.
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The Fresh Take
Keeping you Fresh in the World of Sports
The AAF makes its debut
Date: February 11, 2019Author: Greg Williams 0 Comments
Just when you thought football was over after the Super Bowl, BAM! There’s more football thanks to the American Alliance of Football. I watched some of the AAF games this weekend and it was fun since it’s football, but you can easily tell that the talent isn’t compared to the NFL and most of college football.
Let’s get this straight first, the AAF is not a competitor to the NFL. The 8-team league is trying to make a pitch as a developmental league to the NFL. Just how the MLB has the minor league systems and how the NBA has the G-league. Now, this league isn’t just developing players. The AAF will also develope new ideas in the NFL.
"People want the violence."
— @willcain on the AAF pic.twitter.com/1UZneZiIdo
— First Take (@FirstTake) February 11, 2019
The AAF has similar rules to the NFL, but there’s a few differences. Some of them being is no kickoffs as the ball will be spotted at the 25-yard line, there’s no extra point attempts after a touchdown as teams must go for a two-point conversion, a fourth and 12 conversion replaces the onside kick and blitz limitations as only five players can rush. The kickoff is one of the most dangerous plays in football as more injuries occur and more severe injuries occur as you have two teams running full speed right into each other. The fourth down conversion replaces the onside kick because it’s very rare to see a successful onside kick and it’s safer as not many bodies are running into each other. Lastly, five man rushing limitation makes it safer for the lineman, running back, quarterback and defensive players. The only rule not based on safety is the two-point conversion.
https://twitter.com/BarstoolApollos/status/1094770182587863042
Now, even though the AAF is looking to make the game safer, they still allow huge hits that if it happened in the NFL, the player would receive a penalty, fine and suspension.
https://twitter.com/barstooltweetss/status/1094412185638526976
The AAF also added a sky judge to the game. The sky judge is a reply official who can stop the game on their own and correct any obvious errors. I love this and I feel the NFL should instantly pick up on this. A perfect scenario for this sky judge in the NFL would have been on that obvious non-call pass interference in the NFC Championship game between the Los Angeles Rams and New Orleans Saints.
Better yet, the AAF also decided to let the audience be part of the replay. The TV broadcast will show a mic’d up sky judge and will replay the play and have the official explain what he/she sees and why is that call being overturned or being kept.
Sky Judge at work. AAF have some great ideas. Love this, no kick-offs and no extra points (just 2pt conversion) pic.twitter.com/fvLaJH86VB
— Phil Burns (@FantasyPhill) February 10, 2019
The game is also faster. Alex Kirshner from SBNATION recorded the Birmingham vs. Memphis game from start to end and it was 2 hours and 29 minutes long. Way shorter than an NFL game. This might of happened due to less commercials or since there’s no kickoffs, the teams aren’t switching new units on the field as much.
The AAF debuted this weekend and it was a huge hit as they drew in 2.1 million viewers in their first two games. It might not seem like a lot of people were watching the games on CBS and the NFL Network, but on ABC there was a marquee NBA matchup between the last two MVPs with James Harden’s Houston Rockets and Russell Westbrook’s Oklahoma City Thunder, and that drew in 2 million viewers.
Sources: In its debut night last night, @theaaf beat the NBA on ABC in head-to-head overnight ratings:
AAF Games (2 games, 1 per market): 2.1
Houston-OKC game: 2.0
I’m all in on the AAF. Again, it’s not competing with the NFL as they are just developing players, rules and ideas for the game. It also gives these smaller cities like Memphis, Orlando, Birmingham and more, the game of football, so they can finally watch and experience a football atmosphere. The people want football and the AAF is giving what the people want, up until the middle of April.
Published by Greg Williams
Student at North Central College in Naperville, IL. Voice of North Central Athletics on WONC 89.1 FM. Sports writer for North Central's Chronicle. Giving you hot takes on the freshest topics happening in sports View all posts by Greg Williams
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Home Cannabis More Moms Are Microdosing Marijuana For Health Benefits
More Moms Are Microdosing Marijuana For Health Benefits
By: Terry Hacienda
CannabisMedical MarijuanaNewsRXTVVideoWellness
“Start Low and Go Slow” is a mantra making headway in the marijuana world these days. More and more consumers of cannabis are avoiding the psychoactive “high” the herb is known for and seeking a smaller, more controlled experience.
And this microdosing trend is catching on in a big way among parents of young children. On the Feb. 8 episode of the daytime talk show “The Doctors,” mothers who are taking very small doses of marijuana discuss how microdosing has changed their lives for the better. Much better.
During the program, viewers met Ozzie, a mother of two children and a business owner. She microdoses every day. According to Ozzie, who did not want to use her last name, small amounts of cannabis help her manage her anxiety. She says she considers cannabis to be part of her daily health regimen, and she compares it to someone taking St. John’s Wart.
Related Story: Marijuana Microdosing: What Is It And How Do I Do It?
Ozzie takes her tiny dose of cannabis after her children have left for school. The herbal medicine helps her feel more creative, motivated and has helped in the success of her business. “I’m just a generally happier person,” Ozzie says of her microdosing.
Also appearing on the program is Alexandra, a mom who microdoses to treat migraines. Within 15 minutes of taking a small amount of cannabis, she finds that her headaches begin to clear, Alexandra says. Microdosing allows her to “medicate and still feel in control.”
Related Story: Microdosing Marijuana Gets Even More Micro In Canada
Dr. Dustin Sulak, who treats patients with cannabis, also joined in the discussion. According to Dr. Sulak, this type of treatment is “extremely safe” and non-rewarding, meaning there is not a pro-addictive effect and he says it does not send a pleasure signal to the brain. He says this approach is “like a daily supplement” and claims it works to keep healthy people healthy.
Dr. Sulak admits that mircodosing is guaranteed to promote health, but he says if the cannabis is reducing stress and enhancing someone’s performance that he considers that a “marker of health.”
marijuana microdosing
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UK & Europe +44 (0)20 3457 0545 / North America +1 617 500 8578 / Shanghai, China +86 021 6150 3200
info@thelearningadventure.com
Volunteering, Residential & Sports
Primary/Middle School Residential Trips
Volunteering & Service
Music in South Korea
Starting from £1,300
Starting from €1,470
Speak to a specialist
On this Music school/university trip to Seoul, South Korea, discover Korea’s rich musical history and contemporary scene, from 17th century pansori to K-Pop, taking the West by storm today. With school visits, performances and cultural must-sees, here’s our Music educational tour program at a glance:
Day 1: N Seoul Tower
Day 2: Gyeongbokgung Palace, Bukchon Hanok Village, wear a hanbok, O’Sulloc green tea, Nanta show
Day 3: musical school visit
Day 4: Secret Garden, speak to North Korean defector, royalty-themed restaurant, SM Town Coex Artium K-pop recording studios
Day 5: DMZ, Dora Observatory, Panmunjeom
Day 6: Namdaemun Market, Korean cooking class, Gangnam District, Samsung D’light exhibition, media poles
Day 7: World Taekwondo HQ demonstration, Pansori music performance, Han River cruise
Like what you see? Discover South Korea’s rich musical world in our detailed itinerary below! But remember, all our school trips are completely customisable.
*Prices based on groups of 20 students and 2 free teachers.
✓ Local tour guide in each city
✓ All accommodation costs
✓ Full board meals for the entire trip
✓ All transportation costs, including airport pick-up and drop-off
✓ All activities listed in the itinerary
✓ 1 free teacher per 10 paying students
✓ 24-hour emergency contact support during the trip
✓ Detailed pre-departure summary & briefing
✓ Full financial failure protection
✓ Public liability insurance
✓ Our trips are fully risk-assessed
Day 1: Go Time
Morning/Afternoon
This is it! Step off the plane at Seoul’s Incheon Airport and catch your first glimpses of South Korea on the coach to your accommodation.
After settling in and listening to a trip briefing from your guide, head for Seoul’s second-highest point, the N Seoul Tower. Soak in the incredible views over the metropolis.
Enjoy a group welcome dinner and get ready for the Learning Adventure that awaits.
Day 2: Joseon Dynasty
Start the day with a visit to Gyeongbokgung Palace, the main and largest royal palace of the Joseon Dynasty. Explore the exquisite grounds and learn about its history, then walk to Bukchon Hanok Village. A ‘hanok’ is a traditional Korean house.
You’ve seen the Joseon Dynasty, now it’s time to wear it. Change into a hanbok, which literally translates to ‘Korean clothing’ but refers specifically to the traditional dress worn by both men and women during the Joseon period.
Green tea is very popular in Korea, and there’s no better place to try it than O’Sulloc in Insadong, where they offer green tea ice cream, cakes, coffee… The list is endless!
The evening means show time. Tonight, you’ll watch a hugely popular show called Nanta, a non-verbal comedy show, involving acrobatics, magic and of course a dose of audience participation.
Day 3: Musical Friends
It’s time to see what local life in South Korea is like! Today, you have the chance to make friends with students from a local high school. Spend the day rehearsing a number of arrangements and playing icebreaker games. Once you’ve bonded and prepared, hold a joint musical performance at the end of the day.
Day 4: Royalty & Celebrity
Set out and discover the (not so) Secret Garden behind Changdeokgung Palace. Once a private garden for the royal family, it’s now open to the public who are free to wander among the exquisite lotus ponds, pavilions, landscaped lawns and flowers. You’ll be joined by a North Korean defector, who, whilst walking you through the gardens, will share his stories about the history of the divided peninsula as well as his personal journey from North to South.
Take a break to feast like an emperor for lunch. Pay a visit to a restaurant fit for royalty, one that specializes in a range of dishes inspired by traditional royal recipes.
K-pop’s taking the West by storm, with BTS hitting the top spot in the British album charts. A visit to the SM Town Coex Artium gives you the chance to check out K-pop recording studios and see hologram performances from the genre’s megastars.
Day 5: DMZ
Today, you’re off to the DMZ, the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea. Take in views across the zone from the Dora Observatory and investigate the infiltration tunnel under the DMZ built by the North Koreans. Then, pay a visit to Panmunjeom, the village just North of the de facto border, where the armistice agreement that paused the Korean War was signed.
After a busy day exploring, treat your taste buds to South Korean pizza. Whilst there are more standard options, we recommend eating like the locals. It’s not quite the same as back home. Expect the unexpected: figs, snails, cream cheese… You’ve been warned!
Day 6: Cooking and Tech
First up, set off for the Namdaemun Market, the oldest and largest traditional market in South Korea. Get in amongst the hustle and bustle and scout out some ingredients for the next activity of the morning, a cooking class. Here, you’ll gain a deeper understanding of Korean food and try your hand at making Korean dishes like kimchi or bibimbap.
After eating your delicious creations for lunch, cross the river to Gangnam District and visit Samsung D’light, an exhibition that showcases the latest technology from the electronics giant. Be sure to get to the media poles near Gangnam Station to take stunning photos to show everyone back home.
Day 7: Pansori
Head to Kukkiwon, the World Taekwondo Headquarters. Watch a demonstration of ‘the way of the foot and the fist’ (the literal translation of ‘taekwondo’), a martial art that originated in Korea.
After lunch, prepare to be captivated. Watch a performance of Pansori, a traditional genre of Korean musical storytelling with singing and drumming. ‘Chuimsae’ (audience participation) is a must, so don’t be shy! Clap and dance to show your appreciation.
It’s your last night. Embark on a scenic cruise down the Han River to the Banpo Bridge, a spectacular sight with its rainbow fountains.
Day 8: It’s Not Over!
Take your transfer to the airport, and spend the flight reflecting on your magical week. It might be home time, but it’s not over. Seoul’s soul will follow you back to the classroom…and beyond!
Appreciate South Korea’s rich music scene, from traditional to modern.
Improve on your existing or learn a new musical instrument and perform when you visit a school in Seoul.
Understand the causes and effects of the relationship between North and South Korea.
Where are you based? *
UKUSAEuropeMiddle East East Asia AfricaAustralia Canada South America
By ticking this box, you opt in to receiving marketing updates from The Learning Adventure
To arrange a call or a visit to your school to talk further about any queries or questions you may have, simply send an email to info@thelearningadventure.com and we can set up a time or alternatively call us on:
UK & Europe +44 (0)20 3457 0545
North America +1 617 500 8578
Shanghai, China +86 021 6150 3200
To find out about potential careers at The Learning Adventure please email us at careers@thelearningadventure.com
There are 2 companies running the website: The Dragon Trip PTE LTD (07578980) and The Dragon Trip LLC (1096180).
The Dragon Trip PTE LTD is a member of ABTA and is responsible for taking bookings for educational institutions who choose to book through our UK company.
The Dragon Trip LLC is for educational institutions who choose to book through our US company and is not an ABTA member.
The Shanghai office is our operational office and we also have a China-based company which is not an ABTA member.
© 2019 The Learning Adventure. All Rights Reserved. The Learning Adventure is a trading name of The Dragon Trip PTE LTD.
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Attractions for Kids in Biloxi, Mississippi
Tourism in Biloxi, Mississippi
One-Day Cruises From Biloxi, Mississippi
Serena Brown, Leaf Group Updated October 18, 2017
Riverboat Cruises Near Biloxi, Mississippi
Campgrounds and RV Resorts in Biloxi, Mississippi
Biloxi, a city on the Mississippi coast, has established itself as a tourist destination for its miles of beaches and waterfront casinos. Visitors to the city might also enjoy seeing Beauvoir, the home of Jefferson Davis, the 1848 Biloxi lighthouse and memorials to hurricanes Camille and Katrina. Another way to see the city is by water. Several boat charters offer short trips, including one-day cruises that showcase the coastal scenery, history, marine life and nearby barrier islands.
North Star Sailing Charters
North Star Sailing Charters offers year-round private cruises to customers who want to choose the length and type of cruise experience. North Star is available for special events such as birthdays and anniversaries, dinner cruises, dolphin watching or just cruising the waters of the Mississippi Sound and viewing the Biloxi coastline, barrier islands and marine life. Guests can cruise for a full day, a half day or just a few hours. North Star can accommodate up to six passengers. Prices are based on the number of passengers and the length of the cruise.
Biloxi Schooners
The Biloxi Schooners, operated by the Maritime and Seafood Industry Museum, are authentic replicas of oyster boats used in the city’s seafood trade from the late 1800s to early 1900s. Two schooners are used for charter and walk-on cruising past barrier islands and the city’s coastline. Guests can enjoy the calm waters, view a lovely sunset or keep an eye out for dolphins and other marine life. Two-and-half-hour, half-day and all-day cruises are available for charter groups of up to 44 people. At least six passengers are needed for a walk-on cruise. Prices depend on how long the cruise lasts and how many people ride. Discounted prices are available for kids 12 and under.
Biloxi Shrimping Trip
Before casinos dotted its shoreline, Biloxi was simply a seafood town where the waters were filled with the boats of fishermen, oystermen and shrimpers. Biloxi Shrimping Trip offers an educational cruise aboard the Sailfish for groups of at least 20 people. Though lasting just over an hour, the cruise is packed with things to see and do. Guests will observe the work of shrimpers. Crew members drop a shrimp net, tell guests about its parts and how it works and then share the history of local shrimping. The net is later pulled up, and crew members educate guests about what’s been caught. Guests can use some of the catch to feed pelicans and seagulls and might even see a dolphin looking to catch something. Biloxi Shrimping Trip also offers sunset cruises.
Ship Island Excursions
In Gulfport right next door to Biloxi, you'll find one of the best day cruises in the area, the ferry to Ship Island. Ship Island is part of the extensive Gulf Islands National Seashore. Ship Island Excursions is the authorized concessionaire by the National Park Service that ferries the public to this remarkable island of white sand beaches and historic Fort Massachusetts. The island is 11 miles offshore and takes about an hour to reach.
Maritime and Seafood Industry Museum: Biloxi Schooners
GulfCoast.org: Mississippi Gulf Coast Official Website
Ship Island Excursions: About
North Star Sailing Charters: Contact Us
Maritime and Seafood Industry Museum: Contacts
Biloxi Shrimping Trip: Contact Us
Biloxi Bay Charter
Serena Brown graduated from the University of South Alabama with a bachelor's degree in communication. She has more than 15 years of experience in newspaper, radio and television reporting. Brown has also authored educational, medical and fitness material.
Attribution: Brandonrush; License: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license
Attribution: Woodlot; License: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license
Attribution: Msbeachbum; License: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license
Mississippi River Steamboat Cruises From New Orleans, Louisiana
Mississippi River Boat Tours
RV Parks in Gulfport, Mississippi
Hotels Next to Hard Rock in Biloxi, Mississippi
Mississippi Beach Hotels
Cruises & Cruise Vacations»
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Thomas Kwenaite
Home Football SAFA joins PSL in rejecting ICASA proposals
SAFA joins PSL in rejecting ICASA proposals
Russell Paul during the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations football match between Zambia and Tunisia at the Ebibeyin Stadium, Ebibeyin, Equatorial Guinea on 22 January 2015 ©Gavin Barker/BackpagePix
The SA Football Association (SAFA) has taken note of the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) proposed amendments to the Sports Broadcasting Services Regulations, and like most sporting federations in the country, cannot agree with the proposals.
SAFA commented in. statement released on Saturday that they will vehemently oppose the proposed amendments in the current format, a few days after its professional wing the – Premier Soccer League – threatened to shut down if the amendments were passed.
It is common knowledge that sporting federations in South Africa and the world at large, rely on the sale of their broadcast rights to sustain their development programs and unfunded projects for the growth of the sport – and SAFA is no different in this respect.
SAFA has 9 national teams, 10 interprovincial tournaments, 4 regional leagues across 52 regions and 9 provinces, that it is financially responsible for. In addition, critical SAFA supporting elements to the development of the game includes Referee, Coaching and Administrative structures.
It is therefore very easy to see that the effects of the proposed ICASA regulations will have a devastating effect on the development and growth of football in this country, if SAFA is prohibited from securing the appropriate market related financial value associated with broadcast rights, from prospective broadcasting partners.
One only has to listen to the Chairperson of the National Soccer League to appreciate the effects it will have on their segment of the game, and when you consider the impact he speaks of and the effects it will have on participants of around 2000 (players), all generally living well above the bread line.
So, if the impact on the National Soccer League will be so great, just imagine the effects on SAFA, whose 3 000 000 plus members by and large are either living just on the breadline or generally below the breadline.
“It is clear that ICASA have not considered the effects/impacts of this on sporting federations, let alone the broadcaster (and in this case as they wish to dictate the free to air broadcaster). Neither does it seem they have considered the practically of what they propose, or for that matter the actual role players.
“Let’s just consider the current landscape of free to air broadcasters in South Africa. There is the SABC and eTV (who in this case does not even have a sports footprint, so one is limited to the SABC by and large).
“It is clear that if the SABC was mandated to ensure the live broadcast of the events that ICASA wishes them to broadcast, they would not have sufficient airtime/TV hours to do all of this as and when they occur (despite having 3 channels), as you can only imagine as happens in our country many times over, that Rugby, Cricket and Football National teams can play at the same time on the same day.
“Where will the SABC get the necessary infrastructure (camera’s, OB units, vehicles etc) and Human Resources (cameramen/women etc) to produce – just the aforementioned events- live). And if they do acquire these, it would increase their operational expenses more than 3 fold.
“It would therefore appear that the free to air broadcaster would have to approach the sporting federations to play matches at times which they are not accustomed to, and this then has a further knock on effect.
“Fans wanting to attend these events live would be inconvenienced and as such not be able to attend, thus further affecting commercial revenue for the federations as well as atmosphere at events.”
The effects on not wanting to allow sporting federations to negotiate contracts that offer exclusivity to a broadcaster is also absurd, in that the very essence of deriving greater revenue for the rights holder is exactly this offer of exclusivity.
Ironically, perhaps the greatest unintended consequence of the Regulations, is that it will once and for all remove any possibility for the entry of a new Subscription broadcast competitor to the local market – which as we understand it, was one of the main objectives of the Regulations.
Without the possibility of ever securing exclusive broadcast rights (Pay TV & FTA) for the most sought after sports content in the country, the likelihood of growing a subscriber base is severely limited, particularly now when faced with the added competition from the wrath of unregulated global OTT players, such as Netflix, with budgets that dwarf even the largest of players currently in our market.
It is quite significant through all these debates on the proposed ICASA regulations, that the SABC itself has been quite silent on this matter and not expressed a view, much the same for the other free to air broadcaster eTV, but eTV is probably understandable given their non-existent sports footprint and moreover because they do not have channel/airtime capacity as matters stand.
The SABC have been quite vociferous in their commentary about sports broadcasts, claiming that it costs them millions of rands in displacements costs.
So if they would have to broadcast more sport live, where will they find the airtime/TV hours to broadcast their soapies?
Which again if they are not able to do, will be part of this vicious circle where they lose more money in advertising revenue if they cannot show soapies.
It’s also interesting to note that ICASA lists the IAAF in their proposed regulations, so given that the IAAF is not a federation in South Africa, nor is it an event, how do they plan to regulate them, and exactly what will they be regulating?
The fact that ICASA, in the case of Football, have listed CAF and FIFA matches down, without clarity of which matches these are, also shows ignorance to the sport.
SAFA has over the years been very diligent on compliance with what ICASA had regulated before, ensuring that the masses of our country were able to have access to all of the National Teams and Tournaments. We remain committed to the objective to ensure that the masses will always have access to their national teams as well, but we alone cannot be doing so at the expense of our members, the development of the game and or its growth.
It is well documented that for more than 1 year, SAFA have been in stalled negotiations with the SABC, who refuse to place any market related value on even our senior Men’s and Women’s National Football Teams.
Despite the accolades and awards bestowed on Banyana Banyana, the recent home hosted friendlies against Norway and Sweden were once again not broadcast by the SABC- this despite the offer to do so for free, inclusive of production.
What is somewhat disappointing, is that ICASA engaged on roadshow, speaking to a number of stakeholders around their planned proposal – SAFA being one of them – and whilst they came to hear what we had to say, it is clear that they heard or listened to nothing we told them.
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Thomas Kwenaite - January 20, 2020
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Michele Payn – Farm Girl, Speaker, Author, and Food Enthusiast
by ThomSinger | Dec 22, 2016 | podcast | 0 comments
Check out this episode where you will hear about an entrepreneur’s journey, bull semen, and cow beauty pageants.
Michele Payn personifies passion. Known as one of North America’s leading experts in connecting farm and food, she serves as a resource for people around the plate. Michele encourages all of her clients and audiences to find people’s hot buttons and speak their language – whether it’s growing the conversation between farm gate and food plate, developing strategy, or building an advocacy plan. Widely known as a “change agent,” Michele delivers training programs and motivational keynotes to empower organizations to build connected communities.
Entrepreneur: Utilizing her diverse professional experience in the agricultural, sales and not-for-profit sectors, Michele founded Cause Matters Corp., a company designed to build connections around the food plate, in 2001. Cause Matters Corp. focuses on addressing food myths, developing science communication, and connecting farm to food. In each of these core areas, Michele helps organizations clearly identify issues, understand their audience and grow solutions. Michele’s goal is to help you communicate “why your cause matters” – whether you’re a scientist, dietitian or in agribusiness.
Farm girl. Mom. Science enthusiast: She knows agriculture because she lives agriculture. Payn holds degrees in Agricultural Communications and Animal Science from Michigan State University, where she saw science come to life firsthand as a student worker in the animal reproductive physiology laboratory. Michele is past president of College of Agriculture and Natural Resources Alumni Association and had the impact of her work featured in one of the first Spartan Sagas. Career highlights include a Regional Directorship for the National FFA Foundation, where she sold over $5 million in corporate sponsorships and led campaigns to develop community support for various Foundation expansions. She has also marketed and sold dairy genetics to more than 25 countries, managed e-business accounts and presented training programs in developing countries. Michele still holds her firsthand farm experience as the best contributor to her work.
Her lifelong passion for agriculture stems from childhood; she has been breeding and judging dairy cattle as a registered Holstein breeder since the age of nine and now resides on a small central Indiana farm. She enjoys working on the farm with her daughter, making memories with friends, traveling, coaching 4-H & FFA members and cheering on the Michigan State Spartans.
Author. Food translator: Michele has been baking since she was a young girl, but became a full-fledged foodie when she lived in Italy for a summer. She wrote the two-sided book “No More Food Food Fights! Growing a Productive Farm & Food Conversation” to encourage farm and food people to reach across the plate to find commonalities. Her new book, “Food Truths from Farm to Table: 25 Ways to Shop & Eat Without Guilt” will be released in early 2017 to bring clarity to grocery shopping and address food marketing myths.
Innovator” Michele’s strong belief in community-building and overcoming food insecurity stems from experience on four continents, including working in the Ukraine and Egypt, through United States Agency for International Development (USAID) projects. She has been selected as a Face of Innovation and is also active in her central Indiana community, volunteering with FFA, 4-H, church and school.
Payn continues to hone her skills after helping thousands of people around the world. As a member of the National Speakers Association, Michele is the founder of a professional networking group for generation X and Y speakers. She has earned her Certified Speaking Professional, a designation awarded to CSPless than 10% of professional speakers globally.
Michele founded #AgChat and #FoodChat, a weekly moderated discussion on Twitter, in April 2009. Tens of thousands of people from more than 20 countries have participated in this highly visible conversation around food and farm issues. This community nominated Michele as one of Mashable’s Top Three AgChat FoundationTwitter User’s of the Year in 2009, putting agriculture alongside celebrities. Michele was one of the founding AgChat Foundation’s board members in 2010 to grow the story of farmers, ranchers and agvocates in social media.
Michele measures success in conversations around the food plate by people who are willing to reach out to help make their cause matter. In celebration of this, Cause Matters Corp. awarded 10 food and ag organizations grants on its 10th anniversary. The company will continue that tradition with 15 Cause Forward grants this year in celebration of 15 years of building farm and food connections…stay tuned.
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Eve of Eridu – Review
Sam’s Teen Reads Corner reviews Eve of Eridu by Alanah Andrews
Eve of Eridu, Alanah Andrews
Teen & Young Adult, Dystopian
Michael Terence Publishing (August 13, 2018)
Humanity with Purpose
In a world where emotions are forbidden, what happens when you start to feel?
The harvest separates the worthy from the unworthy. Those who pass are destined to continue the human race, and the unworthy are culled.
For years, Eve has been the poster girl for emotional control. But ever since her brother was culled, Eve is finding it difficult to keep the monitor on her wrist an acceptable blue.
The next harvest ceremony is approaching and Eve will do whatever it takes to avoid the same fate as her brother.
Gripping and intriguing, Eve of Eridu explores the lengths that humans will go to in their quest for survival.
This YA dystopian novel is written by the award-winning speculative writer, Alanah Andrews.
What readers are saying about Eve of Eridu
I think it would be a huge understatement to say that I enjoyed this book. I absolutely love this story. You could say that I’ve gone “old world crazy” for it. I couldn’t put down this intelligent, gripping, dystopian YA science fiction thriller. I read it over just two days. I’m blown away by Alanah’s skill and talent for complex, imaginative world-building, and the ability to create strong and realistic, relatable characters, all while weaving an intriguing storyline with a profound message. Alanah is an incredibly talented writer. Definitely, one to watch! I look forward to reading more of her work. I gave it five stars only because I couldn’t give it more. – 5 star Amazon review by Monnath Books
Amazing. Amazing. Amazing. Amazing. I honestly can’t fault this book at all! Eve is such a likeable character and I went through every single emotion she felt with her, even ending the book with a giant sense of loss about all Eve has been through. Alanah is an amazing writer, with a great eye for descriptions and imagery. This is one of those books that I can already see being made into a movie. – 5 star Amazon review
Eve of Eridu seems inspired by dystopian styles, but it has its own voice. I found myself easing into the story, enjoying every chapter, and looking forward to the next. Alanah Andrews has an engaging style of writing that is neither too much introspection or too heavy on action. If you enjoy light dystopian reads, then this book would be a great addition to your TBR list. – 5 star Goodreads review
I found this hard to put down at times and I’m hoping this will be a series – 5 star Goodreads Review
Fans of popular dystopian novels would definitely eat this one up. It kind of reminded me of The Giver mixed with Divergent.
Alanah Andrews grew up with a steaming mud pool in her back yard – so it’s no wonder that she writes speculative fiction! Alanah has won several awards for short stories, including the Avid Reader’s Flash Fiction Prize, Birdcatcher Books Short Story Award and Sweek Short Story Competition.
Her work has been published in anthologies such as Hammond House’s ‘Eternal,’ Lane Cove Literary Awards Anthology and Birdcatcher Books’ ‘Mosaic.’ Her writing has been recognized internationally, including being read aloud at LitFest Pasadena, California, as a finalist for the Roswell Award.
Alanah specialized in creative writing at Monash University where she studied a BA in Professional Communication. She also has a Master of Teaching and loves being able to foster a love of reading in her students. She currently teaches English in Australia.
Alanah has published a book of short stories ‘Beyond,’ and has a YA dystopian novel coming out in August.
Don’t forget to subscribe to Sam’s Teen Reads Corner on YouTube…
Eve of Eridu is a dystopian novel filled with danger, even though it was a wee bit boring. It’s still good, though. Don’t get me wrong on that.
Emotion. In the underground land of Eridu, it’s forbidden. Emotion leads to war in the old world. Emotion leads to death. Now, Eve has lost her brother. She’s begun to feel. Knowing that this will lower her chances in Eridu, she does everything in her apathetic power to control it. Sam, an informer, and someone she should stay far away from isn’t helping.
Really, I don’t have much to say about this book. I was bored with it, but I read it so I could get the review out for this for people who like dystopian novels. I was lost by the ending. It was a cliffhanger, but it was confusing how she made a promise to somebody that she wasn’t even friends with, and wasn’t culled despite being so low on the leaderboard. I don’t get how a little tiny foldable screen doesn’t break when you fold it.
In the section of things that I liked, well, I have a couple of things on the list. I liked how Eve falls in love with somebody who’s been brought back from the Grid (read the book to learn more). It brings a nice lil’ twist to the story. Although, can somebody please explain why Sam was telling Eve all of his secrets in one night? Please?
This book is available from Amazon in Kindle, and Paperback editions. [affiliate link]
Tags: Book ReviewBook ReviewsSam's Teen Read CornerScience FictionYA DystopianYA FictionYA Science Fiction
Assassin 13 – Review
Wishes in a Bottle
Serafina and the Splintered Heart – Review
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U.S. Embassy in Costa Rica reopens following ‘security situation’ in Pavas [Updated]
PHOTOS: The American Colony’s 56th annual Fourth of July picnic
US Ambassador to Costa Rica: Embassy will remain at forefront of LGBT issues
US Senate (finally) confirms S. Fitzgerald Haney as new ambassador to Costa Rica
Costa Rica not alone as it waits for a new US ambassador
U.S. Embassy conducting consular outreach event in Golfito
The Tico Times January 15, 2020 January 15, 2020
The Great Seal of the United States. (Via the U.S. Embassy.)
The United States Embassy in San José, Costa Rica has announced a consular event to provide routine services for U.S. citizens in Golfito, Puntarenas.
Below is the message from the U.S. Embassy.
To RSVP for passport renewals, notary services, and federal benefits inquiries, please indicate your preference by writing to ACSSanJose@state.gov. Any applicable fees must be paid in cash in Colones. No checks, credit cards, or U.S. dollars can be accepted.
Golfito:
WHEN: Thursday, January 30, 2020
1:30 pm to 2:00 pm: Town Hall for Citizen Services Information
2:00 pm to 4:00 pm: Citizen Services for Passport Renewals, Federal Benefits Inquiries, Voting Assistance, and Notarials.
WHERE: Fish Hook Marina and Lodge
Adult Passport Renewals: 67,700 colones. To be eligible, you must present a 10-year passport that is valid or expired less than five years ago. You will need to submit a DS-82 form and a 2”-by-2” passport photo with a light-colored background. We cannot process applications for lost/stolen passports, or renewals for applicants under age 16. We also cannot accept photos that do not conform to the prescribed standards. Please be sure your photos conform to the official standards found here: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/passports/requirements/photos.html.
To utilize Embassy San Jose’s courier return service, go to the below link and complete the online form. The information submitted must match the identity of the applicant and correspond with a recent passport service. https://www.correos.go.cr/webservicios/US_services/
Please include your current phone number and email address, as you will be contacted by Correos de Costa Rica directly once your passport is ready. If the payment is accepted, an invoice will be sent to your email address. Alternatively, you may save your invoice in PDF format for printing.
Upon receipt of your invoice, please forward it to passportreturnsanjose@state.gov to ensure we flag your passport for courier return.
Notary Services: 30,800 colones per seal. The presence of the person requesting the notary and legal proof of identity are required.
Federal Benefits and Voter Assistance: We will also accept applications for replacement Social Security cards and will have informational material on Federal Benefits for Veterans, Dependents, and Survivors, as well as voter registration applications.
To learn more about U.S. Embassy San Jose’s American Citizen Services, go to https://cr.usembassy.gov/u-s-citizen-services/. You may contact us at ACSSanJose@state.gov.
In honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the U.S. Embassy and its consular services will be closed Monday, Jan. 20.
U.S. Embassy in Costa Rica warns of phone fraud
U.S. Embassy safety tips for international tourists and residents in Costa Rica
Embassies advise U.S. citizens to ‘keep a low profile’ due to Middle East tension
GolfitoU.S. EmbassyU.S. Embassy in San JoséUS Embassy
Costa Rica’s Legislative Assembly votes to regulate strikes in response to country-wide protests
Costa Rican firefighters prepare for start of country’s wildfire season
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Proviruses of avian sarcoma virus are terminally redundant, co-extensive with unintegrated linear DNA and integrated at many sites
Stephen H. Hughes, Peter R. Shank, Deborah H. Spector, Hsing Jien Kung, J. Michael Bishop, Harold E. Varmus, Peter K. Vogt, Martin L. Breitman
We have analyzed the DNA from 15 clones of avian sarcoma virus (ASV)-transformed rat cells with restriction endonucleases and molecular hybridization techniques to determine the location and structure of proviral DNA. All twenty units of proviral DNA identified in these 15 clones appear to be inserted at different sites in host DNA. In each of the ten cases that could be sufficiently well mapped, entirely different regions of cellular DNA were involved. Thus ASV DNA can be accommodated at many positions in cellular DNA, but the existence of preferred sites has not been excluded. Six of the 15 clones carry only one normal provirus, two contain two normal proviruses, and seven harbor either one or two proviruses that appear anomalous in physical mapping tests. Both ends of at least 18 proviruses, however, were found to contain sequences specific to both the 3′ and 5′ termini of viral RNA. The organization of these terminally redundant sequences appeared identical to that of the 300 base pair (bp) repeats found at the ends of unintegrated linear DNA (Shank et al., 1978). Proviral DNA is therefore co-extensive, or nearly co-extensive, with unintegrated linear DNA and has a structure we denote as CELL DNA-3′5′-3′5′-CELL DNA. Three of the four anomalous proviruses which were fully analyzed were deletion mutants lacking 25-65% of the genetic content of ASV; the fourth provirus had a novel site for cleavage by Eco RI but was otherwise normal. Tests for the biological competence of proviral DNA, based upon rescue of transforming virus after fusion with chicken cells, were generally consistent with the physical mapping studies.
Avian Sarcoma Viruses
Proviruses
Deoxyribonuclease EcoRI
Viral RNA
Ports and harbors
Hughes, S. H., Shank, P. R., Spector, D. H., Kung, H. J., Bishop, J. M., Varmus, H. E., ... Breitman, M. L. (1978). Proviruses of avian sarcoma virus are terminally redundant, co-extensive with unintegrated linear DNA and integrated at many sites. Cell, 15(4), 1397-1410. https://doi.org/10.1016/0092-8674(78)90064-8
Proviruses of avian sarcoma virus are terminally redundant, co-extensive with unintegrated linear DNA and integrated at many sites. / Hughes, Stephen H.; Shank, Peter R.; Spector, Deborah H.; Kung, Hsing Jien; Bishop, J. Michael; Varmus, Harold E.; Vogt, Peter K.; Breitman, Martin L.
In: Cell, Vol. 15, No. 4, 01.01.1978, p. 1397-1410.
Hughes, SH, Shank, PR, Spector, DH, Kung, HJ, Bishop, JM, Varmus, HE, Vogt, PK & Breitman, ML 1978, 'Proviruses of avian sarcoma virus are terminally redundant, co-extensive with unintegrated linear DNA and integrated at many sites', Cell, vol. 15, no. 4, pp. 1397-1410. https://doi.org/10.1016/0092-8674(78)90064-8
Hughes SH, Shank PR, Spector DH, Kung HJ, Bishop JM, Varmus HE et al. Proviruses of avian sarcoma virus are terminally redundant, co-extensive with unintegrated linear DNA and integrated at many sites. Cell. 1978 Jan 1;15(4):1397-1410. https://doi.org/10.1016/0092-8674(78)90064-8
Hughes, Stephen H. ; Shank, Peter R. ; Spector, Deborah H. ; Kung, Hsing Jien ; Bishop, J. Michael ; Varmus, Harold E. ; Vogt, Peter K. ; Breitman, Martin L. / Proviruses of avian sarcoma virus are terminally redundant, co-extensive with unintegrated linear DNA and integrated at many sites. In: Cell. 1978 ; Vol. 15, No. 4. pp. 1397-1410.
@article{af9dbc20c2fb4999bd3ca69f4568f79b,
title = "Proviruses of avian sarcoma virus are terminally redundant, co-extensive with unintegrated linear DNA and integrated at many sites",
abstract = "We have analyzed the DNA from 15 clones of avian sarcoma virus (ASV)-transformed rat cells with restriction endonucleases and molecular hybridization techniques to determine the location and structure of proviral DNA. All twenty units of proviral DNA identified in these 15 clones appear to be inserted at different sites in host DNA. In each of the ten cases that could be sufficiently well mapped, entirely different regions of cellular DNA were involved. Thus ASV DNA can be accommodated at many positions in cellular DNA, but the existence of preferred sites has not been excluded. Six of the 15 clones carry only one normal provirus, two contain two normal proviruses, and seven harbor either one or two proviruses that appear anomalous in physical mapping tests. Both ends of at least 18 proviruses, however, were found to contain sequences specific to both the 3′ and 5′ termini of viral RNA. The organization of these terminally redundant sequences appeared identical to that of the 300 base pair (bp) repeats found at the ends of unintegrated linear DNA (Shank et al., 1978). Proviral DNA is therefore co-extensive, or nearly co-extensive, with unintegrated linear DNA and has a structure we denote as CELL DNA-3′5′-3′5′-CELL DNA. Three of the four anomalous proviruses which were fully analyzed were deletion mutants lacking 25-65{\%} of the genetic content of ASV; the fourth provirus had a novel site for cleavage by Eco RI but was otherwise normal. Tests for the biological competence of proviral DNA, based upon rescue of transforming virus after fusion with chicken cells, were generally consistent with the physical mapping studies.",
author = "Hughes, {Stephen H.} and Shank, {Peter R.} and Spector, {Deborah H.} and Kung, {Hsing Jien} and Bishop, {J. Michael} and Varmus, {Harold E.} and Vogt, {Peter K.} and Breitman, {Martin L.}",
journal = "Cell",
publisher = "Cell Press",
T1 - Proviruses of avian sarcoma virus are terminally redundant, co-extensive with unintegrated linear DNA and integrated at many sites
AU - Hughes, Stephen H.
AU - Shank, Peter R.
AU - Spector, Deborah H.
AU - Kung, Hsing Jien
AU - Bishop, J. Michael
AU - Varmus, Harold E.
AU - Vogt, Peter K.
AU - Breitman, Martin L.
N2 - We have analyzed the DNA from 15 clones of avian sarcoma virus (ASV)-transformed rat cells with restriction endonucleases and molecular hybridization techniques to determine the location and structure of proviral DNA. All twenty units of proviral DNA identified in these 15 clones appear to be inserted at different sites in host DNA. In each of the ten cases that could be sufficiently well mapped, entirely different regions of cellular DNA were involved. Thus ASV DNA can be accommodated at many positions in cellular DNA, but the existence of preferred sites has not been excluded. Six of the 15 clones carry only one normal provirus, two contain two normal proviruses, and seven harbor either one or two proviruses that appear anomalous in physical mapping tests. Both ends of at least 18 proviruses, however, were found to contain sequences specific to both the 3′ and 5′ termini of viral RNA. The organization of these terminally redundant sequences appeared identical to that of the 300 base pair (bp) repeats found at the ends of unintegrated linear DNA (Shank et al., 1978). Proviral DNA is therefore co-extensive, or nearly co-extensive, with unintegrated linear DNA and has a structure we denote as CELL DNA-3′5′-3′5′-CELL DNA. Three of the four anomalous proviruses which were fully analyzed were deletion mutants lacking 25-65% of the genetic content of ASV; the fourth provirus had a novel site for cleavage by Eco RI but was otherwise normal. Tests for the biological competence of proviral DNA, based upon rescue of transforming virus after fusion with chicken cells, were generally consistent with the physical mapping studies.
AB - We have analyzed the DNA from 15 clones of avian sarcoma virus (ASV)-transformed rat cells with restriction endonucleases and molecular hybridization techniques to determine the location and structure of proviral DNA. All twenty units of proviral DNA identified in these 15 clones appear to be inserted at different sites in host DNA. In each of the ten cases that could be sufficiently well mapped, entirely different regions of cellular DNA were involved. Thus ASV DNA can be accommodated at many positions in cellular DNA, but the existence of preferred sites has not been excluded. Six of the 15 clones carry only one normal provirus, two contain two normal proviruses, and seven harbor either one or two proviruses that appear anomalous in physical mapping tests. Both ends of at least 18 proviruses, however, were found to contain sequences specific to both the 3′ and 5′ termini of viral RNA. The organization of these terminally redundant sequences appeared identical to that of the 300 base pair (bp) repeats found at the ends of unintegrated linear DNA (Shank et al., 1978). Proviral DNA is therefore co-extensive, or nearly co-extensive, with unintegrated linear DNA and has a structure we denote as CELL DNA-3′5′-3′5′-CELL DNA. Three of the four anomalous proviruses which were fully analyzed were deletion mutants lacking 25-65% of the genetic content of ASV; the fourth provirus had a novel site for cleavage by Eco RI but was otherwise normal. Tests for the biological competence of proviral DNA, based upon rescue of transforming virus after fusion with chicken cells, were generally consistent with the physical mapping studies.
JO - Cell
JF - Cell
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TNSTC – Tirunelveli is the public transport bus operator mainly in the districts of Tirunelveli, Thoothukudi, Kanyakumari. TNSTC – Tirunelveli was formed with merger of erstwhile KTC Kattabomman Transport Corporation and NTC Nesamony Transport Corporation.
Kattabomman Transport corporation ( KTC ) currently TNSTC Tirunelveli was incorporated on 01.01.1974 after taking over 106 buses operated in this districts from Pandian Roadways Corporation ( PRC ) came in to existence with Nagarcoil as its Head Quarters. Later in 1983 buses served in Kanyakumari district was taken and formed Nesamony Transport Corporation ( NTC ). After formation of NTC, KTC HQ was transferred from Nagercoil to Tirunelveli.
In 1997 when Tamilnadu government decided to change the name of every corporation to TNSTC. KTC became TNSTC – Madurai Region II and NTC to TNSTC – Madurai Region III and new coding for buses started for KTC it started with R and next letter A, B denoted each depot, and for NTC it is same with S. slowly these codings were went off.
To bring efficient administration and services TNSTC Tirunelveli was formed with HQ at Tirunelveli came into picture on October 23 2010, taking buses from operational area of Tirunelveli, Thoothukudi, Kanyakumari additionaly took Sencottah Depot from Virudhunagar Region with Regional offices at Tirunelveli and Nagercoil. on June 20 2013, a new regional office at Thoothukudi opened for better operations.
Registration Nos: TN – 72, TN – 74.
Presently TNSTC – Tirunelveli operates city buses in three important cities ( Tirunelveli, Thoothukudi, Nagercoil ) of Tamilnadu. It also operates long distance services from Kaliyakavilai, Mathandam, Kanyakumari, Nagercoil, Sencottah, Tenkasi, Tirunelveli, Thiruchendur, Thoothukudi to Tiruppur, Coimbatore, Salem, Trichy, Velankanni areas.
It has the pride of operating a long run mofussil 3×2 seater from Kuzhithurai 1 Depot on Kaliykavilai – Velankanni 519 Kms within TamilNadu.
Head Office : Tirunelveli.
Tirunelveli region has its body building unit at Samathanpuram, Palayamkottai. Nagercoil region’s Body building unit is located at Ranithootam, Nagercoil.
Tirunelveli : Tamarabarani, Bypass, K.T.C. Nagar, Valliyoor, Thisayanvilai, Papanasam, Tenkasi, Sencottah, Puliyankudi, Sankarankovil, Cheranmahadevi.
Nagercoil: Ranithootam-1, Ranithootam-2, Ranithootam-3, Chettikulam, Kanyakumari, Vivekananthapuram, Thingal Nagar, Culachel, Tiruvattar, Marthandam, Kuzhithurai-1, Kuzhiturai-2.
Thoothukudi: Thoothukudi City, Thoothukudi Mofussil, Thiruchendur, Srivaikundam, Kovilpatti, Vilathikulam.
Moffussil: Normal, SFS Super Fast Service, TSS Time Saving Service, EEE END TO END Express, 1 to 1, BPR Bypass Rider, Hill Rider(9M Chasis).
TNSTC – Tirunelveli operates hill riders to Manjolai, Kothayar, Kutharivetti. Kutharivetti has a special this bus is the one and only in asia to climb a height of 2200 feet from sea level. A public Transport bus taking passenger at a greater height, total 85 Kms takes 04:30 hrs to reah the place.
TN-72N-0959 of Papanasam Depot Route 133 Tirunelveli – Kuthiravetti via Ambai, Kalidai, Manimutharu, Manjoli, Oothu.
EEE END TO END Express
EEE operated between Tirunelveli to Nagercoil and Tirunelveli to Thoothukudi in between they are NonStop.
TN-74N-1611 of Ranithootam 1 Depot Route EEE Nagercoil – Tirunelveli.
TN-72N-1796 of Tenkasi Depot Route 1 to 1 Non Stop Tenkasi – Tirunelveli.
BPR Bypass Rider
TN-72N-1897 BPR of Thiruchendur Depot Route Thiruchendur – Coimbatore.
368 thoughts on “TNSTC – Tirunelveli”
Manoharan on November 3, 2014 at 4:14 PM said:
I was looking for a setc or tnstc bus from Madurai to Sathankulam but did not get one bus operating from Madurai
senthil on November 15, 2014 at 8:00 AM said:
no straight buses from mdu. u hav to reach tvl from mdu and from there there are many buses operating to sathankulam
jeyachandrakannan on November 29, 2014 at 4:15 PM said:
hi., at what time tiruchendur bus start from bangalore?
tn70b on December 24, 2014 at 8:00 PM said:
Sivaraman on February 24, 2019 at 4:17 PM said:
Timings of 1 to 1 buses from Tirunelveli to Madurai. Thanks.
NAGARAJAN on December 7, 2014 at 10:16 PM said:
IS THERE BUS FROM TIRUCHIRAPALLI to TIRUCHENDUR? Timings please.
Arun on December 8, 2014 at 12:37 PM said:
Mor 09:30, 10:00, Afternoon 03:15, Night 09:30 or you can board any SETC which is coming from Chennai – Thiruchendur after 11P.M.
Reshma Ramakrishnan on December 18, 2014 at 12:38 PM said:
I need a sect or tnsct bus from thirunelveli to nagercoil after 2pm.is there any bus?
Arun on December 18, 2014 at 12:49 PM said:
There are plenty of Buses from Tirunelveli you can board a END TO END Express EEE which plies NONStop between Destinations every 15 minutes there is a EEE.
ponmani selvan on December 22, 2014 at 3:52 PM said:
Hai, Can you please list the timings of hill riders from and to tirunelveli new bus stand? I would like to travel to Manjolai and Kuthiraivetti and return within a day. So, please ‘the complete list of timings’!! Thanks:-)
Arunkumar on July 10, 2018 at 4:29 PM said:
Is there is bus from tenkasi to Tirunelveli in morning 4 am
njerald on December 23, 2014 at 3:43 PM said:
refused to stop the bus & not paid the balance
Today I travelled in route number 5B Nagercoil bus around 2.15 PM from Vellmodi to Ranithottam. In that particular bus I had taken ticket to Ranithottam by giving Rs.10/-. the conductor refused to give the balance Rs.3. the ticket number 075073. Then the bus was not stopped at Ranithottam without caring the shout of the passangers the driver stopped the bus at Mathias Nager(near Collectorate). please take necessary action
The list of hill riders pls…
Arun on December 25, 2014 at 8:38 AM said:
TN-72N-0956,0957,0959 from Papanasam Depot are the three hill rider buses serving to Kuthiraivetti and Kothayar via Manimutharu, Manjolai. this buses will be in rotation. The first bus to Kuthiraivetti is 02:45A.M. from Tirunelveli.
ponmani selvan on December 26, 2014 at 8:03 AM said:
moorthy on December 27, 2014 at 8:38 PM said:
is there any bus from ambasamudram to kuthiravetty after 8 am… /
mathankumar on December 28, 2014 at 8:37 AM said:
when will takeup to srivilliputhur bus from theni
Thulasinathan on January 3, 2015 at 4:55 AM said:
Hi, i am from vellore. I would like to visit Thirparappu Falls. I will reach Kuzhithurai Railway station at 1045hrs thru Kanyakumari express. Please kinly guide me to reach Thirparappu falls from Kuzhithurai Railway station. Thanks
Arun on January 4, 2015 at 5:23 PM said:
From Kuzhiturai Railway station you can reach Marthandam Busstand by 10 mins walk from Marthandam you can take 89 to Kulasekaram., from Kulasekaram junction you can get 13F bus or minivan to Thirparappu it is the easiest way or you have to wait for direct buses either to Kaliyal or Kadayloomoodu from Marthandam it will pass through falls.
Thulasinathan on January 4, 2015 at 8:16 PM said:
Thank you sir. I was thinking the same way. But i was not aware of the bus routes such as 89 and 13F. Thanks for the details given.
kumar on January 6, 2015 at 5:06 PM said:
Can anyone provide info related to bus timing from Tirunelveli to TIruchendur
There are frequent buses to Thiruchendur every 10 minutes
kumar on January 7, 2015 at 2:53 AM said:
Thanks for the reply, do you know if the bus stops at Tirunelveli railway station. We arrive at Tirunelveli railway station at 5 am, and want to know if there will be a bus available during that time. Else, we have to rely on cabs
Arun on January 7, 2015 at 10:45 AM said:
From Tirunelveli Railway Station exit straight road you can reach Tirunelveli Junction City Busstand in 5mins walk from city Busstand you can get Bus no 1 & 2 to Tirunelveli New Busstand from there you can board a bus to Thiruchendur freq every 10 mins.
Parameswaran K on February 10, 2015 at 11:19 AM said:
Can you let me have bus services timings to & from Sundarapandiapuran to Tenkasi & tirunelveli ?
Arun on February 10, 2015 at 10:13 PM said:
Sorry we dont have correct timings as of now.
Vinoth Peter on February 10, 2015 at 10:45 PM said:
hi. i will come to madurai soon.
i wanna go from madurai airport to nellai bus stand. so, please tell the bus routes and fares .
please help this
Arun on February 11, 2015 at 11:34 AM said:
There is no proper bus from Airport, you can get a taxi from Airport to Ringroad Jn., Board a TNSTC Tirunelveli Bypass Rider Buses fare is RS 105/-
Siva Kumar on August 12, 2016 at 6:10 PM said:
Hello,The Bus charge of Tiruchendur to is ₹10. Also, to Sivanthi Aditanar College of engineering and to Tiruchendur old bus stand, it’s charge is also ₹10. Please note this, and make a lower charge.
Yuvesh Kumar s on September 29, 2017 at 7:09 AM said:
I want to know is the bus timings from Tiruchendur to Kanyakumari and Tiruchendur to Rameswaram. Direct buses r available are need to switch over pls. Reply.
sekar on February 13, 2015 at 3:34 PM said:
Can anyone please provide info related to bus timing from kanyakumari to Tiruchendur
Arun on February 21, 2015 at 7:57 PM said:
There are very few buses from Kanyakumari to Thiruchendur., from Kanyakumari you have to get bus to Anjugramam., from anjugramam you can get bus to Thiruchendur.
pp on February 16, 2015 at 2:35 PM said:
Is there any bus from kottarakara to tirunelveli or from kollam to tirunelveli. Please give the timings also.
there are buses from Kottarakara to Tirunelveli which comes from Ernakulam and Kollam.,
Sivakumar on February 28, 2015 at 6:46 PM said:
any buses from Tirunelveli to Tirupati
Arun on March 1, 2015 at 8:52 AM said:
From Nellai there is direct buses at 3 PM and 6:30 PM this buses take straight route.
V Sreenivasa Perumal on March 13, 2015 at 3:09 PM said:
Dear sir, when I visited in my native place at Thirunelveli dist near the village kodiyan kulam , the bus which I travelled horrible condition like seats torn off , broken roofs, noisy engine and total the bus was rattling contention and not fit for travel. i even tried to contact customer grievances phone no mentioned in the bus but it was of no use as no one responded to that call. I even checked with driver and conductor and was shocked to hear that this phone does not work and no one answers it. It is kept for name sake and they shared this information with utmost grief. Hence as a Citizen it is my duty to keep you informed about this anomoly and would request your immediate interention in this matter to set right the things in order so that passengers do not face this hardship in future. It is pathetic that if this situation continues it will severely impact senior citizens and pregnant ladies and even result in loss of their lives.
It is shameful to have a telephone number which does not at all function and no one is seated to answer the calls.
This is clear case of fooling the passengers and it a loss for our country and Hence, on behalf of passengers request you to set right things on war footing.
VSPerumal. Mumbai.
Arun on March 13, 2015 at 10:09 PM said:
Mr.VS perumal this is not a compliant site of TNSTC., this is run by group of people who loves TNSTC., there are many silent watchers from Administration and they will read your compliants., we will also raise this issue to the concern authorities.
Thulasinathan on March 13, 2015 at 10:31 PM said:
Dear Perumal, you may mention the bus registration number in your blog, so that any relevant person sees this blog can easily identify that bus. Also mention the useless phone number also then others may also aware of it. Your blog seems most general. And nobody could identify it.
But you can appreciate our TNSTC buses for the tickets fares are very cheaper than mumbai’s BEST buses. Isn’t it? Nowhere in India you can find so cheaper fare on a public transport!! We Love TNSTC.
Chakaravarthy on March 13, 2015 at 10:54 PM said:
Is thr any bus from Nagercoil to Tiruchendur?If yes please provide the timings
There are frequent Buses in every 20 mins to Thiruchendur board Bus no 576 it will take Valliyoor, Thisayanvilai, Sathankulam route.
How much tym it ll take to reach tiruchendur?
2.5Hrs to 3 Hrs
Thank u very much
vishnu on March 17, 2015 at 7:14 PM said:
sir our route bus no;FP350 thriparappu aruvi-kanyakumari bus was not regular and not at time .
V K Rajan on March 25, 2015 at 5:47 PM said:
Kindly let me know the SFS or End to End bus timings from tirunelveli to rajapalayam. Also intimate the bus timings from tirunelveli to theni. thanq.
Arun on March 25, 2015 at 7:52 PM said:
There is no END to END in Rajapalyam Route there are frequent buses in Tirunelveli – Rajapalayam route in every 10m. Dont wait for Theni Bus at Nellai they are only at peak hours you can change over bus at Rajapalayam.
Saravanan on March 27, 2015 at 12:42 PM said:
Kindly let me know whether any bus available at morning 4.30 A.m from Tirunelveli to Tiruchendur. what is the frequency of bus services from Tirunelveli to Tiruchendur
There are frequent buses in Thiruchendur Route for every ten minutes board a SFS it will go fast and skip some towns in between.
p.paramasivam on April 2, 2015 at 5:10 PM said:
sir/madem,
poondhamalli to tirunelveli route and timings, bus number please
Arun on April 2, 2015 at 9:29 PM said:
SETC is there from CMBT – Tirunelveli Route No 180UD there are frequent buses other than that there are buses to Nagercoil, Marthandam, kanyakumari which passes through Tirunelveli.
T. Mannaraja, Senior Inspector. on April 22, 2015 at 11:36 AM said:
give me New MD name and address with qualification
Sir this is not official website, this site is run by team of people who loves TNSTC, this is like a public service to the people by providings timings and other details on our observations.
J W Diaz on April 27, 2015 at 3:13 PM said:
sir, please give the bus timings from tirunelveli to kodaikanal
Arun on May 5, 2015 at 12:28 PM said:
Morning 07:30
Syed on April 28, 2015 at 9:04 PM said:
I am planning to travel to tirunelveli from chennai. Are these ultra delux buses are good. I have red somewhere that there are bed bugs and we cannot sleep at all. (THose reviews were old though) How about the AC bus? Are they new and good for travel. I have never travelled in TNSTC. Please advice
There are buses running in good conditions now A/C buses are very low in numbers and they will be full always.
shakthi on May 2, 2015 at 4:40 PM said:
is there any buses from tirunelveli to trivandrum ?
There is no direct bus from Tirunelveli, you have to take the long run buses from Trichy and chennai are available, you can take a END to END bus from Tirunelveli to Nagercoil from there are plenty of buses to Trivandrum every 5 mins
r. shankar on May 6, 2015 at 4:50 PM said:
Reaching Tirunelveli Jn early morning 5 am. How to reach Alwarkurichi. From which bus stand to take bus
Arun on May 7, 2015 at 9:00 AM said:
from Tirunelveli Jn few mtrs walk you can reach Tirunelveli Jn Busstand from there you can take 129 Kadayam bus get down at Potal Pudhur it will take a 45mins to 1 hr journey after reaching potalpudhur, you can take any papanasam bus ask for alwarkurichi, Alwarkurichi is next stop to Potalpudhur.
Prasanna R on May 11, 2015 at 5:52 PM said:
Any buses from nagercoil to Theni and Theni to munnar? I need to travel Nagercoil to munnar.
Arun on May 11, 2015 at 7:49 PM said:
There are very few bus service from Nagercoil to Theni which starts at Mor and eve timings, better you can switch over from Nagercoil – Tirunelveli, Tirunelveli – Rajapalayam, Rajapalayam – Theni, Theni – Munnar. this is one route and other Nagercoil – Madurai (Arapalayam), Madurai (Arapalayam) – Theni, Theni – Munnar
Raja on May 14, 2015 at 10:43 AM said:
I will be reaching Tirunelveli JN at about 19:00 hrs on a Saturday. Are there any buses from Tirunelvel JN bus stand to Kallidaikurichi OR do I have to go to new bus stand. Please also let me know whether the buses will be crowded during that time. Nice blog.
You have to reach new busstand to take kallidakurichi buses will be crowd only during that time but you got buses every 5 minutes 501 papanasam LSS will be there
A.RAJESHKANNAN on May 16, 2015 at 12:13 PM said:
There is no more buses for tuticorin in night time from tirunelveli, and upload tirunelveli to tuticorin bus timings also
Arun on May 16, 2015 at 11:13 PM said:
This site does not belongs to TNSTC. we are working on it soon it will be uploaded.
Kuzhali on December 1, 2015 at 8:34 PM said:
Between evening 7.00 pm – 7.30 pm timing there were 3 point to point (EEE) buses starts one after another from Tirunelveli new bus stand to Tuticorin. And by 7.30 pm route number 150 starts from Tirunelveli to Tuticorin.
I am not sure of other timings. If someone knows the timing please share it. Thanks.
MithraKarthik on May 20, 2015 at 7:43 PM said:
Can I know the bus route from kovilpatti to kanyakumari. And also the timings.
From kovilpatti new bus stand, there are good number of buses available to Nagercoil/Kanyakumari. If not, take a bus to Tirunelveli. And from there you can take a bus to Nagercoil or Kanyakumari.
Shiva on May 26, 2015 at 6:45 PM said:
Do buses ply from Tirunelveli to Madurai?, I am looking for an early morning bus.
There are plenty of buses running 24X7 in this route. Take any Bye pass rider to reach Madurai from Tirunelveli.
great.. thanks for the reply 🙂
vishnu on May 29, 2015 at 1:32 PM said:
I need to go to tichendur temple from nagercoil.is buses are available from nagercoil to trichendur
There are frequent buses from Nagercoil to Thiruchendur every 20 minutes once, you can take route no 576 to Thiruchendur via Valliyoor
Soma on May 31, 2015 at 4:03 PM said:
Is there direct bus from Tirunelveli to Sivaganga
Arun on June 1, 2015 at 10:19 PM said:
there is no direct bus to sivagangai from Tirunelveli you can change bus at Madurai. Tirunelveli – Madurai Madurai – Sivagangai.
Priyanka on June 5, 2015 at 8:22 PM said:
Is there any buses from thirunelveli to rettai tirupathi???? Can I know the bus timings in the morning from 7 to 12????
There is no direct bus to Rettai Thirupathi, the frequency of bus is very low. from Tirunelveli you have to get a bus to srivaikundam. from Srivaikundam another bus to eral. probably city bus will drop you a km before temple in main road.
Prasana on June 6, 2015 at 10:30 PM said:
May I know the direct bus timings from tirunelveli to kanya Kumari.
Arun on June 7, 2015 at 3:31 PM said:
If you want to see sunrise sunset there is no buses to reach at time netter you can take a EEE END to END Express to Nagercoil and then to Kanyakumari.
sundar on June 11, 2015 at 11:58 AM said:
Hi i want to go tisayanvilai vv engg college mrg 7 am what the first bus time at tirunelveli to tisayanvilai. vv engg college have stop present are tisayanvilai to come to the college
Vinoth Peter on June 13, 2015 at 7:07 PM said:
hi tnstc blog.
Tirunelveli to thisayanvillai – last bus on night times.
it will be helpul..
sundar on June 14, 2015 at 8:54 PM said:
Please tell the bus timing at morning time
Striker on June 17, 2015 at 11:01 AM said:
What are the bus timings for buses between tirunelveli and trivandrum after 1700 hrs its will be helpful
Tirunelveli to Trivandrum direct buses are less. Catch a End to End service from Tirunelveli to Nagercoil and from Nagercoil there are plenty buses running to Trivandrum.
jayabaskar on June 24, 2015 at 10:04 AM said:
i would like to know the bus timing from tirunelveli to dindigul in early morning
jayabaskar on June 24, 2015 at 12:21 PM said:
can anyone please reply to my earlier request regarding bus timing from tirunelveli to dindigul
There are comparatively less direct services available in Dindigul-Tirunelveli route. Instead take a bus to Madurai from Dindigul. Generally Madurai to Dindigul buses stops at Arapalayam BS. From there catch the city bus 77B to reach Mattuthavani. From MIBT, you have plenty of buses running 24X7 to Tirunelveli. Take any BPR.
karthick on June 28, 2015 at 6:57 PM said:
What is timing of last bus from kovilpatti to tuticorin
Arun on June 29, 2015 at 9:11 PM said:
09:45 PM is the last bus
ramarathnam R on July 9, 2015 at 3:26 PM said:
We got into the Bus AT TIRUNELLVELI NEW BUS STAND Tirunelveli to Teni TNST bus at 1400 hrs on 07/07/2015 and bought tickets to Srivilliputtur and Paid rs 195 (3*65 ) when the Bus nearing srivilliputtur the conductor asked our TICKETS FOR SOME SERIAL NO REFERENCE i gave all the three ( 3 ) tickets and when i asked the conductor to return my tickets he gave me Rs 7 tickets 3 I was continuously asking to return my original tickets of value Rs 195 he forcefully dropped us at the outskirts of srivilliputur he would have RESOLD THE TICKETS TO SOME OTHER PASSENGERS We saw the no of the Bus TN2201 and the conductor was having big Messi when the bus was plying with thin crowd such Acts of these types of conductor will end the Transport to Heavy Loss only
Sreekanth on July 16, 2015 at 9:33 PM said:
I need bus timings from tiruchendur to kanyakumari
Arun on July 20, 2015 at 11:43 AM said:
We have only limited no of buses from Thiruchendur to Kanyakumari better take route no 570 to Nagercoil via Uvari, Anjugramam. get down at Anjugramam and take a bus to Kanyakumari.
dharma on July 21, 2015 at 11:45 AM said:
is there any bus service from Kanyakumari to Rameswaram. If yes, timings and what are the days. Thank you
Arun on July 21, 2015 at 6:03 PM said:
Yes there are buses from Kanyakumari.
Mor 04:00, 06:15 and 07:30 (Ultra Deluxe 2×2 Pushback)
Night : 18:40, 19:00 (Ultra Deluxe 2×2 Pushback)
Dharma Vya on July 27, 2015 at 12:09 PM said:
Hi Thank you for your reply. May I know Ultra Deluxe 7.30am is Ac Bus? Number of seats, duration of the journey and is the compartment for luggage. The “pushback”, is it reclining seat? How shall I do the booking? Thank you once again
There is no AC service in this route the seats are reclining only you can book through http://www.tnstc.in
karthik on July 23, 2015 at 7:46 PM said:
Could you tell me which place in tirunelveli should I board bypassrider to Madurai?
Is there a bpr at 6AM
yes there is BPR every 15 mins once, you can board at New Bus stand, Vannarpettai North Bus stop.
Thanks Arun, we got the bus at 5:45 AM and reached Madurai Bus terminus at 8:45
amuthan on August 4, 2015 at 7:38 AM said:
i am every day travel to tuticorin to TIRUNELLVELI ,how to apply reglur pass ple
Arun on August 4, 2015 at 5:58 PM said:
You can check with officials in Thoothukudi Old BS. close to exit there is time keeper office you can enquire about the pass.
@amuthan If you have the Tirunelveli-Tuticorin & Tuticorin-Tirunelveli Route number 150 bus timings Please share it. & When is this last bus from Tirunelveli?. After evening these 150 buses seems to be rare to me in my occasional trips to Tirunelveli. Thanks
nizar on August 6, 2015 at 11:50 AM said:
Is there any direct bus from tirunveli to karaikudi
Mor 05:30 AM Direct bus to Devakottai will take madurai Karaikudi route
Anbu on August 6, 2015 at 4:29 PM said:
Kindly provide me the details of All the Bus timings from Thirunelveli to Kuthiraivetti and Manjolai.
Venkatesh K on August 16, 2015 at 10:10 PM said:
I have to start from Kutralam / Thenkasi and I have to catch Guruvayur Express at Tirunelveli (Starting at 7.45 AM). What time should I start from Thenkasi? What is the travel time? What is the Frequency of buses? Please suggest route / BPR etc, I will be starting on Sunday Morning.
Arun on August 17, 2015 at 9:57 AM said:
You should start at 5 Am the running time will be 02:00 hrs from Kutralam to Tirunelveli Jn. from Junction Bus stand Railway station is 200m walkable distance.
Thanks Arun! Buses are available at 5 AM?
Arun on August 17, 2015 at 4:08 PM said:
Yes buses are available
Venkatesh on August 17, 2015 at 11:57 PM said:
Thanks Arun!
irfan on August 20, 2015 at 3:05 PM said:
There was any bus between nagercoil -arupukottai
Arun on August 20, 2015 at 10:00 PM said:
yes there are buses from Nagercoil it is at specified time we don’t have it right now., if you want to reach faster take EEE Nagercoil – Tirunelveli, Tirunelveli – Kovilpatti SFS and Kovilpatti – Aruppukottai.
Allwin T Xavier on August 21, 2015 at 1:28 AM said:
I have an exam at psncet,melathediyoor near tirunelveli on 28th august.how i reach there………..
#Look at the above comment#
I am coming from trivandrum………
you can take papanasam buses from Tirunelveli new busstand to PSN, you have to get down at Prancheri bus stop to reach college. from Bus stop you can take a auto to reach college.
Thulasinathan on August 24, 2015 at 8:14 PM said:
இந்த பஸ்சில் பயணித்து உயிர் பிழைத்த ஸ்ரீவைகுண்டத்தை சேர்ந்த பஸ் பயணி கோபாலகிருஷ்ணன் கூறியதாவது, அரசு பஸ்களில் பெரும்பாலான பஸ்கள் டப்பா பஸ்களாகவே இருக்கிறது. சரியான பராமரிப்பு இல்லாத ஓட்டை, உடைசல் பஸ்களை இயக்க டிரைவர், கண்டக்டர்கள் மறுத்தாலும் அதிகாரிகள் அவர்களை கட்டயாப்படுத்தி இயக்க செய்கின்றனர்.
Sir, Do you have old photo of TN 72 N1222
நேற்று நடந்த விபத்தில் அரசு பஸ்சை ஓட்டிய டிரைவர் கடந்த சில மாதங்களுக்கு முன்பு ஓட்டிச்சென்ற இதுமாதிரியான முறையான பராமரிப்பில்லாத அரசு பஸ்சின் ஆக்சில் திடீரென்று உடைந்து விபத்துக்குள்ளாகியுள்ளது. இந்த விபத்தில் மாணவர் ஒருவர் பரிதாபமாக பலியாகியுள்ளார்
Is it true??
Why they blame the TNSTC unnecessary?
Anbu on August 25, 2015 at 8:52 AM said:
Please provide me the details of All the Bus timings from Thirunelveli to Kuthiraivetti and Manjolai.
4:00 , 1:30pm and 3:00pm timings may differ a little as the bus travels on ghat section and it has to return down.
Radhakrishnan on September 11, 2015 at 10:16 AM said:
ticket fare reduced from chennai to kovilpatti…………
Ramesh on September 11, 2015 at 3:27 PM said:
Can you help me for suggesting bus timings from Tiruchendur to Kanyakumari around 2.30 PM on 02nd Oct 2015. Also how much time take to go Kanyakumari from Tiruchendur.
Arun on September 11, 2015 at 11:02 PM said:
Tiruchendur – kanyakumari takes 3 hrs there are very less direct service you can board 570 Nagercoil Bus and a change over at Anjugramam will be easy., for anjugramam there are townies to Kanyakumari.
Thanks for your reply, There is frequent buses for Nagercoil, Please update
I am really appreciate to you for your reply to all needs about buses. Good job go ahead.
gokul on September 23, 2015 at 4:28 PM said:
any direct bus from coimbatore to tiruchendur
coimbatore to tiruchendur bus timings
SETC operates to UDs at 7:15 PM and 10:00 PM. Apart from there are ordinary buses available to Tiruchendur from Singanallur BS. You can also take a direct Tuticorin bus and from there you can catch a tiruchendur bus. SETC operates Coimbatore to Tuticorin at 9:30 PM and there are regular buses from Singanallur BS to Tuticorin.
nameen shaik on September 25, 2015 at 11:08 AM said:
Tirunelveli to madurai bus timings in night
There are frequent buses in night between Tirunelveli and Madurai
How to i reach madurai airport from tirunelveli?
dinesh on October 6, 2015 at 12:46 PM said:
if I catch SETC tuticorin to ernakulam bus at 7pm in tuticorin . when will I reach ernakulam in the nxt day morning. pls give me the appox arrival ernakulam time and total duration of this journey .
Arun on October 6, 2015 at 10:23 PM said:
Yes it will reach in mor close to 5 am as it runs on hill ghat section we cant predict right timings
tarun on October 10, 2015 at 3:47 PM said:
the worst website i had seen so far….
Arun on October 12, 2015 at 8:41 AM said:
MR.Tarun could you say in what way the website is worst, we can improve our site as per.
Ponmani Selvan on October 12, 2015 at 7:09 PM said:
Just out of curiosity Mr.Arun, Do u work in tnstc?? U reply to each and every question posted and it is just unbelievable that someone would do that.. I could see some stupid questions up there and people criticizing you for no good reason.. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s great.. As I already said, just curious.. 🙂
Thanks for your appreciation Sir, No Iam not an TNSTC employee it just pure observation on buses specially TNSTC is a vast network, It attracted me a lot., so its going on and this credits goes to my team also.
rangafella on October 16, 2015 at 1:55 PM said:
First of all my appreciation to the whole team for this wonderful work. I am also a big fan of the TNSTC and use it regularly. I prefer it to the private agencies.
My question is regarding the schedule of buses from Tirunelveli to Kanyakumari. How much time will it take? What is frequency after 6 pm?
Arun on October 16, 2015 at 7:26 PM said:
Thanks for your appreciation only one bus run in direct route to Kanyakumari via Anjugramam others takes Nagercoil route around 06:30 there is a straight bus. if you take nagercoil route it will take 2hrs15 min
kannan on October 23, 2015 at 5:24 PM said:
hello sir!!
timings for nagercoil to Sivakasi
Sorry for the inconvenience we don’t have updated timings with us as of now, if you are single Tirunelveli – Kovilpatti old Bs and Kovilpatti – Sivakasi switch over will make your journey easy.
rajakumar on October 25, 2015 at 11:48 AM said:
i want to go tirunleveli today 4pm can u let me know bus timimg destination and i want catch 6 30 pm tirunelveli bangalore bus kindly help me
From where you want to reach Tirunelveli without knowing that how can we reply your query
Anand on October 26, 2015 at 10:20 AM said:
Sir i am leaving tirunelveli at 8 pm and i want to reach kanyamumari at 5 am in morning, Please suggest
rangafella on October 26, 2015 at 10:22 AM said:
Which is the best way to reach Tiruchendur from kovlipatti, train or bus? How much time will it take by each mode? Can you also please let me know abt the frequency and timings. Thanks!
Arun on October 26, 2015 at 11:08 AM said:
Trains are not at right time but we have enough buses Kovilpatti to Thiruchendur via Thoothukudi is shortest. Kovilpatti – Thoothukudi 1hr 30mins Thoothukudi – Tiruchendur 1.15 hrs from Thoothukudi old busstand you can board bus to Thiruchendur. there are frequent buses every 5mins once a bus.
Sir i am leaving tirunelveli at 8 pm and i have to reach kanyakumari at 5 am in morning. Please suggest
You can easily reach Kanyakumari from Tirunelveli it is 2.5 hrs travel Tirunelveli – Nagercoil 1.5 hrs and Nagercoil – Kanyakumari 1 hr.
Anand on October 26, 2015 at 1:42 PM said:
Sir Are buses available at night after 9 pm from tirunelveli to kanyakumari
There is no direct bus to Kanyakumari. you have Nagercoil buses round the clock from Tirunelveli. you can go to kanyakumari easily from Nagercoil. or wait in Tirunelveli you will get SETC to Kanyakumari which comes from Chennai.
Thank you very much sir,the information was of great help
Sathesh S on October 27, 2015 at 4:47 PM said:
Hi, I’m planning to visit Thirpparapu Falls, Mathur Bridge,Padmanabhapuram Palace and Muttom Beach. Pls guide me to reach all these places by BUS(Bus No and Stop name). I will reach Kulithurai Railway Station by 11AM. Thansk in Advance.
Rajasekar on October 27, 2015 at 8:54 PM said:
Please send tirunelveli outstation route bus timings and coimbatore bus stand bus timings outstation city
Her is the timings of Tirunelveli
https://tnstc.wordpress.com/2015/10/22/tnstc-express-timings-from-tirunelveli-new-busstand/
For Coimbatore Timings have been Changed it will be updated soon.
Sathesh S on November 2, 2015 at 1:17 PM said:
rangafella on November 2, 2015 at 2:07 PM said:
Take an auto to Marthandam bus stand from Kulithurai station (~2km). From there you ll get buses to thiruparapu falls. Mathur bridge is close to this falls.
To go to Padmanabapuram palace, you ll have to take a bus to Thuckalay from Marthandam. From Thuckalay the palace is around 1.5 km. You can either walk or take a local bus.
Sathesh on November 5, 2015 at 11:29 PM said:
Thanks rangafella…
RATHINAKUMAR on December 1, 2015 at 4:27 PM said:
I REQUEST YOU TO KNOW ABOUT TIMINGS OF KOVILPATTI TO RAMESHWARAM BUS
kathirvelu on December 5, 2015 at 5:36 AM said:
I want to know the bus timing from karur to tirunelveli at 4AM and after 9.PM…
Muniaraj on December 7, 2015 at 6:21 AM said:
Last bus timings of nagercoil to kaniyakumari. In this bus full nit available
Arun on December 7, 2015 at 3:00 PM said:
Buses are available ful night in night buses will be available every half an hour once and buses from madurai will also passes nagercoil to Kanyakumari.
RAJAVEL on December 20, 2015 at 12:28 PM said:
TNSTC Tirunelveli buses complaint mobile nos. mentioned in the buses. But based on my experience the mobile no. are totally waste, Pl. don’t use the complaint number.
Prem Joshua on December 26, 2015 at 11:24 PM said:
Prem on 26 Dec
Hats off to drivers who take just 1 hour and 10 minuites from NGL to Tnvely and the patient conductors with smiling face to give changes.Keep it up
Thanks to the conductors and drivers who take us sae to detination with smiling face in the midst of difficulties.(Ene to End-NGL – TNVLY)
Ramesh Natarajan on January 2, 2016 at 4:20 PM said:
I will reach to nagercoil by 11th jan 2016 at 8:30 pm and I want to go to thiruchendur from nagergoil.how many buses available from nagergoil to thiruchendur after 8:30 pm.
After 08:30 P.M. there is no bus to Thiruchendur. You can switch over at Tirunelveli. take an EEE END to END Express from Nagercoil to Tirunelveli it will reach in 1 hr 15 minutes to Tirunelveli from Tirunelveli you have buses to Thiruchendur every half an hr once till 12:30 night and 1 hr once till 4 A.M.
Valsaraj on January 2, 2016 at 7:31 PM said:
What is the starting bus 🚌 time for madurai from tirunelveli. I need to go by 4am..
you have buses round the clock from Tirunelveli you can get frequent buses at 4 A.M. journey time 3 Hrs board TNSTC Tirunelveli Bypass Rider bus it will reach Mattuthavani.
N J Krishnan on January 3, 2016 at 9:59 AM said:
I am looking for buses to Papanasam Tirunelveli dt from Tirnelveli. what are the timings please?
N J Krishnan on January 3, 2016 at 10:01 AM said:
Looking for buses to papanasam from Tirunelveli in the morning. Wha are the bus timings please?
Arun on January 3, 2016 at 12:20 PM said:
You have frequent buses in morning time take 501 LSS Tirunelveli – Papanasam which will have less stoppings and direct route it will take 1hr 30 mins to reach.
C.K.Rajasingh on January 4, 2016 at 5:35 PM said:
Is there a direct bus from Tirunelveli to Cuddalore? If yes at what time?
There are two buses from SETC
1. 531 UD Nagercoil – Cuddalore 06:30 P.M.
2. 686 UD Trivandrum – Pondicherry 06;45 P.M.
Bala on January 14, 2016 at 7:22 AM said:
Is there a bus at 1am from tirunelveli to tenkasi in 16.01.16
Sam on January 14, 2016 at 3:00 PM said:
is there any bus from nagercoil to upper kothayar! If yes plz provide bus time, jrny hrs, fare, etc.
gyanbhat on February 10, 2016 at 9:40 PM said:
Are there any Volvo or comfortable buses from Madurai to Nagercoil during day time ?
No Volvo from Madurai to Nagercoil
Bhuvana Shankar N on February 16, 2016 at 6:14 AM said:
Please give me the thiruchendur to velankanni bus timings.
In both ECR via & Madurai via…
Please give me the bus timings from thiruchendur to velankanni…
In both ECR & Byepass operations
Thiruchendur : ECR : 04:30, 06:15, 17:30, 18:30.
Bypass Madurai : 07:15, 18:15
Sarath kumar on February 25, 2016 at 1:34 PM said:
thoothukudi to eral routed bus M52 when bus will come to athimarapatti again
p.Kumar on February 29, 2016 at 12:52 PM said:
Tnstc Tirunelvelli,
When will you introduce Electronic ticket machine
subramanian on March 5, 2016 at 5:50 AM said:
will be thankful if anybody tell me bus timings from kanyakumari to tiruchendur and fare.
Arun on March 5, 2016 at 11:08 AM said:
There are very frequent direct bus to Kanyakumari instead of waiting for that you can board 570 to Nagercoil via Uvari, Kudankulam and get down at anjugramam and from there you can reach kanyakumari in 20 minutes. Fare we dont have the right one with us now sorry for your inconvenience.
Is there any direct bus between Thoothukudi and Nagercoil after 2PM? Can you please give me the frequency and timings?
2 P.M., 05:30 P.M., 07:00 P.M., 09:30 P.M. all are via Nagercoil if you plan with family make sure you are advance in 15 minutes timings may vary 10 – 15 mins departure on crowd.
Praveen on March 15, 2016 at 9:39 AM said:
Sir,Whether Thoothukudi to Nagercoil busses start from Thoothukudi New bus stand (or) Thoothukudi Old bus stand and what will be the approximate travelling time between Thoothukudi and Nagercoil?. As I will be visiting Thoothukudi and new to that place I am asking this.
End to end travelling time will be 3 hrs bus will depart from Thoothukudi old busstand only in Tirunelveli Bay, there is buses to nagercoil via thiruchendur also don’t board it it will take 4 hrs travel
Durai on March 21, 2016 at 6:55 PM said:
Sir, I am planning to go to Thevaram from tirunelveli tomorrow please guide me the respective bus roue.
From Tirunelveli there are direct buses to Theni. From Theni you can go to Thevaram.
If you miss direct bus in Tirunelveli, Tirunelveli – Thirumangalam / Thirumangalam – Usilampatti/ Usilampatti – Theni/
Theni – Thevaram is the route.
mariappan on April 11, 2016 at 3:01 PM said:
execuse me sir, please consider our route there is no straight buses from chennai and madurai,kovai and tiruchendur,tirunelveli(via nanguneri).around 50,000peoples lived in kalakad town panchayat.some route buses are allotted our peoples used well and enjoy.
maria lane on April 18, 2016 at 12:43 PM said:
Dear Sir, Can u please give me some old photos of Tuticorinto tirunelveli point to point bus.(Mudalvan exp., Mother Exp., Fighter, Ritam, Garuda. and satiya.)
Arun on April 18, 2016 at 10:17 PM said:
We are also searching for old photos once we got it we will share in Our blog.
Brenda on April 22, 2016 at 6:48 AM said:
Bus timing from Tirunelveli to Guruvayur please? ??
prasanth on May 2, 2016 at 12:47 PM said:
please ell me about the buses from nagercoil o madurai and its duration
There are Frequent buses in Nagercoil Madurai round the clock timings will be 4;30 – 5:00 Hrs running depends on traffic
CNP on May 4, 2016 at 2:13 PM said:
Hi sir / madam,
Have a good day!!!
Is there any buses are going to Nagerkovil from Tirunelveli in the midnight?.
If it is available, what are all the timing?
It may very helpful for those going to Trivandrum airport, in order to catch the early morning flights.
there is no bus between Tirunelveli – Nagercoil on night you have to wait for buses that arrives from Madurai it will enter tirunelveli new busstand.
jasmine on May 6, 2016 at 9:38 AM said:
I am from kavalkinaru, I want to know it there are any buses from kavalkinaru junction to Madurai
there are frequent buses to Madurai from Kavalkinaru jn.
THIAGARAJAN on May 7, 2016 at 3:59 PM said:
Sir, would you please send the bus timings from thiruchendur to sivaksi?
sir, would you please give the bus timings for tiruchendur to sivakasi?
Sivakasi : 07:15, 07:55, 17:00, 18:10.
Srivilliputtur : 12:25, 20:00
arun on June 17, 2016 at 10:05 PM said:
Is there any bus to.manjolai from papanasam? next week we planed a trip. If u know those.details. pls help us
venkita moorthy k on May 7, 2016 at 9:41 PM said:
sir can you tell me whether buses to manchaoli starts from thirunelvely alone..? or is there any bus starting from ambai or kaliida kurichy.to kuthiravetty/oothu/mancholai..if yes bus timings?
Arun on May 8, 2016 at 9:53 PM said:
from Kallidaikurichi there is bus service from mor 5;00 and 02:30 P.M. bus have to come from Nellai only the bus will be parked after kallidai RS for lunch break in Noon
Shahul Hameed J on May 18, 2016 at 4:17 PM said:
As We Request, We Need & Want Directly operate Buses from Tenkasi to Erode , Mettupalayam & Karur. We hope & Consider to operate this route. Pls will start this route ASAP.
Beniston on May 20, 2016 at 1:03 PM said:
From what time buses to tutucorin is available from Tirunelveli bus stand? How long is the journey?
for mor 03:45 A.M. buses are available to Tuticorin Journey time 1 hr 15 mins
syed on May 20, 2016 at 4:18 PM said:
i m syed.how is going chennai international airport to tirunelveli bus stand in nighttime.i need bus route
Vaithi on May 27, 2016 at 9:35 AM said:
Is there any bus to kodiakanal from Tirunelveli, if so, plz provide me the timings, thankyou
Can anyone please provide info related to bus timing from kanyakumari to Tiruchendur ?
Arun on May 31, 2016 at 12:23 AM said:
From Kanyakumari there is only limited buses Better you can take bus to Anjugramam from there you can get Thiruchendur, Thoothukudi Buses.
rangaram devarajan on May 31, 2016 at 9:12 AM said:
Or you can take a bus to Nagercoil. From Nagercoil there are a lot of buses to Tiruchendur
Mohanraj on June 3, 2016 at 9:47 AM said:
Dear Sir, I want to know that bus timings from kanyakumari to tirunelveli (or) anjugramam to tirunelveli ? Except (via) nagercoil? Between morning 8 am to 10 am Plz?
Ravi on June 4, 2016 at 9:17 PM said:
Sir please tell me do we
Have buses from katpadi
To arunachalam temple in
The night after 9pm and journey time
As well
Thulasinathan on June 12, 2016 at 6:38 PM said:
Hi Ravi, Buses to Arunachalam temple (Thiruvannamalai) is available from Vellore City Bus stand which is 2-3km from Katpadi. Katpadi and Vellore is linked by hundreds of buses and plenty of shared autorickshaws. (Available every 30secs). From vellore to Thiruvannamalai takes about 2:30hr. Usually every 1/2hr can get buses to Thiruvannamalai but after 9pm the frequency will be lesser. However there are bus services between vellore and Thiruvannamalai whole night. Some Buses come from Tirupati travelling thru Katpadi to vellore to Thiruvannamalai at rugular interval. So you dont have to worry about buses from Katpadi to Thiruvannamali there are plenty of buses available. And at festival time like full moon day you will get hundreds of special buses whole night for Girivalam purpose
Reagan on June 6, 2016 at 2:33 PM said:
How to travel to Thekkady from Tirunelveli?How long does the journey takes?
There are frequent buses to Theni from Tirunelveli. from Theni you can go to Thekkady.
Reagan on June 6, 2016 at 10:21 PM said:
Thanks for the reply Arun.Google says there are buses to kumily too.Hope that will also be a good option.Do you have any idea how long does the Journey takes?We are a NRI family planning for our vacation trip this July.
There are only few services to Kumily. Tirunelveli – theni will take 5 hrs from there another 2.5 hrs
Just came across this site during a Google search.Really appreciate your dedication and hard work to put up with a lots of info and replies that are real cool.Hats off for your good work.Do continue with the same.will definitely refer to my friends and family this site link.
Thanks for your appreciation and support on behalf of Team TNSTC Blog
kandhan on June 9, 2016 at 2:12 AM said:
here i want to know the nagercoil city bus advertisement authority officer name and contact number
This is not an official site of TNSTC it is maintained by group of people.
PAVANASAM.N on June 11, 2016 at 8:04 AM said:
Please provide the Bus Timings from Kovilpatti to A.Subramaniapuram (Near Sivagnanapurm)
Sorry for your inconvenience, This is not a official site of TNSTC and we are collecting timings for kovilpatti soon it will be updated.
Wesly titus on June 11, 2016 at 1:10 PM said:
Hey guyzz when are the buses from Nagercoil to tenkasi
There are buses every half an hr once to Tenkasi from Nagercoil
From papanasam how can i reach manimutharu dam and agasthiyar falls. Please give me the bus number and timing. Thank you
From papanasam how to reach manimutharu dam and agasthiyar falls. If u know bus number and timing please help me. Thank you
How long will it take to reach tiruchendur from tirunelveli bus stand? Type of bus service?
There are frequent 123 service with limited stoppages it will take 1hrs 15mins from New Busstand to thiruchendur.
sethuraman ram on June 28, 2016 at 9:12 PM said:
Is there any direct bus from thiruvanathapuram to courtallam operated by TNSTC/SETC
No direct services you have to do split up journey
1. Thiruvanathapuram – Punalur – Sencottah – Coutralam or
2. Thiruvanthapuram – Nagercoil – Tenkasi – Coutralam.
K Kumaresan on June 28, 2016 at 10:13 PM said:
Is there any direct buses from tiruchendur to kaniyakumari, if so timing, if not what is the best option to travel.
There are only few buses to Kanyakumari on night at 12:30A.M., 06:30A.M., 01:00P.M., better you can take abus to Anjugramam, route no 570 will go to anjugramam from there you can take city buses to Kanyakumari.
Suriya on July 1, 2016 at 1:48 PM said:
Is there direct buses from thiruchendur to rajapalayam.if so please let me know the timings and bus number.
Arun on July 1, 2016 at 5:54 PM said:
There are few direct buses only on time to reach easily make a change over at Tirunelveli. Thiruchendur – Tirunelveli 123 Express and from Tirunelveli board any Theni bus it will go fast and you can reach quick.
porchelvan on July 2, 2016 at 10:47 AM said:
Hi! Can u pls give me the timings of buses to Kochi and do they go to vytilla mobility hub?
From Tirunelveli.. Tirunelveli to Kochi bus timings
There are buses to Ernakulam from Tirunelveli at Mor 08:00, 09:00 Eve 08:00 P.M., 09:00P.M.
ashok es on July 4, 2016 at 4:47 PM said:
hi i am looking for the buses from tiruchendur to madurai timings and the fare.
There are frequent buses to Madurai from Thiruchendur fare must be around 120 + or – 5 .
R.Kannan on July 7, 2016 at 6:47 PM said:
Hi can you please provide me the bus timing from Tirunelveli to Kodayar / Manjolai,
Fred on July 8, 2016 at 7:19 PM said:
To goto Dr.Sivanthi aadhithanar engineering college, from nagercoil – tirunelveli – tiruchendur or nagercoil – valliyoor – tiruchendur. Which is better?
Arun on July 11, 2016 at 10:57 PM said:
Nagercoil – Tirunelveli – Thiruchendur is best option
jai on July 14, 2016 at 10:25 AM said:
Tirunelveli to trivandrum bus timing, full schedule and duration to plan for airport
Amar on July 15, 2016 at 11:07 PM said:
Night for Madurai is there any bus’s.
After 12.00 night
Kindly operate the new buses from ambasamuthiram to maruthamalai (to be reached earlier 5.30 a.m., 8.00 p.m.), Tirunelveli to Mettupalayam (to be reached at 5.30 a.m., 8.00 a.m. and 7.45 p.m. 9.00 p.m.). And also operate the route from Papanasam to Vellingiri -Poondi (Via: Pollachi, Ukkadam, Perur), Papanasam to Mettupalayam (Palladam, Coimbatore Gandhipuram).
kavipriya k on July 28, 2016 at 11:38 AM said:
Is there any local bus for tiruchendur to kanyakumari.
There are very few buses on time only better yoou can take 570 FP from Thiruchendur get down at anjugramam. from Anjugramam there are frequent buses to Kanyakumari.
kavipriya k on July 28, 2016 at 2:35 PM said:
kindly tell the timing
i am from coimbatore . I went to tiruchendur with my family at the same time we would like to visit Kanyakumari kindly tell the bus roots.
TIRUCHENDUR TO KANYAKUMARI TWO ROUTS 1.VIA.SATHANKULAM,VALLIOOR 2.VIA. UVARI,KOODANKULAM
Abdul khadir on July 30, 2016 at 1:56 PM said:
Please tell bus timings from tirunelveli to udankudi. I am not able find the bus timings anywhere.
Sorry for your inconvenience we dont have right timings with us.
Prasad on August 3, 2016 at 2:28 PM said:
I want to travel from Nagercoil to Tiruchendur by bus. Whether Valliyoor, Sathankulam route is good for travel? What about the condition of road? Or I opt Tirunelveli-Tiruchendur route? please give me your opinion.
Nagercoil – Tirunelveli EEE / Tirunelveli – Thiruchendur 123 is best
Raja on August 5, 2016 at 9:44 AM said:
How to reach tirunelveli from Virdhunagar?
There are plenty of Buses which passes in Bypass you can board at Virudhunagar New Busstand, Virudhunagar collectrate
Alagunambi on August 8, 2016 at 2:52 PM said:
Does anybody knows what are the bus timing from Tirunelveli to nazareth
Shankar on August 8, 2016 at 6:43 PM said:
Is there bus from kizha Ambur to mela pavoor
Iyan on August 16, 2016 at 3:53 PM said:
Anybody pls tell me… is there any straught buses to trivandrum?pls suggest me…
Arun on August 23, 2016 at 12:42 AM said:
There is no straight bus to trivandrum you have to change over at Nagercoil during day times.
Gopi on August 18, 2016 at 5:19 PM said:
can u tell the morning bus timing from chennai to nagerkoil
vinayagamoorthy on August 21, 2016 at 1:47 PM said:
please send to sivagangai district in no more direct bus in the district………
Rajan on August 28, 2016 at 10:57 AM said:
Dear sir please arrange to provide a full time service in 9M (Nagercoil – Thengapattanam) Route. This is the long time expectation of the public concerned
Kumar on August 28, 2016 at 11:02 PM said:
Travelling from Tirunelveli to Neyaar dam, which is the best option. Going through Trivandrum or is there any buses from Marthandam
There is no buses available from Marthandam. Best option is Trivandrum only.
Vijay Chandar on September 3, 2016 at 12:49 PM said:
Is there any bus from Tiruchi to Rameswaram? If there is no direct bus, are there connecting buses?
Arun on September 5, 2016 at 11:53 AM said:
There are frequent buses between Trichy Rameswaram
Sankar on September 8, 2016 at 4:16 PM said:
Sir.. What’s travel time for buses from Tirunelveli to Tiruchendur.??
Arun on September 16, 2016 at 3:15 PM said:
Narayanan Sankar on September 8, 2016 at 5:18 PM said:
Travel time from Tirunelveli to Tiruchendur…?
mage on September 10, 2016 at 10:54 AM said:
Is there direct bus service from Tuticorin to Irukendi
Mor 06:30 A.M. direct bus to irukankudi by TNSTC
sekar on September 10, 2016 at 5:09 PM said:
Sir shencottah to coimbatore tnstc tirunelveli division bus opperative morning and evening times for daily services
Is any chance there for TNSTC-TNV to get new UD in house built and AC buses that can run on mtm/kki/NGL/tnv/shn/tuti/ to chennai/cbe/blr?
UDAYABHANU on September 20, 2016 at 12:05 PM said:
I would like to know whether any bus service is there from Nagarcoil to Papanasm in the morning.
Kavi on October 4, 2016 at 3:13 AM said:
How to reach ervadi from Tirunelveli and let me know the timing also
Arun on October 4, 2016 at 8:38 AM said:
which ervadi are you asking the one between Valliyoor and Nanguneri there are frequent buses every 20 mins once from Tirunelveli crews willl shout a lot for Ervadi via bus
Not that one. i am asking about Ervadi in Ramanathapuram district ( between Kadaladi and Ramanathapuram )
Arun on October 7, 2016 at 4:06 PM said:
you can go via Thoothukudi, ECR this is the shortest and timings 03:30, 05:30, 06:30, 08:00, 09:00, 11:00, 15:00, 16:00, 19:00 (Velankanni) this buses will depart from Thoothukudi Counter in Tirunelveli New Busstand.
Abu on October 17, 2016 at 11:13 PM said:
Kindly ask you I like to go madurai airport from tirunelveli by bus. Please advise which stop I have tell to bus condector?
Arun on October 17, 2016 at 11:19 PM said:
Madurai Ringroad Airport Stop. From there you can take an auto to Airport.
Ajitha on October 23, 2016 at 12:04 PM said:
How to reach VV engineering college from Tirunelveli
Can u pls tell the bus route to VV engineering college from Tirunelveli
Jana on November 2, 2016 at 6:15 PM said:
I would like to know bus service timing
is there from Nagarcoil to tiruchendur
I would like to know bus timing is there from Nagarcoil to tiruchendur
Selva Punitha on January 4, 2017 at 10:50 PM said:
I am looking for a bus from Bengaluru to Tirunelveli or Tenkasi after 7 pm on 13th jan. Is there any special buses? Can you provide the details.
viju k s on January 7, 2017 at 4:34 PM said:
i would like to know bus time of thirunelveli to ramanathapuram and rameswaram
i would like to know bus time from thenkasi or thirunelveli to rameswaram
thiyagy on January 28, 2017 at 4:16 PM said:
Is there any Buses to Tirunelveli to Rameswaram in the after noon say after 200 PM
Sir ,I need Tnstc bus timings from kottarakara to tenkasi..plz provide the information’s me….
A.SESHAGIRI on March 29, 2017 at 11:51 AM said:
Dear Sir, I need e-mail id of General Manager(comml.) (or) Manager(Comml) or Dy.Manager (comml.) TNSTC – TIRUNELVELI. For the public cause I have to write e-mail to them.I will be greatful if you please furnish the same.
RAJU on March 30, 2017 at 4:07 PM said:
பேருந்து வசதி இவ்வழித்தடங்களில் புதிதாக செய்து தருமாறு கேட்டுக்கொள்கிறோம்
காரைக்குடி – திருச்செந்தூர்
( இவ்வழித்தடத்தில் ஒரு நாளைக்கு ஒரு பேருந்து வசதியும் )
காரைக்குடி – தேவக்கோட்டை – R.S.மங்கலம் – திருவாடானை – இராமநாதபுரம் – கீழக்கரை – ஏர்வாடிதர்ஹா – சாயல்குடி – தூத்துக்குடி – திருச்செந்தூர்
Ganesh Kumar on April 4, 2017 at 3:48 PM said:
I need bus timings from Nagercoil to Papanasam during morning times.
I hope there is direct bus available via Kalakadu and what will be the approx time to reach to destination
Mahesh on April 22, 2017 at 10:57 PM said:
Where do I get timings of buses from Monday Market (Kanyakumari Dist) to Tiruchendur?
Rajesh Dhar on April 24, 2017 at 11:36 AM said:
I want bus service from Trivandrum to Kulasekarapattinam. Is there any direct bus? How do i travel? Please help… Thanks
R.Pramoth Arjun on May 8, 2017 at 9:04 AM said:
Is there any direct buses from madurai to kanyakumari if means please mention the timing at Madurai
RAM on April 24, 2017 at 4:23 PM said:
Venkat Raman on April 28, 2017 at 8:31 PM said:
sir i need bus timing tirunelveli to munnar
Night 12:30 P.M. Direct Bus or you can get frequent bus to Theni from there you can go to Munnar.
vasundra15 on May 4, 2017 at 7:21 PM said:
I need a bus time schedule from tirunelveli to pudukkottai in the evening around 6 PM and also travel time
sasibalan on May 8, 2017 at 5:33 AM said:
Sir is there any bus service from sengotach to erode? If not kindly arrange a new service.
Saran chandra bose karaikudi on May 12, 2017 at 11:15 PM said:
Dear friends i am reaching midnight thirunelveli. From there any buses for thiruchendur temple? what time first bus for thiruchendur from thirunelveli? Any midnight train available to thiruchendur? Kindly answer me friends. This summer i want visit thiruchendur murugan with my family. Thank u.s
Maniappan on May 17, 2017 at 11:39 PM said:
Hello, pl. inform the bus timing from Thenkasi to Puliangudi, between 10 am to 1 pm, and return bus timing after 7 pm from Puliangudi toThenkasi. Also requested to mention the approximate time taken for the journey.
Prasath on May 19, 2017 at 11:09 PM said:
I want to know about the buses from rajapalayam to sattur or tirunelveli and vice versa. Give me the details about all buses running along this route
SUNIL SUKUMARAN on May 21, 2017 at 4:56 PM said:
My son has to attend AIIMS entrance examination at PSN College of
Engineering and Technology, PSN Nagar, Melathediyoor
Post, Tharuvai via, Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu PIN CODE:627152. Please advise as to how we can reach the destination from Thirunelveli by BUS. please let us know the bus schedule from Thirunelveli to the college from morning 8 AM to 10 AM. As also for return journey please furnish bus availability from PSN college to Thirunelveli in the evening so as to catch a train at 7.20 PM
RAVIKUMAR LD on May 22, 2017 at 6:33 PM said:
Sir there is any direct bus from Krishnagiri to Tutcorin
jayam on May 23, 2017 at 11:55 AM said:
sir need ramanathapuram to velankanni bus time
asai kumar on May 29, 2017 at 5:29 PM said:
hI , Any body can tell last bus timing from tirunelveli new bus stand to moolkarapati or muncipatti
Rajesh on May 31, 2017 at 1:13 PM said:
Tirunelveli to manjolai bus timings….??
Subramani on June 6, 2017 at 10:02 PM said:
Hi, At what time the first Bus from Tirunelveli to tiruchendur starts? and what is the frequency of operation?
Arun on June 9, 2017 at 2:01 AM said:
from 4 A.M. after 5:30 there are frequent buses every 5 minutes 123 Express will go fast in that routes.
V. J. Bernard on June 12, 2017 at 4:03 PM said:
Trivandrum to tiruchendur Bus timings
காரைக்குடி – தேவக்கோட்டை – R.S.மங்கலம் – திருவாடானை – இராமநாதபுரம் – கீழக்கரை – ஏர்வாடிதர்ஹா – சாயல்குடி – தூத்துக்குடி – திருச்செந்தூர்
Hariharan on June 20, 2017 at 9:03 PM said:
Chennai to Tenkasi in Pothigai Bus(A184) How many Hrs Jounrey
Is there a bus between pattukottai and tenkasi via Pudukkottai, madurai or Karaikudi, madurai. If not leave a direct bus between those towns, it will give economical strength to tnstc
Thamothara kannan on July 7, 2017 at 10:32 AM said:
Which bus stop I shall go from tirunelveli to alwarkurii
Mohiadeen on July 8, 2017 at 12:25 AM said:
What time tiruchendur bus start from tirunelveli?
Arvinesh on July 20, 2017 at 8:31 PM said:
Your website providing useful information. Congratulations. I. I want to go to sorimuthu ayyanar temple. Can you give the bus timings from tirunelveli to karayar. Advance thanks
premkumar on July 30, 2017 at 10:18 PM said:
All the buses were boarded with express pp sfs TSS eee 1-1 1-3….unlimited imagination can u mention these with journey time. I often travel by bus but most of the time I saw only argument between the passenger and conductor for slow running of buses…conductor will fedup and tell the word better go by car…please mention travel timings…sorry non stop and bypass rider too…rate wise difference persists…
Subramanian on July 31, 2017 at 7:50 PM said:
How to take bus pass from Tirunelveli to tuticorin point to point (EEE) bus, and where can i get it from?
What is the charge for that? Note: normal charges from Tirunelveli to tuticorin in point to point bus is Rs. 31.
you can enquire in the Thoothukudi Old Busstand Depot Office.
Muthukrishnan L on August 5, 2017 at 7:45 PM said:
Sir, I read somewhere in the portal that there are buses from Nagercoil to Truchendur Route 576 every 20 minutes. From where the buses start from Nagercoil – Is it from Vadasseri? Is it possible to board the buses from Nagercoil Jn. Rly. station? I will reach Nagercoil around 5.45 am. from Guruvayur. Instead of taking a bus from Tirunelveli to Tiruchendur after reaching Tirunelveli, I think of taking a direct bus from Nagercoil to Tiruchendur. Thank you.
Abraham on August 8, 2017 at 7:35 PM said:
Sawyerpuram st.marys girls hr sec school over at 6.15 pm that time no government busis available .one private bus in that time take a over tickets .kindly change any bus timr to that ti
Sawyerpuram st.marys girls hr sec school over at 6.15 pm that time no government busis available .one private bus in that time take a over tickets .kindly change any bus time to that time
priya on August 10, 2017 at 7:48 PM said:
Hi, I have to travel from chennai to tirunelveli by tomorrow. I cant able to book the ticket in my account it shows that no onward services available on this date. could u please tell me the reason.
vinod k on August 11, 2017 at 10:19 AM said:
may you please let me know how to reach Kanyakumari from nagercoil junction. Please provide the Bus number and bus stand name as well
Thenmozhi on August 22, 2017 at 11:00 AM said:
May I know buses from tirunelveli to tiruchendur during mid night. My Train will reach tirunelveli at 3:15 am. So when will the first bus to tiruchendur.
Suresh Wagh on September 7, 2017 at 3:33 PM said:
I want to travel from Tirunelveli to Thoothukudi on 11 th September. I will reach Tirunelvelli Rly. station in the morning.
Where from I need to take a bus for Thoothukudi and what are the timings of the buses from 6.00 A.M. onwards till 8.30 A.M. Available mode for reaching bus stand from Rly station?
mathew on September 7, 2017 at 7:55 PM said:
Kindly let me know the fare between Trichy and tirunelveli……
saidi on September 16, 2017 at 12:26 PM said:
Hi, Can you please list the timings of hill riders from and to tirunelveli new bus stand to papanasanam I would like to travel on this route and return within a day. So, please ‘the complete list of timings’!! Thanks
Suresh V on September 19, 2017 at 12:16 PM said:
Hi Goodmorning to all,
Is there any buses from Ernakulam Depot to Tirunelveli, please advice and give bus timings. Thank you
Gopalakrishnan on September 22, 2017 at 8:17 AM said:
Is there any bus from Tiruchedur to Nagerkoil. If so what timing and how long it take.
Jayaprakash r on September 25, 2017 at 6:56 AM said:
Tomorrow morning 6.30am I have to reach thoothukudi railway station.next I have to immediately plan Thiruchundru temple any bus available. Pls
M MUTHUKUMAR on September 26, 2017 at 7:47 PM said:
Sir, please tell direct buses timing from Nagercoil to Rajapalayam. My old aunt along with luggage has to travel, so he can’t switch over bus in Tirunelveli.
Samy on October 16, 2017 at 7:37 AM said:
Any buses between tirunelveli to kodaikanal.
Baskar on October 21, 2017 at 5:32 PM said:
Please provide info kanyakumari to tiruchendur bus timing for morning 6 to 8am.
setc new service start tiruchedur to pala kerala new Night service
via manappaDu kudankulam kanyakumary nagercovil tvm adur kottayam.thousands off people daily travel this route but no direct bus
Thanya on November 7, 2017 at 5:08 PM said:
I ve an exam @ Sree Sowdambika College of Engineering, Aruppukottai. So i want to know the bus timings between 3 to 5 early in the morning from Tiruchendur? Pls tell me the travel time too. Thanks in advance.
S perumal on November 8, 2017 at 3:43 PM said:
What is the bus timing tirunelveli to kollan. PLS tell us from kollam to tirunelveli also
Murali Govindraj on November 15, 2017 at 3:04 PM said:
is there direct buses from Tiruchandur to Kanyakumari? if yes, what are the frequencies if no, what is the route to be taken from Tiruchandur to reach Kanyakumari
soundar rajan on November 17, 2017 at 4:45 PM said:
i have to travel from tiruchendur to nagarcoil through TSTC bus. Can i know at what time the first bus statrts
cyril joseph on November 22, 2017 at 10:18 AM said:
tnstc provide new interstate deluxe service kanyakumary to pala via nagercovil tvm adur kottayam pala night service kany dep time 18.30 pala dep time 20.30 urgently reqiured this service famous st alphosamma church near pala .daily hundreds of people arriving southern tamilnadu but no direct bus this route
Sumit somra on December 1, 2017 at 9:32 PM said:
Please provide bus timing from nanguneri to Nagercoil
sunil on December 13, 2017 at 9:09 AM said:
how to reach tirunelveli from madurai airport? please tell me clearly whether to get auto/ taxi/ bus from airport to maatuthavani? somebody has written that to get bypass rider from ring road. so how to reach that ring road junction from airport? which town bus number? please tell clearly. town bus service frequently available? thanks.
Gunasekaran on December 24, 2017 at 8:21 PM said:
Hai sir. I was feeling bad experience about your staff 24.05.2017.. cbe to tenkasi bus ..Conductor was instructed us to leave palani because he said bus didn’t go madurai….It was proplem people facing… Not me same proplem happens to the other passengers also.pleade make
Sethu on December 25, 2017 at 11:45 PM said:
Tirunelveli to Thiruvananthapuram
EEE or Others type Fast busses peoples must want
Saravanaselvan on December 28, 2017 at 11:07 PM said:
Colud you please tell me the vallior to kalakad first bus in morning time.
Benny on February 6, 2018 at 12:37 PM said:
Tirunelveli to Madura bye pass rider tiaftet 4 o clock and fare pl sir
kumar on February 9, 2018 at 6:40 PM said:
What is the bus timings from Tirunelveli to Manjolai via manimuthar falls and from manimuhar falls to tirunelveli.
Fathahul Rabbani on February 9, 2018 at 8:05 PM said:
Please provide bus timings from tirunelveli to rameswaram ECR road
Aruna on February 11, 2018 at 10:03 PM said:
Can u please tell me the early morning bus timings from papanasam to tirunelveli via ambasamudram
Rajan.D on February 18, 2018 at 12:06 PM said:
Dear sir …. The service on route 309c from Nagercoil to Thengapattanam via;thingal nagar/karungal/pootteti/kalladai/Kannathankuzhi/vizhunthaayambalam/Keezhkulam was stopped on07.09.2016. we are continuously requesting to reoperate the service for the economic developemnt and benefits of the the villages and the people concerned. When this will be consided sir…………….
SOURIRAJAN on May 27, 2018 at 12:41 PM said:
Tomorrow Monday 28 may 2018 night travel to Chennai from Tirunelveli or from.kannyakumari 7 seats request aneeded ?
Sethu on June 7, 2018 at 9:49 AM said:
Hi, Is it possible to know the bus timings between Tenkasi to Tirunelveli after 6 pm?
Birundha on June 28, 2018 at 6:08 PM said:
I search for tirunelveli to papasam at night time. Any bus are at evening or night?
kumar on September 19, 2018 at 3:56 PM said:
I am looking for a setc or tnstc bus from Madurai to vilathikulam bus timings
Mariappan on March 22, 2019 at 3:49 PM said:
Kalakad to MaduraiTNSTC bus allocate sir.
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About Amy Siskind
Experts in authoritarianism advise to keep a list of things
subtly changing around you, so you’ll remember.
This week Trump’s strange behavior towards Russia resurfaced, as he advocated for adding Russia back at the Group of Seven summit in France, then held up military aid to Ukraine. A vacated seat unfilled by Trump at the Federal Elections Commission left the election watchdog group without a quorum ahead of the 2020 election, while voting irregularities were reported this week in Mississippi and Georgia.
Fresh signs of Trump’s authoritarian bent went unchecked, as reporting surfaced a loose network of his allies seeking to discredit journalists, and Trump offering pardons to aides if they break the law in fast-tracking his wall ahead of 2020. Concerns of a pending recession heightened, as Trump’s trade war with China continued to escalate, and for the first time while Trump has been in office, more Americans think the economy is getting worse than better.
This week, renewed questions surfaced about Trump’s mental health, as he referred to himself as the “King of Israel,” the “chosen one,” and “hereby ordered” U.S. companies to change their dealings with China. Trump created another unprovoked international crisis with long-time ally Denmark, cancelling a trip he invited himself on, last minute, over the country’s unwillingness to discuss selling him Greenland.
This week Trump’s beloved economy faltered under pressure from his trade war with China, a ballooning U.S. budge deficit, and other global factors. An anxious Trump, realizing a strong economy is essential to his re-election, lashed out at the Federal Reserve, while confiding in allies his plan to blame any downturn on Fed Chair Jerome Powell. Meanwhile his shrinking inner-circle of sycophants assured him forecasts were wrong.
This week has the most incidents of violence, attempted violence, and acts of hate inspired by Trump and his rhetoric since I started keeping track. The week started with two deadly mass shootings — one directly linked to the language used by Trump and Fox News — and rather invoking the role of consoler, Trump instead further stoked division and hate. What many may have missed in Week 143 is the amount of close calls by other white men — seemingly activated by Trump’s rhetoric and gaslighting on white supremacy and hate — that could have led to even more bloodshed. Or the remnants of racism and xenophobia that Trump has brought into the mainstream with his actions and words.
This week started with Trump’s attacks on Black leader House Oversight Committee Chair Elijah Cummings, whose panel has several ongoing investigations targeting Trump and his family. Trump used dehumanizing language like “rats” and “infest” to disparage Cummings’ home district of Baltimore, then broadened his attack during the week to other prominent Black men including Al Sharpton, who he called a “con man” and CNN host Don Lemon who he called “dumb.” Trump refused to back off, escalating his racist attacks — gaslighting the country that he is not the racist, but Cummings is — as news of hate-based shootings and instances of overt racism spread in an anxious and increasingly divided country.
This week Robert Mueller testified before the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees about his 448 page report. The testimony was the first glimpse many Americans had of its findings, especially Mueller’s stark warnings on Russia’s past and ongoing interference, and Trump’s and other regime members’ financial and other conflicts. While the media quibbled over whether Mueller was made-for-television articulate, the House Judiciary Committee took the first steps to effectively start an impeachment investigation, as over 100 House members have now come out in favor of impeachment. Despite testimony by Mueller and FBI director Christopher Wray, as well as a bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee sounding alarms about Russia’s ongoing efforts at election interference, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell continued to halt efforts by Congress to counter Russian meddling.
This week, in a shocking display of racism, Trump tweeted that four congresswomen of color should “go back” to the countries they came from. Amid Republican silence, rather than backing off, Trump ramped up his attacks, leading to a mid-week rally where his supporters chanted “send them back.” At first Trump seemed to distance himself from his supporters’ chants, but the next day doubled-down, calling the supporters “incredible patriots,” while escalating his attacks on the congresswomen further. Still, by week’s end, no Republicans publicly criticized Trump, rather backing him or seeking to redirect his racist comments to a discussion of political ideology.
This is the longest week so far, and it felt that way. The chaos of our lives has obfuscated the damage and extremes under Trump, as each week blurs into the next week’s crises and unprecedented actions. This week’s turmoil centered on Jeffrey Epstein’s arrest and the resignation of Labor Secretary Alex Acosta, the 13th Cabinet member to depart the regime — next week there will certainly be new plot lines to engage and exhaust the American people.
This week, two years after visiting France for Bastille Day and admiring its military display, Trump hosted a “Salute to America” on July Fourth, replete with an expansive array of military hardware and troops. The scenes of tanks rolling into the nation’s capital drew comparisons to other authoritarian regimes who flaunt their military might through public displays, including North Korea, where Trump paid a surprise visit as the week began.
This week as Trump backed off mass deportations, public outcry grew over conditions at detention centers for migrant children. Reminiscent of Theresienstadt Ghetto in the Nazi era, the Trump regime offered limited tours of detention centers to the media — viewings that contradicted interviews of immigration lawyers and advocates who described first-hand the inhumane conditions and traumatized children. Much of the country was moved and heartbroken over a photo of a Salvadoran father and daughter who drowned on the bank of the Rio Grande trying to cross to the U.S.
What is The Weekly List?
The “new normal” of American politics is not normal. The Weekly List reminds us of that. On a weekly basis, the List tracks specific news stories representing eroding norms under the current regime. Taken together, they reveal a nation pushed towards authoritarianism, the wielding of unchecked governmental authority by one person or group at the expense of the freedom of those who oppose them.
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Revitalising Pont Briwet
Pont Briwet is a Grade II listed viaduct which carries the Cambrian Railway and a single-lane toll road over the Afon Dwyryd estuary, a beautiful coastal landscape close to the Portmeirion tourist attraction featured in the cult 1960s show, The Prisoner. Read more...
Tony Gee’s Royal Engagement
Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal has welcomed Tony Gee as a Patron of RedR, a charity working around the world to improve the effectiveness of disaster relief. Executive Managing Director Graham Nicholson was presented with a Patron Certificate by HRH at RedR’s anniversary reception at St James’s Palace, commemorating 30 years of improving disaster […] Read more...
Tate Modernising
Tony Gee is assisting demolition contractor Cantillon Ltd, providing specialist construction engineering services for London’s landmark art gallery. Read more...
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Legacy Recordings (2)
Weblog artikelen
Did you ever see Simon & Garfunkel in concert? Here’s a live performance of “The Sounds of Silence” from 1966:
Categorie: * Legacy Recordings (2)
Lees verder | 423 keer bekeken | reacties: 0 | 22 feb 2019 21:54
Patti Smith’s ‘Horses’ was named the all-time best debut LP by NME on this day in 1992. What’s your favorite track from the album?
Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready celebrates his birthday today! Watch the band play “Alive” at the Pinkpop Festival in 1992 and tell us your favorite Pearl Jam song:
Rage Against The Machine played Sweden’s Hultsfred Festival three times between 1997 and 2008. Check out their performance of “Sleep Now in the Fire” from their second visit there in 2000:
Rage Against The Machine were on the bill for the first Tibetan Freedom Concert in San Francisco in 1996. Watch them play “Bulls on Parade” during their killer set:
Raising Hell’ celebrates its 30th anniversary this year! Check out this vintage video of Run DMC rapping "It's Like That" and “It’s Tricky” at The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company in New York City!
Remembering Alice in Chains frontman Layne Staley, born on this day in 1968. What’s your favorite Alice in Chains track?
Remembering Dan Fogelberg, born on this day in 1951.
Rock on! Today is David Essex’s birthday.
Ronnie Milsap and his hero Ray Charles
Rosemary Clooney (Official) was born on this day in 1928! 1955’s “Mambo Italiano” was one of her eight Top 10 hits during the 1950s; check it out below.
Run DMC perform their debut single, “It’s Like That,” at the Capitol Theatre in Passaic, NJ, in this classic clip from 1984.
Sam Cooke was born on this day in 1931! Spread the “good news” with this classic clip from American Bandstand:
She gave me peace and love / She gave me thoughts of love…” Earth, Wind & Fire’s “Mom” was the closer to ‘Last Days and Time,’ their first album for Columbia Records. Watch them play it live:
She was born Jamesetta Hawkins on this day in 1938--but you know her as Etta James.
Lees verder | 366 keer bekeken | reacties: 0 | 06 mrt 2019 16:11
Singer, dancer and activist Lena Horne was born 100 years ago today. Learn more about her legendary career here:
Sly & The Family Stone closed the book on their incredible output in the 1960s with the single “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin).” See the group perform it on ‘Soul Train’!
Sly & The Family Stone’s “Family Affair” became their third No. 1 hit 45 years ago, spending three weeks at the top of the chart beginning on this day in 1971.
South by Southwest comes to an end today--but thanks to performances like this one, of The Strokes at SXSW in 2011, the musical memories will live on forever.
Lees verder | 413 keer bekeken | reacties: 0 | 30 jul 2017 19:37
Stevie Ray Vaughan was born on this day in 1954. Here’s an excellent clip from his headlining gig at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1985--tell us your favorite performances of his!
Lees verder | 291 keer bekeken | reacties: 0 | 05 dec 2017 17:37
Tammy Wynette puts her own spin on "Blue Christmas" in this classic TV appearance!
Lees verder | 288 keer bekeken | reacties: 0 | 28 nov 2017 17:38
The 15th Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival kicks off this weekend! Watch a song from The Strokes’ headlining set in 2011:
Lees verder | 340 keer bekeken | reacties: 0 | 23 jun 2017 16:26
The ACM - Academy of Country Music airs tonight, live at 6pm on CBS! Flash back to Sara Evans’ stellar performance of “A Little Bit Stronger” that earned her a standing ovation at the 46th annual ACM Awards in 2011.
The Austin City Limits Music Festival (ACL) concludes this weekend. Flash back to 2006, when Van Morrison (Official) was the festival’s headliner:
The Emotions’ “Best of My Love,” written by Maurice White and Al McKay of Earth, Wind & Fire, spent its first of four consecutive weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 on this day in 1977!
The Glastonbury Festival (official) kicks off in England this week! Who remembers when Rage Against The Machine brought Tool frontman Maynard James Keenan into their Glastonbury set as a guest in 1994?
The irresistible “Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl)” by Looking Glass topped the Billboard Hot 100 on this day in 1972!
The Newport Folk Festival kicks off today! Remember when Bob Dylan shocked the festival crowd with his electric performance of “Like a Rolling Stone”?
The Old Grey Whistle Test’ aired its first episode on the BBC on this day in 1971. The broadcast included clips of Jimi Hendrix at The Monterrey Pop Festival, one of which you can watch below:
The only thing I'm interested in is the music and the musicians. I don't acknowledge applause 'cause I'm giving them something.” -Miles Davis
The Rockefeller Center Christmas tree lights up tonight in New York City! Here’s Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga performing “Winter Wonderland” at the 2014 ceremony:
The things I did and I saw would make the earth stand still…” Elvis brings the house down with “One Night with You” from his legendary 1968 TV special.
Thelonious Monk and Charlie Rouse collaborated together for a decade in Monk’s quartet. Here’s a live performance of theirs from Japan in 1963:
There is none higher! Check out this classic footage of Run DMC performing “King of Rock” at Live Aid in 1985:
There’s a permanent crease in your right and wrong…” Watch Sly & The Family Stone play “Stand!” on ‘The Mike Douglas Show’ in 1974:
There’s only you and me, and we just disagree..." Celebrate Traffic founder Dave Mason’s birthday with a live version of his biggest solo hit!
They’re rough! Check out this candid live and behind-the-scenes footage of the New Kids On The Block from 1989. Who was your favorite New Kid?
This early performance by The Jimi Hendrix Experience’s was recorded at The Marquee Club in London in 1967, for the German TV series ‘Beat Club.’ What is your favorite Jimi Hendrix live performance?
Time after time, we love Cyndi Lauper’s music! Check out this performance from ‘Martha Stewart Living’ in honor of her birthday!
Today we celebrate Carlos Santana’s birthday with this great 1970 performance of “Jin-Go-Lo-Ba.” What’s your favorite Santana song?
Today we remember the short but pivotal career of Janis Joplin, born on this day in 1943, with a smoldering rendition of “To Love Somebody” recorded live on ‘The Dick Cavett Show’ in 1969.
Today’s the day to celebrate The Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin, on her birthday! Here’s an amazing early performance of hers on ‘The Steve Allen Show’ in 1964:
Tonight, the MTV Video Music Awards is live at Madison Square Garden! Flash back to when Christina Aguilera invited Redman and Dave Navarro to get “Dirrty” on stage!
Tonight, the Tony Awards celebrate the biggest and best of Broadway! Here’s Cyndi Lauper (a Tony winner for her musical ‘Kinky Boots on Broadway’) and Alan Cumming performing a tune from ‘The Threepenny Opera’ in 2006
Tonight, the Tony Awards celebrate the biggest and best of Broadway! Here’s Cyndi Lauper (a Tony winner for her musical ‘Kinky Boots on Broadway’) and Alan Cumming performing a tune from ‘The Threepenny Opera’ in 2006:
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Hip Hop, News, Trending
Jhene Aiko Covered Up Big Sean Tattoo Amidst Breakup
by S. McIntosh November 15, 2018
S. McIntosh Author
Jhene Aiko appears to have covered up her tattoo of Big Sean amidst reports of their breakup.
Rumors have been floating around for the past months that Big Sean dumped his girlfriend Jhene Aiko and now she has been spotted out with a giant tattoo that appears to have covered her old tattoo portrait of the Detroit rapper. Sean Don and Aiko formed a group last year called TM88 and dropped an album. There were both working on their second album as a group, but so far we haven’t heard anything new about the project except that the pair has parted ways.
Sources are saying that Big Sean has been spotted out with a blonde female rumored to be his new boo. “He cheated on her [Jhene Aiko] with a blonde, and now they are officially dating leaving her out to hang dry,” sources said. Our sources added that Big Sean has cheated on the R&B singer more than once and that their relationship has been on the rocks for quite some time.
In March of this year, reports surfaced claiming that Big Sean cheated on Jhene Aiko with singer Nicole Scherzinger. The G.O.O.D. Music rapper denied the allegations and Aiko addressed the cheating rumors saying that they were not true. “Sorry, but nothing about you guy’s fan fiction stories are true… I still love you tho,” she said.
“The internet is a wild place it’s a whole other reality. Bless the internet. Amen,” she added in another tweet. This is not the first time that Jhene Aiko came out public with a new tattoo that appears to have covered up the old one of Big Sean. Last year she trolled the internet when she debuts a fake tat that covered up the BS portrait. So take this with a grain of salt, at least until one of them addressed the rumors.
Big Sean, Jhené Aiko
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Home Lifestyle Broken angels: Inside the lab working to restore Notre Dame
Broken angels: Inside the lab working to restore Notre Dame
CHAMPS-SUR-MARNE, France — The golden angel once glimmered majestically from Notre Dame’s vault.
Now, with a broken nose, chipped gold-leaf and a smashed bust, it stares up blankly at a warehouse roof in the outskirts of Paris where blackened fragments of the famed cathedral’s stained glass mingle with organ pipes and jagged vault stones.
Scientists at the French government’s Historical Monuments Research Laboratory are using these objects as clues in an urgent and vital task: Working out how to safely restore the beloved Paris cathedral and identify what perils remain inside the monument in a race against the clock.
Debris is still falling from Notre Dame’s roof as fears over dust poisoning from the cathedral’s burnt-out lead roof has frightened the people of Paris and a spring 2020 deadline looms for a major diagnostic report on how to fix the lab’s most famous patient.
“For the moment, the cathedral is in an emergency state of peril… It’s still falling, stones fall regularly,” said Aline Magnien, the lab director.
“Fifteen to 20 (scientists) have been working at Notre Dame, notably to filter out the rubble. Everything that fell from the roof vaults — the wood, the metal, the stone — has been the object of a sort of archaeological excavation.”
The April 15 inferno has turned the lab in the sleepy town of Champs-sur-Marne into a hive of activity, with geologists, microbiologists and experts in metal and stained glass manning laser beams, microscopes and state-of-the-art computer technology to analyze key pieces of debris — work that goes on often until midnight.
One key question the scientists are trying to establish is how damaged the remaining stone is, after being not only burnt but then doused in water from firefighters.
Architects need to know how strong the stone is to know how heavy the cathedral’s new roof and spire can be — without risking further calamity.
The lab’s stone expert, Jean-Didier Mertz, proudly showed off his myriad machines, glass atriums and vault stones wrapped in kitchen cling-film. He said Notre Dame’s stone could have been weakened by up to 50% because of water that caused it to expand in a close-knit stone structure that has little natural breathing room.
Although Notre Dame’s two medieval towers were spared from collapsing in the fire that destroyed the cathedral’s roof and spire, he warned that the stone in the French Gothic masterpiece is still not out of danger.
“Since the construction and (architect) Viollet-le-Duc’s revamp in 1864, the stones haven’t seen a single drop of water,” he explained. “The fact there was the fire and water to extinguish it totally changed the material’s surface.”
Even though debris is still falling down at the cathedral, Mertz said he did not think the remaining stone structure would come down.
“If the stone was going to collapse, it would have collapsed already. But it does need serious help,” he added.
He says he will recommend using a stone-hardening liquid coating on the surface of the stones. For stones with fissures, he says a mortar mix will be used to fill the holes.
Officials at the lab currently estimate 500 cubic meters of stone will be required to rebuild parts of the church.
“It’s a tricky subject, because the Notre Dame quarries no longer exist… Where are we going to find them?” Magnien asked.
The lab combines high tech with a typically Gallic environment.
Located inside the Champs-sur-Marne chateau, the team of scientists wearing plastic aprons, elasticated shoe covers and respiratory masks crack jokes amid the turreted 18th-century architecture.
Like the setting, their work has one foot in the future and one in the past.
Their analysis of the previously unseen historic debris has ended up revealing secrets about the cathedral and the incredible talents of the medieval architects who designed it.
A small layer of plaster found on the cathedral’s fallen vault stones initially confounded the lab’s experts, given that plaster is an insulating material and not a glue-like mortar that would have normally held the stones together.
It dawned on them that the “medieval engineers might have built in a fire safety system to slow down any potential fire,” Mertz said with a beaming smile.
Stone expert Jean-Didier Mertz gestures next to the remain of the golden angel that was once atop Notre Dame cathedral.AP
The scientists also complimented the skills of modern-day fire experts.
Glass specialist Claudine Loisel explained how Notre Dame’s stained-glass windows were saved by the skill of the French firefighters who’d learned the lessons of 1984 blaze at York Minster in northern England. They didn’t douse the windows with water, Loisel said, and only gently sprinkled the surrounding area, thus preventing the glass from exploding.
Loisel, like others on her team, talks of Notre Dame like a doctor would of a sick patient.
“The stained-glass windows are in good shape. We have some pathologies, we might have some breakages from time to time, linked to thermal shock,” she explained as she gently cleaned a window fragment from cathedral’s east wing. “But in contrast to what we could have imagined, we have hardly anything.”
Another key question is the cathedral’s lead.
The blaze burnt up an estimated 200 tons of lead, a key material in its 19th-century roof, some of which went far into the Paris atmosphere.
After the fire, high levels of lead were recorded in the immediate neighborhood and in the blood of some local children. The massive cleanup inside the cathedral itself was briefly suspended until special protection measures for workers were put into place.
Aurelia Azema, Metals chief at the Historical Monuments Research Laboratory, said her job was to not only advise on how to clean the cathedral without damaging the original materials, but to create a lead “fingerprint” to know where lead that the fire spat out landed beyond the building’s walls.
“Knowing that digital fingerprint of the cathedral, we will be able to compare it will the lead that went into the atmosphere and to know (if) the traces we have found in Paris match the lead that was in the cathedral,” she said.
French President Emmanuel Macron made an ambitious pledge shortly after the catastrophe that Notre Dame would be rebuilt by 2024, enlisting 71-year-old former army chief Jean-Louis Georgelin to crack the whip. The tight timeline has prompted widespread disbelief among architects, renovation experts and others, including some of the lab’s employees.
When asked about how the restorers plan to finish such an extensive restoration in just five years, the lab’s deputy director shrugged his shoulders.
“We have a general for that,” Magnien said with a smile.
Stone expert Jean-Didier Mertz looks on next to the remains of the golden angel that was once atop Notre Dame cathedral.AP
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PiXYZ Software License
This license agreement is between you ("Licensee") and Metaverse Technologies France SAS ("PiXYZ SOFTWARE"). Unity Technologies is not a party to this license agreement.
IMPORTANT: READ THE TEXT OF THIS LICENSE CAREFULLY. THE GRANT OF THE RIGHT TO USE THE SOFTWARE IS MADE SOLELY ON CONDITION THAT THE LICENSEE AGREES TO THE TERMS OF THE LICENSE. IF THE LICENSEE DOES NOT AGREE TO THE TERMS OF THE LICENSE, IT IS NOT AUTHORISED TO USE THE SOFTWARE.
PiXYZ SOFTWARE hereby grants to the Licensee a personal, non-transferable, non-transmissible and non-exclusive right to use the SOFTWARE, within the limit of the number of machines indicated in the order form. This License is granted for the duration indicated in the order form. It shall become effective as of complete payment of the price. PiXYZ SOFTWARE reserves the right of correction in accordance with the provisions of Article L 122-6-1 of the French Intellectual Property Code. The smooth functioning of the SOFTWARE in accordance with its user documentation is warranted 90 days as of the delivery. Unless the maintenance has been ordered, PiXYZ SOFTWARE is not bound by any obligation of corrective maintenance after this deadline of 90 days. PiXYZ SOFTWARE guarantees that the SOFTWARE is original and does not infringe any third-party property rights recognized in laws and regulations applicable in France (FR). The SOFTWARE is provided without any other warranty of any kind. Particularly, PiXYZ SOFTWARE does not warrant that the SOFTWARE does not carry any errors or anomalies. PiXYZ SOFTWARE does not warrant any quantitative or qualitative result, or any other performance than those indicated in the user documentation. Also, PiXYZ SOFTWARE does not warrant the compatibility or the interoperability of the SOFTWARE with other software or hardware than those indicated in the required configuration. PiXYZ SOFTWARE does not warrant backward compatibility with new versions of software and hardware indicated in the required configuration. The Licensee agrees to never license the PiXYZ SOFTWARE products on a hosted and/or SaaS basis and to never enable third parties to ever receive electronically, physically or otherwise, distributable copies of the PiXYZ SOFTWARE products.
The Licensee shall not assist, enable or otherwise permit or allow any third party to: copy (except in the course of loading or installing), alter, adapt, modify, translate, create derivative works of the Software, decompile, disassemble or otherwise reverse engineer or attempt to derive the source code of (unless expressly permitted under applicable law) or any technical data, know-how, trade secrets, processes, techniques, specifications, protocols, methods, algorithms, interfaces, ideas, solutions, structures or other information embedded or used in the Software, rent, lend, loan, lease, sell, encumber, distribute, sublicense, or otherwise permit use of or access to the Software by third parties, remove, alter, or obscure any proprietary or restrictive notices affixed to or contained in the Software, circumvent or attempt to circumvent any technological protective measure contained in or supported by, the Software; or any copy, portion, extract or derivative thereof, Use the Software in any manner that violates any applicable law or regulation whether local, national or international, Use the Software in any manner that violates any Intellectual Property Rights or privacy rights of Metaverse Technologies or any third party.
The Licensee shall not provide, disclose, display or otherwise make available the Software or any copy, portion, extract or derivative thereof, or permit use of any of the foregoing by or for the benefit of multiple users or any third party, including, without limitation, by uploading the Software to a network or e-sharing service time-sharing, or subscription service basis, on a hosting, cloud, service-bureau, or for carrying out any third party administrative, outsourcing, or other services, do anything that could cause or result in the Software being subject to any open source license (or similar license) that requires as a condition of use, modification or distribution of the Software including the run-time portion thereof; and specially that would entail the Software to be: disclosed or distributed in source code form, licensed for the purpose of making derivative works, or redistributable at no charge; and Use the Software to develop a competing software.
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When using PiXYZ products, the Licensee agrees to follow usage limitations depending on the license type purchased:
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Each PiXYZ runtime application is technically limited to use a maximum of 32 CPU cores in parallel, when multithreaded functions are used by the PiXYZ runtime process.
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PiXYZ Plugin :
When using PiXYZ PLUGIN FOR UNITY product, the Licensee agrees to follow usage limitations described hereafter:
PiXYZ for Unity will only be used to manually import 3D model files either from the graphical user interface of the Unity 3D editor or from a C# runtime import command if the PiXYZ for Unity plugin is embedded in a built application. Importing 3D models files will result from a user action, as opposed to automatic batching of 3D models files which is not permitted with this license type.
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The SOFTWARE is protected by an anti-copy technical device in the form of a digital key (hereinafter KEY). This KEY is generated in function of technical features of the machine on which the SOFTWARE will be used. Without this KEY, the SOFTWARE cannot be used.
The Licensee who wants a new KEY because of any change of machine may send a written request to PiXYZ SOFTWARE by email at contact@pi.xyz attesting that the SOFTWARE is not used anymore on the previous machine, with a copy of the identification document (ID card, passport) of the signatory of the statement, and not more than twice per calendar year. Any additional request will be charged at a unit license price.
4. Corrective maintenance
Whenever a corrective maintenance service is ordered, PiXYZ SOFTWARE undertakes to correct all errors or anomalies affecting the SOFTWARE compared to its user documentation (hereinafter INCIDENTS) during the maintenance period specified in the order form. This Article is also applicable to the Licensee during the 90 days period specified in Article 1.
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Incidents may be reported during business hours and days, that is, from 9 AM to 12 noon and from 2 PM to 5 PM (GMT+1), Mondays to Fridays, aside from holidays and/or days off. Reporting shall be made by telephone, at +33. (0)1.75.60.18.00, telecommunication costs shall be paid by the Licensee, or by email at contact@pi.xyz.
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restoring data connected to the SOFTWARE in case of accidental or voluntary loss thereof or due to an INCIDENT.
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Payments may be made by check or bank transfer.
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The delivery and service are made electronically. The SOFTWARE and/or the DONGLE shall be delivered without sources code and only in its executable version or object code. PiXYZ SOFTWARE shall not be bound by any obligation to install, integrate or set the SOFTWARE. PiXYZ SOFTWARE shall act with all due diligence to deliver as soon as possible when there is no delivery date indicated in the order form. The delivery of the SOFTWARE and/or of the KEY and the execution of services shall be subordinated to the complete payment of their price.
In the case of breach by the Licensee of any one of its obligations, PiXYZ SOFTWARE may terminate the ordered Licence ipso jure by registered letter, acknowledgement of receipt, without prejudice to any damages it could claim. Termination of the Licence Agreement shall entail automatic termination of the corrective maintenance and support services.
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In no case shall PiXYZ SOFTWARE be held liable for indirect and consequential damages connected to use of the SOFTWARE, including operating or financial losses resulting from the use or impossibility to use the SOFTWARE.
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Licensee acknowledges that portions of the SOFTWARE contain elements in which the intellectual property is owned by third parties and its licensors; the list of such third parties is available at https://www.pixyz-software.com/legal/3rdparty/. In respect of such elements, Licensee undertakes (i) to use reasonable care in maintaining their confidentiality, (ii) to retain all proprietary notices and legends contained on the SOFTWARE and on all copies thereof, (iii) not to de-compile or reverse engineer the SOFTWARE and on create derivative works thereof, (iv) comply with the export restrictions and restricted rights regulations defined by the United States of America, in relation to Licensee’s activities related to the SOFTWARE.
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These General Terms and Conditions shall be governed by the laws of France (FR). The competent courts shall be those of the city of Paris (FR 75), notwithstanding multiple defendants or any action for impleader.
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The recommended configuration, not provided by PiXYZ SOFTWARE, is the following :
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A Look at Global Massage Franchises Industry: Is Current Growth Sustainable in Long run?
Ruchi Gupta - January 3, 2020
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Click & Tac, Platform for French-Speaking Service Providers, to Expand to Porto in 2020
Evolve With Ideas & Industry Trends
Business Outlook | Startup News With a Focus on Portugal
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Sign the Petition: Open letter to Pres., India- Police Brutality at Ramlila Grounds
Date: Sat, Jun 11, 2011 at 5:25 PM
Subject: [BSTUSA} Open Letter to the President of India – Sign Up Campaign against Delhi Police’s brutalities on hundreds of thousands peaceful Satyagrathies on June 4th Night at Ram Lila Ground
OM!
Please click the link below for Sign Up Campaign against Delhi Police’s brutalities on hundreds of thousands peaceful Satyagrathies on June 4th Night at Ram Lila Ground and please forward it to as many people as possible.
http://www.ravanlila.info
Shekhar Agrawal
Bharat Swabhiman Overseas Inc
<shekharagrawal@gmail.com>
www.bharatswabhimanusa.org
www.bharatswabhimansamachar.in
www.pyptusa.org
www.divyaproducts.com
Letter To President Of India
Smt. Pratibha Patil
Rashtrapati Bhavan,
New Delhi,
Honorable Smt. Pratibha Patil:
This is to express our vehement condemnation of the merciless use of force on more than a hundred thousand Indian citizens including women and children who were unarmed, sleeping, fasting and exercising only their constitutional democratic rights to draw attention of Government of India by peaceful means to skyrocketing plundering and widespread corruption, during the “Satyagraha” against corruption on Ram Lila grounds in New Delhi on June 4th 2011.
The brutality of the police revisited the atrocities committed by British colonial rulers and emergency rule of Mrs. Indira Gandhi during 1975, which many of us have personally experienced and heard from our parents. Innocent, peaceful Satyagrahis assembled were tear-gassed, beaten up in lathi-charge and trampled by thousands of violent policemen under order from the UPA government.
The state-sponsored violence in a closed compound could have even led to an uncontrollable stampede resulting in the loss of an enormous numbers of innocent lives. This cannot be Democratic India; this cannot be Mahatma Gandhi’s India; this is not India governed by rule of law and a democratic constitution, ensuring the fundamental rights of all citizens for assembly and peaceful protest and demonstration.
These events have left the people of Indian origin around the globe, particularly here in the USA, shocked and horror-stricken. We are thoroughly embarrassed for our native land, asking in disbelief what indeed is the difference between Indian democracy under UPA leadership and the Chinese dictatorial system, where no peaceful demonstration is allowed and any legitimate criticism against the ruling Communist Party is crushed with brutal violence as in Tiananmen Square.
The irresponsible, callous, fascist and totalitarian attitude of the UPA government is evident from the fact that neither the UPA Chairperson Mrs. Sonia Gandhi nor Prime Minister Mr. Manmohan Singh considers it necessary to provide an explanation and extend an apology to the nation. The prime minister even made a ridiculous statement that there was no other way except use of violence, near the samadhi of Mahatma Gandhi himself – a global beacon of non-violence.
This display of naked power clearly appears to be yet another attempt to crush the ever-increasing strength of anti-corruption movements by the masses all over India, unfortunately implying UPA government intense desire to preserve the culture of corruption among their own political ranks and within the thoroughly corrupt bureaucracy they control. These were the actions of people who do not believe in either human rights for their citizens, freedom of speech guaranteed by the Indian Constitution or Indian values.
This is a serious threat to the fundamental rights of our brothers and sisters in India. The entire Diaspora around the globe as NRI, PIO and responsible Overseas Citizens of India (OCI) unequivocally condemn this act by the Government of India. We are convinced now more than ever as to why the UPA government is trying to brutally crush any and all peaceful anti-corruption movements. Irrespective of our political affiliation, we are totally united in expressing our disgust and anger against unconstitutional violation of democracy and human rights.
Sreemati Patil, as the President of India you have the constitutional duty to uphold democratic norms guaranteeing the freedom and inalienable right of all Indian citizens for peaceful assembly and protest, and also to dismiss a corrupt government which has clearly exhibited no desire to curb rampant corruption and hence lost all moral authority to govern the country. We fervently hope that you will restore freedom, human rights and democratic rights of the citizens by dismissing the corrupt UPA government. People of India deserve a chance to democratically elect new leaders who will root out corruption.
Thank you for your consideration and thoughtfulness.
Posted in Baba Ramdev's Arrest, Congress (Bharat), Corruption, Corruption-Bharat, Injustice to Hindus, Sonia Gandhi
Tags: atrocities, Bharat, brutality, bureaucracy, callous, Chinese, citizens, Corruption, democracy, Diaspora, dismiss, emergency, fascist, force, freedom, fundamental rights, human rights, India, Indira Gandhi, irresponsible, mahatma Gandhi, Manmohan Singh, merciless, moral authority, peaceful, plunder, protest, satyagraha, Sonia Gandhi, Sreemati Patil, state-sponsored, Tiananmen Square, totalitarian, USA, violence
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Boys Basketball Senior Night Witnesses History and Wins League Four Consecutive Years
Douglas Lin
Last Thursday, our Los Altos boys basketball team and the onlooking audience witnessed history as Senior guard, Jarod Lucas, scored fifty-two point to become the all time leading scorer in Southern California. The Los Altos Conquerors defeated The West Covina Bulldogs in a 97 to 58 win while also putting on a show for the ecstatic home crowd.
By securing this win, they have become undefeated league champions of the Hacienda League. Our boys basketball team and program has won their fourth straight league title, which is rare among basketball programs and has never been accomplished here at Los Altos High School. Senior Isaiah Barcelo has been on the varsity team since sophomore year, there when the team won three of the four consecutive league titles. Barcelo said, “Man, it is pretty crazy because it is hard to win the league title four years straight. It requires the program to be consistently good as Seniors graduate leaving gaps that need to be filled.” With seven Seniors graduated from the program last year, many players found themselves stepping up to bigger roles to win. “I remember when I never really got the ball. Now, as the point guard, I am in control of the pace and the tempo we play at.”
The boys basketball team also witnessed Jarod Lucas’ historic night as he scored fifty two points on the Bulldogs who did everything in their power to prevent that from happening. Senior Davie Areyzaga said, “He was getting double teamed the entire game and at the end, when he was two points away from scoring, they even triple teamed him, which was crazy.” The Bulldogs tried to double and triple team Lucas, but to no avail as he broke the all time Southern Section scoring record, which Arezaga said, “It was just crazy. This is the first time I have ever seen such a game.”
Lucas is officially the number one CIF Southern Section all-time leading scorer, scoring 3,285 points and having his jersey number “2” retired soon after. Lucas said, “It was a blessing, especially with 2-3 defenders on me the whole game! I was glad to get the record before the playoffs. Now my teammates and I can focus on winning ball games.” Lucas’ talent for scoring and the team’s ability to play together will be crucial in the next game. Lucas said, “It will be a big game for us and we are ready to face Crossroads again. Come out and support us in the Splash-Zone!”
As the boys dominate league opponents, win four consecutive titles, and break records, they look forward to their CIF matchup against Crossroads High School.
Cheer and Football Appreciate Gifts, Establish Peaceable Exchange
Water Polo Goalie Olvera Pushes Limits
Sibal Passionately Scores Points While Pursuing Skills
Through Tennis Experience
Erick Olvera: Being A Sophomore Varsity Water Polo Player
Controversy Sparked Over Outdated Traditions, Now Smoothed Over
Girls Varsity Soccer’s Hard Work Leads to Playoffs
Super Bowl Excites Fans from Both the Patriots and Rams
Los Altos Lady Conquerors Crowned League Champions
Girls Basketball Notches First Win of the Season
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← Are international schools creating global citizens?
The problem with Pisa →
Graphic novels and new media literacies
I have a literacy corner in my classroom with a variety of interesting books. The most popular books by far are the graphic novels. They have folded pages and frayed edges- signs of good use! Children of all reading abilities love graphic novels and comics. The use of complex multi modal literacy in graphic novels is now educationally recognised. The excellent graphic novel The Complete Maus by Art Spiegelman was recently added as a prescribed text to the senior Victorian English Curriculum in Australia. Finally the fear of graphic novels as somehow less worthy literature is dispelling, and teachers now value the contribution graphic novels make to enhancing literacy education.
Image from The Conversation
http://theconversation.com/teaching-graphic-novels-as-literature-the-complete-maus-enters-the-curriculum-13852
Graphic novels are stories in comic strip format. Illustrations, panels, printed text, word balloons and captions give contextual information and create meaning. Children’s lives are multimodal. Globalization, with the exchange of culture and spread of technology has led to the need for multi literacies. Think about the ways we have to use literacy each day- emails, signs and icons, videos, tweeting, Facebook, gaming, … A pedagogy of multi literacies requires extended modes of meaning. These modes are “dynamic representational resources, constantly being remade by their users as they achieve various cultural purposes” (Cazden, Cope, Fairclough & Gee 1996 p 64). Speak to adolescents about their use of images on Tumblr blogs and you will discover how quickly these resources change in meaning.
Graphic novels, comics and manga versions of children’s literature offer readers an understanding of the impact of our visual culture. Language acquisition is based on thinking visually (Britsch 2009). It is how we make meaning of the language we learn. Graphic novels, comics and manga assist children’s ability to interpret their world. Language alone does not represent reality. Our lives have become increasingly multimodal as communications extend and change, and global socio-cultural linguistics diversify the English language.
“Graphic novels give the brain more of a workout per sentence than any other type of media” (Lyga 2006)
Let’s examine a twentieth century novel transformed into a graphic novel
The novel A Wrinkle in Time was written by Madeleine L’Engle in 1962. In 2012, a graphic novel version was published by Hope Larson. It encourages a new generation of readers to the classic with meaningful images. Read page one from the original text and compare the first page of the graphic novel.
“It was a dark and stormy night.
In her attic bedroom Margaret Murry, wrapped in an old patchwork quilt, sat on the foot of her bed and watched the trees tossing in the frenzied lashing of the wind. Behind the trees clouds scudded frantically across the sky. Every few moments the moon ripped through them, creating wraith-like shadows that raced along the ground.
The house shook.
Wrapped in her quilt, Meg shook.
She wasn’t usually afraid of the weather.”
The graphic novel introduction page establishes time, setting and atmosphere. The reader makes inferences from the diagonal strokes, bent trees and dark shadows to create a foreboding mood. The type used for the sentence “It was a dark and stormy night” appears handwritten, suggesting a personal narrative. The reader sees the image of the wide shot and uses vectors on the roof to draw the eye to the attic window, identified in the close up.
This image interprets page 5 of L’Engle’s text “she left the twin’s room and went downstairs, avoiding the creaking seventh step”. Look at how text and images work together to show meaning. The “intuitive processes” (Mouly 2011 p 12) detect movement, direction, weight, sound and time.
Visual images contribute to visual culture which in turn is part of a wider culture (Mirzoeff 1999). The image of Margaret Murry in the graphic novel echoes the distressed female in Lichtenstein’s pop art, showing the socio-historical continuum of comic images. Our visual memory connects the images to make meaning. The reader must also discern characters’ non-verbal gestures. Facial expressions are examined and then culturally cross-referenced. This is a serious brain workout!
The remarkable image depicting people listening from inside their houses uses the detached symbol of the ear with lines of movement to represent the act of listening.
The numerous symbols suggest many people hearing. Arnheim’s (1971) theory of prior knowledge to make meaning, is apparent.
What is illustrated is as important as what is not. Here the black void creates impact and drama. The simple 9 panels are actually sophisticated “sequential art” (Hoover 2012 p 175).
Graphic novels are complex forms of literature synthesizing linguistic and visual meaning. Uses for graphic novels in the classroom can include analysis, extension reading, encouraging literacy across a range of reading abilities and as a springboard for original text composition. It’s encouraging to see many scholars researching the impact of graphic novels in literacy education. May graphic novels continue to be included in prescribed reading lists!
Arnheim, R. (1971) Art and Visual perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye. Berkeley: University of Berkeley
Britsch, S (2009) ESOL Educators and the Experience of visual literacy, TESOL Quarterly, 43 (4) p 710-721
Cazden, C., Cope, B. Fairclough, N., Gee, J. (1996) A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies: Designing Social Futures. Harvard Educational Review 66 91) p 60-91
Hoover, S. (2012) The Case for Graphic Novels. Communications in Information Literacy 5 (2) p 174-186
L’Engle, M. (2007) A Wrinkle in Time. London: Puffin Books
Larson, H. (2012) A Wrinkle in Time: The Graphic Novel. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux
Lyga, A. (2006) Graphic Novels for (really) young readers. School Library Journal 52 (93) p 56
Mirzoeff, N. (1999) An Introduction to Visual Culture. Routeledge: London
Schwarz, G. (2002) Graphic novels for Multiple Literacies. Journal of Adolescent and adult literacy 46 (3) p 262-265
Tagged as children's literature, graphic novels, literacy, multimodal literacy, new media literacy, teaching English
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Preview: The Newsroom Season 3 available to watch online in the UK tonight
Staff Reporter | On 12, Nov 2014
Aaron Sorkin fans rejoice, because The Newsroom Season 3 UK premiere is tonight on Sky Atlantic at 10pm.
The quick-witted and fast-paced drama from the quick-witted and fast-paced creator of The West Wing stars Emmy winner Jeff Daniels and Emily Mortimer, who both return for the final instalment of sharp-talking tales from behind the scenes of a cable news channel.
Season 3 of The Newsroom season finds Will and Mac and the staff of “News Night” facing two explosive situations: the possibility of a hostile takeover of the network looming on the horizon, and leaked classified government documents that unleash a legal fire storm that threatens to topple more than one professional career.
The show starts at 10pm on Wednesday 12th November. While Sky customers can watch it online using Sky Go – or catch up later on Sky On Demand – non-Sky customers will be able to stream The Newsroom live on NOW TV. The VOD subscription service costs £6.99 a month and includes live streaming of all Sky TV channels, as well as a catch-up service, which includes Arrow Season 3, The Walking Dead Season 5, American Horror Story: Freak Show and Steven Soderbergh’s The Knick.
Here’s a clip from the first episode, which is, naturally, both fast-paced and extremely quick-witted.
Never seen The Newsroom? Seasons 1 and 2 are also available on NOW TV to catch up until the end of November.
For more information, or to sign in ready to watch, hit the button below:
Vimeo On Demand webseries review: High Maintenance (Season 2)
UK TV review: The Strain (Season 1, Episode 9)
New releases on Netflix UK this week – Friday 13th September... September 13, 2013 | Staff Reporter
Girls Season 4 available to watch online in UK from 12th January... December 20, 2014 | Staff Reporter
Top 17 titles new on Netflix UK in October 2014... October 1, 2014 | Staff Reporter
New on Netflix UK this week – Tuesday 20th August... August 20, 2013 | Ivan Radford
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Analysis of Inbreeding in a Closed Population of Crossbred Sheep
Thesis.pdf (475.7Kb)
MacKinnon, Kathryn Michelle
Genetic diversity and the effect of lamb and dam inbreeding on multiple traits were analyzed in an 11-yr closed population of sheep established in 1983 and remained closed after 1987, with 50% Dorset, 25% Rambouillet, and 25% Finnsheep breeding to determine selection response for spring fertility. The population had been randomly divided in 1987 into a fall-lambing selection line (S) of 125 ewes and 10 rams, fall-lambing environmental control line (E) of 55 ewes and 5 rams, and a spring-lambing genetic control line (G) of 45 ewes and 5 rams. Inbreeding effects were estimated from 2678 lambs and 556 dams present after the creation of the respective lines. The traits assessed were ewe spring-fertility, lambing date, lamb birth, 60 d, and 120 d weight, and lamb survival to 1, 3, and 14 d. Genetic diversity was assessed by estimating change in inbreeding per generation (Î F) and effective number of breeding animals (Ne), and parameters derived from gene drop simulations and an iterative procedure developed by Boichard et al. (1997); effective number of founders (fe), effective number of ancestors (fa), founder genome equivalents (fg), and two additional measures of genetic diversity (GD1, GD2). In order to estimate the diversity available in S and G, three sets of animals from the end of the study and one set of animals at line formation were considered in each line: all lambs born (including dead lambs), all matings (including potential offspring, even if a lamb was not born), and all rams and ewes available at the end of the study and at line formation.
At the time of line formation, most of the loss in diversity was due to unequal founder representation. The smaller population of G, as compared to S, caused a greater decrease in diversity due to bottlenecks at line formation. Very little diversity was lost due to additional drift by the time of line formation because selection had not occurred and a random mixing of founders was the goal. Allelic diversity decreased moderately; of the 322 founder alleles, there were 71% in S and 58% in G of rams and ewes (RE) that appeared in at least 50 runs of gene drop. By the end of the study in 1998, the amount of allelic diversity had decreased substantially. Of the alleles possible in RE at the end of the study in S and G, only 6 and 8 %, respectively, appeared in greater than 50 simulations of gene drop. The measures of fe, fa, and fg revealed there was not much additional loss in diversity from the line founders to the end of the study due to unequal founder representation, but there was a larger amount of loss due to bottlenecks and additional drift. The diversity loss was similar, which was the goal of the selection study, when values for RE were compared in S and G.
The effects of lamb and dam inbreeding were estimated from REML analysis. Effects of lamb or dam inbreeding were negative but not significant for lambing date or survival to 1, 3, or 14 d. Spring fertility was estimated to decrease by 0.70 ± 0.30 %/% inbreeding of the ewe (P < 0.01), which seems even greater since the average spring fertility was only 47.5 %. Effects of lamb inbreeding on birth, 60-d, and 120-d weights were -0.012 ± 0.006 (P < 0.05), -0.045 ± 0.020 (P < 0.05), and -0.130 ± 0.034 kg/% (P < 0.01), respectively. Dam inbreeding had smaller effects on birth, 60-d, and 120-d weights of -0.008 ± 0.010 (ns), -0.033 ± 0.034 (ns), and -0.087 ± 0.056 (P < 0.1) kg/%, respectively.
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Downtown Today
For those of us who live in the Village of Ballston Spa, downtown is less than a five minute walk - which gets us into the middle of everything: whether it's a cafe or restaurant, the library (or post office), or just because we're in the mood to sit in the park or along Front street and people-watch. This is a different way of doing things from getting into one’s car and heading out to the mall...
Ballston Spa today includes businesses that have been around for decades - O'Brien pharmacy, for example. Front Street and Milton Street (and side streets) contain shops in buildings erected well over a hundred years ago. A park or town square (Wiswall Park) complements the shops and restaurants with century oaks and benches. This gives the Village a unique blend of old and new:
Old - an architecture and layout that preserves that village feel, evoking a sense of continuity between past and present. New - all these vibrant, independently owned businesses that meet the needs of today's villagers and visitors, not just for goods and services, but for that hard-to-define sense of belonging and community.
The businesses have changed with the times, certainly. It's not the village grocer or a Five & Dime you'll find there now (although there’s some of that too). Today it's restaurants from casual to fine, antique shops, tea houses and coffee houses, a growing artist community, health food purveyors, and a spa & Healing Arts center among many others. Even the National Bottle Museum resides downtown, and its mission is to preserve the history of our nation’s first major industry: Bottle Making.
But there’s more to downtown than shopping, antiquing, or dining. Downtown businesses themselves, under the umbrella of the Ballston Spa Business and Professional Association, participate directly in creating and sustaining village life: Parades, Farmer’s Markets, Car Shows, Concerts in the Park, First Fridays and Sidewalk Sales, are among a few of these. The Village in turn sponsors community events like Family Fun Day, and the Winter Festival.
So this is Ballston Spa Downtown: it's about community – not just the word, which we hear thrown about so much these days; but about community in action. And this in turn is both an old, and a new way of living...in the heart of old town charm...with new excitement.
Front Street
Front street is arguably the oldest street in the Village, although it did not begin its history as a street but a clearing surrounding the Old Iron Spring. Age notwithstanding, it now contains some fine establishments. The following list is representative of what you will find there, from fine to casual dining, a tea house, accomodations, and even a Village Barber:
Front Street Deli
The Whistling Kettle
Next Door Kitchen & Bar
Iron Roost
Cake Placid
Sunset Café
Daisy Dry Goods
Stone Soup Antiques Gallery
19 Low Street
Ye Olde Wishin' Shoppe
Medbery Inn & Spa
Brookside Museum/Saratoga County Historical Society
6 Charlton Street
O'Brien's Pharmacy
4 Front Street
Living Well Day Spa & Healing Arts Center
Milton Avenue
Milton Avenue runs through the Village and is the old road between Schenectady and Saratoga Springs. Like Front Street, it also contains some excellent establishments. The following list is representative of what you will find there, including casual and fine dining, a great coffee house, antique shops, even a comic book store:
The Whitehouse Restaurant & Bar
93-95 Milton Avenue
Midtown Wine & Spirits Shop
77 Milton Avenue
The Brickyard Tavern
Russell's Deli
303 Milton Avenue
Coffee Planet
Wild Thyme Apothecary & Herbal Supplies
Pizza Works
Ballston Spa Antique Center
217-219 Milton Avenue
Victoria's Corner
Two If By Sea Gallery
Corina Contemporary Jewelry & Fine Crafts
Lewis House Bed & Breakfast
38 East High Street
National Bottle Museum
76 Milton Street
Mark Louis Gallery
10 Thompson Street
Lynne's Candles & Inspirations
Creative Endeavors Gift Shop & Art Center
Strolling Village Artisans
A Bead Just So
Troy Hoover Illustration
188 East Avenue, Apt. 2
Sacred Journey Ceramics
Almost One Of A Kind Quilt Shop
Downtown Gallery
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The Difference Between Novel and Comic Books
The difference between my original Vampire Trilogy Novel "The Guardian, Revenant, and Dominion" and my Comic Book Series that's based on this novel, is that the novel is much more detailed and explicit. (R-Rated, over 18 only). It's only implied in the comic book art.
In the novel, the more detailed scenes are meant to show the type of personalities my Vampire Guardian Angels have and what kind of characteristics make them so disturbing. They are sadistic, sociopathic, depraved, and possess human frailties and desires, something you would not expect a Guardian Angel to be, or have. Well, you would not expect them to be Vampires either. Hence, the making of a Horror novel and Comic Book Series.
The novel only goes up to 3 stories in the trilogy. The next sequels and continuation to the trilogy novel, Books 4, 5, and 6. will be written in Comic Book format, and will introduce new characters who were not in the original trilogy novel.
Original Trilogy Novel "The Guardian, Revenant, and Dominion"
Over 18 Only. Contains R-Rated Material.
A New Breed of Disturbing Vampire
This is what my comic book series is all about. This image pretty much says it all.
A new, original, unique and disturbing Vampire. A brutal, violent, psychotic, sociopathic serial killer. No romance. No happily ever after. Just blood, gore, and nightmares. This is the type of Vampire I want to bring back and promote.
Plus, I've turned your everyday Guardian Angel into a Vampire.
This is how they get you: When you pray to one of my characters, they track you down by your prayers of despair (there's a catch--you have to be desperate and asking a Guardian Angel for help), and when they hear you, they come and they feed on you. Because not only are they sick of human whining and dependence on Angels, they have also become hungry Vampires.
A disturbing concept, isn't it? You never thought of your helpful, loving Guardian Angel to turn out to be a vicious serial killer that hunts you down and feeds on you just because you've prayed to one, but makes for quite a refreshingly original Comic Book Series.
So remember: Don't Pray to your Guardian Angel. You never know who, or what, answers.
Pics and Sticker Received! (FB Post)
Thank you Mike, for all your support! Much appreciated!
Fan Feedback: Gabriel a "Nasty Villain"
I've been getting feedback on one of the main characters, Gabriel. He's a "bastard", "nasty", but a "great villain" and a "all around creepy dude" who no one wants to meet in a dark alley. Nice! Thank you everyone for your feedback! Gabriel can, and will, only get nastier!
Gabriel: Serial Killer Guardian Angel at first, becomes a Vampire Guardian Angel. He's a rebellious angel killed by another Guardian Angel, Cameron, but comes back to life when bitten by a Vampire. His weapon is a sword.
What's Unique about the Comic Book Series
I created a new, original, and unique breed of serial-killing vampire. I've brought a fresh new twist, a new concept, and a refreshing dose of originality to the Vampire genre.This is a new breed of deadly Vampire, immune to everything that you thought should supposedly kill a Vampire. This is an innovative new story that pushes the envelope, challenges our beliefs, beloved symbols, and comfort zone, and will forever change the way you see your Guardian Angel.
Brutal Vampires
Throughout the 1800s to the 1990s, Vampires were scary and violent. They were charming, but they were also hideous and bloodthirsty. The classic Vampire. The B-Movie Vampire. Vampires back then were feared (not seen as potential dating material or romantic partners.)
In the 2000's, that's seemed to changed through certain television shows and current novels. The genre changed. To me, Vampires became, well, wimpy.
I prefer, and miss, the classic, evil, bloody Vampire. So in my works, I focus on Vampires as brutal, disturbing, fearsome, vicious, violent, gory, terrifying, and seemingly invincible. Psychotic. Oh, and morally compromised. The type of Vampire you dread encountering (and definitely not someone you would think of bringing home to mom, unless of course, mom tastes good.)
There's nothing my Vampires won't do. They are demented, deadly, serial killers. They will commit horrid acts. There's slicing, dicing, slashing, stabbing, scenes of bondage, death, dismemberment, and destruction. My Vampires are truly meant for the horror, not romance or soap opera, category.
In short, they're badass. And be sure to listen to heavy metal or death metal in the background while reading the comic books. 'Cause it's a great combo of horror, brutal gore, and metal.
I want to be very afraid of Vampires again.
Fan Favorite: Cameron
I'm getting a lot of feedback that so far, the fan character favorite, hands down, is Cameron, and that fans are definitely looking forward to seeing more of him is the next issues. Cameron's character is constantly developing, and he's one of my favorites too!
To learn more about Cameron, get the comic book series, read the novel, or check out the character profiles in the about the characters section!
Cameron (Camael) (Book 1, 3, 4, 5): A Guardian Angel disguised as an L.A. police detective sent to stop Gabriel. He kills Gabriel in Book 1. He falls in love with one of Gabriel's intended victims and protects her son Joseph. He becomes a Vampire Guardian Angel in Book 3, but helps Detective Costa (Book 3) defeat the first wave of Vampire Guardian Angels. His weapon is a pair of Kali sticks. Note: In the comic book series, Cameron carries a sword.
Why Guardian Angels?
I often joke that I'm a "recovering Catholic" and I question a Guardian Angel’s role of simply existing to protect and help humans. I explore and present an alternate view that the Guardian Angels humans pray to are evil, really tired of human whining and prayers and are flawed and vengeful and they that themselves even have human feelings and desires. I wanted to create something disturbing from something so innocent and supposedly protective. We really don't know who or what it is we are praying to. It could be a negative entity disguised as a guardian angel with the intent to harm instead of help us.
In my works, I question people's belief in a supernatural, supposedly higher power, and that people don't know what a Guardian Angel really is. Why do we rely on a supposedly higher supernatural power that we can’t see to save us, and what if it really was evil. Since horror is a genre that pushes the envelope in a lot of aspects, I’d say I’ve been kind of messing with people’s beliefs in terms of what pop culture considers “saviors”, in a fictional sense, and focusing mainly on Guardian Angels. My work questions what they are, and presents an alternate view on what they could be.
Just because I'm messing with the pop-culture image of a guardian angel doesn't mean I'm condemning it or being disrespectful. I'm questioning why we rely so much on a supernatural entity to save us. It's an alternate view to something supernatural. We put so much blind faith in a higher power to help us and we don't even know what it is we are summoning. That's the whole point of my books and films. Angelic rebellion is nothing new, but I've just taken it to another, more disturbing level.
The reaction by fans? It has ranged from fascination to enthusiasm that I feature a vampire that’s new, different, evil and brutal, and that it’s refreshing to see something original. People understand that I'm not out to condemn any beliefs. I'm simply exploring other possibilities out there, using horror to turn the ordinary into something creepy, and they know this is a Vampire theme.
Labels: Writing Methods
Great Fan Support!
Thank you Juan! It is support from fans like you that make it so worth it to me as a writer and for my hardworking and talented artists! And we truly appreciate it! Many thanks! \m/
Autographed Pics Received
I'll be posting autographed pics received that fans send me or post publicly. Glad you all received them and thank you all for your requests!
From Patrik Karlsson of monsterdiggare.net, an awesome Horror Web Site from Sweden!
More Fan Pics!
And thank you Isabel for the handmade gift:
a gorgeous red shawl! Red is my color! :)
Thank you Isabel for all your support!
Much appreciated! You rock!
Behind the Scenes: Drawing "Dominion", Issue 3
The drawing process by artist Andrew Setter.
See the final product! Buy the Published Comic Books!
Behind the Scenes: Drawing "Revenant", Issue 2
Behind the Scenes: Drawing "The Guardian", Issue 1
Behind the Scenes: Drawing "The Guardian", Issue 1...
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Home > News & Policies > December 2005
News Archive - December 2005
News releases for December 2005
President's Statement on Signing of H.R. 2863, the "Department of Defense, Emergency Supplemental Appropriations to Address Hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico, and Pandemic Influenza Act, 2006"
President Signs House and Senate Resolutions
President's Statement on the Department of Defense, Emergency Supplemental Appropriations to Address Hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico, and Pandemic Influenza Act, 2006
President's Statement on H.R. 3010, the 'Department of Labor, Heath and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2006'
Memorandum for the Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense
Memorandum for the Secretary of Commerce, Secretary of Labor and United States Trade Representative
Presidential Message: New Year's Day, 2006
President Offers Thoughts and Prayers, Remains Committed to Helping Those Affected by the Tsunami Tragedy One Year Ago
Holidays at the White House 2005
Statement on Conviction of Egyptian Politician Ayman Nour
President Discusses Accomplishments and Future Priorities
Fact Sheet: President Bush's Accomplishments in 2005
President Applauds Congress for Passing Defense Appropriations Bill
President Pledges to Work with Congress to Re-Authorize Patriot Act
Statement on House and Senate Resolutions
Statement on Countries Eligible for Economic and Trade Benefits under African Growth and Opportunity Act
Executive Order: Adjustments of Certain Rates of Pay
2006 Salary Tables and Related Information
Executive Order: Providing An Order of Succession Within the Department of Defense
Proclamation by the President: To Take Certain Actions Under the African Growth and Opportunity Act, 2005
Proclamation by the President: To Implement the United States-Morocco Free Trade Agreement
Memorandum for the Secretary of State
Memorandum for the Secretary of Transportation
National Mentoring Month, 2006
Fact Sheet: Fiscal Year 2006: Keeping the Commitment to Restrain Spending
President and Mrs. Bush Thank Military Medical Caregivers
President Signs H.R. 4440, the Gulf Opportunity Zone Act of 2005
Fact Sheet: A Commitment to Continued Recovery and Rebuilding in the Gulf Coast
In Focus: Hurricane Recovery
President Urges Senate to Reauthorize Patriot Act and Pass Defense Bill
President Appreciates Senate Extension of Patriot Act, Looks Forward to Re-Authorization in July
President Applauds Congress for Vote to Reduce Entitlement Spending
Statement on Additional Disaster Assistance for Mississippi from Hurricane Katrina
Statement on H.R. 4440, the "Gulf Opportunity Zone Act of 2005"
Personnel Announcement
President Attends Swearing-In of Millennium Challenge CEO
President Signs "Stem Cell Therapeutic and Research Act of 2005"
President Signs S. 52, S. 136, S. 212, S. 279 and S. 1886
Statement on Additional Federal Disaster Assistance for Louisiana
Statement on Federal Disaster Assistance for South Dakota
Vice President's Remarks During a Tour of the 212th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital
Vice President's Remarks in a Meeting with Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf
Vice President's Remarks to the Traveling Press
Remarks by Stephen Hadley, Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs
Memorandum for the Director of National Intelligence
Interview of the Vice President by CNN
Press Conference of the President
President Visits "Toys for Tots" Collection Center
President Thanks Speaker and House Leaders for Meeting National Priorities
President Congratulates the Afghan People on Inauguration of Afghan National Assembly
Statement on President Congratulating Congolese People on Voting for New Constitution
Presidential Message: Christmas 2005
Presidential Message: Hanukkah 2005
Presidential Message: Kwanzaa 2005
Vice President's Remarks at a Rally for the Troops in Afghanistan
President's Address to the Nation
In Focus: Renewal in Iraq
Vice President's Remarks at a Rally for the Troops in Iraq
Interview of the Vice President by ABC News
Statement on H.J. Res. 75
In Focus: Homeland Security
President Meets with Ambassador to the United Nations from Iraq
Vice President to Travel to the Middle East
President Commends Congress for Passing Tax Incentives to Assist Gulf Coast Region
President Calls on U.S. Senate to End Filibuster of the Patriot Act
Message to the Congress of the United States on Information Sharing
Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies
President Announces Delegation to Indonesia for the Indian Ocean Tsunami Commemoration
Statement on Federal Assistance for Connecticut
Wright Brothers Day, 2005
President Applauds House for Passing Immigration Reform Bill
In Focus: Immigration
President Visits with Iraqi Out-Of-Country Voters
President Meets with McCain & Warner, Discusses Position on Interrogation
Statement on Assistance for Africa Under President's Malaria Initiative
Fact Sheet: Protecting New Orleans From Future Flooding
In Focus: Hurricane Relief
President Discusses Iraqi Elections, Victory in the War on Terror
In Focus: National Security
President Commends House for Reauthorizing the Patriot Act
Statement on Presidential Directive on U.S. Efforts for Reconstruction and Stabilization
Executive Order: Improving Agency Disclosure of Information
Text of a Letter from the President to the Speaker of the House of Representatives
President Participates in Medicare Roundtable with Seniors
In Focus: Medicare
President Discusses War on Terror and Upcoming Iraqi Elections
Fact Sheet: Democracy in Iraq
Statement on the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) Summit Declaration
President Condemns Murder of Gebran Tueni of Lebanon
President and Mrs. Bush Attend "Christmas in Washington"
Statement by the Press Secretary on a Call for the Release of Dr. Kamal Labwani and Other
Human Rights Day, Bill of Rights Day, and Human Rights Week, 2005
Statement on Federal Assistance for Alaska
President's Remarks at Mark Kennedy '06 and Minnesota Republican Party Victory Reception
President Bush Meets with Austria Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel
President Discusses War on Terror and Rebuilding Iraq
Fact Sheet: Rebuilding Iraq
President's Statement on Governor Carroll Campbell
Statement on H.R. 584 and H.R. 680
Setting the Record Straight: Rep. Pelosi Downplays Progress In Iraq
President Meets with World Health Organization Director-General
In Focus: Healthcare
President and Mrs. Bush Participate in Menorah Lighting Ceremony
President to Welcome Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt to the White House
Vice President's Remarks at a Rally for the Troops
President Discusses Economy and Tax Relief in North Carolina
Fact Sheet: President Bush's Agenda for Economic Growth
In Focus: Jobs and Economy
President and Mrs. Bush Host Children's Holiday Reception
Fact Sheet: Progress on the 9/11 Commission Recommendations
President Welcomes Kennedy Center Honorees to the White House
President Discusses Strong Economic Growth and Job Creation
President's Statement on Andrew Natsios
President and Mrs. Bush Discuss HIV/AIDS Initiatives on World AIDS Day
Fact Sheet: Commemorating World AIDS Day
Office of National AIDS Policy
World AIDS Day, 2005
President Bush Lights National Christmas Tree at Pageant of Peace
President Signs H.R. 4145 to Place Statue of Rosa Parks in U.S. Capitol
Statement on H.R. 4145, Directing a Statue of Rosa Parks be placed in U.S. Capitol in National Statuary Hall
Statement on Federal Assistance for Kentucky
Statement by the Press Secretary on Bill Signings
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Data Portability: Facebook and Google Team Up to Share Data
Posted at December 9, 2019
article by Aebha Curtis, Policy Analyst
picture courtesy: Starlight
In the midst of several antitrust investigations taking place in Europe and the US, Facebook has announced its initiative to enable users to transfer photos between its own platform and Google Photos. The feature has been launched in Ireland, the home of the company’s international HQ, though it is set to be made available globally in the first half of 2020.
The move constitutes a step in the direction of enhanced data portability. In fact, the code on which the feature is based was developed by way of participation in the Data Transfer Project (DTP). Launched in 2018, the Project is an open-source initiative which is supposedly aimed at encouraging participation of services by “reducing the infrastructure burden on both providers and users”. The DTP has the backing of Facebook, Google, Apple, Microsoft and Twitter.
Data portability is a principle which seeks to make personal data movable. The aim is to prevent data’s enclosure in ‘walled gardens’. That is, to make sure that data controllers couldn’t prevent the transfer of data to another controller, effectively opening up competition among digital services and providers.
The right to data portability was enshrined in Article 20 of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation. It has also been introduced in the US by way of the Californian Consumer Privacy Act. Hoping to redress the balance between platforms and users in relation to the collection and management of personal data, lawmakers have pushed for data portability as a way of fostering competition to provide users with greater choice. Portability further enables users to later change their mind, preventing vendor lock-in by facilitating easy transfer to other platforms.
In a blog post, Steve Satterfield, Facebook’s Director of Privacy and Public Policy writes that data portability “gives people control and choice while also encouraging innovation”.
However, commentators have noted that, in the case of social networks, it is the connections with other people that keep users onboard more so than their own data or content. Indeed, it is this ‘network effect’, whereby the value of the service is increased as the number of users (not volume of user-generated content) increases. While it is possible to argue that improved data portability options might encourage users to switch providers, others suggest that opening lines of communication between users and non-users, for messaging or event co-ordination purposes, would be a better option for cultivating competition.
In restricting such interactions, the size of Facebook’s userbase is not expected to reflect any change in data sharing practices: the network effect is the Goliath to data portability’s David. As such, these measures and tools represent only a mere gesture toward addressing those issues raised in the spate of recent antitrust investigations.
Certainly, given the €4.34bn fine that the EU hit Google with over the summer in relation to their violation of antitrust laws, it is no wonder that the company would be keen to participate in an initiative like the DTP. The move could simply be an attempt to rectify their image among lawmakers by demonstrating themselves to be encouraging competition.
Google and Facebook alike urgently need to improve appearances with regard to their data handling practices and it is worth noting that this photo sharing tool stands to do just that while having minimal impact on data input and value. The value of those photos as data sources, the inferences made from them being valuable to both platforms and the third-parties and advertisers to which they are sold, is not reduced by their having moved to another platform.
As the DTP’s Overview states, “It is worth noting that the Data Transfer Project doesn’t include any automated deletion architecture. Once a user has verified that the desired data is migrated, they would have to delete their data from their original service using that service’s deletion tool if they wanted the data deleted.” Facebook, then, will retain those photos being transferred unless further action is taken by the user.
Note, too, that the Project currently has no data governance body in place to oversee its processes and procedures. The Overview’s authors do write, “as the DTP matures it may benefit from the formation of a neutral governance body”. but make no further specification as to when the DTP is to be considered mature. Set up by the Google Data Liberation Front, an engineering team at Google, the DTP’s data governance can only be anticipated to be aligned with Google’s commercial goals as opposed to an external and neutral body.
In examining such initiatives like the DTP, regulators, lawmakers and users alike must consider what platforms really stand to gain or lose in participating. Are such measures truly capable of shaking up the status quo and opening up the market or do they only reinforce the hold that just a handful of major platforms have on our data?
Discharging Duty of Care in the Face of Cyberthreats: Expert Advice Evening at Your School
Discharging Duty of Care in the Face of Cyberthreats: Expert Advice Evening at Your School TrustElevate helps schools and parents control and manage the unregulated
Security by Design: Lessons from the BioStar 2 Breach
by Aebha Curtis, Policy Analyst Earlier this month, researchers working with VPNMentor identified and exposed a massive data breach in BioStar 2’s biometric security
Meet the Irish woman fighting to make the internet safer
Wild Geese: Rachel O’Connell has combated paedophiles and patrolled sensitive content Rachel O’Connell is a distinguished authority on electronic identification and age verification, but her
Junk food giants must stop marketing to children – or see their ads banned entirely, says health chief
Junk food firms must stop marketing their products to children – or face a total advertising ban, health chiefs have said. The World Health Organisation
New parental consent app wins BT’s Better World Innovation Challenge
Trust Elevate scoops prize for new app which boosts online safety, protects children’s data and helps businesses achieve regulatory compliance A new app which helps
GDPR statement: Trust Elevate does not extract data from databases. Instead, we check for a match against data which a parent has both provided Trust Elevate and authorised the verification of both their parental status and the age band to which their child belongs. Trust Elevate runs the checks against authoritative data sources and generates tokens that detail the strength of the match and the age band the child belongs in, for example, <12 years of age. Trust Elevate, with parental permission, provides those tokens, which contain zero personally identifiable information to the platform a child wishes to access. Trust Elevate aligns with the GDPR and adheres to the principles of data minimisation, accountability and transparency.
If you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact our support team at support@trustelevate.com
Contact us: rachel@trustelevate.com
Privacy Policy | Security | © 2019 TrustElevate. All rights reserved.
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123 Ranking > SEO > SEO: A History
SEO: A History
September 26, 2011Posted by: Team EasyCategory: SEO • SEO ServicesNo Comments0 Likes
Search Engine Optimisation, is a by product of the modern day search engines and their incredible evolution. Google celebrated its 13th birthday in September 2011, marking another amazing milestone in ongoing development of Search engines. While Google is not the only significant search engine, its incredible popularity has made the term, Google, the most used synonym for “search engine.” More people say, “google it” than “search for it.”The Internet, search engines and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) do not have concrete definable birth dates. The precise definition of these terms differs with any expert trying to define or pinpoint their origin. Some say the Internet was born with the creation of the World Wide Web (Aug.1991), while others say it was much earlier in the 60’s when college academics would link their computers using FTP. The miraculous growth and evolution of the Internet, search engines, and SEO, really makes the importance of their exact origin insignificant. It is much more important to note the amazing development made by Google and other search engines in the past 15 years, than to pinpoint a crude simple version of the first search engine.
Search Engine Optimisation was developed with the exponential growth of search engines databases, the increase in the amount of users, and the ways users could benefit from the information that was searched for.
Early SEO strategies were basically limited to on page methods. In the mid 90’s the only thing to target in SEO was on page factors. Having valuable, relevant content, accurate HTML tags, and a few internal and external links was about all that you could do to maximise your results.
google Google turns 13
How to Recover Your Google Analytics Access - August 9, 2016
Google’s Major New Ranking Shake-Up - April 4, 2016
PreviousPrevious post:Gaining followers on Twitter
NextNext post:SEO: Then and Now
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words by watts
Journalisms by Alex Watts
Fleetwood Mac – Rod Laver Arena, Melbourne (2/9/19)
Neil Finn stepped to the microphone, acoustic guitar in hand and began strumming the opening chords of ‘Don’t Dream It’s Over’. Though I have seen him do exactly that many times and in various bands before, what struck me at this moment, illuminated by the glow of thousands of phones being swayed above heads throughout in the packed stadium, was how unexpectedly fitting this all was. Truth be told, it was actually when Stevie Nicks appeared from the darkness, all flowing layers of dark lace and platform heels, looking exactly like herself, to sing the third verse and harmonise the final chorus that it really hit me. What if Neil Finn had always been in this band? In a strictly musical way it suddenly made so much sense.
Finn’s addition to Fleetwood Mac made headlines and raised eyebrows worldwide when it was announced last year that both he and The Heartbreakers’ guitarist Mike Campbell would be replacing an ousted Lindsey Buckingham, one of the central singers and songwriters from the band’s commercial high point of the mid ‘70s. For any other group this would have been a death knoll, but even a cursory examination of the highly unusual, zigzagging history of Fleetwood Mac and their 18 prior lineups, each built upon the foundation of the rhythm section of Mick Fleetwood and John McVie, would reveal that this is simply the next chapter.
As soon as Fleetwood’s kick drum counted in the first song and Finn bounded to the microphone, all fears were allayed. What we were watching was so obviously a band in control of their present and comfortable with their past, ‘The Chain’ was ferociously visceral and sonically huge.
The three part vocal harmonies are an important part of the Rumours-era sound and importantly Finn sounded right at home sandwiched between the distinctive voices of Nicks and Christine McVie. To give the new guy the lead vocal on the first song in the set also seemed to be a very purposeful statement
I have never seen Fleetwood Mac before but I would hazard a guess that the obvious delight and determination that was evident from all on stage was resulting in a more energised performance than can reasonably be expected from a group founded in 1967.
Rounded out by an additional guitarist, keys player, percussionist and two backing vocalists, everything sounded suitably large without ever getting messy and with some notable exceptions the arrangements stayed more or less true to the original recordings.
Ever since integrating the existing duo of Buckingham & Nicks in 1975 Fleetwood Mac has been a multi-headed pop behemoth, with three separate lead singers and songwriters, each with distinctive yet complimentary styles, a pop rock precursor to the Wu-Tang if you will. Armed with such a formidable catalogue the set list was an intimidating parade of hits, the first five songs of which alone — ‘The Chain’, ‘Little Lies’, ‘Dreams’, ‘Second Hand News’, ‘Say You Love Me’ — would have been more than enough to sustain a career for most of their contemporaries.
As part of the current world tour, the first with the new lineup, Nicks explained that the band have taken the opportunity to evaluate their extensive back catalogue and revisit material from the pre-‘75 lineup. These diversions into the past resulted in some of the night’s most interesting left turns, particularly thanks to some brand new interpretations of material from the 1960s Peter Green-led era. ‘Black Magic Woman’ (1968) had its gender perspectives swapped with Nicks taking the lead vocal, while Finn clearly revelled in putting his own tender spin on 1969’s ‘Man of the World’. Campbell, an eternal showpony on stage, but how else would one get attention amongst such company, fronted an amped up take on ‘Oh Well’ (1969), which proved to be as much of a showcase for he rhythm section as guitar, with Fleetwood and John McVie proving their dexterity and dynamism.
Not in any danger of being shown up, Nicks has arguably always been the band’s biggest star for a reason. Following the reverential treatment given to ‘Don’t Dream It’s Over’, including a speech telling Finn that “songs like that only come along once in a lifetime”, to which he replied “you’ve got several once in a lifetime songs”, she proved it with a flawless rendition of ‘Landslide’. Delivered as a companion to the Crowded House hit, Finn and Nicks proved themselves a surprisingly natural and beautifully complimentary duo.
Christine McVie has probably the least distinctive voice in the band, still, and unfortunately she was a little low in the mix, but her songs have some of the biggest choruses, including a triumphantly frenzied rendition of ‘Don’t Stop’ that closed the show. Everyone sang, Nicks danced like her shoes were on fire, Fleetwood pulled bug eyed grimaces and Finn grinned like the kid who got all the surprise birthday presents.
Rest assured Fleetwood Mac are not in danger of tarnishing their legacy, they are owning it, letting it breathe and reveling in watching it grow.
Originally published in Beat Magazine. Photograph by David Harris.
September 13, 2019 biggalexwattsCrowded House, Fleetwood Mac, Fleetwood Mac Australian Tour 2019, Mike Campbell, Neil Finn, Stevie Nicks
Previous Previous post: Childish Gambino – Rod Laver Arena, Melbourne (17/7/19)
Next Next post: ‘Ready To Die’ at 25
Tonight on @3rrrfm 12-2am it’s the debut of my new show @wattslove and I’ve got some hottt new music to play. 102.7 on ya dial 💋
The Top 11 Key Changes in Pop History
Industry Interview: Sarah Guppy's Publicity 101's
Mod Con - Modern Convenience (2018 LP)
Ravyn Lenae - Howler, Melbourne (6/2/19)
All articles written by Alex Watts. Copyright Astound Records 2016.
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Get inspired to create teamwork and achieve world class performance
Kevin Gaskell
Leader, entrepreneur, team builder and inspirer passionate about the development of leadership skills
Non-binding request for Kevin Gaskell
Keynote s peaker Kevin Gaskell is an extraordinary leader who led iconic brands Porsche, BMW and Lamborghini to unprecedented levels of success before creating global businesses from scratch. A corporate trailblazer, serial entrepreneur and world class team builder recognised as one of the outstanding leaders of his generation.
As a CEO, chairman, founder and investor Kevin has enjoyed success in sectors including automotive, data, technology, manufacturing, brand marketing and professional services. He has repeatedly led teams to achieve extraordinary performance in companies ranging from 7 to 7,000 employees. Passionate about the development of leadership skills he is frequently sought to reinvigorate teams and companies.
Kevin has set the business world alight with success after success. His businesses awards have included: e-commerce business of the year; Best private equity investment of the year; EMEA Innovation Award; Landscape gardening business of the year; The World’s 7th most innovative company.
It was leading the turnaround of Porsche from close to bankruptcy to market leader that saw Kevin Gaskell, at the age of 32, recognised as one of the most capable leaders of his generation. He consolidated that recognition with 4 years as Managing Director of BMW (GB) during which he led the business to record growth and a 500% improvement in profitability.
Since his roles in the automotive sector he has led businesses to massive success in the digital, technology, data, brand marketing, market research, construction, retail, professional services and manufacturing sectors. Such flexibility and adaptability has confirmed his position as an extraordinary and inspirational leader.
A highly motivational and engaging speaker, he believes that ordinary people can achieve extraordinary results – and he has the experiences to prove it. He has led global corporations, start-ups, private equity portfolio companies and organisations large and small to create shareholder value in excess of $5Billion. He has also found the time to walk to both the north and south poles and climb the world’s highest mountains to fund the construction of a cancer treatment unit.
Using an energetic and inclusive style he shares the tools and techniques which have enabled his teams to deliver results which even they considered impossible – until they achieved them. His approach of ‘Inspired Leadership’ at every level in the organisation has been demonstrated to achieve extraordinary success again and again. As a leader who has led established businesses and founded technology startups which have grown to global scale he is able to demonstrate the competitive opportunities for businesses large and small.
He shows that leadership is an adaptable and transferable skill and is a key enabler of successful teamwork in any situation. Drawing upon his experience and his ongoing leadership roles in growing companies Kevin shares practical lessons of how individuals can be inspired to create teamwork which transforms organisations and achieves world class performance
Kevin Gaskell is a leader who has been there and done it, and then done it again, and again. His speeches provide the inspiration, and share the tools, which enable each member of the audience to return to their role energised and informed and ready to achieve something extraordinary.
And if the audience need an energizer they could always ask Kevin to play his guitar – in his spare time he plays in a rock band!
See keynotes with Kevin Gaskell
Keynote by Speaker Kevin Gaskell
Market Disruption: Leveraging the power of change to your advantage
Recognise opportunity share, deal with the F(ear) word
Understand your customer’s needs vs demands
Build the shared plan, engage internal creativity, dare to dream
Remain relevant, authentic and profitable
Achieve extraordinary results, sustain success
Inspired Leadership: How you can achieve extraordinary results in business
Become an inspiring leader, stimulate your team’s desire to be world class
Commit to change, build belief, dare to dream, build the plan
Connect the team with the plan, make the impossible possible
Create a culture of innovation, motivate genius, recognise and reward
Become better then bigger, achieve extraordinary results
Leadership or Heroship?
Achieving success in adversity. Fewer than 100 people have walked to both the North and South Poles.
Using practical lessons contrasting the experience of walking to the poles with that of driving business success key messages are discussed and a structured approach to achieving success identified.
This topic can also take the form of 2 x 1 hour sessions where one session focuses on lessons from the polar expeditions whilst the second translates those lessons to the business environment.
Building a world class company
Great companies evolve and make progress despite, or sometimes due to, difficult environments.
How does a company ensure it has a clear vision and an aligned team?
What steps should a leader take to drive the business onto the next level of success?
How can it be fun for everyone involved?
Building a world class brand
Great companies build great brands.
How are brands developed and how is long term value enhancement achieved?
How does the brand’s position within its market segment affect the product perception?
Repositioning of the Porsche and BMW brands are used to illustrate the process.
Automotive sector commentary
Specific issues including the development of the European retail market, legislation, financial perspectives for retail dealers and vehicle manufacturers.
Jonathan MacDonald
Author, transformation strategist and change expert working to create effective results and renew for organizations
Jonathan MacDonald is a sought-after keynote speaker, entrepreneur and author on change. He occupies himself with expanding people’s thinking around the potential of technology, the shaping of society and the realities of business, all of which...
Fraser Doherty MBE
Founder of SuperJam & co-founder of Beer52, considered one of the UK's leading motivational speakers
Keynote speaker Fraser Doherty started his own business at age 14 and has since proved that he is a tremendous entrepreneur. Today, Fraser has great success with his company and is considered one of UK’s leading motivational speakers. He shares...
George Ayee
Ph.D. in Business Administration, consultant, and author helping organisations succeed through transformation
Navigate change and transformation with speaker George Ayee’s help! George effectively helps his clients achieve their vision, mission, strategic objectives and goals - and he makes the transformation go fast! His positive energy and expertise...
Keynote topics with Kevin Gaskell
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Our FlagshipMoney Morning Michael A Robinson'sStrategic Tech Investor Shah Gilani'sWall Street Insights & Indictments Keith Fitz-Gerald'sTotal Wealth Dr Kent Moors'Oil & Energy Investor Tom Gentile'sPower Profit Trades D.R. Barton's10 Minute Millionaire Tim Melvin'sMax Wealth Matt Piepenburg'sCritical Signals Report Research ServicesMoney Map Press
Special Reports & Video
The Fed’s Plotting to Take Down Donald Trump. Here’s When.
9 Aug 30th, 2019 | By Shah Gilani
If you don’t believe what I’ve been screaming for years that the Federal Reserve System is the greatest criminal conspiracy in American history and that they, as a private enterprise, run the country, you’re about to see the truth for yourself.
In a Bloomberg op-ed piece on August 27, 2019, William Dudley, the former vice-chairman of the Federal Open Market Committee and former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, who stepped down from the Fed last year and attended last week’s Jackson Hole central bankers confab, threatened the President of the United States by advocating that the Fed not accommodate the President’s trade war with China and essentially raise rates if they have to in order to drive the country into recession so Donald Trump doesn’t get reelected.
My last two articles here have been about attempts to manufacture a recession to undermine Donald Trump’s reelection chances and what those efforts could mean for the stock market.
Sure, some of you thought I had lost it. But, Bill Dudley’s call to arms is proof positive that I am 100% right, about attempts to manufacture a recession and that the Fed is too powerful, too political, and a rogue state within the state that needs to be legislated out of existence.
It’s about time we get to the bottom of this…
Break Down of Dudley’s Argument One Falsehood at a Time
Here are direct excerpts from Dudley’s op-ed manifesto titled “The Fed Shouldn’t Enable Donald Trump” and my comments on his assertions.
“U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war with China keeps undermining the confidence of businesses and consumers, worsening the economic outlook.” Dudley
Truly there is no proof the trade war is undermining the confidence of businesses and consumers, especially given the recent pick up in business investment and especially strong consumer spending.
“This manufactured disaster-in-the-making presents the Federal Reserve with a dilemma: Should it mitigate the damage by providing offsetting stimulus, or refuse to play along?” Dudley
How is the trade war a manufactured disaster?
What happened to protecting American companies, technology, trade secrets, fighting state-sponsored cyber criminality, etc. President Trump is defending the U.S., he is counterpunching what China manufactured, the second biggest economy in the world, built on theft.
“They (the Fed) place little weight on how their actions will affect decisions in other areas, such as government spending or trade policy. The Fed, for example, wouldn’t hold back on interest-rate cuts to compel Congress to provide fiscal stimulus instead. Staying above the political fray helps the central bank maintain its independence.” Dudley
Nothing could be more disingenuous or a bigger lie.
Government spending is lately 100% facilitated by the Fed, since politicians don’t want to raise taxes.
That’s how the Fed is allowed to remain independent, they provide stimulus, giving cover to governments who don’t have to exercise fiscal anything.
Serving politicians need to not raise taxes and keep spending to get votes is exactly how the Fed keeps its independence.
Where did the $4.5 trillion parked on their fake balance sheet come from?
It’s from government debt politicians didn’t want to impact markets with or offset with taxes.
“But what if the Fed’s accommodation encourages the president to escalate the trade war further, increasing the risk of a recession? The central bank’s efforts to cushion the blow might not be merely ineffectual. They might actually make things worse.” Dudley
This is telling it like it is.
Dudley’s saying more easy money, free money, provided by the Fed, as it has been since 2008, may in the long run be ineffectual.
Or worse, make things worse.
[URGENT] Millions could be caught flat-footed (but you don’t have to)
How about asking Dudley to explain that aspect of monetary policy he’s been overseeing since 2009?
“Yet the Fed could go much further. Officials could state explicitly that the central bank won’t bail out an administration that keeps making bad choices on trade policy, making it abundantly clear that Trump will own the consequences of his actions.” Dudley
So, the Fed is supposed to make choices on trade policy? Who says the administration is making bad choices, Dudley? The Fed? Based on what?
“Such a harder line could benefit the Fed and the economy in three ways. First, it would discourage further escalation of the trade war, by increasing the costs to the Trump administration. Second, it would reassert the Fed’s independence by distancing it from the administration’s policies. Third, it would conserve much-needed ammunition, allowing the Fed to avoid further interest-rate cuts at a time when rates are already very low by historical standards.” Dudley
The real truth comes out here.
It’s about the Fed’s independence to run the country, that’s a private central bank with the power to control government and the economy, that’s what Dudley’s advocating protecting.
About that ammunition, the Fed should have let rates rise on their own accord according to free market pricing of risk and return prospects years ago.
“There’s even an argument that the election itself falls within the Fed’s purview. After all, Trump’s reelection arguably presents a threat to the U.S. and global economy, to the Fed’s independence and its ability to achieve its employment and inflation objectives. If the goal of monetary policy is to achieve the best long-term economic outcome, then Fed officials should consider how their decisions will affect the political outcome in 2020.” Dudley
Dudley makes a perfect case here for revoking the legislation that created the Fed in 1913.
The tail is wagging the dog and doing so publicly.
Dudley is saying the Fed can and should affect the election since he claims it is within their “purview.”
This is a fed mouthpiece warning it’s capable of a coup d’état.
It’s time to end the Fed, NOW!
Posted in Wall Street
9 Responses to The Fed’s Plotting to Take Down Donald Trump. Here’s When.
Andre says: August 30, 2019 at 3:49 pm
You are incredible Shah.If you need help getting rid of the Fed, then I’m all in.They’ve shredded up the US Constitution and the Bill Of Rights.The 2nd ammendment could get them to run for the hills.Diplomacy doesn’t work with them anymore.We are going to have to physically smoke them out of their holes!
Bob in Canada says: August 30, 2019 at 3:55 pm
The rot is too deep to get rid of. Revoke the Fed then other gov’t agencies will just increase efforts to achieve their goal of putting leftists in power.
Similar thing happened in Canada in 2015 and is happening in other countries too, it’s just not as well known as what’s happening in the USA.
Dennis McBride says: August 30, 2019 at 4:01 pm
Shah,
Thank you for your passionate concern for what’s right. These arrogant SOBs blatantly thumb their noses at the American legal system and our very system of government itself. They would happily break every federal law on the books to counter the will of the people. In abandoning the U.S. Constitution, the anarchy they seem hell-bent on unleashing will not end well for them either.
Kevin Beck says: August 30, 2019 at 4:57 pm
I agree wholly, Shah.
The last comment by dum-dum-Dudley exposes the fraud of his original statement (that the Fed should remain independent). He says they should remain independent by choosing to make a political statement and cross up President Trump!
Incidentally, there is nothing in the Fed’s dual mandate about trying to affect trade policy, which is in the domain of Congress and the President.
This entire rant by Dudley gives credence to ending the Fed, and also to ending the exemption from penalty for government malfeasance. If those sociopaths had to be personally responsible for their misdeeds, they’d be writing checks their bodies couldn’t cash.
Eddie says: August 30, 2019 at 6:21 pm
The Fed should be relieved of duty permanently, and have charges of treason and espionage brought up on them useless socialist bastards… This country would do so much better if our own greedy Federal Government wasn’t trying to ruin us… Don’t them idiots realize if the EVIL clutches of socialist new world order demons take over, they will be slaves too… Trump is the best thing to happen to this Country… They can put that in their pipe n smoke it. I hope they choke on it too… Thanks for the update… God Bless
Gargan says: August 31, 2019 at 11:08 am
Dear Mr. Gilani,
Your article (as always!) is excellent. I believe that we are now at, or very near, a point where the President and his allies can accelerate their efforts to take meaningful, incremental steps to end the counter-productive effects of the Fed’s operations. As Henry Ford famously said (I believe, during the 1930s): “If the American people ever found out how their money is actually managed, there would be a revolution the next morning!”
Dudley: “There’s even an argument that the election itself falls within the Fed’s purview.”
Hmmm, “PURVIEW”. It’s very interesting how a word that was very rarely used until Mueller’s testimony, now appears prominently in yet ANOTHER major public statement designed to help bring down the President. Gee, if one didn’t know better, one might think that all these supposedly “independent thinkers” were all getting their talking points from the SAME ventriloquist!
James Welge says: September 3, 2019 at 3:09 pm
If one completely ignored Dudley’s comments about Fed Accomodation in relation to Trump’s Trade War, there are perfectly sound arguments for no more, or extremely limited ( 1/4 point and thats it) reductions in the Fed Funds rate.
The Fed has burned all of its powder for use when there is a recession, and there will be one, probably beginning in the the next 8 months. The Fed has only 2 .25% to play with before we are at 0% Interest Rates. Below this we are into the Negative Interest Rate foolishness which the Europeans had played with, very innefectively I might add. Should We Jump all jump off the top of a building just because others fools are jumping off the top of the building??? Thats what were talking about with Negative Interest Rates!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! In the last bust, in 2008 we has 6% to play with, and we have foolishly kept rates down, with the minor exception of in 10/17 of trying to Normalize the Feds Balance Sheet and not engage in Open Market Operations, and only have 2 and 1/4 % in interest rates to drop!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Further, If you legislate the Fed out of exisitence, eliminating the 1913 Act forming the Fed, exactly who will perform the function of Lender of Last Resort to the member banks which are members of the Federal Reserve Banking System, if there is a real Credit Crunch, and banks have runs and are short of Cash to operate and just have some Federal T-Bill Assets to sell for Cash, and a lot of Loans on their books???? If the Fed is eliminated, we don’t have a JP Morgan, a live breathing banker as their was prior to 1913 and during the 1907 and 1893 Financial Panics, who will step forward and lend Cash and Reserve Short Banks money to pay their depositors!!!!!!!!!!!! It would be highly instructive for folks to watch “Its a Wonderfull Life” with Jimmy Stuart at the end of the day of a bank run in 1930, counting the Dollar Bills left after the bank closed after the end of the day of a Bank Run, saying “Well hers moma dollar and heres popa dollar and lets hope they have a lot of children”. Thats the situation were in when there is not an active Fed which can perform the essential “Lender of Last Resort” Function the Fed is chartered to perform!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Mary Jane says: September 7, 2019 at 7:59 am
You have some strong insights. But end the Fed now? That’s just Dudley’s opinion.
How about electing a president who is better versed in anything beyond “let’s make a deal” economics?
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2019 College Guide and Rankings
Republic 3.0
Successes of Philanthropy
| 1:30 PM
There’s a fair amount of panic underway in Republican circles, with party officials looking at their field of presidential candidates and wondering which of these guys can beat President Obama next year. It’s not only fueling a sense of dread, the weakness of the field is also pushing the GOP to look for “savior” candidates who might be open to recruitment.
It’s certainly not where the party hoped to find itself eight months before the Iowa caucuses.
With this in mind, a New York Times article from August 1991 has been making the rounds lately, noting a similar situation for Democrats at the time.
Democrats struggled today to adjust to the last thing they needed six months before the Iowa caucuses: an already tiny Presidential field that keeps shrinking.
As expected, Senator John D. Rockefeller 4th announced in Charleston, W.Va., today that he would not seek the 1992 Democratic Presidential nomination. That announcement, just three weeks after Representative Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri, the House majority leader, took himself out of the race, combined with the demurrals of other Democratic heavyweights to create a frustrating, embarrassing pattern for the party.
While the West Virginia Democrat struggled to cast his decision as a personal one, it left a clear public perception that one leading Democrat after another was looking at the 1992 campaign and deciding that George Bush could not be beaten.
“Am I frustrated?” asked Phil Angelides, chairman of the California Democratic Party. “Absolutely.”
Among the “savior” candidates party officials were reaching out to at the time: Mario Cuomo, Al Gore, and Lloyd Bentsen. The fear was, without a big name in the top tier, not only were Dems sure to lose the presidential race, but it would hurt the party down-ballot, too.
The following year, Bill Clinton not only won fairly easily, but Dems expanded their congressional majorities.
For the purposes of the present day, the point is obvious — Dems were panicked about the weak field in 1991, but the party nevertheless thrived in 1992. Republicans are panicked about the weak field in 2011, but the GOP may still do fine in 2012.
Well, maybe. When that NYT article ran in 1991, what did the Democratic field look like? Paul Tsongas had already announced … and that was it. The party was overcome by anxiety because they had one candidate — a former Massachusetts senator with a history of health trouble. He was the entire field. Six months before the Iowa caucuses, the list of credible Democratic candidates effectively included one person who wasn’t an especially imposing as national figure.
So, sure, Dems weren’t feeling especially confident. Of course they were starting to panic. And soon after, Bill Clinton, Bob Kerrey, Tom Harkin, and Jerry Brown would enter the race — and the panic subsided.
It’s why I don’t quite buy into the parallels to 2012. Unlike the Dems’ field at this point in ’91, the Republican field already has plenty of candidates. Indeed, the field is probably just about set. Twenty years ago, Dems were asking, “Who do we have other than Tsongas?” Now, Republicans are asking, “Who do we have other than Romney, Pawlenty, Huntsman, Gingrich, Santorum, Bachmann, Ron Paul, Cain, Johnson, Roemer, and Roy Moore?”
It’s not quite the same thing.
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Every color soup
Hurley, Jorey, author, illustrator.
1 volume (unpaged) : color illustrations ; 27 cm.
"A Paula Wiseman book."
Cooking (Vegetables) -- Fiction.
Soups -- Fiction.
Color -- Fiction.
Cooking (Vegetables) -- Juvenile fiction.
Picture books.
Describes how to make a colorful, delicious vegetable soup. Includes recipe.
Book EASY HUR 1 1
Book PICTURE BOOK HUR 0 1
Purple, yellow, orange, and red. Just the right mix of colored vegetables make a delicious soup in this tasty introduction to colors, counting, and veggies.
All you need is a pot, a spoon, an adult helper, and vegetables of many colors to make a very special soup--Every Color Soup! Learn colors and vegetable names in this bright and colorful picture book with minimal text perfect for the beginning reader. Jorey Hurley's bright, graphic art and simple text make this vibrant book a perfect read-aloud for budding cooks and their families. This lively picture book also comes with a recipe!
Jorey Hurley studied art history at Princeton, received her law degree at Stanford, and studied design at FIT. She worked as a textile designer for Hable Construction in New York City and is now based in San Francisco, where she lives with her husband and their two small children. Nest , her debut, was called "stunning" in a starred review from School Library Journal . Fetch , her second book, was called a "delight" by Publishers Weekly in a starred review. She is also the author of Every Color Soup and Skyscraper . Visit her at JoreyHurley.com.
School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 2-Using the flat graphic art style employed in her earlier books, Hurley introduces the very young to a variety of ingredients used to make soup. On a spread that includes a cutting board, knife, wooden spoon, and large soup pot, the text reads, "We are making Every Color Soup./ We'll need." With each ensuing page turn, youngsters see a spread containing an outsize image of one or two ingredients, rendered in Photoshop, on white background. Except for a jar of blue lentils that might be mistaken for something else, no ingredient is labeled. Only a color word appears in large type. For example, the word "white" is opposite a salt cellar and garlic cloves resting on a table. Seven individual measuring cups of liquid are labeled "clear." Brown hands "chop" the ingredients, "drop" them into the pot, which then "bubble[s]," and finally, a bowl of soup with colorful ingredients floating on top is set out on a checkered cloth. "Yum." Chopped images of the food items within, including dots of pepper, are scattered across the endpapers, and the title page spread cleverly depicts the veggies growing in a garden. Back matter includes a recap of all the ingredients and their names as well as a soup recipe that includes all the foods shown. VERDICT The large colorful illustrations make this versatile offering perfect for a group study of colors and of different foods. Budding cooks will enjoy working with an adult to follow the recipe included.-Marianne Saccardi, Children's Literature Consultant, Cambridge, MA © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Horn Book Review
In this simple picture book, each spread shows one or more ingredients of a color named in the very spare text: "yellow" (corn and onion) / "orange" (carrots) / "white" (salt and garlic cloves); then it's "chop / drop / bubble / yum." Preschoolers may enjoy identifying each ingredient in the pleasing digital illustrations that mimic cut-paper art. The full recipe for "Every Color Soup" is appended. (c) Copyright 2019. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Hurley cooks up a big pot of soup, introducing young children to the colorful veggies, kitchen equipment, and cooking techniques that bring it to table.Opening in a lush garden foreshadowing the soup's ingredients, the narrative shifts to the kitchen: "We are making Every Color Soup. / We'll need // purple." That single, final word rests on bright white space, near a page-straddling eggplant with a green stem cap. As new color names are introduced on succeeding pages, the number of depicted ingredients increases, providing the opportunity to count objects from one to nine. (That is, until the pepper mill appears, scattering scores of "black" pepper specks.) The concept "clear" defines an array of seven glass measuring cups of broth, while "blue" is paired with a jar of Le Puys lentils. At "chop" and "drop," Hurley's signature Photoshopped pictures reveal the brown hands of an adult (with vibrant, pink-polished fingernails) and a child. One double-page spread tips vertically to show the soup pot bubbling on the gas stove, steam rising against the blue-and-white tile backsplash. A final "yum" appears alongside an overhead view of a bowl of the finished soup atop a red-and-white-checked tablecloth. Hurley appends a visual glossary of the ingredients and a simple recipe for Every Color Soup (with adult help mandated). Lovely and playful for storytimes and family sharing. (Picture book. 2-5) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
What is Every Color Soup? A healthy, flavorful blend of fresh vegetables, lentils, and spices simmered in broth or water. As in Hurley's previous picture books, she takes a minimalist approach here to both text and images. Apart from the brief setup (We are making Every Color Soup. We'll need . . .), only one word appears on most double-page spreads. When it's purple, an enormous eggplant appears against a white background. The green spread features a celery stalk and parsley leaves. More ambiguously, the clear spread shows seven see-though containers of pale green liquid. What is clear the container, the liquid, or both? Illustrating chop and drop, a chef's brown hands prepare ingredients and add them to the pot. The closing spread includes all the ingredients, labeled, on one side, and the written recipe on the facing page. The large format gives plenty of space for this graphically bold celebration of vegetables. With artwork that shows up particularly well from a distance, this pleasing picture book introduces colors and vegetables while offering opportunities for counting and cooking as well.--Phelan, Carolyn Copyright 2017 Booklist
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North Pocono Softball Team Hits it Out of the Park Academically
Posted 5:17 pm, October 17, 2019, by Courtney Harrison
COVINGTON TOWNSHIP, Pa. -- A girls softball team from Lackawanna County is celebrating a big win, but it's not for anything the players did on the field.
When you hear, "swing for the fences," you normally think of hitting a home run. The North Pocono softball team took that idea from the field to the classroom and was rewarded for their efforts.
High school softball is not in season, but the support for the team is still evident at North Pocono near Moscow. The entire team received an award from Easton Softball Company and the National Fastpitch Coaches Association for its academic achievements.
"I never really thought that we could achieve something so much until I heard about it and I was like, 'wow, that makes sense,' because we all do work very hard on and off the field," said senior Dayle Smith.
The team's 3.94 cumulative grade-point average during the past school year gave them the top spot in Pennsylvania and 29th in the nation.
But it's not just the grades that make this team special.
"They just all like each other, they get along and that doesn't happen every year, so it was a really nice season," said head coach Michael Lafave.
The coach says the expectations for his athletes are high both on and off the field. Playing beyond high school isn't a guarantee for all athletes, so the school stresses the importance of grades.
"Being a student-athlete at most, it makes it difficult but also makes it rewarding in the end, knowing that I can balance both," said sophomore Emma Barnes.
"Realistically, how many of them are going to play in college? The number dwindles and then the chance of it being something they can do to make money is almost zero, so academics is what's important," said Lafave.
It's not just the softball team that benefits from this achievement. It's the teachers and the school and it just goes to show how important academics are to become a great student-athlete.
"A lot of my teachers told me they're actually really proud of us because I know they believe in our team and they know we're all really good athletes too. During softball season, it's tough to keep up with our stuff and they're all really supportive of us," said sophomore Parri Salak.
"It's a proud moment for our teachers because they put in all the hard work," said North Pocono High School Principal Ron Collins. "For the coaches, our athletic director, it's a huge moment for North Pocono High School."
The North Pocono softball team lost a few seniors from last year's squad. This year's team hopes to top that 3.94 GPA and win the award again.
Topics: lackawanna county, North Pocono High School, north pocono softball
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More merry myth-mongering (and muddled maths)
November 26, 2015 - Facts, Media, Opinion, Policy & Advocacy, Stigma - Tagged: Breda O'Brien, Kermit Gosnell, mythbusting, myths - no comments
On 14 November an article titled ‘Ireland should not aspire to providing legalised killing‘, written by Breda O’Brien, was published in the Irish Times. It contains the usual inaccuracies, convenient fudges and glittering generalities we’ve come to expect from anti-abortion op-eds over the years.
The article follows and refers back to another opinion piece published in the same paper just four days previously about former physician and convicted murderer Kermit Gosnell.
Let’s be clear, even though we really, really don’t need to: Kermit Gosnell was a criminal and was tried, convicted and imprisoned as such. Seeking to imply that Gosnell’s crimes are reflected, even in some small measure, in practices in abortion provision generally is about as reasonable as suggesting that the actions of Michael Neary or Harold Shipman were medically and statistically unexceptional.
Ms O’Brien tries nonetheless to legitimise this absurd position and give weight to pure bluster by conjuring up the tired anti-abortion myth of trained medical practitioners routinely botching one of the most common medical procedures in the world.
Ms O’Brien cites figures from a report by the Confidential Enquiry into Maternal and Child Health (CEMACH) (which gathers neonatal mortality data for England, Wales and Northern Ireland). However, she gets both the report wrong (the figures she cites are in the report for 2005, not 2007) and the figures wrong, apparently confusing median with average. It’s a lucky confusion, apparently beefing up her non-argument that once Ireland legalises abortion, incompetent doctors will—for no apparent reason—habitually half-finish terminations and gaze coldly on as newborns struggle for life. We’ll give her the benefit of the doubt and assume she’s simply got her sums wrong. In any case her ‘average’ period of survival in cases of neonatal deaths as one hour is more than likely a country mile wide of the mark.
Neither are ‘some babies surviving for 10 hours and 15 minutes’, as she claims. The report contains no evidence whatsoever that any more than one newborn survived this long. One is not ‘some’. But when the facts themselves are not particularly convincing, this kind of gentle stretching of the fabric of truth is par for the course.
No matter: these blunders are actually rendered irrelevant by the fact that these figures are, as the CEMACH report states, ‘predominantly on account of congenital anomalies’. In other words, as neonatologist Prof. Neil Marlow, president of the British Association of Perinatal Medicine, has explained, in reference to the statistics: ‘Parents may be told that the baby will not be viable but may still want to hold it until it dies, and this is probably what we are seeing in these statistics.’
Ms O’Brien uses this shoddy foundation as a springboard to argue for late-term abortion bans. To borrow from Micheál Martin, we’re not going there—because we’ve gone there before.
‘What would a world without abortion look like?’ concludes Ms O’Brien.
The answer is less abstract than the question: we need only look to those countries that are ‘abortion-free’ (read: free from legal abortion, but where illegal, unsafe abortion is rampant) and extrapolate from incidences and trends to form a global hypothesis. Across large swathes of the Global South not only is abortion unavailable legally, but even the safety valve of a proxy provider—in the form of a nearby jurisdiction where the procedure is legal, or of medications ordered online—is rendered an impossibility due to poverty and geographical expanse.
The result? More, not fewer abortions, higher incidences of infanticide following birth and massive maternal death rates due to unsafe, illegal abortions.
Again, we’ve been here before.
In the light of these facts (facts in the, er, factual sense, not the ‘pro-life’ sense), Ms O’Brien’s blithe assurance that ‘we don’t have to be afraid of such a world’ can only be considered as either staggeringly naive or a cruelly disingenuous dismissal of the lives, health and self-determination of women globally.
Yours truthfully,
Abortion Rights Campaign myth-busters
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energy transformation 10 February 2017
History will not be kind to this government and its coal obsession
Australia needs to get off coal if we want a safe world to live in.
As health authorities and emergency services leaders brace for potentially catastrophic heatwave conditions, it defies belief that Australia’s Treasurer would hand around a lump of coal in Parliament, the Australian Conservation Foundation said today.
Authorities are warning of risks to health and catastrophic bushfire danger as large parts of eastern Australia face several days of extreme heat.
Meanwhile, Treasurer Scott Morrison brought a lump of coal into the House of Representatives, supplied to him by the Minerals Council of Australia.
“Australia needs to get off coal if we want a safe world to live in,” said ACF CEO Kelly O’Shanassy.
“Coal is damaging our climate, intensifying heatwaves and bushfires, polluting our air and bleaching the Great Barrier Reef.
“On days of intense heat people should listen to the advice of authorities and check in on neighbours and friends, especially the elderly.
“It is no exaggeration to say coal pollution is a danger to life as we know it in Australia.
“It defies belief that frontbenchers in our federal government are literally and figuratively holding up coal as a solution for the future.
“It is sad confirmation that the big polluters and their lobbyists are calling the shots in Canberra.
“Not only does the government want to build more coal-fired power stations, it also supports Adani’s plans to dig the biggest-ever coal mine in Australia’s history.
“While the government ignores the warnings and continues to fuel global warming, it must be held accountable for the consequences.
“History will not be kind to the Turnbull Government and its love of coal.
“Australia desperately needs national leaders who will establish a clear plan to replace old, dirty coal-fired power plants with clean, renewable energy and help affected workers and communities through the time of transition,” she said.
Read our media adviser's feature piece about growing local opposition to Adani's plans to dig Australia's biggest coal mine in north Queensland
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Australia’s National Greenhouse Gas Inventory - climate change hitting agriculture
Climate policy flaws allow Centennial Coal to dramatically increase emissions from mines without penalty
07 October 19
Fresh details of Morrison Government’s coal spruiking emerge as Australia is denied speaking spot at UN climate summit
Targets need to reflect seriousness of climate challenge
Australia's National Greenhouse Gas Inventory - pollution levels still on the up
Queensland CleanCo announcement step in the right direction but more ambition needed
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Fragile X Clinical Trial
Conditions & Diseases: Fragile X syndrome
By Carlo Paribello
Posted on October 05,2018
FRAXA Research Foundation has just funded a Fragile X clinical trial of an investigational new drug, led by Dr. Elizabeth Berry-Kravis at the Rush Fragile X Clinic and Research Program in Chicago. This trial will treat 30 adult males with Fragile X syndrome with a new PDE4D allosteric inhibitor from Tetra Discovery Partners using in a crossover design so that everyone gets active drug for part of the time and placebo for part of the time.
This study is a major advance in clinical research for a number of reasons.PDE4 - Potential Fragile X Treatment Target
First of all, the enzyme phosphodiesterase 4 (PDE4), which breaks down the signaling molecule cyclic AMP, has been singled out as a promising treatment target for a long time. In fact, it was first proposed before FRAXA Research Foundation existed when Dr. Berry-Kravis found low levels of cAMP in Fragile X patients. She notes, “this trial will bring my earliest work on Fragile X syndrome, showing abnormal cyclic AMP signaling in FXS, to fruition, with a treatment trial directed at correcting the mechanism I discovered in 1990 when in my Child Neurology fellowship.”
Indeed, many researchers have shown that PDE4 inhibitors can fix Fragile X-related problems in animal models. Most recently, FRAXA researchers (including FRAXA Medical Director, Dr. Michael Tranfaglia, and FRAXA-DVI Director, Dr. Patricia Cogram) in collaboration with Dr. Mark Gurney of Tetra Discovery Partners showed that this new compound exhibited powerful rescue effects in the knockout mouse, which persisted long after the drug was discontinued (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5677090/).
Tetra Discovery Partners
Until now, no PDE4 inhibitors were available for us to use in Fragile X clinical trials. In part, this is because most drug companies have been interested in other much larger indications for these drugs, like Alzheimer Disease. There is still a great deal of interest in these blockbuster indications, but FRAXA has forged a close collaboration with Tetra Discovery Partners, a small biotech company based in Michigan. Tetra has developed an advanced PDE4D allosteric inhibitor which is highly selective, non-toxic, and easy to take (it doesn’t have the side effect of GI upset that most other drugs in this class have). While Tetra is also developing this drug for Alzheimer’s and is currently conducting clinical trials in this population, they have willing to branch out into Fragile X.
As Dr. Gurney notes, “Dr. Berry-Kravis’ research gives us hope that BPN14770 may address a core biochemical change in Fragile X patients. The results of our collaborative preclinical studies with the FRAXA Research Foundation in the Fragile X mice are very promising. We look forward to initiating the Phase 2 clinical trial that will be conducted by Dr. Berry-Kravis with support from the FRAXA Research Foundation. Tetra Discovery Partners has a patient-focused culture that meshes perfectly with the passion of FRAXA Research Foundation and the dedication of Dr. Berry-Kravis to the care of her patients.”
Tetra has just announced that the FDA has granted Orphan Drug Designation to BPN14770 for treatment of Fragile X syndrome.
Advanced Clinical Trial Design
One interesting aspect of this study is that the crossover design, with every participant taking active drug for half of the trial period, will allow us to look for the same kind of “carry-over effects” in the Fragile X patients that were observed in the Fragile X mice. Trial subjects will also receive a full therapeutic dose of the drug, so clinically meaningful responses are possible. Most importantly, this trial will use state-of-the-art objective cognitive and physiologic outcome measures, including eye-tracking and measuring brain-wave responses to sounds, a major step forward from previous studies of investigational compounds.
We are excited about this new clinical trial, and we look forward to developing a new therapeutic option for Fragile X! We are grateful to the Pierce Family Fragile X Foundation for contributing funds toward this project.
Related Trials
A Safety Study of NNZ-2566 in Patients With Fragile X Syndrome
Single Dose Pharmacokinetic (PK) Study
Pediatric Patients With Metabolic or Other Genetic Disorders
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Possibly My Favorite (Real) Negative Review Ever
October 15, 2007 John Scalzi46 Comments
It’s for Old Man’s War, off the Amazon UK site:
(one star) Mixes the bland with the objectionable
Marvel at the author’s universe of sockpuppets and strawmen! Rejoice… sort of… at the least interesting nanotechnology ever! Marvel at the author’s ability to select only the least satisfying cliches to assemble his work from; gasp at his inability to explore the few interesting ideas he has, or to construct a plot that doesn’t visibly move on rails; gasp at his profound understanding of philosophy and military history (“No army ever goes to war with more the bare minimum it needs to win.” Hello? Gulf 1? The British campaign against the Mahdi?)
Sort of like a mildly fascistic and extremely cliched soft rock album: you’d actually PREFER to listen to Rammstein or white power ska because as horrible as it is at least it has soul. In a sub-genre with gems like Starship Troopers (zeig Heinlien!), David Drake’s Slammer’s books, Frezza’s Small Colonial War and Fire In A Faraway Place (pity about 911 ending his career, what with his heroes executing an almost identical plan), and the mighty and perfect Forever War, this book is uber-ultra-dispensible.
However: great cover.
And look! Here’s Rammstein!
Books Received, 10/15/07
From the “What the Hell?” File
46 thoughts on “Possibly My Favorite (Real) Negative Review Ever”
Diatryma says:
“Zeig Heinlein!” made me choke on my drink.
I like “Sort of like a mildly fascistic and extremely cliched soft rock album,” myself. I had images of Dan Fogelberg getting it on with Leni Riefenstahl.
Shawn Powers says:
Are you sending him/her a copy of Coffee Shop? That was amusing enough to at least take second…
Nah. I suspect it would just piss him off.
Dr. Phil says:
Do you suppose his tirade on Heinlein’s Starship Troopers was based on the book — or the movie? (grin)
AEM says:
The reviewer’s lack of knowledge about military history is both frightening and profound. For any who’ve studied military history to any degree, it is axiomatic that nations send their troops with as little as they can get by with. From barely armed peasant levies and helot platoons to more recent Soviet cannon fodder, it is a sad constant of military tribulations.
It also bears noting that Gulf War I was conducted under the theory that mass amounts of materiel would be the easiest way to defeat Iraqi forces. Accordingly, it WAS the barest minimum, overall, that US strategists foresaw as necessary.
As to British campaigns against the Mahdi, they’d previously sent even smaller forces against him, and only sent larger ones after the total rout and destruction of the earlier armies. Bare minima again.
Seriously, white power ska?!?
corwin says:
Suppose there’s a correlation between your fans and those of Rammstein?
I would be a little surprised if there were. Not that there’s anything wrong with Rammstein, mind you. They do their shtick just fine.
I enjoyed that review even though I found it completely false. Besides the overall tone, two things in particular disturbed me.
1. Most boring nano-technology ever? Are you serious?? I’ve read more than a few sci-fi’s with nano-tech, and OMW was certainly one of the most clever while remaining based in theoretical plausibility. Nanobots switching into different kinds of ammunition on the fly, nanos moving throughout the epidermis to provide an all-over medical diagnostic – I think that your use of nanos was one of the best elements of the OMW universe as a whole. Nanos repairing spaceships and stitching together wounded soldiers (and only that) is boring and cliche.
Of course, given his usage of the word cliche in the rest of the review, I suspect he wouldn’t know a cliche if a dark and stormy night punched him in the face once upon a time.
2. As AEM noted, the rag on the minimalist military doctrine is completely unfounded. As said above, an absolutely overwhelming display of force WAS the least strenuous strategy when compared to having a relatively small force ferreting Revolutionary Guardsmen out of trenches and tunnelworks for many months.
But also, the top militaries of the world are fine tuned to have the minimum edge…against other top militaries. I.e. the US Army has the minimum it needs to win against anyone in the world. They can hardly be breaking societal norms if, once in a while, they get called in to smack around a drastically underprepared fighting force from a developing nation.
I give this review 2 out of 10 for pluckiness but a complete lack of reading comprehension and thought.
However: great ending.
MWT says:
Hey wait … I like Rammstein…
Alas I can’t get the video to run while trying to view it from Mac OSX Opera. Clicking it just makes the play button bounce a bit, and that’s it. I can run it directly from Youtube, and I can run videos in other blogs elsewhere … but not this one here and also not that sheep shooter you posted a while back.
Wow John, that was impressive. Another fine example of how the British education system produces better hate mail then the American. Or have we just been reading so much subpar flaming that this is amazing by comparsion?
isadrone says:
And I thought I couldn’t love Rammstein any more. :D
(there’s White Power ska? really? Then again, I don’t recall ever coming across fascist soft rock, either.)
What bothers me is the parallel construction of Marvel… Marvel… gasp… gasp. It grates, like Sting’s AAAA rhyme schemes. He should have mixed in a “thrill to…” and a “cheer as…” and possibly an admonishment not to give away the predictable ending. Or something like that.
Not to take the frivolous review too seriously, but…
The “no army ever has more than the bare minimum” speech came from a *sergeant*. More to the point, a drill sergeant.
It’s a sergeant’s job to be the cynical pragmatic bastard, counterbalancing the officers who, as far as he’s concerned, are either starry-eyed idealists or job-seeking glad-handers (or both). And it’s the *drill* sergeant’s job to tell those soft civilians that by golly they’re in the army now, and life is going to *suck*.
(None of that is new or unique to Mr. Scalzi. Heck, that’s what “This Is The Army, Mr. Green” is all about.)
I think Silly Reviewer is making a common, but still really stupid, mistake–taking something that as presented as the voice of an idiosyncratic character, and assuming it’s the voice of an omniscient narrator who precisely reflects the views of the author.
(As it happens, I think there’s a lot of truth to what the sergeant says. But still, if the actual situation is something more like “the politicians are going to cut corners when they can”, any drill sergeant is naturally going to read that as “they’d send us out with loincloths and tomahawks if they could get away with it”.)
Christopher Hawley says:
Wow. However did I manage to muddle through life without the guidance of ItsNotMe “jonathan5158”? Had I but read his reviews, I would not have wasted time or money on such works as _Accelerando_ (“Imitation without style”), _Coalescent_ (“lacking in […] in interesting ideas”), or _Old Man’s War_; instead I could have become an instant guru of coding, thanks to _Teach Yourself Perl In 24 Hours_! [1]
John, I hate to break your toy, but that was not even a review, let alone a negative one. Perhaps someone will explain to this benighted drool-pool the difference between pointing and victory [1] before he unleashes his next screed.
[1] The comparison offered between TYP24H [sic] and Randal Schwartz’s _Learning Perl_ is so far beyond untruth or libel that it can only be accounted for by either an alternate-universe breach, or utter daftness on the part of the reviewer.
[2] “zeig Heinlein”: closest translation would be “point at Heinlein” — a task beyond the reviewer’s capacity (and rude to boot).
Kaba says:
Count me into the correlation between “John Scalzi and Rammstein fans” demographic.
Steve Buchheit says:
Sounds like some reviewer put on his Mr. Crankeypants this morning and decided to see how clever he could sound.
But, hey, he liked the cover art.
JustAnotherJohn says:
Wow. I’m thinking that if I ended up meeting this reviewer at a bar, it would end in fisticuffs. Not that I’m necessarily trying to defend OMW, but jeez…
I love Starship Troopers. I love David Drake’s books, as well as Frezza’s books. And while I don’t love love love Rammstein, I think they’re pretty cool. Sometimes you just WANT some guttural Germanic tech-metal.
> I would be a little surprised if there were.
I’m a die hard Rammstein fan (have all of the albums)!
Chris Gerrib says:
I never heard of this Freeza fellow. Does anybody know why “911 ended his career” (one hopes not permanently) or is the reviewer blowing more smoke?
JAJ:
“Wow. I’m thinking that if I ended up meeting this reviewer at a bar, it would end in fisticuffs.”
Heh. Well, you know. Do try to avoid him, then.
And glad to see you wouldn’t do it on the book’s account. Clearly, the review doesn’t bother me, since I found it amusing enough to post here. And also, you know. It’s an Amazon review. This isn’t a pro reviewer, it’s a guy who plunked down his money and didn’t get what he thought wanted. He’s entitled to a bit of snark if he was unsatisfied.
I may question your taste in music (you have horrible taste..one mans trash and all I guess), but you do know how to write a book. Meh…I’ve heard better flame mail.
I too am interested in this business about Robert A. Frezza’s career being ended by September 11. He’s not on any victim list I’ve found.
There was a Robert M. Frezza who died, college-aged, in 2001, but Robert A. Frezza hasn’t yet died that I’m aware of.
I’m a big fan of his _Small Colonial War_ series, and have long wondered why he dropped off the face of the planet after the mid-’90s when _Cain’s Land_ and _VMR Theory_ were published.
Anyone have any more info?
James Davis Nicoll says:
I was going to point out that Frezza’s most recent book predates 9/11 by five years but I see someone beat me to it.
The last I heard of him was in 2002 when someone on rasfw said that Frezza was “currently finishing a long alternate history of WWII from the Italian perspective and looking for a publisher.
James, thanks for that!
I could name a number of authors whose careers lasted very roughly about as long as Frezza’s appears to have. Gilliland hasn’t had a new novel published since 1992, for example, Kevin O’Donnell, Jr. hasn’t had a novel published since 1990 and John Clifford Faust has not to the best of my knowledge published a new novel since 1997. That’s just off the top of my head.
An unverified claim that I continue to attribute to Van Vogt is that a writer might have about ten years before the public’s taste changes enough to end their careers.
Now you know why so many of us try to cram in as many books as possible.
I suppose the subtext there is that few authors have the ability to change with (or, perhaps more kindly, respond to) the times.
The abrupt truncation of careers would bother me less if it didn’t seem so arbitrary.
ditto says:
“It’s an Amazon review. This isn’t a pro reviewer, it’s a guy who plunked down his money and didn’t get what he thought wanted. He’s entitled to a bit of snark if he was unsatisfied.”
It makes me wonder if he knew your dictates on hate mail: at least he was entertaining. ;)
Terry Karney says:
The other things about Gulf-1 (the flaws in the Mahdi comparision being already resolved) is that the expectation of resistance was greater than it proved to be.
Had the Iraqis prepared a better, in depth, defense, and maintained morale, the forces might have had a more grinding clash.
In which case the armies present might have been more visibly minimal.
James Nicoll – I also have heard of authors who fade away after a while. Some, like John Hemry” get caught in the negative spiral of sales. (Each book sells less, therefore less orders and eventually no contract.) Some, like John, try a reboot with a different pen name (in his case, “Jack Campbell.”)
Others, especially those whose sales aren’t enough for a full-time job as a writer, may just get tired of the game. Without futher information, it’s difficult to tell which route our Frezza took.
Well, if I could figure out what button to click, I’d edit my HTML screw-up, above, but WordPress is defeating me.
32: Have you read Donald Westlake’s The Hook?
James @ 34 – no, actually. From the Amazon blurb it sounds very interesting.
S Andrew Swann says:
I really like Rammstein myself, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen the real video for that song. Up to now I’ve made do with this.
Traith Hightower says:
I like some of Rammstein’s stuff, but mainly I respect their bassist Oliver Riedel, who, along with the bassist of The Red Hot Chilli Peppers, can push the instrument to its limits, and make it sound amazing.
Chris, have you read Hemry’s Paul Sinclair series? I actually contacted him when I found that there would be no more – however much I enjoy the Lost Fleet series.
It was my favorite military-legal-science-fiction series ever.
Jim Winter says:
Boy, when Harriett Klausner doesn’t like you, she really doesn’t like you!
I haven’t read the book, but in reading the ‘reviewers’ remarks it sounded like the heroes in Fire In A Faraway Place used a tactic similar to the 9/11 attacks, and that he believes the similarity caused the end of Frezza’s career.
Don’t know if that similarity existed, but I doubt such a coincidence would harm a writer’s career — if anything it should bolster his reputation for bringing realism to his stories.
40: As I recall the end of the book, the protagonists in FIAFP demonstrate their sincerity to their Japanese overlords by carrying out a program of targeted assassinations and destabilizing the Japanese stock-market. As a final “we regret the direction the relations between our two worlds have taken” gesture, two of the protagonists (a terminally ill man and suicidally depressed widower) fly a space craft into the largest (?) building in Tokyo, the HQ of the company that they blamed for much of their world’s troubles.
They do take care only to destroy that one building (well, and the ones it fell on) instead of using the ship to destory the entire city.
I know I’ve commented on how that ending has aged badly but FIAFP wasn’t Frezza’s last book thus far: either Cain’s Land or VMR Theory was.
ship says:
wow, what an unbelievable jackass! it just goes to show you, there’s no accounting for taste. and if this person hates the other novels she lumped OMW in with (aside from starship troopers), then i will have to check those out too!
AEM @ 38 – The only Hemry stuff I’ve read is the Lost Fleet series, primarily because that’s how I found out about him. I’m not a big fan of the legal thriller genre in general, and really dispise the TV series “JAG,” so anything marketed as “JAG in space” I steer clear of.
(The chief problem with the TV series is that nobody in their right mind in the military gives a lawyer a gun.)
Well, I’m no fan of JAG either, or any legal shows for that matter, but the Hemry series blends everything nicely, and his experience in the navy definitely comes through.
Of course, there are excellent reasons why nobody in their right mind gives lawyers guns – they’re lawyers!
Homie Bear says:
I tried reading A Small Colonial War this week- it was one my Dad gave me, but I gave up after 20 pages. All the 3rd battalion, 8th platoon first lieutenants running around saying military things really got in the way of th story, which had something to do with Boers.
I was at a used book store over the weekend, and just happened to pick up the two Frezza books referenced in the main post. What I find most ironic is that in Frezza’s “Small Colonial War” the whole damn point is that the Empire sends the smallest force possible!
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Tag Archives: Glenfiddich
Glenfiddich Experimental Series #4 Fire And Cane Review
The Glenfiddich Experimental series proved to be so successful that the first 2 expressions in the series (IPA and XX) are still produced and their life support stretch far beyond the experimental state and are unofficially entrenched in the official line up.
The series continued with the expensive Winter’s Storm for 3 batches and now comes the forth and latest release ‘Fire And Cane‘. Here in this release Glenfiddich Malt Master Brian Kinsman used both peated and unpeated Glenfiddich whisky and finished them for 3 months in rum casks from South America. This a very intriguing release as the combo of peated whisky and rum casks usually play very nice one with each other.
Glenfiddich Experimental Series #4 Fire And Cane (43%, £42.45/€49.90)
Nose: Soft sweet smoke, pears, brown sugar, smoked banana peels (plantain), vanilla, hints of sour fruits (even a bit tropical. Easy going and nice but after a long time in the glass it disappeared almost completely. Continue reading →
This entry was posted in Whisky Reviews and tagged Glenfiddich on December 18, 2018 by Yoav @ Whisky Gospel.
Glenfiddich 15 Year Old Handfilled Batch #47 (BTC 2017 Day 5)
Last night dram of the BTC 2017 was a nasty surprise from the organizers. Nasty as who would have think of a handfill (!!!) from Glenfiddich distillery (!!!!), no less and no more! As expected, nobody managed to guess the distillery. It was a good dram and it reaffirms my belief from my two last Glenfiddich reviews (here and here) that they should stop chill filtering and bottle in higher strength.
And how did I do with my guess? I got points for region as it was clearly a Speyside offering and totally missed on the ABV. I kind of screwed up on the age guess. I felt it’s low to mid teens offering (I have witnesses for this claim!), but I over thought it and thought maybe it’s younger cask with a mature profile, so guessed too low instead of getting another 30-40 points.
Glenfiddich 15 Year Old Handfilled Batch #47 (56.9%)
Pic of a similar batch. Credit: whiskybase.com
Nose: Smooth but also hides lots of energy below the surface, honey, quite a restrained nose. Then fruitiness shows up (still somewhat muted) with pears, apricot and peaches, citrus inner (bitter) peels, bubble gum (think bazooka), cinnamon and nuts. With time fruitier. Continue reading →
Glenfiddich 21 Year Old Reserva Rum Cask Finish Review
When Struan Grant Ralph, Global Brand Ambassador for Glenfiddich, visited Israel last month, I had a rare glimpse into the Glenfiddich 21 Reserve Rum Cask making process. This expression is made from whisky that is matured in ex-bourbon casks for 21 years and then is finished in Rum casks for additional four months before being bottled to create the final result.
Struan brought with him a 21 year old whisky distilled back in 1996 and then matured in ex-bourbon cask (#201). This is one of the casks that is destined to get finished in Rum casks for the Reserva Rum Cask whisky.
Glenfiddich 1996 21 Year Old single cask (54.3%, #201)
Nose: Sweet honey, oak spices, damp wood, nutty, butterscotch, pears, butter and after a few minutes in the glass some fruit perfume.
Palate: Gentle spiciness, white pepper, sweet honey, oak, butterscotch, nutty, very rich and ends with oak spices and cooked pears.
Finish: Medium length, very soft, honey, oak spices, white pepper and nuts.
This is, just like the 19 year old single cask for Project XX tasted in the same sitting, is is the sort of whisky I wish Glenfiddich would release on a regular basis. So this lovely 21 year old whisky is emptied from casks and then finished in Caribbean Rum casks for another few months.
So far so good, but the final result is bottled at 40% and is chill filtered. I think this bodes ill.
Glenfiddich 21 Year Old Reserva Rum Cask Finish (40%, £110/$139.99/€147,50)
This entry was posted in Whisky Reviews and tagged Glenfiddich on November 16, 2017 by Yoav @ Whisky Gospel.
Glenfiddich Project XX (Experimental Series #2) In Depth Review
Last week, Struan Grant Ralph, Global Brand Ambassador for Glenfiddich stopped in our small country during one of his global tour for a series of events organized by the “Hacerem”, the local Glenfiddich Importer. The events focused on the Glenfiddich Experimental Series along with a bonus of rare view on the whisky making progress for Glenfiddich 21 Year Old Reserva Rum Cask Finish.
So it seemed like a good idea and timing to (finally) have an in-depth review of the Glenfiddich Project XX, so I sat down with Struan to discuss the experimental series, project XX and Glenfiddich in the hope to learn something new and indeed, at the end I came out wiser, impressed yet also wishing for a change in Glenfiddich.
Struan on the Experimental Series
As we all know by now, the first two expressions in the Experimental were very successful and the third one (Winter Storm), finished in ice wine casks is now hitting the shelves around the globe. Are you wondering what’s the next one in the series? I wondered too, so I bluntly asked him if he can tell me anything on the next one in the series and to my surprise he didn’t declined to answer and revealed it will be centered around PX casks. Continue reading →
This entry was posted in Whisky Reviews and tagged Glenfiddich on October 31, 2017 by Yoav @ Whisky Gospel.
Glenfiddich Experimental Series IPA Cask Review
Until today there was one big distillery never reviewed on Whisky Gospel. Yes, A few years of reviews and still not a single Glenfiddich whisky review here.
It’s not that I didn’t taste Glenfiddich whiskies, after all it’s one of the most popular single malts around the globe and even my brother who doesn’t drink much whisky (I know, a big failure on my behalf) has a Glenfiddich 12 yo bottle at home. But I must admit that those Glenfiddichs I did taste, like the 12 yo, 18 yo and others just didn’t tingle enough my resolve to sit down and write a proper review.
But then Glenfiddich has released their first two experimental series expressions and the one that was finished in IPA casks definitely piqued up my interest. I’ve seen Irish whiskies finished in beer casks like Jameson Caskmates and Scotch blend (Grant’s Ale Cask Finish) but this is the first single malt Scotch whisky ever finished in IPA casks. It was finished in casks that held IPA beer brewed specially for this whisky by Speyside Craft Brewery for three months, and then bottled at 43%. Let’s see if this experimental is successful.
Glenfiddich Experimental Series IPA Cask (43%, £43.98/€49.95)
Nose: Malt, citrus bitterness (grapefruit and the white layer between the peels and the fruit meat) with that distinct hops greenery and bitterness. Then comes the fruit sweetness, green and unripe pears and apples and yet behind that initial wave it’s still a very classic Glenfiddich, honey, vanilla, bread, very smooth with a touch of white pepper. After a while in the glass it’s pretty much all classic Glenfiddich with a slight IPA bitterness. Continue reading →
This entry was posted in Whisky Reviews and tagged Glenfiddich on November 1, 2016 by Yoav @ Whisky Gospel.
Whisky News: Old Pulteney 35 yo, Highland Park Dark Origins, Glenfiddich Excellence 26 and Bowmore Tempest V
Been a while since I collected news on new releases, but in the last 2 weeks there were a couple of important whisky news, so here they are.
Also, did you check my little giveaway? Rules are simple and you may win a whisky bottle!
Old Pulteney Launches Limited Edition 35 Year Old Single Malt
Multi award-winning Old Pulteney Highland Single Malt Scotch Whisky has added a new, exceptionally rare whisky to its distinguished range, the limited edition Old Pulteney 35 Year Old. Only 450 cases of this outstanding single malt will be rolled out to global markets with a retail price of £500 per bottle.
The embodiment of Pulteney Distillery’s exceptional craftsmanship, this new expression is matured in American ex-bourbon and Spanish ex-sherry casks which have been expertly hand selected by Distillery Manager Malcolm Waring. Each striking 700ml bottle is non-chill filtered at 42.5% ABV. On the palate this full bodied expression is sweet and spicy to start then quickly develops a range of signature Old Pulteney flavours from honey, rum soaked raisins and oranges to the heavier notes of seasoned leather, pralines and a touch of the salty North Sea air. A truly indulgent, perfectly balanced whisky, it has a long slow finish and is light amber in colour.
The eye catching detail and design of the limited edition reflects the brand’s rich maritime heritage, which includes a stunning wooden box with porthole revealing the unique Old Pulteney bottle which carries the classic herring drifter, which has become a symbol of the brand.
Founded in 1826 at the height of Wick’s herring boom, Pulteney Distillery is one of the most Northerly distilleries on the Scottish mainland. It is this unique maritime heritage that gives the whisky its identity as the ‘Maritime Malt’. A long-held favourite tipple for whisky enthusiasts, many say they can taste a faint hint of the sea in Old Pulteney maltsthanks to the Distillery’s windswept location and close proximity to the North Sea.
The launch of the 35 Year Old follows the success of Old Pulteney’s 40 Year Old single malt which was released in 2012, Old Pulteney Senior Brand Manager, Margaret Mary Clarke commented:
“Old Pulteney 35 Year Old is a world class expression and we are delighted to add another high age, limited edition to our existing portfolio.
From its eye catching packaging to its superior taste, the new malt is a true reflection of Old Pulteney’s outstanding quality and craftsmanship. We are confident that it will take its place amongst the best luxury whiskies available today and cement our position as one of the UK’s top ten single malts.”
HIGHLAND PARK DELVES INTO ITS DARK ORIGINS FOR MAJOR NEW RELEASE
Highland Park announce the launch of a new core expression inspired by the cunning spirit and courageous personality of its founder, Magnus Eunson.
Establishing a secret bunker in the hills of High Park in Orkney, Magnus ‘Mansie’ Eunson became a famed dark distiller back in the late 1700s, creating whisky for the people of Orkney to offer relief from the villainy of the tax collector. By day he workedtirelesslyin his church providing spiritual guidance to the peopleofOrkney, but in the dead of night, he hand crafted what was to ultimately become the best spirit in the world, warming hearts and uniting all who tasted it.
Dark Origins, a stunning, non-chill filtered single malt with an ABV of 46.8%, will start to appear on shelves in July and roll out internationally throughout autumn 2014.
It uses twice as many first fill sherry casks than in the classic Highland Park 12 year old resulting in a naturally darker, richer flavour with sherried spice, a chocolate twist and the signature sweet smoke fans of the Orcadian elixir have come to know and love.
Highland Park is one of the few distilleries not using distiller’s caramel and so Dark Origins takes its natural colour from the interaction between spirit and cask which Highland Park believes consistently rate amongst the best casks in whisky.
Gerry Tosh, Global Marketing Manager, said: “Cask management is so very crucial to our work at Highland Park. We have strived to raise the bar, working tirelessly in sourcing the right wood and then working and finessing the balances to ensure we create single malt that is rich, warm and enticing in flavour. Dark Origins sits in the heart of our core range complementing them perfectly – distinct in itself, but always and forever a classic Highland Park.”
The official tasting notes:
Colour: Rich mahogany
Nose: Sherried spice and ripe bananas combine with toasted hazelnuts and baked apple
Palate: Well-balanced, dry peat at first mellowing out to maraschino cherries, warm dark chocolate entices the palate
Finish: Enduring sweet smoke
Dark Origins will be exclusively available from Harrods from 1st July – 14th July for £64.95. It will then be available from specialist independent whisky retailers, at the Highland Park distillery and www.highlandpark.co.uk thereafter.
Glenfiddich releases 26YO expression
Glenfiddich Excellence 26 Year Old is the first globally-released expression from the Dufftown distillery to be matured exclusively in first fill and refill Bourbon barrels.
Described as having notes of vanilla, toffee, caramelised pineapple and spring blossom on the nose, the 43% abv single malt delivers vanilla, oak and dry tannin qualities on the palate.
Glenfiddich malt master Brian Kinsman said the Glenfiddich Excellence 26 Year Old is one of “the most desirable expressions yet”.
“By maturing this expression exclusively in Bourbon casks we’ve created a beautifully intense flavour, reflective of the relentless passion we have for producing single malts.”
Glenfiddich Excellence 26 Year Old will be a permanent addition to the distillery’s range, and will be available from June in select retailers and on-trade accounts in core markets for an RRP of £350.
Communication around the launch of the expression will fall in line with the brand’s recently launched marketing campaign, Family Run since 1887.
“As a family run company, we’ve always challenged established whisky-making norms because we care personally about the quality of our single malts,” said Peter Gordon, Glenfiddich company director.
“We cherish our independence because it allows us to innovate and create superior whiskies, and Glenfiddich Excellence 26 Year Old is a prime example of this.”
The only other expression released by the brand to be matured in American oak is the Glenfiddich Age of Discovery 19 Year Old Bourbon Cask, which was launched in travel retail in 2012.
BOWMORE LAUNCHES TEMPEST V SINGLE MALT
Tempest V is non-chill filtered and aged for 10 years in first fill Bourbon casks and is described as a “true product of its environment,” due to the “detectable” salty ocean breeze and signature dark Islay peat.
As with previous releases in the Tempest collection, Tempest V offers similar characteristics such as mandarin, tangy lime and cassis, while at the same time differentiating itself with a fuller, richer and sweeter first fill Bourbon character.
With a splash of water, Tempest is said to burst with flavours of “tangy seaweed tempered bysweet vanilla ice cream and sugared almonds”.
“It is Bowmore matured in the very highest quality of 1st fill ex Bourbon casks, revealing harmonious and enveloping layers of honeycomb, rich Bourbon vanilla and ripening fruits carried on an ocean breeze,” said Rachel Barrie, master blender.
“Tempest V’s highly complex layers of silky smooth vanilla and luscious fruit-infused peatiness transport you to the elemental beauty of Islay.”
Bottled at 55.9% ABV, Tempest V is currently available from Royal Mile Whiskies, Whisky Exchange, Harrods and Arkwright’s Whisky and Wine at an RRP of £46.99.
This entry was posted in Industry News and tagged Glenfiddich, Highland Park, Old Pulteney on July 4, 2014 by Yoav @ Whisky Gospel.
Whisky news – Douglas Laing Old Particular, Bowmore Devils casks, Glenfiddich 125th Anniversary Bottling and Lagavulin Jazz Festival 2013 Bottling
Seems like this week distilleries all over were quite busy…
Douglas Laing Old Partiuclar Series Announced
Douglas Laing’s Old Particular is a ‘particularly’ unique series of individually hand-selected aged Single Cask Malts from all over Scotland – each bottled according to the founders’ philosophy of topmost quality. Meaning, Old Particular bottlings are from only one cask, without colouring and without chill filtration – allowing the cask and the naturally present oils, fats and enzymes in the spirit to make their own special contribution to its nose, mouthfeel, palate and finish. Launching this September and available from specialist Whisky retailers, some truly exceptional bottlings feature in this first batch including Malts distilled at Bowmore, Caperdonich and Port Ellen distilleries to name but a few. The entire line up for this series is below (ordered by whisky age):
OLP0002 Auchentoshan 15 YEARS
OLP0021 Braeval 15 YEARS
OLP0006 Clynelish 16 YEARS
OLP0026 Glen Ord 16 YEARS
OLP0018 Arran 17 YEARS
OLP0032 Miltonduff 17 YEARS
OLP0019 Auchroisk 18 YEARS
OLP0023 Caperdonich 18 YEARS
OLP0004 Sherry Blair Athol 20 YEARS
OLP0025 Glen Keith 20 YEARS
OLP0012 Jura 20 YEARS
OLP0037 Tomatin 20 YEARS
OLP0003 Bladnoch 21 YEARS
OLP0028 Glen Garioch 21 YEARS
OLP0007 Glen Scotia 21 YEARS
OLP0031 Macduff 21 YEARS
OLP0005 Bowmore 25 years
OLP0014 Tamdhu 25 YEARS
OLP0035 Teaninch 30 YEARS
OLP0033 Port Ellen 31 YEARS
OLP0008 Tobermory 35 YEARS
Morrison Bowmore is to release a special Halloween edition of Bowmore named The Devil’s Casks this October.
Matured exclusively in first fill Sherry casks for 10 years and bottled at a high 56.7% abv, The Devil’s Casks are described as “hot and fiery” with notes of fruitcake, chocolate and dark fruits.
The small batch, limited edition has been created to tell the spooky tale of how the Devil himself was spotted in the round church of Bowmore and chased from Islay onto a paddle steamer carrying a cargo of Bowmore headed for the mainland.
Just 6,000 bottles of the non-chill filtered single malt Scotch have been created, each packaged in a deep red gift box with imagery and text depicting the story.
“Ten years’ maturation in first fill sherry casks has brought out Bowmore’s fiery characteristics,” said Iain McCallum, master of malts for Bowmore. “The notes in this dram are hot and seductive. This small batch release is quite simply, devilishly good.”
Bowmore The Devil’s Casks are being released in October with an allocation of 540 bottles for the UK, carrying an RRP of £50.99.
GLENFIDDICH CELEBRATES 125TH ANNIVERSARY WITH NEW RELEASE
The Glenfiddich Anniversary Vintage – part of the Glenfiddich Rare Collection – is a 25-year-old expression first casked in European sherry oak on Christmas Day 1987. Malt master Brian Kinsman then selected a small number of centenary casks so that Glenfiddich founder William Grant’s great-great grandson Peter Gordon and his son Dougal could choose which would become the Glenfiddich Anniversary Vintage. Peter Gordon, who is also company director of Glenfiddich, said: “It was an honour to select this whisky – it truly reflects the pioneering spirit that has underpinned our 125 year history and my great-great grandfather’s legacy of making ‘the best dram in the valley’.” With only 286 bottles available, the limited edition expression is said to have notes of fruit cake, almonds, cinnamon, citrus and vanilla on the nose, with spice, sweet sherbet and oak on the palate. “Bottled from just one European oak sherry cask and testament to the uniqueness of this exclusive whisky, Glenfiddich Anniversary Vintage has a cask-strength abv of 55.4%. “Glenfiddich has been family-run since 1887 and with the freedom of independence and the foresight of long-term planning, we have created the largest collection of single malt stock anywhere in the world.” Each bottle of Glenfiddich Anniversary Vintage is individually numbered and is finished with a rustic copper and blue design. Officially launched on 9/9/2013, the release comes with an RRP of £699.
Lagavulin Jazz Festival 2013 Bottling Announced
A special limited-edition bottling of Lagavulin™ single malt Scotch whisky will again be available at this year’s Lagavulin Islay Jazz Festival ( #LagavulinJazz ), which starts on Friday 13 September with a concert in the Malt Mill at Lagavulin distillery by the master of American Stride piano, Stephanie Trick. The third in this series of releases, the 2013 bottling comes in an edition of 1,500 individually numbered bottles filled on 19 January 1995 and drawn from hand-selected Sherry Butts. It is bottled at an ABV of 51.9%. “We’re delighted to announce our third Jazz Festival bottling” said Nick Morgan, Diageo’s Head of Whisky Outreach. “The first two have been of quite exceptional quality, and this year we’ve increased the quantity to ensure that it can be enjoyed by visitors who come from all over the world to enjoy the Lagavulin Islay Jazz Festival, and those who follow.” The neck labelling continues the jazz theme of previous editions, again featuring a piano keyboard. Bottles will be available to personal visitors only at Lagavulin distillery (limit of two bottles per customer) at a UK RRSP of £99.
This entry was posted in Industry News and tagged Bowmore, Douglas Laing, Glenfiddich, Lagavulin on September 10, 2013 by Yoav @ Whisky Gospel.
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Reporting Funding and Other Support
In Preparing an Article for Publication
Ethical and Legal Considerations
Annette Flanagin
in AMA Manual of Style: A Guide for Authors and Editors (10th edition)
10.1093/jama/9780195176339.022.174
In addition to individual financial conflicts of interest, authors should report all financial and material support for the work reported in the manuscript. This includes, but is not limited to, ... More
In addition to individual financial conflicts of interest, authors should report all financial and material support for the work reported in the manuscript. This includes, but is not limited to, grant support and funding, provision of equipment and supplies, and other paid contributions., All financial and material support should be indicated in the Acknowledgment section of the manuscript, along with detailed information on the roles of each funding source or sponsor (see also , Acknowledgments, Funding and Role of Sponsors). In addition, all individuals who provided other important paid contributions should be identified, with their names and affiliations listed in Less
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AMATEUR GOLF SCOREBOARD
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Golf’s Urban Legend: Unused women’s golf scholarships
by Brendan Ryan of Golf Placement Services
- University of Northwestern Ohio photo
In December 2017, Frank Talarico, the president of Southern California PGA Foundation, declared in his L.A.Times Article Too Many NCAA Scholarships for women go unclaimed to "give a girl a set of golf clubs, and you might just change her life". While part of the message of the article was the positive life lessons that golf can teach young people, the overarching message was that women’s college golf is an easy route to a big college golf scholarship, for just about anyone.
I first read Frank’s article when a friend shared the post on Facebook. As a former college golf coach, and now a reporter and researcher in the field of junior golf development with over 30 academic articles and 100+ popular articles, I was shocked.Inspired by that article, I have sought to understand why so many people believe the urban myth of unused women’s golf scholarships and try to provide better data on the current landscape of women’s golf scholarships.
The urban myth of unused women’s golf scholarships is based on a 2009 NCAA report which suggests that approximately 200 of the 1800 women’s golf scholarships available went unused. On the surface this data looks compelling; however it has several major issues -- not only is it 10 years old, but it assumes that all of the approximate 300 Division I Women’s Golf Teams in 2019 would be fully funded with six scholarships (300 programs x 6 full rides = 1800 scholarships). Anyone closer to women’s golf knows this is not the case; many programs are not fully funded. My best estimate is that there are about 150 fully-funded programs with another 150 programs that average around 4 scholarships. This would mean that there are approximately 1500 full scholarships available in NCAA Division I Women’s Golf. It would also mean that, if the original report accounted for fewer fully funded programs, then there would be no unused scholarships.
The statement also ignores the competitive nature of Women’s Division I Golf. Last year, the final team to make postseason play was the University of Missouri. Their team stroke average, in a format where the 4 best scores out of 5 players count, was 295.4 or 73.75 per counting player. Likewise, the 100th ranked team was Georgetown University, which averaged about 300 as a team or 75 per player.These are not numbers that are going to be accomplished with a set of clubs and a dream.
Armed with suspicions and data, I called Todd Oehrlein, Head Women’s Golf Coach at the University of Wisconsin and the President of the Women’s Golf Coaches Association of America. Together we put together an eight-question survey which would be used to create a better look at the current landscape of unused women’s golf scholarships.
The results? They’re complicated; at the time of signing the data suggests that all scholarships that coaches offered were accepted, but that a certain percentage of those players did not meet the academic qualifications of either the NCAA or the school. This means, in some cases,that coaches are left with some money should a player not be able to enroll in the fall. However, in most cases, this player either tries to enroll in the spring, the coach gets a transfer, or some money is redistributed among current players, rewarding players who have not gotten full scholarship. In rare cases when coaches do have money, the coaches report that it is overwhelmingly due to not being able to find a player who they believe deserves the money and can help them win.
The result of the work with the Women’s Golf Coaches Association is an academic article published in June in the Journal of Sports and Games called The Current Landscape of Unused Women’s College Golf Scholarships. Together with this article, I hope that prospective student athletes, their parents and technical coaches use the information provided to make smart investment of their time in their search of a college golf scholarship.
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Why The World Needs More Female Angel Investors
The numbers don’t lie--female angel investors’ contributions to the economy has exponential benefits, but they make up only a fraction of the global angel investor pool. Here’s how Aminta Ventures is changing that.
It’s not news that Silicon Valley’s gender gap--both in financial and human capital--can contribute to dysfunctional environments and company cultures. It affects ecosystems, economies and bottom lines. But it has far-reaching consequences that stretch beyond the Bay Area.
In South Florida, Aminta Ventures is looking to help local players clear these Valley-inspired hurdles as the regional entrepreneurial economy continues to grow.
“We are an organization for women that facilitates their exploration into angel investing through education, support, partnerships and a network of investors and thought leaders. While Aminta Ventures is not a fund, nor an angel group, we are the first organization that a woman may reach out to for more information when beginning her journey into angel investing.”
Creating an environment for women investors to thrive is essential to the innovation and diversity of entrepreneurial success.
Women make up only about 25% of angel investors and 29% of the entrepreneurs that sought angel capital in 2015 (source). By reducing the barriers to entry for investing, and furthering potential investors’ understanding of the investment climate, we can cultivate the next wave of female angel investors.
After all, more female investors means higher consideration of female-run companies.
According to The University of New Hampshire’s Jeffrey Sohl and Laura Hill, who conducted a survey of angel groups in the United States, angel groups with a higher representation of women tend to attract and consider a higher percentage of women-owned firms and devote a higher percentage of their investments to women-owned firms. This has massive forward-paying benefits.
It is time for women to understand the true power of their capital to green-light and validate new opportunities.
angel investing
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From Silicon Valley to South Florida: Why This Angel Is Excited About Investing in the Sunshine State
Growing Pains: How Miami's Startup Community Will Scale
Where do we go from here? Miami's tech leaders say city needs next startup vision
Weighing in on Miami’s entrepreneurial ecosystem
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Organization launches to boost female participation in angel investing
Aminta Ventures launches to support women investors, plans workshop
Aminta Ventures wants to make the future of venture capital more female
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The Gaily Grind
Trans model Valentijn de Hingh is helping to bring attention to the plight of LGBT people around the world with a stunning dress made of flags from the 72 countries where homosexuality is illegal.
“During the opening walk of euro pride in Amsterdam 2 weeks ago, 72 flags of 72 different countries where homosexuality is against the law were present, in 12 of these countries you still get the death penalty for being gay,” writes Pieter Henket, the photographer who captured the stunning dress.
“The COC (Dutch organization for LGBT men and women) collected these flags and together with Fashion designer Matthijs van Bergen and artist Oeri van Woezik they decided to make these flags into a giant rainbow dress,” writes the Dutch photographer who currently lives in New York City.
Image by Jochem Kaan
De Hingh, who became the first transgender person ever to have been represented by IMG Models, posed in the dress at the famous Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, which played host to EuroPride this weekend.
“That little lady wearing the big dress is me,” she posted on Instagram. “Every country that changes its legislation will have its flag replaced by a rainbow flag. Let’s hope this dress will represent a patchwork of rainbows sooner rather than later.”
The 26-year-old Dutch model was EuroPride’s first transgender ambassador.
“I dreamt of becoming a Disney princess,” de Hingh said last year. “I especially loved the character of Ariel, the little mermaid, who needed to change her body in order to change herself.”
Click here for the original article.
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https://www.amsterdamrainbowdress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/IMG_8104.jpg 4032 3024 Amsterdamrainbowdress https://www.amsterdamrainbowdress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/logo-amsterdamrainbowdress.png Amsterdamrainbowdress2016-08-02 01:00:082016-10-08 01:14:33The Gaily Grind
Creating awareness on state-sponsored homophobia
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Your bottle of water makes it through airport security?
Tracy Coenen, AOL.com
Oct 29th 2008 10:00AM
Remember the days when you could actually take a bottle of water through airport security? Your hand lotion, hairspray, and mouthwash were okay too, even if you had the big bottle. All that changed in 2006, when a scare related to liquid explosives caused airports around the world to restrict passengers to carrying a small amount of liquid (3 ounce bottles in the U.S.) through security. Consumers couldn't even take beverages with them, being forced instead to buy an overpriced drink on the other side of security if they were thirsty.
The Transportation Security Administration says it's working to change the rules to allow passengers to carry full-size bottles of liquids through security, so long as they removed them from their carry-ons and put them through X-ray machines separately. (Just like the current requirement to put laptop computers through separately.)
A spokesperson for TSA says that the rule should be changed sometime in 2009, but at the latest, 2010. How hard can it possibly be to change the rule and why is it taking so long? The TSA says that X-ray machines have to be upgraded so they can tell the difference between harmless liquids and explosives.
Air travel has gotten so bothersome, that this small change isn't likely to make me a much happier flier. The TSA says this rule change would help speed up the time spent passing through security, but I'm pretty skeptical. The amount of time spent taking all these liquids out of a suitcase can't possibly be less than the time now spent taking mini bottles out of the carry-on. Flying commercially is getting more expensive and more inconvenient. Don't pin your hopes on a rule change like this to ease the hassle one bit.
Tracy L. Coenen, CPA, MBA, CFE performs fraud examinations and financial investigations for her company Sequence Inc. Forensic Accounting, and is the author of Essentials of Corporate Fraud.
Airline safety rules
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Ocean earns first win at Wall’s expense
Ocean earned its first win of the season at Wall’s expense
Ocean earns first win at Wall’s expense Ocean earned its first win of the season at Wall’s expense Check out this story on app.com: http://on.app.com/1sbBXPx
Correspondent Published 10:51 p.m. ET Sept. 19, 2014
_ (Photo: Getty Images/BananaStock RF )
WALL – Ocean and Wall were both hungry to get their initial win of the season. But in a game filled with mistakes, the winner wasn’t decided until the final minutes.
Ocean sophomore quarterback Kenny Pickett dialed up the big play the Spartans needed with just two minutes, 28 seconds remaining as he found receiver Marcus Blackmon down the seam for a 64 yard touchdown to put Ocean ahead 21-14.
Wall threatened on their ensuing possession, but the Spartan defense held on for the Class B North victory and evened their season record at 1-1.
“We called for all vertical routes and Marcus is a mismatch with his speed,” said Pickett. “He broke open and made the catch and a great play.”
The two teams traded punts on their opening possessions of the game, but the Spartans struck first on their second offensive drive. Starting from their own 45, Ocean drove 39 yards on six plays down to the Wall 16. On the next play, running back Tyler Thompson took a handoff from Pickett and bounced around the end to go all the way for the score and 7-0 lead.
That’s when the game began to get sloppy for both teams. Wall put together a nice drive of their own on the ensuing possession, but quarterback Matt Cluley was sacked by Hadyn Matarazzo and fumbled at the Ocean 25 where Matarazzo recovered to thwart the drive.
The Spartans moved the ball all the way to the Knights 40, but a snap over Pickett’s head lost 14 yards and the drive stalled. That was the first of four snaps that eluded Pickett in the game and led to large chunks of yardage lost.
“I know our kids are doing the best they can, but we have to clean up our game going forward,” said Ocean coach Don Klein. “We haven’t had issues with snaps before, and we also had a long touchdown called back on a penalty and some other missed assignments that we need to improve on.”
While Ocean struggled to put drives together due to the mistakes and a swarming Wall defense, the Knights began to gain some momentum. Midway through the second quarter, Cluley faked a handoff and kept the ball which fooled the Ocean defense. Cluley then outran the Spartan defenders for a 75 yard touchdown to even the score at 7-7.
Then late in the first half, Wall marched down to the Ocean 8 with :16 seconds left. But Cluley’s pass for Liam Ferguson was intercepted in the end zone by Ocean’s Blackmon to keep it tied at the half.
The second half began much like the first, but with 6:19 left in the third, Cluley faked a handoff again and kept the ball running around the right side. Cluley broke a tackle and ran it in for a 23 yard score and 14-7 advantage.
The Spartans were able to answer right back, however, and drove down to the 13 of Wall. Facing fourth down and 8, Pickett faced heavy pressure, but found Joey Aldarelli in the end zone to even the score at 14 with 2:18 left in the third.
It remained 14-14 until Pickett’s big pass play to Blackmon. The Knights put a scare into Ocean after Cluley connected with Ferguson for 52 yards to the Ocean 30, but a penalty and four incomplete passes ended the comeback attempt.
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Cape May County is the southernmost county in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2000 Census, the population was 102,326. It is included in the Ocean City Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its county seat is the Cape May Court House section of Middle Township.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 620 square miles (1,607 km²). 255 square miles (661 km²) of it is land and 365 square miles (946 km²) of it (58.86%) is water.
Most of the county is flat and coastal. Sea level is the lowest point; the highest elevation is found at three areas in Belleplain State Forest in the county's northern corner which are approximately 60 feet (18.2 m) above sea level.
The following municipalities are located in Cape May County. The municipality type is listed in parentheses after the name, except where the type is included as part of the name. Census-designated places and other unincorporated communities are listed under their municipalities.
Avalon (borough)
Cape May Point (borough)
Cape May (city)
Dennis Township
Dennisville
Lower Township
North Cape May
Green Creek
Whitesboro-Burleigh
North Wildwood (city)
Sea Isle City
Stone Harbor (borough)
Upper Township
Beesleys Point
Strathmere
West Cape May (borough)
West Wildwood (borough)
Wildwood Crest (borough)
Wildwood (city)
Woodbine (borough)
James M Hanson Associates, Inc PO Box 2402 Cape May, NJ 08204
Phone: Fax: E-mail: zyrbUIgu3DjZZ7/ABvjy+PqD8kN1sEr5Dsyo3b3bQ8I=
Contact Us | Cape May County | Atlantic County | Burlington County | Camden County | Gloucester County | Cumberland County | About Us | About James M. Hanson | Types of Appraisals | Client Login | Services | Home | NJ & PA Appraisal Areas | Terms of Use | Appraisal News
Copyright © 2020 James M Hanson Associates, Inc
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What Samsung’s New Millennial-Geared Refrigerators Say About the Current Design Market
The trends Samsung was responding to aren’t just happening in South Korea
The satin glass paneling is seen here in coral.Photo: Courtesy of Samsung
"The inspiration for the Bespoke line came from a recent design shift we have been seeing in homes here in Korea," Harry Choi, Samsung's senior vice president in the home appliance design team and lifestyle labs, tells AD PRO about the company's new collection of colorful and customizable refrigerators. The fridges launched earlier this month as the initial component of their new Project Prism, and are set to become available in Europe later this year. "More and more, people are introducing open kitchen designs that flow easily into their living rooms." In the U.S. as well, this seems to be what individuals want. But to assume that the Bespoke fridges are intended to recede into the background of an airy space would be a gross misunderstanding of their intention. Instead, the fridges are more akin to fashionable statement pieces—albeit ones with ample variety to fit within an endless range of preexisting spaces.
For starters, there are three material types available for the paneling: cotta metal, satin glass, and glam glass. Then there are a total of nine different options in tone: Cotta metal is available in charcoal, white, and mint, while the matte satin glass comes in gray, navy, coral, and yellow. The glossy glam glass is purchasable in white or pink. There are also eight size options, and plans to extend the line further in the future. While most of the single-door options are 24 inches wide, some are as few as 18 inches.
The Bespoke collection comes with numerous options, as the various colors and sizes available prove. The eight sizing options are 4-door freestanding, 4-door “kitchen fit,” 2-door BMF, 1-door refrigerator, 1-door freezer, 1-door kimchi refrigerator, 1-door alternating temperature refrigerator, and kimchi plus refrigerator.
Photo: Courtesy of Samsung
Choi's assessment of Samsung's target audience is full of insights—which may be particularly relevant to the interior design community. "Our consumer is moving away from purchasing based on functionality, and is instead looking for a product that has an aesthetic that speaks to their own individual taste," he says. "We also recognize that our millennial consumer here in Korea is looking for a more minimalist look in their home since they are moving much more frequently." Being sleek and customizable, the Bespoke fridges encapsulate this shift in the marketplace.
Choi and his team arrived at this realization through careful, quantitative observations. "Extensive consumer research and analysis has shown us that people are increasingly more interested in having a space that is uniquely their own," he explains. "Additionally, it has shown us that people are spending even more time at home." That means that in Choi's opinion, a colorful refrigerator—which a young homeowner can easily show off—is a natural fit for a new product debut.
When working on new designs, Choi and his team are always sure to keep the target consumer, and the lifestyle that he or she leads, at the forefront of their process. As for the Bespoke collection, he goes so far as to say that the line is meant to empower the consumer to show off his or her individuality. Food for design thought, perhaps.
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What comes after 7.1?
Breaking with tradition
A new experience needed a new kind of name
Dolby’s new sound system was set to debut with Pixar’s Brave in thousands of theaters worldwide. With just weeks before the premier, Dolby still needed a name.
This was slated to be their biggest product launch in a decade. The company that pioneered Surround Sound and grew the industry standard from stereo to 7.1 was about to redefine theater audio. Their new system featured dedicated speakers for 128 distinct channels. Dolby needed to redefine its naming architecture: in no way would “127.1” convey the appropriate depth of detail and power.
Work directly with decision makers
Create a new category
Break the nomenclature
High stakes and a quick turnaround dictated that we work directly with senior management and the product team. Working directly with decision makers means that the process has fewer obstacles and the end result isn’t sanitized to death.
We outlined our process, agreed on a schedule, got an incredible demo of the technology. Then we got to work. This project was an exercise in balance. While the name had to be bold and dramatic — the new sound system produced an immense, almost overwhelmingly atmospheric soundtrack — we also had to consider the Dolby name, which is strong and short. It was going to be Dolby Something, and we wanted that something to feel powerful without overpowering Dolby.
“We needed a name that would convey the power of the idea, and that’s what we got.”
— Kevin Yeaman, President and CEO, Dolby Laboratories
Atmos was the pick of the lot. The soft “a” at the name’s beginning means that Dolby still sounds more powerful, but the name reminded people of “atmosphere” and “atomic.” Atmos felt like a force of nature. To create a new category, we tied that idea to Dolby’s product positioning. The idea of “atmospheric audio” created a category in its own right, and the name also gave Dolby inroads to talk about Atmos as a product of ultraspecific, atomic-level attention to detail.
“Dolby Atmos is in 1,000 theaters and I’m glad we’re there with an exciting name.”
— Doug Darrow, SVP Cinema, Dolby Laboratories
+++ dolby.com/us/en/brands/dolby-atmos
Brands » Dolby Atmos
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Home » Jewlarious » Cool Stuff
A Time to Laugh
Aug 8, 2006 | by Jewlarious.com Staff
Why now is the best time to launch Jewlarious.com -- a new site dedicated to Jewish humor.
The congregants were shocked when they entered the rabbi's study only to see him watching Al-Jazeera, the Arab satellite news station. "Rabbi," said the shul president. "How can you be watching such anti-Semitic propaganda? Are you, God forbid, some sort of a self-hating Jew?"
"On the contrary," the Rabbi replied. "When I read the New York Times, I see such terrible things: that Israel is branded as the ‘aggressor' despite the fact that it is defending itself against terrorists, that rockets are raining down on Israeli cities, and now the violence has spread to Jews around the word -- such tzuras. But when I watch Al-Jazeera, I see so much more: that the Jews control the American government, the banks, the media, and that we're even on the verge of taking over the entire world. Watching Al-Jazeera makes me feel a whole lot better!"
One of the reasons why this joke is amusing is that it takes our current situation, one which is tragic and at times seemingly hopeless, and turns it on its head by suggesting that our enemies are not that menacing at all. In fact, they are actually helping us -- and that makes it funny.
In a sense, this is much like the history of the Jewish People itself. For thousands of years we have been struggling through trying times, but we always manage to keep things in perspective by turning our perception of reality on its head to see what truly lies beneath. One of the ways we have always done this is by using one of our unique gifts: our sense of humor.
We Jews are known for our sense of humor, and this goes way back -- all the way to the times of the Bible. The first recorded laughter in Jewish tradition results from tragic circumstances -- the inability of our patriarch Abraham and matriarch Sarah to have children. But when the angels tell Sarah that at the age of 90 she will miraculously give birth, she laughs. A situation which was seemingly hopeless -- infertility -- has now been transformed into the miraculous -- a 90 year old woman and a 100 year old man becoming new parents. Now that's funny.
Jewish humor through the ages has helped us deal with situations that seemed unbearable.
Jewish humor through the ages has helped us deal with situations that seemed unbearable. During the days of oppression and poverty of the Russian shtetls, one village had a rumor going around: a Christian girl was found murdered near their village. Fearing a pogrom, they gathered at the local synagogue. Suddenly, the rabbi came running up, and cried, "Wonderful news! The murdered girl was Jewish!"
To the untrained eye, a joke like this might even seem a bit morbid, but those who know the history of the Jewish people know that that couldn't be further from the truth. After all, we Jews have a long history of making light of the predicaments that we find ourselves in. Because if you can make light of your struggles, you can deflate them and make them much easier to handle.
Case in point: a segment of the Israeli satirical television program called Eretz Nehederet (A Wonderful Country) that was aired during the current conflict in Lebanon. The opening scene shows a hospital room with a heavyset, gray haired man in a coma. A television beside his bed displays scenes of the fighting in Lebanon, and suddenly, his eyes open wide and he declares, "What a bad dream I had." He continues, "Get me [Former Prime Minister] Begin on the phone immediately!" It is obviously Ariel Sharon, thinking he has awoken from his coma and returned to the Lebanese conflict of 1982.
The show continues to lampoon everyone possible during the current conflict. Even Israeli singer David Broza, who has been playing his guitar in bomb shelters throughout northern Israel to raise spirits, is a target. But in the Eretz Nehederet version, he is driving people out of their bomb shelters into the streets where they prefer taking the risk of getting hit by a Katyusha rocket than remaining to listen to his performance.
Some might claim that a show like this is insensitive, or even destructive to the Israeli national psyche. But perhaps it is the exact opposite. When someone thinks his world is literally crashing down around him, he might think to himself that there is no way he will be able to survive. Laughter shows the absurdity of the situation and helps one pull through.
Likewise, some might claim that now is not the right time to launch Jewlarious.com -- a website dedicated to Jewish humor. But it is times like these when we need our unique sense of humor most! The current situation can appear hopeless. But we Jews have been enduring hopeless times for thousands of years, yet remarkably, we continue to survive, and perhaps even more remarkably, have managed to keep our sense of humor through it all.
Some have wondered what the secret is to our survival. Perhaps a small part is owed to our sense of humor. Our ability to make light of difficult situations, to see beyond today and know that there will be a better tomorrow. That no matter how unbearable our current state is, we will get through it somehow, and survive. In this spirit, Jewlarious.com is being launched, and we hope we are playing our small part by reminding the world of the Jewish people's secret weapon: our sense of humor.
Is Jewish Humor Dying?
Deeper Look At Jewish Humor
What Makes Israeli Humor
The Humor of Hope
Laughing for Peace
Confessions of a Laugh Addict
(14) Anonymous, September 29, 2007 8:55 PM
I found your article reflected the true Jewish spirit
Your article is thought provoking,and reflects the hope and laughter embodied in the Jewish spirit
(13) Celi, April 7, 2007 11:45 AM
I have always enjoyed Jewish humor. Your article on "A Time To Laugh" was very interesting. I pray for for God to bless Israel and the Jewish people.
(12) mikebookman, November 28, 2006 3:49 PM
Once the Jewish offense was the defence of humour. Now we fight back & stll haven't lost our sense of humour.
(11) Carol, August 18, 2006 12:00 AM
Perfect Timing!!! I will be a regular visitor. I need this perspective often. You have brought me great joy today. Whole life perspectives. From Tohu to Tikvah, Tikkun and all the 'stuff' in between:):):) Thanks!
(10) Anonymous, August 17, 2006 12:00 AM
A great article but, no, the secret to Jewish survival is not humor. It's chicken soup with matza balls.
(9) Chaya, August 17, 2006 12:00 AM
I laugh; otherwise, I'd cry.
totally thrilled that you have arrived on the scene. the first time i ever auditioned as a stand-up comdedian at catch a rising star i met mark schiff. he's come a long way. i chose to be rehired to the nypd after the layoffs and ended up combining classroom, stage, and street as ernest desire the clown. a super release and tool for empowerment. your site is long overdue at a time when we are overflowing with doo. if we all decide to give a movement we might have a lot less crap to deal with and step on. now instead of twiddling my thumbs wondering what to do with my wit, thanks to you i will say,"step on it!"
(7) Deby Zimmerman, August 15, 2006 12:00 AM
Your abilities as a nation
Just a thanks for your MANY talented people who for YEARS of humor. I fell in love with comedy as a little girl and watching the Ed Sullivan show. I never looked at any of them as other than Americans...nationality didn't enter the picture back then and only does now as I realize that the BEST humorists have been and are Jewish. God did give you the best of everything! I am thankful that you are gracious enough to share and because of a friend I now have this great site for more humor. Thank you all.
(6) Shulamit, August 15, 2006 12:00 AM
Same joke from a different era
I've heard the same joke but with 2 old Jewish men during the Holocaust era. One Jew is reading the German Nazi newspaper and the other is asking why he is reading a Nazi newspaper... The rest is the same...
(5) Sid Sarfaty, August 14, 2006 12:00 AM
You're on the RIGHT Track!!!
Your staff is absolutely on the right track with this humorous site!! Please keep up the good work!!! . . .Sid Sarfaty
(4) David Worboys, August 13, 2006 12:00 AM
I'm very interested in a commentary on the times.
My studies of literature have shown that the greater the stress of the times, the greater the production of humour: eg 1st and 2nd World Wars.
(3) malcolm, August 13, 2006 12:00 AM
humor - it is the best medicine
Humor lightens our spirits without ignoring our problems. And by looking at our problems in another light, shows us solutions that were not clear before. What a wonderful mitzvah!
(2) Gary, August 13, 2006 12:00 AM
Laughter in time of sorrow
I find in everything no matter how tragic there is always a little humor
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Old Jewish Jokes
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Netflix Date Movies
© Weinstein Company
30 Great Netflix Movies That You Won't Even Finish Because Your Date's Going So Well
Brian Josephs
Winter is upon us. In other words, it’s time to tidy up the room, buy that HDMI cable and get your Netflix movie list ready. It’s too cold go outside and risk accidentally leaving your jacket at a coffee shop somewhere. Those flu viruses are coming out to play, too.
To put it simply, Mother Nature hasn’t proven herself responsible enough to deserve your presence. Netflix and the significant other you invite to watch it with you have. As a reward, let’s get Netflix that subscriber money and give your date a good time with the Cuffing Season Picks: 30 Netflix Titles to Pick for Date Night.
Blue Is the Warmest Color: Yes, the big sex scene is well deserving of that NC-17 rating. But it shouldn’t come in the way of what’s at the center of this one: Passion. Blue Is the Warmest Color’s phenomenal acting and unflinching look at love and loss makes it deserving of its three hours. Homo or hetero, if you’ve hurt or had your heart broken, you’ll get it.
Poetic Justice: To be honest, this isn’t the greatest film starring Janet Jackson or Tupac Shakur you can see. That honor belongs to Why Did I Get Married? (yes, a Tyler Perry flick) and Juice, respectively. But the stars’ not-great-but-competent performances combined with star power do partially make up for the weak plot. The film also features an in-his-prime Q-Tip, who has a rather unfortunate run-in with gun violence at a movie drive-in.
Titanic: Before he was Jordan Belfort and hosting office orgies and whatnot, Leonardo DiCaprio was a romantic with terrible luck when it comes to boats. He would get a boat that can only fit one person. The tears from that scene dried up, though. Now it’s all smiles as you and your date think, “Hey. At least we’re not that guy.”
Photo Credit: Paramount Pictures
Eddie Murphy: Raw: Although Delirious is more iconic, Raw saw Eddie Murphy get even more crude in what’s another essential stand-up special. The increased brashness isn’t only designed to shock, though; the funny-because-it’s-kinda-true jokes hit harder. A notable high point is Murphy’s gripes about relationships, which had been multiplied thanks to Janet Jackson’s “What Have You Done for Me Lately?”
Boomerang: Murphy was on a roll in the ‘80s and early ‘90s. Boomerang isn’t the best of this run, but the ensemble cast (Halle Berry, Robin Givens, Chris Rock, Martin Lawrence) and their chemistry does work for an enjoyable afternoon in. The main victory here is its classic soundtrack — a ‘90s time capsule. You’ll be cuddling one minute and two-stepping on the boulevards of Harlem the next.
Coming to America: Arsenio Hall and Eddie Murphy as African royalty trying to make it in America as “McDowell’s” workers and maybe find love on way. That’s an easy sell on paper, but Murphy’s convincing naivety and Hall’s shenanigans makes sure its not a jip. Coming to America is also one of the very few movies you’ll see Samuel L. Jackson get his ass handed to him as badly as he does here.
Hitch: The one-two swing-and-a-miss of After Earth and Winter’s Tale still isn’t bad enough to make us forget that Will Smith was once a reliable star. However, the last time he shone brightly was in the mid-00s, when he went on a short streak that included Hitch, The Pursuit of Happiness and I Am Legend. The Pursuit was the most emotional and I Am Legend was good until the ending — the exact moment when Smith’s career started slipping. Hitch was the most charming, thanks mostly to the effervescence of the two Smiths’ — Will and Kevin — performances.
The Graduate: The funny thing about Dustin Hoffman movies is how they don’t sound good as a written pitch. A college grad who’s seduced by an older woman but falls in love with her daughter? Neeeexxxtt. But it isn’t. The writing is too tight and the performances are too on-point for that.
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off: The quintessential ‘80s teen movie with the quintessential cool kid: Realistic enough to be relatable with swagger smooth enough to cross into surrealism. For all its humor, the morale of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off runs so deep that it’s possible you or your girl haven’t followed it. If you’re looking for the Ferris Bueller short-lived television show, just stop. There’s no point if Matthew Broderick isn’t in the title role. Don’t put your lady through that.
Blue Valentine: If you like your romance films with cojones and more “Sh*t just got real moments,” skip The Notebook and beg your girl to give Blue Valentine a shot. Ryan Gosling at his least likeable is, ironically, kind of likeable (performance-wise; don’t be an alcoholic) in a film about how love at first sight doesn’t quite last. So, um, maybe don’t play this movie if your relationship with long-term potential just started.
Staying in for a Night of Netflix and Chill? Queue Up These Flicks
10 Hidden Gems You'll Want to Stream ASAP
Trending News: The Surprising Thing People Watch On Netflix After A Binge
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Dixie Brewing Company
This relatively recently abandoned brewery is a tragic reminder of the continuing effects of Hurricane Katrina.
Dixie Brewing Company blwilde
Dixie renovation jkruebbe (Atlas Obscura User)
Sorry, Dixie Brewing Company is permanently closed.
The Dixie Brewing Company was a regional brewery founded in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1907 and churned out its locally produced libation for nearly 100 years before its brewery was ruined by flooding and looting.
Iconic and monolithic, the large industrial brewhouse was evacuated when the levees broke, flooding much of New Orleans. In the rushed chaos of the ensuing weeks, looters took to the unguarded building and stole pieces of the brewing equipment and nearly everything else of value at the site. Between the looting and the damage to the building and the remaining equipment, the brewery could no longer function when the waters finally receded and production had to be contracted out to other breweries costing a number of people their jobs and moving a long time New Orleans business out of the area.
The brewery has been renovated into medical offices.
Visit New Orleans with Atlas Obscura Trips
Get to know the art, history, and dynamic culture of New Orleans—and the people who bring it to life.
graffitidisastersdisaster areasabandoned
b blwilde
http://www.abandonedplaygrounds.com/abandoned-historic-architecture-the-dixie-brewery-in-new-orleans/
http://theneworleansblightblog.wordpress.com/2010/04/13/the-dixie-brewery/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dixie_Brewing_Company
My visit.
2401 Tulane Avenue
New Orleans, Louisiana, 70119
to Vienna, Ukraine, New Orleans, and more.
General Laundry Building
It's clear this abandoned Art Deco gem was no ordinary cleaners.
Added by zymurgea
Saint Louis Cemetery No. 2
This "second" cemetery represents New Orleans' attempt to keep cholera at bay.
Dooky Chase's Restaurant
Parts of the civil rights movement unfolded in this historic eatery, helmed by the "Queen of Creole Cuisine."
Added by rachelrummel
Storyville was New Orleans' historic red light district and hotbed of jazz music, sometimes referred to simply as "The District."
Added by ekoptev
Abandoned Avanhard Stadium of Pripyat
One of the most poignant ruins of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, the local football team's stadium has been quickly reclaimed by nature.
Abandoned City of Pripyat
The ghost town left by the worst nuclear disaster of all time is being taken over by nature and urban explorers.
Added by Delireus
San Juan Parangaricutiro, Mexico
Viejo San Juan Parangaricutiro
This church, buried halfway in lava rock, is all that remains of a Mexican village destroyed by a volcano.
Added by Tre
Zavalla, Texas
Aldridge Sawmill
The 19th-century ruins hide deep in an overgrown forest.
Added by mvillarreal222
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Published December 15, 2009 in
Atlassian Jira Studio 2.0 Provides Cloud-Based Tools for the Entire Software Development Team
Jon Silvers
SYDNEY & SAN FRANCISCO (BUSINESS WIRE) — Atlassian, maker of software development and collaboration tools, today announced the release of Jira Studio 2.0, a hosted, fully-integrated suite of tools for development teams. Studio 2.0 now includes Jira 4, the latest version of Atlassian’s popular issue tracker, and Bamboo, a continuous integration (CI) server that allows builds to be run in the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). These latest improvements make Jira Studio a complete, hassle-free solution for fast-moving development teams that want to focus on building software rather than maintaining tool infrastructure.
“Jira Studio combines Atlassian’s most popular development tools with Subversion source control in a fully-integrated system to let development teams get up and running in minutes,” said Mike Cannon-Brookes, Atlassian co-founder and CEO. “Organizations are realizing that hosting their development tools is secure and efficient and are increasingly turning to solutions like Jira Studio to save time and hassles.”
What’s new in 2.0
At the heart of Jira Studio 2.0 is Jira 4, the latest release of Altassian’s bug tracking, agile planning and project management suite. The introduction of OpenSocial dashboards allows users to create customized dashboards containing information from any of the applications included in Jira Studio, as well as external applications such as Gmail and Google Calendars.
The new Jira Query Language (JQL) enables team members to run complex queries using a simple SQL-like syntax enhanced with auto-completion, and then save and share their reports anywhere.
Jira Studio includes the latest agile planning and tracking features of Greenhopper, a popular Jira plugin. Teams can manage multiple product backlogs and then assign tasks to iterations using a simple drag-and-drop interface. Burndown charts can be displayed in any dashboard, and task-tracking is done by simply dragging tasks between customized states like “To Do,” “In Progress” and “Done.” Jira Studio supports the most popular agile methods including Scrum, Kanban, Lean and Extreme Programming, without forcing a team into a specific approach.
CI Builds in the Cloud
Jira Studio 2.0 now includes Atlassian Bamboo, a continuous integration server that supports running builds in the Amazon EC2 cloud. With Bamboo, teams can run as many customized “build agents” as they want using EC2 resources and only pay for the time that their build agents are running. Build agents can be started and shut down based on known peaks in demand, and the Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) can be customized to include any tools needed, such as compilers and automated testing.
“The addition of Bamboo to Jira Studio makes it the most complete on-demand offering available to development teams today,” Cannon-Brookes said. “With Studio and their IDEs of choice, a development team has all the tools they need to work together effectively, available in minutes at an unbeatable price.”
About Atlassian:
Atlassian is a privately held Australian software company specialising in collaboration and development tools. Our mission is to build a different kind of software company — one that listens to client needs, values innovation in development and solves customer problems with brilliant simplicity. Founded in 2002 by university classmates Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar, Atlassian now boasts more than 15,000 customers and over 200 employees. Atlassian is headquartered in Sydney, Australia, with global offices in San Francisco and Amsterdam. For more information, visit www.atlassian.com.
Authentication, simplified: OpenID Connect for Data Center
Attention leaders: there’s something your team isn’t telling you
One company’s transformative journey to Jira Cloud
The 4 secrets of hiring and retaining the best junior developers
Atlassian Jira Studio 2.0 Provides Cloud-Based Too...
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Plainview Lady Indians struggle vs. Chickasha, now 0-3 in district
By Evan Grice
Things have been rough for the Plainview Lady Indians so far this season.
Monday afternoon, they got a little rougher.
Despite staying within striking distance of Chickasha for the majority of the game, the Lady Indians weren’t able to sustain a lead as they suffered their fifth straight loss by a score of 15-5 in six innings at Chickasha.
The defeat dropped Plainview to 4-8 overall and 0-3 in district play.
Plainview’s district game against Byng was rained out on Monday, as the Lady Indians will be back in action Friday afternoon against Sulphur on the road.
Chickasha took the lead in the bottom of the second at 1-0, before Plainview tied the game in the top of the third.
Riley Grant got an RBI double to center which scored Lexi Hackney.
But, Chickasha came back with three runs in the bottom of the third to reclaim the lead at 4-1.
Turnabout proved to be fair play as the Lady Indians responded with their own three run inning in the top of the fourth to tie the game at 4-4.
Hackney made it 4-2 with an RBI single to left, before Taryn Martin tied the game when she slapped a double to center to score two runs.
Unfortunately, Chickasha remained several steps ahead the rest of the way.
Four runs in the fourth followed by four more in the fifth put the game out of reach.
Plainview attempted to rally in the sixth with one run courtesy of Kyra Treadwell getting an RBI double to center which scored Tatum Brewster, but Chickasha responded.
Three runs in the bottom of the sixth finished off the game.
Grant took the loss on the mound, throwing five innings. She allowed six earned runs on 13 hits with one walk and five strikeouts.
Martin led the team with two RBI’s.
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Criminal Justice And Human Rights Law Blog
I publish an "Editorial and Opinion Blog", Editorial and Opinion. My News Blog is @ News . I have a Jazz Blog @ Jazz and a Technology Blog @ Technology. My domain is Armwood.Com @ Armwood.Com.
What To Do When You're Stopped By Police - The ACLU & Elon James White
Know Anyone Who Thinks Racial Profiling Is Exaggerated? Watch This, And Tell Me When Your Jaw Drops.
This video clearly demonstrates how racist America is as a country and how far we have to go to become a country that is civilized and actually values equal justice. We must not rest until this goal is achieved. I do not want my great grandchildren to live in a country like we have today. I wish for them to live in a country where differences of race and culture are not ignored but valued as a part of what makes America great.
Uber Driver Saves Girl From Sex Slavery - The Daily Beast
"A California driver knew something was wrong when he drove an underage girl to a local hotel and heard her talking to her alleged pimps—and his fast action helped cops rescue her.
A California Uber driver helped rescue a 16-year-old girl from sex trafficking after giving her a ride to a hotel along with two alleged female pimps, police say.
Elk Grove cops arrested three people on Monday after the vigilant cabbie dialed 911 after dropping the group off at a Holiday Inn.
Keith Avila, a married father of one in Sacramento, had just logged in to Uber and was picking up his first passengers for the night: the teenager, whom authorities would later reveal was a runaway, and two older women.
“What gave me chills is, the next day [police] said she was reunited with her family,” Avila, 34, told The Daily Beast. “She was missing. I felt kind of good about that.”
Avila has only been driving Uber for about a month. By day, he’s a photographer specializing in the quinceañera, or celebration of a Latina girl’s 15th birthday. In recent weeks, he had photographed a teenager’s party at that Holiday Inn.
Now he was there dropping off a girl of a similar age for criminal activity.
“I take pictures of girls exactly her age,” Avila said. “When I take pictures, everyone’s happy and smiling. To see that, compared to what I saw [the night of the arrests], I knew, ‘OK, there’s something wrong here.’”
After dropping the women off, Avila called police over the suspected child prostitution.
Upon arrival, officers arrested Destiny Pettway, 25, and Maria Westley, 31, who allegedly arranged for the victim to meet a man, ABC10 reported. Cops arrested the women outside the hotel and charged them with pimping and pandering.
Disney Vang, the suspected john, was arrested for unlawful sexual activity with a minor after police located him inside the hotel room with the victim.
The victim, who had been reported as a missing person to a different police department, was transported to an alternative housing location, authorities said.
Avila recorded his reaction to the incident on Facebook Live shortly after giving a statement to police. His video, which had more than 100,000 views as of Wednesday, reads, “I just caught a group Child Sex Trafficking ring!!! No joke!!!”
Posted by John H Armwood II at 1:51 PM
Trump Taking credit where credit is NOT due | MSNBC
Taking credit where credit is NOT due | MSNBC
Posted by John H Armwood II at 11:29 AM
Stopping future Trumps with ‘One President at a Time Act’ | MSNBC
Loretta Lynch’s Parting Message - The New York Times
“There is nothing foreordained about our march toward a more just and peaceful future,” Ms. Lynch said Monday, speaking to an interfaith group at the All Dulles Area Muslim Society Center in northern Virginia. “Our centuries-long project of creating a more perfect union was not the product of fate or destiny. It was the result of countless individuals making the choice to stand up, to demand recognition, to refuse to rest until they knew that their children were inheriting a nation that was more tolerant, more inclusive and more equal.”
She delivered a gentler version of that message on Tuesday as she sat with students at New York City’s Harvey Milk High School, which serves mainly gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender teenagers. She beamed as students described how they had blossomed at the school, which offers a refuge from bullying, scorn and self-doubt.
“You all are the ones who have the courage to walk with us,” Ms. Lynch told the students at the school in Manhattan. “Without people who are willing to stand up and say that they have an issue or a problem or something that has happened to them, we would not be able to move these issues forward.”
Left unsaid, but widely understood, is that the Justice Department under Mr. Trump is likely to abandon groundbreaking civil rights litigation carried out during the Obama administration. Transgender Americans will be especially vulnerable. Both Ms. Lynch and Eric Holder, her predecessor as attorney general, embraced interpretations of civil rights law to extend protections to people facing discrimination for their gender identity. In May, Ms. Lynch delivered an impassioned speech about transgender rights in explaining the Justice Department’s lawsuit to strike down a discriminatory state law in North Carolina. The department has also backed the legal claims of transgender students fighting for the right to use the restroom that matches their gender identity.
“Those cases are still pending, and we don’t know what’s going to happen to them,” Ms. Lynch told me in an interview. As she prepares to clear out her office — which could soon be occupied by Senator Jeff Sessions, a man who 30 years ago was deemed too racist to be confirmed as a federal judge — she is cognizant that other civil rights are under assault. Republican lawmakers around the country have spent the last several years creating new laws and tactics to suppress voting by racial minorities and young voters — many of which Mr. Obama’s Justice Department has fought with some success. During the interview, she appeared to acknowledge that the Justice Department may no longer be on the front lines of beating back this scourge.
“The way we achieved voting equality in this country was always from the community level up,” she said. “It was the leaders on the ground who raised these issues, who had people out there on the streets, who had people out registering people to vote.”
It is sobering to hear a departing attorney general implicitly telling vulnerable Americans that the federal government may fail to protect their rights and that they will have to do this work themselves. But any other message would whitewash the painful truth."
The Daily Show - Barack Obama - Navigating America's Racial Divide
Posted by John H Armwood II at 1:08 AM
Obama vows 'to take action' on Russia for election hacks | MSNBC
U.S. Faces Tall Hurdles in Detaining or Deterring Russian Hackers - The New York Times
"WASHINGTON — When a suspected Russian cybercriminal named Dmitry Ukrainsky was arrested in a Thai resort town last summer, the American authorities hoped they could whisk him back to New York for trial and put at least a temporary dent in Russia’s arsenal of computer hackers.
But the Russian authorities moved quickly to persuade Thailand not to extradite him, saying that he should be prosecuted at home. American officials knew what that meant. If Mr. Ukrainsky got on a plane to Moscow, they concluded, he would soon be back at work in front of a computer.
“The American authorities continue the unacceptable practice of ‘hunting’ for Russians all over the world, ignoring the norms of international laws and twisting other states’ arms,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
The dispute over Mr. Ukrainsky, whose case remains in limbo, highlights the difficulties — and at times impossibilities — that the United States faces in combating Russian hackers, including those behind the recent attacks on the Democratic National Committee. That hack influenced the course, if not the outcome, of a presidential campaign and was the culmination of years of increasingly brazen digital assaults on American infrastructure.
The United States has few options for responding to such hacks. Russia does not extradite its citizens and has shown that it will not easily be deterred through public shaming. At times, the American authorities have enlisted local police officials to arrest suspects when they leave Russia — for vacation in the Maldives, for example. But more often than not, the F.B.I. and Justice Department investigate and compile accusations and evidence against people who will almost certainly never stand trial."
Chief Sitting Bull's Headdress
Posted by John H Armwood II at 10:54 PM
Should America offer reparations for slavery? Duh, it is basic tort law.
Exclusive - Ta-Nehisi Coates Extended Interview-The Daily Show with Trevor Noah - Video Clip | Comedy Central
Lynch: Department of Justice took Comey letters seriously | MSNBC
'People should be outraged': Russia and '16 election | MSNBC
Putin directly involved in US election hacking: NBC News | MSNBC
Why We Need a National Monument to Reconstruction - The New York Times
"Although Americans are already looking ahead to the next presidential administration, President Obama retains the power to shape his legacy and our nation in his remaining weeks in office. He has already used his final months to create several national monuments, and we urge him to create another, one that will speak as much to the nation’s present and future as it does to its past: the first national monument dedicated to Reconstruction — the turbulent, misunderstood era after the Civil War — in Beaufort, S.C., which has one of the country’s highest concentrations of Reconstruction-related sites.
Work on the monument is already underway. Community leaders in Beaufort have submitted a formal request to the National Park Service for a monument that encompasses key sites of emancipation and postwar community-building. In May, two South Carolina representatives — James Clyburn, a Democrat, and Mark Sanford, a Republican — sponsored a resolution to establish a national monument to the Reconstruction era. And last month, a group of 17 historians who have been helping the National Park Service study Reconstruction, as well as the American Historical Association and other professional historical groups, endorsed this effort.
This is a crucial time to commemorate Reconstruction. The period after the Civil War created the modern United States: Three constitutional amendments ended slavery, created equal legal protection and birthright citizenship, and prohibited racial discrimination in voting laws. Four million formerly enslaved Americans reconstructed their families and communities, establishing thousands of churches and schools and civic organizations.
Reconstruction was the nation’s first great experiment in biracial democracy, with hundreds of thousands of black men able to vote for the first time, and significant numbers holding elective office. Largely for that reason, Southern planters led coups against local governments that supported Reconstruction, and went on to bar blacks and many poor whites from voting and to construct a system of Jim Crow racial exclusion."
Donald Trump’s New Old Boys’ Club -Trump’s new inner circle is a rogue’s gallery of women-beaters, sexual harassers, men who would do away with equal pay and the pill and the Violence Against Women act. Welcome back to the 1960’s, America. The Daily Beast
Donald Trump’s New Old Boys’ Club
Trump’s new inner circle is a rogue’s gallery of women-beaters, sexual harassers, men who would do away with equal pay and the pill and the Violence Against Women act. Welcome back to the 1960’s, America.
Erin Gloria Ryan
12.14.16 3:03 PM ET
Donald Trump, a man who once owned beauty pageant without a talent or interview portion, has been elected President. He has surrounded himself with people who will enable and reinforce his worldview, because that’s what he’s always done. When the behavior that was acceptable within his self-constructed and insular world—pussy-grabbing, victim-insulting, daughter-caressing—went public, we first reacted with revulsion. Donald Trump is a strange person, who behaves strangely and does strange things. But after awhile, we got used to it. Everything weird about him will soon be normal and, by extension, the way it’s manifested in his cabinet will be. How did this happen so fast?
A year ago, the all-star team of creepy uncles Donald Trump rubs elbows with would have caused an uproar. Women would have taken to the streets to protest their nominations. Men who cared about women would have joined them. Congressional switchboards and email inboxes would have been flooded with constituents voicing their disgust.
But now, it seems like we’re pretending that this is normal, and it’s always been normal. It isn’t, and it hasn’t.""
Donald Trump’s New Old Boys’ Club - The Daily Beast
Russia and the U.S. Election: What We Know and Don’t Know - The New York Times
"Why does the C.I.A. think Russia wanted to help Mr. Trump?
• The C.I.A.’s assessment is not public, but is thought to turn on another alleged hack. Russia also hacked data from the Republican National Committee but declined to release whatever it found, intelligence agencies told Congress. That has given credence to theories that Moscow actively favored the party’s candidate.
• Mr. Trump has repeatedly promised to realign the United States with Russia and has praised its president, Vladimir V. Putin. Many in Moscow view Mrs. Clinton as hostile to Russia.
• The evidence in any assessment of Russian government motives is circumstantial, and not all American intelligence agencies share the C.I.A.’s view.
• The timing suggests that, if Moscow decided to help Mr. Trump, it did so only after hacking the servers of both parties’ national committees. Both were infiltrated well before Mr. Trump’s rise.
• Mr. Trump, at a July news conference, publicly urged Russia to hack Mrs. Clinton’s emails. But this could not have precipitated or encouraged the Russian hacks — they had taken place months earlier.
Did Russia spread pro-Trump fake news?
• Russian state media outlets have favored Mr. Trump and opposed Mrs. Clinton, but their reach in the United States is limited. (Their influence in Europe is much stronger.)
• A firm called PropOrNot claimed that the Russian government had flooded American social media with fake election news. But several independent analysts challenged the report’s methodology, which classified mainstream sites as Russian propaganda and did not demonstrate a link to Moscow.
• Fake news is a growing problem, at times driven by companies in Eastern Europe that write and spread the articles. But those companies appear to be motivated by profit-seeking rather than any political agenda.
What was Russia’s goal in meddling?
• There are two schools of thought: first, that Russia sought to weaken the United States by stirring up uncertainty and miring Mrs. Clinton, who seemed all but certain to win, in scandal; and second, that Russia sought specifically to elevate Mr. Trump to the presidency.
• Those theories are not mutually exclusive. For instance, Moscow may have started with the first goal and then added the second as a hoped-for bonus.
• Russia is waging similar campaigns across Europe, at times through cyberattacks and selective leaks, with the apparent goal of undermining Western unity.
• The Kremlin sees itself as under siege by a hostile West that it perceives as bent on Russia’s destruction. Russian military leaders advocate shadowy “new generation warfare” — through propaganda and cyberattacks, for example — to destabilize adversaries from within.
• Not all misconceptions are directed by Moscow, however. Social media rumors that overstate Russia’s involvement in the United States election risk playing into Moscow’s goal of undermining Americans’ faith in the legitimacy and integrity of their democracy.
Unarmed 73-year-old man killed by police in Bakersfield, California | US news | The Guardian
"A Bakersfield police officer shot and killed an unarmed 73-year-old man on Monday. Family members said Francisco Serna was suffering from dementia and was shot nine times as he took a walk outside his home in the early hours of the morning.
Bakersfield lies in Kern County, California, where a Guardian investigation last year revealed that law enforcement officers killed more people per capita than any other county in the US. The Bakersfield police department and the Kern County sheriff’s department are the two largest law enforcement agencies in the county."
Alexander Hamilton explains the Electoral College: A way of opposing “cabal, intrigue, and corruption” - Salon.com
"It was desirable that the sense of the people should operate in the choice of the person to whom so important a trust was to be confided. This end will be answered by committing the right of making it, not to any preestablished body, but to men chosen by the people for the special purpose, and at the particular conjuncture.
It was equally desirable, that the immediate election should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice. A small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations.
It was also peculiarly desirable to afford as little opportunity as possible to tumult and disorder. This evil was not least to be dreaded in the election of a magistrate, who was to have so important an agency in the administration of the government as the President of the United States. But the precautions which have been so happily concerted in the system under consideration, promise an effectual security against this mischief. The choice of SEVERAL, to form an intermediate body of electors, will be much less apt to convulse the community with any extraordinary or violent movements, than the choice of ONE who was himself to be the final object of the public wishes. And as the electors, chosen in each State, are to assemble and vote in the State in which they are chosen, this detached and divided situation will expose them much less to heats and ferments, which might be communicated from them to the people, than if they were all to be convened at one time, in one place.
Nothing was more to be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption. These most deadly adversaries of republican government might naturally have been expected to make their approaches from more than one quarter, but chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils. How could they better gratify this, than by raising a creature of their own to the chief magistracy of the Union? But the convention have guarded against all danger of this sort, with the most provident and judicious attention. They have not made the appointment of the President to depend on any preexisting bodies of men, who might be tampered with beforehand to prostitute their votes; but they have referred it in the first instance to an immediate act of the people of America, to be exerted in the choice of persons for the temporary and sole purpose of making the appointment. And they have excluded from eligibility to this trust, all those who from situation might be suspected of too great devotion to the President in office. No senator, representative, or other person holding a place of trust or profit under the United States, can be of the numbers of the electors. Thus without corrupting the body of the people, the immediate agents in the election will at least enter upon the task free from any sinister bias. Their transient existence, and their detached situation, already taken notice of, afford a satisfactory prospect of their continuing so, to the conclusion of it. The business of corruption, when it is to embrace so considerable a number of men, requires time as well as means. Nor would it be found easy suddenly to embark them, dispersed as they would be over thirteen States, in any combinations founded upon motives, which though they could not properly be denominated corrupt, might yet be of a nature to mislead them from their duty."
What Trump’s past interviews reveal about how he’ll govern | MSNBC
Analyzing the Charleston shooter's confession video | MSNBC
What’s standing between Donald Trump and nuclear war? - The Verge
"When President-elect Donald Trump officially becomes the president of the United States in January, he will take complete control of America’s nuclear arsenal. Should he decide to start a nuclear war, there are no legal safeguards to stop him. Instead, a much less tangible web of norms, taboos, and fears has reined in US presidents since World War II. But as North Korea escalates its nuclear weapons tests and the president-elect of the United States openly contemplates using nukes, experts worry that this fragile web could start to tear.
During his campaign, Trump called nuclear proliferation the “biggest problem” in the world. But he also said that Japan and South Korea might want to get nukes of their own. He wouldn’t take nuking ISIS, or even Europe, off the table. But he’s also characterized himself as “highly, highly, highly, highly unlikely” to ever use nuclear weapons. This calculated ambiguity isn’t unusual for America’s presidents. Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush left nuclear first strikes on the table, too.
But for a US president to talk so openly and frequently about using nuclear force is a clear break with history, says Frank Sauer, an international security researcher at the Bundeswehr University Munich and author of the book Atomic Anxiety: Deterrence, Taboo and the Non-Use of U.S. Nuclear Weapons. And it could be potently destabilizing in a world where nations’ nuclear doctrines are shaped more by posture than by policy."
Quarter of inmates could have been spared prison without risk, study says | US news | The Guardian
"Study of 1.5 million prisoners finds that drug treatment, community service, probation or fines would have served as more effective sentences for many
A quarter of the US prison population, about 364,000 inmates, could have been spared imprisonment without meaningfully threatening public safety or increasing crime, according to a new study.
Analyzing offender data on roughly 1.5 million US prisoners, researchers from the Brennan Center for Justice concluded that for one in four, drug treatment, community service, probation or a fine would have been a more effective sentence than incarceration.
Obama made progress on criminal justice reform. Will it survive the next president?
“The current sentencing regime was largely a knee-jerk reaction to crime, not grounded in any scientific rationale,” said Inimai Chettiar, director of the justice program. “While it may have seemed like a reasonable approach to protect the public, a comprehensive examination of the data proves it is ineffective at that task.”
The study also concluded that another 14% of incarcerated individuals had already served an appropriate sentence. These people could be released within the next year “with little risk to public safety”, the researchers said. Combined, these two populations represent 39% of the current incarcerated public."
Russian involvement in US vote raises fears for European elections | US news | The Guardian
"The CIA’s conclusion that Russia covertly intervened to swing last month’s presidential election in favour of Donald Trump but its actions did not place the overall credibility of the result in doubt will be hard to swallow for some.
The classified CIA investigation, which has not been published, may also have implications for the integrity of Britain’s Brexit referendum last June, and how upcoming elections in France and Germany could be vulnerable to Russian manipulation. The latest revelations are not entirely new. What is fresh is the bald assertion that Moscow was working for Trump.
Democrats have been agitating for months for more decisive action by the White House following earlier reports of Russian-inspired hacking designed to undermine their candidate, Hillary Clinton. Some of the thousands of emails belonging to the Democratic National Committee and members of Clinton’s campaign staff that were leaked, reportedly by Russian proxies, were used to reinforce a key Trump campaign narrative, that of “Lying Hillary”.
Pre-empting the CIA’s disclosures, Barack Obama finally acceded on Friday to public pressure to investigate the full extent of Russian meddling, ordering a review reaching back to previous elections. “We have crossed a new threshold,” said Lisa Monaco, a top security adviser.
The suggestion that Russia’s interventions had limited or no impact on the outcome of one of the most divisive US elections in modern history will sit badly with ordinary voters, especially in closely-fought states such as Michigan, where a legal battle has been in progress over a possible recount."
Is Trump Softening on Young Immigrants? Senators Hope So, Offer Bill - NBC News
More on the Rusiian theft of the America election. Secret CIA assessment says Russia was trying to help Trump win White House. This is a Watergate like scandal.
Pocket: Secret CIA assessment says Russia was trying to help Trump win White House
Breaking news: Russia tried ‘to help Trump win’ | MSNBC
Singapore expands its paternalistic policy on race | The Economist
"ON A side street in the centre of Singapore, a Muslim-American lawyer beats his wife bloody, only to be treated to rapturous applause. The lawyer is Amir Kapoor, the central character in Ayad Akhtar’s play “Disgraced”, which completes a run this week at the Singapore Repertory Theatre (SRT). The play (pictured) centres on a heated argument about identity, assimilation and stereotypes between Amir, his white wife and two friends, an African-American lawyer and a Jewish art dealer."
Profound dispair in a land of plenty. In Chicago, Bodies Pile Up at Intersection of ‘Depression and Rage’ - The New York Times
"Over Memorial Day weekend, when The New York Times tracked every shooting in this city, the largest concentration of them happened here, in about six square miles that make up Chicago’s 11th police district. Of 64 people shot that weekend, 16 were in this district. Three people were shot on this same stretch of Walnut Street.
The Times returned to the blocks in the 11th District where the Memorial Day weekend shootings occurred to try to better understand Chicago’s crisis of violence.
Residents along Walnut Street and at other crime scenes told of a fractured community — isolated by this city’s entrenched segregation, hollowed out by joblessness and poverty, and battered by resignation and indifference.
Here, graystone homes and brick cottages line elegant boulevards with wide, grassy medians. Garfield Park, once known as Chicago’s Central Park, sits in the 11th’s middle.
But on Walnut Street, one vacant lot has been there so long that walking paths are worn through it. Young men gather on this section of the street, and neighbors say they hear calls for “Pills!” or “Flats!”— slang for drugs — in the middle of the day.
In places like this, cycles reinforce themselves: Poverty and joblessness breed an underground economy that leads to jail and makes it harder to get jobs. Struggling, emptying schools result in the closings of the very institutions that hold communities together. Segregation throws up obstacles to economic investment. And people and programs with good intentions come and go, thwarting hopes, reinforcing frustrations while never quite addressing the underlying problems, anyway.
Into it all comes a lethal mix of readily available guns, a growing number of splintering gangs and groups, and a sense among some here that the punishment for carrying a weapon on these streets will never be larger than the risk of not carrying one."
In Chicago, Bodies Pile Up at Intersection of ‘Depression and Rage’ - The New York Times
Donald Trump Supports Immigration Amnesty—For Now - The Daily Beast
"In his interview with Time magazine for his Person of the Year award, the mogul discussed the plight of undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children who have otherwise followed the law and pursued jobs and education. In 2012, President Obama unilaterally created a program called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, that let these people apply for temporary work permits and protection from deportation. In the years since then about 730,000 people have received DACA status.
The program drew scorching, unremitting, intense criticism from many Republicans on the Hill, as well as Tea Party activists and party leaders (including Reince Priebus). Opponents called it “executive amnesty,” and Priebus promised that if Republicans won the Senate in the 2014 midterm elections, they would do everything possible to stop DACA. Rep. Steve King, an immigration hawk from Iowa, even suggested that the program might protect drug traffickers.
“For every one who’s a valedictorian, there’s another 100 out there who weigh 130 pounds and they’ve got calves the size of cantaloupes because they’re hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert,” he told Newsmax. “Those people would be legalized with the same act.”
People with criminal records are ineligible for DACA status, and King’s statement drew criticism for its absurdity (then-Majority Leader Eric Cantor called it “inexcusable,” and former Speaker of the House John Boehner described as “hateful”).
So Republicans invested significant political capital in criticizing the program, suggesting it was undermining the Constitution and rule of law, and that DACA recipients would steal American jobs and weaken the economy. Trump also promised on the campaign trail, repeatedly, that he would undo Obama’s move if elected——which he now will have the power to do.
But the prospect of deporting hundreds of thousands of otherwise law-abiding people who have jobs and educations may have lost its shine for Trump. So he’s now suggesting what his top supporters have spent years opposing: amnesty.
“We’re going to work something out that’s going to make people happy and proud,” he told Time. “They got brought here at a very young age, they’ve worked here, they’ve gone to school here. Some were good students. Some have wonderful jobs. And they’re in never-never land because they don’t know what’s going to happen.”
It’s unclear what exactly that “something” is that Trump will “work out.” And parsing his words is often an exercise in silliness and futility. But the comment is the kind of thing that sites like Breitbart despise. One Breitbart article, published April 20, 2015, grilled a Marco Rubio spokesman over the issue, suggesting that any legal amnesty for DACA recipients that came before the border was secured would be unacceptable."
At Least 2,000 Veterans Arrive at Standing Rock to Protest Dakota Pipeline - ABC News
We must understand what happened here. Native peoples were shot with rubber bullets, tear gas and violence until White veterans arrived. This confirms the analysis that minority rights are not protected in America unless it effects a significant group of Whites. The victory was won and the government violence stopped only when famous Whites arrived. Non White lives still do not matter in America. "The vets, led by Wesley Clark Jr., son of retired general and former presidential candidate Wesley Clark, began arriving in force today to help protest against the controversial crude oil pipeline project in North Dakota.
They are joining the months-long demonstration at a moment of heightened drama: The North Dakota governor has issued an emergency evacuation order for protesters around the site, which follows a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers deadline for demonstrators to leave the area by Monday, Dec. 5."
Now Is the Time to Talk About What We Are Actually Talking About - The New Yorker
"America has always been aspirational to me. Even when I chafed at its hypocrisies, it somehow always seemed sure, a nation that knew what it was doing, refreshingly free of that anything-can-happen existential uncertainty so familiar to developing nations. But no longer. The election of Donald Trump has flattened the poetry in America’s founding philosophy: the country born from an idea of freedom is to be governed by an unstable, stubbornly uninformed, authoritarian demagogue. And in response to this there are people living in visceral fear, people anxiously trying to discern policy from bluster, and people kowtowing as though to a new king. Things that were recently pushed to the corners of America’s political space—overt racism, glaring misogyny, anti-intellectualism—are once again creeping to the center."
Subway riders in New York stand by as three men verbally assault Muslim teenager.
This is the bigoted NYC I know all to well. "Three white men who were apparently intoxicated repeatedly yelled anti-Islam insults at a Muslim student in the New York City subway and no one did anything. The men, who yelled “Donald Trump!” several times and even tried to pull off the terrified 18-year-old’s hijab, also accused her of being a terrorist. This all took place at around 10 p.m. on Thursday night on the 6 train as Yasmin Seweid was returning home from Baruch College."
Police Violence Against Native Americans Goes Far Beyond Standing Rock | FiveThirtyEight
"On Nov. 28, a legal collective representing Native Americans opposing the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline filed a lawsuit against two North Dakota counties and their sheriffs, and the city of Mandan, North Dakota, and its police chief. Eight days before, the suit alleges, law enforcement officers from those places had used excessive force against a group of peaceful protesters, injuring more than 200.
The allegations in the case are striking — the lawsuit describes officers using water cannons on protesters despite freezing temperatures, shooting people in the head with non-lethal plastic rounds, and shooting a woman in the genitals with a flash-bang grenade. But this single event is part of a bigger history — one in which Native Americans interact frequently with outside law enforcement and where those interactions are often deadly.
Native American tribes are sovereign nations, but 70 percent of them are under the legal authority of police and sheriff’s departments from nearby non-tribal communities.1 And as a report in In These Times noted in October, Native Americans are killed by police at disproportionately high rates — depending on the year, either Native Americans or African-Americans have the highest rate of deaths by law enforcement. For instance, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Native Americans were killed by police at a rate of 0.21 per 100,000 from 1999 to 2014, and African-Americans (who outnumber Native Americans roughly 10 to 1) were killed at a rate of 0.25 per 100,000.2
Even so, police killings of Native Americans are probably undercounted, said D. Brian Burghart, a journalist who runs the Fatal Encounters database, one of several independent projects aimed at producing a more complete tally of the number of Americans killed by police each year. Killings by police, as a whole, are undercounted by the CDC and other federal agencies. For instance, in 2014, the CDC logged 515 such deaths, while Fatal Encounters found more than 1,300.
And when police kill Native Americans, even the more accurate independent databases often miss or miscategorize those deaths, said Burghart and Samuel Sinyangwe, co-founder of the Mapping Police Violence database."
Fmr. white supremacist shares personal story -Former white supremacist, Arno Michaelis, talks to NBC’s Sheinelle Jones to discuss whether Donald Trump’s campaign reignited the white supremacist movement. | MSNBC
Fmr. white supremacist shares personal story | MSNBC
Missed Treatment: Soldiers With Mental Health Issues Dismissed For 'Misconduct'Missed Treatment : NPR
Missed Treatment : NPR
The Rachel Maddow Show on msnbc – Latest News & Video
The Daily Show - Wesley Lowery - "They Can't Kill Us All" author Wesley Lowery talks about tracking police violence, covering protests and the difficulty of interviewing those affected by shootings. Delving Deeper Into Police Violence wi...
Why Is My Sister Dead, Sheriff Clarke? - The Daily Beast
"The Milwaukee County sheriff might become Donald Trump’s Secretary of Homeland Security. But the families of three inmates and one newborn baby can’t get answers for why they died in his jail—including a man who died of thirst."
GOP May Stall Obamacare Replacement for Years - The Daily Beast
"Republican lawmakers are reportedly setting up a three-year deadline to replace the Affordable Care Act, to allow for organization and across-the-aisle participation after an early 2017 vote to repeal the health-care reform law. The delay would allow the GOP to regroup and pressure Senate Democrats, whose votes would likely be necessary to enact the changes. “We’re talking about a three-year transition now that we actually have a president who’s likely to sign the repeal into the law,” Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn told Politico. “People are being understandably cautious to make sure nobody’s dropped through the cracks.” The compromise is intended to appease conservative critics of Obamacare while not entirely upending the system and ripping health insurance from 20 million Americans—without at least offering an alternative. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy noted: “I think once it’s repealed, you will have hopefully fewer people playing politics and [instead] coming together to try to find the best policy.”
Facebook Runs Up Against German Hate Speech Laws - The New York Times
Finally some push back against hate speech on Facebook. Like Germany, America has a history of genocide and hate crimes though unlike Germany the American government has negligently chose to weight freedom of speech more heavily than the rights of ethnic minorities to be free of hate speech and verbal intimidation. This is the greatest weakness of our Supreme Court's interpretation of the First Amendment. Many will disagree and that is fine.
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The John H. Armwood Weekly News Podcast Tuesday January 11, 2011
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How Spitfire, a Young Gully Rapper Made His Mark On India With Gully Boy’s “Asli Hip Hop”
Illustration: Arati Gujar
By Kanika Katyal Dec. 27, 2019
The “Asli Hip Hop” hook from the Gully Boy that you’ve been tapping your foot to? It was created by Nitin Mishra, aka Spitfire, whose signature verses have set the Ranveer Singh-starrer aflame. Exactly how did a young rapper from small-town Madhya Pradesh make his mark on Bollywood?
Picture this: You’re a regular young millennial going about your ordinary life. One day you get a phone call from Bollywood heartthrob Ranveer Singh. He says the three magical words you’ve been waiting to hear. “Chhote, Bombay aaja.” That is how Nitin Mishra, aka Spitfire, a songwriter, rapper, and an OG gully boy from Madhya Pradesh, went on to become the lead writer in the Ranveer Singh-starrer Gully Boy, making his mark in the inner chambers of Bollywood. The “Asli Hip Hop” hook that you’ve been tapping your foot to all this year? That’s his creation.
“I write poems and I overthink,” reads his Instagram bio. His public account is an eclectic mix of pictures with Ranveer Singh and Zoya Akhar, his debut appearance at the Lakme Fashion Week, his many tattoos, and all things expected of a rapper. But a look at his private account, and you know what’s special. An image of an aam-papad and churan stall is captioned “nostalgia”, a freshly bloomed rose from a home garden peeps out, two glasses of tea are queued up on blue PVC tables. This is the milieu that Mishra occupies – and this is the milieu you experience in his verses. It’s this authenticity that sets him apart.
Mishra’s signature hip-hop style is confessional. I had heard his songs, “Seedhe Midzone Se”, “Jee Le” and the hard-hitting “#Black” and a few minutes into the conversation, I could tell where they were coming from. Like the majority of Indians in small towns, Mishra lived a lower-middle-class existence in an environment that is slow to modernise. In the world that the Mishras occupy, people “don’t understand any art”. The young Mishra too had to contend with the same rehashed views of “doctor ban jao, engineering kar lo”. Very early on, he knew if he were to dive into an unconventional career, he’d have to support himself. His passion had to become his unique currency. Spitfire had to, in a way, embrace who he was if he wanted the world to embrace him back.
Like the majority of Indians in small towns, Mishra lived a lower-middle-class existence in an environment that is slow to modernise.
He was 15 when he was bit by the hip hop bug. A sense of unease, restlessness, and angst, had begun to set in, but back then he was not aware that the “azaadi” he sought will eventually come from his own words. All he knew was that he had things to say. “I didn’t even have a phone back then but I became friends with someone at school who did.” Ayush Khare, who goes by the street name, “Wordsmith” was that cool kid in middle school who owned a phone with an internet connection. “He had studied the global hip hop movement, and literally schooled me on how to write. We were a group of eight boys, six of whom would give us a topic, hook or idea, and the two of us had to produce a rap around that in 30 minutes,” or about as long their class periods.
Even though this would go on to become his personal route to success, this tomfoolery landed him in a lot of trouble. His parents were called. His bag was inspected for suspicious material and having found his journal full of “filth”, he was suspended. “There was no filth,” he clarifies. “It is a common perception that hip hop glorifies alcoholism and sexualises women. But I write about the aspirations, conflicts, or struggles, shared by me and my friends. Even my name Spitfire, came out of those sessions with my friends. One day, someone commented, “Bro jab tu likhta hai ya bolta hai, toh aisa lagta hai jaise aag ugal raha hai” (When you rap, it seems like you’re spitting fire).” These contestations find a resonance in his work, particularly, his single “Midzone se”, where he describes being seen as “Mishra ji ka pagal ladka.”
Through it all, Mishra just clung to words to lift him up.
Koi yahan tere liye na aayega,
Jitna darega tu yeh jag tujhe utna darayega
Toh awaaz utha, tere saath hai khuda
Aur jee le zara
– “Jee Le”
Mishra’s verses encapsulates how he crafted his own mark as an artiste; it describes his intense desire to break out, and speak out against everything that held him back. Mishra and Khare, perform as a duo, and post their songs under the YouTube handle, RAPresent.
Mishra’s verses encapsulates how he crafted his own mark as an artiste; it describes his intense desire to break out, and speak out against everything that held him back.
His big break came through the Jack and Jones commercial “Don’t Hold Back 2.0” in 2017, where the payoff was a chance to feature with Ranveer. Mishra had the words, but there was no recording studio in town. But that was hardly an obstacle big enough to deter him. “So I recorded my rap on a phone and sent it. When the list of selected rappers was released on the website, my name wasn’t there,” he tells me. But as luck would have it, he did eventually get selected on the sheer force of his talent. Such was his effect that the producer of the video, “Anushka (Manchanda) didi agreed to FaceTime with me”.
Historically, hip-hop stands for the voice of the voiceless, forging solidarity through shared experiences of marginalisation. When Mishra first heard some parts of the Gully Boy script, he felt that his own story was being told. The hip-hop movement in Mumbai’s slums, which forms the backdrop of Gully Boy is often compared to the political movement of the 1990s US when socially-conscious rappers spoke about the frustrations of Inner City life. Vivian Fernandez aka Divine’s debut single Mere Gully Mein featuring Naved Shaikh aka Naezy was hailed as an ode to the neighbourhood where he grew up. Like them, Mishra also situates his rap in the same tradition, of speaking to the disenfranchised.
What sets Mishra’s rhymes apart are their linguistically striking features – if Bombay rap has slang, Mishra’s Bundelkhand origins include shuddh Hindi. “Mere gaon mein abhi bhi log kahawaton (idioms) mein baat karte hain.” And that is evident in songs like “Shakkar”. In that sense, the unique, raw style that Mishra brings to the table with his verses can hardly be replicated by any other rapper. He isn’t a template. He is a star of his own making. I ask him if he was now a big shot in MP. “Kind of,” he says shyly. Now that Gully Boy has become one of the biggest films of the year, earning the honour to be India’s official Oscar selection, only one thing can be said about Mishra’s career – Iska time aa gaya.
If you have a story, Signature Masterclass has the stage for you, submit your story today and get a chance to see you story become a film. *Celebrate Responsibly
Kanika Katyal
Kanika's head rests in the library, her heart lies in the movie theatre. Kanika Katyal writes like a girl on all things culture.
She tweets at @missworldwydweb
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Listed below are comments made by U14395812 between Monday, 11th October 2010 and Wednesday, 14th March 2012.
David Cameron, Barack Obama and the Special Relationship 2:11pm on 14 Mar 2012 Yep, what a load of claptrap some people write on here. It is so simple, so plain, David and Barak whilst in different colours in their politics, sit well together, are of one mind, have gelled and are in accord and resolute together in their aims and purposes - makes a joke of Brown, Blair and the Milli bros. Yay! let's celebrate oneness with the United States, the most powerful nation!
Child benefit - Looking over the edge 9:34pm on 06 Mar 2012 Look, £40k is a lot of money. If people can't manage their income no matter how large or small then they need to learn pretty quickly. It is possible to live on a lot less. Everybody has got spoilt and expects too much, a whole generation have never learnt to knit, sew, cook, make do or live economically. They expect the earth then cry when they can't have it.
Liam Fox: Gone but not forgotten? 2:43pm on 16 Oct 2011 Maybe it was the embarrassment of the Royal Wootton Bassett ceremony today if Fox had been beside our Prime Minister, which hasten the demise of him (Liam Fox). Whoever orchestrated the witch hunt timed it for maximum effect. Shame because I truly feel Liam was an excellent Defence Minister. Nothing to stop him prompting from the wings though, eh?
John Yates: Defiant but now gone 7:35pm on 18 Jul 2011 This is, repeat, an issue between the Met Police and News International. David Cameron has not done anything wrong and millions of ordinary think this too. It's obvious from all the people phoning in to say so.
Ed Milliband and the shrill Yvette Balls etc are just jumping on a bandwagon, fight fight fight, desperately trying to get David Cameron out. waste of time.
David Cameron: A second chance 09:08am on 09 Jul 2011 My word, for an issue which started and festered under Labour they are taking as many opportunities as they can now to appear on tv and stick the knife into David Cameron, The Prime Minister.
In the main it is all just that, a chance for the Opportunist Opposition to push themselves into the limelight. I always thought the NOTW was a filthy rag anyway and never read it myself.
Lord Tebbit urges caution on strike laws 3:47pm on 22 Jun 2011 The Police are not ALLOWED to strike. Essential public services should not be allowed to strike either. I don't anyone who disagrees with my feelings.
Carrying on regardless 5:27pm on 06 Jun 2011 Even if there is a Plan B that you are all jumping up and down about (no other news is there?) George is quite rightly sticking to his guns. And do we have to suffer the likes of Ed Balls et al jumping on the political bandwagon - do they not want this country to succeed?
'I'd like to have an argument please...' 9:29pm on 21 Apr 2011 What a load of waffle and chatter about nothing. There must be an awful lot of people not doing much in the daytime to be bat and ball on here. Luckily it's not high profile or it would put the general public off politics for ever.
Man thing, I think. Competitive and confrontational and ambitious. Poor Nick Clegg, let's hope he can rise above all of it, or better still ignore it.
The listening cure 09:55am on 05 Apr 2011 With a serious near death experience of a close relative, we have observed and stayed in six NHS hospitals in the last few years. There is a strange mix of excellence and sloppiness. I hate to say this but many of the nurses were fat, scruffy, sat outside the building smoking and sat in the wards laughing and giggling about their social lives. Many could not speak proper English, could not read the medical notes properly and had no awareness of the needs of stroke patients, trying to make high dependency post stroke victims sit on the side of the bed and drink when the patient was unstable.
Peppered in amongst this motley crew of nurses was a highly dedicated few who had their finger on the pulse and a real vocation for the job who shone out in this sea of irresponsibility which arose during the 13 years of Labour misrule.
The listening cure 7:53pm on 04 Apr 2011 I'll be his friend.
Look, we had two terrible world wars in which our fathers and grandfathers fought, died, were wounded, for US. Following the second world war there was an age of austerity during which the government ploughed all resources into the Welfare State. This was a wonderful thing. Our country showed the shoots of recovery from the war, our people had a strength of character, they cared about each other, they had a work ethic, they had a close family ethic. Gradually the wheels started to turn again and we were GREAT Britain.
BUT, this got "better" and "better" until we became the fourth richest country in the world. The Welfare State was so brilliant and so benevolent that it rattled the cages of other less fortunate countries and their peoples came here. Come in, the silly former governments said, all are welcome here, our people will pay for you with their taxes
In the meantime a whole new generation was born and from the cradle until now, they had it all. They never knew hardship like their parents and grandparents had done. They lacked the responsibility to manage their finances intelligently. They talked of their "rights" but never their responsibilities. It is their "right" to be a student (even if they are not clever enough and are militant thugs tearing down public buildings), it is their "right" to swan about on "gap" years. It is their "right" to have food and housing supplied to them by the government or their parents, whatever.
The parents ran amok buying stuff on HP like designer kitchens which they didn't want to cook in, preferring restaurants and takeaways. The parents ran amok with clothes, foreign holidays and cars.
Now, it is time to stop. Slow down, pull in the horns. CARE about each other. The national health was left wanting in that some sections of it were inadequate, uncaring, unprofessional and down right incompetent.
Time for everything to stop, take stock, we have have had it so good for many decades now and we are in danger of running ourselves into the ground.
What friend Andrew is trying to do is laudable. True there needs to be research, consultation and careful deliberation culminating in the right outcome. But, it's fine. We need this. We cannot go on the way we were under the last government and we certainly cannot swing over to a Labour government run by the trades unions and thugs.
Andrew, I'm with you. I'm not for turning. :)
Petrol pump politics? 5:28pm on 23 Mar 2011 56. How rude. And, no I do not work for the Tory party. You would be quite surprised if you really knew who I was.
Petrol pump politics? 3:38pm on 23 Mar 2011 I feel secure listening to George Osborne and have faith in this government, something which I did not with the previous one. The previous one caused all the problems by importing people like there was no tomorrow so we have the equivalent of another country living in ours. This is what caused all the trouble, the shortage of housing, the strain on the NHS (go and look at Northwick Park Hospital in Brent, real eye opener), the strain in our schools some in areas where hardly any English is spoken, the millions more cars on the roads, the millions of foreign people tramping around our towns and cities (why aren't they working and contributing to the economy) and the thousands of students ostensibly here to study whilst sending money back to their own countries. Hmm. Anybody who disputes this is either a foreigner themselves, mixed race or living in an area which is still predominantly English.
Yes, the budget is a good and fair one done by a party who loves this country and not an unpatriotic one like Labour which doesn't.
George is Great. I am happy.
Too late? 3:47pm on 16 Mar 2011 Gdafi, Bahrein, Egypt, Tunisia, wherever! I have had it up to the eybrows with the problems of the world. They aren't OUR responsibility any more than we are theirs. They need to sort their own problems out.
Let's ignore them all and sit down and watch Midsomer Murders with a nice cup of tea. Aaaaah. That's better.
The Barnsley chop 4:32pm on 04 Mar 2011 Barnsley is was and probably always will be Labour. Lots of miners and working class folk and that's what they do, without a second thought.
Why all this fuss? Lib Dems are a peculiar lot so no surprise there then that they got shunted to the bottom of the poll.
Seems there may be immigration issues up there though if the BNP and UKIP are gaining more popularity. I would think there's cause for concern there because Labour youth get disaffected by all this mass immigration and racial tension and will turn on a penny if needs be.
Cameron's first war? 9:29pm on 01 Mar 2011 Bah! Poor old Dave, everybody having a "go" at him because he is talking tough. There is always a lot of posturing around this sort of issue, it doesn't mean it will amount to English lives being lost.
Thank your lucky stars it's not on Labour's watch or we would be flooded with MORE immigrants from the war torn lands which Tony Blair in his naive "wisdom" (?) stirred up when he strutted his stuff trying to gain fame for the Labour party.
Clegg faces the students 10:54pm on 09 Feb 2011 Alan addison you just don't get it do you? The Lib Dems did not win the election and they cannot push all their policies through.
Not that hard to understand is it? But then again....
Clegg faces the students 10:26pm on 09 Feb 2011 Well this is typical BBC lefty strident angry young man knock the Coalition type stuff.
A crowd of rude, selfish and arrogant young people trying to push themselves. How dare they? Many students aren't clever enough to go to university and they are certainly not well behaved enough either.
They should get a job - then they might really grow up.
No wonder Nick Clegg looked fed up. This was a BBC set up - a trap. Absolutely typical. I don't know why I watched the BBC news as I much prefer ITV. Won't watch again that's for sure.
Two-faced on Lockerbie? 6:06pm on 07 Feb 2011 and Brown has been swift to exonerate himself and his former shower of a government, well he would wouldn't he? The point is, Megrahi should not have been released and the Labour government facilitated the Scottish lot to do the deed.
He's an accident waiting to happen 6:28pm on 22 Jan 2011 Well, although officially resigning, Andy Coulson will, of course, continue to advise so this is just an excuse for the media to jump up and down and make an issue out of it all.
Repeat: This is a Coalition of ALL the talents. A big strong, educated, articulate, group of PATRIOTIC men and women. More than a match for the wimpy, tribalist namby pamby UNPATRIOTIC party first, Labour lot who keep wheeling that ghastly Campbell out.
Not necessary to keep knocking the Coalition of all Talents - do you want a dedicated team such as them sorting the country out or do you want the last lot who studied at the foot of Blair and Brown?
Thought not.
Illsley on expenses: In his own words 1:39pm on 12 Jan 2011 A lot of this behaviour is greed. These people are unpatriotic (putting themselves and their greed before the country) and Labour of ALL parties, really! They put themselves up as fair and spread the wealth a la communism but act purely as champagne socialists.
Greed. No other word/s.
Follow the (lack of) money 6:08pm on 13 Dec 2010 Good man, Eric Pickles. Firm, fair and a conviction politician with passion.
Labour eat your heart out.
They think it's all over... 10:04pm on 09 Dec 2010 Utterly disgusting that these silly students can act in such irresponsible and stupid ways. Disrupting Londoners in such a way. Why don't they just sign a big petition and give it in and why don't they just keep in their own cities and protest there - if they must?
I am ashamed to think that this once great land is disgraced by this disgruntled lot of opportunists, many of whom are just Labour thugs. They are not clever or respectable enough to be at university. They need to be put into normal jobs with older people to keep them in check.
Why do the looney liberalist lefties think we should bend over backwards to support and listen to this bunch of children? They should go away and grow up.
Put the water hoses on them and let us go about our normal business without them hindering us all.
Cameron in Seoul on the London student protests 10:53am on 11 Nov 2010 45. John your spelling is not too good is it? Perhaps you are one of those who got into university without the general educational standard to back you up?
"Grannies" with meals on wheels? Hmm. If you check you might find that they were not entirely funded by the tax payer, I know this from researching it on behalf of my elderly father. Those who can afford to pay do indeed pay - Wiltshire Farm Foods et al. Look it up, and oh, go on a crash course in spelling not breaking windows old boy/girl.
Spending Review: The devil in the detail 2:40pm on 20 Oct 2010 Well done George! Cuts more like 19% not the 24% we were led to believe!
I for one am really confident in a successful well educated man being our Chancellor!
Those who support the postman need to see a psychiatrist!
What's in a name? 08:50am on 11 Oct 2010 When mine went to university they went their on their merits. They had tuition fees paid by the local council but we paid for their "maintenance", ie living, food etc etc.
What I see now is loads of young people loafing about until they are at least 25 or so, taking gap years. Failing and retaking exams thinking they can get into University to have a good booze up. (We have a few in our road for a start).
These people are not in work, not paying tax, presumably parents got child benefit for longer as the children were ostensibly studying. They are certainly on cannabis, who pays for that?
With regard to this topic, it is the mother of all jobs for this government to tackle. Try and support them and don't keep criticising.
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BCEC Convention Advocates...
BCEC Convention Advocates Program drives record results for Brisbane
By BCEC IT 26 May. 2016|News
Brisbane’s science and research communities and Business Events Sector are the big winners from BCEC’s Convention Advocates Partnership which this year celebrates its sixth anniversary.
The AEG Ogden managed Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre (BCEC) announced a record year for its signature Advocates Partnership Program at the annual gala dinner held in the Centre’s Plaza Ballroom on Wednesday.
This elite group of influencers who count among their members some of Australia’s top scientists, researchers, business leaders and innovators work with the Convention Centre to put Brisbane’s science and innovation excellence on the global agenda.
A record 20 Advocate assisted conferences secured in the last 12 months have taken the total number of confirmed conferences with advocate involvement to 71 delivering a combined economic benefit to Brisbane and Queensland of $90.7 million and the sharing of knowledge wealth across key scientific and research sectors that could ultimately change lives.
Speaking at the dinner, BCEC General Manager, Bob O’Keeffe acknowledged the significant contribution of the Advocates. “The influential advocacy and remarkable achievements of this exceptional group of passionate individuals is providing a valuable legacy for Brisbane’s science and research communities.”
BCEC marked the sixth anniversary by welcoming seven new Advocates to the group, taking the total number of Advocates to 70. The new Advocates bring to the table a wealth of knowledge and expertise across a range of sectors including children’s health, medical oncology, molecular bioscience, science and engineering, orthopaedics and natural science.
After the success of the past six years, the BCEC Advocates Program has taken activities to the next level developing the concept of inaugural conferences which showcase Brisbane’s world leading expertise. In collaboration with Advocates eight new conferences have been created with more being explored.
Professor Ian Frazer, one of the founding Advocates made the Vote of Thanks and emphasised “Holding international conferences in Brisbane is so important for us as scientists to put our research on a world stage and showcase our universities and research institutions, and we could not do that without the support and infrastructure of BCEC”.
Download high resolution images here
Download Media Release (PDF Version)
Enquiries: Gail Sawyer, Marketing and Communications Manager
T: +61 7 3308 3023 M: 0439 733 509 E: gails@bcec.com.au
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International call for scores
Thank you for your interest. The call for scores has now closed.
Download the call for scores as PDF:
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Karl Marx 200
Karl Marx was born in Trier on 5 May 1818. He became a journalist, editing the Rheinische Zeitung in Cologne, which was prohibited by the Prussian censor. Marx and his wife Jenny were forced to leave the country, and he spent the rest of his life in London as a refugee, without nationality or passport.
He synthesised economic and philosophical thinking and how they determine our whole way of life. He foresaw how inequality of ownership leads inexorably to an inescapable cycle of crises, to globalisation, and to alienation from work. In partnership with Friedrich Engels he wrote the Communist Manifesto, intended to support workers’ movements on an international scale. Enlightening the proletariat about their situation, they felt, would provoke action to gain control over the means of production, finally facilitating truly free work. Karl Marx died in 1883, long before working people anywhere in the world acquired power or states were founded, supposedly, based on his studies.
As a student, Marx published his own poems in a collection entitled Wilde Lieder (wild songs); later, he hardly ever wrote about aesthetics, but generations of artists would engage with how they could contribute to the advance of society. Could music describe his findings? Can it engage with today’s needs?
On the bicentenary of his birth, we invite contributions to commemorate Marx’s legacy through music: choose a quote from Marx’s writings to set to music, capture some essence, reflect on his life and work, their consequences, or their future development. Please visit bcmg.org.uk/wilde-lieder for full details.
Prizes will be awarded in three categories:
Ensemble of up to six instruments (fl, cl/bcl, pi, perc, vl, vcl) with or without soprano or ensemble of up to fourteen instruments (fl, ob, cl/bcl, bsn, hrn, trp, trb, pi, perc, 11111) with or without baritone, maximum duration 12 minutes
Duo of soprano or baritone and one instrument (fl, cl/bcl, trp, perc, vl, vcl), maximum duration 8 minutes
Sound art / radiophonic composition: stereophonic, for broadcast on hr2-kultur (Hessischer Rundfunk – Radio Frankfurt, public service radio) and at public performances and installations, maximum duration 10 minutes.
Download Composer’s guideline for Soprano: Elizabeth Atherton
World premieres will be given on 1 and 2 September 2018 in Trier, and UK premieres in Birmingham.
Prize Ensemble Duo Soundart
1st prize €4,000 €3,000 €1,000
2nd prize €3,000 €2,000 €750
3rd prize €2,000 €1,000 €500
The jury may at their discretion distribute the prize money otherwise depending on the distribution of submissions; their decision is final and not subject to legal recourse.
Prizewinners must be present at the first performance of their works, and are obliged to supply all the necessary materials for performance in the event of their work being selected no more than seven days after being notified of selection, currently scheduled for the third week in July 2018. By accepting the prize money the artist consents to his/her radiophonic soundart piece being broadcast by hr2–kultur (Hessischer Rundfunk–Radio Frankfurt) in any area and for an unlimited period; the association also retains the right to play the work during its public events without being liable to pay a composer’s fee (performances will be, registered with the respective performing rights societies, e.g. GEMA).
Works must be submitted anonymously (identified only by a number corresponding to that on an envelope containing the name, address, telephone number and email address along with a CV and photograph of the composer) and in TRIPLICATE, by postal mail and in digital form, by 29 June 2018, 09.00am (British Summer Time UTC+1) at the latest to:
CBSO Centre
Berkley Street
B1 2LF
Please mark your envelope: Marx Call for Scores
Digital submissions should be sent to: [email protected].
Prof. Julian Anderson Professor of Composition and Composer in Residence, Guildhall School of Music & Drama, London
Prof. Carola Bauckholt Professor of Composition with focus on contemporary music theatre, Anton Bruckner Privatuniversität, Linz
Prof. Stefan Fricke Redakteur für Neue Musik/ Klangkunst beim Hessischen Rundfunk (hr2-kultur) in Frankfurt am Main
Prof. Franz Martin Olbrisch Professor of Composition, Hochschule für Musik Carl Maria von Weber, Dresden
Celeste Oram New Zealand/ University of California San Diego
Stephan Meier Artistic Director, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, Birmingham
Patronage of the Anniversary Exhibition, Trier
Bundespräsident Dr. Frank–Walter Steinmeier
Karl Marx Ausstellungsgesellschaft mbH, Trier
City of Trier
Kammermusikalische Vereinigung Trier
Hessischer Rundfunk, Frankfurt
Verein zur Förderung des Jubiläumsprogramms des Karl Marx Jahres in Trier
c/o Rudolf Hahn
Breitfeldstr. 45
D-66346 Püttlingen
Kulturstiftung des Bundes, Halle / Berlin
Stiftung Rheinland-Pfalz für Kultur
The jury will be judging anonymously, so please ensure that:
the composer’s name is removed from the score
you check every page to ensure that the composer’s name doesn’t appear, for example as a copyright notice at the bottom of a page
The filenames of uploaded scores must not include the composer’s name
Entries which identify the composer will be disqualified.
The closing date for applications is 29 June 2018 at 09.00am (British Summer Time UTC+1).
Please note that it will not be possible for us to return any materials after submission
Please send 3 copies of the score by post, along with a covering letter which has your name, address, telephone number and email address, to:
Digital submissions should be sent to: [email protected]
Instrumentation Options
Up to 14 instruments you may select any 14 instruments from the following:
Clarinet (can double bass clarinet if required)
Percussion*
Strings (up to 2 violins, 1 viola, 1 cello, 1 double bass).
Up to 6 instruments you may select any 6 instruments from the following:
1 violin
1 cello.
*Percussion should be written for one player only and written for the following instruments:
Marimba (4.3) Octave A2 – C7
Vibraphone 3 Octaves F3 – F6
2 Octave Crotales
Concert Bass Drum
Concert Tom Toms
Assorted Cymbals
Miscellaneous Hand-Held Instruments
Author: Seb Huckle
2019-20 10th China ConTempo Composition Competition
The winners of the 10th China ConTempo Composition Competition are announced
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