pred_label
stringclasses 2
values | pred_label_prob
float64 0.5
1
| wiki_prob
float64 0.25
1
| text
stringlengths 136
1M
| source
stringlengths 39
45
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
__label__wiki
| 0.702063
| 0.702063
|
Hearing Musical Time
This week, I want to explore musical time with particular focus on what musicians call feel.
The following is a revised version of a piece I wrote for the English magazine Drummer. As this concerns listening more than playing, non-drummers may find it of interest.
When non-musicians ask me who my favorite drummers are, they are surprised to hear me list names such as Earl Young, James Gadson, and Al Jackson, of whom they've never heard, or Charlie Watts and Ringo Starr, familiar names but not regarded by these friends as maestros. None of these drummers are known for their flash. None of them are Buddy Rich, the name some of these friends may have been expecting me to list first. My favorite drummers hide their mastery in plain sight.
When playing with other musicians, most of what drummers do is to play a repeating beat that shapes musical time for the ensemble and gives that time texture. On the surface, it's a simple task, and yet the difference between the average drummer’s backbeat and that of, say, Charlie Watts, is vast. The problem is, it's hard to talk about (which may be one reason why conversations about the best drummers quickly zero in on those with the fastest hands, a more easily grasped concept).
We need to learn how to listen to and talk about feel, which is therefore the very foundation of musical technique, especially for drummers. Drummers who develop their feel not only improve their drumming, they free the musicians around them to better express their ideas. The right feel brings those ideas to life; the wrong feel obstructs them, which is why bands go through so many drummers.
Here is a short introduction to how I hear and think about feel.
I. Hearing the Shape of Time
Understanding feel requires deep listening to recordings of great drumming. This listening will be most useful if you first create some mental images to help you hold on to what you hear.
Let’s start with the idea that musical time can be thought to have shape, a wheel that turns at a rate of once per measure. Thus, the beats of the bar represent points along the edge of the wheel.
Here’s where it gets interesting. A car wheel is a perfect circle, but the wheel of musical feel is not. Though drum machines and computers can shape musical time as a perfect circle (the beats spaced with exact evenness), we humans, thankfully, are not so mechanical. We space the beats unevenly, laying some beats back and pushing others forward. If you lay back slightly on “two” and “four,” you create the sense of an ovalar wheel, one that labors to get to "two" and "four" but settles more easily into "one" and "three." As you lay the offbeats further back, you elongate that oval. If you were to skitter about with less regularity, you'd create something more misshaped (which can be cool, too).
You needn’t have a precise grasp of this image to get the gist, which is this: Just as a car with oval wheels would move along with a certain kind of bounce, music gains a certain lilt, bounce, or shakiness depending on how the drummer shapes the wheel of musical time, again according to the spacing of the beats in the bar. Whether nearly circular, elongated, or chaotically jagged, each shape has its virtues. Sometimes a jagged wheel is best! Though the shaping of this wheel is done unconsciously, how the drummer shapes the wheel has a decisive impact on what musical ideas the other musicians express and the mood attained by the listeners. As you listen to the following examples, see if you can hear how the playing of simple drumbeats establishes the musical mood.
Three Examples
Let’s briefly compare the feels on three tracks: Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together,” the Rolling Stones’ “Tumbling Dice,” and the Beatles’ “With a Little Help from My Friends.” How do these three great drummers—Al Jackson, Charlie Watts, and Ringo Starr— bring these songs to life?
To my ear, Al Jackson’s feel has the roundest shape of the three, closest to being circular because his beats are most evenly spaced. He lays back subtly on “two” and “four,” thus stretching the wheel just a tad and giving the feel a nice pocket. The intimacy of Al Green’s vocal performance on “Let’s Stay Together” benefits from the near-roundness of Al Jackson’s feel, because the rounder the shape of time, the more expressive leeway is given to the singer. (As the wheel shape strays from roundness, the mood becomes more specific, more idiosyncratic.) The nuance of Al Green’s vocal delivery is thus made possible by the near-roundness of Al Jackson’s time. (Such vocal subtlety would not be possible if, for instance, a punk drummer rendered the same beat with a clunky feel.) Still, to the extent that the shape of Jackson’s time varies slightly from perfect roundness, it points the vocal in a particular direction—something softer and relaxed.
On “Tumbling Dice,” Charlie Watts's time is less even, the most elongated shape of these three examples. The slightly more uneven feel creates a mood that is more raucous, one that invites the whole band to dig in.
Consider that the near perfect roundness of Al Jackson’s time on “Let’s Stay Together” would not produce this same effect. The groove of “Tumbling Dice” has a bit more bite. Part of that is how the drums are hit (see the next section on Surface) but part of this stems from the shape of the time. Charlie Watts keeps time with an appropriately drunken herky-jerkiness that perfectly suits what the Stones have to say to the world.
The shape of Ringo’s wheel lies somewhere between the previous two examples. Again, every difference in wheel shape reflects a tradeoff. Because his time is not so perfectly rounded as that of a session drummer like Al Jackson, Ringo’s feel takes on a more specific personality but leaves more room for interpretation than Charlie Watts does. (Note that Lennon and McCartney are more nuanced vocalists than Jagger and Richards. That’s not a value judgment. Either approach is valid, but it’s worth noting the connection between vocal delivery and drumming.) By not being so elongated as Charlie’s, Ringo’s sense of time feels more relaxed, less herky-jerky.
And to complete the comparisons, a rounder sense of time such as Al Jackson’s might be more iconic, but it would remove the distinctive warp of Ringo's time that informs the track. That warp helps make the Beatles convincingly psychedelic.
Of course, these are all rather crude approximations. The shapes illustrated above are oversimplifications, but perhaps you get the point. A drummer's sense of time makes a decisive impact on the music. Each sense of time comes with tradeoffs, and as you apply the image of a wheel to other listening, you might hear these and other tradeoffs at work.
II. Hearing the Surface of Time
In addition to its shape, you can think about the surface of the wheel. Just as a car rides differently on rubber tires than it would on wheels of stone, the surface of the wheel of feel has an analogous impact. Thus, as you listen, you should pay attention to such things as accents, the volume balance within the kit, and sound characteristics of the drums and cymbals. These surface elements interact with the shape of the wheel and inflect the feel accordingly.
A crucial element of Al Jackson’s feel on “Let’s Stay Together” is the doubling of the snare drum backbeats with the tom-tom. By giving emphasis to the backbeats, which are laid back ever so delicately, the addition of the tom calls attention to the subtle stretch of the wheel shape and give the feel slightly more bounce than the snare alone might. The tom’s lower pitch also lends the feel a certain heaviness, perfect for a song about love in crisis.
The “chick-chick” of Charlie Watts’s hi-hat calls attention to the elongated shape of his feel. Imagine the same beat played with the “ding-ding” of a ride cymbal instead. Because the longer decay of a ride cymbal connects the eighth notes together, a ride cymbal would smooth the surface of the wheel and somewhat cloak its distorted shape. As it stands, the faster decay of the hi-hat leaves that shape exposed.
As for Ringo, he is an underappreciated master of touch. The resonance of his loose, chorus rimshots, for example, is crucial to the dreaminess of his feel. Were he to dig in with louder, hacking rim shots, the feel would leave behind its breeziness and take on snarl. To reproduce Ringo’s feel, one would need to reproduce his touch.
Thank you for reading. The next post will explore these ideas further, comparing the feels of three drummers who played with the same artist.
In Drumming, Music Tags Musical Time
← Musical Time Part 2 — Three of Bruce's Drummers
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4119
|
__label__wiki
| 0.615527
| 0.615527
|
As new research featuring the LUI is published, we will link you to it here.
Research publications on the LUI authored by Daniela O’Neill and colleagues include:
O’Neill, D. K. (2007). The Language Use Inventory: A parent-report measure of pragmatic language development for 18-47-month-old children. Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research. 50, 214-228.
Pesco, D., & O'Neill, D. K. (2012). Predicting later language outcomes from the Language Use Inventory. Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research, 55, 421-434. Final preprint version prior to publication available at http://spectrum.library.concordia.ca/974127/
Research publications by other researchers that use the LUI with typically developing children:
Abbot-Smith, K., Nurmsoo, E., Croll, R. (2015). How children aged 2/6 tailor verbal expressions to interlocutor informational needs. Journal of Child Language, 43, 1277-1291. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0305000915000616
Ronfard, S., Wei, R., & Rowe, M. (2017). Uncovering the social and cognitive skills underlying processing efficacy as measured by the LWL paradigm. Poster presented at the 42nd Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development. Boston, MA.
Research publications by other researchers with clinical populations that feature the LUI:
1. The use of the LUI with children with autism spectrum disorders and with respect to the new DSM-5 Social Communication Disorder
Fujiki, M. & Brinton, B. (2015). Social communication assessment and intervention for children with language impairment. In Hwa-Froelich, D. A. (Ed.). Social Communication Development and Disorders. New York: Psychology Press.
“..the Language Use Inventory (O’Neill, 2007), can provide a useful way of organizing the impressions of stakeholders.” Fujiki & Brinton, 2014, p. 235.
Volmar, F. R., Paul, R. S., Rogers, S. J., & Pelphrey, K. A. (2014) (Eds.). Handbook of Autism and Pervasive Developmental Disorders.(4th Ed.) Vol. 2: Assessment, Interventions and Policy. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Miller, M., Young, G. S., Hutan, T., Johnson, S., Schwichtenberg, A. J., & Ozonoff, S. (2014). Early pragmatic language difficulties in siblings of children with autism: implications for DSM‐5 social communication disorder. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. E-pub ahead of print. doi:10.1111/jcpp.12342
Swineford, L. B., Thurm, A., Baird, F., Wetherby, A. M., & Swedo, S. (2014). Social (pragmatic) communication disorder: a research review of this new DSM-5 diagnostic category. Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders, 6(1), 41. doi: 10.1186/1186-1955-6-41. Open Access full article
Kasari, C., Brady, N., Lord, C., & Tager-Flusberg, H. (2013). Assessing the Minimally Verbal School-Aged Child with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Autism Research, 6(6), 479-493. Published online Oct. 29 2013. doi: 10.1002/aur.1334. Open Access Free PMC Article.
Ferguson, S. (August 2013). Working with families of preschoolers with autism: An examination of a parent-mediated early intervention targeting joint attention. Ph. D. dissertation: University of Camberra, Australia. Open Access PDF.
Stewart, L. B., Townsend, A., Ortega, T., Stewart, A., & Johnson, J. H. (2013). What the beginning speech-language pathologist and educator need to know about autism spectrum disorders. Online Journal of Education Research , 2(4), 57-65. Open Access article.
Paul, R., & Norbury, C. (2011). Language Disorders from Infancy Through Adolescence (4th Ed.). Mosby: St. Louis, MO.
Tager-Flusberg, H., Rogers, S., Cooper, J., Landa, R., Lord, C., Paul, R., Rice, M, Stoel-Gammon, C, Wetherby, A., & Yoder, P. (2009). Defining spoken language benchmarks and selecting measures of expressive language development for young children with autism spectrum disorders. Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research , 52(3), 643. (Open Access)
2. The use of the LUI with children with ADHD
Rints, A., McAuley, T., & Nilsen, E. S. (2014). Social communication Is predicted by inhibitory ability and ADHD traits in preschool-aged children: A mediation model. Journal of Attention Disorders. Advance online publication Dec. 4 2014 doi: 10.1177/1087054714558873
3. The use of the LUI with children with Down syndrome
Foster-Cohen, S. & van Bysterveldt, A. K. (2016). Assessing the communication development of children with language delay through parent multi-questionnaire reporting. Speech, Language & Hearing. DOI: 10.1080/2050571X.2015.1108067.
Schutz, Tricia M. (2014). Down syndrome: An investigation into effective assessment and intervention to increase overall communicative abilities. Research Papers. Paper 470. Southern Illinois University Carbondale OpenSIUC. Open Access full PDF.
Research publications regarding translations of the LUI:
French:
Pesco, D. & O’Neill, D. (2016). Assessing Early Language Use by French-Speaking Canadian Children: Introducing the LUI-French. Canadian Journal of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology, 40(3), 180-217. Open access: http://cjslpa.ca/files/2016_CJSLPA_Vol_40/No_03/CJSLPA_2016_Vol_40_No_3_Pesco_O_Neill_198-217.pdf
Italian (Italy):
Longobardi, E., Lonigro, A., Laghi, F., & O’Neill, D. K. (Online Jan. 29, 2017). Pragmatic language development in 18- to 47-month-old Italian children: A study with the Language Use Inventory. First Language. http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0142723716689273
Portuguese (Portugal):
da Silva Guimarães, C., Cruz-Santos, A., & Almeida, L. (2013). Adaptation of the Parent Report Language Use Inventory for 18- to 47-months-old children to European Portuguese: A Pilot Study. Audiology – Communication Research, 18(4).http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S2317-64312013000400015
The LUI’s Psychometric Properties
The Language Use Inventory (LUI) is a research-based, empirically-validated language assessment toold that is the product of over 10 years of research by Dr. Daniela O’Neill, professor of developmental psychology at the University of Waterloo, Canada. Its development was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. The questions on the Language Use Inventory have undergone extensive testing with thouands of parents to ensure that they capture important aspects of child language development.
In addition to the research cited below, for readers wishing more detailed information, we have made openly available the full texts (pdf) of Chapter 5 (Development of the LUI and Psychometrics) and Chapter 6 (Standardization and Norms Development) from the LUI Manual (O'Neill, 2009) which provide a detailed history of the development and standardization of the LUI.
Norm-referenced: The LUI has undergone standardization (norming) on a Canadian sample of over 3500 children from over 550 communities across Canada and included stratification on variables of family income, visible minority, lone parent status, level of parents’ schooling, and exposure to languages other than English based on Statistics Canada census data.
Sensitivity and Specificity: Research has shown that children’s scores on the Language Use Inventory distinguish, with sensitivity and specificity values of 96%, children whose language is developing typically from those who language is significantly delayed or impaired.
Predictive Validity: Research has also documented that children’s scores on the Language Use Inventory are significantly predictive of their later language outcomes at age 5 to 6 years.
Internal Reliability and Discriminative Validity: The LUI's development and studies of its internal reliability and discriminative validity are described in O'Neill (2007, Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research).
The Language Use Inventory is used by researchers and speech-language professionals working in universities, clinics, hospitals, schools and private practice throughout North America, as well as in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand. The work of these researchers continues to inform the psychometric properties of the LUI and new work appearing is highlighted in LUI Publications.
We are very excited that several translations of the Language Use Inventory (LUI) are taking place by researchers worldwide!
Over 10 translations are currently underway by researchers around the world as summarized in the Table below.
For some of these translations, further materials (e.g., a fully completed translation of the LUI and guidelines for use based on completed studies) are available for use by speech-language professionals and researchers free of charge Where this is the case, a separate web page is being created for each language to provide professionals and researchers with the most up-to-date information and materials concerning these translations. The content of these pages is provided and updated by the primary researchers involved, whose contact information is provided for further correspondence if desired.
At present further materials are available for the following translations of the LUI:
LUI – Français (Canada) / LUI – French (Canada)
If you are a speech-language professional and have any further questions or feedback concerning these translations, please feel free to contact the primary investigators listed or Daniela O’Neill directly at doneill@uwaterloo.ca. We welcome hearing from you as work continues on developing translations of the LUI.
If you are a researcher interested in conducting a translation of the LUI, we look forward to hearing from you! Translation of language measures is an extensive multi-year-long, expensive undertaking, that is more aptly described as an adaptation, rather than a straightforward translation, as specific items may not be directly translatable and may require in-depth and specialized knowledge, and pilot testing, to ensure a similar level of item difficulty and developmental emergence.
We have prepared a set of guidelines to ensure that these translations retain the psychometric properties of the original LUI as well as its “look and feel.” These guidelines also inform potential authors of translations as to the conditions for obtaining a (free) license for the purposes of translation and adaptation of the LUI into another language and/or country from the publisher of the LUI, Knowledge In Development, Inc. No adaptations, translations, modifications, or special versions may be made without permission, in writing, from Knowledge in Development Inc.
Researchers interested in conducting translations/adaptations to other languages may contact Daniela O'Neill directly at doneill@uwaterloo.ca to find out more about the required procedures.
The Table below lists all translations currently taking place and interested researchers are invited to contact Daniela O’Neill or the researchers involved to find out more! For a summary of published work regarding all these translations see https://languageuseinventory.com/Research/Publications
Primary Investigator(s) and Institution Language of Translation of the Language Use Inventory Date of Issue of Licence from Knowledge in Development, Inc.
Dr. Aseel Alkadhi
City University
London, UK & King Saud University
Rehabilitation Sciences Department,
aalkadhia@yahoo.com Arabic June 23, 2011
Dr. Marta Bialecka-Pikul,
Institute of Psychology
marta.bialecka-pikul@uj.edu.pl Polish June 21, 2011
Dr. Ewa Haman
University of Warsaw
ewa.haman@psych.uw.edu.pl Polish July 22, 2011
Dr. Emiddia Longobardi
Dept. of Dynamic and Clinical Psychology
University of Rome Sapienza
emiddia.longobardi@uniroma1.it Italian July 19, 2011
Dr. Anabela Santos & Dr. Cristiana Guimaraes
University of Minho
anabelacruz@gmail.com Portuguese (Portugal) Oct. 5, 2011
Dr. Martina Ozbič, Dr. Damjana Kogovšek,
& Dr. Jerneja Novšak Brce
Univerze v Ljubljani (Faculty of
education – University of Ljubljana)
Oddelek za specialno in rehabilitacijsko pedagogiko
(Department of Special Education)
Ljubljana, Slovenija
Martina.Ozbic@pef.uni-lj.si
& Ms. Lucija Benedičič Slovenian Nov. 16, 2011
Dr. Diane Pesco
Concordia University,
diane.pesco@concordia.ca
Dr. Daniela O’Neill,
Dept. of Psychology
Waterloo, Canada French April 2, 2012
Dr. Wenche Andersen Helland
Department of Biological and Medical Psycology
wenche.andersen.helland@helse-fonna.no Norwegian October 16, 2014
Dr. Mahbubeh Nakhshab
Number 83/1, Khashayar Blind Alley,
Mohammadieh Alley
Khaghani Street
m_nakhshab@yahoo.com
Dr Fariba Yadegari
Department of Speech and Language Pathology
University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences
Tehran, Iran.
Dr Yalda Kazemi
Speech Therapy Department, School of Rehabilitation
Isfahan University of Medical Sciences
Isfahan, Iran. Persian (Iran) March 18, 2016
Dr. Beatriz Servilha Brocchi & Dr. Jacy Perissinoto
Departamento de Fonoaudiologia
biaservilha@yahoo.com.br Portuguese (Brazil) March 22, 2016
Dr. Wong Tze Peng (Principal Investigator)
University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus
Ehsan, Malaysia
TzePeng.Wong@nottingham.edu.my
Dr. Low Hui Min
School of Educational Studies Universiti Sains Malaysia Minden Penang, Malaysia
lowhm@usm.my
Malay (Malaysia) April 24, 2017
We welcome new research with the LUI! Daniela O’Neill is happy to answer research-related questions and can be contacted at doneill@uwaterloo.ca.
Researchers studying children with siblings with autism, prematurity, low vision, deafness or hearing difficulties, attention deficit disorder, or at high-risk are currently using the LUI in their work.
Students who wish to use the LUI in their research, but who are financially constrained, should contact Daniela directly.
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4129
|
__label__wiki
| 0.615689
| 0.615689
|
Home > July 2017 - Volume 29 - Issue > Use of Lower-Limb Robotics to Enhance Practice and Participa...
Thought you might appreciate this item(s) I saw at Pediatric Physical Therapy.
Use of Lower-Limb Robotics to Enhance Practice and Participation in Individuals With Neurological Conditions
Jayaraman, Arun PT, PhD; Burt, Sheila BS; Rymer, William Zev MD, PhD
Pediatric Physical Therapy: July 2017 - Volume 29 - Issue - p S48–S56
doi: 10.1097/PEP.0000000000000379
SPECIAL COMMUNICATION
Purpose: To review lower-limb technology currently available for people with neurological disorders, such as spinal cord injury, stroke, or other conditions. We focus on 3 emerging technologies: treadmill-based training devices, exoskeletons, and other wearable robots.
Summary of Key Points: Efficacy for these devices remains unclear, although preliminary data indicate that specific patient populations may benefit from robotic training used with more traditional physical therapy. Potential benefits include improved lower-limb function and a more typical gait trajectory.
Statement of Conclusions: Use of these devices is limited by insufficient data, cost, and in some cases size of the machine. However, robotic technology is likely to become more prevalent as these machines are enhanced and able to produce targeted physical rehabilitation.
Recommendations for Clinical Practice: Therapists should be aware of these technologies as they continue to advance but understand the limitations and challenges posed with therapeutic/mobility robots.
This is a review lower-limb technology currently available for persons with neurological disorders, such as spinal cord injury, stroke, or other conditions. We focus on three emerging technologies: treadmill-based training devices, exoskeletons, and wearable robots.
Max Nader Center for Rehabilitation Technologies & Outcomes, Center for Bionic Medicine, Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, and Departments of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, Physiology, and Biomedical Engineering, Northwestern University, Chicago, Illinois (Dr Jayaraman); Center for Bionic Medicine (Ms Burt), Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, Illinois; and Sensory Motor Performance Program, Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, and Departments of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, Physiology, and Biomedical Engineering (Dr Rymer), Northwestern University, Chicago, Illinois.
Correspondence: Arun Jayaraman, PT, PhD, Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, 1771, 345 E. Superior St, Chicago, IL 60611 (ajayaraman@ricres.org).
Grant Support: HHS grant award number 90RE5010-01-01; NIDILRR grant number 90RE5014-02-00.
The views expressed in this article are the authors' own and do not reflect the official position of any institution or funder.
Dr Rymer is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board for Hocoma Inc. and Ekso Bionics. The authors declare no other potential conflicts of interest.
Copyright © 2017 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. and Section on Pediatrics of the American Physical Therapy Association. All rights reserved.
Pediatric Physical Therapy29:S48-S56, July 2017.
exoskeletons, rehabilitation, robot-assisted gait training, robotics, spinal cord injury, stroke
Articles in PubMed by Arun Jayaraman, PT, PhD
Articles in Google Scholar by Arun Jayaraman, PT, PhD
Other articles in this journal by Arun Jayaraman, PT, PhD
Excellence in Promoting Participation: Striving for the 10 Cs—Client-Centered Care, Consideration of Complexity, Collaboration, Coaching, Capacity Building, Contextualization, Creativity, Community, Curricular Changes, and Curiosity
Coupling Timing of Interventions With Dose to Optimize Plasticity and Participation in Pediatric Neurologic Populations
Stepping Up to Rethink the Future of Rehabilitation: IV STEP Considerations and Inspirations
The Past, Present, and Future of Neurorehabilitation: From NUSTEP Through IV STEP and Beyond
Regenerative Rehabilitation: Combining Stem Cell Therapies and Activity-Dependent Stimulation
Privacy Policy (Updated May 9, 2018) - Legal Disclaimer - Terms of Use - Open Access Policy - Ask a Question - Sitemap - RSS Feeds - LWW Journals
Copyright © 2019 Academy of Pediatric Physical Therapy of the American Physical Therapy Association
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4141
|
__label__wiki
| 0.85601
| 0.85601
|
Latest from Wimbledon
All-time Best
Last Word on Tennis
Home ATP Rafael Nadal Defeats Dominic Thiem in Straight Sets to Win 11th French...
Rafael Nadal Defeats Dominic Thiem in Straight Sets to Win 11th French Open Title
Yesh Ginsburg
Years ago, Rafael Nadal earned the nickname the “King of Clay” for a reason. He seemed unbeatable on the surface. Whether it was at the Masters tournaments in Monte Carlo, Madrid, or Rome–whether it was his home tournament in Barcelona–Nadal almost never lost on the Spaniard. And, of course, Nadal has owned the tournament that history will care about most: the French Open.
Ten years ago, Nadal was already the King of Clay. He had won four French Open titles, along with the other Masters tournaments. Now, a decade later, the Spaniard is still the undisputed King of Clay. Throughout his 14 years competing here, Nadal has only lost two matches. In 2009, he was upset by big-hitting Robin Soderling in the fourth round. In 2015, he was defeated by a seemingly-unstoppable Novak Djokovic. Nadal also did not win the title in 2016, as he withdrew with an injury before his third-round match.
That’s it. There is the history of the King of Clay’s losses at the French Open. Two players have succeeded in defeating him, and his body let him down on a third occasion. Thus, the task ahead of 24-year-old Austrian Dominic Thiem–competing in his first-ever Grand Slam final–seemed impossible. Could he shock the world and defeat Nadal at Roland Garros?
Thiem started the match quite poorly. The Austrian had trouble with the Nadal serve, and he gave up an easy hold. Then he struggled to find the court on his opening service game, and handed the Spaniard an easy break. In fact, after just a few minutes of play, the ten-time champion had won eight of the first nine points. Nadal’s level immediately cooled off a little, though, and Thiem worked his way back into the set as he broke back in the following service game.
The next few games were an absolute treat for fans of clay court tennis. Thiem was hammering every ball that he could, and Nadal was responding with his classic clay court defense. For a time, fans could almost believe that Thiem would present a challenge in this match. Maybe, just maybe, fans could get an entertaining French Open final–something that has been sorely lacking in this era of Nadal’s absolute dominance. In the Spaniard’s ten titles before this match, he had never been taken to a fifth set, and had won four of the finals in straight sets. Could Thiem provide us with a classic final?
Unfortunately, about half an hour later, the answer became a clear and resounding no. While serving down 4-5, Thiem played an absolutely atrocious game. On the first point, he missed a volley–it was not the easiest of volleys, but it was one that a top player should make–and everything snowballed from there. The Austrian followed that point up with three consecutive errors, and the first set went to the Spaniard.
Unfortunately for him, Thiem began the second set the same way he ended the first. A spate of poor play quickly saw him lose the first three games of the set. Over the course of four games–from 4-5 in the first set to 0-3 in the second–Nadal won 20 points. Of those 20, the Spaniard only won one by hitting a winner. The French Open statisticians are nicer than they should be, as all but one of Thiem’s 19 errors in that stretch were unforced (officially, 12 were unforced and seven were forced). Thiem began to play better as the set went on, and it was only one break, but he could never earn it back, and Nadal won the second set 6-3.
Nadal earned another break early in the third set and looked to be home free to his 11th title from there. While 2-1 up, there was an odd stoppage as the Spaniard seemed to be struggling with hand cramps. It clearly impacted his serve moving forward, but not his ground strokes. Whatever the issue was, Thiem could not earn the break back–giving up another one while serving down 4-2–and Nadal took the third set and the title.
Nadal is now up to 17 Grand Slam titles, second all time to Roger Federer. Between the pair, the two all-time greats have now won the last six Slams. At the beginning of 2017, Federer held 17 Slams to Nadal’s 14. Now, six Slams later, Federer still keeps his lead at three. As we head into Wimbledon, Federer and Nadal are the tournament’s two favorites.
It’s impossible to know, looking ahead, just how much longer Nadal can do this. A few years ago, everyone thought he was done. He clearly isn’t. For now, fans just watch and appreciate this unprecedented greatness for as long as they can.
Main Photo:
French Open 2018
French Open Final
Previous articleSimona Halep Recovers From A Set Down to Win Maiden Grand Slam Title at Roland Garros
Next articleAlison Riske Triumphs in Surbiton
https://lastwordontennis.com
Yesh is an avid tennis and college football fan who loves running this wonderful tennis website.
ATP Hall of Fame Open Day 2 Predictions Including Christopher Eubanks vs Steve Johnson
ATP Croatia Open Day 2 Predictions Including Pablo Andujar vs Leonardo Mayer
ATP Swedish Open Day 2 Predictions Including Jeremy Chardy vs Pablo Carreno Busta
Tennis News 24/7
Can anyone beat Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer to win the US Open? in LastWordOnSports’s Hangs on LockerDome
BRD Bucharest Open Day 2 Predictions – Including Anastasija Sevastova vs Ana...
WTA Lausanne Day 2 Predictions, Including Samantha Stosur vs Barbara Haas
ATP Hall of Fame Open Day 2 Predictions Including Christopher Eubanks...
ATP Croatia Open Day 2 Predictions Including Pablo Andujar vs Leonardo...
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4151
|
__label__wiki
| 0.723954
| 0.723954
|
PUC Ethics Add Consumer Protection
Concerning measures to enhance the consumer protection mission of the Colorado public utilities commission, and, in connection therewith, prohibiting a person with recent connections to a regulated utility from serving on the commission, requiring the appointment of an ethics ombudsman, providing for periodic performance audits, and, making an appropriation.
Business & Economic Development
Section 2 of the bill prohibits a person from serving on the public utilities commission if he or she:
Has, within the immediately preceding 4 years, served as an officer or director of a regulated utility; or
Has or acquires any official relation to, or financial interest in, a regulated utility. 'Financial interest' does not include passive ownership of stocks through a mutual fund or similar vehicle.
Section 3 encourages the director of the commission to assign employees to temporary training and development sessions with other state agencies, particularly those with which the commission has frequent interaction, to improve the employees' substantive expertise and familiarity with the operations of those agencies. Section 3 also requires the director to keep audio records of the commission's proceedings and make them publicly available online.
In addition, section 3 expressly authorizes the executive director of the department of regulatory agencies (of which the commission is a part) to request that the state auditor conduct performance audits of the commission and its staff and operations.
Section 5 directs the commission to adopt rules concerning conflicts of interest, incompatible activities, and ex parte communications to govern the conduct of commission members, staff, and administrative law judges.
Sections 1 and 4 make conforming amendments.
Section 6 appropriates $22,812 to the department of regulatory agencies for legal services.
Daneya Esgar
John Cooke
Leroy Garcia
Transportation & Energy
State, Veterans, & Military Affairs
05/04/2017 | Senate State, Veterans, & Military Affairs (4 )
Adopt amendment L.011 (Attachment D).
Adopt amendment L.012 (Attachment C).
Refer House Bill 17-1323, as amended, to the Committee on Finance
Postpone House Bill 17-1323 indefinitely using a reversal of the previous roll call. There was no objection to the use of the reverse roll call, therefore, the bill was postponed indefinitely.
Adopt amendment J.002
Refer House Bill 17-1323, as amended, to the Committee of the Whole.
04/24/2017 | House Finance (1 )
Committee ReportHearing Summary 2nd Hearing Summary
Refer House Bill 17-1323 to the Committee on Appropriations.
04/19/2017 | House Transportation & Energy (4 )
Adopt amendment L.001 (Attachment B).
Refer House Bill 17-1323, as amended, to the Committee on Finance.
| (0 )
05/04/2017 Senate Senate Committee on State, Veterans, & Military Affairs Postpone Indefinitely
05/01/2017 Senate Introduced In Senate - Assigned to State, Veterans, & Military Affairs
04/28/2017 House House Second Reading Special Order - Passed with Amendments - Committee
04/28/2017 House House Committee on Appropriations Refer Amended to House Committee of the Whole
04/24/2017 House House Committee on Finance Refer Unamended to Appropriations
04/19/2017 House House Committee on Transportation & Energy Refer Amended to Finance
04/07/2017 House Introduced In House - Assigned to Transportation & Energy + Appropriations
Rep. D. Esgar
Sen. J. Cooke, Sen. L. Garcia
Rep. J. Bridges, Rep. T. Exum, Rep. M. Gray, Rep. M. Hamner, Rep. E. Hooton, Rep. D. Jackson, Rep. C. Kennedy, Rep. T. Kraft-Tharp, Rep. P. Lee, Rep. S. Lontine, Rep. J. Salazar, Rep. D. Valdez, Rep. M. Weissman, Rep. F. Winter, Rep. D. Young
Preserve Options Respond EPA Clean Power Plan Rule
Sunset Wildland-urban Interface Training Advisory Board
Sunset Continue Civil Rights Division And Commission
2018 Senate Select Committee on Energy and the Environment Final Report
2017 Departmental Regulatory Agenda Office of the Secretary of State
State Laws Addressing Fees Related to Credit Security Freezes (2017)
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4155
|
__label__cc
| 0.671981
| 0.328019
|
Energy Transitions
ISSN: 2520-1166 (Print) 2520-114X (Online)
Energy Transitions delivers leading research that evaluates the policy, economic, and technical challenges and opportunities arising from initiatives to move toward more sustainable and less-carbon intensive power generation mixes. International and multidisciplinary in scope, the journal is fully Open Access thanks to the support of KACST and KAPSARC.
The journal will include articles that address either of two major thematic areas: (1) energy economics and energy policy and (2) electrical energy technologies. Thus, articles will focus on the policy and economic aspect of energy transitions as well as the technological aspects related to energy transitions. The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries are of particular interest, but lessons and experiences drawn from other countries are also welcome.
Investigating the causal relationship between electricity consumption and sectoral outputs: evidence from Egypt
Dalia M. Ibrahiem (December 2018)
Download PDF (1322KB) View Article
A review of the German energy transition: taking stock, looking ahead, and drawing conclusions for the Middle East and North Africa
Hans-Wilhelm Schiffer, Johannes Trüby (December 2018)
Assessing strengths and weaknesses of renewable energy initiatives in Oman: an analysis with strategic niche management
Aisha Al-Sarihi, Judith A. Cherni (December 2018)
Download PDF (991KB) View Article
Available 2017 - 2018
Volumes 2
Open Access 10 Articles
Article abstracts by RSS
Register for journal updates
Find a Volume or Issue
Please enter a valid issue and/or volume.
Please enter a valid issue for volume.
Share this content on Facebook Share this content on Twitter Share this content on LinkedIn
Volume 1 / 2017 - Volume 2 / 2018
Springer International Publishing
Energy Policy, Economics and Management
R & D/Technology Policy
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4157
|
__label__cc
| 0.504747
| 0.495253
|
The Magazine of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Field
New Titles & Bestsellers
Index to Reviews
Index to Interviews
History of Locus Magazine
Charles N. Brown (1937-2009)
Science Fiction Awards Database
Conventions List
Links by Category
Bestsellers New Titles & Bestsellers
Weekly Bestsellers, 24 October
October 24, 2011 September 28, 2017 admin
Terry Pratchett’s Snuff (Harper) debuts on US print lists this week, ranking in 3rd place on the New York Times, Washington Post, and Publisher’s Weekly lists. It’s slipped on Amazon.com (since its debut there four weeks ago), but still ranks #4 on Amazon UK (after ranking there for 23 weeks).
Vernor Vinge’s The Children of the Sky (Tor) also debuts, at #28 on the NYT list, #113 on the combined USA Today list.
Title Debut / #wks on any list NYT
10.30 WP
10.23 LAT
10.23 USAT
10.16 PW
10.24 Amz
(10.24) UK:
Amz UK
(10.24) Canada:
Amz.ca
Items on list -x- number of lists surveyed 30×5 10×2 15×2 150 15×3 100 100 100
Collins, Catching Fire 08.11.09 / 116 xxx.. 14 +5 11 +1 18 = xxx.. xxx
Collins, Mockingjay 02.16.10 / 89 x 12 +4 15 +1 xxx.. xxx
Dashner, The Death Cure 10.17.11 / 2 16 ++ 131 -72
King, 11/22/63 03.08.11 / 9 20 +45 76 ++
Kirkman/Bonansinga, The Walking Dead: Rise of the Governor 10.17.11 / 2 18 ++ 73 -33
Martin, A Dance with Dragons 03.08.11 / 34 7 +1 x 10 +1 48 +6 6 +3 33 -1 48 -15 21 -7
Morgenstern, The Night Circus 09.26.11 / 5 6 -1 8 -2 9 -7 37 = 7 -1 61 -23 xx 9 +2
Murakami, 1Q84 10.17.11 / 2 4 +8 10 -8 6 +6
Palahniuk, Damned 10.24.11 / 1 95 ++ 71 ++
Paolini, Inheritance 03.29.11 / 31 3 +3 17 +3 4 -2
Pratchett, Snuff 09.13.11 / 5 3 ++ 3 ++ 21 ++ 3 ++ 72 -10
Pratchett, Snuff (UK) 05.17.11 / 23 4 =
Salvatore, Forgotten Realms: Neverwinter: Neverwinter Saga, Book II 10.17.11 / 2 14 -10 146 -90 14 -10
Stephenson, Reamde 09.06.11 / 8 34 -12 xx 19 -13 xx x x xxx.. 87 +
Vinge, The Children of the Sky 10.24.11 / 1 28 ++ 113 ++
Whitehead, Zone One 10.17.11 / 2 119 -55
King, Mile 81 09.13.11 / 7 105 +6
Paperbacks [tpb=trade]
Brooks, World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War [tpb] 10.27.09 / 37 20 + 91 +26 xxx..
Collins, The Hunger Games [tpb] 07.13.10 / 68 xxx.. 5 -3 5 +3 14 -6 xxx.. 105 -52
Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad [tpb] 04.05.11 / 30 17 -1 xxx.. 2 +2 xxx.. xx xxx.. xxx.. xxx..
Jordan/Sanderson, Towers of Midnight 10.17.11 / 2 21 -10 12 -1
King, Full Dark, No Stars 10.03.11 / 4 8 +4 65 -10 10 =
Martin, A Clash of Kings 04.19.11 / 28 15 +4 xxx.. 12 +1 69 +3 18 +1 xxx.. 50 -11 xx
Martin, A Clash of Kings [tpb] 05.24.11 / 22 27 +2 xxx.. xxx.. xxx..
Martin, A Feast for Crows 09.19.06 / 36 22 +1 xx 74 +3 25 = xxx.. 36 -4 xx
Martin, A Feast for Crows [tpb] 07.26.11 / 13 28 +4 13 ++
Martin, A Game of Thrones 12.28.10 / 32 7 +3 xxx.. 9 = 54 -2 7 +5 xxx.. xx
Martin, A Game of Thrones [tpb] 04.05.11 / 29 33 +2 xxx.. xxx.. xxx.. xxx.. xxx..
Martin, A Game of Thrones 4-Book Boxed Set 04.26.11 / 27 xxx.. 104 +5 21 -2 x 15 -9
Martin, A Storm of Swords 04.19.11 / 28 10 +7 x 70 +3 9 +8 xxx.. 34 +3 xx
Meyer, Breaking Dawn [tpb] 07.27.10 / 57 xxx.. 96 + xxx.. xxx..
This cell color indicates rankings on children’s bestsellers lists This cell color indicates rankings of books based on pre-publication sales [Italics and brackets, and/or this cell color, indicate stale data — rankings from one or more weeks before — and do not contribute to the cumulative weeks on any list totals]
← Previous E-Books: August-October
Roundtable: Heinlein Juveniles Then and Now Next →
Periodicals, early July 2017
July 8, 2017 admin Comments Off on Periodicals, early July 2017
New Books, 29 October
October 29, 2013 admin Comments Off on New Books, 29 October
New Books, 3 December
December 3, 2013 admin Comments Off on New Books, 3 December
Issue 702 Table of Contents, July 2019
July 1, 2019 locusmag 0
Buy Current Issue
FeaturesView All
Features Interviews Slider
R.F. Kuang: Distortions
July 15, 2019 locusmag 0
Photo Story: Best New Horror Signing
Ben H. Winters: Alternate Dimensions
Commentary Cory Doctorow Features Slider
Cory Doctorow: Fake News Is an Oracle
SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTER and receive a weekly digest of posts from locusmag.com delivered directly to your inbox! Plus book and ARC giveaways and other goodies.
Around the WebView All
Blinks
Blinks: New Yorker on Liu Cixin; Reviews by Yu, Brown, Lovegrove
July 6, 2019 LocEditor 0
Blinks: Reviews of Stephenson, Hurley, Martine, Mascarenhas, Chiang
June 3, 2019 LocEditor 0
Blinks: Reviews of Ted Chiang; Scott Edelman dines
May 26, 2019 LocEditor 0
Blinks: Oates reviews Chiang; critics’ picks; sniffy about SF
May 8, 2019 LocEditor 0
Film ReviewsView All
Everything Will Be Explained If You’ll Just Look Right Here: Arley Sorg and Josh Pearce Discuss Men in Black: International
It’s been 22(!) years since the release of Men in Black, a stretch of time that encapsulates three sequel movies and an animated TV show, and throughout it all the original film has held up as the strongest installment of the franchise. This latest, Men in Black: International, does not come close to being the strongest in the series, but nor is it the weakest. International continues with the secretive
Previous IssuesView All
Issue 701 Table of Contents, June 2019
June 1, 2019 locusmag 0
Issue 700 Table of Contents, May 2019
May 1, 2019 locusmag 0
Issue 699 Table of Contents, April 2019
April 1, 2019 locusmag 0
Issue 698 Table of Contents, March 2019
March 1, 2019 locusmag 0
Issue 697 Table of Contents, February 2019
February 1, 2019 locusmag 0
Issue 696 Table of Contents, January 2019
January 1, 2019 locusmag 0
Issue 695 Table of Contents, December 2018
December 1, 2018 locusmag 0
Issue 694 Table of Contents, November 2018
November 1, 2018 locusmag 0
Issue 693 Table of Contents, October 2018
October 1, 2018 locusmag 0
Issue 692 Table of Contents, September 2018
September 1, 2018 locusmag 0
Features Interviews
Charles Stross: Contrarian
Charles Stross’s first professional story sale, ‘‘The Boys”, appeared in 1986, and he has published short fiction regularly ever since. Novelette ‘‘Lobsters” (2001) was nominated for a Nebula and Hugo, and was runner-up for the Sturgeon Award; novelette ‘‘Halo” (2002) was a Hugo and Sturgeon nominee; ‘‘Router” (2002) was shortlisted for a BSFA award; novelette ‘‘Nightfall” (2003) was a Hugo and BSFA nominee; time-travel novella ‘‘Palimpsest” (2009) won a Hugo;
Brian Evenson: Strange (But Never Gratuitous)
Richard Kadrey: Running with the Devil
Archives Select Month July 2019 (47) June 2019 (96) May 2019 (119) April 2019 (107) March 2019 (114) February 2019 (114) January 2019 (96) December 2018 (97) November 2018 (111) October 2018 (107) September 2018 (94) August 2018 (81) July 2018 (85) June 2018 (93) May 2018 (112) April 2018 (115) March 2018 (130) February 2018 (102) January 2018 (96) December 2017 (73) November 2017 (71) October 2017 (77) September 2017 (56) August 2017 (48) July 2017 (69) June 2017 (59) May 2017 (80) April 2017 (78) March 2017 (64) February 2017 (50) January 2017 (72) December 2016 (46) November 2016 (50) October 2016 (54) September 2016 (51) August 2016 (60) July 2016 (63) June 2016 (56) May 2016 (55) April 2016 (52) March 2016 (57) February 2016 (53) January 2016 (53) December 2015 (46) November 2015 (55) October 2015 (49) September 2015 (48) August 2015 (54) July 2015 (53) June 2015 (56) May 2015 (56) April 2015 (61) March 2015 (56) February 2015 (53) January 2015 (58) December 2014 (50) November 2014 (53) October 2014 (59) September 2014 (57) August 2014 (54) July 2014 (64) June 2014 (66) May 2014 (60) April 2014 (60) March 2014 (62) February 2014 (60) January 2014 (54) December 2013 (53) November 2013 (51) October 2013 (52) September 2013 (60) August 2013 (56) July 2013 (59) June 2013 (60) May 2013 (61) April 2013 (73) March 2013 (58) February 2013 (50) January 2013 (58) December 2012 (50) November 2012 (54) October 2012 (59) September 2012 (54) August 2012 (62) July 2012 (74) June 2012 (63) May 2012 (68) April 2012 (64) March 2012 (65) February 2012 (53) January 2012 (61) December 2011 (61) November 2011 (61) October 2011 (58) September 2011 (62) August 2011 (70) July 2011 (40) June 2011 (39) May 2011 (63) April 2011 (36) March 2011 (42) February 2011 (42) January 2011 (45) December 2010 (30) November 2010 (28) October 2010 (36) September 2010 (50) August 2010 (26) July 2010 (32) June 2010 (30) May 2010 (27) April 2010 (22) March 2010 (24) February 2010 (24) January 2010 (21) December 2009 (22) November 2009 (22) October 2009 (18) September 2009 (23) August 2009 (28) July 2009 (13) June 2009 (15) May 2009 (13) April 2009 (30) March 2009 (31) February 2009 (43) January 2009 (27) December 2008 (2) December 2007 (1) December 2006 (1) December 2005 (1) December 2004 (1) December 2003 (1) December 2002 (1) December 2001 (1) December 2000 (2) November 2000 (1) October 2000 (1) September 2000 (1) August 2000 (1) July 2000 (1) June 2000 (1) May 2000 (1) April 2000 (1) March 2000 (1) February 2000 (1) January 2000 (1) December 1999 (2) November 1999 (1) October 1999 (1) September 1999 (1) August 1999 (1) July 1999 (1) June 1999 (1) May 1999 (1) April 1999 (1) March 1999 (1) February 1999 (1) January 1999 (1) December 1998 (2) November 1998 (1) October 1998 (1) September 1998 (1) August 1998 (1) July 1998 (1) June 1998 (1) May 1998 (1) April 1998 (1) March 1998 (1) February 1998 (1) January 1998 (1) December 1997 (2) November 1997 (1) October 1997 (1) September 1997 (1) August 1997 (1) July 1997 (1) June 1997 (1) May 1997 (1) April 1997 (1) March 1997 (1) February 1997 (1) January 1997 (1) December 1996 (1) November 1996 (1) October 1996 (1) September 1996 (1) August 1996 (1) July 1996 (1) June 1996 (1) May 1996 (1) April 1996 (1) March 1996 (1) February 1996 (1) January 1996 (1) December 1995 (1) November 1995 (1) October 1995 (1) September 1995 (1) August 1995 (1) July 1995 (1) June 1995 (1) May 1995 (1) April 1995 (1) March 1995 (1) February 1995 (1) January 1995 (1) December 1994 (1) November 1994 (1) October 1994 (1) September 1994 (1) August 1994 (1) July 1994 (1) June 1994 (1) May 1994 (1) April 1994 (1) March 1994 (1) February 1994 (1) January 1994 (1) December 1993 (1) November 1993 (1) October 1993 (1) September 1993 (1) August 1993 (1) July 1993 (1) June 1993 (1) May 1993 (1) April 1993 (1) March 1993 (1) February 1993 (1) January 1993 (1) December 1992 (1) November 1992 (1) October 1992 (1) September 1992 (1) August 1992 (1) July 1992 (1) June 1992 (1) May 1992 (1) April 1992 (1) March 1992 (1) February 1992 (1) January 1992 (1) December 1991 (1) November 1991 (1) October 1991 (1) September 1991 (1) August 1991 (1) July 1991 (1) June 1991 (1) May 1991 (1) April 1991 (1) March 1991 (1) February 1991 (1) January 1991 (1) December 1990 (1) November 1990 (1) October 1990 (1) September 1990 (1) August 1990 (1) July 1990 (1) June 1990 (1) May 1990 (1) April 1990 (1) March 1990 (1) February 1990 (1) January 1990 (1) December 1989 (1) November 1989 (1) October 1989 (1) September 1989 (1) August 1989 (1) July 1989 (1) June 1989 (1) May 1989 (1) April 1989 (1) March 1989 (1) February 1989 (1) January 1989 (1) December 1988 (1) November 1988 (1) October 1988 (1) September 1988 (1) August 1988 (1) July 1988 (1) June 1988 (1) May 1988 (1) April 1988 (1) March 1988 (1) February 1988 (1) January 1988 (1) December 1987 (1) November 1987 (1) October 1987 (1) September 1987 (1) August 1987 (1) July 1987 (1) June 1987 (1) May 1987 (1) April 1987 (1) March 1987 (1) February 1987 (1) January 1987 (1) December 1986 (1) November 1986 (1) October 1986 (1) September 1986 (1) August 1986 (1) July 1986 (1) June 1986 (1) May 1986 (1) April 1986 (1) March 1986 (1) February 1986 (1) January 1986 (1) December 1985 (1) November 1985 (1) October 1985 (1) September 1985 (1) August 1985 (1) July 1985 (1) June 1985 (1) May 1985 (1) April 1985 (1) March 1985 (1) February 1985 (1) January 1985 (1) December 1984 (1) November 1984 (1) October 1984 (1) September 1984 (1) August 1984 (1) July 1984 (1) June 1984 (1) May 1984 (1) April 1984 (1) March 1984 (1) February 1984 (1) January 1984 (1) July 1982 (1) April 1982 (1) March 1982 (1) February 1982 (1)
Categories Select Category Announcements (337) Archives (13) Awards (1,753) Bestsellers (502) Blinks (502) Blurb (28) Books (1,134) Bookstores (34) Classic Reprints (70) Commentary (136) Contests (49) Conventions (166) Cory Doctorow (56) Features (484) Films (128) Forthcoming Books (7) Interviews (215) Issues (299) Kameron Hurley (33) Legal (32) Milestones (136) New & Notable (94) New Books (465) New in Paperback (80) New Titles & Bestsellers (1,515) News (1,432) Obituaries (274) Periodicals (271) Publishing (297) Reviewers (16) Reviews (1,427) Roundtable (399) Short Fiction (346) Slider (4) Spotlight (53) Staff (31) Uncategorized (1) Workshops (19)
All opinions expressed
by commentators, guest bloggers, reviewers, and interviewees are solely their own and do not reflect the opinions of Locus magazine or its staff.
Locus SF Foundation
dba Locus Publications
655 13th St. #100
ph. +1-510-339-9196
locus@locusmag.com
Weekdays: 9-5 Pacific Time
Suggestion, tips, typos?
You can send news, tips, and suggestions to locus@locusmag.com.
If you see problems or bugs on the site, please let us know and include the URL and also which browser you are using.
Locus Magazine and Website cover science fiction, fantasy, young-adult, horror books, short fiction, anthologies, magazines, films, news, conventions, and international. Also interviews with SFF authors, editors, artists, and more.
Copyright © 2019 Locus Publications. All rights reserved.
Locus relies on your support to survive! THANK YOU SO MUCH to those that are already supporting us!
If each of our readers donated just $3, our annual shortfall due to shrinking ad revenue would be covered and our magazine, website, and other SF-related projects could continue. Please take a minute to donate to our nonprofit today (tax-deductible) or support us on Patreon to keep Locus afloat!
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4166
|
__label__wiki
| 0.936479
| 0.936479
|
Netflix Acquires Korean Drama Series ‘Mr. Sunshine’ For July Premiere
Deadline | 6/20/2018 | Denise Petski
jster97 (Posted by) Level 3
Click For Photo: https://pmcdeadline2.files.wordpress.com/2018/06/mr-sunshine-2.jpg?w=605
Netflix has licensed the new Korean original drama series Mr. Sunshine, from Descendants of the Sun creators Kim Eun-sook and Lee Eung-bok, for a worldwide premiere next month.
RelatedMcG Assembles Cast For Netflix Film 'Rim Of The World'
Kim - Lee - Mr - Sunshine - Netflix
Written by Kim and directed by Lee, the 24-episode Mr. Sunshine will premiere exclusively on Netflix starting July 7, with episodes streaming on the same day of its Korean broadcast in the U.S. and Asian territories excluding Korea. The series will then premiere in Japan on July 8 and the rest of the world on July 19.
Set in Shinmiyangyo, or the U.S. expedition to Korea in the late 19th century, Mr. Sunshine tells the story of a Korean boy born into a family of a house servant running away to board an American warship, later to return to his homeland as a US marine officer. He ironically falls in love with...
(Excerpt) Read more at: Deadline
‘mr
What You Probably Don’t Know about ‘The Least of These’ M Most Christians agree that caring for the poor and marginalized is a...
Moon dust is not to be sneezed at When the astronauts of the Apollo 11 mission returned to Earth, they had almost 22 kilograms...
‘Hill House’ Alum Oliver Jackson-Cohen Joins ‘Haunting of Bly Manor’ (Exclusive) “The Haunting of Hill House” alum Oliver...
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4167
|
__label__cc
| 0.645178
| 0.354822
|
OMG, the water's warm! NASA study solves glacier puzzle
phys.org | 6/22/2018 | Staff
magiccastle (Posted by) Level 4
6/22/2018 10:51 PM EST in SciTech
Click For Photo: https://3c1703fe8d.site.internapcdn.net/newman/gfx/news/hires/2018/omgthewaters.jpg
A new NASA study explains why the Tracy and Heilprin glaciers, which flow side by side into Inglefield Gulf in northwest Greenland, are melting at radically different rates.
Using ocean data from NASA's Oceans Melting Greenland (OMG) campaign, the study documents a plume of warm water flowing up Tracy's underwater face, and a much colder plume in front of Heilprin. Scientists have assumed plumes like these exist for glaciers all around Greenland, but this is the first time their effects have been measured.
Finding - Role - Oceans - Ice - Loss
The finding highlights the critical role of oceans in glacial ice loss and their importance for understanding future sea level rise. A paper on the research was published June 21 in the journal Oceanography.
Tracy and Heilprin were first observed by explorers in 1892 and have been measured sporadically ever since. Even though the adjoining glaciers experience the same weather and ocean conditions, Heilprin has retreated upstream less than 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) in 125 years, while Tracy has retreated more than 9.5 miles (15 kilometers). That means Tracy is losing ice almost four times faster than its next-door neighbor.
Kind - Puzzle - OMG - Campaign - Loss
This is the kind of puzzle OMG was designed to explain. The five-year campaign is quantifying ice loss from all glaciers that drain the Greenland Ice Sheet with an airborne survey of ocean and ice conditions around the entire coastline, collecting data through 2020. OMG is making additional boat-based measurements in areas where the seafloor topography and depths are inadequately known.
About a decade ago, NASA's Operation IceBridge used ice-penetrating radar to document a major difference between the glaciers: Tracy is seated on bedrock at a depth of about 2,000 feet (610 meters) below the ocean surface, while Heilprin extends only 1,100 feet (350 meters) beneath the waves.
Scientists - Difference - Melt - Rates - Ocean
Scientists would expect this difference to affect the melt rates, because the top ocean layer...
(Excerpt) Read more at: phys.org
To despair is to turn your back on God, you can never despair.
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4168
|
__label__cc
| 0.544081
| 0.455919
|
Casinos with Wire Transfer as deposit method
Omni Slots Info
Online since: March 2015
Software: Microgaming, Betsoft, RWG, Endorphina, Amatic, Netent, Evolution Gaming, Pariplay, Stakelogic, Gamomat, Wazdan
License: Curacao
Restricted countries: US, Hongkong, Italy, Malaysia, Netherlands
Currencies: Euro, US Dollars, Australian Dollars, Canadian Dollars, Swedish Kroner, Norwegian Kroner
Languages: English, Swedish, Norwegian, French, Spanish, Russian, German, Finnish
Support: Live chat, email
Welome bonus: 100% up to €300
Free spins: 50 free spins after your first deposit via Live Chat
Refer a friend: No
Tournaments: Yes
Loyalty program: No
Quick info I Video review
Video Review Omni Slots
I Video Review
Royal Panda Info
Online since: 2014
Software: Microgaming, Netent, Rabcat
License: Malta, UK
Restricted countries: US, Turkey, France, Italy, Israel, Belgium
Currencies: € - $ - £
Languages: English, Polish, Spanish, Portuguese, Swedish, Czech, Chinese, Finnish, Norwegian
Support: Live chat, phone, email
Free spins: 10 free spins on Starburst / No deposit needed
Tournaments: No
Loyalty program: Yes
Svenbet Info
Online since: November 2018
Software: Netent, Play'n Go, Pragmatic Play, Habanero, Playson, Betsoft, Red Tiger, iSoftbet, Gameart, Tom Horn, Endorphina, Fugaso, Spinomenal, Nextgen Gaming, Mr Slotty, Wazdan, Booming Games, Worldmatch, Multislot, Pariplay, Spigo
Restricted countries: USA, UK, Spain, Sweden, Greece
Currencies: Euro, US Dollars, British Pounds, Canadian Dollar, Australian Dollar, New Zealand Dollar, Norwegian Kroner, Japanese Yen
Languages: English, German, French, Spanish
Welome bonus: 120% up to €1200
Free spins: no
Campeonbet Info
Online since: June 2017
Software: Netent, Microgaming, Betsoft, Yggdrasil, Endorphina, Evolution Gaming, IGT, Nextgen Gaming, Play'n Go, Thunderkick, Quickspin, Playtech, iSoftbet, Genesis Gaming, 1x2 Gaming, Elk Studios, Big Time Gaming, Novomatic, Ezugi, Push Gaming, Lightning Box, iGaming2Go
Restricted countries: USA,UK,Greece, Spain, Sweden
Languages: English, Spanish, Norwegian, Portugees
Free spins: yes, 10 spins
Evobet Info
Software: Netent, Microgaming, Betsoft, Yggdrasil, Endorphina, Evolution Gaming, IGT, Nextgen Gaming, Play'n Go, Thunderkick, Quickspin, Cryptologic, Playtech, iSoftbet, 1x2 Gaming, Elk Studios, Ezugi, Push Gaming
Currencies: Euro, US Dollars, British Pounds, Canadian Dollar, Australian Dollar, New Zealand Dollar, Russian Rube, Japanese Yen
Languages: English, German, Dutch, French, Spanish
Casino Tropez Info
Restricted countries: Afghanistan, Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Belgium, Belize, Bulgaria
China, Cuba, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France Anditis Territories, Germany, Israel,Latvia,UK, US
Currencies: Euros, British pounds sterling, US dollars
Languages: English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Norwegian, Portugees, Polish, Russian, Swedish
Support: Live chat, email, phone
Welcome bonus: 100% up to €100
Refer a friend: Yes
Slots Magic Info
Software: NetEnt, SkillOnNet, WMS, NextGen Gaming, Amaya, Yggdrasil, Realistic Games, Play'n Go
IGT (WagerWorks)
License: Sweden, Malta, Denmark
Restricted countries: United States, Cyprus, Israel, Turkey, France, Mexico
Spain, Belgium, Denmark, Italy
Currencies: Australian dollars, Canadian dollars, Euros, Norwegian kroner
British pounds sterling, Russian rubles, South African Rand, Swedish kronor, Swiss francs
US dollars, Denmark kroner
Languages: Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Finnish, German, Hungarian, Italian
Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Swedish, French, Greek, Romanian, Russian, Turkish, Dutch
English, Slovenian, Spanish
Support: Email, phone
Welcome bonus: 100% up to €500 plus 50 free spins on game Flip Flap or 33 free spins
on South Park Slot
Free spins: 50 free spins on game Flip Flap or 33 free spins on game Starburst
EU Casino Info
Software: NetEnt, SkillOnNet, WMS, NextGen Gaming, Amaya
IGT (WagerWorks), Microgaming, Yggdrasil, Realistic Games, Play'n Go
License: Malta, Sweden
on South Park Slot and Gonzo's Quest
Casino Luck Info
Software: Microgaming, NetEnt, IGT (WagerWorks), Betsoft, iSoftBet, Play'n GO, Evolution Gaming, Nyx Interactiv
License: Curacao, Malta, UK, Sweden
Restricted countries: Turkey, United States, France, Spain, French Southern
and Antarctic Territories
Currencies: Australian dollars, Canadian dollars, Croatian kunas
Czech Republic korunas, Euros, Hungarian forints, Norwegian kroner, Polish zlotys
Turkish Lira, US dollars, Bulgarian leva, Romanian lei, Denmark kroner, Mexican pesos
South Korean won, Venezuelan bolívars, Georgian laris, Nigerian nairas, Chinese Renminbi
Israeli new sheqels, Peruvian nuevos soles
Languages: Chinese, Czech, English, German, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Spanish, Swedish, French, Russian, Turkish
Support: Email, Live chat
Welcome bonus: 100% up to €150 + 200 free spins
Casino Cruise Info
Software: Microgaming, NetEnt, Nyx Interactive, Play'n GO, VIVO Gaming, Evolution Gaming
Restricted countries: France, United States, Israel, Spain
Currencies: Australian dollars, British pounds sterling, Bulgarian leva, Canadian dollars, Croatian kunas, Czech Republic korunas, Denmark kroner, Euros, Georgian laris, Hungarian forints, Israeli new sheqels, Mexican pesos, Nigerian nairas, Norwegian kroner, Peruvian nuevos soles, Polish zlotys, Romanian lei, Russian rubles, South African Rand, South Korean won, Swedish kronor, Swiss francs, Turkish Lira, Ukrainian hryvnias, US dollars, Venezuelan bolívars
Languages: English, Finnish, German, Norwegian, Swedish, Russia
Support: Email, Live Chat, Phone
Stargames Casino Info
Software: Novomatic, Evolution Gaming
License: Malta
Restricted countries: United States, Spain
Currencies: Australian dollars, Euros, Hungarian forints, Malaysian ringgits, New Zealand dollars, Polish zlotys, British pounds sterling, Singapore dollars, Swiss francs
Languages: Croatian, Dutch, English, German, Hungarian, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, French, Turkish
Welcome bonus: Only Free spins on first deposit
Sugar Casino Info
Software: Microgaming, NetEnt, 1x2Gaming, Ezugi, iSoftbet
License: Gibraltar, UK
Restricted countries: United States and its territories:United States (US), US Minor Outlying Islands (UM), US Virgin Islands (VI)
Currencies: Euro, Dollars, Pound, Norwegian Kroner, Swedish Kroner
Languages: English, German, Finish
Welcome bonus: 100% up to €125 plus 55 free spins
Hello Casino Info
Software: 1x2 Gaming, 2by2Gaming, Amaya, Aristocrat, Betsoft, EIK, Ezugi, High 5 Games, iGaming2go, Leander, Multicommerce, Netent, Next Gen, Nyx Interactive, Thunderkick
License: Curacao, UK
Restricted countries: Belgium, France, Italy, United States, American Samoa, Guam, Israel, Northern Mariana Islands, Spain, Turkey, U.S. Minor Outlying Islands, U.S. Virgin Islands
Currencies: British pounds, Euros, Swedish kronor, US dollars, Australian dollars, Canadian dollars, South African Rand
Languages: English, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish
Free spins: Yes, 25 free spins with opening new account
Prime Slots Casino Info
Software: NetEnt, NeoGames, Amaya
Restricted countries: Antigua and Barbuda, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, China, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, France, French Guiana, French Polynesia, Guadelupe, Hong Kong, Israel, Martinique, Mayotte, Metropolitan France, New Caledonia, Philippines, Réunion, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Serbia, Spain, Turkey, U.S. Minor Outlying Islands, United States, Wallis and Futuna
Currencies: Australian dollars, Canadian dollars, Euros, Norwegian kroner, British pounds sterling, Swedish kronor, US dollars, Brazilian reals, Denmark kroner
Languages: English, Finnish, German, Norwegian, Swedish
Free spins (before deposit): 10 Free Spins
Viks Casino Info
Online since: January 2016
Software: Microgaming, NetEnt, Evolution Gaming, Nyx Interactive, Play'n GO, IGT, NextGen Gaming, Edict
Restricted countries: Afghanistan, Cambodia, Congo - Brazzaville, Congo - Kinshasa, Denmark, Estonia, Ethiopia, France, French Guiana, Guadelupe, Iran, Iraq, Italy, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Martinique, Mayotte, Moldova, New Caledonia, North Korea, Palestinian Territories, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Spain, Sudan, Syria, Turkey, United States, Wallis and Futuna, Western Sahara, Yeme
Currencies: Australian dollars, Bulgarian leva, Canadian dollars, Swiss francs, Chinese yuan, Czech Republic korunas, Denmark kroner, Euros, British pounds sterling, Georgian laris, Croatian kunas, Hungarian forints, South Korean won, Lithuanian litai, Mexican pesos, Nigerian nairas, Norwegian kroner, Peruvian nuevos soles, Polish zlotys, Romanian lei, Russian rubles, Swedish kronor, Turkish Lira, US dollars, Venezuelan bolívars, South African Rand
Welcome bonus: 100% up to €100 plus 20 free spins on Starburst
Free spins (before deposit): No
21 Casino Info
Online since: August 2015
Software: Netent, Microgaming, Blueprint Gaming, Nextgen Gaming, Leander Games, Thunderkick, Quickspin, Amaya, Aristocrat, Genesis Gaming, 1x2 Gaming, Elk Studios, 2by2 Gaming, Ezugi, Lightning Box
License: UK
Restricted countries: Afghanistan, Algeria, American Samoa, Angola, Austria, Belgium, Bolivia, Bulgaria, Cuba, Denmark, Ecuador, Ethiopia, France, Ghana, Guam, Guyana, Hungary, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Italy, Kenya, Lao Peoples Democratic Republic, Latvia, Malta, Myanmar, Nigeria, North Korea, Northern Mariana Islands, Pakistan, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Romania, Russia, Sao Tome and Principe, Singapore, Slovenia, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Syria, Tanzania, Thailand, Turkey, Uganda, United States, United States Minor Outlying Islands, Vietnam, Virgin Islands (U.S.), Yemen, Zimbabwe
Currencies: Australian dollars, British pounds sterling, Canadian dollars, Euros, Norwegian kroner, Swedish kronor, US dollars, South African Rand
Languages: English, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, German
Welcome bonus: 200% up to €10.000
Free spins (before deposit): Yes, 21 free spins
Royal Vegas Casino Info
Software: Microgaming
Restricted countries: United States, Afghanistan, Bulgaria, China, Cuba, Curaçao, Cyprus, Estonia, Hong Kong, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Libya, Macau, Netherlands Antilles, Philippines, Sudan, Syria, Turkey
Currencies: Australian dollars, Euros, New Zealand dollars, Norwegian kroner, British pounds sterling, Swedish kronor, Swiss francs, US dollars, Denmark kroner
Languages: Chinese, Dutch, English, German, Hungarian, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, French, Greek, Russian, Turkish
Support: Live chat, Email, Whatsapp, Skype
Casino 1 Info
Software: Netent, Nextgen Gaming, Thunderkick, Amaya, 1x2 Gaming, Elk Studios, Lightning Box, GameArt, Ainsworth
Restricted countries: United States, Israel
Currencies: Australian dollars, British pounds sterling, Canadian dollars, Euros, South African Rand, Swedish kronor, US dollars
Languages: English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Danish, Finish, Norwegian, Russian, Swedish
Joker Casino Info
Software: Netent, Microgaming, Betsoft, Endorphina, Evolution Gaming, Nextgen Gaming, Play'n Go, Thunderkick, Greentube, iSoftbet, 1x2 Gaming, Games OS, Elk Studios, Big Time Gaming, Lightning Box
License: Curacao, Malta
Restricted countries: United States of America, France, Poland, Denmark, UK
Currencies: US Dollars, British Pounds, Canadian Dollar, Australian Dollar, Norwegian Kroner, Swedish Kroner
Languages: English, German, French, Spanish, Finish, Greek, Norwegian, Swedish
Free spins (before deposit): Yes, 10 on Starburst
Wixstars Casino Info
Online since: December 2016
Software: NetEnt, Microgaming, Bally Technologies, Blueprint Gaming, Evolution Gaming, Nextgen Gaming, Play'n Go, Thunderkick, Quickspin, Barcrest, Amaya, Aristocrat, Elk Studios, Neogames, Realistic, Lightning Box
Restricted countries: All countries except: UK, Canada, Austria, Finland, Germany, Norway, Ireland, Netherlands, New Zealand
Currencies: Euro, British Pounds, Canadian Dollar, Norwegian Kroner, Swedish Kroner
Languages: English, German, Finish, Norwegian, Swedish
Welcome bonus: 150% up to €250 plus 100 free spins
Free spins (before deposit): Yes, 10 on Jungle Spirit
Mucho Vegas Casino Info
Software: Microgaming, NetEnt, Betsoft, 1x2Gaming, iSoftBet, GameArt, Intervision Gaming, Pragmatic Play
Restricted countries: Canada, Curaçao, Costa Rica, France, Italy, Malaysia, Mali, Netherlands, Panama, Spain, Switzerland, U.S. Minor Outlying Islands, U.S. Virgin Islands, United Kingdom, United States
Currencies: Argentine pesos, Australian dollars, Brazilian reals, Euros, British pounds sterling, Mexican pesos, Norwegian kroner, New Zealand dollars, Swedish kronor, US dollars, South African Rand
Languages: English, German, Finish, Spanish, Swedish
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4169
|
__label__cc
| 0.634841
| 0.365159
|
A first look at the Google Pixel 3a
Loving it’s as easy as ABC…
Anyone that has been to Google’s head office in London knows that it’s a pretty exciting place. So you can only imagine the buzz there with a new Google phone launch just weeks away.
We’re of course talking about the new Google Pixel 3a and Pixel 3a XL. After zooming up in a lift to a secure spot, we got to know the new phone by Google – which is loaded with premium specs but at half the price of the Pixel 3 – a little better. Here’s what we found out…
Loving the Google Pixel 3a is easy as A, B, C…
Literally - Assistant, Battery and Camera are the three main pillars of the device that Google want you to remember.
Google Assistant on the Pixel 3a
Kicking off with Google’s famed smart software. It’s the same grade that comes with the Google Pixel 3. As soon as we arrived, a Google expert took us through everything that makes Google Assistant so helpful.
Voice-powered speakers are the way Google envisions the internet being used – allowing people to stay more in the moment without getting side tracked by their device. For example, if you’re at a dinner party, you can ask Google a quick question to settle a debate without then getting lost in a sea of unsociable notifications.
Although Google Assistant is super smart, it’s only getting smarter. Sure, it can currently remind you of your haircut appointment but soon enough it’ll even be able to call the salon for you. If you haven’t already seen it, check out this demonstration of Google Assistant making a complex phone call to a hairdresser.
The battery will get you everywhere
The Pixel 3a comes with Qualcomm Quick Charge 4+, a fast charge technology which fuses together the features of USB Power Delivery and a powerful Qualcomm Charge. In other words – it charges up in a flash (well…almost).
You may not be able to charge the Pixel 3a wirelessly, but the battery is as big as the Pixel 3 flagship. The Pixel 3a has a 3,000 mAh while the Pixel 3a XL increases the battery to 3,700 mAh.
You’ll get through a whole day on the battery’s charge – whether you’re partial to a long lunchtime chat or get a bit snap happy on the camera. And, speaking of snap happy…
Let’s talk about that camera
Just like the Google Pixel 3, the camera on the Pixel 3a comes with a whole load of innovative camera tech. Google’s Night Sight mode continues to blow our mind. We tested it out for ourselves by taking pictures of a bouquet of flowers in an almost pitch-black setting – and wow, you’d have thought the room was very well lit.
The Pixel 3a has the same 12MP Dual-Pixel Rear Camera as the Pixel 3 (and as you already know the Google Pixel 3’s camera is a photo genius). It has it all – from Top Shot which cleverly plucks out the best photo from a burst, to Google’s Super Res Zoom tech which lets you get up close in pure clarity.
What else makes the Google Pixel 3a so great?
Price is a big headline for this phone. The fact that it does pretty much everything the Pixel 3 can do, at around half the price point is massive news to shout about.
And last but not least, the screen. The Pixel 3a houses a 5.6-inch FHD+ OLED screen. It’s bright, crystal clear and great to watch films on. Seriously – we tried but the guys at Google wanted their phone back. The Pixel 3a XL’s screen is a touch bigger at 6 inches and just as amazing in every way.
It’s safe to say, we left Google feeling excited about what this phone means for Google Pixel users. And also, what the tech juggernaut have up its sleeve for us next.
Get the Google Pixel 3a and Pixel 3a XL today
Topics: Mobile Phones, Google Pixel, Pixel Phone
The 6 best camera phones
One of the main features on any new smartphone is its camera, so we've created this list of the best
Google Pixel and Pixel XL hands on
The Pixel and Pixel XL are Google’s first ever smartphones. Let's take a look at what makes these de
Top smartphones of 2016
Are you thinking of buying a phone as a gift? If so, we're here to help. Here's our round-up of the
More in Reviews
Sony Xperia 1 hands on
What a performance! The Xperia 1 has a superb triple lens camera, the world’s first...
We visited Google’s head office in central London to catch a glimpse of its new highly-anticipated,...
Huawei P30 Lite hands on
The Huawei P30 Lite is a budget smartphone packed with premium features including...
Samsung Galaxy A80 hands on
The new Samsung Galaxy A80 has arrived - and it’s got all the specs you’d expect...
7 things we love about the Galaxy S10e
The Samsung Galaxy S10e might be the smallest of the S10 range, but it’s still got...
Samsung Galaxy S10 hands on
The Samsung Galaxy S10 is the flagship you’ve been waiting for - it’s everything...
5 things we love about the OnePlus 6T
The OnePlus 6T is a spectacular phone, packed with amazing tech. Thinking of getting...
Huawei Mate 20 Pro – Live from the launch
We’re at ExCel London, where Huawei has just unveiled its new Mate 20 Pro. And we’re...
Google Pixel 3 hands on
The Google Pixel 3 has arrived. We were luck enough to get our hands on it recently,...
All about the Apple Watch Series 4
Apple Watch Series 4 truly breaks the mould, with some incredible new features and...
Samsung Galaxy Note9 hands on
Samsung are back with perhaps their most exciting release of the summer – the Samsung...
Samsung Galaxy J6 hands on
Off the back of the Galaxy S9, Galaxy S9 Plus, Galaxy A8 and the Galaxy A6, let us...
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4170
|
__label__wiki
| 0.547412
| 0.547412
|
Winter Jazzfest 2015, Night One: More and Less Transcendent Moments
What’s the likelihood of seeing both the ICP Orchestra and Dave Douglas on the same night? If you’re at the Rotterdam Jazz Festival, that’s hardly out of the question. And that’s why, despite its many issues, Winter Jazzfest is always worth coming out for.
“We’re the Instant Composers Pool, from Amsterdam,” bassist Ernst Glerum almost gleefully told the crowd who’d gathered close to the stage yesterday evening at le Poisson Rouge for a rare US appearance by the ten-piece surrealistic swing unit. That pun is intentional: their closest US counterpart is the Microscopic Septet, although where the two groups share an irrepressible wit, the Instant Composers are heftier and a lot trippier, given to absurdist call-and-response, round robin hijinks that can either be deadpan or completely over the top, and long dissociative interludes. There was plenty of that in their all-too-brief, roughly 45-minute set, but there was also a lingering, disquieted, crepuscular quality as well.
When he wasn’t dancing around the stage and directing split-second bursts from the horns and the reeeds, cellist Tristan Honsinger traded incisively airy lines with violinist Mary Oliver. Pianist Uri Caine, subbing for octogenarian legend Misha Mengelberg – chilling back in Holland – stayed pretty much within himself while the horns pulsed and sputtered and then pulled together with a wistfully ambered gleam. Extrovert drummer Han Bennink – who has more than a little Mel Taylor in him – threw elbows and jabs on his toms to keep the audience on their toes, especially in the most trad moments. What distinguishes this crew from the other satirical acts out there is their command of swing, and the gravitas that was in as full effect as the comedic bits. The audience screamed for an encore and were treated to a tantalizingly austere, string-driven miniature.
Douglas is another guy who infuses his music with plenty of wit, if it’s more on the dry side. On a night where a lot of the best acts were off limits, interminable lines stretching down the sidewalk outside several venues, what a treat it was to go up the stairs into Judson Church to see the trumpeter doing his usual mix of melodic splendor along with the pastoral soul that’s become part and parcel for him lately. Pianist Matt Mitchell colored both the Americana and the spiritual-based material with an upper-register, reflecting-pool gleam as Douglas and tenor saxophonist Troy Roberts ranged from homespun reflection to judiciously placed flurries of bop. Both bassist Linda Oh and drummer Rudy Royston kept their cards close to the vest as the rhythms would stray outside and then return to within the lines. And how cool was it to watch Royston feel the room, letting its natural reverb do the heavy lifting throughout his shuffles and spirals? Extremely. The highlight of the set was JFK: The Airport – “Not an endorsement,” Douglas said emphatically – a bristling, hypercaffeinated clave-cinema theme whose understated exasperation, channeled by Douglas and guest trumpeter Avishai Cohen, was characteristically spot-on.
Because Winter Jazzfest has such an embarrasment of riches to choose from, it’s hard not to be greedy: when an enticing set is sold out, as many tend to be, you have to be resourceful and willing to roll with the punches. Marc Ribot’s set with a string section at one of the off-Broadway theatres had a ridiculously long line of hopefuls waiting in vain to get in. But back at the church, Battle Trance were more than an impromptu Plan B: what a revelation the tenor sax quartet – Travis Laplante, Matthew Nelson, Jeremy Viner and Patrick Breiner – turned out to be. Beginning with barely a whisper, negotiating their way calmly and envelopingly through a baroque-tinged, cleverly polyrhythmic, interlocking minimalist sonic lattice, they rose to a mighty exchange of glisses (Coltrane would call them arpeggios), an understated display of extended technique and circular breathing. Throughout their set, they literally breathed as a single entity. In its most vigorous moments, their performance had the same raw power and chops that bass saxophonist Colin Stetson showed off at last year’s festival.
As for the rest of the night, there seemed to be more non-jazz acts than usual on the bill. An ensemble playing a Donald Byrd tribute opened for the ICPs, vamping on a chord or two, one of the jams sounding like a bluesier take on Pink Floyd’s The Great Gig in the Sky. Which wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t jazz either. Up the block, Brandee Younger – who’s made a lot of waves at her recent slate of shows at Minton’s uptown, being heralded as the next Dorothy Ashby – shared the stage with a tightly swinging if generic funk band whose own vamps subsumed the jazz harpist’s tersely ringing, starkly blues-drenched phrasing. There was no small irony in the fact that even such a stereotypically Bleecker Street band would have probably had a hard time getting a gig there under usual circumstances, considering their slightly unorthodox instrumentation. Perish the thought that the Jersey tourists would have to contend with something they’d never heard before. “Is that a hwawp?”
Winter Jazzfest continues tonight, Saturday, Jan 10 starting a little after six PM: ticket pickup starts a half-hour beforehand at Judson Church. If you’re going you’d best get there on time.
January 10, 2015 Posted by delarue | concert, jazz, Live Events, Music, music, concert, New York City, review, Reviews | and Patrick Breiner, avishai cohen trumpet, battle trance, battle trance review, brandee younger, concert, concert review, Dave Douglas, dave douglas judson, dave douglas review, ernst glerum, han bennink, icp orchestra, icp orchestra poisson rouge, icp orchestra poisson rouge review, icp orchestra review, jazz, jeremy viner, linda oh, mary oliver violin, matt mitchell piano, Matthew Nelson, misha mengelberg, Music, music review, rudy royston, Travis Laplante, tristan honsinger, troy roberts, uri caine, winter jazzfest, winter jazzfest 2015 review, winter jazzfest review, witnter jazzfest 2015 | Leave a comment
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4171
|
__label__cc
| 0.691541
| 0.308459
|
Exploring the evidence : young people's specialist substance misuse treatment
Report gathering together evidence for effective treatment of substance misuse by young people aged 18 and under and intended for professionals who deliver specialist substance misuse treatment services for young people.
Read more about Exploring the evidence : young people's specialist substance misuse treatment
Juvenile offending and long-term criminals (Radio 4 series: Thinking Allowed)
This episode of Radio 4's Thinking Allowed series includes a segment on juvenile offending and looks at a new study which brings up to date the stories of fifty men first encountered as boys in an American reform school in the 1950s.
Laurie Taylor meets Professor John Laub to find out what the boys' subsequent biographies have to tell us about a widely accepted linkage between juvenile offending and long-term criminal careers. The segment is second in the audio clip after a segment on dirt and cleanliness.
Read more about Juvenile offending and long-term criminals (Radio 4 series: Thinking Allowed)
The advice needs of young people - the evidence : key research evidence on young people's needs for advice on social welfare issues
Report looking at young people's advice needs in connection with social welfare rights questions such as housing and homelessness. It presents the available evidence and attempts to explain the implications of the evidence. It is intended as a comprehensive source of information for anyone interested in or concerned with this subject.
Read more about The advice needs of young people - the evidence : key research evidence on young people's needs for advice on social welfare issues
Children's hearing system: primary teaching pack
These materials are intended to support teachers and pupils through their learning about the Children’s Hearings system.
Read more about Children's hearing system: primary teaching pack
Independent review of restraint in juvenile secure settings
Report of a review of the use of physical restraint on young people in custody conducted in the wake of the deaths of two young men in secure training centres in which restraint played a part and making recommendations on restraint procedures and practice.
Read more about Independent review of restraint in juvenile secure settings
Adolescent development and the regulation of youth crime
Paper examining the changing trends in the U.S. youth justice system since the end of the nineteenth century and arguing that a new model should be constructed for the 21st century based on the concept of placing young offenders in an intermediate category, separate from children and adults.
Read more about Adolescent development and the regulation of youth crime
Children's hearings : the 1999 Kilbrandon child care lecture
This resource is the fourth in a series of lectures designed to honour the memory and achievement of Lord Kilbrandon who wrote one of the most influential policy statements on how a society should deal with 'children in trouble'.
This lecture discusses the influence of a child's formative years on their subsequent adult behaviour and the role of the parent.
Read more about Children's hearings : the 1999 Kilbrandon child care lecture
Towards a popular, preventative youth justice system
In 1998 Labour made significant reforms to the youth justice system. A decade later these have failed to reduce offending. This report proposes ways in which the youth justice system could reduce offending, as well as ways of creating public confidence in the system. Contents include: why we need a new approach to youth justice; a tale of two targets - why a new approach is needed; objectives, barriers to, and new principles of youth justice; can a new direction be preventative?; will the public support popular preventionism?
Read more about Towards a popular, preventative youth justice system
Children's hearings : The second Kilbrandon child care lecture (1995)
The second in a series of lectures designed to honour the memory and achievement of Lord Kilbrandon who wrote one of the most influential policy statements on how a society should deal with 'children in trouble'. The lecture was delivered by Fred Stone - Emeritus Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, University of Glasgow - on 12 October 1995.
Read more about Children's hearings : The second Kilbrandon child care lecture (1995)
Personalised support provides opportunities for young offenders
Case study from Wiltshire describing a programme designed to support young offenders about to be released and provide them with assistance to find either employment or educational opportunities. Also offered are implementation tips for others interested in starting similar programmes.
Read more about Personalised support provides opportunities for young offenders
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4175
|
__label__wiki
| 0.564124
| 0.564124
|
Sort By Auction End Date (Ascending) Auction End Date (Descending) Item Name Price (Ascending) Price (Descending) Vintage (Ascending) Vintage (Descending) Best Selling
Your search returned 14398 results
Include Out of Stock Items in this search?
Matching Products (14398)
2016 Liparita Oakville Cabernet Sauvignon (Previously $60)
The historic Liparita label traces its origin all the way back to the late 1800s. The founder, William Keyes, was an early pioneer in the history of California winemaking, having been among the first to designate an appellation wine with his...
Available At: Hollywood, Redwood City, Main Warehouse, San Francisco
Suntory Hakushu 12 Year Old Japanese Peated Single Malt Whisky (limit 12) (750ml)
91 points Wine Enthusiast "This golden, silky single malt mingles vanilla and honey with fresh apple and pear aromas. These notes are echoed on the palate alongside a wave of peat smoke. Add a splash of water to offset the mode..." (12/2015)
WE: 91
Available At: Redwood City, Main Warehouse, San Francisco
Limit of 12 per customer
2016 Celler de Capçanes "Mas Donis" Old Vines Montsant
94 points Jeb Dunnuck "The finest vintage of this cuvée to date, the 2016 Mas Donis Old Vines is 85% Garnacha and 15% Syrah (the Grenache comes from a single parcel called Donis) that was 70% destemmed and aged primarily in..." (04/2019)
JD: 94
Suntory "Hibiki Japanese Harmony" Japanese Whisky (750ml)
91 points Wine Enthusiast "The newest blended whisky offering from Hibiki is burnished gold in the glass and has a bold aroma that mixes vanilla, fresh pear and a hint of smoke. The smokiness comes forward at the first sip, wra..." (03/2016)
WE: 91 WA: 90
Jean-Jacques Lamoureux Pinot Blanc Champagne
We only received 300 bottles of this all Pinot Blanc rarity from Lamoureux, an all- estate-grown Champagne from Les Riceys, just three miles from the border with Burgundy. This comes from a half-acre parcel that only yields one press load each...
Springbank 22 Year Old "Sovereign Wax Top - K&L Exclusive" Single Barrel Cask Strength Single Malt Whisky (750ml) (Pre-Arrival)
We had an exceptional cask of Springbank last year that sold out after almost no effort on our part. We only received 78 bottles from that cask because it had supposedly been split with another market. As it turns out, we might have found the rest...
Available At: Main Warehouse
2016 Fèlsina "Rancia" Chianti Classico Riserva (Pre-Arrival)
97 points Decanter "The south-facing Rancia vineyard reaches altitudes of 420 metres, overlooking the lower-lying vineyards of Colli Senesi. It boasts complex soils of calcareous clay layered with the chalky white limest..." (02/2019)
DC: 97 VN: 94-97 JS: 96 RP: 96
2016 Grand Napa "Master Red" Napa Valley Red Blend (Previously $85)
93 points Robert Parker's Wine Advocate "The 2016 Master Red is a blend of 40% Cabernet Sauvignon, 32% Merlot and 28% Cabernet Franc. Deep garnet-black in color, it opens with aromas of kirsch, Black Forest cake and blackcurrant cordial with..." (12/2018)
RP: 93
Domaine de la Colombe is based in the village of Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume, located at elevations between 900 and 1,300 feet. The terroir includes clay-limestone soils in combination with sandier soils in the valley. ...
2007 Don Q "Limited Edition" Single Barrel Rum 750ml (Previously $37)
The Puerto Rican rum Don Q has a history stretching back to 1865 but the brand only relaunched in the continental United States in 2006. The 2007 "Limited Edition" is only the second such special offering by the distillery and was aged for 10 years...
Available At: Hollywood, Main Warehouse, San Francisco
Launois "Veuve Clemence" Brut Blanc de Blancs Champagne
The Veuve Clemence gets four years of aging on the lees to the Reserve's three, and comes from older vineyards. They are both entirely estate-grown, Grand Cru Chardonnay. Before now, this cuvee was only available for the French market, but because...
Launois "Cuvée Reserve" Brut Blanc de Blancs Champagne
This 100% estate grown, Grand Cru blanc de blancs is made entirely with old Chardonnay selections from Mesnil, Cramant, and Oger. This is our number one most re-purchased Champagne, and it is often sold out!...
2018 Domaine des Côtes Blanches Sancerre
Domaine Côtes Blanches was established in the 1930s by Bernard and Pierre Millet. In 1980, it was time for the second generation to take the reins, so François and Monique expanded the estate to 21 hectares of vines (15 Sauvignon, 6 Pinot Noir)....
91 points James Suckling "Pretty perfume of cherries and dried flowers which follow through to a full body with driven acidity. Round and juicy. A fresh and delicious young wine. Drink now." (09/2018)Robert Parker's Wine Advocate "The 2016 Chianti Colli Senesi (90% Sa..." (10/2018)
JS: 91
91 points Wine Enthusiast "With its rich red fruits, this wine is full, generous and definitely food friendly. A touch of pepper from the 60% Grenache in the blend gives this warm wine a touch of spice. Drink now. (RV)" (06/2019)Robert Parker's Wine Advocate "Intriguin..." (04/2019)
This has become a go-to favorite for customers and staff alike at K&L. Priced at a level that allows for corks to pop any old time it suits you, the Montechiara phenomenon continues to gain followers by the day. See for yourself why this value sparkler...
2008 Dom Pérignon Brut Champagne
98 points Jeb Dunnuck "The 2008 Dom Pérignon is the first time the estate has released a wine out of order (the 2009 was released before the 2008) but the estate loved the wine so much they felt it warranted additional agin..." (12/2018)
JD: 98 JS: 98 VN: 98 JG: 97 DC: 96 RP: 96 WS: 96
2001 Coufran, Haut-Médoc
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate "This is a medium-bodied, elegant wine offering up scents of plums, cherries, and loamy soil. With good sweetness, an attractive flavor profile, low acidity, and ripe tannin, it should provide enjoymen..." (04/2003)
2015 Bodegas Casa Juan Señor de Lesmos Crianza Rioja
As is the case with so many other great spots in Spain, Bodega Casa Juan is located opposite the village church, in the beautiful walled pueblo of Laguardia. The winery is a converted flour mill, featuring concrete tanks for fermenting and blending...
Mas Codina Cava Brut Reserva Penedès
Club Price: $9.99
Mas Codina is a 40-hectare estate in Penedès which dates back to 1681. This Brut Reserva Cava was hand-harvested from 25- to 40-year-old vines and estate-bottled. Though it does not say it on the label, the current disgorgement is based entirely...
90 points Decanter "Gentle apple-aniseed aroma and flavour. Clean and persistent with manifest concentration and a bone dry finish. A well made, elegant wine. (2019 DWWA)" (05/2019) Antech's Brut Nature is produced with no added do...
DC: 90
2016 Château de Montfaucon Côtes du Rhône
90 points Robert Parker's Wine Advocate "The silky 2016 Côtes du Rhône is a blend of Grenache, Syrah, Carignan, Cinsault and Counoise. Cherries, garrigue and leather notes all come together in this medium to full-bodied but gentle, elegant w..." (11/2018)
2015 Tongue in Groove "Cabal Vineyard" Pinot Noir Waipara Valley
95 points Sam Kim "Seductive, fragrant and engaging, the bouquet shows dark fruit, smoked game, cedar, black olive and truffle aromas, leading to a silky-smooth palate that is fleshy and velvety. The wine offers delecta..." (06/2018)
SK: 95 RC: 94-95 BC: 93 JS: 93 RP: 91 WS: 91
Available At: Hollywood, Redwood City, San Francisco
2018 Franck Millet Sancerre Blanc
90 points Decanter " Leaf, stone fruit and mint bouquet and palate. Restrained style which may well develop further in bottle. Long, mineral-laden finish. (2019 DWWA)" (05/2019) The Millet Sancerre has been a favorite here at K&L fo...
About this producer: "Standing above the village of Flassans-sur-Isole, in the heart of the hills of the Var, the Commanderie de Peyrassol was founded in the 13th century by the Knights Templar. This great expanse of fertile soil was a popular...
2017 Domaine de Verquière Côtes-du-Rhône
The Verquière estate has been passed down from father to son for many generations and is now managed by brothers Romain and Thibaut Chamfort. Following age-old traditions and sustainable practices, the estate was recently certified organic....
2016 Seghesio Sonoma County Zinfandel
93 points Wine Spectator "Plump and loaded with rich, jammy fruit, this Zinfandel is a pleasure to drink. Bold accents of wild berry, spicy cinnamon and licorice glide dynamically toward plush tannins. Drink now through 2025. ..." (06/2018)
WS: 93
Launois "Severine" Brut Blanc de Blancs Champagne
This exotic, all-Mesnil Grand Cru Blanc de Blancs is made in oak barrels coopered from oak grown in Mesnil. It is named after Severine Launois, the current generation making the wines. We were only able to secure five cases of this!...
93 points Wine Spectator "Graphite, blackberry and cherry flavors are accented by almond and iron notes in this firmly structured, pure version. Tightens up on the extensive finish, yet all the components are in place for a lo..." (09/2018)
WS: 93 VN: 92 JS: 91
90 points Wine Spectator "A bright and distinctive white, offering lively lemon zest, honeysuckle, quinine and tangerine notes mixed together, with good zip. *Best Values* (JM)" (11/2018)Wine Enthusiast "From vineyards located in the east of Corsica, thi..." (11/2018)
Dérot-Delugny "Cuvée Fondateurs" Brut
This incredible bottle is a true unicorn Champagne--all Pinot Gris! This is the only Champagne that I have ever had made exclusively from this variety that is now nearly extinct in the region. While it is exotic on the nose, the back end is all Champagne...
Available At: Hollywood
2015 Opus One Napa Valley Bordeaux Blend
98 points James Suckling "Purity and brilliance on the nose with so much currant and flower character. Roses, currant bush and fresh leaves, too. Brightness is the word that comes to mind. Full-bodied and broad-shouldered. Jui..." (12/2018)
JS: 98 RP: 97 VN: 97
2010 Launois "Spécial Club" Brut Blanc de Blancs Champagne (750ml - ships as 1.5L)
Without a doubt, this is one of the best Champagnes we carry at any price. Made from two plots of 65-year-old vines, one in the grand cru of Oger called "Chenys" and one in Mesnil called "Derriere Maison," this is among the ultimate expressions...
2015 Yves Cheron "Les Dentelles" Côtes du Rhône (Previously $13)
92 points Robert Parker's Wine Advocate "I was blown away by the 2015 Côtes du Rhône Yves Cheron les Dentelles. Made from 65% Grenache and 35% Syrah aged all in cement, it’s a big, rich, full-bodied beauty that’s loaded with notions of kirsc..." (12/2016)
2017 Domaine de Millet Colombard-Ugni Blanc Côtes de Gascogne Blanc
Côtes de Gascogne is primarily known for the production of Armagnac; it wasn’t until the last 20 years or so that producers began to take table wine production seriously. Traditionally, these wines would have been distilled into Armagnac....
Available At: Hollywood, Redwood City, Main Warehouse
2016 Domaine Petroni Corse Rouge (Corsica)
94 points Jeb Dunnuck "Also a mix of Niellucciu and Syrah, the 2016 Corse Domaine Petroni came from granite soils along the Mediterranean and was raised all in demi-muids. This medium to full-bodied beauty certainly makes a..." (07/2018)
2018 Domaine Petroni Corse Rosé (Corsica)
Corsica is one of the great, off-the-radar regions for wine production. The vineyards for Petroni date back to 1885 and are surrounded by the Corsican mountains to the west and the Mediterranean to the east. The winery is now in the hands of brothers...
2017 GRÜNER by Etz Grüner Veltliner Kamptal (1L)
This is fresh, minerally and crisp, with that classic Grüner white pepper lift to the nose and tangy green apple and snap pea flavors on the palate. In an easy to open, liter-sized bottle, it's a refreshing go-to for a variety of green salads or...
2016 Emerson Brown Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon (Elsewhere $50)
93 points Jeb Dunnuck "These wines are made by Keith Emerson at the Vineyard 29 winemaking facility. Looking first at the 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley, this beauty is 100% varietal and was brought up in 40% new Frenc..." (01/2019)
JD: 93 VN: 91
2005 Bodegas Casa Juan Señor de Lesmos Gran Reserva Rioja
92 points James Suckling "This has a beautiful depth of fruit with spice and dark fruits. Hints of parsley and cilantro. Full and super silky with a long and beautiful finish." (04/2012) Finally, the great 2005 Gran Reserva from our favor...
2015 Laventura "Lanave" Rioja
90 points Robert Parker's Wine Advocate "The 2015 Lanave is a new 50/50 blend of Garnacha and Tempranillo, where the Garnacha from Rioja Baja should provide red fruit and the Tempranillo from Rioja Alavesa gives structure. It fermented in co..." (02/2018)
Clynelish 21 Year Old "Sovereign Wax Top - K&L Exclusive" Single Barrel Cask Strength Single Malt Whisky (750ml) (Pre-Arrival)
To say there has been a renaissance in interest in the unusually special distillery in the town of Brora would be an understatement. While the owners seem to be uninterested in further expanding the distillery's repertoire beyond the standard...
93 points Wine Enthusiast "Delicious and loaded with personality, this structured, medium-bodied white opens with bread crust, yellow stone fruit, citrus zest, honey and toasted almond aromas that follow through to the juicy, e..." (07/2018)
WE: 93 JS: 91
2017 Domaine de Fondrèche Ventoux Rouge
91-93 points Jeb Dunnuck 93 points Jeb Dunnuck "Cassis, blackberries, violets, and an undeniable minerality all emerge from the 2017 Ventoux Domaine, which is seamless and incredibly well balanced on the palate. Pure, layered, and fabulously textur..." (08/2018)
JD: 91-93 RP: 90-92
2018 Domaine de Fondrèche Ventoux Rosé
According to the importer, "Domaine de Fondrèche estate is situated at the foot of Mont Ventoux, the famous mountain in the Vaucluse department of the South of France, and covers a surface area of 38 hectares. For over twenty years the vineyard...
Launois "Quartz" Blanc de Blancs Brut Champagne
The Quartz all comes from the famous Chettilons parcel and has four atmospheres (59psi) of pressure instead of the normal six (88psi). While I would be hard pressed to tell by looking at or tasting this Champagne that it has lighter carbonation,...
Pablo Härri arrived in Italy from Switzerland in the early '80s and met his partner and wife Claudia Ferrero while both were working at a large winery in Montalcino. The two started a family and in 2002 built their own winery in a restored barn and...
2013 Tenuta di Sesta Brunello di Montalcino
93 points Robert Parker's Wine Advocate "Here's a fresh and lovely red wine from Southern Tuscany. The 2013 Brunello di Montalcino offers a very bright and lively quality of fruit that you don't often get with Brunello, a wine that ages for ..." (06/2018)
RP: 93 JS: 92 VN: 91 WE: 91
Available At: Redwood City
Caves Messias Santola "Crab Wine" Vinho Verde
Produced from Loureiro and Pederña grapes grown in the granitic soils of the Vinho Verde region, the Santola (or as we here are calling it, "the crab wine") is a delicious, spritely and refreshing white. It doesn't get much more traditional,...
2017 Domaine Lafage "Cuvée Centenaire" Côtes du Roussillon Blanc
92 points Jeb Dunnuck "I loved the 2017 Côtes du Roussillon Centenaire from Jean-Marc. This smoking good white is 80% Grenache Blanc (and Grenache Gris) and 20% Roussanne brought up in 30% new barrels. It comes from older v..." (11/2018)
JD: 92 RP: 90-92
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4176
|
__label__cc
| 0.742111
| 0.257889
|
Starting order to Leg 1
Starting order to Leg 1, section 2
Rally Guanajuato México 2018
Date and time SS Information
13. 03. 2018 01:56 CET 22 (61 - Williams Tom / Hall Phil): retired after SS 22
13. 03. 2018 01:55 CET 22 (89 - Jocius Deividas / Zvicevičius Donatas): time limit exceeded after SS 22
12. 03. 2018 11:36 CET 22 (83 - Name Francisco / Zapata Armando): excluded - flywheel weight
12. 03. 2018 01:35 CET 22 (1 - Ogier Sébastien / Ingrassia Julien): Stage time raised up by 10 sec penalty for not going correctly through chicane.
11. 03. 2018 20:33 CET 22 (1 - Ogier Sébastien / Ingrassia Julien): It's fantastic. It's such a special place for me. I've now had podiums and four victories. I knew our chances would be slim starting second on the road but we never gave up and the car was fantastic.
11. 03. 2018 20:32 CET 22 (10 - Meeke Kris / Nagle Paul): I had the pace, car and road position to win this rally and I didn't do the job. I've never been so frustrated with a third place. I need to tidy my game up.
11. 03. 2018 20:31 CET 22 (4 - Mikkelsen Andreas / Jæger Anders): I tried to keep it clean and a good pace. I'm happy enough with that stage. It could be really important points to take away.
11. 03. 2018 19:55 CET 22 Tänak and Neuville have delayed their Power Stage start in a bid to obtain better road conditions which they hope will maximise their Power Stage bonus points.
11. 03. 2018 19:54 CET 22 (7 - Latvala Jari-Matti / Anttila Miikka): I had a very good feeling. I said to Miika [Anttila, co-driver] I couldn't really drive any better. It was a good stage for us.
11. 03. 2018 19:53 CET 22 (9 - Lappi Esapekka / Ferm Janne): On the narrow road it's going well but on the wide road I was very bad. I was too wide in many places and too fast. I lost a lot of time.
11. 03. 2018 19:15 CET 22 POWER STAGE RUNNING ORDER: 1.Tidemand, 2.Tänak, 3.Suninen, 4.Lappi, 5.Latvala, 6.Neuville, 7.Loeb, 8.Mikkelsen, 9.Meeke, 10.Sordo, 11.Ogier
11. 03. 2018 18:14 CET 21 (31 - Tidemand Pontus / Andersson Jonas): The car is working well. I can get it to do whatever I want.
11. 03. 2018 18:13 CET 21 (8 - Tänak Ott / Järveoja Martin): I was checking a couple of places for the Power Stage but trying to save the tyres for that stage as well.
11. 03. 2018 17:45 CET 21 (9 - Lappi Esapekka / Ferm Janne): I wasn't brave enough. Not a good stage.
11. 03. 2018 17:43 CET 21 (7 - Latvala Jari-Matti / Anttila Miikka): It's going very well.
11. 03. 2018 17:42 CET 21 (1 - Ogier Sébastien / Ingrassia Julien): The grip is not so high in there but there are some fast, fluid sections.
11. 03. 2018 17:42 CET 21 (10 - Meeke Kris / Nagle Paul): I just have to get through and protect my third place.
11. 03. 2018 17:41 CET 21 (6 - Sordo Dani / Del Barrio Carlos): With Kris's problems in the first stage this morning, we can drive a bit more easily now.
11. 03. 2018 17:28 CET 21 (4 - Mikkelsen Andreas / Jæger Anders): I was trying to explore the limits but luckily it wasn't a hard hit. Unfortunately, it took a while to restart the car.
11. 03. 2018 17:23 CET 21 (4 - Mikkelsen Andreas / Jæger Anders): hit a bank
11. 03. 2018 17:22 CET 21 (11 - Loeb Sébastien / Elena Daniel): I had fun in the car. I was a bit careful.
11. 03. 2018 17:20 CET 21 (5 - Neuville Thierry / Gilsoul Nicolas): It was very loose. I tried to give my best in this stage to see if the pace notes are okay but I was struggling with the handling of the car.
11. 03. 2018 16:05 CET 20 (8 - Tänak Ott / Järveoja Martin): Everything's good. Let's wait until the Power Stage. We'll try our best, for sure.
11. 03. 2018 15:57 CET 20 (9 - Lappi Esapekka / Ferm Janne): The dust is hanging here and there, but it's okay.
11. 03. 2018 15:56 CET 20 (7 - Latvala Jari-Matti / Anttila Miikka): We had a very good feeling and a good run. I'm really happy with the time. The car feels great.
11. 03. 2018 15:52 CET 20 (1 - Ogier Sébastien / Ingrassia Julien): We've taken the optimum tyre choice for the Power Stage, not for this one.
11. 03. 2018 15:50 CET 20 (10 - Meeke Kris / Nagle Paul): I just was just coming on to the cobbles and the car slid. A deep gulley on the outside caught a wheel and put us on our side.
11. 03. 2018 15:49 CET 20 (10 - Meeke Kris / Nagle Paul): rolls at the end of the stage, but continue with help of spectators
11. 03. 2018 15:46 CET 20 (6 - Sordo Dani / Del Barrio Carlos): I had a lot of dust in the middle of the stage. I tried to enjoy it and I'm happy with the car. If we can finish on the podium that would be good.
11. 03. 2018 15:42 CET 20 (4 - Mikkelsen Andreas / Jæger Anders): We did some changes to the car yesterday and it felt better thismorning. I'm in more control of the rear.
11. 03. 2018 15:42 CET 20 (11 - Loeb Sébastien / Elena Daniel): It was a good feeling in the stage; it was fun to drive on the loose. It's been a long time since I've done that.
11. 03. 2018 15:41 CET 20 (5 - Neuville Thierry / Gilsoul Nicolas): It's all about saving the tyres for the Power Stage. I had a very smooth run through this stage.
13. 03. 2018 01:53 CET 19 (61 - Williams Tom / Hall Phil): retired in SS 19
13. 03. 2018 01:53 CET 18 (83 - Name Francisco / Zapata Armando): retired in SS 18
11. 03. 2018 00:40 CET 16 (38 - Greensmith Gus / Parry Craig): It's been pretty good and I haven't made any mistakes. I just wanted to be consistent and we've done that.
11. 03. 2018 00:39 CET 16 (31 - Tidemand Pontus / Andersson Jonas): I'm really enjoying it. Everything is working really well and I'd like to thank everyone who help me.
11. 03. 2018 00:19 CET 16 (1 - Ogier Sébastien / Ingrassia Julien): Perfect day. I've pushed as hard as I could. We have a bit of tyre wear now so I didn't push as hard as I would have wanted.
11. 03. 2018 00:18 CET 16 (4 - Mikkelsen Andreas / Jæger Anders): I'm trying but still I'd like to be faster...
11. 03. 2018 00:17 CET 16 (7 - Latvala Jari-Matti / Anttila Miikka): I pushed maximum...I couldn't go faster.
11. 03. 2018 00:10 CET 16 (5 - Neuville Thierry / Gilsoul Nicolas): I was sliding a lot at the start and then I hit a ditch and realised I might have a puncture. That's when I slowed down a lot.
10. 03. 2018 23:58 CET 15 (6 - Sordo Dani / Del Barrio Carlos): No risk because of one spare tyre. I had to go very slow.
10. 03. 2018 23:56 CET 15 (11 - Loeb Sébastien / Elena Daniel): No big risk because we have only one spare tyre.
10. 03. 2018 23:53 CET 15 (10 - Meeke Kris / Nagle Paul): I had a spin and had to go back in the dust and turn around. We've lost 30 seconds easily. Too many little and stupid mistakes this weekend.
10. 03. 2018 23:51 CET 15 (1 - Ogier Sébastien / Ingrassia Julien): Lot of sandy sections that are slippy so it was hard to push but I tried.
10. 03. 2018 23:46 CET 15 (4 - Mikkelsen Andreas / Jæger Anders): We are trying to change set up of the car for little bit better before the corners.
10. 03. 2018 23:43 CET 15 (7 - Latvala Jari-Matti / Anttila Miikka): Everything is ok but we're a bit on the limit with the temperatures. It's hard for the cars.
10. 03. 2018 23:41 CET 15 (5 - Neuville Thierry / Gilsoul Nicolas): I tried a new differentials mapping and it suddenly locked the wheels and we hit the bank. I've now changed the map back...
13. 03. 2018 01:51 CET 14 (36 - Solans Nil / Ibañez Miquel): retired in SS 14
10. 03. 2018 22:27 CET 14 (38 - Greensmith Gus / Parry Craig): I took soft tyres to try something new because we are in the middle of nowhere. It didn't work, the time isn't very good but it's knowledge. I can take it into next year.
10. 03. 2018 22:05 CET 14 (6 - Sordo Dani / Del Barrio Carlos): There was a small stone at the beginning of the stage. The tyre broke...
10. 03. 2018 22:03 CET 14 (11 - Loeb Sébastien / Elena Daniel): I hit a stone on the line. Nothing really bad. I didn't think I would have a puncture.
10. 03. 2018 21:58 CET 14 (10 - Meeke Kris / Nagle Paul): In five corners I probably lost a tenth of a second. I couldn't do much in there.
10. 03. 2018 21:56 CET 14 (11 - Loeb Sébastien / Elena Daniel): stopped to change a front puncture in SS14
10. 03. 2018 21:53 CET 14 (1 - Ogier Sébastien / Ingrassia Julien): I was pushing hard!
10. 03. 2018 21:52 CET 14 (4 - Mikkelsen Andreas / Jæger Anders): In the position we are in, there is not much we can do. We went soft on the rear tyres and it felt ok but its still early days. I am not on the position I want to be.
10. 03. 2018 21:49 CET 14 (7 - Latvala Jari-Matti / Anttila Miikka): My target is to catch the car in front of me (Greensmith). He is four minutes ahead so we will push!
10. 03. 2018 21:46 CET 14 (5 - Neuville Thierry / Gilsoul Nicolas): The rear is sliding a lot with the hard tyres and I hit the bank.
10. 03. 2018 21:42 CET 14 (5 - Neuville Thierry / Gilsoul Nicolas): hit a bank in SS14
13. 03. 2018 01:50 CET 13 (81 - Triviño Ricardo / Martí Marc): retired after SS 13
13. 03. 2018 01:50 CET 13 (32 - Huttunen Jari / Linnaketo Antti): retired after SS 13
10. 03. 2018 20:15 CET 13 (32 - Huttunen Jari / Linnaketo Antti): Safely through the morning stages. 5th in WRC2 overall and no pressure. Gaining experience and driving without risks.
10. 03. 2018 20:09 CET 13 (33 - Rovanperä Kalle / Halttunen Jonne): We've been really careful this morning. We're looking at the stages and learning them after what happened yesterday.
10. 03. 2018 20:08 CET 13 (31 - Tidemand Pontus / Andersson Jonas): It's been going well this morning. This stage was nice and the car is working really well. For sure, let's keep going like this.
10. 03. 2018 20:08 CET 13 (3 - Suninen Teemu / Markkula Mikko): I was driving too carefully. I should use the grip more in the high-speed corners.
10. 03. 2018 20:07 CET 13 (9 - Lappi Esapekka / Ferm Janne): No, I think everything was fine. It seems the time was bad but I thought I drove okay.
10. 03. 2018 20:07 CET 13 (6 - Sordo Dani / Del Barrio Carlos): I was really happy. The balance of the car was much better. We were struggling with the traction in the slower stages this morning but this was much faster and better. I'm happy to come back a little bit.
10. 03. 2018 20:06 CET 13 (11 - Loeb Sébastien / Elena Daniel): I'm happy to be in the fight like this. It will be difficult to maintain the gap because I lost some time in the last two stages but we'll try to stay in front.
10. 03. 2018 20:06 CET 13 (10 - Meeke Kris / Nagle Paul): I made some mistakes in here. The car stalled on me braking into a corner and then I ran wide on another corner near the finish. It was a bit scrappy, to be honest.
10. 03. 2018 20:05 CET 13 (1 - Ogier Sébastien / Ingrassia Julien): We didn't have the starter motor but that's okay. The stage was alright but I was scared to stall on the start line. I'm already looking forward to this afternoon with a good rhythm for the second loop.
10. 03. 2018 20:01 CET 13 (5 - Neuville Thierry / Gilsoul Nicolas): We knew it would be difficult this weekend because of our road position. It's really frustrating for us. But it's part of the game.
13. 03. 2018 01:46 CET 12 Stage was stopped after crash of st.no.82. Other crews will obtain notional time.
13. 03. 2018 01:45 CET 12 (82 - Wallingford Dave / Junnila Leanne): accident in SS 12
13. 03. 2018 01:45 CET 12 (84 - Cordero Ricardo / Hernández Marco): retired in SS 12
10. 03. 2018 20:12 CET 12 (3 - Suninen Teemu / Markkula Mikko): That is good 28,1 seconds shy of Kris Meeke’s time. It was definitely a demanding stage and I want to get all the kms now.
10. 03. 2018 20:11 CET 12 (38 - Greensmith Gus / Parry Craig): We had a puncture on the first stage this morning so I was trying to keep it clean in this stage. We're a bit in limbo with the gap in front and behind so there's not point taking any unnecessary risks.
10. 03. 2018 20:00 CET 12 (39 - Heller Pedro / Olmos Pablo): We're having fun but losing time. The lines aren't so clean so we're less efficient. We're going very sideways. Hopefully it will be better this afternoon.
10. 03. 2018 17:59 CET 12 (6 - Sordo Dani / Del Barrio Carlos): I had a good feeling in the car but the time is not good.
10. 03. 2018 17:54 CET 12 (11 - Loeb Sébastien / Elena Daniel): Kris has done a very good time, for sure. It wasn't a good stage for me; very narrow and tricky at the end. I drove as well as I could but it wasn't enough.
10. 03. 2018 17:46 CET 12 (10 - Meeke Kris / Nagle Paul): It's so technical in there; corner to corner to corner. I'm happy with my time.
10. 03. 2018 17:44 CET 12 (1 - Ogier Sébastien / Ingrassia Julien): I tried to push – I cannot do more. It's very slippery and I'm on the limit.
10. 03. 2018 17:43 CET 12 (4 - Mikkelsen Andreas / Jæger Anders): That was a twistier and more narrow stage but my rhythm was better than in the first stage.
10. 03. 2018 17:43 CET 12 (7 - Latvala Jari-Matti / Anttila Miikka): I was struggling for traction and was trying to use the higher gears to get grip. I'm not sure it worked.
10. 03. 2018 17:42 CET 12 (5 - Neuville Thierry / Gilsoul Nicolas): Everything is fine. Stage worked well. Ok time even with road cleaning.
13. 03. 2018 01:43 CET 11 (87 - Gonzalez Jorge / Zapata Jaime): retired after SS 11
13. 03. 2018 01:41 CET 11 (85 - Granados Miguel / Carmona Adrian): retired in SS 11
10. 03. 2018 20:10 CET 11 (8 - Tänak Ott / Järveoja Martin): The stages seemed to have more grip than yesterday and I was feeling comfortable this morning. Then 7km before the end of SS11 we lost all drive and the turbo had failed. This is the way the sport is. I'm happy that we were competitive on our first gravel event with the team.
10. 03. 2018 16:55 CET 11 (38 - Greensmith Gus / Parry Craig): slow left front puncture
10. 03. 2018 16:45 CET 11 (8 - Tänak Ott / Järveoja Martin): technical problem after SS 11
10. 03. 2018 16:21 CET 11 (6 - Sordo Dani / Del Barrio Carlos): I wasn't confident in the stage and the car was moving a lot. I also had brake problems. It's not a stage I like – very narrow and slippery.
10. 03. 2018 16:19 CET 11 (11 - Loeb Sébastien / Elena Daniel): I tried to have a good wake up because the rhythm you have in the first stage is important for me. I pushed hard and had a goof feeing in the car. No problem.
10. 03. 2018 16:19 CET 11 (8 - Tänak Ott / Järveoja Martin): I don't know what the problem is, we have 20 horse power maybe.
10. 03. 2018 16:11 CET 11 (8 - Tänak Ott / Järveoja Martin): driving slowly through the stage
10. 03. 2018 16:07 CET 11 (1 - Ogier Sébastien / Ingrassia Julien): I tried my best for sure. The road position is better today with more grip. It's still cleaning so it might be hard to fight with people like Tänak.
10. 03. 2018 16:04 CET 11 (4 - Mikkelsen Andreas / Jæger Anders): There was one pace note I misunderstood; it was really fast but I thought it was slow. It was braking on a straight. I really have to do better.
10. 03. 2018 16:01 CET 11 (7 - Latvala Jari-Matti / Anttila Miikka): I was thinking why is there so much dust with three minute intervals? Thierry's problems explain it.
10. 03. 2018 15:59 CET 11 (5 - Neuville Thierry / Gilsoul Nicolas): It took more than a minute to start the engine after the water splash and then we had a slow puncture for the final seven kilometres.
10. 03. 2018 15:47 CET 11 (5 - Neuville Thierry / Gilsoul Nicolas): Stopped 0.8km into the opener stage. Back on the move again
10. 03. 2018 03:45 CET 10 (11 - Loeb Sébastien / Elena Daniel): It has been a very good day for me to get back in the rhythm. I didn't know what to expect but we are here and that's great news. The sensation in a car like this is extreme - I enjoyed it
10. 03. 2018 03:34 CET 10 (6 - Sordo Dani / Del Barrio Carlos): Not a perfect day. In the afternoon we made a mistake with the tyres, but I'm trying. It's been a long day today and this is a long rally. Tomorrow we need to continue to push
10. 03. 2018 03:34 CET 10 (10 - Meeke Kris / Nagle Paul): You can't see anything through the dust. I've made some silly mistakes today. Without those I could have been right in there with Dani and Seb. That's life
10. 03. 2018 03:30 CET 10 (8 - Tänak Ott / Järveoja Martin): We tried to take the best out of what we had today. When the car performs it is strong. Unfortunately today we had some issues. The engineers improved things for the second loop. Tomorrow's road position should be more enjoyable.
10. 03. 2018 03:21 CET 10 (1 - Ogier Sébastien / Ingrassia Julien): Ogier is unhappy to be third on the road tomorrow
10. 03. 2018 03:20 CET 10 (5 - Neuville Thierry / Gilsoul Nicolas): I did what I could. I've done three stages with the steering issue
10. 03. 2018 03:17 CET 8 (7 - Latvala Jari-Matti / Anttila Miikka): It's been a tough day for me. Problems with the engine temperature going high but that was under control. But a couple of hundred metres into Ortega the battery voltage warning came on and later we lost the alternator. We'll try to get back in the points. There might be a chance for ninth or tenth place.
10. 03. 2018 02:11 CET 8 (7 - Latvala Jari-Matti / Anttila Miikka): technical problem - alternator after SS 8
10. 03. 2018 01:43 CET 8 (38 - Greensmith Gus / Parry Craig): The gap's big to Pontus ahead, but it's not so bad when you're driving in the middle of the road. Today has been a good drive, no mistakes.
10. 03. 2018 01:43 CET 8 (35 - Bulacia Marco / Mussano Fernando): We have had a good day on very difficult stages. A serious problem with water temperature meant we had to slow a little bit but we are happy.
10. 03. 2018 01:27 CET 8 (11 - Loeb Sébastien / Elena Daniel): A good drive, I pushed really hard. We know Tanak is very, very good in the fast stages. For me a good drive, no mistakes. The car was okay, good tyre choice no problem. Difficult to do more.
10. 03. 2018 01:23 CET 8 (6 - Sordo Dani / Del Barrio Carlos): I think we make a small mistake with the tyres today. We were are struggling all the time. The traction was okay but the lateral grip was nothing. We took a risk, it's like this. I expected to be in the fight, we were quick here last year, but Sebastien is coming really fast on us. It's annoying eh?
10. 03. 2018 01:14 CET 8 (10 - Meeke Kris / Nagle Paul): A simple spin. I just dropped a wheel into one of these little off camber corners. I spun and had to reverse through the dust.
10. 03. 2018 01:13 CET 8 (4 - Mikkelsen Andreas / Jæger Anders): We tried to stay in front, and we had a clean stage but always I'm losing time. We need to understand why.
10. 03. 2018 01:13 CET 8 (8 - Tänak Ott / Järveoja Martin): It's been not so bad today. Really tough to manage all this, but I tried my best.
10. 03. 2018 01:12 CET 8 (7 - Latvala Jari-Matti / Anttila Miikka): I think something is wrong with the alternator
10. 03. 2018 01:10 CET 8 (1 - Ogier Sébastien / Ingrassia Julien): We had hard tyres here and they worked a bit better than the softs I think. It's a shame about the spin on the previous stage but in this position sometimes you have to take risks. We tried our best.
10. 03. 2018 01:09 CET 8 (5 - Neuville Thierry / Gilsoul Nicolas): Yeah and it's not finished yet. Struggling a bit with the car, I have a problem with the steering.
13. 03. 2018 01:36 CET 7 (86 - Jaramillo Julián / Marin Mulas Gabriél): retired in SS 7
10. 03. 2018 10:05 CET 7 (9 - Lappi Esapekka / Ferm Janne): Really difficult day for me. Morning was quite disappointing and then I made a fairly stupid mistake. I missed the line on entry and just slid wide and off the road. The car was not very badly damaged but we couldn’t get it back on the road. Restart tomorrow.
10. 03. 2018 01:09 CET 7 (11 - Loeb Sébastien / Elena Daniel): We had the hard tyres and in some places the grip was very tricky. I tried to drive in the line. It wasn't easy, a few little mistakes. Fastest though, so it was good in the end.
10. 03. 2018 00:44 CET 7 (6 - Sordo Dani / Del Barrio Carlos): It was good. I tried to manage with the soft tyres. I think it's okay.
10. 03. 2018 00:37 CET 7 (10 - Meeke Kris / Nagle Paul): I had a spin in a hairpin. Silly mistake. Lost six or seven seconds. Otherwise good.
10. 03. 2018 00:36 CET 7 (3 - Suninen Teemu / Markkula Mikko): accident in SS 7
10. 03. 2018 00:35 CET 7 (9 - Lappi Esapekka / Ferm Janne): accident in SS 7
10. 03. 2018 00:32 CET 7 (3 - Suninen Teemu / Markkula Mikko): stopped on stage
10. 03. 2018 00:31 CET 7 (4 - Mikkelsen Andreas / Jæger Anders): We tried, but with the hard tyres it was very slippery. A coupe of mistakes, but I'm pretty happy with the stage in general.
10. 03. 2018 00:29 CET 7 (8 - Tänak Ott / Järveoja Martin): Yeah, we hit the wall at the end. Otherwise this stage was good.
10. 03. 2018 00:28 CET 7 (7 - Latvala Jari-Matti / Anttila Miikka): It was better than in the morning but still difficult, a very demanding stage. My hard tyres were the correct choice I'm sure.
10. 03. 2018 00:27 CET 7 (9 - Lappi Esapekka / Ferm Janne): stopped on stage
10. 03. 2018 00:18 CET 7 (1 - Ogier Sébastien / Ingrassia Julien): Not so good. We had a spin. Not a good run.
10. 03. 2018 00:17 CET 7 (5 - Neuville Thierry / Gilsoul Nicolas): It was okay. I tried my best. I was on three soft tyres and one hard. I don't know, we have to wait and see. Really hot in the car now, very demanding.
13. 03. 2018 01:34 CET 6 (61 - Williams Tom / Hall Phil): retired in SS 6
10. 03. 2018 01:07 CET 6 (11 - Loeb Sébastien / Elena Daniel): I didn't see it until it was too late, I was looking at the junction after!
10. 03. 2018 00:18 CET 6 (32 - Huttunen Jari / Linnaketo Antti): radiator in SS 6
09. 03. 2018 23:48 CET 6 (6 - Sordo Dani / Del Barrio Carlos): I just try not to drive so aggressively with the tyres. I have soft tyres at the rear and the car is moving a little bit.
09. 03. 2018 23:47 CET 6 (3 - Suninen Teemu / Markkula Mikko): I went wide and hit the left rear. We thought it was a puncture but it's suspension parts.
09. 03. 2018 23:40 CET 6 (3 - Suninen Teemu / Markkula Mikko): Stopped on stage. But is underway again.
09. 03. 2018 23:39 CET 6 (10 - Meeke Kris / Nagle Paul): We knew Ogier would be quicker on the repeat. For me it's more enjoyable on the second pass, good grip on the tyres and I'm happy with my rhythm.
09. 03. 2018 23:35 CET 6 (4 - Mikkelsen Andreas / Jæger Anders): A clean stage. I misunderstood one pace note, which cost a second, otherwise I'm pretty happy with that
09. 03. 2018 23:34 CET 6 (8 - Tänak Ott / Järveoja Martin): When it's full power the engine is working well, no complaints
09. 03. 2018 23:34 CET 6 (9 - Lappi Esapekka / Ferm Janne): Everything is the same as it was this morning. So no change.
09. 03. 2018 23:33 CET 6 (7 - Latvala Jari-Matti / Anttila Miikka): The guys have been working hard in the office trying to fix it. At the moment everything is okay - the next one is more demanding.
09. 03. 2018 23:33 CET 6 (1 - Ogier Sébastien / Ingrassia Julien): A bit more grip this time for sure. We seem to get traction but it will be difficult with the soft tyres. A lot of battles going on.
09. 03. 2018 23:32 CET 6 (5 - Neuville Thierry / Gilsoul Nicolas): The engine was running okay, but I'm really upset because we lost the time. Before that it was still possible to catch one or two places, and that important for our road position tomorrow, now it looks more difficult.
10. 03. 2018 04:11 CET 5 (11 - Loeb Sébastien / Elena Daniel): It was a good morning for me. We found the rhythm quite quickly. The road position helped but the feeling in the car was good. My tyres were very soft for the hot temperatures, but a good choice I think. I will continue now like I feel. Tyre choice will be key this afternoon. It feels good to be back. This new world rally car is fast and fun to drive.
09. 03. 2018 22:50 CET 5 (2 - Evans Elfyn / Barritt Daniel): health problems after SS 5
09. 03. 2018 22:48 CET 5 (2 - Evans Elfyn / Barritt Daniel): Dan Barritt was injured in their earlier crash.
09. 03. 2018 22:15 CET 5 (6 - Sordo Dani / Del Barrio Carlos): It was really nice, I'm happy with this position. The car is working really well, we enjoy our road position. Now on the second pass it will be more equal for everyone and tougher on the tyres. We need to do a good tyre choice now. It's very important.
09. 03. 2018 21:53 CET 5 (1 - Ogier Sébastien / Ingrassia Julien): It was not easy, 2nd on the road is not much better than 1st here but we tried our best. I think I had a good time in the 1st stage, then I was not so happy with the next times but I struggled a lot with my suspensions. It was hot but I guess it will be worse this afternoon
09. 03. 2018 21:39 CET 5 (2 - Evans Elfyn / Barritt Daniel): After the rolls I couldn't believe how little damage there was. A bit of a surreal stage. It must have been landing on its wheels when it went over.
09. 03. 2018 21:38 CET 5 (10 - Meeke Kris / Nagle Paul): Not a bad morning. I was the only one to take two hard tyres, I'm not sure it was the right choice because it upset the balance and that disturbed me a lot. Possibly I could have done the same as the others. Lets see, I'm still in second place and there's everything to play for.
09. 03. 2018 21:16 CET 5 (9 - Lappi Esapekka / Ferm Janne): stall at a hairpin
09. 03. 2018 21:15 CET 5 (5 - Neuville Thierry / Gilsoul Nicolas): engine issue
09. 03. 2018 21:15 CET 5 (5 - Neuville Thierry / Gilsoul Nicolas): The door of his Hyundai flapping open
09. 03. 2018 20:20 CET 4 (39 - Heller Pedro / Olmos Pablo): The first stage was okay for us, on the next two the car set-up has not been correct, I'm going too sideways.
09. 03. 2018 20:20 CET 4 (38 - Greensmith Gus / Parry Craig): It felt okay but I did the damage in El Chocolate. I blitzed the tyres in there and and ruined them. That's the sort of thing we're here to learn.
09. 03. 2018 20:10 CET 4 (35 - Bulacia Marco / Mussano Fernando): We have a lot of problems with the engine temperature but we have passed all the stages without crashing the car.
09. 03. 2018 20:07 CET 4 (32 - Huttunen Jari / Linnaketo Antti): We spin one time. Very, very difficult. This is a long rally
09. 03. 2018 20:06 CET 4 (31 - Tidemand Pontus / Andersson Jonas): No dramas. Very nice stages, a bit slippery but the car feels good. I really enjoyed the morning. Just a big smile.
09. 03. 2018 20:05 CET 4 (11 - Loeb Sébastien / Elena Daniel): It's okay, the feeling was good, I was a bit afraid for the tyres because the stage is incredibly fast. I didn't imagine the speed bumps would be so high with a car like this.
09. 03. 2018 19:58 CET 4 (10 - Meeke Kris / Nagle Paul): It's okay, the feeling was good, I was a bit afraid for the tyres because the stage is incredibly fast. I didn't imagine the speed bumps would be so high with a car like this.
09. 03. 2018 19:55 CET 4 (6 - Sordo Dani / Del Barrio Carlos): I didn't do very well in this stage. I am not happy but I survived. I can go a little bit faster in places. I need to say thanks to the team, they helped a lot.
09. 03. 2018 19:51 CET 4 (3 - Suninen Teemu / Markkula Mikko): Difficult to stay on the line. Not so good.
09. 03. 2018 19:51 CET 4 (2 - Evans Elfyn / Barritt Daniel): In sixth gear we hit a big bump and it just flew the car in the air. The rear end came round, I couldn't pull it straight and we hit a bank and went over few times. We're okay.
09. 03. 2018 19:45 CET 4 (2 - Evans Elfyn / Barritt Daniel): Stopped on stage. But is underway again.
09. 03. 2018 19:42 CET 4 (4 - Mikkelsen Andreas / Jæger Anders): The car is reacting strangely over the big speed bumps. I'm still learning how the car behaves.
09. 03. 2018 19:40 CET 4 (8 - Tänak Ott / Järveoja Martin): We have the same car, so I guess so. I try to manage it. We are taking really good care of it.
09. 03. 2018 19:39 CET 4 (9 - Lappi Esapekka / Ferm Janne): He (Latvala) seems to be able to drive around the issue.
09. 03. 2018 19:38 CET 4 (9 - Lappi Esapekka / Ferm Janne): reports similar problems to Latvala
09. 03. 2018 19:37 CET 4 (7 - Latvala Jari-Matti / Anttila Miikka): Overheating - particularly on the uphill sections. We have to switch to road mode.
09. 03. 2018 19:19 CET 3 (11 - Loeb Sébastien / Elena Daniel): Okay but very slippery. We start to destroy our tyres. Not an easy stage.
09. 03. 2018 19:15 CET 3 (6 - Sordo Dani / Del Barrio Carlos): Really nice, I enjoy a lot. I tried to drive well and push a little, I'm happy.
09. 03. 2018 19:13 CET 3 (3 - Suninen Teemu / Markkula Mikko): I think we lost some time. I just do not have the pace. I need to improve.
09. 03. 2018 19:10 CET 3 (2 - Evans Elfyn / Barritt Daniel): Tough, that's for sure. So slippery and trying to balance pushing with being careful.
09. 03. 2018 19:08 CET 3 (10 - Meeke Kris / Nagle Paul): Tricky. I had the hard compounds at the front and the balance was a bit tricky.
09. 03. 2018 19:04 CET 3 (4 - Mikkelsen Andreas / Jæger Anders): I found it slippery at the rear, it was everywhere. Not the best feeling. I tried to push as hard as I could with the feeling I have.
09. 03. 2018 19:02 CET 3 (8 - Tänak Ott / Järveoja Martin): Slow, slippery, tricky, hot - everything together.
09. 03. 2018 19:01 CET 3 (9 - Lappi Esapekka / Ferm Janne): Quite a long stage and a slow average speed. It is what it is.
09. 03. 2018 18:56 CET 3 (7 - Latvala Jari-Matti / Anttila Miikka): We have a problem with the engine temperature going too high. We can control it by reducing the power but we have to keep it safe. We cannot go for performance at the moment. We have to be clever and not cook the engine.
09. 03. 2018 18:54 CET 3 (1 - Ogier Sébastien / Ingrassia Julien): No drama. Not the easiest position obviously but we tried our best. The car is okay.
09. 03. 2018 18:51 CET 3 (5 - Neuville Thierry / Gilsoul Nicolas): I tried my best. This was much better than the first one. I struggled a bit with the balance of the car. We are not yet in a good setting for these roads.
11. 03. 2018 01:29 CET 2 (87 - Gonzalez Jorge / Zapata Jaime): retired in SS 2
09. 03. 2018 23:04 CET 2 (36 - Solans Nil / Ibañez Miquel): technical problem - engine in SS 2
09. 03. 2018 19:14 CET 2 (32 - Huttunen Jari / Linnaketo Antti): puncture
09. 03. 2018 19:05 CET 2 (33 - Rovanperä Kalle / Halttunen Jonne): radiator in SS 2
09. 03. 2018 19:04 CET 2 (33 - Rovanperä Kalle / Halttunen Jonne): That's it for the day, after a jump there was a big rock in the middle of the road and it broke the radiator...
09. 03. 2018 18:52 CET 2 (36 - Solans Nil / Ibañez Miquel): stopped in stage
09. 03. 2018 18:52 CET 2 (33 - Rovanperä Kalle / Halttunen Jonne): stopped in stage after 1st split
09. 03. 2018 18:40 CET 2 (3 - Suninen Teemu / Markkula Mikko): We lost 14,2 seconds to Kris Meeke who made the fastest time on the stage. But it is a long day and long rally, so just need to stay focused.
09. 03. 2018 18:25 CET 2 (11 - Loeb Sébastien / Elena Daniel): I'm quite surprised by that. A good run but not perfect. In places I'm hesitating, and I'm not there on the braking in others. It's coming.
09. 03. 2018 18:21 CET 2 (6 - Sordo Dani / Del Barrio Carlos): I lost a bit at the end because I was struggling on the tyres - it's a very hard surface for the soft tyre at the end and I took it carefully. I also lost time in a big compression - we didn't know the speed there. First stage and I'm happy to get to the finish.
09. 03. 2018 18:16 CET 2 (2 - Evans Elfyn / Barritt Daniel): No big issues but it felt like the tyres were moving around quite a lot. Difficult to judge the wear here - the grip was really low. All okay.
09. 03. 2018 18:13 CET 2 (10 - Meeke Kris / Nagle Paul): Difficult. I think I'm benefiting from the ruts more than the cleaning. The second part was pretty clean, the first part was like a beach, so much sand. I had a good rhythm. I even felt my soft tyres move a bit, so I'm happy I have a couple of hard tyres.
09. 03. 2018 18:08 CET 2 (4 - Mikkelsen Andreas / Jæger Anders): It's hard to know how hard to push. If you do then you come out of the lines. I tried to find somewhere in the middle staying in the line but being aggressive too. An okay stage.
09. 03. 2018 18:06 CET 2 (8 - Tänak Ott / Järveoja Martin): Extremely slippery. Very tough. Event going slow it's so slippery. We tried. There is a line in the road now.
09. 03. 2018 18:06 CET 2 (9 - Lappi Esapekka / Ferm Janne): My driving is bad and then some small things... Still, we are here. Very slippery all the time, I can't really have any confidence.
09. 03. 2018 18:00 CET 2 (7 - Latvala Jari-Matti / Anttila Miikka): The engine felt really good in the first split but then I felt the power went down. The temperature was rising, but not the same as last year. Maybe I can improve my driving.
09. 03. 2018 17:57 CET 2 (1 - Ogier Sébastien / Ingrassia Julien): Its going to be a killer for us, I cannot see a line from him to be honest, it's still quite loose. The guys behind are going to be quicker.
09. 03. 2018 17:55 CET 2 (5 - Neuville Thierry / Gilsoul Nicolas): Slippery, I tried to go my best, I feel like I'm not 100 per cent comfortable yet. I have to discover this.
09. 03. 2018 17:50 CET 2 Three-minute intervals between the World Rally Car and WRC2 entrants today.
09. 03. 2018 09:01 CET 1 (33 - Rovanperä Kalle / Halttunen Jonne): Lucky to escape a kerb swipe just a few corners into the stage
09. 03. 2018 09:00 CET 1 (32 - Huttunen Jari / Linnaketo Antti): More slippery than I expected and we spun
09. 03. 2018 09:00 CET 1 (32 - Huttunen Jari / Linnaketo Antti): A half spin on the entry to a tunnel
09. 03. 2018 08:59 CET 1 (31 - Tidemand Pontus / Andersson Jonas): Tricky but I enjoyed it - a fantastic atmosphere
09. 03. 2018 08:58 CET 1 (5 - Neuville Thierry / Gilsoul Nicolas): It's great but obviously it's going to be a difficult weekend. I'm looking forward to it and happy to be here. It's always great - one of my favourite rallies.
09. 03. 2018 08:58 CET 1 (1 - Ogier Sébastien / Ingrassia Julien): It's normal for him - he likes to make a show
09. 03. 2018 08:56 CET 1 (7 - Latvala Jari-Matti / Anttila Miikka): It's incredible, always great to be here in Guanajuato. I'm looking forward to the rest of the event, it's a good feeling.
09. 03. 2018 08:56 CET 1 (9 - Lappi Esapekka / Ferm Janne): It's something I've never seen before. The amount of spectators here is, wow, amazing!
09. 03. 2018 08:55 CET 1 (8 - Tänak Ott / Järveoja Martin): It's fantastic! I love these people and this place in Guanajuato. There are some fantastic stages to come.
09. 03. 2018 08:54 CET 1 (4 - Mikkelsen Andreas / Jæger Anders): It's beautiful here. it's really nice to come here and it feels good to be back. I hope we can do well this weekend
09. 03. 2018 08:53 CET 1 (10 - Meeke Kris / Nagle Paul): Really, really slippery. I think my pace was good. I appreciate all the support from the Mexican fans
10. 03. 2018 22:06 CET (32 - Huttunen Jari / Linnaketo Antti): retired due to leak in the fuel system in service station
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4177
|
__label__cc
| 0.577784
| 0.422216
|
The Beauty queen of Leenane at The Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh
February 23, 2010 February 23, 2010 / markgorman
And so the rains came down. In more ways than one.
Martin McDonagh’s black and brutal ‘rom-com’ opens on a rain-sodden Connemara on Ireland’s West Coast.
Another exquisitely designed Lyceum set (by designer Janet Bird) sits gloomily atop a hill in the midst of a broody squall. We spy an elderly lady rocking back and forth in the chair that is her ‘den’, her place to scheme against the daughter that she wants to own and control till her dying day.
To say the Folans are a dysfunctional family would be something of an understatement. Over the next two hours we see how each is out to upstage the other in acts of outrage, cruelty, both mental and physical, and sheer bloodymindedness. Mother Mag (played exquisitely by native Irishwoman Nora Connolly) and daughter Maureen (another wonderful Irish invader, Cara Kelly) set about each other with a passion that defies description. Which is most evil? Which is most desperate? It’s hard to tell at times as the story of their undoing unravels itself; inch by feckin’ inch.
McDonagh clearly had a way to go in the swearing stakes before he brought In Bruges to the world but he got himself into the zone here in this, his first award winning play.
It crackles with intensity and passion (not all of the romantic kind) as Mag attempts to woo her way out of her mother’s clutches with the almost virginal Pato Dooley, a manual worker from the village who has had to emigrate to Ingerland to find work. His blossoming relationship with Maureen, who is most certainly a virgin, despite her 40 years, is the centerpiece of the play and Pato wins us over with his naive charm. His younger, home based, workshy brother Ray provides many moments of comic genius, particularly when he spars with the equally workshy matriarch Maureen.
What differentiates McDonagh from many of his peers is the naturalism of his dialogue and the pace at which it zips along. With a cast this good there is no chance of his subtle wordplays and verbal tricks missing the mark (even if, from the middle of the circle, the volume was on the low side).
This is a wonderful performance; quietly assured, darkly humorous, affecting and ultimately very moving. It is a must see.
arts, theatre
Cara Kell, in bruges, Martin McDonagh, Nora Connolly, the beauty queen of Leenane, The Lyceum, The Royal Lyceum, The royal lyceum theatre company, Tony Cownie
← Theatre marketing at its best
Get along to the new Seafood Restaurant of the year →
2 thoughts on “The Beauty queen of Leenane at The Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh”
Prue McL
Er… daughter is Maureen and mother is Mag. But your review otherwise hits the spot perfectly. I too was thrilled, right from when the lights first went down and I “wondered what that noise was”, and found that it was real rain…………….
markgorman
Ah right. You’re the second person to point that out. It is now correct.
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4184
|
__label__cc
| 0.609066
| 0.390934
|
← Today In Charleston History: October 28
Today In Charleston History: October 30 →
Home » Black History » Today In History: October 29
Posted on October 29, 2014 by markjonesbooks
1717 -Bloodless Revolution
Governor Robert Johnson met with the Assembly for the first time. As the representative of the Proprietors, he was not warmly received. The lack of assistance the Proprietors offered during the Yemassee War had soured the people’s opinion. Judge Nicholas Trott and Col. William Rhett, Speaker of the Assembly, were the two most powerful men in colony, more respected than the Proprietors. Johnson, however, knew that former Governor Craven was in London seeking a path to make South Carolina a Royal Colony. During his address to the Assembly Johnson said:
I am obliged for your sakes to give you my opinion touching the disrespectful behavior that has of late been shown to the Lords Proprietors … very unjustifiable and impolitic. If it be supposed their character is a bar to your relief, it is a mistake. His Majesty and his Parliament are too just to divest their Lordships of their properties without a valuable consideration.
1824 – Deaths
Charles Pinckney died. In his will, Pinckney stated that his body be laid out until decomposition began – a common practice to avoid the possibility of being buried alive. However, against his wishes, the funeral was held the next day and he was buried at St. Philip’s graveyard.
His will also freed eight slaves, Primus, Cate, Betty, and Dinah, as well as Dinah’s children –Anthony, John, Peneta and Carlos. He directed that the four children be “suitably maintained and bound out for trades.” Dinah was a “washerwoman” who seemed special to Pinckney. It was openly speculated that the freed children were Pinckney’s own with Dinah. Particularly in the light of Pinckney’s service in Spain and two of the children having Spanish names, including one named Carlos, the Spanish version of Charles, that speculation seems likely.
1924 – The “Charleston” Debuts on Broadway
Flournoy Miller and Aubrey Lyles introduced their second Broadway show Runnin’ Wild with songs by James P. Johnson and Cecil Mack. The choreographer, Elida Webb, later falsely claimed to have invented the “Charleston” dance. Yet, the first act of Runnin’ Wild ended with the “Charleston” performed by Elizabeth Welsh, backed by a group of chorus boys called the “Dancing Redcaps.”
James Weldon Johnson wrote when the dance was introduced in Runnin’ Wild:
They did not wholly depend upon the orchestra – an extraordinary jazz band – but had the major part of the chorus supplement it with hand and foot patting. The effect was electrical and contagious. It was the best demonstrating of beating out complex rhythms I have ever witnessed; and, I do not believe New York ever before witnessed anything of just its sort.
Roger Pryor Dodge, in his book Hot Jazz and Jazz Dance says:
The famous single-step, the Charleston, suggests the rhythm 4/4 but does not explicitly state it. The Charleston rhythm … pervades all music, and for our purposes is predominant in ragtime. Nevertheless the Charleston rhythm had not, up to the time of James P. Johnson’s composition “Charleston” become unmistakably identified. While ragtime sheet music and piano rolls are records of the past, the elusive elements of the dance are lost. Whether the dancers actually used a Charleston rhythm before James P.’s piece I do not know. Since that time and with the help of a music strongly accenting this rhythm, the dancers still do not actually follow it, but give the impression that they do only because we associate the step with a music having this rhythm. Maybe James P. made point of constantly holding to this rhythm because of the impression he got from the dancers, or very likely with the music in a slower tempo some dancers did more than just give an impression of the rhythm and did accent it. Certainly the dance was not evolved to fit James P.’s composition; rather, James P. derived his music from his impression of the dancers, with the possibility that some of them actually may have followed the musical rhythm. Thus our visual impression of the step is influenced by the Charleston rhythm in the music so that whatever the dancer is doing we assume he is still following the musical rhythm.
The Charleston dance step may have a longer history than most think. The Branle of 1520 is presumed by most dance scholars to be similar to the Charleston. Dance historians speculate the Ashanti People of Africa were the originators since some of their tribal dances incorporated what could be viewed as Charleston-style steps and movements.
But Willie “the Lion” Smith in his autobiography mentions a black Charleston dancer named Russell Brown:
His dance was a Geechie step like those I had seen in “The Jungles” [a name often used in the 1910s for the San Juan Hill District of New York]. He was given a nickname by the people of Harlem . . . they would holler at him, “Hey Charleston, do your Geechie dance!” Some folks say that is how the dance known as the Charleston got its name. I’m a tough man for facts, and I say the Geechie dance had been around New York for many years before Brown showed up. The kids from the Jenkins Orphanage Band of Charleston used to do Geechie steps when they were in New York on their yearly tour.
It can safely be accepted that the origins of “the Charleston” are most likely a combination of all of the above, particularly the line that runs from the Ashanti African tribal dances directly to the southern plantations of the 18th and 19th centuries. What cannot be denied is that by the end of 1923, everybody in the country was doin’ the Charleston.
Nothing else epitomizes the spirit and joyous exuberance of one the most tumultuous decades in American history as the Charleston dance. Other dance crazes have had their fifteen minutes of fame: the Waltz, Tango, Hokey-pokey, Twist, Hustle, Macarena, and Breakdancing. None of them, however, managed to influence and infect an entire generation so thoroughly the way the Charleston did. Almost 100 years later, the image of the Jazz Age is always a Flapper doing the Charleston. No other American decade can be so neatly summed up in one simple image.
From the book Doin’ the Charleston: Black Roots of American Popular Music & the Jenkins Orphanage Legacy
This entry was posted in Black History, History - American, History - Charleston, History - South Carolina, Music - Jazz, Today In History. Bookmark the permalink.
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4185
|
__label__cc
| 0.738152
| 0.261848
|
Automattic, Forbes, and the Future of Work
Posted byMatt September 5, 2012 45 Comments on Automattic, Forbes, and the Future of Work
There’s a great article in Forbes today that covers some of the early days of WordPress through Automattic as a business today. I recommend everyone check it out! I wanted to respond to one bit about Automattic’s global nature though, which is actually timely because next week the entirety of Automattic is going to San Diego:
As a legacy of its open-source roots its 120 employees are spread across 26 countries and six continents. Although most work alone at home, each team–usually made up of five or six people–has a generous budget to travel. “All of the money we save on office space, we blow on travel costs,” Mullenweg laughs. Groups have gathered in Hawaii, Mexico and New Zealand. Once a year everyone meets for a week at an accessible destination with a solid Internet connection. A distributed workforce means Automattic can hire talent from around the world–without having to offer the perks and pay of Google, Facebook and Apple.
I’d like to counter the last sentence, which implies this is something we do as a cost saving scheme: being distributed is not a legacy, it’s a conscious choice. The people at Automattic are truly world-class — I invest in and advise a number of startups, and spending time in New York and the San Francisco Bay area I would put the caliber of people inside of Automattic on par or higher than anyone I’ve met from Google, Facebook, Apple, or any of the traditional tech giants.
How do we do it? Automattic offers a benefit above and beyond what they ever could: We give people the perk and the luxury of being part of an internet-changing company from anywhere in the world. This mirrors the meritocracy that makes Open Source great and treats people on the quality of their ideas and their work whether they’re in San Francisco or Argentina. (Or if they started in San Francisco and moved to Argentina.)
Even when big companies try to adopt this (sometimes under the lovely moniker “telecommute,” which reminds me of “horseless carriage”) people still face cultural resistance from their managers and teams, or find themselves as a second-tier citizen versus those in headquarters. The same often happens in “remote offices.” For it to really work it has to be part of the DNA of the company from day one. You have to be really committed to keep the creative center and soul of the organization on the internet, and not in an office.
I really believe this is the future of work, it’s just not evenly distributed yet.
Posted byMatt September 5, 2012 Posted inpress
State of Password Cracking
San Diego Meetup Vignettes
45 replies on “Automattic, Forbes, and the Future of Work”
Greg Turner says:
I agree 100000% with your last two paragraphs.
That’s a lot of percent. Maybe even alot. 🙂
Ajesh Sharma says:
Yes, that’s a lot of 0s in there, maybe not enough?
Evan Aagaard (@CleverCaliber) says:
I work at a company where half our team is spread over the world and many of us routinely travel and I can honestly say that my productivity and my communication with my distributed co-workers are often times better than with the ones sitting just over my shoulder. Whether this is a sign of the future of working or a harbinger of civilization’s spiralling doom I can’t say, but it works. It works for our times and our culture. People love their freedom, it’s what keeps us creative.
Paulino Michelazzo says:
Just a question to set fire on this: giving a “no borders” workspace for everybody (putting everything on the web) or creating ways to use the real “self service”, what we do with ordinary jobs, e.g. a Starbucks cashier? Could be the Internet an answer for every situation or we’re just talking about IT and creative jobs?
JerrySarcastic says:
It’s funny how the author’s own take on the value of a distributed workforce makes it sound like a synonym for “offshoring” to save a buck. He tries, but doesn’t quite “get” that WordPress (being open source) isn’t really about shareholder value: It’s about real value. 🙂
Misael says:
Great post. Some of the things you mention about companies and HQ are totally true (and sad).
Damon Sharp says:
I completely agree. Companies that think you have to be onsite to be productive are kidding themselves. It’s actually less, a lot less, for me at least.
Wahyu says:
I have read at Forbes and here… You have impressed me since I have my first blog using WP 2.0. Matt, thanks for your works.
Suren Dias says:
It’s not about the money… 🙂 Love the way you work, a true inspiration…, Thanks Matt.
Maurice Griffin says:
If half the stuff in that article is true, you are the coolest most idealistic big name tech CEO since Craig Newmark back in the day. No offense, but your company is, um, a fascinating comparison to the one your dad worked for. I am finally working full time as a web developer and I feel like I should thank you. WordPress helped me take coding web pages from an occasional hobby, to a passion, to a small freelance gig, and finally to a decent career to support my new family. Only get to work with WordPress once in awhile now but it keeps getting better and better. Being one of the many people the article mentions who never gives you a dime, I promise to at least contribute some code/plugins to WP someday soon!
smittie says:
I just discovered Automattic. I’m in awe of the great produces you guys produce. Now I discover the company culture is awesome too. Hire me, please!
cheekyboots says:
“…has the look of a quiet messiah” made me chuckle. 🙂
I think distributed working will increase as we improve or reduce friction to limbic resonance over the internet. The heart and soul was never in the office, it was between all the people in the office. To distribute that means the technology and the people have to be able to recreate that depth of connection without sharing the same air. Which I think is first about safety/comfort, and second about shared reality. I think it’s do-able, and happening, but the UX of collaboration and the technology of connection has to be seamless for the majority to move that direction. You’re *creating* the future of work, by developing systems like P2 to de-friction-ify collaboration.
Which is awesome, because that means the future of work will be based on Open Source ideals. 🙂
banago says:
I read the article yesterday – great read, refreshing. And I once again asked myself, why have I not applied for a position with Automattic yet?! Got not answer from within … 🙂
Kirsten Lambertsen says:
How shocking that Forbes would interpret it as a cost-saving measure 😉
Obviously, Automattic has a world-class team – it’s a world-class product. I’m at a start-up accelerator right now, and I’ve met a lot (and alot) of founders who are inspired by the Automattic model. Maybe we’ll see a leap forward with this next wave.
Xavier Wendling says:
Having worked at a remote office of a US-based company for many years, I certainly can relate to your observation.
No matter how sincere and committed everybody is to make it work (the remote employee, his or her direct manager at headquarters, the company genuinely trying to make you feel like a top-tier citizen and providing a generous IT and telecommunications infrastructure to support you), you still end up feeling a bit far away from all the exciting, fast-paced, stuff and face-to-face interactions happening in headquarters. The DNA of the company is still not quite meant to support a truly distributed organization.
I couldn’t agree more with what you are trying to accomplish here. It’s really a win-win situation for Automattic and WordPress, and for the smart people who have already joined you from various parts of the world.
Xavier.
Pingback: Automattic and the Distributed Workforce, In the Press | erick t. hitter
Pingback: More press « toni.org
Joey Kudish says:
Pingback: Nice baseball bat. Must be great for beating your wife. |
Pingback: The Future of Work?
speedyk says:
I think the “tele” prefix has gone the way of the teletype.
Flick says:
The BBC also released an article about the “Globalisation of Work” . … sadly the author didn’t mention WordPress, but perhaps they could have 🙂 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19476254
Hope the great meetup will receive coverage on Ma.tt and other sites.
Pingback: Future of work « /home/kOoLiNuS
Megha (@MeghaGuru) says:
I will echo what Matt has written. The number one resource that Automattic has is its incredible talent of people who work there. I know for a fact that Matt (and Toni Schneider) think about all the ways to provide superior compensation and benefits to its worldwide workforce. There is never any discussion about paying people less than they deserve or could get elsewhere. The discussions revolve around how to best provide the most rewarding work environment and quality of life for its people. Automattic is one of the best places to work *in the world.* Congratulations to Matt and the team for an awesome article.
Phil Black
On Board of Directors for Automattic
Susan Silver (@Susan_Silver) says:
I think your last paragraphs are dead on about the future. I was just asking my network this week if I should go corporate or remain a freelancer. Each has its own set of pros and cons. I was pretty shocked when everyone sad to stay where I am and that they would help if I needed to round-up more work. Which is awesome.
In fact the reverse is happening from my friends, they are transitioning out of the office into their own business being run online.
Kaaku says:
My only gripe with Automattic or with WP in general is that the way it sports Facebook or other third party icons and buttons. Does Twitter use G+ or FB? No! Does FB use G+ or Twitter? No! So why does WordPress has to use? It does not even ask me whether I wanna see these or not, and shows it by default (force).
I wish Automattic was just as independent and as unique as FB or G+, w.r.t icons and buttons.
Automattic or WP should use G+ ()
Todd Horinouchi says:
Thank you for clarifying that statement in Forbes. When I first read that last sentence in the original article, I was puzzled as to whether it was the writer’s opinion or an actual statement that you or Toni Schneider made. It’s good to know that Automattic made a conscious choice to have a distributed workforce and, as Phil Black pointed out, to hire world-class talent and compensate them above and beyond what a traditional company would be able to offer.
I’m truly impressed with Automattic and I hope to have a chance to contribute to your growth in the future.
Pingback: Weekly Wrap-Up #1 (Sept 7, 2012); Akuisisi, Kebijakan, dan WordPress by valent
Erik Blair (@erikblair) says:
Matt, I’ve been trying to start a coworking space here in Maui based on the concept you’re talking about, but more specifically what you said, “committed to keep the creative center and soul of the organization on the internet” with the facility being a mere cool and cozy place for coffee, conversation and WiFi. But it’s challenging to articulate this concept to a mainly tourism based economy. Aloha and Much Mahalo!
Pingback: WP Late Night #25: "Lean forward and choke yourself" | WPCandy
Pingback: Marc's Voice » Happy New Year blogging 2012
Stephen Lee says:
Whenever an alternative lifestyle (or in this case “workstyle”) is described, people always take it to an extreme — “That won’t work for everyone, so it is obviously wrong.”
The Internet has created massive freedom in workstyle in a ton of areas, but until robot technology advances significantly, there will still be location-bound jobs. At the very least, who will build and maintain the telecommunications infrastructure?
Furthermore, there are benefits to human interaction that cannot be described in terms of money or efficiency. I like interacting with cashiers, waiters, etc.
The Internet is a great solution to a lot of problems, but not a solution for everything — especially non-problems.
Andrew Montalenti (@amontalenti) says:
Great article, Matt. I wrote about this on my blog — Fully Distributed Teams: Are They Viable?
http://www.pixelmonkey.org/2012/05/14/distributed-teams
In it, I drew the distinction between “horizontally scaled” teams, in which physical offices are connected to remote workers via sattelite (home or commercial) offices, and “fully distributed” teams where, as you said, “the creative center and soul of the organization on the internet, and not in an office.”
At Parse.ly, we’re only a couple years old but have been operating on the distributed team model, with ~13 fully distributed employees, and it’s working well. Always glad to hear stories about how Automattic has scaled it to 10X our size.
And, likewise, we blow some of our office space savings on camaraderie-building retreats; our most recent one was in New York, see http://www.flickr.com/photos/amontalenti/sets/72157629938809778/ and http://www.flickr.com/photos/amontalenti/sets/72157630060466656/
Very cool! Thank you for sharing.
Jose Lozano says:
This is a great article and of course that the comments that you have here are great as well.
I also believe that is the future of work and let me tell you this, as you say, it is not evenly distributed yet, but sometimes also people are reluctant to make that change.
I recently resigned from an office job to dedicate my full time to an online business, many thought that I was crazy but this is a reality that is happening right now and right here.
I now feel privileged to be able to share more time with my family and at home because of this, it has not been easy all the time, but every change comes with some challenges.
Thanks for sharing such great piece of content, I’m about to read the article at Forbes.
Jose Luis Lozano
I was struck by Colao’s characterization of the .org users. He didn’t seem to truly understand the value their activity represents for Auttomatic.
Pingback: The History of WordPress | Learning from Lorelle
whatrosewrites says:
I agree with Evan Aagaard – I feel more connected to online colleagues than with the ones ‘sitting just over my shoulder.’ Some teams working together (in one area) fall prey to ‘group consensus’ which is a creativity killer, imho. That is, group consensus drifts toward the extreme of the initial prejudice (Myers & Bishop 1971).
Office politics and an alarming rise in workplace bullying (many of which are non-verbal, negative behaviors used to intimidate others) can be taken completely out of the equation . . so can title or status. The new hire just might have the best ideas.
You will find the best talent from a diversified background – you’ve attracted the best talent and client base from around the world. Parents of young children can continue to support their family, from home. I believe it IS the future of work . . we need to embrace it.
Pingback: The Basic Structure of a Blog Post | Learning from Lorelle
Pingback: Productivity Is Not Lost on the Mobile Worker — Flextime Global
Pingback: WordPress Featured in Wall Street Journal « Lorelle on WordPress
Pingback: WordPress Featured on Wall Street Journal Business International | Learning from Lorelle
Pingback: To work remote or not work | Oliver Thylmann
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4187
|
__label__cc
| 0.653282
| 0.346718
|
Clayton Barnett in confusion, creative writing, Defiant, nice people, romance, science fiction, writing November 26, 2017 1,017 Words
AM or PM?
“Meet me at eight!”
Who hasn’t been there at some moment of their life? In this case, Nichole and Joe go back to Portland, a diversion to Zom’s, some other characters show up… for dinner…
Oh my God, they leave the battlezone at dawn! That has them back into the City around 0800! What the hell am I supposed to do for the next nine to ten hours?!
Initially, they’d been in two vehicles on their way back. Joe was forward on the Humvee with a gunner and M240 machine gun atop. Nichole had asked to help with the critically wounded being transported to a City hospital in one of the trucks. After having learned about his good friend, Joe just took it as another shock in an already bad series of days.
“It’s only about an hour and a half,” she held in hands in the dark. The east betrayed a hint of scarlet. “Let’s go home, together!”
He nodded with a wan smile. Not even trying to kiss her, she watched as he shuffled towards the Hummer. She went to the truck.
Telling the corpsman that she only knew basic first aid, she was tasked with monitoring and recording vitals every fifteen minutes. She was to report anything out of the ordinary. Looking at the six on stretchers – only one conscious – their conditions were stable enough to transport, but otherwise grim: limbs lost or shattered from artillery or small-arms fire. Only one was on a critical drip, Fentanyl; he’d part of his face chewed off after he’d been knocked unconscious, before his mates could make it back to his side. There were no prisoners from that small engagement, she knew.
A thankful uneventful eighty five minutes later saw her out of the way as the wounded were moved into a hospital on the west side of the river. Some of the corpsmen had mentioned “Good Sam;” was the facility named after someone called ‘Sam’? Walking to the Hummer, one of the rear doors was flung open for her. Not by Joe. She got in.
The driver started off without a word. She surmised that Joe must have told them their destination, earlier. She looked to him. His head and shoulders were down, but she knew he was awake.
From some of her conversations with the sailors and Marines as they crossed the Pacific, she’d been older that there were things that men – military men – simply would not discuss with a woman. She suspected there were several reasons for that, but kept her peace. After a few blocks, she put her left hand onto his knee. Slowly, her covered her hand with his.
The sun had been up for about an hour, illuminating the abandoned buildings of west-side’s downtown. The driver had them to Stratford House in no time. They came to an abrupt halt.
“Here you guys are!” The driver called. He looked back at them. “And, thanks, from all of us… okay?”
Nichole smiled hard enough her eyes scrunched shut again. The driver thought his heart might break.
But, she saw something.
Something like Eldest Sister’s message… but different. That thin, male face; the frosted tips of his dark hair…
“I… I don’t mean to impose,” she began, taking her hand from her Friend’s knee to the driver’s shoulder, “but could you take us around the corner, to the old Simon Benson House?”
“You mean Zom’s?” He grinned back at her. She didn’t know off-campus was aware of it.
“Yes! It…” Her eyes flicked left and back. “It’s been awhile since we ate!”
They were in motion before the driver turned back forward. Down 10th and left onto Montgomery – no one paid attention to traffic signs – and another abrupt halt.
“I’d like to treat you guys to breakfast…” She began, but the driver shook his head; still with a smile.
“Thanks, ma’am, but we’ll be headed back up north, now!”
She and Joe got out. The gunner waved at them as they tore off to the north. What little foot traffic there was at the early hour stared first at the receding Hummer and second at Joe and Nichole.
“Lovelies!” Nike called in his English lilt from just behind them. “Breakfast is ready!”
Something sounding almost like a sob escaped her First Friend. Was he – ?
“You sit, precious thing!” Nike’s voice was still light, but she could tell he could use over/under tones, too. “I need a man-to-man word with the vet, here!”
His arm over his shoulder, Nike seemed to tower over Joe’s muscled, compact strength. He led him inside. She moved to the only table with a setting.
One side was bacon, eggs, toast, sausage… the other was a simple egg holder with a small saucer with eggshell already on it. A wineglass with something amber was at the right. She sat and sniffed at it.
A Kir Royal. Just enough alcohol to be self-sterilizing. But, if the eggshell was there, to make it appear as if she’d already eaten, Joe would have seen…
Unless Nike knew that that wouldn’t happen.
At eighteen percent and wishing she was in her room, Nichole gripped the edge of the table and wondered where the world was going…?
A hand onto her left shoulder.
“Love?”
“Yes, Nike?”
“Head on home. But, bring some friends for an early dinner tonight, wot?”
She looked up to his lean, Mediterranean face.
“Is…Joe…?”
“He’s fine, love.” But his eyes grew dark. “He’s seen a little too much… your family would say he’s too old, too fast.”
Nichole refused to take the bait. Instead, she took that glass and drank half. She wiped her mouth and stood.
“Later, then.” She held his eyes; hers opening gleaming.
“Yes.” His danced.
He wasn’t a machine. All of her senses told her that. But he was obviously very dangerous, and didn’t care who knew.
Nichole wondered who she could put together for an interesting late afternoon?
“You Are In My Vision”
Tears, sweat, blood
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4188
|
__label__wiki
| 0.829032
| 0.829032
|
Women Legislative Candidates Struggle to Finance Their Campaigns
Women legislative candidates’ winning rate remain low as they struggle to finance their campaigns.
by Shafira Amalia, Reporter
“The best time to buy property is right before the election,” said Firliana Purwanti, a legislative candidate from the Democratic Party. “There are many desperate candidates needing all the money they can get. Including me.”
A gender activist-turned politician, Firliana is among those running for the legislature this year who have resorted to selling their property to finance their campaign. Ten years ago she decided to dive straight into the patriarchal world of Indonesian politics, climbing her way up to the top. She is now serving as the party’s head of Advocacy and Legislation Bureau in the Women’s Empowerment and Child Protection Department.
“Years in the women’s movement, I have learned that making change from the outside takes time. I decided if you can’t beat them, join them,” she said.
To her, the problem with Indonesian politics is the quality of the political parties and politicians. Concerning her most is the parties’ neglect of issues that matter most, one of them women’s issues.
But her political career has not always been smooth sailing.
“As a woman in Indonesian politics, one of the most effective ways to be seen and heard is if you are truly outstanding. Many women thrive in politics because they come from political families – the daughter of a district head or the niece of a well-known politician,” Firliana tells Magdalene.
“There are a handful of women who struggled to the very top with their own achievements. I am one of them; I am here now after seven years of hard work, and that’s not easy,” she said. She has made it to the second on the list of candidates for national legislature in the electoral district of West Kalimantan.
Indeed, when it comes to running for parliament women candidates have to fight twice as hard as their male counterparts.
Ella Prihatini, a former journalist whose research focuses on women’s political participation, said in the podcast Talking Indonesia that Indonesian female candidates have continued to increase over time. This year the number of female legislative candidates reached 40 percent of all candidates this year, up from 32 percent in 2004, when the country first imposed a 30 percent quota for women legislative candidates.
Despite the increase, however, women candidates have always had a low winning rate – 3.9 percent in the last election in 2014, up slightly from 2.4 percent ten years ago. Currently women make up 19.8 percent of the 560-strong Parliament. According to the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), Indonesia ranks 103rd in the world in terms of women’s parliamentary representation.
While the 30 percent quota has helped boost the number of female candidates in the election, it has failed to increase the number of women legislators significantly. Many parties, which are still largely run by male politicians, claim it is hard for them to find women candidates who are serious in pursuing a career in politics.
She quoted party officials as saying: “’We can hardly find women that are electable, interested in politics, or who can help us win the election,’ they told me.”
But expensive campaign fund and money politics deter women from running for office.
Ella recalled asking gender activist and former legislator Nursyahbani Katjasungkana about the little interest women have in running for parliament: “’Women asked for the quota but where are they now?’ I asked Nursyahbani. Her answer was simple: ‘it’s bloody expensive!’”
Legislative candidate Wahida Baharuddin, from Democratic Party, said Indonesian politics is still very transactional, which makes it hard for candidates with limited funds to win.
“Any candidate that push forward without enough funds will certainly face serious problems in such a transactional election,” Wahida said.
Most candidates have to fund everything themselves, especially since there is no financial support from political parties. A legislative candidate spends a lot of money while going on the stump, mostly to cover meetings with their constituents. In addition they have to spend on banners and other promotional attributes.
“I have been selling my property to fund my campaigns, everything is so expensive,” said Firliana. While money isn’t guarantee of winning, having it sure helped boost a person’s chance of being recognized by their constituents.
“There are so many quality candidates that has low chance to win due to limited funds,” said Firliana. “While the more money the candidates have, the more popular they get. You know, with all the banners along the side of the roads.”
Some candidates resort to more creative ways to securing funding. Nanik Herlina from Partai Kebangkitan Bangsa Party or Nation’s Awakening Party (PKB) receives some of her funding from the local community organizations.
“These local community organizations support the same issues I champion. And they contribute mostly in the forms of short term donations like transportation costs, meeting costs and some attributes like stickers,” she said.
In her electoral district in Lombok Timur, Nanik, who runs for the district legislature, focuses her campaign on domestic violence. She is also pushing for the inclusion of women’s rights for reproductive health in the regional bylaws.
Firliana went a step further to try to crowdfund her campaign by registering on the website Dukung Calonmu (Support Your Candidates), where people can donate campaign funding to their candidates.
“I haven’t gotten a single cent though, and it’s been months!” She said. “I guess people don’t really know how much help it would mean to us.”
”Anyways,” she continued half-jokingly, ”anybody interested in buying property?”
Find out why voyeurism cases are hard to prosecute.
Illustration by Sarah Arifin
Election Pemilu Politics Society Politik
Shafira Amalia is an International Relations graduate from Parahyangan Catholic University in Bandung. Too tempted by her passion for writing, she declined the dreams of her young self to become a diplomat to be a reporter. Her dreams is to meet Billie Eilish but destroying patriarchy would be cool too.
Follow her on Instagram at @sapphire.dust where she's normally active.
Moving Out: The Way to Liberation
by Felicia Stephanie – May 4, 2015
We Need to Talk About Religion
by Marguerite de Leon – June 23, 2015
Kita Mendatangi Agama, Bukan Agama Mendatangi Kita
by Dewi Susanti – December 14, 2016
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4190
|
__label__wiki
| 0.600557
| 0.600557
|
Bobby Charles-s/t
s/t(1972 Bearsville)
http://www.mediafire.com/?31kppo2pyiguadd
Sometimes an album cover succinctly captures the essence of the music percolating inside that cardboard sleeve. There is just something inexplicably inviting and endearing about a casual snapshot of a bearded and bedraggled Bobby contentedly gazing into his dog’s eyes. These two rascals share a moment of solitude alongside a murky riverbank with only the shade of a towering tree to keep them company in the light of a gorgeous afternoon. It nails the mellow, lackadaisical vibe of his self-titled debut while projecting the joy, camaraderie and gentleness that Charles exudes throughout each of these slices of life and their respective protagonists just trying live an celebratory existence unbothered by the drama and heartache nipping at their heels. Some of them succeed, some fail. All of them live life to its fullest and chase the high and lows with all their earthly might.
His 1972 debut was his only real attempt at stepping at the spotlight. It’s follow-up didn’t arrive until 1987 for god’s sake, but Bobby Charles was a reluctant performer who played no instrument and couldn’t read music. However, that didn’t stop him from penning “Walking to New Orleans” for Fats Domino and “See You Later Alligator” for Bill Haley and the Comets. In an interview, he simply stated that songs occasionally sprung fully-formed in his mind and he would then go to a payphone and sing them into his answering machine for posterity. He was a man who walked between the raindrops and exuded a charismatic air, but was also a reclusive soul burdened by the weight of the successive days of his existence.
It’s testament to the wild and wooly life of the Cajun songwriter that he somehow jumpstarted the careers of some rock and roll’s earliest stars, got signed to seminal blues label Chess Records, drifted away from the music industry altogether and found himself in Woodstock, NY where he was hiding out due some charges of drug possession. It was one of many moments of kismet in Bobby Charles’ life as he met Paul Butterfield who then introduced him to the Bob Dylan’s infamous manager, Albert Grossman. Grossman promised to take care of the charges and attempted to turn Bobby into a star and lined up Rick Danko as the producer and lined up Dr. John and most of The Band to play alongside him during the recording of his self-titled debut. The stars were aligned for greatness and the results were indeed transcendent, but Bobby Charles joined a long line of great musicians who deserved the love of the masses and received only indifference in return. An aborted attempt at a follow-up was shelved and Bobby took advantage of a loophole in his oppressive contract with Grossman and hightailed it back to Louisiana where he lived a quiet, unassuming life until his death in 2010.
Dr. John and The Band were the perfect partners in crime for Bobby Charles’ muse at this point and time in his life because this batch of nine songs is a true intersection of the loose and joyous side of the former and the rural grandeur and gravitas of the latter. However, Charles has a few curveballs in his selection of pitches and “Let Yourself Go” almost sounds like a single from Van Morrison’s Tupelo Honey transplanted to a rickety honkytonk where R&B, countryi and the blues happily mingle as if they were long lost brothers and sister. It’s a bruised plea for love and its most carnal pleasures as he slowly chips away at her doubts and concerns about this man who is most certainly the wrong kind of fellow for her.
I could listen to the spare, haunting, yet subtly funky organ break that flows through “Small Town Talk” and how Charles kind of sings a duet with it and adjusts the rhythm and flow of his singing to mimic it’s herky-jerky grace. Plus, it begins with the best goddamn whistle and “mmm-hmm” known to mankind as Charles bemoans the suffocating nature of a small town and delivers a humble sermon on the sinful nature of tossing stones in glass houses. It’s a graceful song that seemingly glides along effortlessly as the whole band just locks into a stoned groove that would’ve been a hit if I ever had omnipotent powers over the Top 40 charts in 1972.
“Street People” feels like an autobiographical narrative of the vagabond life that led him to Woodstock as he champions a wayward lifestyle without a paycheck or cumbersome list of responsibilities as the true enlightened path to happiness. Hanging out is a virtue and simplicity is an artform in Bobby Charles’ world.
As the temperatures rise and humidity rears its ugly head, I cannot imagine a better soundtrack for those hazy nights than Bobby Charles’ self-titled debut. Nothing goes better with a cold drink, a starry night and escapist hijinks than this starcrossed and soulful collection of songs.
Please befriend magicistragic on facebook if you would like additional updates, music and videos that reflect my scattershot mind.
Posted in Bobby Charles, Uncategorized | Tagged albert grossman, allen toussaint\, bearsville, bill haley and the comets, Bob Dylan, bobby charles, chess records, dr. john, fats domino, frogman henry, last waltz, levon helm, mac rebennack, rick danko, the band, Woodstock | 1 Comment »
s/t (Fulcrum 1971)
http://www.mediafire.com/?bp5l6qqjn81xtj8
Most music junkies eventually fall into the trap of unjustly glorifying obscurity for the sake of diving headlong into something new to them. It’s understandable since the internet has made it all too easy to paint oneself into a corner when downpours of discographies rain down upon the eager like manna from heaven. I come from the last gasps of a time when neglected classics were unattainable unless you had the good fortune to have an elder sage to take you by the hand and make cassette copies or burn a cd and pay it forward to the next generation. Thankfully, my social circles were populated by a few of these altruistic punks, hippies and burnouts and my eyes were opened to artists like Skip Spence, Ted Lucas and Michael Hurley that expanded my horizons beyond the indie rock cul de sac I inhabited. As I obsessively dug deeper and deeper into the cavalcade of wounded souls that recorded in the 60s and 70s, I found myself falling into the aforementioned trap of blindly embracing the obscure and viewed too many flawed albums through rose-colored glasses. I guess I became so addicted to the initial rush one gets when an album immediately embraces you and shakes your hand like an old friend at first listen. I just wanted all of them to be my companion and spent too much time justifying their faults.
However, I recently discovered Virgil Caine’s s/t debut and it sparked the same sense of awe and familiarity that the aforementioned artists once inspired in me and reminded me why music encompasses so much of my life. It is one of those small, but transcendent moments in life when you stumble upon such greatness and realize that you haven’t heard a damn word about in it’s forty year existence and it was just lying around unloved for so long until now.
There is no one named Virgil Caine in this trio. The name is borrowed from the protagonist in The Band’s “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” which is fitting since their music is indebted to Dylan and The Band and sometimes reminds me a bit of a loopy, southern gothic cousin to The Velvet Underground’s minus all the pretensions. Honestly, drain all the bombast and grandeur from all three, mix it up in a pot and it kind of sounds like Virgil Caine.
What makes Virgil Caine more than a likable footnote in the annals of 70s folk and private press oddities is the Appalachian drawl and literary knack of guitarist and vocalist Roger Mannon who paints a southern tableau populated with swamp witches, environmental destruction, small towns where everyone is welcome at the dinner table and mischievous barn cats who raise havoc to a Vaudeville soundtrack. It’s an absurdist slice of the south depicted in the most endearing way possible as Mannon pays tribute to an America where pagans hide in the shadows and organized religion demands blind allegiance. Yet, Mannon romanticizes the concept of genteel southern hospitality and its genial smile as many of his songs glorify the humility and helping hands that drive the small towns that litter the landscape of his songs.
Just listen to the opener “The Great Lunar Oil Strike, 1976” and you gain immediate entry into Mannon’s sincere, yet tongue in cheek lyrical bent. Centered around a sloppily strummed guitar and messier backbeat, it’s a biting and bitterly sardonic commentary on the oil industry that is eerily prescient of what was to come in the future. It might be the first recorded protest against deep sea drilling and exploitation of the American wilderness by big business. It fittingly ends with the coda”You just can’t see the moon at night” as Mannon describes an America that doomed to be subjugated by its industrial master. It’s as timely today as it was in 1971.
However, my favorite song on Virgil Caine is “Swamp Witch” as Mannon cooks up some imaginary southern mythology about a swamp witch who beckons visitors with promises of armadillo meat and a place to lay your weary head in the mire. Mannon speaks of his desire to learn the voodoo arts, but has his mind torn apart and falls under the spell of this enchantress. These spoken word interludes are always broken up by a bewitching chorus celebrating this swap witch until Mannon jumps back in to depict the swamp an elemental force that has the power to literally rend him limb from limb. It all sounds so sinister if you listen to the lyrics, but the vibe of the song is so relaxing and inviting as if it were a song from a siren itself.
Ultimately, Virgil Caine’s one and only album is one of those rare albums that give birth to its own insular universe populated by a cast of paranoid crackpots, broken hearts, kind souls and simple folks who aim for nothing more than doing right thing in a world full of wrong. I revisit it often since each song is like a vignette that I want to obsessively read over and over again and linger upon each syllable and chorus.
Befriend magicistragic on facebook if you would like additional music and youtube clips of blues musicians pouring their hearts out in shoddy surroundings.
Posted in Uncategorized, Virgil Caine | Tagged 1976, basement tapes, Bob Dylan, levon helm, Michael Hurley, rick danko, roger mannon, skip spence, Ted Lucas, the band, the great lunar oil strike, the night they drove old dixie down, virgil caine | 4 Comments »
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4191
|
__label__cc
| 0.521116
| 0.478884
|
How-To: Lily Pad Pool Warmers
Goli Mohammadi
I'm a word nerd who loves to geek out on how emerging technology affects the lexicon. I was an editor on the first 40 volumes of MAKE, and I love shining light on the incredible makers in our community. In particular, covering art is my passion — after all, art is the first thing most of us ever made. When not fawning over perfect word choices, I can be found on the nearest mountain, looking for untouched powder fields and ideal alpine lakes.
Contact me at [email protected] or via @snowgoli.
View more articles by Goli Mohammadi
By Goli Mohammadi
May 30, 2012, 5:09 pm PDT
With temperatures on the rise and the first day of summer only 3 weeks away, pool season is just about upon us. Back in MAKE Volume 23, rocket engineer Edward Hujsak shared an efficient, low-cost, safe, and easy way to warm your pool. His project is the Lily Pad pool warmers, and they’re essentially made of hula hoops covered with black polyethylene film. The how-to is freely available for you on Make: Projects, where community member Daniel Busby commented, sharing the video he made of his Lily Pad build. The only difference between Edward’s instructions and Daniel’s build is that Edward used a soldering iron to spot weld the plastic to the hoops, and Daniel chose to use a household iron. Here’s Daniel’s video:
In his article, Edward also included an interesting sidebar titled “The Pool Owner’s Dilemma”:
The thermal behavior of swimming pools is complex, due to a number of factors that act to cool the water, while the sun and artificial means work to keep the water warm. Cooling forces are at work day and night, and include evaporation, conduction into surrounding soil, air current effects, and nighttime longwave (infrared) radiation into space.
Gas-fired heaters are the most common pool warmers, but up-front costs for equipment and installation run into the thousands of dollars. And then there’s the operating cost and the price of natural gas. These heaters are prodigious polluters; for an average-sized pool, a 1°F rise in temperature results in spewing 50lbs to 60lbs of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Roof-mounted solar heaters are a second option. Water from the pool is pumped through solar-heated heat exchangers and returned to the pool. Like gas-fired heaters, solar heaters are costly and are generally unsightly. They’re also a problem in frost-prone areas.
Bubble plastic blankets are passive devices that cover the pool. They function mainly as water conservation devices by inhibiting evaporation, thus slowing evaporative cooling. They also block nighttime radiation loss. Manufacturers claim these blankets also behave as warmers, transmitting additional energy from the sun into the water. But water already has a very low albedo (ratio of incident energy to reflected energy). It’s about .10 for deep water, a bit higher in white-bottomed pools, and it’s doubtful that bubble covers improve on that. (The low albedo of water is the reason for the great concern about the receding of the polar ice caps. Open water warms much more rapidly than ice fields, which reflect more than 80% of the sun’s energy.) Moreover, pool blankets destroy the aesthetic appeal of a backyard pool; they’re hard to manage, difficult to clean, and unsafe where small children are around; and they’re often dumped after a single season.
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4193
|
__label__cc
| 0.707602
| 0.292398
|
Not Just a Useless Time Suck: The Most Valuable Uses for Facebook
Eric Ravenscraft
Filed to: facebookFiled to: facebook
Facebook is a known productivity killer. However, it has one advantage over other apps: everyone uses it. You can use it for more than just cat memes and baby pictures. Here are some of the most useful things you can do.
Visiting Facebook Just Once Can Derail Your Productivity
We know distractions are bad when you're trying to work. But, a new study found that it…
As a side note, many of the features we'll talk about are available on different versions of Facebook, but we'll be looking at them in the newest layout featured here. If we discuss something that isn't available to you, sign up for the wait list and the redesign should roll out to you before long.
Get More Personalized Search Results
Facebook's newest Graph Search feature is a little weird to get used to at first, but it has its upsides. Google is great when you want to get information from the internet at large, but Facebook can allow you to find out things based on what people you actually know like. While searching for the best movies on the web with Google will probably bring up The Shawshank Redemption, Graph Search will show me that my friends love Dr. Horrible (and reaffirm my faith in the people I know).
Clever Uses for Facebook Graph Search
It's been several months since Facebook introduced Graph Search, and if you have it, you may…
Schedule a Meeting or Special Event
Everyone's been invited to see their local band play every week or to celebrate Pi day. However, having access to everyone you know means that Facebook is the best tool for inviting anyone from your project team members to your typical movie night group to a shindig.
Curate Relevant News Feeds
We've talked before about how Facebook can actually have a great news feed if you make it so. Facebook has a nasty habit of distracting us with unimportant photos and junk. By using Interest Lists, you can create custom feeds that combine notable people, sites, and Pages for a more specialized feed. You can use these just like Twitter Lists to organize your browsing.
Facebook Is Fine: Just Hide the Noise
I love Facebook. There, I’ve said it. It’s one of the very few “social” places I’d be genuinely sad …
Collect Every Photo of You (Regardless of Who Took It)
Chances are, you have plenty of photographs of yourself on Facebook that you didn't personally take. You can gather these up using a couple of apps and even automatically download them with IFTTT as they go up.
How to Automatically Archive Every Facebook Photo You're Tagged In
Facebook is one of the prime places friends and family upload pictures. Chances are, at some point…
Hold a Video Chat Painlessly
We like Google Hangouts. A lot. However, there is still some friction when all you want is to have a one-on-one chat with someone. If the person you want to talk to doesn't have a Gmail account—as crazy as it sounds, there are fewer people with Gmail than with Facebook accounts—it requires an explanation. With Facebook, anyone that's on your chat list is eligible for an audio or video chat with almost no problem.
Most Popular Web-Based Video Chat Service: Google Hangouts
Living in the future is great: You can open a browser, click a few buttons, and instantly see your…
Share Files With a Closed Group
We all know Dropbox is a great tool for sharing files. Fewer know that, within Facebook's Groups feature, you can share files with other members. They're capped to 25MB per, and there are certain files you can't upload (including .exe files), but uploading files to Facebook Groups give you a central place that anyone within the group can access without having to deal with shared folders, permissions, or gathering up account information.
When you get past the usual Facebook tropes, it turns out there is a lot you can do with the site that is actually useful and helpful. Not only that, but it's possible to limit or even eliminate all the junk. As with many other sites, the value you get out of Facebook is what you make of it.
How to Quit Facebook Without Actually Quitting Facebook
With all the privacy issues surrounding Facebook, many people are considering quitting the site…
Recent from Eric Ravenscraft
View on The Inventory
Mysterium Is a Spooky, Non-Verbal Game Unlike Anything Else I've Played
Emotional Intelligence: The Social Skills You Weren't Taught in School
How to Find and Apply For Government Benefits
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4198
|
__label__cc
| 0.628884
| 0.371116
|
Fashion Trends & Looks
Denim Fit and Find Guide for No Curves
by Meghan E. Smith
Retailers are paying more attention to different cuts of jeans, including those for body types with no curves.
B2M Productions/Photographer's Choice RF/Getty Images
So, now you know what to look for when buying jeans for a straight figure. But where are you going to find them? Given how many apparel stores offer a line of denim, it can easily become an overwhelming task. Don't get stuck before you even start -- here are some places to begin your search.
There are some companies that deal almost exclusively with denim, so that's a good starting place to look for hard-to-find styles and sizes. If you're starting from scratch in terms of fit, your best bet is to try things on in the store. Once you find your fit, you can stock up online. Levi's is one of the best-known denim brands on the market, and it's also the oldest -- it's credited with producing the world's first blue jeans back in 1873. The company has retail stores across the country as well as an online shop. My True Fit is an online-only retailer, but it includes dozens of brands. Using the fit guide, which gives you options based on size, style and fit, can put you on the right track. For jeans with embellishments and interesting details, check out boutique retailers like Anthropologie. Anthropologie carries brands that are on the whimsical side of stylish, with quirky buttons and non-traditional washes that will add an extra bit of oomph to your figure.
As you begin the hunt for the perfect pair of jeans, don't get discouraged if you can't find that pair right off the rack. You might find jeans that are just right, except maybe the inseam is a little too long or the waist needs to be taken in a bit. Those are easy fixes, and any tailoring service should be able to help you out. Alterations like that aren't expensive, though it's a good investment regardless. Some stores, like Nordstrom or J. Crew, will even do alterations in-house. The end result will be a pair of jeans that fits you to a tee and flatters your figure -- and most importantly, makes you feel like a million bucks.
Denim Fit and Find Guide: Plus Size
Denim Fit and Find Guide for Petites
What fashions work for women with curves?
Bathing Suits for Every Body Type
The Fabric of Our Lives.com. "Denim 'Duhs' For Every Body Type." (April 25, 2010)http://www.thefabricofourlives.com/denim-rules/body-type-jean-guide/
Denim Fit Guide. "Best Jeans for Athletic Figures." 2009. (April 26, 2010)http://www.denimfitguide.com/boyish/
Levi Strauss & Co. "Heritage." (April 30, 2010)http://www.levistrauss.com/heritage
Wikiel, Yolanda. "The Best Jeans for Your Shape." RealSimple.com. (April 25, 2010)http://www.realsimple.com/beauty-fashion/clothing/jeans-pants/best-jeans-body-type-00000000017025/index.html
10 Iconic Fashion Pieces Named for People or Places
Great-great-Grandma's Swimsuit Was a Hot Mess
Pantone Says the Future Is Purple
The Ridiculous Reason Most Women's Clothes Don't Have Real Pockets
5 Things You Didn't Know About Blue Jeans
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4200
|
__label__wiki
| 0.634969
| 0.634969
|
Home / Literature / Mythology & Folklore / Myth in the Modern World
View cart “Myth in the Modern World” has been added to your cart.
Myth in the Modern World
Essays on Intersections with Ideology and Culture
Myth in the Modern World quantity
SKU: 9780786478408 Categories: Popular Culture & Performing Arts, Film, Television, Literature, Mythology & Folklore, Interdisciplinary Studies, Genre, SF & Fantasy Tags: Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, Twilight, werewolves
Ubiquitous and enduring, myths are an inherent part of culture. These 10 essays explore the role of myth in the modern world, delving not only into science fiction and fantasy, but also into sport, terrorist rhetoric and television. Contributors contemplate the changing face of the hero in Breaking Bad, Justified and the Japanese film trilogy 20th Century Boys; explore ideology in George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Fire and Ice novels and the HBO series Game of Thrones, Showtime’s The L Word, and The Day the Earth Stood Still; and examine Al Qaeda’s use of myth to justify its violent actions. Other essays consider the hero ideal in sport, the wolf myth in Twilight and the comic persona of Hercules in the Travel Channel series Man v. Food. The power of myth, this volume reveals, extends beyond ancient stories of gods and heroes to express the hopes, fears and reality of everyday life.
David Whitt is a professor of communication studies at Nebraska Wesleyan University in Lincoln, Nebraska. He teaches mass media, persuasion, communication in the professions, and has taught courses on Star Trek, comic books, and the Irish rock group U2.
John Perlich is a professor of communication studies at Hastings College in Hastings, Nebraska.
Edited by David Whitt and John Perlich
Bibliographic Info: notes, bibliographies, index
Part 1: Envisioning Heroes and Evolving Frontiers
Breaking Bad and Blending Boundaries: Revisioning the Myths of Masculinity and the Superhero (Lisa Weckerle) 7
20th Century Boys: Blending Eastern and Western Storytelling (Michael W. Marek and Pin-hsiang Natalie Wu) 33
A Change of Scenery: The Southern, the Western and the Evolution of the Frontier Myth in Justified (Aaron Duncan) 61
Part 2: Right or Left of Center
The Mythology of Suffering and Redemption in the Discourse of Al Qaeda (Jason A. Edwards) 83
Mothers and Monsters: The Return of the Great Goddess in George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire (Sharon Dee Goertz) 102
Myth and Meaning-Making in Showtime’s The L Word (Judy Battaglia) 123
The Day Environmentalism Stood Still: Film, Myth and the Ecological Jeremiad (Richard D. Besel) 148
Part 3: Reality Bites
Fields of Dreams and Gods of the Gridiron: The Trinity of Myth, Sport and the Hero (Karen L. Hartman) 165
Reclaiming the Wolf Myth in the Shadow of the Twilight Films: The Quileute People’s Exhibit (Lindsay R. Calhoun and Keaton Maddox) 185
The Ultimate Hunger Games: Adam Richman as Comic Hercules in Man v. Food (David Whitt) 207
About the Contributors 227
Under the Bed, Creeping The Artemis Archetype in Popular Culture
YA & Children's
You're viewing: Myth in the Modern World $35.00
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4228
|
__label__cc
| 0.541406
| 0.458594
|
Gold Medal Famous To Release 6th Album ‘Activity’
Gold Medal Famous is a three-piece genre fluid electropop act founded in Wellington in 2008. Known for their captivating live performances, complete with intense audience interaction and comedic stunts, you might love or hate them, but you won’t forget what you’ve seen.
Signed to Auckland indie label Powertool Records, Gold Medal Famous will be releasing their sixth album ‘Activity’ on May 27 2017.
Gold Medal Famous are prolific recorders with 28 releases available on their own Bandcamp page in addition to their releases on Powertool.
‘Activity’, which follows 2015’s ‘Deep In The Heart of Saturday Night’, is a concept album about doing things.
The lead single We Bought A House is about the Kiwi dream of home ownership. The song is a blank canvas with enough space for all your dreams and anxieties about home ownership. It is middle class ‘banksta’ rap.
The album was created using the “firing squad methodology”. The band created the sounds on electronic devices that they each took turns on, before passing on the device to another member of the group. This generated the sonic resources used as source material for the album to be arranged into the songs you hear. Gold Medal Famous don’t know which of the band members originally generated the sounds used, just as members of a firing squad do not know which one of them fired the fatal bullet.
What Others Say About Gold Medal Famous…
“Their live show has to be seen to be believed. Clever, provocative and at times uncomfortable. They wear their political views on their sleeves and polarise audiences… Regardless of which side of the fence you sit, you will be entertained and find yourself talking about them long after the show.” –Andrew Maitai, Powertool Records
“Gold Medal Famous is performance that swings from deadpan delivery to writhing around on the floor. They make you dance, laugh, think…spot on social commentary about the shit that goes down in NZ.” – Jess Haugh aka Scarlett Lashes, musician
“GMF remind us that people have the right to create boring music in trousers, or beautiful, fucked up, weird shit in golden speedos. I know what I want more of.“
– Lake South, musician
“Gold Medal Famous is the kind of band you need to see at least once in your lifetime – they create a show that is as much art as it is music.” – Cerebral.nz
Some Gold Medal Famous Facts
Vorn Colgan – keyboard, laptop, kaossilator, backing vocals, percussion
Tamsin Grigg – guitar, backing vocals, percussion
Chris Wilson – lead vocals, theremin, noise boxes, percussion
‘Activity’ is self-produced, and was recorded between March 2016 and March 2017 by Vorn at his house in Mount Pleasant, Wellington, NZ. The liner notes contain a bibliography.
Mastered by Daniel Mañetto (ex-Voom, Drop Dead Redhead) in April 2017, at 0 Studios in Auckland.
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4232
|
__label__cc
| 0.608678
| 0.391322
|
This campaign closed on Jun 30, 2014 Gemma Stone brought clean water to Mayeif Community and 1 other project.
Great Life Celebration!
Gemma Stone
I lived in a small village in rural Guyana where the entire community gathered their drinking and washing water from a hole in the ground. This community was generous to host myself and a group of do-gooding youth, but our presence depleted their water – that hole in the ground would not fill up as quickly as we drank its supply. I lived on 1/4 of a bucket of dirty water for three months. My cells remember what I drank. My heart aches for those who can't escape what I left behind. My soul demands change.
I want to live in a world where life is celebrated, community is supported, and love is spread far and wide. A world where everyone has access to flowing, fresh water. Because, water changes everything.
If you want to live in this world too, then I have just the thing for you.
The Great Life Celebration is my dream come true. We gather, to celebrate each other, and life. All profits are donated directly to charity: water. Last year we raised enough money for 100 Kenyans to have clean water -- that's a lot of lives!
Our Great Life Celebration is hosted at the exquisite Banff Springs Hotel in the Cascade Ballroom on Saturday April 26, 2014. If you'd like to stay at the Banff Springs, we have an excellent group rate of $189.00. We'll send you all the registration info once you sign up :: http://www.eventbrite.ca/e/great-life-celebration-tickets-9285730871
The celebration starts at 8:00pm and includes a fun photo booth, awesome music & delightful people. Our festivities come to a close at midnight and we return to life filled with love.
99% of this party is about celebrating you and raising money for charity: water. The last 1% is about my birthday; this is my birthday party. And, my birthday wish is to live in a world where life is celebrated, community is supported, and love is spread far and wide. I'm asking that you come celebrate with me and make a donation to charity: water.
Life deserves to be celebrated. And. Everyone deserves to live a Great Life. Deep Thanks for helping me celebrate my life and for making life easier for an entire community across the world.
This campaign brought clean water to Mayeif Community, Ethiopia and 1 other project.
See all of the impact made by Gemma Stone
This campaign closed on Jun 30, 2014 and the money is being sent to the field. Still want to donate? You can give directly to charity: water.
Donate To charity: water
Lee Horbachewski $330
Jeff Kahane $300
Anonymous $115
Craig Lester $100
Anonymous donated $115 - about 5 years ago
For the recent purchases of Adventures in Self Love
Craig Lester donated $100 - about 5 years ago
What a great charity!
Joanne Minaker donated $22 - about 5 years ago
I honour my children - Maylah, Taryk, and Ayden with this gift, secure in the belief that all children on earth deserve access to clean water.
Melsha & Matt Shea donated $66 - over 5 years ago
Happy Birthday Gemma. A great cause and a beautiful soul that has pulled it all together. We celebrate YOU! <3
Paula Onysko donated $50 - over 5 years ago
What a beautiful celebration of love & Universal flow.
Christina Greenway donated $99 - over 5 years ago
Happy Birthday <3
Jeff Kahane donated $300 - over 5 years ago
Greta cause!!
Lynne Stoen donated $50 - over 5 years ago
Helping - helps us all :))
Steve and Rhonda Petryk donated $75 - over 5 years ago
Fresh water, fresh life.
Tessa Partridge donated $33 - over 5 years ago
Pure pure like the water, Let it run forever more <3
This campaign raised $2,000. That money is hard at work in the field.
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4233
|
__label__cc
| 0.666728
| 0.333272
|
Gangster Squad – แก๊งกุดหัวเจ้าพ่อ
Los Angeles, 1949. Ruthless, Brooklyn-born mob king Mickey Cohen runs the show in this town, reaping the ill-gotten gains from the drugs, the guns, the prostitutes and — if he has his way — every wire bet placed west of Chicago. And he does it all with the protection of not only his own paid goons, but also the police and the politicians who are under his control. It’s enough to intimidate even the bravest, street-hardened cop… except, perhaps, for the small, secret crew of LAPD outsiders led by Sgt. John O’Mara and Jerry Wooters who come together to try to tear Cohen’s world apart.
Keywords:Gangster Squad แก๊งกุดหัวเจ้าพ่อ
The Gifted – นักเรียนพลังกิฟต์
A suburban couple’s ordinary lives are rocked by the sudden discovery that their children possess mutant powers. Forced to go on the run from a hostile government, the family joins…
Genre: Action, Drama, Sci-Fi
Free State of Jones – จอมคนล้างแผ่นดิน
In 1863, Mississippi farmer Newt Knight serves as a medic for the Confederate Army. Opposed to slavery, Knight would rather help the wounded than fight the Union. After his nephew…
Sherlock Holmes 2 A Game Of Shadows – เชอร์ล็อค โฮล์มส์ 2 เกมพญายมเงามรณะ
There is a new criminal mastermind at large (Professor Moriarty) and not only is he Holmes’ intellectual equal, but his capacity for evil and lack of conscience may give him…
Genre: Action, Adventure, Crime, Mystery
Ice Age 5: Collision Course – ไอซ์ เอจ 5: ผจญอุกกาบาตสุดอลเวง
Set after the events of Continental Drift, Scrat’s epic pursuit of his elusive acorn catapults him outside of Earth, where he accidentally sets off a series of cosmic events that…
Genre: Action, Adventure, Comedy, Family
Red 2 – คนอึด ต้องกลับมาอึด 2
Retired C.I.A. agent Frank Moses reunites his unlikely team of elite operatives for a global quest to track down a missing portable nuclear device.
Iceman 2 The Time Traveler – ไอซ์แมน 2
The imperial guard and his three traitorous childhood friends ordered to hunt him down get accidentally buried and kept frozen in time. 400 years later pass and they are defrosted…
Genre: Action, Comedy, History
I Am A Hero – ข้าคือฮีโร่
Hideo Suzuki is a 35-year-old mangaka assistant, whose life seem to be stuck around his exhausting but low-paying job, unfulfilled dreams, strange hallucinations and unsatisfying relationships. He sees himself as…
Genre: Action, Fantasy, Horror, Sci-Fi
Gintama – กินทามะ ซามูไร เพี้ยนสารพัด
In an era where aliens have invaded and taken over feudal Tokyo, a young samurai finds work however he can.
Lone Survivor – ฝ่าแดนมรณะพิฆาตศัตรู
Four Navy SEALs on a covert mission to neutralize a high-level al-Qaeda operative must make an impossible moral decision in the mountains of Afghanistan that leads them into an enemy…
Genre: Action, Drama, Thriller, War
Black Water – ซับไทย
A deep cover operative awakens to find himself imprisoned on a submarine. With the help of a fellow prisoner and an amateur agent, he must race against the clock to…
Cold War II – 2 คมล่าถล่มเมือง ภาค 2
Picking up some time after the events in the first movie, Sean Lau is now the Commissioner of Police after the successful rescue operation. However, things turn bad when his…
Genre: Action, Crime, Drama
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4238
|
__label__cc
| 0.737239
| 0.262761
|
From the canteen to the modern manufactory
Start » About Müller Menü » Company History
Motivated employees and safe production
In the late 1950s businessman Johannes Müller founded a canteen business under the name “Fernverpflegung Hamburg-Harburg”. The business developed quickly to an established menu delivery service in the greater Hamburg area and provided employees of businesses, factories and offices with freshly cooked menus every day.
In 1970 a new production facility was built in Seevetal. From 1978 Wolfgang Müller took over the leadership of the company and developed it further over the decades with many innovative improvements turning it into a modern production company for cold and frozen foods. In 1986 the company became the “Großküche Wolfgang Müller GmbH & Co. KG” and since 2009 we operate as Müller Menü GmbH & Co. KG.
Safe future for production, clients and employees
Premises of Müller Menü GmbH south of Hamburg
In the year 2000 the new factory of Müller Menü in Seevetal was put into operation in accordance to modern guidelines and quality standards. As an innovative manufactory we offer a diverse supply of high-convenience-products for gastronomies, canteens, caterers and other client groups.
With the Müller Menü Catering GmbH & Co. KG we run a subsidiary company which is a special service provider for canteens and company restaurants. Thereby the business group keeps a constant practical reference to the demands and the needs of the clients.
The family business Müller Menü employs over 50 employees and is lead by the third generation Oliver and Andrew Müller.
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4246
|
__label__cc
| 0.70515
| 0.29485
|
Zoltan Mesko, Patriots Teammates Kick Off Punter’s ‘ZoliOke’ Event At Boston Children’s Hospital (Photos)
by sean-peick on Fri, Jun 1, 2012 at 8:26PM
Zoltan Mesko is best known for his booming punts on the gridiron. But he’s recently ventured into another endeavor in the name of charity — karaoke.
To kick off his upcoming karaoke event “ZoliOke,” Mesko and a few fellow Patriots visited Boston Children’s Hospital on Friday to indulge in a little singing with some of the patients.
Mesko, Ron Brace, Chris Koepplin and Alex Silvestro took to the stage and belted out pop hits from the past and present, with the kids joining in on the stage with them. Some of the songs featured were “Sweet Caroline,” “Firework,” and several Beach Boys tunes.The four Patriots also visited patients around the hospital.
ZoliOke is scheduled for June 9 at Royale, with all net proceeds benefiting the Boston Children’s Hospital. Tickets are available on ticketmaster.com.
Photos courtesy of WireImage/Darren McCollester
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4249
|
__label__cc
| 0.719193
| 0.280807
|
Home / Breaking News / Flights from New Orleans to the Dominican Republic return next year
Flights from New Orleans to the Dominican Republic return next year
By: Lance Traweek, Managing Editor December 7, 2017 0
Vacation Express will again offer seasonal flights from New Orleans to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic in 2018.
The four-night rotation to Punta Cana from Louis Armstrong International Airport was one of three cities announced Wednesday, including itineraries from Atlanta and Charlotte, South Carolina.
Aerial photo of Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. Courtesy Vacation Express
The New Orleans flight will depart every Thursday from May 24, 2018, through July 5. The Atlanta and Charlotte flights to Punta Cana will begin the same day in May but run through Aug. 9.
The 25-year-old company said in a news release that the popularity of Punta Cana is “indisputable, and there has been strong feedback to offer a shorter program for those who may not be able to take a full week’s vacation.” The travel company already offers nonstop flights to Punta Cana from 20 cities across the United States for six-night programs.
With the return of the service, Michelle Wilcut, airport spokesperson, said it’s great to have a market that can support this type of travel.
“Not all airports are able to sustain service to these types of leisure markets,” Wilcut said. This will be the airport’s third year to have the Punta Cana flight.
The additional flights to Punta Cana will be operated by Swift Air LLC on a Boeing 737-400 aircraft.
Travelers can purchase roundtrip airfare and 4-night packages with air and staying at all-inclusive resorts.
Vacation Express is part of Sunwing Travel Group – a tour operator specializing in vacation packages.
Dominican Republic Louis Armstrong International Airport Michelle Wilcut New Orleans Punta Cana 11:37 am Thu, December 7, 2017 New Orleans CityBusiness
Lance Traweek, Managing Editor
Tagged with: Dominican Republic Louis Armstrong International Airport Michelle Wilcut New Orleans Punta Cana
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4251
|
__label__cc
| 0.701581
| 0.298419
|
Intrum
Intrum/
New signs of economic down-turn - 3 out of 10 companies accelerate sales to meet recession
Tue, Jun 11, 2019 09:30 CET
Companies around the European continent report negative signs related to payments and debts, such as increased bad debt losses, later B2B payments and higher debt risks ahead. The European Payment Report 2019, from the leading European credit management services company Intrum, also shows that the increase in bad debt losses follows several years of decline, marking that we may have passed a turning point. Almost one-fifth (18 per cent) believe their country is already in a recession.
Figures from the report:
Companies report 2.31 per cent bad debt losses in 2018, as a share of companies’ total revenues, up from 1.69 per cent 2017.
16 per cent of companies report that the risks from its debtors will increase the coming year (up from 12 per cent 2018), while only 9 per cent see declining risks ahead (down from 10 per cent).
The average payment time actually taken by B2B clients has gone up from 34 days to 40 days compared to last year.
4 out of 10 companies believe that their country is already in a recession or will be within two years.
- The ability to predict cash flow is key to all businesses, as financial stability is the foundation for growth. For companies, higher risks ahead mean that it is more important than ever to know your customers, says Mikael Ericson, President and CEO of Intrum.
While the 11,856 surveyed businesses around Europe together reveal a pattern of slightly increased risks related to payments and debts, the view of where their country finds itself in the current business cycle varies substantially between the regions. For Europe as a whole, 18 per cent of the companies believe their country already is in an economic-down turn.
In countries like Greece and Italy, businesses see the recession as a current actuality, while most companies in Austria and Germany do not even foresee a recession in the coming five years. In all other countries the views are incoherent, but with a majority or close-to majority of companies saying that a recession is either already a fact or will appear within five years or less in their countries.
Among the companies that see a factual or imminent recession, many plan to cut costs (45 per cent) and be more cautious about taking on debt (36 per cent). But there is also another way: 3 out of 10 (29 per cent) of the companies plan to increase their sales operations to manage a potential down-turn. Another 3 out of 10 (28 per cent) plan to take measures to secure payments from customers. About one out of six companies (17 per cent) that see or foresee a recession does not plan to take any measures.
About Intrum European Payment Report 2019
The European Payment Report 2019 is based on a survey that was conducted simultaneously in 29 European countries between January 31 and April 5, 2019. In this report, Intrum gathered data from 11,856 companies in Europe to gain insights into the payment behavior and financial health of European businesses. The survey was conducted among people who have identified themselves as either CFO, Head of Credits, Business Controller or similar.
Read the full report at www.intrum.com/epr2019
Karin Franck, PR and Media Relations Director
karin.franck@intrum.com
Intrum is the industry-leading provider of Credit Management Services with a presence in 24 markets in Europe. Intrum helps companies prosper by offering solutions designed to improve cash flows and long-term profitability and by caring for their customers. To ensure that individuals and companies get the support they need to become free from debt is one important part of the company’s mission. Intrum has more than 9,000 dedicated professionals who serve around 80,000 companies across Europe. In 2018, revenues amounted to SEK 13.4 billion. Intrum is headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden and the Intrum share is listed on the Nasdaq Stockholm exchange. For further information, please visit www.intrum.com.
Intrum is the industry-leading provider of Credit Management Services with a presence in 24 markets in Europe. Intrum helps companies prosper by offering solutions designed to improve cash flows and long-term profitability and by caring for their customers. To ensure that individuals and companies get the support they need to become free from debt is one important part of the company’s mission. Intrum has more than 9, 000 dedicated professionals who serve about 80,000 companies across Europe. In 2018, revenues amounted to SEK 13.4 billion. Intrum is headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden and the Intrum share is listed on the Nasdaq Stockholm exchange. For further information, please visit www.intrum.com.
Karin Franck
PR & Media Relations Director
Hesselmans Torg 14, Sickla SE-105 24 Stockholm Sweden
http://www.intrum.com
k.franck@intrum.com
Anna Fall
Chief Brand & Communications Officer
anna.fall@intrum.com
Privacy statement | Cookies | About | Content Policy | Contact
©Cision Privacy statement Cookies About Content Policy Contact
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4253
|
__label__wiki
| 0.88248
| 0.88248
|
My Old Addiction
Movie Reviews By Bil Antoniou
BBBBB
It took three films to get here, but this is where the birth of Bond-mania begins! Flashy cars, awesome gadgets, gorgeous gals and a supersexy spy with a devilishly winsome attitude are combined with Ken Adam’s glorious set design and Guy Hamilton’s stylish direction to create what is probably the best in the Bond franchise. This time agent 007 is sent from Miami to Switzerland and back to the U.S. again when his investigation of a gold smuggler (Gert Fröbe) leads him to suspect the possible robbery of Fort Knox, where the American gold reserve is kept under severe guard. Honor Blackman stars as one of the very best Bond girls, a chic lesbian airplane pilot named (appropriately enough) Pussy Galore, who gives Bond a good wrestle in the hay and ends up succumbing to his charms. My favourite aspect of this film is in the last third, when Bond saves the world just by being a great lay; this is classy entertainment if ever it existed!
United Kingdom, 1964
Directed by Guy Hamilton
Screenplay by Richard Maibaum, Paul Dehn, based on the novel by Ian Fleming
Cinematography by Ted Moore
Produced by Albert R. Broccoli, Harry Saltzman
Music by John Barry
Production Design by Ken Adam
Costume Design by Elsa Fennell
Film Editing by Peter R. Hunt
Posted in 111toformat, 1964, BBBBB, Guy HamiltonTagged Academy Award 1964, Albert R. Broccoli, Alf Joint, Austin Willis, Bernard Lee, Bill Nagy, Burt Kwouk, Cec Linder, Desmond Llewelyn, Elsa Fennell, Eon Productions, Gerry Duggan, Gert Fröbe, Guy Hamilton, Harold Sakata, Harry Saltzman, Honor Blackman, Ian Fleming, James Bond, John Barry, John McLaren, Ken Adam, Lois Maxwell, Mai Ling, Margaret Nolan, Martin Benson, Michael Mellinger, Nadja Regin, Paul Dehn, Peter Cranwell, Peter R. Hunt, Richard Maibaum, Richard Vernon, Robert MacLeod, Sean Connery, Shirley Eaton, Tania Mallet, Ted Moore, United Kingdom, Varley Thomas, Victor BrooksBy Bil AntoniouLeave a comment
← Factotum
Funeral In Berlin →
Director Pages
Actor Pages
Gotham Awards
New York Film Critics Awards
Washington Film Critics Awards
LGBT cinema
BGM: Bad Gay Movies / Bitchy Gay Men
BGM Episodes
My Criterions
Search MyOldAddiction.com
Virgin Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors (Oh! Soo-jung) (2000)
Is It Just Me? (2010)
Dalida Pour Toujours (1977)
Follow My Old Addiction On Instagram
"I do expose my body, but only because I think people should have something nice to look at." - Brigitte Nielsen, born July 15, 1963. #BrigitteNielsen
"I can play a man who's despicable. But I'll still look inside him to find a point of connection. If I can find that kernel, audiences will relate to me." - Forest Whitaker, born July 15, 1961. #ForestWhitaker
Today's review on MyOldAddiction.com, The Souvenir by #JoannaHogg starring #TildaSwinton, "refuses to allow anything to feel manipulated or melodramatic"
BEST ACTRESS 1987: In her 1998 autobiographical book The First Time, actor-singer-eyeroll champion CHER said that in 1983, she, Meryl Streep and Mike Nichols went to a movie theatre that was playing the trailer for Silkwood ahead of that week's feature. The crowd cheered for everyone whose name came up on screen until the word Cher popped up, at which point the room burst out laughing; a year later, with her first Oscar nomination and a Golden Globe, the laughter was squelched and it was well known that Cher, at that point most famous for her adorable hippy duo with Sonny Bono and that marvelous variety show, was kicking ass on movie screens. Not being nominated for Mask three years later stung her, particularly considering the acclaim that came with that performance (including a Best Actress prize at Cannes), but in 1987 she won raves for her work in three high profile and successful films: Suspect (where she plays a lawyer. A LAWYER!), The Witches of Eastwick (in which she tells Jack Nicholson that he smells), and, of course, the eternal classic and one of my favourite all-time films, MOONSTRUCK, in which we're expected to believe that she needs to dye three gray hairs in order to be pretty enough to go out on a date (as one writer put it, making Cher accessible and amiable was a much bigger feat than that makeover). In Norman Jewison's masterpiece, the California-born singing superstar is fully convincing as Brooklyn Italian, playing a widow who decides to marry a boring mama's boy because happiness is less important than practicality, then has her plans blown by the romantic overtures of her fiance's brother, played by Nicolas Cage at the height of his sex appeal. John Patrick Shanley's script is brimming over with endlessly memorable dialogue ("How's the mother?" "She's dying but I can still hear her big mouth") and Cher delivers it with the kind of candor and directness that marks her best performances, her greatest quality as an actor has always been her manner of always seeming like she showed up on the set that day and this is just what was she had to say.
Follow MyOldAddiction on Twitter
RT @frankhorvat: Well, that’s a wrap for Spend Your Kids’ Inheritance @Toronto_Fringe. What an unbelievable dream journey it has been to br… 16 hours ago
"I do expose my body, but only because I think people should have something nice to look at." - Brigitte Nielsen, b… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 17 hours ago
"I can play a man who's despicable. But I'll still look inside him to find a point of connection. If I can find tha… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 17 hours ago
RT @MomOfKai: ☀️Fun day with jennabendstherules - Fringe shows, sangria, & friends 🥰 @bilantoniou and carsonbetz, you were both wonderful &… 1 day ago
"I spent two hours with makeup men and hairdressers and then I would go on the set and sit and wait. My friends wer… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 1 day ago
"Acting is my connection to the community, with the world at large. I hope what I do benefits the community without… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 1 day ago
"No form of art goes beyond ordinary consciousness as film does, straight to our emotions, deep into the twilight r… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 1 day ago
RT @BadGayMovies: On this week's episode, Daniel recommends you listen to @unspooled , wp.me/p3aOKF-q4 2 days ago
RT @BadGayMovies: On this week's episode, Bil recommends you read The Blue Castle by Lucy Maud Montgomery, wp.me/p3aOKF-q4, @LMMon… 2 days ago
Follow @bilantoniou
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4257
|
__label__cc
| 0.661074
| 0.338926
|
How many children must die before parents get wise?
For immediate information: click HERE
It is no coincidence that we are hearing a lot of stories nationwide about teens who lost their lives to prescription drug abuse. With the recently President Obama proclaimed National Take Back Day, the requests, pleas, and begging for an end to this crisis has grown louder.
The DEA along with various local city and state police, fire, medical, and religious organization is asking for adults to dispose of unused or expired OTC and Prescription medications.
Every pill and liquid that is removed from the home, creates a safer environment for our children to grow up.
The latest victim that I read about, Connor, a young Utah boy who died last December after an overdose. You can read about it here: http://fb.me/y8BPa17b
It’s a story with a different name, and a different place, but a common problem; prescription medication.
This kid wasn’t a runaway, and he wasn’t out partying on the streets til 2AM, well past curfew.
Little Connor was playing basketball and ice skating and had dinner at a friend’s house. The later watched the end of a movie at home with his mother.
In the morning, he was dead.
It’s not a different story from another death late last year. Two teens playing rock band at home until 3AM. The parents not upset and glee and laughter coming from their son’s room. Afterall, their son and his best friend weren’t out at a party. They had a fun night at home with their parents a few rooms away. Sadly, the parents the next day found the teen guest dead. The boys had been using prescription drugs.
There are far too many stories in society. These aren’t bad kids. These are children who make a bad choice. Sometimes it’s just one mistake that leads them to the grave.
Myteensavers.com urges parents to take part in the Take Back day. Spend 5-10 minutes locating all old medicines, and take them to a proper collection spot in your neighborhood.
Yes, some kids will still use methamphetamine, cocaine, marijuana, and alcohol. Saturday’s effort may not change that. But prescription drug abuse is an epidemic. Kids choose pills second to marijuana. The threat and the danger is real.
Myteensavers.com also encourages home drug testing. A 12-panel Teensavers Home Drug Test Kit will screen for many dangerous drugs including marijuana, cocaine, amphetamines, methamphetamine, opiates, PCP, benzodiazapines, barbiturates, trcicyclic acids, Oxycodone, methadone, Ecstasy (MDMA)
You can get a kit here
Tags: Addiction, Adolescence, americas parenting coach, at home drug test, Barack Obama, Cannabis, Charlie Sheen, Cocaine, dad, daughter, dea, Drug Enforcement Administration, Drug test, ecstasy, espn, Family, Food and Drug Administration, Health, heroin, home drug test kit, Marijuana, MDMA, mom, myteensavers, Oxycodone, oxycontin, Parent, parenting, Prescription drug, President Obaama, son, Substance abuse, Substance dependence, take back, take back day, teen, teensavers, Tim Chapman, treatment, urine drug test
Myteensavers.com salutes President Obama with or without a birth certificate!
Myteensavers.com has been communicating with parents, telling them that pills are a problem. Unfortunately America is in a stir over President Obama’s birth certificate. But more importantly, the White House is sending out its own message about the devastation of opiates.
Here is the government press release!
OBAMA ADMINISTRATION RELEASES ACTION PLAN TO ADDRESS NATIONAL PRESCRIPTION DRUG ABUSE EPIDEMIC;
ANNOUNCES FDA ACTION REQUIRING DRUG MAKERS TO DEVELOP EDUCATION PROGRAM FOR PRESCRIBERS ABOUT SAFE USE OF OPIOIDS
New Strategy Strikes Balance between Cracking down on Drug Diversion and Protecting Delivery of Effective Pain Management
Washington, D.C.—Today, Gil Kerlikowske, White House Director of National Drug Control Policy; Assistant Secretary for Health and Human Services, Howard Koh, M.D.; Food and Drug Administration Commissioner, Margaret A. Hamburg, M.D.; and DEA Administrator, Michele M. Leonhart released the Obama Administration’s comprehensive action plan to address the national prescription drug abuse epidemic and announced new Federal requirements aimed at educating the medical community about proper prescribing practices.
The Administration’s Epidemic: Responding to America’s Prescription Drug Abuse Crisis provides a national framework for reducing prescription drug diversion and abuse by supporting the expansion of state-based prescription drug monitoring programs, recommending more convenient and environmentally responsible disposal methods to remove unused medications from the home, supporting education for patients and healthcare providers, and reducing the prevalence of pill mills and doctor shopping through enforcement efforts. The plan is the culmination of six months of collaboration across the Federal government, with agencies including the Departments of Justice, Health and Human Services, Veterans Affairs, the Department of Defense, and others.
In support of the action plan, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today announced that it is requiring an Opioids Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS). The new program will require manufacturers of long-acting and extended-release opioids to provide educational programs to prescribers of these medications, as well as materials prescribers can use when counseling patients about the risks and benefits of opioid use. The Food and Drug Administration Amendments Act of 2007 gave FDA the authority to require manufacturers to develop and implement a REMS to ensure the benefits of a drug or biological product outweigh its risks.
“Today we are making an unprecedented commitment to combat the growing problem of prescription drug abuse,” said Vice President Biden. “The Government, as well as parents, patients, health care providers, and manufacturers all play a role in preventing abuse. This plan will save lives, and it will substantially lessen the burden this epidemic takes on our families, communities, and workforce.”
“The toll our Nation’s prescription drug abuse epidemic has taken in communities nationwide is devastating ,” said Director Kerlikowske. “We share a responsibility to protect our communities from the damage done by prescription drug abuse. This plan will build upon our already unprecedented efforts to coordinate a national response to this public health crisis by addressing the threat at the Federal, state, and local level.”
“Abuse of prescription drugs, especially opioids, represents an alarming public health crisis.” said Howard K. Koh, M.D., M.P.H. Assistant Secretary for Health. “This Plan, which coordinates a public health approach with a public safety approach, offers hope and health to our Nation.”
“Unintentional drug overdose is a growing epidemic in the US and is now the leading cause of injury death in 17 states,” CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden said. “There are effective and emerging strategies out there to address this problem. Support for this action plan will help us implement those strategies which will go a long way to save lives and reduce the tremendous burden this problem has on our healthcare system and our society.”
“Long-acting and extended-release opioid drugs have benefit when used properly and are a necessary component of pain management for certain patients, but we know that they pose serious risks when used improperly, with serious negative consequences for individuals, families, and communities,” said FDA Commissioner Margaret A. Hamburg, M.D. “The prescriber education component of this Opioid REMS balances the need for continued access to these medications with stronger measures to reduce their risks.”
“DEA is committed to implementing this important and much needed action plan to reduce the demand for prescription drugs, enforce our nation’s drug laws, and take back unneeded prescription drugs,” said DEA Administrator Michele M. Leonhart. “When abused, prescription drugs are just as dangerous and just as addictive as drugs like methamphetamine or heroin. The more we can do to stop the abuse of prescription drugs, the more effective we will be in reducing the death, destruction and despair that accompanies all drug abuse.”
Prescription drug abuse is our Nation’s fastest-growing drug problem. The number of people who have unintentionally overdosed on prescription drugs now exceeds the number who overdosed during the crack cocaine epidemic of the 1980’s and the black tar heroin epidemic of the 1970’s combined. In 2007, approximately 27,000 people died from unintentional drug overdoses, driven mostly by prescription drugs. Additionally, a ccording to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the number of Americans in 2009 aged 12 and older currently abusing pain relievers has increased by 20 percent since 2002. Further, visits by individuals to hospital emergency rooms involving the misuse or abuse of pharmaceutical drugs have doubled over the past five years.
ONDCP is coordinating an unprecedented government-wide public health approach to reduce drug use and its consequences in the United States . This effort includes requesting an increase in funding for drug prevention by $123 million and treatment programs by $99 million dollars for Fiscal Year 2012, to train and engage primary health care to intervene in emerging cases of drug abuse, expand and improve specialty care for addiction—including care for families and veterans, and to better manage drug-related offenders in community corrections.
To read the full Action Plan, click here.
To read the FDA’s Opioids Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategies (REMS), click here.
To get involved in DEA’s National Prescription Drug Take-Back Initiative, click here.
Tags: Addiction, Addictions, Adolescence, americas parenting coach, at home drug test, Betty Ford Center, birth certificate, Cannabis, Chapman House, Charlie Sheen, Cocaine, Donald Trump, Drug test, ecstasy, Family, Food and Drug Administration, Goal, Health, heroin, home drug test kit, home drug testing, Howard Koh, intervention, Margaret Hamburg, Marijuana, MDMA, Methamphetamine, myteensavers, Oxycodone, oxycontin, Parent, Prescription drug, President Obama, Substance abuse, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, teensavers, Tim Chapman, treatment, United States, urine drug test, White House
$2 Home Drug Test? Get the answers from Myteensavers
Curious about which home drug test to use with your teens?
Many parents looking for the fastest answers often by unreliable, foreign made, cheap products on places like Ebay, craigslist, and from companies that are huge clearing houses for almsot expired medical supplies.
But what are you really getting with that $2 home drug test?
Drug levels on the test panels can be set at any cutoff. Here’s what you don’t want; Foreign made products that have cutoff levels so high and so random, that you don’t get a successful tests. Do you want a false negative? If you make the decision to test your teen, it will be a difficult one. Don’t trust your an unreliable product.
Teensavers tests are made in the USA. They hold to governmental cutoff levels. They are FDA approved. The levels are strict and consistent. When grocery shopping, there’s a reason why you don’t buy the $.99 product, and you spend the extra dollars on brand you can trust. The Teensavers Home Drug Test Kits are a family brand. They deliver more than answers. They help your family through the process of being a drug free family.
Sure you can find a saliva based test from China on Ebay for $2. But did you know that the government drug agencies strongly encourage that all saliva drug tests be backed up with a urine test? Why take two tests?
Do the right thing for your family. These are your loved ones, who you cherish and want to see thrive in life.
Get the right thing for your family. Buy the Teensavers Home Drug Test Kit with confidence.
Tags: Addiction, Addictions, Adolescence, at home drug test, Cannabis, Chapman House, Charlie Sheen, China, Cocaine, Drug test, Drugs, eBay, ecstasy, Family, family first, FDA, first check, first family, Food and Drug Administration, Health, home drug test, home drug test kit, intervention, love, Marijuana, MDMA, Methamphetamine, my family, myteensavers, Oxycodone, oxycontin, Parent, Prescription drug, Substance abuse, Substance dependence, teen, teensavers, Tim Chapman, treatment, United States, urine drug test, Youth
12 panel home drug test confirms any parent suspicions about their teen
Perhaps the best thing to ease the mind, is an answer to your question.
Many parents ponder if their child is drinking or using drugs, but few seek the answer.
A Teensavers 12-panel home drug test kit detects the major substances used by teens. Remember 2500 children try drugs for the first time every day.
Wouldn’t you like to know for sure?
The Teensavers home drug test screens for marijuana, heroin and other opiates, cocaine, PCP, amphetamines, methamphetamines, MDMA (ecstasy), Benzodiazapines, Barbiturates, Oxycodone, methadone, and tricyclic acids.
YOU can get one by clicking on the box. Your purchase is confidential.
Tags: Addiction, Addictions, Adolescence, americas parenting coach, at home drug test, Barbiturate, Benzodiazepine, Betty Ford Center, Cannabis, Chapman House, Charlie Sheen, Cocaine, Drug, Drug test, ecstasy, Family, home drug test, home drug testing, MDMA, Methamphetamine, Opiate, Oxycodone, Phencyclidine, Prescription drug, Substance abuse, Substance dependence, teensavers, Tim Chapman, treatment, urine drug test
PARENTS POLL: How concerned are you about teens and drugs?
Parents, we need your help!
We have created a POLL P on our Facebook page. If you’ve never been there, you should check it out. It has all of the latest teen and drug news and stories. Today we are asking parents if they are concerned about teens and drugs.
We would love for you to come and give us your two cents. If you like what you see there, we’d love you to “like” our page!
Here is the link for the POLL! http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=question&id=199941093374508&qa_ref=qd
Thanks from the Teensavers Team.
Tags: Addiction, Addictions, Adolescence, americas parenting coach, at home drug test, Betty Ford Center, bree olsen, bree olson, California, California Proposition 19, Cannabis, Chapman House, Charlie Sheen, Child, Cocaine, Drug, Drug test, ecstasy, Facebook, Family, Health, heroin, home drug test, home drug test kit, Illegal drug trade, intervention, Legality of cannabis, Marijuana, MDMA, Methamphetamine, myteensavers, Oxycodone, oxycontin, Parent, Prescription drug, rachel oberlin, Substance abuse, Substance dependence, teensavers, Tim Chapman, treatment, United States, urine drug test, Youth
Raid your medicine cabinet before your teen does!
Next Saturday is National Take Back Day. The DEA works with local agencies to help collect unused and outdated prescriptions. Considering that 2500 teens every day use drugs for the first time, this is a movement that takes very little effort. There are numerous collection facilities in all neighborhoods. Teens will use or sell these prescriptions. Pill popping teens also springboard to heroin.
It takes very little time. If you need help for a loved one on drugs, visit myteensavers.com
Spring Break, Prom, and Summer: Popular occasions to experiment with drugs.
As families, these are the times we cherish most. The school year is winding down, and we are taking family trips to theme parks, or destinations by land, sea, or air. Everyone appreciates the family spring break trip. Most are fun, safe, and treasures to remember. They typically do not end up like the Griswolds’ vacations. While those mini disasters are fictional comedy for us to enjoy, there are serious concerns to remember during these vacations.
Teens with more free time are looking for things to do. Unfortunately, drugs become one of the things they “play around with.” Kids attend more parties during this time. Teens bring more than alcohol to these parties. Marijuana is abundantly plentiful. It shows up in candy bars, brownies, and other baked goods. Believe it or not, some teens think that marijuana is safer if it isn’t smoked. The pot brownies start becoming more attractive.
It’s a good ideas to have a home drug test in the family home. Parents can allow their teens to enjoy their spring break, with the understanding that the test will be there.
As more school crack down on prom drinking and drug use, parents should be more vigilant as well. More school districts are utilizing breathalyzers at the dancers, to detect alcohol. But what they won’t catch are the teens who just ate a big pot laced candy bar. Kids will be higher than a kite at the dance, and then can continue their drinking at their hotel rooms.
Parents need to be vigilant in summer as well. While teens often turn to drugs during the school year, as a way to cope, the summer is just an excuse to overuse.
Tags: Addiction, Addictions, Adolescence, americas parenting coach, at home drug test, Chapman House, Child, Cocaine, Drug test, Drugs, ecstasy, Family, Family (biology), Health, heroin, home drug test, home drug test kit, home drug testing, intervention, Legality of cannabis, Marijuana, MDMA, Methamphetamine, myteensavers, oxycontin, Parent, Prescription drug, Recreation, Specialty Travel, Spring break, Student, Substance abuse, Substance dependence, teensavers, Tim Chapman, Travel, treatment, urine drug test
A reminder from our friends at the Irvine Community Drug Prevention
Tell California Assembly Committee on Governmental Organization to Pass AB 183 to Ban Alcohol Sales Through Self-Serve Checkout
Protect California’s youth and the public health and safety of all Californians
Easy access to alcohol is a key driver of underage drinking, which in turn causes violent crime, car crashes, and high-risk sex. The rise in self-serve checkout lanes in stores that sell alcoholic beverages is creating a recipe for disaster.
Numerous studies have confirmed that retailers with self-serve checkouts enable young people to either purchase or steal alcoholic beverages. AB 183, authored by Assemblymember Ma (D-San Francisco), provides a unique opportunity to protect California’s youth.
Through our legal system, society acknowledges that dangerous products such as tobacco, medication, and spray paint require greater control at retail outlets. AB 183 would ensure that alcohol sales are similarly controlled to prevent unnecessary alcohol-related harm to youth and adults alike.
Please join Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), California Police Chiefs Association, California Professional Firefighters, California Peace Officers Association, California Narcotic Officers Association, California Association of Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Counselors (CAADAC), Riverside Sheriffs’ Association and Marin Institute to tell Assemblymember Hall (D-Compton), Chair of the Committee on Governmental Organization, to Pass AB 183 to protect youth and help reduce alcohol-related harm.
Tags: alcohol, California, Marin Institute, Retailing, San Francisco, Substance abuse, United States, Youth
Barry Bonds and Manny Ramirez: Their foul play provides teen athletes with fair lesson.
Filed under: Uncategorized — 1 Comment
Baseball will weather the storm created by Barry Bonds and Manny Ramirez. I think most people will hate the player, and not the game.
It’s clear, Barry Bonds tried to get an advantage. Steroids or not, Bonds tried to cheat the game. It appears Ramirez, like many other former major leaguers, tried to extend his career beyond an age that his body was capable of playing.
Sadly, teens get derailed not only by PEDs, but by substance abuse. Many young athletes grow up, and first excel in their sport while having fun. But the fun gives way to a demand to continue performance. Teens use drugs to cope. High school athletes smoke pot, drink, and pop pills to “chill.”
Parents who believe their teen may have a shot at a college scholarship, or potentially a professional sports career, should help keep their kids on track. A Teensavers home drug test is a great way to keep family values intact.
If you are ready to buy one, or would like more information, click on the Teensavers website, right HERE.
Tags: Addiction, Addictions, americas parenting coach, at home drug test, Barry Bonds, Baseball, Chapman House, Charlie Sheen, Child, Cocaine, Drug, Drug test, Drugs, ecstasy, Family, Health, heroin, Home, home drug test, home drug test kit, home drug testing, intervention, Major League Baseball, Manny Ramirez, Marijuana, MDMA, Methamphetamine, myteensavers, Oxycodone, oxycontin, Parent, Performance-enhancing drugs, Prescription drug, Sports, Substance abuse, teensavers, Tim Chapman, treatment, urine drug test
Teensavers Alert! Teen drug use rising. Time for a home drug test?
Teensavers respects the great work done by organizations who help keep children off drugs. These are the results of a new study conducted by a Partnershipfor at DrugFree.org and Metlife. Their news release is below.
If you ever need help for drugs, please click here.
National Study Confirms Teen Drug Use Trending in Wrong Direction: Marijuana, Ecstasy Use Up Since 2008, Parents Feel Ill-Equipped To Respond
By Josie Feliz | April 6, 2011 | 11 Comments | Filed in News Releases
Sixty-Two Percent of Teens Who Reported Alcohol Use Had First Drink by Age 15
New York, NY – April 6, 2011 – Following a decade of steady declines, a new national study released today by The Partnership at Drugfree.org and MetLife Foundation indicates that teen drug and alcohol use is headed in the wrong direction, with marked increases in teen use of marijuana and Ecstasy over the past three years. The 22nd annual Partnership Attitude Tracking Study (PATS), sponsored by MetLife Foundation, affirms a disturbing trend that has emerged among American teens since 2008 and highlights that as underage drinking becomes more normalized among adolescents, parents feel unable to respond to the negative shifts in teen drug and alcohol use.
According to the three-year trend confirmed in this year’s 2010 PATS data, there was a significant 67 percent increase in the number of teens who reported using Ecstasy in the past year (from 6 percent in 2008 to 10 percent in 2010). Similarly, past-year marijuana use among teens increased by a disturbing 22 percent (from 32 percent in 2008 to 39 percent in 2010).
Youth Drinking More Normalized: Majority of Teens Surveyed Report First Alcohol Drink by Age 15
The new data underscore alarming patterns in early adolescent alcohol use and found that teens view drinking alcohol – even heavy drinking – as less risky than using other substances.
• Of those teens who reported alcohol use, a majority (62 percent) said they had their first full alcoholic drink by age 15, not including sipping or tasting alcohol.
• Of those teens who reported alcohol use, one in four (25 percent), said they drank a full alcoholic drink for the first time by age 12 or younger.
• Among teens who reported drinking alcohol, the average age of first alcohol use was 14.
“As teen drug and alcohol use take a turn for the worse, a heavier burden is placed squarely on the shoulders of parents – who need to take an active role in preventing substance abuse in their families, take action if they suspect their child is using and get immediate help for a child who has developed a problem with drugs or drinking,” said Steve Pasierb, President and CEO of The Partnership at Drugfree.org. “We are troubled, but not completely surprised, by these numbers because, in schools and communities across the country, support for drug education and prevention programs has been cut drastically due to budgetary pressures.”
Teens See Little Risk in Heavy Drinking; Parents Feel They Can’t Stop Risky Behavior
Weak perceptions of risk and a perceived “normalization” of underage drinking underlie the PATS survey data on adolescent alcohol use.
• Almost half of teens (45 percent) reported they do not see a “great risk” in heavy daily drinking.
• Only 31 percent of teens strongly disapprove of teens and peers their age getting drunk.
• A majority of teens, seven out of 10 (73 percent), report having friends who drink alcohol at least once a week.
While the number one reason teens reported using alcohol is that they think “it’s fun to drink” (60 percent), a significant number of teens reported using alcohol to deal with stress.
• One in three (32 percent) teens said they drank “to forget their troubles.”
• Almost one in four (24 percent) said they used alcohol to help them “deal with problems at home.”
• One in five (20 percent) teens reported they drank to “deal with the pressures and stress of school.”
It’s important to note that teens who begin drinking before the age of 15 are much more likely than other teens to develop problems with alcohol as adults.
The PATS survey also found that parents feel unprepared to respond to underage drinking by their children. Almost a third of parents (28 percent) feel “there is very little parents can do to prevent their kids from trying alcohol.” One in three teens (32 percent) thinks their parents would be ok if they drank beer once in a while; yet only one in ten parents agrees with teens drinking beer at a party.
“These findings should serve as a call to action for parents,” said Dennis White, President and CEO of MetLife Foundation. “We encourage parents and caregivers to pay attention to the warning signs of teen drinking and other drug use, in order to intervene early and effectively. If you suspect a problem, do not wait to get help for a child who is struggling with substance abuse or addiction.”
Time To Get Help: Resource to Help Parents Intervene and Get Treatment for Addiction in Their Families
For parents who suspect or know their child is using drugs or alcohol, The Partnership at Drugfree.org created Time To Get Help, a first-of-its-kind website and online community to provide parents of teens and young adults with lifesaving information when families are in crisis and facing a child’s addiction.
With teen drug and alcohol use on the rise, the likelihood that more young people will need treatment increases. Of the nine million American teens and young adults needing treatment, two million are between the ages of 12-17, and ninety percent of those are not getting the help they need.
Time To Get Help offers parents and caregivers comprehensive insight into adolescent alcohol and drug abuse, dependence and addiction; support from top experts and other parents who have been there; and treatment options for their child and family.
No Improvement in Teen Abuse of Rx/OTC Drugs, Inhalants, Cigarettes, Meth, Cocaine/Crack, Heroin
According to the PATS survey, teen abuse of prescription (Rx) medicines continues to be an area of major concern, with abuse rates holding steady and at levels that should be worrisome to parents. The data found one in four teens (25 percent) reported taking a prescription drug not prescribed to them by a doctor at least once in their lives, and more than one in five teens (23 percent) used a prescription pain reliever not prescribed to them by a doctor. Teen past-year use of over-the-counter (OTC) cough medicine has remained at roughly one in ten (11 percent).
Past-year teen inhalant abuse remains at 10 percent, yet only 60 percent of teens strongly agree that “sniffing or huffing things to get high can kill you,” significantly less than the 70 percent of teens who said the same in 2008. Inhalant abuse merits careful monitoring – as teen attitudes towards inhalant abuse weaken, abuse is more likely to increase.
Teen smoking rates have remained stable with 27 percent of teens reporting smoking cigarettes in the past month. Among teens, past-year methamphetamine use is holding at 5 percent and cocaine/crack is at 9 percent. Teen use of heroin use remains low at 4 percent for lifetime use.
For more information, or to view the full PATS report and key findings, click here.
PATS Methodology
The 22nd annual national study of 2,544 teens in grades 9-12 and 831 parents is nationally projectable with a +/- 3.6 percent margin of error for the teen sample and +/- 3.4 percent for the parent sample. Conducted for The Partnership at Drugfree.org and MetLife Foundation by GfK Roper Public Affairs & Corporate Communications the 2010 PATS teen survey was administered in private, public and parochial schools, while the parent survey was conducted through in-home interviews by deKadt Marketing and Research, Inc.
About The Partnership at Drugfree.org
The Partnership at Drugfree.org is a nonprofit organization that helps parents prevent, intervene in and find treatment for drug and alcohol use by their children. Bringing together renowned scientists, parent experts and communications professionals, this public health nonprofit translates current research on teen behavior, parenting, addiction and treatment into easy to understand resources at drugfree.org. The organization also reaches families through its community education programs which focus on local drug and alcohol issues of concern for parents, youth and the Hispanic community. The Partnership at Drugfree.org depends on donations from individuals, corporations, foundations and the public sector and is thankful to SAG/AFTRA and the advertising and media industries for their ongoing generosity.
About MetLife Foundation
For over 20 years, MetLife Foundation has provided support for initiatives focusing on substance abuse prevention and education. Since 1999, the Foundation has collaborated with The Partnership at Drugfree.org on a national public awareness campaign to help parents and caregivers communicate with children about the risks of drug use. MetLife Foundation was established in 1976 by MetLife to carry on its long-standing tradition of corporate contributions and community involvement. For more information about the Foundation, visit metlife.org.
Tags: Addiction, Adolescence, Alcoholic beverage, Alcoholism, americas parenting coach, at home drug test, Cannabis, Cocaine, Drug test, Health, heroin, home drug test, home drug test kit, home drug testing, intervention, Legal drinking age, Marijuana, MetLife, myteensavers, Parent, Partnership for a Drug-Free America, Prescription drug, Substance abuse, Substance dependence, teensavers, Tim Chapman, urine drug test
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4258
|
__label__wiki
| 0.785224
| 0.785224
|
NEWS: John Lawrence – Sickly Revelations* @ NGCA
The artist’s three-part film series attempts to reconnect us to the real world
By Eugenie Johnson on Thursday, June 30th, 2016
How much do we really live in the ‘real world’? In an age where we’re spending more time on social media and all kinds of entertainment is readily available, it could be argued that we’re becoming increasingly detached from reality. This disconnect has become a major source of inspiration for John Lawrence, whose new film Sickly Revelations* comes to Sunderland’s Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art from this month. The three-part film, which features a soundtrack by Mark Good, centres on the banal observations of an everyman narrator, focusing on his home cinema system and pieces of AV equipment on his floor. The unnamed narrator could be any of us, thus encouraging the viewer to ask why we feel such a strong connection to technology as opposed to other objects.
The short series of films is accompanied by a city-wide poster campaign using enigmatic phrases. Beginning with the words ‘some people,’ the posters are not only a list of some of the negative traits contemporary society has brought about but their placement asks passers-by to pay more attention to their concrete surroundings. Prepare to be reconnected to the real world.
John Lawrence’s Sickly Revelations* comes to NGCA, Sunderland from Saturday 2nd July until Saturday 24th September.
NEWS: The Cheviot, The Stag, And The Black, Black Oil @ Live Theatre
NEWS: Fertile Ground – Twilight Dances @ Various locations
NEWS: Northern Festival of Illustration
NEWS: The View From Behind The Futuristic Rose Trellis @ BALTIC
NEWS: Andy Fury/George Zach @ Hole In The Wall
NEWS: WRITE Festival @ The Word
PROFILE: Matt Antoniak
NEWS: Equus @ Northern Stage
NEWS: Lou Sanders – Shame Pig @ ARC
NEWS: Ex-Voto & Forest @ Side Gallery
NEWS: Princess & The Hustler @ Live Theatre
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4262
|
__label__wiki
| 0.532751
| 0.532751
|
2010 NHL Free Agency: Anton Stralman's salary arbitration could cause a mess in Columbus
By James O'BrienJul 20, 2010, 9:00 PM EDT
While the Chicago Blackhawks (salary cap purging), Detroit Red Wings (simply re-gaining Jiri Hudler) and St. Louis Blues (adding Halak) made waves in the Central division this summer, it’s been disappointing to see GM Scott Howson and the Columbus Blue Jackets stand pat. It’s often the sign of a cash-strapped club to do just that, so reports of the team’s hopes of bandaging its financial wounds with casino money might explain why the team isn’t making many moves.
Still, you have to spent money to make money (and wins) in the NHL and the Blue Jackets might find themselves in a perilous position when it comes to their already anemic powerplay. If the team finds Anton Stralman’s salary arbitration finding too rich for their tastes, they might be in a bit of a puck pickle according to Aaron Portzline of the Columbus Dispatch.
Imagine if Kaberle and Bieksa are traded in the next few days, and then Stralman is awarded $2.5 million (or more) in arbitration. Enjoy Rostislav Klesla on the power play, Blue Jackets’ fans. At that point, the Blue Jackets may be forced to go in a direction they’d rather avoid — perhaps a play for Edmonton’s Sheldon Souray or a free agent a crack at, say, Marc-Andre Bergeron.
What would the Blue Jackets part with to acquire Bieksa or Kaberle? Compelling question. Both Vancouver and Toronto have too many defensemen — hence the trade — and neither team needs a goaltender.
It was surmised in this space a week or so ago that left winger Nikita Filatov could be dangled as bait. We still believe — from talking to numerous sources — that it’s a possibility. However, the Blue Jackets have strengthened their confidence in Filatov ever since development coach Tyler Wright traveled to Russia.
If I’m a Blue Jackets fan, I’m pulling for Kevin Bieksa rather than Sheldon Souray. Both players are injury-prone and have their faults, but Bieksa is about five years younger, a bit cheaper and has a bit less baggage. Don’t forget that Souray is already sulking in a losing environment in Edmonton. Why would he want to be a part of another struggling franchise?
Either way, I’m not sure if it’s time to pull the plug on Nikita Filatov. While it’s just as likely that Filatov could be Nikolai Zherdev 2.0, the team is still pretty short on high-end scoring wingers. If he could get his head on straight, Filatov would bring a unique blend of flashy skills to the table.
Salary arbitration should bring intriguing – and sometimes quite intense – stories to the table. Watching these situations play out is a lot like rubbernecking to witness the fallout of a highway accident; you feel a little dirty for doing it but it’s tough to look away from the wreckage. Could a bit player such as Stralman make a big impact on the Blue Jackets’ off-season plans? We’ll just have to wait and see.
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4263
|
__label__wiki
| 0.960549
| 0.960549
|
Michael McDonald and Kenny Loggins sing on Thundercat’s new yacht-rock single
7 Nialler9-recommended DJ tunes for the dancefloor
Kenny Loggins,
Michael McDonald,
R&B, Soul & Funk
yacht rock
On his recent comeback single, Thundercat channelled yacht rock.
Now, he has gone straight to the source for the latest song from his just-announced debut album Drunk by enlisting Michael ‘Doobie Brothers’ McDonald and Kenny ‘Footloose’ Loggins for ‘Show You The Way’.
Pure Yacht rock.
Drunk is out on February 24th on Brainfeeder and also features appearances from Kendrick Lamar, Pharrell, Wiz Khalifa, Kamasi Washington and Flying Lotus. ‘Them Changes’ is also on the record.
As part of his world tour, Thundercat plays Vicar Street on March 27th.
Thundercat was introduced to Loggins by keyboard player Dennis Hamm. Loggins then suggested bringing
“These are guys that I’ve listened to and where I felt that I’ve learned that honesty in the music. Kenny Loggins is one of my favourite songwriters I think one of the most beautiful moments was realising how amazing Michael McDonald is. He would go through so many ideas and have so much to offer.”
Thundercat also notes: “That song to me is about going down the rabbit hole, taking you to another place… On the edge of dark, there’s the brightest light. It means a lot to me in the sense of… the experience that I’ve had growing up with friends and people that I’ve been around where it’s inviting them into where I come from emotionally. Sometimes it’s a pretty intense thing. The point is how weird things can get. I feel like it’s very funny that, in a way, of course Michael McDonald and Kenny would be there.”
Thundercat – Drunk Tracklisting
01. Rabbot Ho
02. Captain Stupido
03. Uh Uh
04. Bus In These Streets
05. A Fan’s Mail (Tron Song Suite II)
06. Lava Lamp
07. Jethro
08. Day & Night
09. Show You The Way (feat. Michael McDonald & Kenny Loggins)
10. Walk On By (feat. Kendrick Lamar)
11. Blackkk
13. Jameel’s Space Ride
14. Friend Zone
15. Them Changes
16. Where I’m Going
17. Drink Dat (feat. Wiz Khalifa)
18. Inferno
19. I Am Crazy
21. Drunk
22. The Turn Down (feat. Pharrell)
23. DUI
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4265
|
__label__cc
| 0.688754
| 0.311246
|
Turnbull jumps the shark
The Washing of the Feet
Millionaire Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was asked, as he and his Kaminski-millinered wife Lucy served a few Xmas lunches to people doing it tough, about the death on Xmas eve of Faysal Ishak Ahmed, 26, a refugee held illegally on Manus Island by the Turnbull government.
Mr Ahmed had been ill for some time. According to his friend, Abdul Aziz Adam, he was repeatedly turned away from the IHMS clinic on Manus by nurses who accused him of “pretending” to be ill. After collapsing, Mr Ahmed was flown to the Royal Brisbane Hospital, where he subsequently died of his imaginary illnesses.
“The system is designed to kill us one by one,” Mr Adam said on learning of his friend’s death. This is an observation with which I entirely concur.
It is remarkable enough that the Turnbulls’ chose to exploit underprivileged citizens by using their Xmas day as a photo opportunity. It’s not as if the PM is particularly concerned about their fate, having slashed the very funding that holds at least the possibility of relief to homeless people, those whose lives are in chaos as a consequence of domestic violence, disabled people, pensioners, the unemployed and those of us unfortunate enough to struggle with illness. Actually, the only demographic the PM does look upon with tender concern is bankers, mine owners and the otherwise wealthy.
However, when the PM was asked at this occasion about the death of Mr Ahmed, an innocent man who had been declared by the UN to be a refugee, he defiantly replied that he stood by his government’s policy to protect our borders and stop deaths at sea.
Quite why refugees have to live miserable lives and die in their twenties in order to protect Australia’s borders remains a dark mystery to me.
Quite why it is entirely immoral to let people die at sea, but entirely moral to let them rot and die on land also remains one of life’s even darker mysteries.
The lie (let us not sugar-coat by using the term ‘post-truth’) the lie that asylum seekers and refugees who arrive here by boat have committed a crime, continues to be the foundation of and justification for successive Australian governments’ murderous policies. This lie is invoked at every turn to justify denial of medical treatment, detention in inhumane conditions, denial of human rights, and destruction of all hope. We do not do these things to convicted murderers and rapists. We strongly disapprove of those who do these things to animals, and when anyone is caught ill-treating animals there is an outcry, sometimes even by Liberals.
What Turnbull accomplished on Xmas day was a staggering performance of hypocrisy that I doubt he will be able to trump in the coming year. In one half hour, from the lofty heights of political position and personal wealth, Turnbull acted out a ghastly and perverted imitation of Christ’s publicly washing the feet of the poor as a lesson in humility to the arrogant.
Turnbull “humbly” served lunch to the very people he victimises. He then instructed the rest of us to “hug” them.
At the same time, he refused to acknowledge that his government’s policies have murdered yet another refugee, who came to us seeking sanctuary from murderers in his homeland.
I think Turnbull’s jumped the shark. Anything that follows can only be pale imitation and dull repetition.
Tags: Abdul Adam, Faysal Ahmed, IHMS, LNP. Refugees, Malcolm Turnbull, Manus Island
← On wilful innocence, and hope
Well, hello, 2017. From: →
67 Responses to “Turnbull jumps the shark”
Barry Waters December 27, 2016 at 9:43 am #
Did he really use the Christmas meal as a photo opportunity? If he did, what a hypocritical scumbag he is! Did anyone ask him why Manus Island was still functioning nine months after the NG court ordered it be closed? Were Brussels sprouts, looking like cartoon versions of Peter Dutton, served at the dinner?
doug quixote December 27, 2016 at 11:58 am #
Everything is a photo opportunity for a politician.
Stephanie Cornwallis December 27, 2016 at 12:07 pm #
Jennifer writes: “It is remarkable enough that the Turnbulls chose to exploit underprivileged citizens by using their Xmas day as a photo opportunity.”
I have to disagree. Not only is it unremarkable, it is entirely predictable. That’s what politicians do – it’s not about the substance, it’s all about the image.
Jennifer Wilson December 27, 2016 at 1:03 pm #
I know, Stephanie but I have to keep remarking on it….
townsvilleblog December 27, 2016 at 2:41 pm #
Especially tory politicians.
Hey, Shaun, hope your festive season is going well.
Thanks Jennifer, well I’m still here, emotionally battered and bruised but still here, I hope yours was better than mine.
I’m sorry to hear that, Shaun. It’s a bad time of the year for tension.
lindacairnes2 December 27, 2016 at 10:09 am #
My self imposed retreat over this Xmas period was because I refused to witness or participate in these ghastly hypocrisies. The obvious photo op on the news made my blood run hot, and the death of Faysal caused great sorrow..thanks for saying it how it is. Perhaps I need to do a bit of retail sale therapy to raise my spirits……
helvityni December 27, 2016 at 11:16 am #
linda, retail therapy does not work for me anymore; the only things I buy these days is books and plants, and I don’t need Boxing Day sales to get those… 🙂
Marilyn December 27, 2016 at 4:19 pm #
I am defiantly using part of an inheritance from my pedophile father to make free new clothes for refugee kids – I used the sales only to stock cotton, new material, elastics and buttons and saved a bucket load in the process. All done on line by the way.
Marilyn, We have in excess of 3 million people in Australia living below the poverty line, you might spare a thought for them too.
They still have a good deal more than refugees who have 0 fucking income, charity does not always begin at home.
paul walter. December 27, 2016 at 11:40 pm #
Yes. You also knocked up a batch for kids in Qld.
I think that is a good action deserving of support, but it doesn’t preclude my feeling that yourself and Jennifer Wilson are unrealistic in your approach to asylum seeker policy in a neo liberal world resistant to the sort of economic reform that could deal with refugees and other victims of globalisation, in their billions.
Europe over recent times demonstrates what happens when the rulers do not lubricate population movement or economic development in the third world as an alternative or/and addition through adequate financing.
Hint: the underlying problem is use value against exchange value against the reality of narcoticised consumerist western society; that is where the needed money is going.
I do not buy that crap, refugee law is set in fucking concrete and it’s time we live up to it instead of committing genocide.
paul walter. December 29, 2016 at 1:19 am #
Yes. I observed a fleet of Commonwealth police cars heading for Dutton’s office to arrest him.
I’ve an idea that the government passed legislation a long time ago that has been held up in the courts that bogus national security arrangement trump international law, or the police are just slack at doing their job.
Obviously Manne wrote his article on the feeling that international law was not going to be applied for reasons I can only speculate upon.
He either forgot the the point you made
odd?), or wrote the article on the basis that noaction was going to be forth coming toward the government from legal entities, so taken within that rationale, his argument makes sense, yes/ no.
Perhaps you misunderstood that?
Stephanie Cornwallis December 28, 2016 at 4:47 pm #
Townsville, if the Australian government didn’t choose to spend $5 billion each year turning boats around and torturing asylum seekers on Pacific islands, that would be $5 billion more to contribute to addressing Australian poverty.
But no, their priority is not to help either asylum seekers or poor Australians, their priority is to look tough so as to win the next election.
If they freed up the $5 billion and spent it where it’s really needed, Marilyn would no longer have to toil over her sewing machine and Australia might be seen internationally as a country which honours the UN treaties it signs.
Stop voting fools into office.
Linda, the only people helped by ‘retail therapy’ is the rich 1% of the global population who own the “un-taxed” foreign corporations operating within Australia. There is no escape, I try to sleep a lot.
Malturn, Mutton, Ms Julie, I can’t look at them ,I can’t listen to them…
I don’t care much about Christmas, but am willing to tolerate it for the family’s sake, Malturn & Mutton managed to suck out the last bit of my Christmas spirit…
doug quixote December 27, 2016 at 12:01 pm #
Mooka jumped the shark a long time ago, as he abandoned just about everything he stood for from action on climate change to hypocritical broadband reforms to the republic.
Just another derogation of many.
And I’m keeping tally, DQ.
Hope you’re having an enjoyable festive season, btw.
doug quixote December 27, 2016 at 7:52 pm #
The usual get together, Guinevere. I won’t be sorry to see the end of 2016 – too many downsides.
Still, KBO as Churchill put it. 🙂
Jennifer writes: “the lie that asylum seekers and refugees who arrive here by boat have committed a crime”. Yes, this has been a considerable annoyance for several years now, in fact ever since Scumbag Morrison became the LNP’s Immigration spokes-alien.
You may have noticed that since that time they have almost completely refrained from their previous habit of referring to people arriving by boat as “illegals”. Instead, they have systematically and methodically applied the term “illegal” to the mode of arrival, thus: “Illegal boat arrivals”, “people arriving illegally by boat”, “choosing to arrive illegally” etc.
I suspect this shift was prompted by three reasons.
Firstly, the term “illegals”, applied to people, was starting to look a bit threadbare – many people recognised its inaccuracy, and they’d been using it for more years than anyone cared to remember. It had reached its use-by date, in that its negative spin-offs for public opinion were starting to outweigh its positives.
Secondly, for the majority who didn’t analyse their rhetoric all that closely, the new formula would have exactly the same effect as the former – to create the conflation of boat-borne asylum-seeking with some notion of law-breaking. So, mission accomplished.
Thirdly, if anyone accused them of calling asylum-seekers “illegals”, they could turn around and say you’re not listening to what we say, we’re not talking about the people themselves, we’re talking about the mode of arrival, which is illegal because you need a visa to come here and they haven’t got one.
All of which deliberately, and of course disingenuously, ignores the fact that in Australian law there is a distinction, not widely known outside of lawyerdom, between “illegal” and “unlawful”. To most people these words would be synonyms. In Australian law, they are not.
The Al-Masri Federal Court case of 2002 (http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/sinodisp/au/cases/cth/FCA/2002/1009.html?query=al%20masri) established beyond doubt that the legality of your mode of transport is irrelevant to the application of the Refugee Convention. If you claim to be a persecuted person and want to claim asylum under the Convention, you can arrive any damn way you please. Even with a forged passport and visa, which is what quite a few people do at airports, but nobody ever talks about that.
The official term for such arrivals is “unlawful non-citizen”. This does NOT imply criminality, it’s just an administrative category meaning someone who is here and doesn’t have a visa. The court case established that, effectively, the illegality or irregularity of the mode of arrival is overlooked or set aside, as long as the person is claiming asylum under the Convention.
The LNP continue, all these years later, to get away with this misleading rhetoric. It is impossible to believe the misleadingness is not deliberate.
I agree, it is deliberate Stephanie, & many thanks for outlining that disgraceful time line.
How do they get away with this lie that it is illegal to seek asylum ?
That’s the whole point, Townsville. They don’t say it’s illegal to seek asylum. I don’t think they ever have said it’s illegal to seek asylum. That bald statement would be too easily refuted.
Tony Abbott, then leader of the Opposition, at an electorate forum just ahead of the 2013 election, said “seeking asylum IS legal”. He said it twice (and his emphasis, not mine). Then he went on to claim, falsely, that asylum seekers need a visa to enter Australia.
If you ask any Lib/Nat politician the direct question “Is it legal to seek asylum?”, they will answer “Yes, it’s legal, but these people coming by boat have arrived illegally without a visa”.
Which entirely (and deliberately) ignores the fact that irregular arrival without a visa has traditionally been overlooked, in Australia and elsewhere, on the basis that that is the whole point of the UN Refugee Convention – to provide an escape route when all other avenues are closed.
The phrasing of the Lib/Nat rhetoric is critical. They have succeeded in their obvious aim, which is to persuade the Australian people (including you, it seems) that there is something illegal in arriving by boat to claim asylum. There is not. If you do that, your administrative status is “unlawful non-citizen”, which, as I said above, was shown in the 2002 Fed Court case not to imply criminality.
Don’t try to interpret what they say. Listen to what they actually DO say. They’ve worked on their rhetoric to create exactly the kind of misunderstanding you’ve fallen into.
The ALP/LNP cartel have a lot to answer for. Not only are they slaughtering people in three nations now they are torturing and killing any victims who arrive here.
Glad you put up Al Kateb, I knew Al Masri a bit through the Woomera lawyers – he won in the federal and full federal courts and the scum bag racist David Bennett for the government won in Al Kateb and Al Khafaji who was a friend of mine.
Al Masri was slaughtered like a dog in the streets of Gaza while signing on to be a police man to feed his kids, Al Khafaji is a tireless campaigner for Gaza because Al Masri was his great friend in the many prisons they were locked up in. He also is dying from Lupus thanks to be beaten almost to death in Curtin prison.
I hate this fucking country, it ratifies human rights treaties for photo opportunities and throws them in the bin before the ink dries in the UN and 100% of the time ignores all rulings against us.
Turnbull is a moron and coward, but he’s no worse than the rest of the trash.
No argument on that from me.
Amen to that, Marilyn. Australia, in its efforts to get elected to the UN Security Council a few years ago, had the effrontery to use the bid-slogan “Australia – we do what we say”. This despite arguably breaching at least a couple of dozen clauses in 6 UN human rights treaties, in its treatment of refugees alone. That’s without even starting on indigenous rights.
Havana Liedown December 27, 2016 at 4:12 pm #
Forget for a minute that Australians are terribly racist, and incredibly selfish about their mortgaged quarter-acre mentality projected nation-size when it comes to our immigration system, and that any political party that has a desire (covert or orvert) to return to the days of 2007-2013 will fail at the ballot box.
If any participant at this blog were Immigration Minister for one minute, of course there would be no such thing as an “illegal immigrant”, so please nominate an approximate number of arrivees without identity documentation or visa would you be happy to accept into Australia each year.
Fuck off with the demented how many, that is not the point and nor is the fucking holding of documents. Do you think the millions of refugees every year who are fleeing wars can pick up their fucking papers while their homes are bombed to bits.
Having papers is fucking irrelevant. As for 2007-2013 just about 8,000 people a year arrived on average while 7.5 million non Australian’s arrived every fucking year.
Immigration Minister Marilyn – I’ll take that as “no limit”. Thank you. Next!
Everyone has the right to seek asylum, there is no way to set a quota or limit that.
I have noticed for a long, long time that Australia only wanted ‘rich’ immigrants, for example if a family had a floor tile shop in Italy, they would have no trouble getting into Australia, on the other hand if you were/are only a laborer you would have no chance. Money speaks volumes.
None of my destitute relatives would have been allowed to enter, they left Cornwall, Wales and England in the 1880;s when the tin mines flooded and closed, they came here on boats with bugger all. The German ones were refugees in 1844 fleeing conscription and the Prussians in Silesia, and the last grand father was sent as a 15 year old indentured farm slave from the slums of London in 1920.
Havana Liedown December 28, 2016 at 8:10 am #
Could your destitute relatives have flown across the world to Indonesia, ditched their travel documents, then paid for passage to Christmas Island like 50,000 were encouraged by Labor/Greens between 2007-2013?
Now that takes the cake for cretinism,
1. Planes were not invented.
2. the all jumped on boats on the other side of the world and rocked up to take land from aboriginal owners.
“Money doesn’t speak it screams”
Well, Havana, I’m a cosmopolitan, I don’t *believe* in borders in the first place.
Open borders won’t work without a rational economics to lubricate it.
” Set the dollars free..”
Do “cosmopolitans” believe in locks on their front doors? Banking passwords?
Jennifer Wilson December 28, 2016 at 8:14 am #
Yes. What do these things have to do with free travel?
Australia’s commitment under the UN Refugee Convention, to which we have been a signatory since 1954, is that if someone arrives, documented or not, we consider their claim for asylum.
Please note, that does not, repeat NOT, mean we have to accept them into Australia, nor does it mean we are obliged to give them citizenship. What we have signed up to is to consider their claim to refugee status, and if that is confirmed, then provide protection.
There is no provision in the UN Refugee Convention about their long-term status, and no requirement for us necessarily to give them residency or citizenship. Just protection – while they need it.
So my answer to your question “how many?” is “however many arrive”. We’ve promised to assess their claim, so we should do that. If we’re unwilling to do that, we should withdraw from the UN Refugee Convention. No Australian Prime Minister has had the guts to do that in 62 years, despite a lot of anti-refugee rhetoric in recent years.
Beyond that, if we choose to remain a signatory to the UN Refugee Convention, we should practise triage:
(1) Those who qualify as refugees under the Convention, we should give them the temporary protection they need. After a while we should assess whether they really need to stay here, or whether they can be resettled in another country, or whether, given time, they might be able to return to their home country if circumstances have changed there.
(2) Those who don’t qualify as refugees under the Convention but obviously would be still under threat if they returned home, we should consider for Complementary Protection. Then, the same considerations as category (1).
(3) Those who don’t qualify under categories (1) and (2), that is to say they are not Convention refugees and not in need of Complementary Protection, deport them.
What’s your alternative, Havana? Continue the lie that we fulfil our obligations as a signatory to the UN Refugee Convention? Don’t bother assessing people’s asylum claims? What?
helvityni December 28, 2016 at 6:48 pm #
Thank you Stephanie for your informative and compassionate posts. Much appreciated.
Wrong, when refugees in our territory are offered protection they must by law grant them full status and rights equal to all citizens. The rest is lies made up by Ruddock and the ALP.
Stephanie Cornwallis December 31, 2016 at 11:34 am #
Must by law grant them full status and rights, yes. But there’s no legal requirement to grant permanent residency and citizenship.
allthumbs December 28, 2016 at 8:25 pm #
The likes of Havana are the same kind that on the other side want small government, and free markets and are up in arms about group think and always yelling about the rights of the individual, while simultaneously wanting to impose international ID’s and background checks and security agencies and detention centres, bank account checks, character checks, all for the good of the country of course.
Havana wants to control the movement of every individual on the face of the earth, ensure they do it correctly, politely, dot the I’s and cross the T’s, with due genuflection in the right direction of the proper authorities.
And if we in our infinite wisdom should invade a country, fight a war on foreign soil, tear apart a country’s infrastructure, create an environment in which maniacal Muslim terrorists can wreak havoc among a population, or allow drug cartels to replace Governments, or prop up corrupt business enterprises and corrupt politicians, fund despotic leaders, as I said in our infinite wisdom of always knowing what is best for the rest of the world, and then, and then, tell millions of people you just stay where you are, and you can like it or lump it, well Havana is just towing the party line.
What a chicken shit coward Havana is, longing for a bygone era, As if the world was any different then to what it is now. What a smug, complacent, government arse kissing lickspittle he is.
How Havana, do you propose to stop humankind from going where it will? What number of troops, how large the bureaucracy do you intend to put in place, how much surveillance do you want to implement, how many detention centres to you propose to build, how many walls, how do you intend to punish and identify those that do not succumb to your will?
Give me a round figure?
Thought not, next!
Immigration Minister Allthumbs – I’ll take that as “no limit”. Thank you. Next!
“No limit” is actually what the Refugee Convention provides for, Havana. And last time I looked, Australia is still a signatory nation. If you don’t like that, you should be lobbying our major political parties to withdraw from it.
Good luck with that. For many years now, rather than honour the terms of the document or behave honestly and cancel out of it, they have preferred to turn moral and practical somersaults to prevent asylum seekers from accessing the rights we freely assented to in 1954. I don’t see the current lot changing the ingrained habits of the last 20 years.
No good asking us, in this forum, how many WE want and whether WE would set a limit. Read the wording of the Convention itself. If you find any mention of limits, be sure to let us know. Please quote the Article number.
FigMince December 29, 2016 at 8:20 am #
A poem on the subject by someone called Brian Bilston:
https://brianbilston.com/2016/03/23/refugees/
They have no need of our help
So do not tell me
These haggard faces could belong to you or me
Should life have dealt a different hand
We need to see them for who they really are
Chancers and scroungers
Layabouts and loungers
With bombs up their sleeves
Cut-throats and thieves
They are not
We should make them
Go back to where they came from
They cannot
Share our food
Share our homes
Share our countries
Instead let us
Build a wall to keep them out
It is not okay to say
These are people just like us
A place should belong to those who are born there
Do not be so stupid to think that
The world can be looked at another way
(Now read it line-for-line from bottom to top.)
Oops. That should’ve been ‘line-by-line’.
Cute structure. The sentiments are commendable, if rather naive.
helvityni December 29, 2016 at 9:20 am #
I have learnt to ignore my toffy-nosed English neighbour, who thinks she’s one of the Queen’s cousins or Philip’s love-child ( she must have forgotten that Phillip is a mere foreigner, a Greek…)
I’ll learn to ignore Havana as well, I don’t read her posts.
Does your neighbour have a zincalume fence? I think I might know her. If not she probably marked you as a typical wealthy leftist nitwit hypocrite within about ten seconds.
Haven’t you got anything better to do than troll, Havana? How sad.
kerynrobinsonartist December 29, 2016 at 10:48 am #
A very well reasoned, polite interpretation of Turnbull and his government shameful hypocrisy. Unfortunately his apologists will not read this article, and if they did, would not doubt continue the justifications repeated ad infinitum by him, his ministers, labor, one nation, and all the other xenophobic bigots, including the media, in this land. I’ve been ashamed to be Australian since Manus and Nauru were set up, actually since Howard’s ‘Pacific Solution’ bullshit. We know they’re wrong, and will be brought to justice eventually, except it’s taking too damn long.
Indeed it is taking too damn long, keryn. I can only hope it is severe when it eventually happens.
The fucking arseholes will do it while fucking racist pollsters keep running racist fucking polls claiming the public wants to murder refugees.
paul walter. December 29, 2016 at 6:32 pm #
Nah!
You just don’t get REAL news.
Old pensioner hits bollard at post Xmas sales..movie star dies..chip shop floor flooded during freak storm…cricket big hit scones spectator at Big Bash.
You need to get with the program.
Btw, anyone know it they finally took Mosul?
Please provide a link to any poll which indicates a majority of Australians want to “murder” refugees. That your hyperbole has worn on the staunchest of no-borders activists Manne and Ellis might be instructive.
Why we fail both our own and refugees:
http://theaimn.com/need-corporate-tax-cuts/
More than 8 months now since the PNG Supreme Court ruled the Manus Centre illegal (26 April 2016). Why the delay in closing it?
Took him long enough:
Bob Hawke pushes nuclear power at Woodford Folk Festival north of Brisbane
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-28/we-must-embrace-nuclear-power-bob-hawke-divides-audience/8151346
We do not have enough Uranium to last more than 20 years (ie “200 years at current consumption”) so it is not a long term option nor is it a particularly safe option.
Hawke looks at Australia’s reserves and knows a good mine when he sees it. Dig it up ship it off sell it off quick . . . the same goes for coal, no doubt.
(DQ rolls eyes once more.)
Your eyes roll more than a saltwater crocodile, DQ
doug quixote January 1, 2017 at 1:09 am #
Sadly, there is much to roll them, Guinevere.
Jennifer Wilson January 1, 2017 at 7:43 am #
And to you, DQ. All the very bestest.
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4270
|
__label__wiki
| 0.640579
| 0.640579
|
Black Friday; 'Moana' release; HP earnings
by Danielle Wiener-Bronner @dwbronner November 20, 2016: 8:25 AM ET
1. Happy Thanksgiving! 'Tis the season for turkey, football and Black Friday deals -- and figuring out when stores start offering discounted goods.
Recently, retailers started opening their doors on Thanksgiving Day, and some are sticking with that tradition. Macy's will open at 5 p.m. on Thursday, an hour earlier than last year and the year before. Kohl's (KSS) will also open on Thanksgiving Day.
But some retailers are slowing that Black Friday creep. The Mall of America will close its doors for the holiday, though the stores inside can remain open. Home Depot (HD) has also said it will keep its doors closed on Thursday, and Sears (SHLD) has announced that some locations will close or keep shorter hours.
As an alternative, shoppers might consider looking for Black Friday deals online, where vendors like Amazon are already offering sale prices.
2. 'Moana' release: On Wednesday, Disney (DIS)'s much-anticipated "Moana" will finally hit theaters. The animated film is voiced by People's Sexiest Man Alive, Dwayne Johnson, and features original songs by Lin Manuel Miranda of "Hamilton." So its star power is strong.
Disney had a major box office hit with "Finding Dory" this summer and could score again with "Moana" -- even though the media giant hit a sour note last month with an offensive "Moana" Halloween costume.
3. Hewlett-Packard earnings: Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) will reveal its fourth-quarter earnings on Tuesday after the bell. HP beat both revenue and profit expectations last quarter, but set a lower benchmark for the end of the fiscal year. It's been a notable week for the tech company already, as British software firm Autonomy was finally indicted on charges that it lied to HP and others about its performance and growth prospects.
Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2011 for a staggering $11 billion and realized the following year that it had overpaid significantly.
4. Autumn Statement in the U.K.: Across the pond, Chancellor Philip Hammond on Wednesday will deliver the first Autumn Statement since Brexit. This year's remarks are expected to be rough -- Morgan Stanley predicts that the U.K.'s decision to leave the European Union will cost Britain £98 billion over the next five years. The bank thinks Hammond will announce an increase in U.K. borrowing during next week's statement.
5. Coming this week:
Monday - Tyson Foods (TSN) earnings
Tuesday - Barnes and Noble (BKS) earnings; Hewlett-Packard earnings
Wednesday - Autumn Statement; 'Moana' released
Thursday - Thanksgiving
Friday - Black Friday
CNNMoney (New York) First published November 20, 2016: 8:22 AM ET
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4274
|
__label__cc
| 0.56435
| 0.43565
|
Tag Archives: Games
Monster Hunter on PC.
Friggin’ took them long enough! 😛
So, my experience with Monster Hunter is fairly long, and… very rocky. 😛 There are a fair few posts in here detailing my frustration with the series, actually (this one’s okay, but plz don’t look at the other posts, some of them are so pathetically whiny and often very wrong 😛 ). I “get” the game, the idea really works for me, so I should enjoy it… right? But nope. With the exception of Monster Hunter 4 which resolved a few killer issues I had with previous games, I’ve hated every Monster Hunter game I’ve played. After playing the game, hell, even with MH4, I always come out of the other end of it thinking “for fuck’s sake, why the hell (insert complaint here)”. Let me throw out a few examples…
1: “For fuck’s sake, why the hell did they make these monsters so goddamn cheap?”
Most of my negative memories come from Monster Hunter games on the PSP, specifically Monster Hunter Freedom: Unite (MHFU). The “difficulty” of MHFU was just painful. Notice the quotes, indicating sarcasm. 😛 Personally, I prefer difficult games. I find them more fun, they give a better sense of accomplishment, and they generally feel much better to play. However, there’s a fine line between “difficult” and “cheap”, and when that line is crossed, I get a burning desire to dump a tanker of wallpaper paste into the studio of the developers responsible. 😛 I remember two monsters in MHFU that crossed that line so blatantly that it blew my mind that they actually got away with it, to the point where I actually still can’t believe it was for real. For example, Kushala Daora, a dragon that can generate a wind shield, was effectively broken. The wind shield instantly interrupts anything you do when you get close, so you basically can’t land any hits, and the thing you need to break to remove the shield is protected by the shield. Allegedly, the shield could be disabled temporarily by poisoning the monster, but… you can’t even try to inflict poison because of the shield, meaning that the only option is to use a bow/bowgun… which is next to impossible solo, because Kushala Daora is one of the fastest Large Monsters in the game. Another monster, Plesioth, a giant fish thing, spent the vast majority of its time in the water (effectively making it invincible), the items you can use to get it out of the water are very limited and sometimes don’t work, and the bottom line was that it took so long to beat it that I ran out of time. What was the time limit? Oh, just an hour. -.-
This catastrophically cheap bullshit never appeared in Monster Hunter 4. I never felt angry at the difficulty, and never felt like I was struggling. In fact, at times, it actually felt a bit too easy. Although that might have been because of my main weapon, a weapon new to MH4 called the Insect Glaive. It feels so overpowered that it’s actually a bit embarrassing to admit that I use it. 😛
2: “For fuck’s sake, why the hell is the collision detection so god-awful?”
Seriously, MHFU, and all other MH games on PSP, had some of the worst collision detection I’ve ever seen. 😛 Plesioth was one of the main culprits here too, and the one that sticks in my mind the most. When doing its tail swipe attack, the tail is so high up that it just never looks like it hits you, but oh, of course it hits you. Rolling underneath it is impossible because the game considers its tail as a huge box which extends all the way to the ground. And don’t get me started on its body check attack.
Again, I never felt like I experienced this in Monster Hunter 4. When things clearly didn’t hit me… they didn’t hit me. 😛 Plesioth wasn’t really in Monster Hunter 4, though. He was relegated to a fish you catch in a mini-game. 😛
3: “For fuck’s sake, why the hell did they put it on this stupid console?”
Seriously, Capcom must do this on purpose.
The last time Monster Hunter was on a console that made sense was at the very beginning. The original Monster Hunter, and Monster Hunter 2 (Japan only) were on PS2, which is a perfectly reasonable choice of console. However, from then on, Capcom just stopped making sense entirely.
They began releasing Monster Hunter on PSP, which, aside from the DS, was the worst possible console for this game. It had less power than a PS2 so the graphics and framerate were worse, the screen was tiny, and the controls… holy crap. The PSP only had one tiny analog stick for God’s sake. There was no right analog stick, so you had to rotate the camera using the D-Pad above the stick. You had to develop a stupid technique which (quite affectionately) became known as The Claw, where you bend your index finger in such a way where you could move the character and the camera simultaneously. I can’t actually fathom why they put it on the PSP, and then continued to do so for years afterwards.
Well, they continued to do so until Monster Hunter 3. But instead of staying loyal to Sony and putting it on the $599 US dollar PS3, they decided to change allegiance to Nintendo and dumped it on the Wii, completely ignoring the clearly successful Xbox 360. WHY did they put it on the Wii, a console with vastly below-average power and driven by a stupid controller with only one analog stick?! ARGH! And then, for Monster Hunter 4 and Generations, they continued to ignore those tasty, popular, powerful home consoles, instead choosing to release it for the 3DS! Yes it was somewhat popular and somewhat tasty, but it wasn’t powerful! I mean, it was probably good for them that they didn’t release it on the Vita since that thing tanked harder than anything I’ve ever seen, but come on, why did you choose the 3DS over every other option? They must have been targeting the weaker consoles on purpose.
I mean, this goes without saying, but the true stars of Monster Hunter are, of course, the monsters. They can be awesome, beautiful, creepy, weird, or even stupid, but I love pretty much all of them, and they often contribute towards Monster Hunter’s weird sense of humour, like Yian Kut-Ku’s run that makes him look like a chicken, Tigrex’s ice breath which can turn you into a snowman, or Congalala’s attack where he literally throws shit at you. 😛 But I’ve never really been able to see the monsters in all their glory, because Capcom keep choosing the weakest possible console to release their games on! I’m pretty sure they did this so that they could keep re-using assets over and over again. Like, I swear, Rathalos uses exactly the same textures in Monster Hunter 4 as he does in the original Monster Hunter.
This has been my biggest gripe with the series all this time. Why can’t they just release it on a console that makes sense for once?! I JUST WANNA SEE PRETTY MONSTERS AND CONTROL THE CAMERA WITH MY RIGHT HAND!!! IS THAT SO MUCH TO ASK?! 😛
So… when they announced Monster Hunter: World for PS4 and Xbox One… I was both extremely irritated and very excited at the same time. Excited because the series had finally made it back to consoles that made sense… annoyed because they were stupid consoles that I didn’t want to buy for just one friggin’ game. But then they announced a PC version, and you can probably imagine how high I jumped for joy. 😛
And today? Finally… finally, Monster Hunter has made it to the console of the Master Race: the PC. 😀
Have I played it? No… not yet. 😛 I was planning to jump on it as soon as I got home, but I was so tired when I got in from work that I didn’t feel like it was a good idea. But hey, no worries. I’ve got all day to play it tomorrow, because I’ve booked tomorrow off. 😛 Hehe, that’s the first time I’ve booked a day off work to play a game. It’s also the first time I’ve pre-ordered a game in a very long time. So yeah… I’m a bit hyped for it, which doesn’t happen often with me, so it’s quite a special moment. 😀
Ahh, yeah! I got so into ranting and blabbing all that crap that I forgot the other half of the reason for this post. I made a little render to celebrate Monster Hunter: World’s PC release. 😀
This render was probably the reason why I felt so tired today. 😛 I stayed up way too late, trying to get the render to a point where I was happy to share something. I wasn’t sure if I’d have anything at all when I first started, but it ended up going surprisingly well!
Anyway, it’s still a work in progress, but here, check out this monster hunter:
He’s not a monster hunter, but he is a monster hunter. Because he’s a monster, and he’s a hunter, but not hunting monsters, he’s just hunting? And Monster Hunter was released today? Yeah?! Get it?! YA GET IT?! HEH 😛
Man, this one… seriously, I’m so happy with how this came out, even if it is unfinished. 😀 It’s probably the most mature-looking render I’ve made, but because of the underlying pun, it’s still got that hint of humour that I like to portray. 😀 It’s a bit unusual for me too, because it’s not very often I render a dragon standing on their hind legs like this. I prefer to put dragons in a more bestial or feral pose. Sure, the black dragon in Ghost Stories is on his hind legs, but he’s doing it for dramatic effect, whereas this dragon looks like he naturally walks on his hind legs. I should try this a bit more often, because I love how it came out! 🙂
Jesus, listen to this pleb trying to sound like an artist. 😛
Anyway, even though it’s just a work in progress, I hope it pleases your eyes! 😀 I’ll probably be back tomorrow to update this post with my thoughts about Monster Hunter: World after I’ve actually played it. 😛 And of course, I’ll be back with the final version of that render, too, along with some bigger versions that you can stick on your desktop! If you want. 😛
Right, I’m pretty hungry right now, so I’d better go cook some Well-Done Steak*. Cue the music!
(*i lie, i have no steak 😦 )
UPDATE!!
Monster Hunter: World follow-up
So, I’ve been playing Monster Hunter: World for 3 days now. Apparently there’ve been loads of complaints in the Steam reviews about not being able to play online or something. And that’s quite funny, because the first complaint I had with the game was that it doesn’t give you a “play offline” option. 😛 Sure, I’d like to play multiplayer, I’ve never really done it before and it’s probably even more fun. But I don’t want to risk going into a game and getting carried by someone with overpowered equipment. That’s not fun. Besides, I just can’t bring myself to play co-op with random people. Not sure why.
Anyway, whatever, who cares, because the game is glorious from the moment it starts. It has an introduction that wipes the floor with every other game in the series. Also, like Monster Hunter 4, there’s a story, thank fuck, because MH4’s story, regardless of how balls it was, was a huge driving force for me, and made the game more enjoyable. No, so far, World’s story isn’t much better. Come on, it’s a game about hitting giant monsters with sticks and bagpipes, there isn’t much you can do with that. 😛 However, World’s story is told much better. Because Capcom have added something that is so state-of-the-art it actually blew my mind. Voice acting. I mean WHOOOOAOAHAHHAHAAH voice acting in 2018?! NO, surely not! 😛 But yes, finally they bothered with voice acting so that you can hear the characters, rather than having to read them all the time. 😛 Of course, not everything has voice acting. Just cutscenes, tutorials, and other important bits of the game.
Oh, speaking of tutorials, World kicks the living arse out of every other game in the series on that front, too. The game doesn’t freeze solid and perform information overload on you now; it’s much friendlier than that. Like, in MH4, when doing weapons training, you were dumped in a room, forced to read a ton of text about your weapon and how it worked (which couldn’t be viewed again without exiting and restarting the training), before finally being given control so you could try remembering and doing everything the guy just said. In World, you get a brief voiced description about the weapon you choose, before being given a bunch of on-screen controls and useful combos to try. When you’re done with trying one weapon, you can pick a different weapon from the box and try that without having to reload the mission. It’s a shame you don’t get a live target to practice on, though, you just get some boxes and shit. 😛 I found it really useful in MH4, because it’s how I discovered just how overpowered the Insect Glaive was (on my first try with it, I took out a Great Jaggi in half the time it took me to take it down with a Long Sword, a less complex weapon that I already knew how to use).
Thankfully, as far as I’m aware, it isn’t overpowered in World. Hard to tell, though, because I haven’t done a proper test of all the weapons yet. The weapon set consists of the same 14 weapons from MH4, nothing new. Some weapons appear to have new moves or tweaked move sets, though.
As for the controls, well. When I finished my first proper hunt, I just sat there, staring at the game with a smug “I told you so” grin on my face. That was the first time in the whole history of Monster Hunter where I’ve been able to move the camera smoothly and freely, and it’s a ridiculously huge improvement. And there’s more, too, because they’ve added… a lock-on camera, called the Focus Camera. And this seems to be Capcom proving that the lock-on camera is a stupid idea, because it is. I tried to like it, but it just ended up annoying me, because I found it really hard to hit the part of the monster I was trying to aim for. But don’t worry, because they’ve also added the option to use the Target Camera from MH4, where you can press LB to make the camera face the monster. They also added an option so you can use these cameras on all monsters, not just Large Monsters, but laugh my arse off NO. Just no. 😛
Difficulty? Yep, there’s some difficulty here, but I don’t think it’s horrific. I reckon the perceived difficulty is totally dependent on experience, both with Monster Hunter and with games in general, but personally, I’d say it starts off fairly mild and slowly gets harder. Overall it’s challenging, sometimes difficult. I haven’t fainted yet, but I’ve had some close calls. That just makes things exciting, though! 😛 Fainting isn’t really a huge deal in World, anyway. Since gathering is so much faster and easier, and since they added a feature where you can set certain items to auto-craft, it’s easy to restock critical items like Mega Potions, so you don’t really need to worry about wasting money on them. Also, unlike previous games, you have all the information you could ever reasonably need about monsters in the game itself, like weak points, elemental weaknesses, drops, and even vague drop rates. And the Palico (a Felyne sidekick who helps you in battle) is very helpful this time around. Right off the bat, he has a skill which can restore a sizeable chunk of your health, and he uses it intelligently. This has genuinely saved my ass at least twice, so he’s probably a gigantic help for new players. But if you do struggle, again, unlike previous games on the dumb consoles, co-op is actually a feasible option this time around. 😛
What else… oh, yeah, graphics. Well, uh… when I first saw my Palico in a cutscene I was like “OMG :3”:
Then when I encountered my first Jagras I was like “SO PRETTY :O”:
Then when Anjanath first officially said “hello” I was like “SO AWESOME :O”:
Then when I got to see the legendary Rathalos finally in high-resolution glory before he proceeded to kick the shit out of an Anjanath he didn’t like, I was like “SO EPIC :O”:
Then when he kicked most of the shit out of me afterwards I was like “💩, uncool bro, that nearly killed me, but I forgive you because OMG YOU’RE SO BEAUTIFUL :O”:
The graphics you see there are “max graphics where it matters”. 😛 By that, I mean I’m using the top LOD models, no resolution scaling and full texture quality, but everything else is knocked down to compensate. Because realistically, I can’t run this at truly max graphics. Not sure why people are going “WAAAAH IT NEEDS SO MUCH CPU POWER” because it just… doesn’t. It uses less than half of what Forza Horizon 3 does, and I know that game canes a recent-generation i5, because a friend of mine played it and always complained about the CPU usage (rightfully so). GPU power, though, well, ha haaaa… you’re gonna need that. And you’ll need to get that power from just one GPU, because World joins the ever-increasing (and annoying) list of games that don’t support SLI. -.- I run two GTX 970s (so, just one), and with my settings, I get about 40-45FPS average at 2K (2560×1440). I’m not locked by GPU memory. Here’re my settings, along with NVIDIA’s hilarously stupid “optimal” settings:
I’ve since turned off anti-aliasing since Temporal Anti-Aliasing costs 4 FPS for something I probably won’t notice. But the gains for dropping any of the other settings are so low that there’s no point. I mean, subsurface scattering sounds pretty expensive, but it actually only costs me 2 FPS and really makes a difference in some situations (see Rathalos encounter above). And lmfao, that “optimal” texture quality of 256. Dropping from Full to 256 has no effect on FPS, you fucks! I’m bored of Monster Hunter’s traditional PS2-quality textures! I wanna admire Rathian’s pretty face for once in my life!
It’s in the eye of the beholder, okay?! 😛
So yeah, the graphics are absolutely gorgeous if you have a good GPU, and if you have a modern 1000-series NVIDIA GPU or AMD equivalent, I’d be surprised if you didn’t hit 60 FPS at 2K. Maybe a 1070 is enough, or maybe even a 1060 if you run at 1080p. This is just me guessing, though. 😛 I’m planning on upgrading to a 1080 or 1080Ti soonish, both for rendering and for gaming. I’d get one sooner, but I’m holding out for the 1100 series. Sure would be nice if they’d just tell us roughly when it’s coming out… -.-
Complaints? Well, yes, I have a few. The first and most irritating thing about the game so far? Scoutflies. These green things:
MY FUCKING EYES.
They’re supposed to act as the game’s GPS, because the maps are now so large and so complicated that I find it ridiculously hard to figure out how to get to places. But they also highlight things for you, like gathering points. All of this, especially early on, is just… total information overload. 😛 But even after you get used to it, they’re so bright and so distracting that I actually feel relieved when I find a Large Monster that wants to kill me, just because the flies go away when that happens. 😛 There have been so many times where I’ve thought “right, yeah, I know where the monster is, no I don’t want to look at any more footprints because I know where it is and I’ve maxed out the tracking level, no I don’t want any blue mushrooms, I just want to make my way to the monster with no guidance or distractions now, please go away…” but no, green particles everywhere, and no, you can’t turn them off. And then, when you do want guidance, they’re not only blinding, but they’re also sluggish, often very unclear, and in situations when you’re carrying an egg and have access to the Scoutflies because nothing’s trying to kill you, the route they choose is usually impossible, trying to taking you through small gaps and other areas that you can’t access while carrying an egg. In fact, the idiot Scoutflies and the sheer complexity of the maps is why I simply can’t be fucked with the mission where you need to deliver two Wyvern Eggs.
Those missions are my second complaint, actually, the egg carrying missions. Were they even tested? They’re absolute balls. There’s no way you can do them solo without being a cheap little bitch. Delivering two Herbivore Eggs was difficult enough, because the nests are right next to where the herbivores endlessly spawn no matter how many you kill, and they’re faster than you, and there ends up being about six of them before you eventually get headbutted by one of them and drop the egg. At one point after dropping said egg, they surrounded me and pretty much gang raped me, which was somehow both hilarious and insanely annoying. So how did I finish it? I used the Ghillie Mantle, an item which effectively makes me invisible. As I said, “cheap little bitch”. 😛 And that one I mentioned earlier where you have to deliver two Wyvern Eggs? Fuck that shit. The moment you pick up an egg from the nest where she never is, Rathian senses a disturbance in the Force and immediately heads for your exact location, even if you’re wearing the Ghillie Mantle. Of course, she can’t actually see you, so she doesn’t chase you, but this doesn’t stop her from following you at a distance, waiting for the moment when the Ghillie Mantle wears off. It’s just so mind-numbingly broken. Because the route is so complicated and the distance you have to travel to secure the egg is so long, longer than the Ghillie Mantle can ever last, the only way I can imagine doing it, even in co-op, is by being a cheap little bitch and killing Rathian before trying to transport the eggs. And I don’t know about you, but that seems slightly outside the scope of the quest. 😛 And hell, even if you did do that, you’d still have to figure out how to get back to a camp without using the Scoutflies, because they’re dumb and try to take you through inaccessible areas. 😛
And my third complaint… audio. It’s a pretty minor one, but for me, the game is oddly quiet. The audio settings are all at max volume, but even with my headphones at full blast, the game’s still a bit quiet. I got around this problem by routing the game’s audio through a virtual audio cable and amplifying it before routing it back to my headset, but this is a faff, it kind of affects the audio quality and adds a bit of latency, which isn’t cool. Hopefully it’ll be fixed in a patch or something.
And that’s it. Scoutflies, egg missions and quiet audio are the only problems I’ve found. Not sure what all this screaming about broken servers is, because it works for me…? 😛 I’ve not actually played with others, sure, but I can connect to online sessions just fine, and I’ve collected my daily shit with no problem. Maybe the problem is when you’re in an actual hunt? Whatever, doesn’t really affect me, no-one I know will ever get this anyway. It’s probably a bit difficult for them, and they wouldn’t have any time for it. 😛 I’ll play online eventually, when I’m ready. Just don’t want to rush through the game or get carried by someone overpowered, that’s all. 😛 Uhhh, nope. Someone I know was interested in getting it but was put off by the alleged server issues, so I tried responding to an SOS flare and testing some multiplayer. Didn’t have a single problem. The only thing I noticed was that holy hell, the session filled up fast! The SOS flare was sent by a solo player who hadn’t had a response when I tried to join, and by the time I made it into the game about 30 seconds later, I was the last player to set off from the camp.
UPDATE 6!!: Since then, much to my surprise, my friend actually ended up getting the game, and we’ve played some co-op. And now I can say with confidence: I have literally no idea why people are complaining about the online play being broken. However, I can understand complaints about the online system, because it it were any more obtuse it’d be a straight line. Angles? Obtuse? No? 😛 Anyway, the online system is insane. You have sessions which can consist of 16 players, and within these sessions you can have hunts which consist of up to 4 players. This is all totally understandable and quite cool so far, but when it comes to making a session for just you and your mates, things get shit very quickly.
First off, the game doesn’t prevent you from trying to join the sessions of people who are in an offline session. If you try, the game just sits there for a while before saying it failed to connect. So, my friend tried creating a private online session, and sent me an invite through the Steam overlay. That didn’t work either. Some amount of time after that, I noticed that the in-game invite option was greyed out, so I tried making a normal, non-private session. That made the invite option light up, and my friend was able to join the session. After this, I changed the session options so that it was private, and that worked; no-one random joined after that. Basically, you can’t join private sessions even if you’re invited; you have to make a non-private session, do your invites, then make the session private, or use passcodes on the quests you post.
But that’s not all, because Monster Hunter: World has laughably bad multiplayer story support. When you post a quest that contains cutscenes, you have to start it single-player. After all the cutscenes have played, the quest opens to other players. So this means… if a group of friends want to play a story quest together, they all have to start the quest individually, get to the point where the SOS flare can be fired, return to HQ, and then one player has to post the quest again and have the others join it. That’s just retarded. 😛 Oh, and you know I said that the quest opens up to other players after all the cutscenes have played? Yes, but every attempt I made to join those quests ended up failing immediately. That’s probably a bug. 😛
And Expeditions? One does not simply join an Expedition. No, you can’t just join a friend’s Expedition, which is a ridiculously stupid oversight, because it’s not like multiplayer Expeditions aren’t supported. There’re only two ways that it can be done. The first way is for everyone to join a quest and complete it, and during the end-game timer, leave the option as “return to camp”. This puts you in an Expedition in that area. That’s a faff because you have to complete a quest, so the other option is to enter an Expedition alone, fire an SOS flare and have the others join you through the SOS menu. You can cancel the flare when everyone’s joined. This is much less of a faff but it opens up the Expedition to EVERYONE, so there’s a chance of someone random joining, which is annoying.
I highly doubt Capcom’s gonna address any of this. It’s probably been like this on consoles up until now, so the chances of them fixing the issues now is probably next to zero. But in summary, yes, multiplayer works, flawlessly, and as far as I can tell, everyone who is crying about broken servers is just talking crap. However, the multiplayer system is ridiculously obtuse, confusing as hell and has awful story support. UPDATE 7!!: Gotta take back that “flawlessly” statement, because we’ve since had a couple of annoying connection issues. Sometimes, one of us has randomly lost connection to the session, and that puts the session in a weird state where the player who dropped can’t re-join. This has only happened at the very beginning or end of a hunt, though, not midway through. There’s been one instance where a posted quest just stopped appearing on the board, too. But as I said, annoying issues. Not crippling. I wouldn’t say the servers are broken, they just have a few teething problems.
Waiting for Monster Hunter to finally land on the PC was worth the wait, though. I’m not disappointed. It’s the best game I’ve played in a long time, and I can see myself continuing to play it for a long time to come. 😀 It wasn’t long ago that I loathed the series, so this is quite the epic turnaround they’ve managed!
Now, let’s move onto the subject of “Monster. Hunter.”. The celebratory render. Guh, this is gonna get confusing, isn’t it? 😛
Monster. Hunter. render follow-up
I was really surprised with the first draft of the render. It took about five hours to put together. But after that, when the environment was in and needed to stay active because it was making a critical contribution to the final lighting… the PAIN BEGAN.
DAZ Studio can’t handle scenes like this when using Iray. It babs itself when things get even remotely complicated, sometimes taking minutes to recalculate, making it impossible to tweak the scene while the interactive Iray render is running, therefore making it extremely difficult to tweak things such as materials. In fact, not long after I produced the draft render, this scene became so heavy that it wouldn’t fit in GPU memory, so only the CPU could render it. This isn’t a realistic option. In fact, I’m not sure why DAZ offers the option. Because it’s a stupid thing to do. From experience, I think it’s about 20x slower than GPU rendering. Ain’t got that kind of time, brah.
And with this render, ohh, I’ve never seen DAZ Studio bab itself quite as much. The first problem was when the scene became too heavy for the GPU. I really wasn’t happy with the grass density, or the quality of the ground texture, so I decided to kill two birds with one stone and added a lot more higher-quality grass. This pushed the scene over the edge and became too complex to fit in GPU memory… not to mention that it was getting very difficult to do anything with the interactive render running.
To cut down on memory usage, I used a tool which can reduce the size of texture maps of objects you select. After halving the size of everything in the background, the scene was able to fit in GPU memory again, which was great. Wasn’t any faster at rendering, though, and this was a problem, because I needed to tweak the lighting. After this, it just descended into a whirlpool of fuckshit which connected directly to Satan’s testes. Yes, it was that bad.
First, it started leaking memory, so I couldn’t do more than one Iray render without restarting DS. Then, for no reason at all, it began to crash after turning on the interactive renderer, if not before rendering the first time, then always before rendering the second time. And then, it began to do this really weird shit when rendering, where the top half of the render would begin after the bottom half, making the top half look darker. I imagine that was some insanity with double-GPU rendering, but who cares, it was annoying. And just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, bang, it stops rendering with the GPUs. Had to reduce texture quality again just to get it to stop whining. Oh, and then, I discovered a problem where the Dragon 3’s left eye would render black, even though both of his eyes are one material and the right eye rendered just fine!
I eventually discovered that this was caused because of a render setting that I’d changed, “Instancing Optimization” under the “Optimization” category. I changed it from Speed to Memory, because of the multitude of aforementioned memory issues I’d been having. But why the hell. His eyes aren’t instanced objects! The only instanced objects in the scene are the grass objects! Why would this option break the eyes?! And what does it even mean?! It’s not fucking documented! Look, this is the documentation of the whole Optimization category! (Backup screenshot here in the hilariously unlikely event that they update it.) OOOH SO USEFUL!!
And then, when I finally manage to get DAZ Studio to start a goddamn render, BAM, I was bitten once again by the IDIOT default settings of a two-hour maximum render time. Just as a final “fuck you”.
Haaah… so yeah… I wasn’t particularly calm. 😛 I even resorted to singing out my anger over a track from Disgaea 5 after it started playing as part of my “every piece of music on the PC” shuffle playlist. It helped a tiny bit. 😛
To be honest, though… the pain was worth it. Because look at THIS:
(Available in these flavours: 2560×3072 “Character Focused” Version, 1080p, 2K, 4K)
MORE PLANTS! MORE GRASS! MORE FORESTY! 😀
Yes, it’s still a work in progress. UPDATE 2!!: I replaced the WIP version with the final version. I increased the texture resolution on the tree and added something that went missing in the last WIP render. 🙂
I… don’t really know what else to say. I mean, I’ve really surprised myself with this one. It was only gonna be a quick celebratory render, so I never imagined it would turn out as good as it has! 😀
Oh, wait, of course, I do know what to say: RENDER STAAATS! 😀 And oh, it’s a biggie. My longest render ever. That render, at 2560×3072, quality level 2 and 94.5% convergence (because I needed to kick off the desktop renders before going to bed and couldn’t wait another hour for the last 0.5% convergence 😛 ) took 20 hours 57 minutes 45.31 seconds. BOOM, R-R-R-R-RECORD BREAKER! Holy CRAP that’s a long time. But there’s a reason. The scene, despite all my efforts, flat out would not fit in my primary GPU’s memory, because DAZ Studio needs 2 GB just to show it in the viewport, the render needs about 3GB extra, and my GPUs only have 4GB of memory each. So I had to render it with the secondary GPU only, because that didn’t have anything in memory.
UPDATE 3!!
Heyyy, as you might have seen from the updated links under the image, I’ve added some desktop versions, the traditional 4K, 2K and 1080p trio. The 4K version took 11 hours 46 minutes 29.91 seconds to render… which is odd, since it’s about 400k pixels larger than the character focused render. There’s one very good (and equally confusing) reason for this, though: I was able to use both GPUs to render it. Not sure how… because again, larger image. They require more memory to render, right? 😛 It was basically a miracle, because the scene was 49MB off not fitting in GPU1’s memory. Look!
4047MB peak usage! The GPU only has 4096MB of memory! I didn’t even want to sneeze on the computer just in case it went over the edge. 😛
Anyhoo… normally I render all three resolutions individually, but this time I just rendered the 4K version and scaled it down. The main reason is because of Iray’s irritating grainy renders. Basically, any areas of the image that are even slightly dark, reflective or translucent turn out grainy, regardless of the convergence ratio or render quality settings. To counteract this, I apply blur manually to especially bad areas by converting the image to a Smart Object, applying a Gaussian blur as a Smart Filter, and airbrushing the mask white wherever I want to reduce the grain. This helps with the 4K image, but then I have to repeat the blurring process twice more with the 2K and 1080p images, and that’s really boring. 😛 So instead, I apply the blur to the 4K image, then downscale it. This not only saves time, but it reduces the grain massively at lower resolutions, and actually looks better than if I’d just rendered it at those resolutions.
And since we’re on the subject of postwork, I’ll mention what else I did in that area. 🙂 Apart from the signature and the blurring, I also added a vignette and a slight levels tweak to the desktop versions. But that’s all. 🙂
That’s all from me for now, but I hope you like the pic! Laterz. 🙂
(obsolete, see update 5)
I don’t believe it. After posting the final version here, after creating those desktop versions, after posting it to DeviantArt, after posting a follow-up comment on my Bookface post with the “finished” version and a link here for the desktop versions… I’ve noticed a huge mistake in the pose.
He’s NOT DRAWING THE ARROW CORRECTLY, oh my GOD I’m such a MORON!
Just… yeah. Just look carefully, and you won’t un-see it. The bow string is tensing against… what, exactly? It’s supposed to tense against the back of the arrow, you absolute dumbfuck MongMaster, what are you smoking?! This was my number one focus when posing. I looked at a lot of pictures of people drawing bows, and spent a lot of time making sure it looked just right, because I’ve only ever drawn a bow once before and was afraid of getting the pose wrong. And now look. I got it wrong. For fuck’s sake.
Not happy at all. I’ll fix it, but it’ll take a couple of days. -.-
Okay, I’ve replaced the renders with a new version where the dragon is drawing the arrow correctly, and all is good again. 😛 But hey, even though I had to spend another evening rendering both versions of this picture again, I found another silver lining! I learned another DAZ Studio dumbfuckery! 😛
As I said before, the character-focused version of the render wouldn’t fit in my primary GPU’s memory, so I couldn’t render it with both of my GPUs; I had to use my secondary GPU by itself. The knock-on of this was that it basically doubled the render time to nearly 21 hours. When it came to rendering the scene this time, I was wondering if there was any way to squeeze the scene size down just enough so it could fit in GPU memory without any major quality sacrifices. I tried some dumb things like closing DAZ Studio viewports and panels to try and save memory. Of course, this did nothing, so as a last-ditch, blue-sky thinking, really-clutching-at-straws-here attempt, I tried shrinking the DAZ Studio window down so that it was really small. Lo and behold, doing this actually freed up 100MB of GPU memory. Absolute top lel. Maximum lel. Lel overload. 😛 If you don’t believe me, here’s a demonstration.
That 100MB saving was enough to do the character-focused render with both GPUs. This saved about 11 hours, which means I can actually play Monster Hunter again tonight instead of using my PC to re-render this scene constantly, yay! 😛
Posted in DAZ Studio Stuff, Vidya Gamez | Tagged Art, Capcom, Dragons, Games, Monster Hunter, Monster Hunter: World, Rant, Rendering, Wordpress Is Shit | Leave a reply
Show me your LOOOOOOVE!
So hey, after getting a burfday e-mail from Nintendo containing 300 Platinum Points which are POINTless ehehehergh, I saw that Super Mario Run was 50% off for a limited time, bringing it down to a price which, y’know, seems kinda sane.
In general, I really don’t like mobile games. The core game is rarely good, and usually it’s just designed to get the player addicted before slowly pissing them off with a scripted economy and annoying gameplay mechanics, and eventually it reaches a point where advancement is insanely slow or impossible, and instead of quitting, players feel the need to spend money on one of the game’s insanely overpriced in-app purchases which do nothing but give a small progress boost, despite the fact that the game is usually never ending. I mean, if you enjoy the game, that’s fair enough, but the vast majority of successful games are so catastrophically bad that I literally can’t comprehend why anyone would spend money on them.
Anyway, blah blah blah going off on a tangent again. 😛 The point is that I’ve never found a mobile game that I felt was worth any amount of money. A mobile game’s lucky if it manages to stay installed on my device for more than a week, to be honest. 😛 Despite this, I thought I’d give Super Mario Run a try, since it was on deal and it’s Mario. And… well. It’s much better than I was expecting. It’s so polished, and so friggin’ smooth to play. And it was made in Unity! I was surprised when I realised that, because all the games I’ve worked on with Unity haven’t felt anywhere near as slick as Super Mario Run does.
It’s definitely the best game I’ve played on mobile so far, and the first mobile game I’ve ever bought, BUT… I probably wouldn’t have bought it if it wasn’t on sale, and would’ve hesitated for a while if I didn’t have £3 of Google Play credit lying around. I got that in an M&M’s promotion and was supposed to use it on a film, but WHY would I want to watch a film on a friggin’ 5″ screen durrrrrrrr. 😛 Besides, I very rarely watch films anyway. So the game cost me like £2. Definitely worth that. £5 is sensible. £10, no. Most of the game’s content is an infinite loop; you play Toad Rally to try and get more Toads so you can get more decorations and characters, you play Remix 10 so you can get more decorations and a new character, and you replay courses in Tour so you can get all the coloured coins to unlock a few special courses. The core objective of completing World 6 in Tour only takes about 1-4 hours depending on skill. I tend to be a completionist when it comes to games I actually like, so I’ll play it way more than that (especially since I’m being paid to do almost nothing at work right now :P), but even so, £10 sounds pretty steep to me. I imagine that price might sound insane to non-completionists. 😛
Anyway, did I mention the game’s soundtrack? No? Well, it’s pretty good. And now that I’ve said that, let me move onto the point of this post: Remix 10, the new mode. 😛
I’m not really sure whether the mode’s name is a reference to Rhythm Paradise, or whether it’s just a coincidence, but in each run of Remix 10, you play 10 really short courses back-to-back. The more runs you do, the closer you get to rescuing Daisy, who then becomes playable after you reach her. I reckon it’s the most entertaining mode of the game, partly because it’s more varied and exciting than the other modes, partly because you get more and better kewl lewtz, and partly because of the soundtrack. The music is pretty nostalgic; it’s a minimix of classic tracks from previous Mario games. But the first part of it makes me giggle like a schoolgirl, because VOCALS. Just like some game music from the good old days. It might be really dumb, but it’s memorable and makes me laugh. 😀 Check it:
I like it so much that I went through the faff of ripping it. I don’t know how to rip assets out of Unity games because they’re all packaged up and obfuscated, so I did it in the less intelligent way: by plugging the phone’s headphone jack into my PC’s microphone jack, finding a Remix 10 stage with a pause block in it, and staying still for the duration of the music loop while recording. Heeah, have it if ya want it. I also love the Starman music in Remix 10; it’s like an upbeat techno version of the Wing Hat from SM64. 😀 Since the Super Star has a time limit and there’s way too much going on when you pick one up, it’d be near impossible for me to rip the music in the same way as the normal BGM. Ah well.
Anyway, Super Mario Run is good. If I wasn’t lazy and slow, I would’ve said “it’s still on offer, so go ahead and give it a try and buy it if you enjoy it, before the price goes up again”, but the offer’s already over. Sorry! 😛
Posted in Vidya Gamez | Tagged Games, Mario, Mobile, Mobile game, Music, Soundtrack, Super Mario Run, Wordpress Is Shit | Leave a reply
Temporarily not working is niiiice!
Hiyaaaaa! How’s it going? 😀 Ooh, what’s this featured image thingy? Ah, I see. That’s kinda fun. 🙂 It probably only has an effect if you click on the post title, though.
Anyway ya, it’s been a li’l while since I last sharted tons of words onto this website. Although, well… I have some drafts somewhere around here. Yes, I did it again, I wrote loads of crap that I didn’t get around to posting. 😛 Partially because the posts got a bit long, partially because they happened quite a while ago and therefore it’s kinda late to post them, but mainly because I am a lazy shite. 😛 As I’ve been demonstrating over the past two weeks by not working!
Yes, I booked some time off because I was going to die otherwise. 😛 I haven’t actually had time off for myself in over a year. I’ve had time off, sure, but that’s because I had to take it off to go visit/have people visit me. Fun, but not really relaxing. I was going to spend some of my holiday doing productive things, but I pretty much just ended up sleeping a lot and playing games a lot, with a bit of eating and washing up in-between. So yes, lazy shite. 😛
I think the main cause of the lack of productivity was RimWorld. I won’t explain it too much, but it’s a colony simulation game kinda like Dwarf Fortress, not that I’d know cuz I “played” about 30 seconds of Dwarf Fortress before saying “fuck this, I literally can’t play”. 😛 Someone I know’s been playing RimWorld, so I thought I’d give it a try. And… well, I think the best word to describe it is “dangerous”. It’s insanely addictive. Like really insanely. I don’t think I’ve played a game that’s been this addictive before. But the annoying thing is, regardless of its addictiveness, I don’t actually think it’s that good. It’s frustratingly luck-based. I mean, Jesus, the friggin’ hit chances. I’m pretty damn sure what it says is total bullshit, because when some guy with a 4% hit chance hits you 3 times in 9 shots when your guy with a 10% hit chance hits ZERO times in 9 shots, that’s totally unbelievable. If I’d been playing it normally and didn’t reload when I felt bullshitted, I would’ve probably lost half my colony in one pathetic raid where the only reason I was struggling was cuz no-one on my team could fucking hit anything because of luck, then I would’ve probably lost the rest to stupid mental breakdowns where people usually end up wandering around doing nothing for about a day before complaining that they’re half-dead from starvation when they suddenly get over everything.
And it’s not only the luck-based crap, but the more you play it, the more idiocy you see. The AI is fucking stupid for one thing; you have to micromanage until you’re on the brink of an aneurysm. Then there’s some really dumbass design choices, like… by default you can only have one colony (multiple colonies work absolutely fine, they make the game more interesting and there is no real reason why this is disabled by default), the dumbass AI doesn’t give a shit about friendly fire and they can shoot friendlies directly next to them even though the learning helper effectively says that they can’t, everyone hates anyone who slaughters colony animals even though it was my direct order and they would have all died if they didn’t have the food it gave them, and if you capture a downed enemy who attacked you but failed to land a single hit on anyone, they’re not classed as guilty for some reason, so if they die through any means (such as “oh shit I didn’t realise that guy was going to die in two hours and it takes an hour and a half to get them to a bed because these fucks are so slow”), your whole colony gets a massive mood penalty because “omg a harmless prisoner died that’s so barbaric”. Oh, and you can’t harvest the organs of a dead person, but you can harvest organs from a live person (but you get mood and social penalties if you do so there’s no point). The fuck?
And I said I wouldn’t explain it too much and now look at that, for God’s sake damn it stop. 😛
Anyway, I got around to doing something kinda productive today. I made a RENDAR! Yez. 😀 It’s related to this game I’ve been slaving over for the past two years or so, although it feels more like three or even four. Not any of my games, no no no, that wouldn’t be “slaving over” it because I want to make ULSG V14, but I just never have the time. And when I do, I’m too friggin’ focused on sleeping and being lazy. 😛
It’s a game called “Race Kings”, sexist, which we made for another company. It’s probably best if I try not to say exactly what I think about it. But I’d like to encourage you not to play it at all, please, k thx! 😀
Anyway, the render. It was just a quick, simple-ish idea based upon one of the game’s completely idiotic understandable if you’re fucking stupid design choices. A design choice so dumb it annoys the designers that some people in the office complained about endlessly a few times. If you set off between two and zero seconds before the light goes green, you immediately lose, and forfeit all the money you wagered on the race. but if you don’t start within about a frame of the light going green you’ll lose because that’s basically the whole point of the game and 95% of the time you’ll finish last if you start last unless you pay to win
So, now that the rant explanation is out of the way, here is a dragon getting a false start!
(Available in these great flavours: 1080p, WUXGA, QHD, UHD)
Taken a few moments before he gets a bit more violent. No, he doesn’t break his HLE Infinity smartphone; he likes it way too much to damage it over this. He just burns a very specific part of London down instead. 😛
Anyhoo, I used Iray for this render again! I’ve been practicing a li’l bit, and I’ve gotten more used to it now, sort of. You just need to ignore the fact that it’s trying to be realistic and use whatever numbers make things look nice. When it asks for things like the candle wattage/lumen of a light, just smile, pat it on the head and input a value about 200,000x more than what is realistic. 😛
I don’t really understand light, but I know Iray is full of crap when it comes to it. 😛 The lights in this scene came with the environment, and they already had unrealistic values. By default, Iray uses candelas/m² to measure luminance, and it was set to 250,000cd/m². I had no idea what I was doing, but I did some rough measurements and found that the lights had a surface area of about 0.812m², meaning their luminance was about 203,000cd, and apparently 1cd = 1 lumen. That’s makes the light twice as powerful as full daylight, and there’s seven of the damn things! And guess what? That’s NOT ENOUGH!! I had to increase their luminance to 17,500,000cd/m², which is about 14 MILLION LUMEN! PER LIGHT! WHAT!
If I turn off the Sun-Sky lighting and just use the already insane default values, the render looks like this:
COOL, HUH?!? (Oh, ignore the noise, I only let it render for about two minutes. :P)
I tested to see if I wasn’t going crazy by switching the material’s luminance units to lumen and entering 14,000,000, and amazingly, it looks like I’m actually right. The light is pretty similar to when I enter 17,500,000cd/m²; it looks just a little bit brighter. So… yeah! I rest my case! This renderer is trippin’ balls and needs ridiculously inflated values! Maybe not quite 200,000 times more. Just 20,000 times more. 😛
Also, Iray doesn’t seem to be able to produce a render which isn’t grainy as fuck, no matter how high you put the render quality (pro tip: no higher than 4 because that’s about as good as you’re gonna get 😛 ). But I have found that you can get rid of most of it (most of the time) with a couple of quick Photoshop filters. Just add a 0.6-radius Gaussian Blur followed by a 0.6-radius Smart Sharpen. Tends to do the trick, kinda. YMMV. 🙂
So, for the 1080p version at rendering quality 3, it took… 1 hour 56 minutes 48.7 seconds, and it only reached 91% convergence before hitting the iteration limit. That was on two GTX 970s, so… speedy, Iray is not. 😛 I guess it can be prettier and more realistic, though. As for posing, that actually took about the same amount of time, but might’ve taken less if I wasn’t such a moronic perfectionist. I posed his feet and tail, even though you can’t see them. 😛
I listened to the Daytona USA soundtrack while posing, because this game kinda reminds me of it, apart from that it’s not NASCAR, or touring cars, and the courses only have 1-2 laps and last 30-60 seconds and is generally nothing like Daytona USA. 😛 and there’s next to no skill involved and it doesn’t have an awesome soundtrack and it isn’t fun or cool Maybe it’s because you go around in circles. Or maybe it’s just because the second half of Pounding Pavement cracks me right up, and Mitsuyoshi-san is a legend. 😀
Anyway, hope you like the render. 😀 I’ll get the QHD and 4K versions done overnight. QHD and 4K versions are doooone. 🙂 I’ll also go through those drafts I did and see if I can fix them up enough to post them. And by “fix up” I mean “holy crap cut them down that one’s about 10,000 words long”. 😛
Buh-bye! 😀
(Also LMFAO)
Added the QHD and 4K versions. 4K would’ve taken more than 6 hours to reach the 95% convergence target… if it didn’t run out of time. 😛 QHD took 3 hours 56 minutes 5.8 seconds. THE SPEEEEEEEED! 😛
I found out that my work monitor, like my work SpackBook, also has a stupid uncommon resolution, 1920×1200, also known as WUXGA, Wide Ultra eXtended Graphics Array! It’s like 1080p, but with 120 more pixels of height, and I didn’t even notice. Literally the only reason this resolution seems to exist is because someone said they could use it to fit two full pages of text on-screen at once. I wonder if they realised that instead of making an entirely new resolution and entirely new class of monitor they could just… zoom out to 80%? 😛
Anyway who cares. I re-rendered it in WUXGA so it fits my work monitor, so I figured I’d add it here, too. 🙂
Posted in DAZ Studio Stuff, Vidya Gamez | Tagged Daytonaaaaaaaaaaa, DAZ Studio, Dragons, Games, Race Kings, Rendering, RimWorld, Wordpress Is Shit | Leave a reply
The return to Paradise! And other stuff.
Hey hey hey, how’s it going? Did ya have a good Chrissamas? Great!/Oh no! (delete as appropriate) Look, wow! A lame snow effect! (please disregard if you’re reading this outside of December)
Sooo, I’ve been in this mode for a while where I write some stuff down, save it to drafts, and theeeen… totally forget about it. 😛 I remembered I wanted to write about Rhythm Paradise Megamix, so I came back here and found I’d already written a bunch of stuff down. Then I also found a draft for Super Mystery Dungeon which’s been here for about 2,000 years. Oops! So, let’s take ’em out of drafts, finish ’em off and actually post ’em! 😛 I’ll start with Rhythm Paradise Megamix, since that’s more recent. 🙂
Oh, by the way, I might throw some spoilers, but I’ve blanked out any major ones by making text the same colour as the background. If the background isn’t near-black for you for some reason, then my spoiler-hiding won’t work, yay! 😛 If it does work, though, you should be able to read them if you highlight the text. Here, try it: Well done, you successfully highlighted some text but just lost The Game. I would use a bit of JavaScript and HTML so certain bits of text are only shown when you click on a link, like a “spoiler” tag on forums, but WordPress removes any useful HTML automatically because it SUCKS!!
It’s been a few many many weeks since Rhythm Paradise Megamix was released in the European Union and the UK. 😛 Japan had it ages ago, of course; it was released over there as Rhythm Tengoku: The Best+, and I was much jealous. Then it was released digital-only in America as Rhythm Heaven Megamix, and I was even more much jealous. By the way, I never really got why it’s called “Heaven” over there and “Paradise” over here. Must be a copyright issue or something. ANYHOO, yes, it was finally released in Europe in October. 🙂 We also got a physical release for some reason. YA JELLY?! 😛
I’m a huge fan of Rhythm Paradise. I’ve never played the first game (because Japan only) but I have the DS game and the awfully-named “Beat The Beat: Rhythm Paradise” for Wii (it has a much better title in America, “Rhythm Heaven Fever”). I love the zaniness of all the games; how they came up with some of their ideas, I’ll never know. 😀 I also love how it’s challenging, but really fun at the same time. In the run-up to Megamix’s release in Europe, I made an effort to get 100% completion in Rhythm Paradise, and a few days before release, I finally managed it:
I was rewarded with the barista’s immense praise and the ability to listen to every BGM in the game. Getting all 50 Perfects wasn’t easy, so it felt like a pretty big accomplishment. Rhythm Rally 2, man… I found it harder than Remix 10.
A few days later, Megamix was delivered to me, and I was like EEEEEEEEEEEE! 😛 Of course, I didn’t have huge expectations of it or anything. It was basically a compilation game after all, with a few bonuses added on. However, one of the first things I noticed when I started playing was that Megamix did something… weird. It has a story. No other Rhythm Paradise game has a story; it’s just a bunch of musical minigames. I don’t believe it needed a story, since each game tends to have a micro-story behind it anyway, but they decided to add a game-wide story anyway. Hmm. Okay.
The next thing I noticed was that it appeared they’d changed the progression. Normally, each “stage” consists of 4 games revealed one at a time, and then a Remix consisting of those four games mixed together with different music. Then, after a certain Remix, you get the credits game, and from then on, each stage contains 4 games which are harder versions of previous games, followed by a Remix that contains an assortment of previous games. The game culminates in Remix 10, which contains every game, and sometimes things you might not expect, like the credits game and the rhythm game you played in the tutorial. Megamix, though? At first… there are four games, and no remix. Clear all four games and you get to advance to the next stage, where there are four more games… and no remix. After every second stage, there’s a Gate, guarded by three gatekeepers who challenge you to get a certain score in an Endless Game. Each gatekeeper sets a challenge of a different difficulty; the harder the difficulty, the less coins it costs to try. Beat any of them and you can advance to the next stage. Hmmmm. No remixes… okay…
Another thing… the difficulty. The lack of it, that is. At first, I thought I was the problem, because excluding the ones from Rhythm Tengoku (GBA) and the games exclusive to Megamix, I’ve played all of these rhythm games before. But no… it wasn’t that. Many early games were familiar, but they were set to new music, and they were so easy you could probably clear them with no sound. I got 15 straight Superb ratings before finally getting an OK on Tongue Lashing, one of the new games (which is actually kinda tricky). For comparison, on my first attempt of the first game on Rhythm Paradise DS, “Built To Scale”, I got a Try Again. On my first attempt of the first game on Beat the Beat: Rhythm Paradise (BtB from now on 🙂 ), “Hole In One”, I got an OK. Hmmmmmmmm…
So far, so… not good. The story was shaping up as pretty much throwaway, and it was weird in a not-really-charming way (Donut Land, Jesus fucking Christ I can’t facepalm hard enough regarding that character). There didn’t seem to be any remixes, and loads of the rhythm games from previous games were set to new, worse music, and were much easier. On the plus side, a few of the new games were good. First Contact, LumBEARjack, Tongue Lashing and Super Samurai Slice were all fun to play, even though I got Superb and “No Miss” in three of them on my first attempt. 😛 (No Miss is basically a Perfect, but not really a Perfect, because to get a Perfect, “Go for Perfect!” has to be active on that game when you play it. 😛 )
When you reach Lush Woods, the final area of Earth World, things look up a little bit. In this area, there’s a tower containing four games and a remix, just like the previous games. The remix was pretty decent (the highlight of the five games was definitely Sumo Brothers, though; it was hilarious. :D). But then you get the ending! WHAT?! Of course, anyone with a brain would realise that there’s no way this is the end of the game, because there’s supposed to be 100+ games and you’ve only played 32 at this point. 😛
After the first “ending”, the game starts to pick up the pace. Six more towers show up, which contain both harder versions of previous games, and new games which are more challenging. Rhythm games from previous Paradise games return with their original soundtracks and difficulty. The legendary Ringside returns. And each tower has a remix. One of them even has vocals! When you clear those 30 games, you get the ending… to the Earth World arc of the “story”. Tibby goes home to Heaven World, that’s pretty much it. Nothing surprising. It’s not the end of the game, of course, because there’s supposed to be 100+ games and you’ve only played 62 at this point. 😛
No, Heaven World comes next, with 12 more games, followed by an endless game challenge, followed by another 12 games and two remixes, and then the epic Final Remix, nearly four minutes of awesomeness which I’d say is better than the awesome Remix 10 from BtB. 😀 No, it doesn’t end in this brilliant way, where the developers just screw with you. I’m glad, since that was kind of a one-shot gag. 😛 Instead, Final Remix mixes in each of the themes of the Rhythm Paradise games, which is such an awesome tribute if you’re a fan of the series. If they were going for a good sense of closure to the series, they did a great job there. Then comes the ending to Heaven World. You find out Heaven World is all messed up is because Tibby’s mum (who is a palace, yes you read that correctly, she’s literally a palace), was holding her breath to get rid of her hiccups. So yeah, the story was a totally throwaway, unnecessary waste of time and money. Some of the dialogue was funny, I suppose. 😛
Speaking of money… I think they lacked some of that. I was disappointed to find there was a huge lack of new vocal tracks. They tend to be the highlights of Paradise games for me, because they’re often really good. 😀 I mean, there’re so many I remember and love… Struck by the Rain, Young Love Rock ‘n’ Roll and That’s Paradise from Paradise DS, and Tonight, Lonely Storm, Beautiful One Day and Dreams of Our Generation from BtB. All awesome! 😀
If you exclude the strangely hilarious track from Karate Man Returns which isn’t explicitly marked as a vocal track (HEY BABY, HOW’S IT GOING?! THIS. BEAT. IS NON. STOP!), Megamix has… one new vocal track, “I’m a Lady Now”. That’s it. It’s decent, wasn’t super-keen the first time I heard it, but it kinda grew on me. But still, that’s it. We’re lucky we even got that. Why? Because any English vocals you hear are actually from the Japanese soundtrack. You can prove it by changing to the Japanese soundtrack in the café (which is a really nice feature, by the way). Their soundtrack actually has three new vocal tracks (in Lush Remix (which is really good with vocals!), Honeybee Remix and Machine Remix), but the non-English ones weren’t translated and re-recorded for the English soundtrack, which is a massive shame. No, wait, they have four, cuz the ending theme has vocals on the Japanese soundtrack! Gah, what a waste! One upside, though: the Machine Remix’s Japanese vocal track is terrible. 😛 I prefer the instrumental for that one.
Oh, and if you like to sing along to what vocal tracks we have, they’ve added the lyrics as subtitles into some of the games! Well, not all of them. Only a few. For some reason. Shrug.
As for stuff on the side, Megamix has a lot more than previous Paradise games… but also a lot less. The biggest thing is the Challenge Train, and I’d say it’s the best part of the game. It’s basically survival mode. You can play multiplayer, but no-one owns this game, so you’ll have to wait until partway through the game before you can play solo. 😛 Each course on the challenge train consists of several rhythm games, each of which has a goal: “Score”, “Life” or “Monster”. Score goals challenge you to clear the song and attain a certain score (basically an accuracy percentage, which is shown on all results screens in Megamix along with the traditional, coarse rating scale of “Try Again”, “OK” and “Superb”; it’s kinda nice). Life goals challenge you to clear the game within a certain number of lives; you lose lives by missing cues. Monster goals are strange; the rhythm game appears in a window which begins shrinking, revealing a monster in the background. If you hit a cue perfectly (known as an “Ace”), the window grows. If the window shrinks too much, the monster will eat it and you’ll fail. Rhythm games on a Challenge Train course may have their tempos increased, too. Passing a goal lets you move to the next game. Failing a goal costs a life. Clear all the goals within three lives to clear the course and earn one to three Flow Balls depending on the course difficulty (Flow Balls are special currency used for unlocking new rhythm games). Courses on the Challenge Train eventually get stupidly difficult, mainly thanks to the Tempo Up modifier. It has varying levels of “tempo upness”… er, what’s another way of saying that which isn’t retarded…? Varying levels… yeah, Tempo Up has varying levels, but it doesn’t tell you how much it increases the original tempo. Sometimes it’s about 10% more, but other times I swear it’s about 50%. Frog Hop with Tempo Up nearly crippled my thumb, and I lost seven lives to the same stage in a certain course (Air Rally 2 with at least 30% Tempo Up in two lives, wtf). It’s an awesome addition, though, because it’s even a challenge for people who’ve played all the previous games. Paprika almost craps himself when you clear them all. “Maybe we can be friends.” Haha.
Next to the Challenge Train, there’s the Perfect Campaign, which isn’t really anything new, it’s just a central location for going for Perfects, because the map is a pain in the arse to navigate. 😛 Also, when going for Perfect, Megamix ends the rhythm game the moment you miss a cue, which is nice. Oh, and you can skip the intros to rhythm games now, after you’ve played them once. 🙂 Getting a Perfect in Megamix only gets you a Flow Ball, not a gift. Gifts in this game are Rhythm Items, which are unlocked in the shop with coins, so you don’t need to perfect everything to get every gift and read the funny descriptions. 😀 What else… oh, yes, there’s a long-term Pachinko metagame which involves some turnips and a goat that lays golden eggs. Shrug. 😛 It has absolutely nothing to do with rhythm and unlocks nothing meaningful, but does generate lots of anger past Level 90 or so. 😛 Oh, there’s also a StreetPass game, which is a kind of “versus” mode of Rhythm Fighter. Again, no-one has this game (no-one even has a friggin’ 3DS in this city apparently; I’m lucky if I get a StreetPass once a week), but it gives you a fake opponent at least every day. It can be absolutely hilarious. GO GO GOOOOO! AND ONE TWO! ONE TWO! AND GO GO GOOOOO!! 😀
There’re no Rhythm Toys like the previous games, which is a slight shame, but as for Endless Games, there are… four. That’s it. You unlock them by beating all three of the gatekeepers at a gate. The best one is “Sick Beats” originally in Rhythm Tengoku (GBA), but… it doesn’t feel particularly “endless”. You have one life, and after the third wave, the tempo increases every wave. Once you reach 128 points, the tempo of the wave that follows is so high (around 225BPM) that it becomes nearly impossible to keep the beat, so there’s no point trying to break your record. I tried to demonstrate the insane BPM using my right hand to hold a phone and my left hand to press the D-Pad, and nearly succeeded on my fifth try. I was one wave short of my record. But the vid gives you an idea of how impossibly fast it gets. 😛 The other three Endless Games are Coin Toss (from Rhythm Paradise DS, and it was never particularly notable), Clap Trap (from BtB, I don’t think I played it back then cuz I don’t remember it, but it’s barely a rhythm game) and Charging Chicken (new, but not really since it’s based on a Rhythm Toy from Rhythm Paradise DS, but it’s pretty good nonetheless). It’s a shame. No Tunnel, Shoot-‘Em-Up or Glass Tappers from Rhythm Paradise DS? I know Tunnel was basic, but hitting a cowbell repeatedly in front of someone trying to drive a car is strangely hilarious, even more so because she only gets mad if you do it wrong. 😛 Shoot-‘Em-Up was a good Endless Game, and Glass Tappers was epic. And no Wake-Up Caller or Munchy Monk from BtB? Wake-Up Caller was kinda slow but it was a great rhythm-keeping test, and Munchy Monk was absolutely friggin’ hilarious! ONE EGG! ONE EGG! ONE EGG! HANDFUL’A PEEZ!! What’s with the weak selection? Did they pick the most popular or their favourites, or did they pick the easiest ones to develop? Probably the latter. Sigh.
So… all in all, I think Rhythm Paradise Megamix is… a decent compilation. It could have been an amazing compilation, but I have a feeling they didn’t have enough resources. Or they did a half-arsed job. Not sure which one. Maybe I’m being a bit harsh, cuz I don’t regret getting it or anything; it’s been a lot of fun to play through and I’ve got a fair bit of playtime out of it, but I can’t help but feel like it wasn’t as good as it could’ve been, y’know? Maybe it’s my fault for playing too much Project Mirai, but the difficulty of Megamix just wasn’t enough for me. Yes, even though I mentioned that the Challenge Train gets stupidly difficult, it didn’t feel stupidly difficult enough. 😛 I mean, I cleared all the courses but I only failed about 5 times in total. Then, when I perfected the Final Remix after my 9th attempt (failures mainly consisted of blunders and one particular part of the song: Cosmic Rhythm Rally to Jumpin’ Jazz, followed by the three cues in Clap Trap), it felt good, but I realised that I’d just beaten the last big challenge the game had to offer. All the other Perfects won’t be as hard to get as that one.
As for recommending it… hmm. It’s difficult. I’d carefully recommend it to fans of the series. If you really liked the previous games, there’s a good chance you’ll like this. Actually, I might recommend it more to people who’ve never played a Rhythm Paradise game before, since there’s way more to discover and the chances of you getting Superb on everything on your first try is much lower. As long as you like rhythm games, that is, and you’re not expecting something intensely difficult like Beatmania or Project Mirai, and as long as you like a bit of crazy humour. So yeah, a fair few conditions for recommendation, there. 😛
I wrote about this way back when I was more than halfway through the game, but never followed it up with a “I’ve finished the game now!” post.
My thoughts on the game haven’t really changed much since then. 😛 It’s… probably the second best game in the series… although I’m kinda torn between making it second or third best, actually.
The worst game for me was the original, Red/Blue Rescue Team. I played Blue, not like there’s a difference in the story or anything. 😛 It was just… lacking. And the story was completely fucked. There was literally no purpose for anything you did until about half an hour from the end when you suddenly find out a meteorite is heading for the planet, which is also the part you find out that the reason you were brought to the Pokémon world was to stop said meteorite. But then the one who actually saves the world is Rayquaza; he busts the piss out of the meteorite with Hyper Beam while you stand around and watch. All you did was ask him to do it. Of course, when you did, he was all like “FUCK YOUUUUU I’M A DRAGON type” so you had to beat him up before he realised and said “OH SHIT LOOK A METEORITE THAT’LL KILL US ALL”. Of course that’s not exactly how it went down. Effectively the same, though. 😛 After Rayquaza saves the world, with your role fulfilled, you disappear and your partner loses it. This would be sad, as it is in the sequels, but the dialogue was quite sparse and the story was so short I didn’t have time to connect with any of the characters. I finished it in less than 16 hours, which is crazy. RPGs generally last way longer than that, I mean… Explorers of Sky lasted me around 60 hours, Gates to Infinity was about 50, and Super Mystery Dungeon about 40. Sure, there’s a bit more to do after the main story, but it’s not obvious, or very interesting. You just go around into harder dungeons and meet Legendary Pokémon who don’t join you the first time, and only join you the second time if you have the correct “Friend Area”, a retarded system that makes it stupidly painful to get members or set up the team you want to use in a dungeon. Besides, after the main storyline, the game disconnects you from your partner pretty much entirely; they no longer follow you around and their character becomes generic. Guh. I’m glad I didn’t play this one first, because I reckon it would have killed my interest in the subsequent games. Oh, now that I think about it, there was one good bit in Blue. Hehe. 😛
That leaves either Gates to Infinity or Super Mystery Dungeon to rank as number 3… naw, what am I saying. Super Mystery Dungeon has to be number 2. 😛
Gates to Infinity was great. The gameplay was a little bit dumbed down due to the removal of the hunger system and the addition of the Team Attack, which was essentially a rechargeable Get Out Of Jail Free card. If you stumbled into a Monster House with the Team Attack charged, the Monster House might as well not be there. 😛 I also didn’t really like building up Paradise. You could only take one quest at a time, and there was no guarantee that the rewards for any of the available quests were materials you needed. It was really annoying. But the story was awesome, as were most of the characters. I especially liked Victini, Hydreigon and Rampardos (even though Rampardos and Victini were basically shopkeepers 😛 ). Virizion was cool, too, as was Espeon and Umbreon (always a great pair), and Emolga, and the partner Pokémon, and Quagsire, hmm? 😀 If I can fondly remember nine characters, I’m pretty sure they’ve done it right.
Although… I said the story was awesome, but honestly, when the Bittercold came into play, the story suddenly became… odd. I don’t remember a great deal after the major twist in the last half of the story, where it turns out the antagonist was actually Munna; she’d been manipulating your dreams to make it seem like Hydreigon was evil, but in actual fact, Hydreigon was the one who called you to the Pokémon World. WHAT A TWEEST! No, seriously, what a fucking tweest. I never saw it coming. It blew my head open. 😛
Super Mystery Dungeon had a good story, but it did take a while to get going. When you leave the village to join the Expedition Society (god fucking damn it that part is so sweet), that’s when the story starts to pick up the pace, and it begins feeling like it has a bit more of a purpose. Then the ending, where the writers turned everything upside down from the previous games and decided that your partner is the one that disappears this time? MIND EXPLODE. Didn’t see it coming. Didn’t see ANY part of the story coming, if I’m honest! The story might’ve been a bit “out there”, way more wild than Explorers of Sky, but if they can keep me guessing for the entire length of the story, then they’ve totally won.
I remember the very beginning of Super being presented in a really cool fashion, actually. Traditionally, there’s been an intro video followed by menus, but this time it feels like they’re trying to suck you into the world almost as soon as you press Start on the title screen.
The return of the personality test was a nice surprise, too. 🙂 In Time/Darkness/Sky and Red/Blue, you were asked a series of questions before the story began, mainly situational and personality-based. Asking you how you’d respond to a friend who made you a meal that tastes terrible, how you feel when something you bought yesterday for full price is marked down to half price today, whether you’ve ever accidentally called a teacher “Mum” or “Dad”, things like that. 😛 Based on your answers, the game guessed your personality and assigned you a Pokémon. After that, you could select your partner from the remaining Pokémon, with the restriction that they can’t be the same type as you (can’t pick Squirtle (water) if you get Totodile (water), for example). I think it was a great idea, and it somehow really got me hyped up when I first played it. The problem with it, though, was that… well, the game’s decision was absolute. Sometimes you got a Pokémon you really didn’t want to play as. If this happened, you could restart the game and try the test again to see if you got a different Pokémon (the questions you got were randomly selected from a pool). But it was a pain, and that’s probably why they removed the test in Gates to Infinity and allowed you to choose. In Super, though, they brought it back and made it the best of both worlds. You take the test, but the game only recommends a Pokémon to you. If you disagree with its choice, you can change it.
Super also had some great gameplay, the best in the series, I think. The Looplet/Emera system was really good… um… no, well… not entirely good, actually. I found one huge issue with it. Seriously, huge. One day, while playing through the endgame, I found an Emera called Ally Reviver. It’s literally the most overpowered thing since The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion’s 100% Chameleon bullshit and I seriously hope it can’t appear during the story. When you have Ally Reviver in the leader’s Looplet, your teammates are effectively invincible. When they reach 0 HP, they’re automatically revived with full HP and PP. It doesn’t revive the leader, but there’s no limit to the amount of times it can revive your teammates. Seriously. I told them to wander around on their own and the amount of times they fainted was ludicrous, but it didn’t matter because they just got right back up again, like they were using friggin’ cheat codes or something. 😛 When you have Ally Reviver, the only thing you have to worry about then is the leader, making the rest of the dungeon trivial, unless you run into a Monster House like a moron, or if some twat with a room-wide move enters your room and you have no way of escaping or fighting back. Hell, if you find two Ally Revivers, you can put another one in a teammate’s Looplet, then when the leader is looking like he’s gonna get owned, change the leader, let the old leader faint and revive for free, then switch back. Practical example of how overpowered it is? I played a dungeon that ends in three boss battles with Dialga, Palkia and Rayquaza, back-to-back. My teammates must have fainted at least 15 times. If I didn’t have Ally Reviver, I’d’ve lost to Dialga within the first four or five turns, mainly because Dialga has a dumbass overpowered move called Roar of Time which hits everyone, and it always one-shots my teammates and can one-shot me if he gets a critical. But because I had Ally Reviver, I beat all three of them. RETARDED! It’s more overpowered than Awakening, which is supposed to be the über-ultimate mega-Emera, since that triggers Mega Evolution in Pokémon that can do so, and blocks all attacks from the front. But Awakening has a turn limit. Ally Reviver doesn’t. What’s more, if you have a Trap Immunity Emera at the same time, the last thing that you have to worry about (Emera Swap and Emera Crush traps) just… totally vanishes.
Oh, by the way, this plays during the boss battle with Dialga in Super. You might recognise it if you’ve played Explorers of Time/Darkness/Sky. It’s that game’s final boss battle music, against Dialga at the top of Temporal Tower. I nearly blew up. You also get this one against Rayquaza; it’s the Legendary Pokémon battle music originally from Red/Blue, played during that game’s final boss battle against Rayquaza. Great throwbacks. 😀
But maybe those throwbacks show a bit of a problem. I’ve noticed that Super just refuses to let go of the previous games. When you meet a Pokémon that was in a previous game, there’s an extremely high chance that they’ll act like the same character. Kangaskhan’s not in charge of storage any more, but she speaks in pretty much the same way as in Red/Blue and Time/Darkness/Sky. Duskull says he used to run a bank; I think Persian mentions something like that, too. Chansey says she used to work as an Egg caretaker. Rampardos says he used to run a business called Box Buster, and wonders how Cinccino is doing. Victini says he didn’t bring the V-Wheel. Swanna specifically mentions that she’s from Post Town, even though you can’t go there. Hydreigon acts as if you’ve already met him, exclaiming “You don’t remember me? Oh no!”. Munna says she did horrible things in the past. Quagsire has his verbal tic, hmm? Pokémon that were part of teams from Time/Darkness/Sky (AWD, Skull, Charm, etc.) either mention this, or act in basically the same way (Eg: Zubat, Koffing and Skuntank still have their unique ways of laughing: “Heh-heh-heh!”, “Whoa-ho-ho!” and “Chaw-haw-haw!”). I don’t even want to meet Grovyle. And I bet Celebi will mention Grovyle and how she feels about him, even though she won’t be a shiny like the Celebi from Time/Darkness/Sky. I finally met Grovyle and Celebi. The Celebi is a shiny. Grovyle’s mission was to help him rescue Celebi from a really easy dungeon. She fainted there on purpose so that Grovyle would come and rescue her. It was pretty fun. 😀 But still… why can’t they just let them be new characters? It feels like they’re hopelessly stuck in the past. The only thing that appears to be different is that Wobbuffet doesn’t just say “That’s right!”; all he says now is “Wooobbbufffeeeettttt!!!” 😛 Or was that a reference to Red/Blue? No, of course… the Wobbuffet in Sky was female, and this one’s male…
Bah, I think I’m reading too much into this. 😛 They’re just some harmless references, and they’re great for fans of the previous games, but I can’t help but feel like they might’ve been too attached to the old games to concentrate on making a new one. I mean, the gameplay of Super is definitely the best in the series, I really enjoyed the story, and the endgame is pretty good, too, but that balance… sheesh. It’s like they weren’t paying attention. Oh, and the team system was annoying; sometimes you couldn’t use team members because of reasons. Also, some Pokémon (Rayquaza, for example) were marked as “Gigantic”. This was already a somewhat quiet feature in Sky; each Pokémon had a fixed “Body Size” stat, and the total Body Size of your team had to be 6 or lower, so this effectively meant you could only have a three-Pokémon team if you wanted to take most Legendaries with you. However, that was fine, because in Sky they didn’t take up four tiles instead of one! I want to use Rayquaza. I want to use Dialga. And if I find that Yveltal is playable, I’m damn sure I’ll want to use him. But I can’t bring myself to put up with it, because playing with them in the team makes everything a pain in the dick. Regardless of whether they’re the leader or not, gigantic Pokémon just get in the friggin’ way all the time, especially around the corners of corridors, and this causes the other team member to lose line of sight of their allies, which puts them into “I’m lost” mode and makes them start wandering around randomly, which is hyper dangerous! (Uh, well, unless you have Ally Reviver, heh. 😛 ) And it isn’t like gigantic Pokémon are immensely powerful or anything.
I’m pretty sure that this game is a send-off, too. Given the surprising success of the series, it might not be, and I really don’t want it to be, but since it’s touted as the “definitive” Pokémon Mystery Dungeon game, that makes me believe that it’s the end. But all these issues I’ve found with Super just make me feel like the series could’ve ended on a higher note than this. Rgh, I dunno. Maybe it’s Explorers of Sky’s fault. 😛
Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky
“Um you’ve already played this twice why are you”
SHAHTAAAP!
Explorers of Sky was retardedly good. It’s one of my favourite RPGs. It has awesome characters everywhere, good yet admittedly repetitive dungeon-crawling, an epic soundtrack, and fuck ME, it has a masterfully-written story. The only thing wrong with the story is that it foreshadows events too obviously. When the player Pokémon exclaims (in his head, because he only speaks at the very end of the story) that he saw Dusknoir smile a little when he said he hadn’t heard of the player Pokémon, that, and the way the dialogue was presented, completely gave away that he was the bad guy. Things like that. Unlike the newer games, in Sky, you can see some things coming a mile away. But in my opinion, the story was about as close to perfect as you can make something. Interesting, mostly unpredictable, surprisingly mature, sometimes fun, sometimes moving, and it has a great ending. Honestly, when the ending theme began playing, I’d been so enthralled with the story that I actually cheered. And the attention to detail is so fine, it’s nearly impossible to notice. For example… like every game in the series, you pick a partner Pokémon. The difference in Sky? There are several slightly different sets of dialogue for your partner. Seriously. For example, when your partner sees the Krabby blowing bubbles near the start of the story, Torchic exclaims that it’s a “beautiful” sight. Bulbasaur exclaims that it’s a “pretty” sight. Totodile exclaims that it’s an “impressive” sight. And no, it isn’t just a one-off thing at the start; it continues throughout the entire story. I shit you not. It’s absolutely psycho! Almost no-one is going to notice this, and yet they did it anyway! Holy shit!
That… pretty much sums up Explorers of Sky. Probably Time/Darkness, too. That attention to detail, taking that much care over the dialogue to give some partners a slightly different voice even though most people will never notice, it shows that a hell of a lot of love and thought has been put into it. That’s why it’s so special. And that’s probably why I couldn’t find Sky for less than £18 second hand.
Yep, I bought it for realsies, and I’m playing through it for the third time. 🙂 I’m even experiencing things I didn’t before. Like… what the hell’s with my storage? I’m playing through like I normally do, or at least I think I am… but I had a massive issue with storage space. I was completely full for quite a long time. I kept recycling stuff I didn’t really need, then after a couple of adventures I was full again, then I recycled, and eventually reached this point where I couldn’t really bring myself to recycle anything, but I had to, because I had a full storage and a full bag. It was suffocating! I’m at the part just before Temporal Tower and I had to backtrack to town and rank up to Gold just to increase my storage space. Yes, even though the world’s basically about to end, I’m doing some missions to increase rank. 😛 I never had to do that in my previous two playthroughs!
But the game is as joyful as ever. I love it, I want to hug it, and I want Chunsoft to announce like 600 expansion packs for it. 😛 But you know what the fun thing about second hand games is? Seeing the previous owner’s data!
Before I wiped it for all eternity, I decided to compare it with the save I have on my emulator. If I hadn’t played this before, I would have just wiped it without looking to avoid spoilers, and besides, I probably wouldn’t have been able to judge because I wouldn’t have understood very much. 😛 Glad I’ve played it before, because this time I was… honestly, bewildered. Completely brainfucked. 😛 Why? Well, um… let me explain with some pictures:
The one on the left is the physical copy before I wiped it, ie: the previous owner’s data. The one on the right is my data from the emulator. I believe the most interesting statistic there is “Fainted in dungeons”. I fainted once throughout the entire game, probably because I quit and reloaded my last save whenever I fainted, rather than saving my progress with all my money and most of my items gone, so it was never logged because it never technically happened. But this guy fainted 178 times. 178?!? WHAT THE CRAP?! That’s insane! It’s like he never thought “oh, shit, I lost loads of important items there, I’d better just reload and try again”. Christ, he’s fainted in more dungeons than he’s cleared! And he’s cleared more dungeons that me, yet he’s got less than half the Pokémon I do and has acquired 111 less types of items! What is this?!
(Next screenshot has a spoiler, and my Ultimate Text Blackening Strategy won’t work for obvious reasons; avert your virgin gaze if you haven’t played this but plan to play it in the future! 😛 ) (OH MY GOD MY SPOILER WARNING CONTAINS AN INOBVIOUS SPOILER)
And it’s not like he didn’t clear the game, either! This doesn’t show it, but he finished the whole story. But finishing the whole story and only recycling ten times?! Maybe he didn’t get that selling items is kinda pointless unless it’s equipment or TMs, because you usually get 1p for it (literally)? Or, er… maybe he didn’t have many items? That sounds likely. 😛
Here’s where shit gets really really odd. Check his stats. Now check mine. Mine’re better, yeah? Now check level. He’s ten levels ahead, yet he has worse stats in every area. WHAAAAAAAAAT! HOW YOU DO DIS?! And it’s not like he hasn’t been eating Gummis! Gummis give you IQ, sometimes stat boosts, and always stat boosts if you give it to Spinda and make it into a drink. But look at his IQ! It’s friggin’ two stars higher than mine, which is significant, but his stats are worse! HOW?!
“Okay, let’s check the bank.” I said. I opened it and just started laughing in disbelief. You’ve finished the game and only have 1,077P?! Seriously?! How the hell do you even do that?! And one other thing I noticed from this pic? He’s playing as Blaziken. As far as I know… that’s impossible! Ignore that! I thought that it was impossible that he was playing Blaziken because… well, one: the personality test it gives you ends by asking if you’re male or female, and depending on your choice, this prevents you from being assigned certain Pokémon, and the borders of your chat windows are permanently coloured blue or pink for the duration of the game. And two: Torchic is marked as female in partner selection, and Torchic evolves to Combusken, who then evolves into Blaziken. Therefore, I assumed that he couldn’t have ever been a Blaziken because his chat windows are blue. I was totally wrong, though; Torchic can be assigned to either gender, but she’s always female if chosen to be the partner. As for player Pokémon, I looked it up and found that you can’t be Eevee, Skitty or Vulpix if you’re male, and you can’t be Riolu, Phanpy or Shinx if you’re female. Anyway no matter. The main point was that this guy had 0.6% of the money I had. 😛
This one solidifies my thoughts that he may have had a bit of trouble playing this game. Well, more than a bit. 😛 He had a total of nine items in storage. Uh… the key’s useful, I guess? But no Exclusive Items… no equipment… not even any Reviver Seeds. His bag had more items, but most of it was utility stuff like seeds and semi-useful orbs. I think there was some equipment, but it wasn’t equipped. I don’t have a clue how he got through the story in this state. Massive respect to his tenacity! 😛
What makes his state even more difficult to comprehend is his rank. He can store 320 items, which means he’s Gold rank. In my current state (not the emulator), I’m Gold rank, and I haven’t even finished the primary story yet. He’s finished both parts of the story. How did he end with such a relatively low rank?! On my emulator state there, at the end of the story plus a bit of endgame, I’m Master 3 Star rank. I’d’ve expected him to be at least somewhat close to that! This is why second hand games are so fun! 😛 (In contrast, the data on my second hand copy of Advance Wars: Dual Strike was impressive. They nearly had half the medals!)
Also, why do I have a Gold Ribbon in storage? Well, this is a fun fact! If you take a bunch of Gold Ribbons into a dungeon, along with either a Pure Seed or a Trawl Orb… when you find a Kecleon shop, what you do first is sell all your Gold Ribbons and any other high value items in your bag. Then, if you have a Pure Seed, you tell your team members to wait a distance from the shop (for safety reasons), then pick up all the items in the shop and use the Pure Seed. You’ll warp to the stairs, and the Hyper Fast Kecleon Army will then move to annihilate you because you stole from the shop. Simply walk onto the stairs, go to the next floor and poof. You’ve just generated several thousand Poké. 😀 Alternatively, with the Trawl Orb, walk to the stairs with your team, then use the Trawl Orb. It’ll attract all the items on the floor, including the ones in Kecleon’s shop. This is classed as stealing, so the Hyper Fast Kecleon Army will assemble. Pick up everything and get to the stairs before they reach your room and rape you. Poof, several thousand Poké. Terrible exploit! Probably why you can’t do it in Gates to Infinity and Super! 😛
I don’t have a picture of it, but his team was quite… interesting, too. Several of his team members were named after characters from Mortal Kombat. No idea why. None of the Pokémon he named had any particular resemblance to the character he named them after. 😛 He didn’t name his partner. The player Pokémon’s name (or at least the controllable Pokémon) was called “JACK”. All caps. Speaking to the partner Pokémon was entertaining for a second. “Let’s do our best as always, JACK!” 😛
UPDATE: Going back to what I said earlier, about the slightly different dialogue… I remember taking a screenshot on the emulator after selecting the negative option in one of the game’s many pointless choices, when your partner asks “Should we go into the nightmare?”. My partner was Totodile. This time, my partner is Bulbasaur. When I reached the same point in the game, I took a picture of the same bit of dialogue. Here’s the comparison:
I know it’s such a minor thing, but that’s the point. This attention to detail was completely unnecessary. The vast majority of players would never notice, but they still did it. The only reason they did so was because they cared. If only more devs cared as much nowadays. Sigh.
Anyway… that’s that, methinks. 🙂 Speaking of second hand games, though…
Fire Emblem: Awakening
So, after playing Project X Zone 2 (still haven’t finished that, actually) and Advance Wars: Dual Strike, I remembered that other turn-based strategy game I hadn’t played yet: Fire Emblem. I dunno why, but it never really appealed to me. Maybe I was under the impression that it was too slow or too serious or too annoying. By “too annoying” I mean that if one of your characters dies in Fire Emblem, they’re gone for good. Unless it’s the main character. Then you just get Game Over. 😛 Maybe “annoying” is the wrong word. “Stressful” is slightly more appropriate. 😛
Anyway, I went through a bunch of demos recently. Most of them were junk (fucking Puzzle & Dragons Super Mario Edition, fuck me, what is that bullshit, and what were Nintendo smoking to let that no-name fail mobile company shit all over the place and combine two IPs that had absolutely nothing in common, okay I’m done now), but Fire Emblem: Awakening was among them. I was… very impressed. The whole thing stank of quality. “Stank of quality”? Kind of a shit way to put it, but yeah, it felt like a quality game. There wasn’t much to the demo, some dialogue, a couple of maps and some stupidly good FMVs with some surprisingly good English voice acting. But I was impressed, so I had a look online to see if I could still get it second hand. It’s quite an old game, so I thought it was either gonna be unavailable or quite cheap.
Oh, it was available. But on Amazon at least, it was nearly as expensive as friggin’ Pokémon Sun and Moon! Even on eBay it was expensive. Not like I really buy anything off eBay auctions anyway because they’re always sniped and tend to go for way more than you can get the item elsewhere.
So I turned to Cex (heheheh cex shop), the place I bought Explorers of Sky from. No stock in any store near me, but I could get it delivered for £24.50, and that was pretty much the cheapest I could find. I bought it because I think it’ll be worth that, but Jesus, that’s really steep for a nearly three-year-old game. Rhythm Paradise Megamix cost about that when it was brand new. I figure it’s so expensive because Awakening was so well-received. After reading about it, it feels like this game’s a bit of a legend. It was basically the developers’ last shot at keeping the Fire Emblem series going. Nintendo told Intelligent Systems that if it didn’t sell 250,000 units, that was it; Fire Emblem would be cancelled. In the face of this pressure, they absolutely nailed it, got 90+ on Metacritic and sold like nearly a million copies in total. Awakening’s the only reason Fire Emblem still exists, so maybe that’s why it’s so expensive.
I haven’t got it yet; I only ordered it today (I only got back home from my parents’ yesterday 😛 ) but I’ll probably write about it. As a draft. Then find it again several months later and post it. 😛
Anyhoo, I think that’s all for now… okaaaay yes, that’s now 7407 words excluding the “word” “7407”, so let’s leave it there. 😛 Buh-byyyye!
ow my fingers
Posted in Vidya Gamez | Tagged Explorers of Sky, Fire Emblem, Fire Emblem: Awakening, Games, Great HTML Support, Mystery Dungeon, Pokémon, Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky, Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon, Rhythm Heaven Megamix, Rhythm Paradise Megamix, Rhythm Tengoku: The Best Plus, Wordpress Is Shit | 2 Replies
Post Deliveryyyyy!
Phwoaack, it’s been a li’l while since I last posted. The last time was back when I PERFECTED MATRYOSHKA ON SUPER HARD LOOK LOOK LOOK:
WOW! LOOK AGAIN!
Ahem. So, how’re thingz? 🙂
What’ve I done since I last posted? Well, I’ve mainly been working, aaand it’s basically making me lose the will to live. 😛 Our previous project was good, I mean, I didn’t really like the game as a whole, but it was interesting to work on, and the features we were implementing were well designed and interesting to play, even if the core game was pretty dull. That was about 2 years ago. Since then, we’ve been working on a new project. It was fairly decent when we began, but as it progressed and other people got involved, I slowly began to realise that this game we were making… I didn’t like it. Like, REALLY didn’t like it. I also slowly began to dislike the other people who were getting involved. Since then, it’s escalated into a huge tornado of fuckshit. The lack of communication is ultra-annoying, the organisation is so bad I actually think the teams I worked with at university did a better job, people have meetings when I’m pretty sure they don’t need one and they overrun literally every single time, and some of the decisions made by the project leader are so stupid they go beyond what I can comprehend… for example, our game is free-to-play with in-app purchases (IAPs) like 99% of mobile junk, but the difference between all that junk and this junk was that our IAP shop was constantly pushed back in favour of much less critical tasks… so our game cannot make money. When we go for a meeting to determine our next set of tasks, the project leader always seems to have picked more tasks than we can all possibly do, insisting all of them are critical for the next build, and then it usually turns out he’s actually just picked stuff he wants instead of stuff we need. And it’s not just him; a lot of the other people I have to work with are so stupid I can’t help but wonder how the hell they got into this industry, and I can’t believe some of them have been making games for way longer than I have. Several of them don’t even care about gaming! I worked my ass off and racked up a massive debt to get here and do what I love doing, and there are people like this?! ARGHH! AND it’s summer, my least favourite season, and there’s no goddamn air conditioning and the wind speed is less than 10 mph, and conveniently all of the fans in the room appear to be situated near the lead staff, but they were saying they were going to order more, maybe, at some point, or not, probably needs a meeting. Two weeks after they mentioned getting more fans, they still haven’t, so they obviously don’t care.
The result of all this pain? A game I really really hate which I would uninstall in less than five minutes. I actually hope it bombs harder than anything has ever bombed before. I hide my opinion of the game from the other staff because it doesn’t help anyone to complain and there’s nothing that can be done about it now, but also because I’ve recently found out the project leader has this fucked up mentality that anyone who has made negative comments about the game is an asshole and 100% wrong. I hate people who can’t take criticism.
Anyway, that’s FAR too much whining, sorry. This post wasn’t supposed to be about ruining your day by mimicking the average Facebook feed. 😛 So, other more better stuff I’ve done… well, I’ve been playing a few games, of course. 🙂 I quite enjoyed the Overwatch Beta, so I ended up getting it, but after about 20 hours of game time I realised it was getting pretty boring. Slowly, it stopped being fun and became more annoying, then I questioned why I was playing it, and then I stopped. I probably won’t play it again until they… I dunno, add a new map, or a more interesting mode, or something. It’s quite annoying and doesn’t fully make sense why I’m bored of it, because I’m still up for playing Rocket League now and again, but that’s even more repetitive, and I’m worse at it than Overwatch. I guess Rocket League is just more fun. 😛
I’ve also been playing Disgaea PC, a port of the first Disgaea, a crazy tactical RPG with hilarious dialogue and mechanics. I’ve played it before on PSP, but never finished it. This time, though, I finally completed it after 60 hours, but didn’t get the good ending. The condition for getting that is to get through the story without killing a unit on your team… which is pretty easy, and I actually don’t remember killing one of my own units. Must’ve been a badly targeted skill. 😛 Anyways, I want to go through the story again to get it. Then I need to play the bonus episodes and extra stages, and get most of the achievements. Lel, it cost a third of what Overwatch cost and I’ve played it at least twice as much, and it’s made me laugh a hell of a lot more. I never liked buying multiplayer-only games, and after this, I’m probably never gonna buy another one again. Unless… I dunno, unless it’s Quake that plays like Quake III and doesn’t suck, or something. Man, I’d love to play that again; I had so much friggin’ fun with Quake Live. AND I was getting pretty good at it. 😛
Speaking of tactical RPGs, I also got Project X Zone 2 for 3DS, which is massive fun. The story is crazy and almost throwaway, but it’s funny. The dialogue is hilarious, too, full of insanity, references, weird Japanese humour and just plain funny shit. 😀 Here, have some screenshots I saved to Miiverse:
Ooh WordPress decided to make them into a gallery for me. How nice. Probably doesn’t work, though. 😛
Strangely, the game itself is kinda meh. The tactical part of it is just laughably not tactical at all. Enemy attacks tend to do a negligible amount of damage; the only real threats are swarms of enemies (say, about 6 units), enemies that attack multiple units, or bosses when they have enough EP. That’s “Enemy Points”, shown like a super ability gauge. The player has one too, called XP, which is “Cross Points”, not eXperience Points. Experience is EXP in this game. 😛 Anyway, when the enemy team’s EP is at 100% or more, their boss-class units can spend it on special attacks which do some real damage. You basically only have three options to counter this: defend to reduce the damage by half, spend some XP and use Full Defend to reduce damage to zero, or take out the boss before they have a chance to use their special. Getting out of their movement range is kinda pointless because you have so many units that the enemy’s probably gonna get one of them, and enemy bosses tend to have a movement range equal or greater than all of your units, so… yeah, all I’ve been doing for the entire game is attacking and not really giving a toss about defensive play, and I’ve only ever had two units go down. 😛 Another reason why it’s not a very tactical TRPG is because of the sheer freedom you have with items and skills. Items can be used by any of your team mates on any other team mate, no matter how far away they are, and you can use basically as many as you want until you run out. It doesn’t even cost a unit its turn or anything. Same thing with skills; any unit that hasn’t already taken its turn can use as many skills as they can afford without losing a turn. Quite a lot of units have healing abilities, too. I mean, off the top of my head, I know Felicia has one which restores 100% of a unit’s HP. 100%. It’s like “oh no, that unit just got beat on by about half the enemy team and it’s pretty low on health… Felicia, Feline Grooming, problem solved.” No SP? Use an SP restoring item, because I have about 90 of them that I picked up along the way, then use Feline Grooming. Or just use someone else’s healing skill. Problem always solved. 😛
The way you attack is pretty fun, though. You go into a side-on battle screen where you can use three normal attacks, a “solo” attack, sometimes a “support” attack, and if you have 100% XP, you can finish with a special attack. The aim is to juggle the enemy and hit them as many times as possible to do as much damage as you can. Hitting them with a new attack when they’re about to touch the floor gives a Critical, which increases damage for all the hits in that attack. At the end of your attacks, you’re given bonus gold for every 10 successive hits and bonus EXP for every Critical you get. It’s a really cool idea, and it feels great when you time everything right and pull off a massive combo. 😀 It’s not often that you do, either. My max combo is 106, and I think that was the only time I exceeded 100. I’ll probably get stupidly and pointlessly excited if I manage to beat it. 😛
Probably the most notable thing about Project X Zone 2 is that the characters are all from a bunch of different things by Sega, Capcom, Bandai Namco and Nintendo. I’ve never seen anything like it. You’ve got characters from Resident Evil, Yakuza, Tekken, Darkstalkers, Ace Attorney, Shinobi, Space Channel 5, Street Fighter, Streets of Rage, Devil May Cry, Megaman X, .hack//, God Eater, Shenmue… and there’s original characters, and I’ve definitely missed some. Christ, it’s like… the biggest crossover game in the history of ever. No wonder the story is insane. Must’ve been super-difficult to think of something.
The soundtrack is so good, too. There’s music from each of the games involved, and a different one plays depending on the character you’re currently controlling. It’s awesome when the game plays a track for the first time and you recognise it… like for me, the “Objection!” and “Investigation: Cornered” tracks from the original Ace Attorney, Jin’s theme from Tekken, and “Go Straight” from Streets of Rage 2, for example. (On a side note, I can’t help but giggle every time the fully-voiced Axel does his attack and says “GRAND UPPAH” and “ARRRRRRGH” :P) The song that totally got stuck in my head, though, was a track from Yakuza that sometimes plays when Kiryu & Majima are selected, and always plays during their special attack… this one, “Funk Goes On”. That’s the original track; the one played in X Zone is slightly different. I’ve never played Yakuza, but that track is just epic. Makes me want to do special attacks with Kiryu & Majima just for that music, even though their special doesn’t feel as powerful as other pairs’ specials. 😀
Even though the “tactical” part of it is questionable, I’d totally recommend it for the humour, characters and the battle system. It’s a pretty big fan-service game, though, so it might not be as fun if you don’t know or like any of the characters. 😛 It’s long, though; I’m at 30-something hours and I feel like I’m only just getting close to the end.
Ah. Crap. I did it again, sorry. This post wasn’t supposed to be about Project X Zone 2, either; I went into yammering mode again. 😛 I don’t think there’s anything else that I’ve played, game-wise, anyhoo. Oh yeah, Starbound, the “finished” version, but it’s okay cuz I’m already bored of talking about it. So let’s move on! 😛
Now, back to the topic of whiney Facebook feeds. Why? Well, gizza minute, will ya?! 😛
My sister was slightly-but-not-really whining about me not posting for a while on Bookface. The last post I made there was about two months ago when I posted a picture of a OnePlus 3 that I’d just received, along with Pro Wrestler, the best action figure ever. 😛 I don’t post there much any more because Facebook’s just become the world’s biggest advertisement and a place where people just post photos of themselves and other things I just don’t give a shit about, and I’m pretty sure only 10% of my friends list actually has me unblocked because I’m sure they feel the same way about my posts. 😛 Oh, and every other post recently has just been about Pokémon Go and no I’m not saying ANYTHING about it other than I’ve started blocking everything from anyone who posts about it. 😛 It’s like the zombie sheep apocalypse made real.
Ooooooh, the actual intended topic of the post is approaching fast!! 😛 So, in response to my sister’s complaint that I haven’t posted in a while, and because I haven’t posted here in a while either, I decided to cook up a little render all about POSTING! BAM:
A post of a dragon postie delivering some post that you COULD print and use as a poster, for posterity! Letter me tell ya, it’d be a postitively unique poster. Hm, what’s mailing you? Am I not getting your stamp of approval OKAY ENOUGH good GOD that’s enough, that was a near-toxic level of crap puns just now. 😛
So, whaddya think? 🙂 This is my first proper attempt at using Iray, a renderer by NVIDIA which’s been in DAZ Studio since 4.8. I didn’t have much of a desire to use it until now because I never really understood it. And I still don’t. 😛
There’re a couple of flaws, methinks… Iray has a built-in bloom filter, which is great if you just bin the default settings first. 😛 It’s worked well, but it’s gone a bit rogue on his horns. It’s because the light is hitting his horns at an angle which makes them shine basically pure white. And no matter how high I put the bloom threshold, it probably won’t disappear from his horns, and even if it did, the effect would probably disappear from the sky, the place I actually want the bloom. Maybe it’s best to do bloom myself in post-processing after all… 😛 Also, that white stucco around the green door… the texture is friggin’ awful. 😛 I tried to tweak the material settings and improve it as much as possible, but there’s only so much you can do before you have to mess with the texture, and I’m not an artist. 😛 Kinda weird, though. That’s a 4096×4096 texture, which is pretty standard, so… I’m not sure why it looks so stretched and poopy. :S Ah well.
Overall, I’m pretty happy with how it came out, especially since I didn’t actually spend much time on it; the scene only took about 2 hours to assemble. I also didn’t need to make many tweaks; I only rendered the full scene three times before I was satisfied. For comparison, I have 25 preliminary renders stored for Dueling Dragons. Some of those were because my PC was being a dick, but still… 😛
So, Iray’s great? Neh. Not really. It’s a bit rough. It friggin’ loooooves to leave grainy bullshite in your renders in weird areas, usually outside of focus. I had to do some noise removal on that brass letterbox because it was absolutely ridiculous. Dark areas also tend to come out crappy. I also feel like I have no control over lighting. You can use a HDRI, basically a 360° image which the render engine looks at and magically generates scene lighting from that using MAFFS. “Maths”. Not an acronym. 😛 HDRIs are cool, but that requires that I have an HDRI image that roughly matches my scene. And it gives no control. You can go to the next level of control and use the built-in generic Sun-Sky environment mode, but the complexity is just OTT, and despite the stupid complexity, I really don’t feel like it’s that accurate. I mean, you can specify a latitude, longitude, time of day, date and UTC offset. The first time I used it, I gave it a test by putting in the latitude and longitude of my location, setting the UTC offset to 1 because daylight savings, setting the date to today and setting the time to about 6pm. Apparently NVIDIA thinks that England at 7pm UTC in summer is PITCH BLACK! 😛 So, all this complexity is wasted because I just don’t bother to touch the date, latitude or longitude any more; I just change the time of day, then rotate the dome to get the correct direction. As for custom lighting, like what I do easily in DAZ’s default renderer, 3Delight? Hahaha, forget it. Lights need completely dumbass settings like 50 THOUSAND lumen just for a dim light, AND it looks terrible.
But it’s fast, right? Well, no, actually. It’s really speedy at getting something rough you can use to gauge how the final render will look, but that final render took two GTX 970s… 3 hours 41 minutes 20.95 seconds to finish, and it’s not even that complex. And when I say it’s speedy at getting something rough… sure, setting a viewport to the Iray mode is useful because it gives you a live preview of your render, but eventually it starts making DAZ Studio pretty much unusable. It uses all of your GPU’s power and leaves nothing for anything else, including DAZ Studio. It also re-calculates every time anything changes. “Did you just move your perspective camera one inch to the left? Ooop, gotta recalculate! Whaddya mean the perspective camera’s position is irrelevant since I’m not rendering it or even using it to render?!” And if you change the scene enough while enduring the workspace slowdown with every change? Boom! DAZ Studio crashes either by itself or by crashing your graphics driver. Probably a memory leak! Oh, oh, speaking of memory? Iray EATS the HELL out of it. I can’t even render some scenes in Iray because it obliterates ALL 12GB of my unused memory before going “uhgh don’t have nuff memory bye now”.
I’ll probably end up going back to 3Delight with this scene to see if I can make it look better using my traditional methods. Iray seems to make stuff that looks more realistic, sure, but realism doesn’t always make things prettier, right? 😛 I’ll update this post with a 3Delight render at some point. 🙂 Even if it’s worse. 😛
Anyway… I guess I’d better post this on Bookface for my sister now, then get to bedz. 😛 Nighty night!
Someone on Facebook responded in an entertaining manner with a picture of his own, and I thought I’d share it with you here:
Also, I added a link to a video of my best match in Quake Live around the part where I mention it, because why not. 😛 The quality’s terrible because I was testing out settings for streaming and didn’t realise I’d set the bitrate way too low, but man, I was having loads of fun, calling out “DOUBLE KILL” in stupid ways, nodding my character’s head when something ace happens, and yelling “QUAD” when getting kills with Quad Damage. 😀 And a net of +34, awwwwww yiss. 😀
Basically nothing at all to do with the rest of this article but OH MY GOD I JUST GOT A PERFECT ON ROMEO & CINDERELLA ON SUPER HARD
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Posted in DAZ Studio Stuff, No-One Gives A Craaaaaap, Vidya Gamez | Tagged DAZ Studio, Dragons, Games, Project X Zone 2, Rendering, Video Games, Wordpress Is Shit | Leave a reply
パーフェクト!!
Hi, how’re you?
Good! Or “oh no!” if you said you’re not good. 😛
Soooo… what have I been up to recently?
Not much!
Apart from what happened today at lunch.
I nearly had a nervous breakdown.
And a heart attack!
Because I was playing Project Mirai DX (yes i still play it)
And I was just doing some songs and stuff
Grabbing a few Perfects on easy charts that I haven’t played yet
And then I went and played something a bit harder
By “a bit harder” I mean “Matryoshka on Super Hard”
And then I got a Perfect on it
A Perfect on Matryoshka on Super Hard
A!
FUCKING!
You want evidence, Mr. Edgeworth?!
TAKE THAT!!
NINETY-NINE PERCENT!!!
YEEAAAAHHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!!!
I WANTED TO YELL SO MUCH IN THE OFFICE!
BUT I COULDN’T BECAUSE THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN WEIRD!
SO I’M LETTING IT ALL OUT HERE!
OOOOOOOHHHHH YEEEEEEAAHHH!!!
HAHAAhahahaaa okay… okay okay, I’m okay. I’m okay, really. Really!
When I hit the last note knowing I hadn’t made a mistake, I nearly dropped the 3DS. It was just… unrealistic. 😛 I’ve had an SP All on Matryoshka on Super Hard before, and I’d been going for a Perfect every now and then, but I never thought I’d actually be able to do it. See, the longer my perfect streak goes on, the more I freak out, and on extremely hard songs, I almost always get bitten by my nerves and mess up before the song ends. It happens in all music games I play. But this time I somehow kept hitting notes even though I was basically crapping myself at how close I was, and actually friggin’ managed it! 😀
NO, I meant “managed to get a Perfect” not “managed to crap myself”. 😛
Matryoshka on Super Hard is probably the… second hardest chart in the game. In fact, no… third. Gaikotsu Gakudan to Riria is second. That note chart is crazy, and it’s even more insane it’s that hard even though the note chart is only classed as Hard. But Invisible on Super Hard? That’s just… impossible. IMPOSSIBLE.
Well… let’s see if I can do Invisible next, eh? 😀
Posted on 24/05/2016 by MongMaster | Tagged Games, HOLY CRAP, Project Mirai DX, Video Games, Wordpress Is Shit | Leave a reply
Let’s go live to the Rhythm Arena.
“Rhythm Paradise Megamix, THAT TRUE?!”
“EH!”
“WHOA, YOU GO TSUNKU♂!”
“HUH-YA!”
Hahaha YES! Rhythm Tengoku: The Best Plus is coming to the West! I am absolutely friggin’ DELIGHTED. I thought it would never happen. 😀
Posted on 08/03/2016 by MongMaster | Tagged 3DS, Aside, Games, Rhythm game, Rhythm Heaven Megamix, Rhythm Paradise Megamix, Rhythm Tengoku: The Best Plus, Wordpress Is Shit | Leave a reply
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4275
|
__label__cc
| 0.54882
| 0.45118
|
Tag Archives: PlayStation Network
Every time I use this thing, I’m less impressed…
No, I’m not talking about WordPress… even though that would also qualify. 😛 I’m talking about the PS Vita.
The console got my attention when I saw its launch titles – Lumines greatly interested me, of course, since Lumines is one of the best puzzle games I’ve ever played. Also on that list was Wipeout 2048 and Super Stardust Delta (I loved both their PS3 versions, but since I don’t have a PS3, I never got to play them much). There was also Dynasty Warriors Next, and Touch My Katamari, too. So, that’s 5 games before the console was even released – a record for me. 😛
Wasn’t just the games, either – I quite liked the PSP, and so I rejoiced when I saw the Vita had TWO analog sticks that didn’t look like thumbtacks. Plus, there’s the touchscreen, the microphone, dual cameras, rear touch pad, accelerometer and AR capability, which interested me a fair bit. So, when I figured out I could afford one, I was basically sold. 😀
When I first got the system, I really couldn’t fault it. The display was excellent, build quality was good, analog sticks felt good, touch screen was really nice, and I was impressed with the graphical capability, too. But that was when I first got it. Now, I’m starting to find a lot of irritations.
Firstly, I’m sick of it asking me to “please wait”. At first, I never really paid much attention to it, but now… Jesus Christ! I’m not kidding – “please wait” flashes up at LEAST four times as the idiot device is trying to connect to PSN or do other random unnecessary turd before a game ACTUALLY starts.
Then there are the features that looked good and/or innovative, but aren’t. The rear touch pad is irritating as hell, and I don’t like it at all – I don’t think any game I’ve played so far has used it to do anything good or interesting. The AR is better than that other fad, “3D”, but that’s not saying much, since the three games that demonstrate it are so bad they made me want to slam my head off a wall. Fireworks is insanely boring and feels as if it has no real purpose, Cliff Diver is just a shitty game where you tap at certain times and its use of AR is completely inconsequential to gameplay, and Table Football has the worst controls in the world.
The cameras are dreadful, too, and anything they see is fuzzy and dark. Here, let me show you:
Since there is basically no colour in the image, this massively affects games that use the camera, such as Frobisher Says, which I’ll get onto later. 🙂 And to be honest, I don’t think ANY game should use the camera at ALL. I mean, in multiplayer, Wipeout 2048 tries to take your picture and send it to the other players before a race, and you’ve only got 5 seconds to react and stop it. When I first realised what it was trying to do, I literally yelled “WHOA, are you fucking kidding me?! STOP!” I mean, think about it – I could send ANYTHING, and so could the other players! What the hell were they even thinking?!
Then there are the personal experiences. At one time, the Vita unexplainably FORGOT how to connect to PSN. It would just get stuck on the “Connecting to PlayStation Network” screen. Literally, STUCK. It doesn’t time out, ever, even if you leave the thing running for an hour, which really shows the magnificent quality of the firmware. >.> I thought it was my wireless, but nope, it was the Vita, cuz I restarted the thing and it was okay again. But why was it suddenly UNABLE to connect? PSN wasn’t down or anything…
Another time, the Vita locked up. Fine, these things happen. But resetting the thing is ridiculous. None of the buttons seem to respond, and there’s no reset button, and the battery is concealed. I assumed you needed to hold down the power button for some time. But it turned out it’s not a sensible five seconds. Not a cautious 10 seconds, either! More of a RETARDED TWENTY seconds. TWENTY?! Why does it need to take SO LONG?
Game loading times are sometimes utterly terrible, as well. Say you have a 10 minute break – if you boot the Vita up and stick in a game card, by the time you get past the firmware, the 2000 loading and “please wait” screens, and the game’s menus, you’ll be lucky to have 5 minutes of gameplay.
Also, when the Vita’s on standby, its light keeps turning on and off for no apparent reason, as if it’s doing something. Seriously, it DOESN’T NEED TO DO ANYTHING WHEN IT’S ON STANDBY! It’s like it WANTS to drain its battery!
Also, this “near” thing is pathetic, and it has nothing on the DS’ rather good StreetPass and SpotPass firmware features. StreetPass lets you collect background pieces from other people, and it even has a mini-RPG in the form of StreetPass Quest. Near gives you pointless “I-don’t-give-a-shit” game charts, and you get “Game Goods”, which are messages, sometimes in different languages, containing mostly pointless unlockable thingies for games – even ones you don’t actually own.
Then there are the games. Yes, the launch titles were nice and all (apart from Dynasty Warriors Next being crap), but after a while, we kind of want NEW games to play. There hasn’t been a major Vita release in forever, apart from Rayman Origins, but you can only play single player on the Vita version, and Rayman Origins is boring single player. Lol.
We’ve had a free match-3 released in the form of Montezuma Blitz, but the devs don’t actually want you to play it, since it has a dumb lives system (max five lives, one game costs one life, lives regenerate over time, no lives = no game (but you can refill them for 79p LMFAO get the fuck out)) and as you gain ranks, the game becomes increasingly impossible to play without bonuses, and they cost gems which you can either grind for or pay for (LMFAO get the fuck out).
Also in downloadable games, there’s a terrible game called StarDrone Extreme (which is not very extreme but does drone on) and another game which doesn’t have a trial version and therefore I don’t care about it. And recently, Frobisher Says, which is the worst WarioWare clone I’ve ever seen. It feels half-made, has almost no content whatsoever, the games are shit, and its only purpose seems to be to show off the Vita’s features WHICH WE ALREADY KNOW ABOUT! In fact, the way this game makes shit use of the Vita’s hardware actually makes me LESS impressed with the device! One game requires you to find an object of a certain colour and point your camera at it. So yeah, what if I don’t have a green object? What if the stupid camera can’t pick it up cuz it thinks we’re in a black hole? I’m stuck and have to quit. Another game requires you to smile, but again, the camera couldn’t even pick me up in this well-lit room, and I had to skip the dumb game, which affects my score! YOU affect MY final score, because YOU didn’t work?! What?!
And my most recent negative experience – trying to delete something. After doing my best to shit on Frobisher Says’ ridiculous four star rating, I asked the Vita to uninstall it. It said “please wait” as goddamn usual, but never actually removed the game. It was stuck there for 5 minutes before I decided to do the dumbass 20-second power button press, constantly thinking “this is gonna mess up my data, this is gonna mess up my data…” It didn’t, thankfully, but then took a further three minutes to remove the game it’d already taken 5 minutes to attempt to remove before! EIGHT MINUTES TO DELETE A 400MB GAME?! WHAT!
Oh, and the PlayStation Suite SDK, the thing you can use to program games/apps for the Vita? Hilariously bad. The simulator can’t play audio properly, some of the sample apps don’t actually work properly on the Vita (or are broken in various other ways), the help, tutorials and API pages are obviously translated from Japanese by someone not fluent with English, and some of the method/parameter descriptions are STILL in Japanese, so I don’t know what they do. And this is OPEN beta, not closed beta. It’s nothing like XNA, and isn’t even close to competing. Hasn’t even been updated in ages.
So yeah, I’m becoming seriously unimpressed. It’s like Sony have gotten bored of the Vita already. Fix your SDK (ask Microsoft how), and can we please get some proper GAMES on the Vita now instead of these “games” which only exist to show off the device’s features?
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Lumines, PlayStation Network, PlayStation Vita, Super Stardust Delta, Vita, Wipeout 2048, Wordpress Is Shit | 4 Replies
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4276
|
__label__cc
| 0.554089
| 0.445911
|
National Subsets: Netherlands
National Subsets » Netherlands
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/nl.html
http://www.worldbank.org/en/country/netherlands
http://en.unesco.org/countries/netherlands
http://www.who.int/gho/countries/nld/en/
https://www.hrw.org/europe/central-asia/netherlands
http://www.globalfirepower.com/country-military-strength-detail.asp?country_id=netherlands
http://www.fao.org/countryprofiles/index/en/?iso3=NLD
COMENIUS, J A
Moravia Netherlands
John Amos Comenius was associated with the Protestant Christian movement of Moravian Brethren which gave special attention to direct experience. He developed a well tried method of education, beginning in the home in which mothers, fathers and siblings were all involved in mutual learning. They could learn from the natural world around them, and there was a genetically given developmental process. Children would learn more from games with others than from corporal punishment. Girls as much as boys should be taught everything and all should attend a common school.
https://www3.nd.edu/~rbarger/www7/comenius.html
http://www.apuritansmind.com/the-christian-walk/jan-amos-comenius-by-dr-c-matthew-mcmahon
http://www.ibe.unesco.org/publications/ThinkersPdf/comeniuse.PDF
http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/comenius.html
http://babel.mml.ox.ac.uk/naughton/labyrint/labyrinth_frame.html
ERASMUS, Desiderius
Desiderius Erasmus was a Christian humanist who used his skills as a theologian to engage critically with biblical studies, doctrinal debate with Luther and in partial defence and partial satire of the Catholic church. He studied and taught in university centres such as Basel, Cambridge, Louvain, Oxford, and Paris and became the outstanding scholar of his time. His expertise included those of biblical translator, editor and interpreter of traditional Christian texts and satirist. He drew attention to the principle of reciprocity in medical ethics and to the ‘unnatural wickedness’ of war.
http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/erasmus.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/erasmus.shtml
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/erasmus
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/3026
A Dutch lawyer, diplomat and Christian theologian – gifted writer and political operator. He wrote extensively regarding claims to truth in religion and set out a coherent basis for national and international law. This he expounded as defensible by natural reasoning which he saw as complementary to special revelation rather than contradictory of it.
http://www.libertarianism.org/publications/essays/natural-law-peace-biography-hugo-grotius
http://www.iep.utm.edu/grotius
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/grotius
http://oll.libertyfund.org/people/hugo-grotius
http://www.bartleby.com/172/1000.html
Initiator of Anabaptist reform movement. He abandoned his Roman Catholic priesthood on political and doctrinal principles – true Christianity entails adult believer’s baptism rather than infant incorporation and the ritual of bread and wine did not involve their ‘magical’ transformation into flesh and blood. To express its purity, his new community deliberately separated itself from the state and all its works, including armed forces and the legal system. Both he and his followers were persecuted by both Catholics and some fellow Protestants, but his teaching led to the creation of Mennonite communities throughout Europe and subsequently in N America.
· https://www.christianhistoryinstitute.org/study/module/menno-simons
· http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Menno_Simons
· http://www.philtar.ac.uk/encyclopedia/christ/cep/menn.html
· http://www.mennosimons.net/writings.html
· http://www.mennosimons.net/completewritings.html
http://www.bluffton.edu/~humanities/2/newbirth.htm
From a background that had experienced religious persecution, Baruch Spinoza applied philosophical reasoning and evidence based research to both ethics and religion. Any truth which they might legitimately claim is properly based in the same reasoned argumentation as is found in mathematics. Goodness and Godness are given in the nature of the universe – a view which led to his being given a lifetime ban by the Jewish community (also placed on the Vatican Index) and his generally being categorised as a pantheist. Moral learning requires recognition of any irrational feelings and influences plus a determination to act differently.
http://www.friesian.com/spinoza.htm
http://www.neh.gov/humanities/2013/septemberoctober/feature/why-spinoza-was-excommunicated
http://www.philosophypages.com/ph/spin.htm
http://www.iep.utm.edu/spinoza
http://www.pantheism.net/paul/history/spinoza.htm
Doret de Ruyter
VU University , Netherlands
Disciplines:parenting, childhood, adolescence, education, philosophy/ethics, research, teaching: higher education , policy, applied ethics, citizenship/civics/social studies
Ina ter Avest
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam; Inholland University of Applied Sciences, Netherlands
Disciplines:psychology of culture and religion, lifespan, education, psychology, religion, research, teaching: higher education , pedagogy, discrimination, citizenship/civics/social studies
www.zingesprek.nl
Contact Information: khteravest at gmail.com
Nieske Willems
Geestelijk Verzorger, Netherlands
Contact Information: www.rouwbegeleidinghedera.info
http://www.annefrank.org/en
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4278
|
__label__cc
| 0.707453
| 0.292547
|
Tagged: Manny Corpas
Rockies fall and I get 4 baseballs!
L.A. Dodgers vs. Colorado Rockies
So with this being the first game since the August 31st game you can guess that 1 of the 2 games I missed was the game on Sept. 1 where Todd Helton hit his 2500th hit. I had to work that day and could not be at Coors, I did make it home to see it on T.V. it was kind of depressing that I put so much time into being at Coors and I missed a very important game. Now the Rockies did win that game against the Reds 7-4. The second game I missed was the Rockies 10-8 lose in-game one of this series against the L.A. Dodgers. These were the first Rockies home games I had missed in well over a year and the first time I missed 2 home games in a row in a while. Now the only time I miss home games is when I am on my road trip, but don’t miss many when I am in town. So that is a total of 9 home games I missed this year. 7 when I was on my road trip.
Today I had the best day of Batting Practice I have ever had. It was the second time I had gotten 4 baseballs in one BP. The first was a roller of the Rockies. As I got that ball I noticed an Easter egg sitting behind one of the brackets for the seats in the Pavilions. So in the first few minutes I had 2 baseballs. The next was a catch during the Dodgers BP. The 4th came also during the Dodgers BP and it was a second catch. To get that one I ducked under the rail between sections (since I learned jumping over it is not the best option a few weeks ago)! and caught the ball for the 4th of the day. As I mentioned earlier this is the second time I had gotten 4 baseballs in a single MLB BP, but it is the 1st time I kept all 4 baseballs. Since the last time someone was bitching that I got the ball that should have been theirs. See post from June 14, 2013 game: http://roxaddict.mlblogs.com/2013/06/16/milestone-day-in-bp-and-the-rockies-let-this-one-get-away/
Jhoulys Chacin was the starting pitcher for the Rockies. Carl Crawford started the game with a single off him. Nick Punto also got a single so 2 hits in a row that was twice as many as his last game in 7 innings in the first 2 batters! He did manage to get out of the inning not allowing any runs.
The second inning of the game was not as good for him he faced 8 batters. Andre Either started the inning with a double, mark Ellis than walked and Skip Schumaker hit a single all 3 did score in the inning and the Dodgers took a 3-0 lead.
Andre Either sliding into home after a Tim Federowicz sac fly to center.
Ricky Nolasco was the starting pitcher for the Dodgers. He only allowed 2 Rockies runners in the first 4 innings of the game. One was a single by D.J. LeMahieu in the 1st and a walk to Dexter Fowler in the 3rd.
Charlie Blackmon making contact in the 3rd inning but he flew out to right for the first out of that inning.
Carl Crawford 4th run of the game in the 5th inning on a Adrian Gonzalez sac fly to center also. (4-0) Dodgers
Charlie Blackmon tried to get a 2 out rally going in the 5th with this double.
He scored on a Jhoulys Chacin single to give the Rockies their first run of the game. (4-1)
D.J. LeMahieu slides into third for a triple to lead off the 6th inning for the Rockies. He scored when Troy Tulowitzki grounded out to short. (4-2) Dodgers. This brought the Rockies back into the game only 2 runs down.
In a double switch in the 8th inning Carlos Gonzalez replaced Charlie Blackmon in left as Josh Outman came into pitch. Jhoulys Chacin pitched a full 7 innings. He gave up 4 runs on 9 hits, striking out 3 and walking 2. He also threw a 106 pitches. Not his best outing but besides the 3 run 2nd he pitched well and the Rockies stayed in the game coming with in 1 run.
Paco Rodriguez pitching for the Dodgers in the 8th inning. He has a really interesting delivery, his left hand almost stays in the spot it is in for this photo for more than a second while the rest of his body continues in the pitching motion. It was interesting to see this very unique wind up for a pitcher. He was the Dodgers 3rd pitcher of the game Nolasco pitched 6 and Jay Howell pitched the 7th. Nolasco struck out 5 Rockies batters and held them to 5 hits and the 2 runs.
Josh Rutledge pinch hit in the 8th for the Rockies and lead off with a solo homerun. (4-3) Dodgers
Rex Brothers came into pitch for the Rockies in the 9th and things did not go so well for him, The Dodgers picked up an additional 3 runs in the inning.
Andre Either walked after the runners on first and second moved up on a wild pitch to load the base’s.
With the base’s loaded Mark Ellis hit a ball to deep left-center.
which was fielded by Charlie Culberson and went over his head. He came in the inning to play left since Gonzalez still can’t bat due to his finger injury.
Now people thought it may have been better for Dexter Fowler to field it from center than Charlie from left but I really can’t say because I was looking through the camera, but if you look at the first photo Dex was not even in the frame close to the play. he may have slowed up because he was called off. I can not say which way it should have been played but I do know it cost the Rockies 3 runs. (7-3) Dodgers
Mark Ellis at second after his 3 RBI hit to left-center.
Rex Brothers was taken out of the game after the Ellis hit and Rob Scahill came into pitch and got the last out of the inning getting Schumaker to ground out to first.
The Rockies would try to get a rally going in the 9th with 1 out Wilin Rosario hit a single and advanced on offense indifference and advanced to third on a wild pitch to Todd Helton by Ronnie Belasario. Rosario did score when Helton grounded out for the 2nd out of the inning. (7-4) Dodgers
Nolan Arenado hit a single and advanced to second by stealing. Corey Dickerson pinched hit in the 9th and struck out to end the game. 7-4 was the final for this game with the Dodgers winning.
So that is it for this one from Coors. I have one more from this series that I hope I can get to before the Rockies get off the road. Have been very busy on the Rockies away weeks. Thanks for checking out the post for those who don’t know I was 29th in the MLB Blogs standings for the month of August and I owe that to everyone who checks out the blog regularly. Thanks again!
Written by mlblogsroxaddict Leave a comment Posted in Uncategorized Tagged with Carlos Gonzalez, Charlie Blackmon, Charlie Culberson, Colorado Rockies, Coors Field, Corey Dickerson, D.J. LeMahieu, Dexter Fowler, Jhoulys Chacin, Josh outman, Josh Rutledge, L.A. Dodgers, Manny Corpas, Michael Cuddyer, Nolan Arenado, Rex Brothers, Todd Helton, Troy Tulowitzki, Wilin Rosario
Chatwood getting it done against the brew crew!
Milwaukee Brewers vs. Colorado Rockies
Game 1 of series.
My 48th game at Coors this year. 60th with the Springs and road trip.
The Brewers had some heavy hitters in Batting Practice unfortunately I was unable to snag anything today. Seems like I get shut out more than I get anything these days. I have been to 51 MLB games this year and have 21 baseballs. Most people would think that is pretty good, but for someone who is out there at BP everyday it is not the best of numbers. In past years I have done a lot better in batting practice.
Todays starting pitcher for the Rockies was Tyler Chatwood. He had a incredible outing more on that in a bit. But he did strike out 3 of the 4 batters he faced in the 1st. Tyler had 5 strike outs in the first 2 innings. At first I wondered if the Umpire just had a huge strike zone or if he was really pitching that well.
I first wondered about the strike zone because the Brewers starter Wily Peralta also struck out 2 in the first inning. Then I did realize that the strike outs were mostly swinging and there were not many called strikes There were only 4 called strikes between the 3 batters that Chatwood faced in the first and only Dexter Fowler struck out looking during his at bats. So it was defiantly a very good start for Tyler.
The Rockies got some runs in the 2nd inning, it started with Michael Cuddyer walked to lead off the inning followed by a Todd Helton single. Wilin Rosario would also walk to load the base’s.
The fourth batter of the inning was Charlie Blackmon who popped out to Jean Segura at short.
Nolan Arenado would take a swing and drop the ball and it would deflect off Peralta.
Arenado running to first as the ball rolls slowly towards Ricky Weeks at second.
Weeks fielding the deflected ball hit by Arenado. That would score Cuddyer from third.
Tyler Chatwood contributed offensively with 2 RBI’s of his own with this double scoring Helton and Rosario to give the Rockies a 3-0 lead.
Helton and Rosario at home after scoring on the Chatwood double.
D.J. LeMahieu would get the hit to score the Rockies fourth run of the inning. Arenado scored on this hit to short that would get Fowler out at second, but still allow Arenado to score 4-0 Rockies.
Tulo would hit to short to get LeMahieu out at second to end the inning. Tulo was the ninth batter of the inning.
Not much happened in the 3rd. Chatwood got all 3 Brewers he faced in the inning to ground out and would then strike out an additional 2 batters in the 4th. That was his 6th and 7th of the game.
The Rockies had another productive inning in the 4th scoring 4 runs. Charlie Blackmon started the inning with single and Arenado followed with a single both of them and LeMahieu would score. Dexter Fowler would be tagged out at home on a Tulo single trying for the third run of the inning. But that did not happen till Michael Cuddyer hit a single to short and LeMahieu scored.
Tulo would be the fourth run of the inning on a hit by Todd Helton to center and a very high throw to the plate the ball passed catcher Martin Maldonado. 8-0 Rockies.
Chatwood would give up 2 runs in the 6th but stayed in the game and pitched the 7th inning. He would only give up the 2 runs and 6 hits striking out 11 and walking no batters he really attacked the strike zone and kept the ball low which resulted into many ground outs when he was not striking out the Brewers. There was absolutely no fly outs to the out field. The only 2 outs that were in the air was a line out to Helton in the 5th and another to Arenado in the 7th.
Manny Corpas came in and finished the game for the rockies he also pitched well he struck out 2 and allowed a run on a 9th inning solo home run to Carlos Gomez. he did allow a hit in the 8th but worked his way out of it with a force out and a double play to end the inning.
The hit was by Rickie Weeks.
He was out at second on a Norichika Aoki hit to Tulo at short. Weeks came in a little hard and Tulo did not throw to first but got the lead runner. Tulo did have a second opportunity for a double play on a Segura hit which did result into a inning ending double play.
Manny Corpas came up for his own at bat in the 9th but struck out swinging on 3 Pitches.
Burke Badenhop pitched the 8th and 9th for the Brewers. He was the Brewers third pitcher of the game for the Brewers. He only faced 6 batters in the 2 innings. Peralta was taken out of the game in the 4th inning and replaced by Rob Wooten.
The Rockies won this one 8-3 in this incredible performance by Tyler Chatwood 11 strike outs and 2 RBI’s and pitching through the 7th. Not a bad night for him.
The Rockies celebrate this win against the Brewers still playing catch up with this home stand that won’t seem to go away the Rockies have been on the road 4 days and I still have 2 games to go!!!
The Rockies have been in Atlanta and it has not been a great series they got swept losing all for and head to Pittsburgh for a weekend series against the Pirates who are playing very well.
Lets hope it goes a little better for the Rockies against them then in Atlanta.
Well that is it for this one. Got some games coming up with Minor League affiliates while the Rockies are on the road!
Written by mlblogsroxaddict Leave a comment Posted in Uncategorized Tagged with Charlie Blackmon, Colorado Rockies, Coors Field, D.J. LeMahieu, Dexter Fowler, Jean Segura, Manny Corpas, Martin Maldonado, Michael Cuddyer, Milwaukee Brewers, Nolan Arenado, Norichika Aoki, Rickie Weeks, Todd Helton, Troy Tulowitzki, Tyler Chatwood, Wilin Rosario, Wily Peralta
Rocked by the Sox! Fenway Game 1.
Colorado Rockies vs. Boston Red Sox
Fenway Park, Boston, Massachusetts
Game 1 of the 2 game series, 3rd game of the road trip.
Saturday after the Clippers game I drove over night to N.Y., I hung out there Monday and I headed for Boston on Tuesday Morning.
I checked into the hotel and headed to Fenway after a few laps around the area looking for parking we found a spot not too far away. My friend Chris from N.Y. came up to Boston with me for these games.
We got to the stadium about 2 hours before the game and had to pick our tickets up from V.I.P will call which everyone said was the will call by the D gate on Yawkey and Van Ness street. after I waited online I was told, when I got to the window that my tix were at the will call at another entrance. So we had to be walked to the window since Yawkey Way is closed and considered inside the stadium when gates are opened. So we got our tickets and headed into the stadium.
As we entered the field area the Rockies were taking batting practice and I wanted to head straight to right field and see if I could snag a baseball, being so amazed by the stadium I just stayed by the left field side and took in the stadium.
As I entered the field area I can’t even explain the things that was going through my head. It was just the ahh of being at Fenway, the players that have played for this team, the history and Green Monster. The field almost has a personality of its own and the stands have their own character. It is almost like they are as much as a part of the team as the legendary, Iconic and Hall of Fame Players that called this stadium home for over 100 years.
The press box and behind home plate area.
Then I headed out towards the green monster.
Here is a look of it from the left field line.
Jenny and the Cowboy interviewing Carlos Gonzalez during the pre-game show.
Todd Helton signing for the fans at Fenway.
Marc Stout waiting to go live pondering the history of this stadium and what Stoutistics he could find!! O.K. maybe not, but that is my story and I am sticking with it!
The Boston Symphony Orchestra played God Bless America and the National Anthem.
The Musical Director Andris Nelsons threw out the ceromonial first pitch.
A look at the field during the National Anthem.
Ryan Dempster throwing the first pitch to Dexter Fowler.
Fowler walked to get on base.
D.J. LeMahieu dropped a bunt advanced Dex to second and got and base.
Red Sox catcher Jarod Saltalamacha could not come up with it.
Carlos Gonzalez popped out and Michael Cuddyer hit into a double play to get D.J. out at second and himself out at first. Dex remained on base.
Cuddyer out at first base.
The scoreboard in the outfield was cool they had to change the out of town scoreboard between innings.
The Red Sox got things started fast against the Rockies starter Juan Nicasio. Jacoby Ellsbury hit a ball down the left field line that was fair and a fan grabbed the ball for fan interference double.
It was the guy on the corner behind the guy in white.
The umpire talking to the fan that interfered not sure if he was ejected or not but I think the Ump warned him.
Jacoby Ellsbury scored on a Dustin Pedroia single, Red Sox up by 1. The Red Sox scored 1 more in the inning. Nicasio walked 2 in the inning the Red Sox got 3 hits and Ellsbury fan interference.
Wilin Rosario with one out in the 2nd inning hit a solo home run.
Over the Green Monster in left. Ball is circled in red. (2-1) Red Sox
This was the first time I had seen Corey Dickerson in a Rockies uniform since being called up. I think the above photo was a foul.
He did ground out this at bat to second.
Here is a look of Fenway during Jacoby Ellsbury’s at bat in the second inning. He grounded out for the second out of the inning. The Red Sox rallied in the inning. Shane Victorino hit a double and scored on a Dustin Pedroia double.
David Ortiz doubled, Mike Napoli hit a single so did Daniel Nava also singled. The Red Sox scored 3 in the inning. (5-3) Red Sox
The Red Sox snt 8 batters to the plate in the 2nd. The Rockies went down in order in the 3rd.
J.D. Drew pops out to left in the 3rd.
Cargo making the catch for the first out in the 3rd inning.
Jose Iglesias gets back to first after hitting a single with one out. He and Ellsbury would also score in the inning.
Nicasio was taken out of the game in the third inning.
Walt Weiss takes the ball from Juan Nicasio. He left the game after 2 1/3. He gave up 12 hits 7 runs walked 2 and struck out 2.
Adam Ottavino came in to pitch he struck out David Ortiz and Mike Napoli flew out to end the inning. The red sox did pick up 2 more runs in the inning. (7-1) Red Sox
Michael Cuddyer got things going for the Rockies in the 4th. he got a lead of single and advanced to second on a wild pitch or passed ball.
He did eventually score on a Nolan Arrenado single. (7-2) Red Sox
Cory dickerson moved to third on the Arrenado single, Corey was hit by a pitch to get on base.
In the bottom of the 4th J.D. drew hit a ball to deep center which hit the top of the wall and bounced up and came back on the field it was close to being a home run. The Umpires headed in to review the play.
Drew at third base talking to the umpire who remained on the field while the other 3 went into review the play.
The umpires came out and ruled it a triple. There was no one on base when he hit it but did score on a Jose Iglesias singe (8-2) Red Sox
The Rockies once again did not do anything in the 5th. Above is a photo of Todd and David Ortiz after he was walked in the 5th inning. When I took this photo I was thinking of all the stats compiled by these to over the last 15+ years. That is a lot of home runs, doubles, hits and RBI’s.
Manny Corpas came in in the 6th inning to pitch for the Rockies he pitched well in the 6th. He only face 3 batters for the first 1,2,3 inning of the game for the Rockies. The Rockies scored 2 in the 7th and the Red Sox scored 2 more in the bottom of the inning. (10-4) Red Sox
One of the Rockies runs was on a Jonny Herrera hit a triple to left center and Shane Victorino hit the wall pretty hard trying to field it.
Nolan Arrenado crosses the plate for the first of the Rockies 2 runs in the 7th.
I could not believe this when I saw it the wave going around Fenway Park. I am not a fan of the wave and this is just wrong this also happened in Wrigley earlier in the year when the Rockies were there. Not a fan of the wave.
The Red Sox won this one 11-4. it was a very rough day at Fenway. It was really cool to be at this stadium definitely a favorite. It was everything I expected and more the staff was really great the access before the game to be able to move around the stadium. You were able to get to lower sections to see players and get autographs.
That is it for this game have another one from this series. Taking a little time to get these done because of lack of Wi-fi which has been a theme this year. If you remember we had trouble with this at spring training also.
More games to come after a few days in NY I will get back to games seeing a bunch in the next week.
Follow the adventure live on Twitter been trying to post as much as possible from games.
@roxaddict
Thanks to Mary O for helping out with the tickets for this game wish you could have made the trip.
Written by mlblogsroxaddict 1 Comment Posted in Uncategorized Tagged with Adam Ottavino, Boston Red Sox, Carlos Gonzalez, Colorado Rockies, Corey Dickerson, D.J, David Ortiz, Dexter Fowler, Dustin Pedroia, Fenway Park, J.D. Drew, Jacoby Ellsbury, Jonny Herrera, Josh outman, Juan Nicasio, Manny Corpas, Michael Cuddyer, Mike Napoli, Nolan Arenado, Shane Victorino, Todd Helton, Wilin Rosario
Rockies vs Nationals Game 2, The Pitching Duel Kinda!
Nationals vs. Rockies
Think I finally got the correct amount of games this was my 36th game of the year! Yes have not missed a home game! So I have been off a few games on my count. That would be 38 including the Springs.
Jorge De La Rosa started for the Rockies He faced 3 batters in the 1st. Denard Span lined out to Helton at first. Jeff Kobernus hit a single he got caught stealing and Ryan Zimmerman struck out.
Ross Ohlendorf and his late 1800/early 1900 wind up started for the Nationals. He has a wind up that he swings both his arms before bring his hands above his head and than throwing the pitch.
Here are a few photos of his wind up.
It is a very different pitching motion these days for pitchers. Watching him pitch looked like something you would see in old grainy newsreels!
The Rockies only got 1 hit off of him 1 hit and only 2 base runners in the first 5 innings. Jonny Herrera got a single in the 1st and Nolan Arenado walked in the 5th.
The nationals took the lead in the 4th Ryan Zimmerman walked to start the inning and scored on a Ian Desmond single. Desmond would make the third out of the inning by being picked off between first and second. Yorvit Torrealba threw to Todd Helton at first to Herrera at second for the out.
The Rockies would get there run in 6th. Carlos Gonzalez hit a 20ut triple and scored Jonny Herrera. The Nationals did score 3 in the top half of the inning The Nationals lead was 4-1.
Jorge pitch till the 6th inning and Adam Ottavino came in to pitch. Jorge was responsible for 2 of the runs and Ottavino for 1. Chris Volstad came in and pitched the 8th inning for the Rockies he let up a run also. Volstad was called up from Colorado Springs earlier this day. room for him on the roster was made by the Release of fan favorite and great guy Eric Young Jr. it sucks that he was released but he has not been having that great of a season and others have been more productive of the bench. He had a few bad plays in the outfield and did not hit well as a pinch hitter this year. He was always really great with the fans and will be missed at Coors. Hope nothing but the best for him and hope he gets picked up soon.
Todd Helton runs to 1st after Jhonatan Solano dropped a third strike ball to end the game not much in this somewhat of a pitchers duel between the Rockies and Nationals. The Rockies had trouble getting batters on base in this O.K. start for Jorge. He did pitch well till the 6th and did strike out 5 Nationals. in his 5.1 innings. he gave up 3 runs and 4 hits. Not a bad start but the bats failed to give him run support. Stinks to see a good pitching out fall apart and he was not backed up by the offence. well that is it for this short post. Got another one in this series and the Phillies are at Coors this weekend.
My Road Trip starts next week!!!!
Stops include Boston!
Written by mlblogsroxaddict Leave a comment Posted in Uncategorized Tagged with Adam Ottavino, Carlos Gonzalez, Chris Volstad, Colorado Rockies, Coors Field, D.J. LeMahieu, Dexter Fowler, Eric Young Jr., Jonny Herrera, Jorge De La Rosa, Manny Corpas, Nolan Arenado, Todd Helton, Troy Tulowitzki, Tyler Colvin, Washington Nationals, Wilin Rosario, Yorvit Torrealba
Tyco Making Up For Lost Time!
Washington Nationals vs. Colorado Rockies
Thinking 34 games!
Before this game I was working in the Superior Area and noticed this on my way to the stadium. I noticed that it was in the Rocky Mountain Park Area not knowing that this was not the biggest fire that was started this day. The Fire in the Black forest area was a lot worse being in a more developed area of the state. Hope everything is well and gets better for the people in the effected areas.
This is the first time I ever got all the team things on the board, had to use it!
Jhoulys Chacin started the game for the Rockies the Nationals did get 2 base runners on in the inning, but did not score on a Ryan Zimmerman double and Jayson Werth walked.
Here is Denard Span the first batter running to first, he hit it to Todd at First for the out. Zimmerman’s double was with 2 outs.
Nolan Arenado hit a double in the Rockies first as well and was also left on base he was the Rockies only runner in the first for them. Carlos Gonzalez and Troy Tulowitzki both struck out in the inning.
Dan Haren was the starting pitcher for the Nationals.
Today we decided to wonder a little during the game. Here is a photo of Jhoulys from slightly to the third base side of home plate.
The Nationals would score 2 in the 3rd inning. Ian Desmond lead the inning off with a walk he would get out at third for the force on a Kurt Suzuki hit. Denard Span hit a double scoring Anthony Rendon and Suzuki. (2-0) Nats
Andy LaRoche on first in the 3rd inning with Todd Helton holding him at first and Jhoulys Pitching.
Helton hitting a ball which he was out on a ground ball to second base with Tulo running from first.
Jayson Werth sliding past second in the 5th inning.
Got some photos from above the bullpen when I was out by right field. Wilton lope stretching.
Matt Belisle also stretching.
Manny Corpas warms up.
The Rockies did not score till the 5th inning but when they did the runs kept coming in true Rockies style. The first 2 were on a Tyler Colvin home run his first since being called back up. Wilin Rosario was on base after walking to start the inning.
Carlos Gonzalez got in the act with a three run home run of his own, his 18th of the season. (5-2) Rox
Here he is after crossing the plate with Dexter Fowler and Jordan Pacheco on base.
Troy Tulowitzki hitting a single in the 5th. He would be left on base after Wilin Rosario flew out on his second at bat of the inning. 10 batters came to the plate in the inning.
Jhoulys Chacin was taken out of the game after 5 innings and was replaced in the 6th with Manny Corpas after Manny batted for himself in the 6th Josh Outman came into to pitch in the 7th. Above is Outman throwing in the 7th.
Josh Outman seemed to be hurt, he seemed to have landed on the mound wrong or something. He took a few throws and left in the game.
Outman was later removed from the game and Wilton Lopez came into finish the inning.
This is the first time I have photographed Wilton from this angle and never noticed how high is leg lift was. Usually I am further down the first base line.
The National score a third run in the 8th inning on a Ian Desmond double, Jayson Werth scored from first after he walked to get on base. (5-1) Rox
Rob Scahill pitched the 9th inning for the Rockies. The Rockies had a 5 run lead after scoring 3 in the 8th. Tyler Colvin would hit his second home run of the game another 2 run shot, scoring himself and Rosario again. Arenado scored D.J. LeMahieu when he hit into a double play to make the score 8-3. The best part was that Scahill took the mound with a 5 run lead and it stayed that way unlike the other night when he gave up a bunch of runs and the bull pen slightly imploded. The bull pen did a great job of keeping the Rokies in the game and Jhoulys had a good start. He did only go 5 innings but only gave up the 2 runs on 7 hits walking and striking out 2. so he had some runners and held them on base for the most part.
Tyler Colvin high fiving his teammates after the win. He was the player of the game after his 2 home runs for 4 of the 8 runs scored by the Rockies. good to see has come back strong and hopefully will keep up the good hitting. He did actually strike out twice also but we will let him slide this time on that if he strikes out 2 time and goes 0-4 or something it maybe an issue but with 2 homers it’s O.K.!!
Well that is it for this one the Rockies won the first game of the series.
2 more left in this series and I was there so check back for the photos from those to games. Some crazy stuff happing this series at Coors.
See You There!!!
Written by mlblogsroxaddict Leave a comment Posted in Uncategorized Tagged with Carlos Gonzalez, Colorado Rockies, Coors Field, D.J. LeMahieu, Dexter Fowler, Eric Young Jr., Jhoulys Chacin, Jordan Pacheco, Manny Corpas, Matt Belisle, Nolan Arenado, Todd Helton, Troy Tulowitzki, Tyler Colvin, Wilin Rosario
Francis is just a shadow of former self.
Padres vs. Rockies Game 3
My according to posts this is my 33rd game of the year. Still need to really figure this out!
This game was a nationally televised game on Fox. It was also Military Appreciation day. so the Rockies worn special Camo caps. Here are a few of the guys in the special hats.
Jordan Pacheco
So I have noticed that some players don’t leave the field until The Colors are taken off the field or are pretty close to leaving the field Michael Cuddyer is known for doing this. This is Matt Belise waiting after the National Anthem.
As you can see he is the only one still standing as everyone else gets ready for the game.
Jim Wright along with Wilin Rosario and Jeff Francis head in from the bullpen. Jerry Weinstein was also with them but off to the right. As he went by he tossed out a few baseballs and he threw one to Jared who missed it I was able to retrieve the ball from the warning track with my camera lens by knocking it back to the wall and grabbing it! I did give the ball to Tanya who was with use at the wall.
Here is Jeff Francis throwing the first pitch to the Padres Chris Denorfia. The Padres got a run in the inning on a Chase Headley base hit to right scoring Evereth Cabrera from second. Cabrera walked to get on base and stole 2nd for his 27th stolen base of the year.
The Rockies did not score in the 1st and the Padres and Rockies did not score in the 2nd. The Rockies tied the game in the 3rd. Dexter Fowler single and moved over to third on a Eric Young Jr. single. he scored the run in the inning on a throwing error by the catcher Yasmani Grandal to second on the play Carlos Gonzalez struck out and EYJ stole second and Dex went home on the error.
Cameron Maybin dives back to 1st after walking to get on base in the 4th. Kyle Blanks started the inning for the Padres with a home run to take a 2-1 lead.
Maybin stole second during Grandal’s at bat. He would score on a Evereth Cabrera double scoring Maybin and Denorfia. (4-2) Padres
Francis did not pitch terribly in the game but he created a lot of traffic and ran a high pitch count. Throwing 93 pitches in just 4 inning. That is over 23 pitches and inning averaged out. The 4th inning he pitched I believe over 30 pitches.
Adam Ottavino came into pitch the 5th and 6th inning. He pitched well giving up 3 hits but no runs.
Manny Corpas pitched the 7th and 8th for the Rockies he struck out 3 and gave up 1 hit and 0 runs. Once again the bullpen kept the Rockies in the game after the starter gave up runs.
Tyler Colvin came into in a double switch in the 7th inning. Batting 9th for the pitches spot. in his first at bat since being called up from the Colorado Springs Sky Sox he grounded out but did score the Rockies 2nd run of the game. D.J. LeMahieu scored from third he hit a triple to get on base.
D.J. sliding into 3rd.
During the 9th inning there was an awesome sunset happening over the mountains here is the photo I got of it I would normally head to the upper deck for sunset photos but since it was the bottom of the 9th in a close game I did not want to take my attention away from the field.
As the sun was setting and the Rockies Jonny Herrera tried to get things going with a lead off single and Nolan Arenado walked.
D.J. LeMahieu set down a sacrifice bunt to advance them both. Now with runners in scoring position and only one out things were looking good for the Rockies a base hit would tie the game. Tyler Colvin would come up for his second at bat since being called up and he would line out to second base and was not able to advance the runners.
With 2 outs and the runners still at 2nd and third Dexter Fowler came to the plate. This is a roll he is usually very good in runners on and the game on the line. He also could tie the game with a single. Now over the years I have seen him tie the game and hit many walk off hits. Unfortunately that did not happen this night he would strike out swinging and the game would be over. This wasn’t that bad of a game as far as pitching Francis could have pitched better and reduced a lot of traffic and pitched more efficiently. He did get him out of situations and the score could have been a lot worse. On the offensive side there were many missed opportunities the last inning was a prime example of that but in the game the Rockies were 0 for 15 with runners in scoring position(RISP). They left 8 runners on base. The Padres starter came in the game with almost a 4 ERA and we only scored 2 against him and he stayed in the game for 7 innings. The bullpen held this game together for 5 innings and have really kept the Rockies in many games this year excluding the game on Friday. This will only last so long because you can’t over use them to carry the game for more innings than your starter. I would be great to see Francis and all our starters go 7 inning like Stultz did and so many other pitchers that the Rockies face. Even when they are pitching well they get removed in the 6th.
Well that is it for this one. Got another from the weekend to get done before the Nationals are in town Tues. Wens. and Thurs.
remember you can Follow me on Twitter @Roxaddict
Want to support your Rockies check out the Rockies gear at http://5280shirtshop.spreadshirt.com/
Written by mlblogsroxaddict Leave a comment Posted in Uncategorized Tagged with Adam Ottavino, Autographs, Baseball, Carlos Gonzalez, Colorado Rockies, Coors Field, D.J. LeMahieu, Dexter Fowler, Eric Young Jr., Jeff Francis, Jonny Herrera, Jordan Pacheco, Manny Corpas, Matt Belisle, MLB, Nolan Arenado, San Diego Padres, Todd Helton, Troy Tulowitzki, Tyler Colvin, Wilin Rosario
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4283
|
__label__cc
| 0.705614
| 0.294386
|
BETTER – COLLET CHUCK
09.06.2018 13.05.2018 Categories Our workshop
The idea is to expand the capabilities of the lathe for matches, published in the journal “modelist-Konstruktor”, arose when it became clear that, first, wood is modern matches absolutely unsuitable for such work and, secondly, the size of matchbox blanks severely limit the choice of machined parts. As a result, fixing of workpieces on the motor shaft nipple rubber require replacement.
In the present embodiment, the machine has a Chuck with a collet Chuck. The site is made of elements collet pencil mark “Kimek” or similar. When assembling the tube, carrying the collet, short cropped. As shaft, you can use the pencil button (then have to pick up the ball bearing of the appropriate size).
But the best detail to carve anew from metal. Spring is also from a pencil; it needs to be shortened. Mutual fixation of the tube and shaft with a pin. Adjustment efforts clamp parts produced, selecting the length of the spring or tube. On the basis of the motor and of the proposed site to collect the machine, seen in the pictures.
The clamping device of the machine:
1 – front wall, 2 — clutch, 3 — collet, 4 – tube, 5 – spring, 6 — shaft, 7 — bearing.
The scheme of the machine:
1 – motor, 2 — front wall 3 — clamping collet device, 4 — back wall with the center 5 — base.
G. KLESHNIN, Volgograd
“CLOTHESPIN” FOR METAL
One of the major examination quality, which is a metal or alloy before you can become a responsible part of modern technology, the test of a test sample in tension. However, to determine...
UK-4: MORE ABOUT THE NEW FEATURES
In last year's fourth issue of the journal, I read an article about Razakhatskaya V. the machine "Skillful hands". There is proposed a device for drilling. But it will have to cut off part...
THE FATTY TYRES THE BIKE
THERE IS A WATER PUMP WORKS, DRIED OUT, WAIT
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4286
|
__label__cc
| 0.696404
| 0.303596
|
Electoral Commission to provide License to Hassan Ayariga new APC Party
Hassan Ayariga
The Electoral Commission of Ghana is expected to provide a provisional license to Hassan Ayariga to operate his newly formed political party – the All People’s Congress (APC).
Ayariga defected from the People’s National Convention (PNC) over a month ago when he lost in his bid to lead the party in the 2016 elections.
The EC will be presenting the provisional license to him by Friday, January 29, 2016. His license takes effect from 2015 to 2016.
Reports have it that Ayariga, who lost the PNC bid to Dr Edward Mahama, already has over 150 offices across Ghana.
A Gynaecologist-cum-politician, Dr Mahama beat Ayariga to become the PNC presidential candidate.
Mahama, who led the party in the 1996 elections through to the 2008 polls before being succeeded by Hassan Ayariga in the 2012 elections, polled 492 votes as against Ayariga’s 426 votes.
The defeat did not go down well with Ayariga who then broke ranks with the Nkrumahist grouping.
Tags: 2016 electionsAPC PartyGhana Electoral CommissionHassan Ayariga
Zoomlion showcases integrated waste management technologies at IFAT expo
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4293
|
__label__wiki
| 0.646645
| 0.646645
|
Organizations: Global Licenses: Other (Open)
About From website: yr.no is the joint online weather service from the Norwegian Meteorological Institute (met.no) and the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK).These two...
WormBase - Biology and Genome of C. elegans
WormBase is the database of the model organism Caenorhabditis elegans and related nematodes. WormBase is developed by an international consortium of researchers and computer...
World Bank Data Catalog
The World Bank data catalog is a listing of available World Bank datasets, including databases, pre-formatted tables, reports, and other resources.
Wikipedia Icons - Link Collection
The page says: The purpose of this page (and its subpages) is as a repository for links to free icon collections, for use on Wikipedia. Generally these are open (as in...
Where Are the Cuts Data
The original website no longer exists, but this package contains a link to the data from http://wherearethecuts.org
Web Service Automatically Layout Generation Method
This paper introduces an application customization platform by which users can package internet information resources as web services. The platform also creates a new UI layout...
Where Does My Money Go? - Data
About From website: Our aim is to promote transparency and citizen engagement through the analysis and visualisation of information about UK public spending. Where Does My...
Vancouver's Open Data Catalogue
About From home page: As part of its commitment to enhancing citizen engagement, fostering digital innovation and improving service delivery, the City of Vancouver is taking...
Utah Dot Gov
About Utah Dot Gov publishes state data files: Download and mashup using state data in CSV, KML and XLS formats. Also link to other state and local data sources at:...
Using Kalman Filter Algorithm to Locate and Track the Moving Target
By measuring the target DOA and TOA parameters, WLS algorithm can perform the location and track of moving target. However, the drawback of the method is that the result of...
Using Affinity Propagation Cluster for Text Auto Summarization
Automatic summarization can help us accurately and efficiently obtain the information needed from the magnanimity information and has attracted more attention. In this paper, a...
U.S. Government Photos and Graphics
About Collection of links to different US image collections in the public domain. Openness Most of these images and graphics are available for use in the public domain, and...
State of California - Data
About Data from the State of California. From website: Access raw State data files, databases, geographic data, and other data sources. Raw State data files can be reused by...
U.S. Agency for International Development - Economic Analysis and Data Servic...
About From website: USAID's Economic Analysis and Data Services (EADS) provides USAID and the development community with access to statistical data on the development process,...
SOI Tax Stats - Exempt Organizations: IRS Master File Data
About List of tax exempt organisations in the USA from the Internal Revenue Service. Available listed by State. Openness Presumably in the public domain.
Urban Planning and Design Research (UPDR)
Urban Planning and Design Research (UPDR) is an internationally refereed journal dedicated to publishing the latest advancements in urban planning and design research. The goal...
United Nations Statistical Databases
Title: United Nations Statistical Databases License Some of this is definitely closed (subscriber only access) while some of it seems at least implicitly (no explicit license)...
UN Habitat City Prosperity Index
Data from the UN Habitat City Prosperity Index - From: http://www.unhabitat.org/pmss/listItemDetails.aspx?publicationID=3387
List of schools from Edubase
About From [information source] page at showusabetterway.co.uk: A list of schools from Edubase. The data is in Excel format and contains a list of the schools, the address, the...
Locating Postboxes
About From website: Help locate unlocated postboxes – the Royal Mail supplied a list of every postbox’s location, but unfortunately, it did not have useful co-ordinates, only...
eutransparency (46)
access-nobulk (34)
access-www (20)
format-pdf (20)
format-html (18)
format-xls (15)
access-search (10)
format-csv (8)
economic (7)
broken_link (6)
country-uk (6)
access-bulk (5)
package-type.catalog (5)
aic2010 (4)
country-usa (4)
publicdomain (4)
transcript (4)
country-belgium (3)
country-ireland (3)
DAL Bolivia (3)
DAL2013 (3)
eu-cohesion (3)
format-doc (3)
format-txt (3)
format-xml (3)
gov (3)
license-not-specified (3)
aspx (208)
URL (8)
Other (Open) (473)
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4294
|
__label__cc
| 0.673424
| 0.326576
|
Evangelists summon the Indian people to join in the Bless India Campaign
Reputed evangelist Samuel Ng Katz and Rev. Dr. A. Jawahar Samuel have mentioned, “Jesus has put a burden on our hearts to summon the maximum number of Christians to join the Pray for India Campaign.”
Online PR News – 01-July-2010 – – Chennai, Tamil Nadu Reputed evangelist Samuel Ng Katz and Rev. Dr. A. Jawahar Samuel have mentioned, “Jesus has put a burden on our hearts to summon the maximum number of Christians to join the Pray for India (http://www.blessindiaonline.com) Campaign.” So, they have embarked upon the pious task of bringing the divine power of Christ to India. They have called all Christians to join the Bless India (http://www.blessindiaonline.com) endeavor for seeking India’s redemption from the terrible suffering and poverty which its people are subjected to. It is worth mentioning that currently 45% of the total Indian population of 1.17 billion is living in miserable conditions suffering from stigmas like poverty, hunger, disease, and pain. Both these evangelists have been instrumental in building up two movements, namely, The Love of Jesus Ministries, and the CCC Worldwide Trumpet Ministries.
The month-long Pray for India campaign, www.blessindiaonline.com, would be conducted in July in an effort to build up a dedicated group of prayer warriors who would be praying for India in these trying times. Already many people have joined in this noble crusade and many more are continuing to come. To join in this campaign no money needs to be paid. What is being sought is the precious time and effort of the people. This campaign has stressed on the amazing power of prayer and its ability to perform miracles by God’s grace.
There are approximately 2000 ethnic communities in India right now, some of which are fractioned by violence and bloodshed. In a country where basic medical facilities are yet to reach the remote parts of the country, it is anything but surprising to know that more than 3 million inhabitants are suffering from the dreadful menace of AIDS. It is being claimed that God’s heart has been stirred by India’s plight, and hence Jesus is looking for intercessors through whom he can act. It remains to be seen how far this noble Pray for India venture is able to unify and strengthen the people of India.
Visit us at www.blessindiaonline.com.
About Bless India Campaign
The Bless India Campaign is a mighty worldwide movement jointly organized by Singapore based CCC Worldwide Trumpet and India based Love of Jesus Ministries. Their website is http://www.blessindiaonline.com
Bless India Campaign launched to invoke God’s blessings thr ...
Stalin Lazar
Blessindiaonline.com
Bless India Flat 3, D:30, Annanagar East,
stalin@blessindiaonline.com
Chennai Tamil Nadu, 600102
http://www.blessindiaonline.com
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4297
|
__label__cc
| 0.676291
| 0.323709
|
Crossbones: Season One
DVD (Slip Sleeve / 2 PACK)
Crossbones: Season One available in DVD
In the year 1715, the notorious pirate Blackbeard (John Malkovich) rules New Providence, a rogue nation in the Bahamas. His absolute power is threatened, however, when the British government hires an assassin to infiltrate his marauding band of outlaws and kill him.
Disc #1 -- Crossbones: Season One
1. Chapter 1 [6:15]
2. Chapter 2 [12:49]
3. Chapter 3 [:00]
The Devil's Dominion
The Man Who Killed Blackbeard
Bonus Features
English SDH Subtitles: On
Subtitles: Off
Classic Monsters
Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome
A Hole In The Head
Beggarman
Crossbones: Season One 5 out of 5 based on 0 ratings. 1 reviews.
PeachesMI More than 1 year ago
Great actors, wonderful performances, scenery fantastic especially since when I was watching it was the dead of winter where I was. Started slow and wasn't sure I was going to like it but I stuck with it and by the third episode I was hooked. Glad I stayed with it.
dragon ball gt season 2
dragon ball season 1
dynasty season six volume 1
power the complete first season
yu gi oh classic season 2
yu gi oh complete first season
Big Love - Season 3
Passion, jealousy, treachery, greed. Everyone has something to hide in the biggest, boldest season yet ...
Passion, jealousy, treachery, greed. Everyone has something to hide in the biggest, boldest season yet of this provocative series. Bill Henrickson (Bill Paxton) returns as the enterprising, suburban polygamist who has more than his hands full, with three wives (Jeanne ...
Dragon Ball: 4 Movie Pack
This action packed release includes all four full-length DragonBall movies, following the hero Goku through ...
This action packed release includes all four full-length DragonBall movies, following the hero Goku through fierce battles and training adventures that fit into various points in the DragonBall timeline. The film offered in the set include Curse of the Blood ...
Dragon Ball Gt: Season 1
This release from the fantasy action anime series DragonBall GT includes all 34 episodes of ...
This release from the fantasy action anime series DragonBall GT includes all 34 episodes of the show's first season, following the story of the extreme fighter Goku, who is still after the fabled Dragon Balls, knowing that whoever has control ...
Dragon Ball: Season 2
This release from the fantasy action anime series DragonBall GT includes all 30 episodes of the show's second season, following the story of the extreme fighter Goku, who is still after the fabled Dragon Balls, knowing that whoever has control ...
Dynasty: Season Six 2 (4pc) / (Full Sub
Containing 15 episodes, the second volume of 1980s mega-hit Dynasty's sixth season continues to follow ...
Containing 15 episodes, the second volume of 1980s mega-hit Dynasty's sixth season continues to follow the passionate ups and downs of the Carrington family as they seek further wealth and power.
Dynasty: Season Six - Volume 1
Containing 15 episodes, the first volume of 1980s mega-hit Dynasty's sixth season continues to follow ...
Containing 15 episodes, the first volume of 1980s mega-hit Dynasty's sixth season continues to follow the passionate ups and downs of the Carrington family as they seek further wealth and power.
Dynasty: the Sixth Season
The sixth season of 1980s mega-hit Dynasty's continues to follow the passionate ups and downs ...
The sixth season of 1980s mega-hit Dynasty's continues to follow the passionate ups and downs of the Carrington family as they seek further wealth and power.
Game of Thrones: the Complete Seventh Season [Limited
The long winter is here. Throughout seven thrilling episodes, the penultimate Season 7 focuses on ...
The long winter is here. Throughout seven thrilling episodes, the penultimate Season 7 focuses on a convergence of armies and attitudes that have been brewing for years. As the season begins, Daenerys Targaryen -accompanied by her Unsullied army and emboldened ...
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4301
|
__label__cc
| 0.683636
| 0.316364
|
Hundley’s First Win Silences Bears Roar
Packers Get a Much Needed Win at Soldier Field:
This week in Green Bay was certainly not short of headlines. The Martellus Bennett saga which ultimately lead to his departure from Green Bay took away much of the attention from Bear week. Now that the Bennett drama has quieted down for the moment, we can all take a step back and admire Sunday’s great team win against the Bears.
This win could not have come at a better time. It was one of those weeks in Packerland where the preverbal sky was falling and everyone had lost hope; that is, everyone except for the 53 men inside of the Green Bay Packers locker room. The Green Bay Packers rallied together as a team in spite of all of the negative headlines that this week produced, and was rewarded with a 23-16 victory that saw many different players step up and play big roles.
Dave’s Star Performers: ⭐️
1. Brett Hundley:
Hundley showed improvement and stepped up in Sunday’s win against the Bears, turning in a much better performance in his third start. Mike McCarthy added some wrinkles to the offense as Randall Cobb saw some snaps in the wildcat formation while Hundley focused on completing safe passes and managing the game. When the game was on the line, Brett Hundley made big plays.
The first big play that Hundley made was on a 17 yard run for a first down, extending the drive for the decisive fourth quarter touchdown. Then, Hundley, capped off this decisive drive on a scramble drill roll out by connecting with DaVante Adams on a back shoulder throw in the right corner of the end zone.
The Hundley highlight reel was capped off by a 42 yard hook up with DaVante Adams on a third and ten play, that should have sealed the win for the Packers, had it not been for a missed field goal. The defense stepped up and forced the Bears to turn the ball over on downs in just five plays. This defensive stand sealed Hundley’s first NFL win which saw him go 18-25 for 212 yards, 1 touchdown, and 0 interceptions.
2. Jamaal Williams:
Jamaal Williams was put in a very tough spot in Sunday’s game, as he was asked to be the primary running back when Aaron Jones and Ty Montgomery were both lost in the game due to injuries.
Jones has had a rough start to his rookie campaign that has seen his playing time diminish dramatically leading up to this weeks emergency duty. To his credit, Williams was ready to play and made the most of his opportunity. Although Williams’s final numbers were not earth-shattering (20 carries for 67 yards), he was able to make the most of his yards by churning out big run after big run to keep the game-winning touchdown drive going.
According to Zach Kruse, from post-game analysis posted by pro football focus, Williams gained 55 of his 67 yards after contact and broke 7 tackles. With Ty Montgomery’s ribs on the mend and Aaron Jones headed for an MRI at some point today, look for Jamaal Williams to use this performance to gain confidence going into the week 11 contest against the Ravens’s front seven next week at Lambeau Field.
3. Nick Perry:
In recent weeks, I have been very critical of Dom Capers and the Packers defensive scheme. Today, the defensive front seven quieted my voice along with the voices of many other armed chair prognosticators. Nick Perry’s efforts lead this defensive awakening in Chicago.
Nick Perry posted a career day by getting to Mitchell Trubisky at will and sacking him three times. Perry’s tenacious pursuit of Trubisky freed up other members of the front seven to make plays when they needed to, which kept Trubisky and star running back Jordan Howard at bay. The defensive effort on Sunday was just what the doctor ordered after a week of listening to everyone in the media call them out. Look for another spirited defensive effort against the Ravens next Sunday, to keep this momentum, and their dreams of a playoff push alive.
For the moment, this much-needed win at Soldier Field keeps the Packers in the running for a playoff spot. With the Ravens already having lost to the Bears earlier in the season, it is not unfair to expect the Packers to have a fighting chance to steal another win in next weeks contest at Lambeau Field. The Packers will realistically need to win another 2-3 games between next week and December 17th to have any hope of Aaron Rodgers making a return to the field for a December playoff push.
The schedule does set up somewhat favorably with games against the Ravens, Buccaneers, and Browns on the slate in the weeks leading up to Rodgers potential activation date from IR. If the Packers can hover around the playoff picture at 7-6 going into week 15, look for the news on Aaron Rodgers bone scans to become part of the daily headlines in Green Bay. Until then, the Packers need to continue to improve as a team so that they can give themselves a realistic chance at making the playoffs.
David Michalski is a recent college graduate from Princeton New Jersey who has been a life long Green Bay Packers fan. Like the great Vince Lombardi, he values God, family, and the Green Bay Packers in that order. You can follow him on twitter at @kilbas27dave
Should the Packers Consider Trading for Earl Thomas?
Should the Packers Consider Trading for Earl Thomas? Seahawks veteran safety Earl Thomas took to social ...read more
Can Packers Defense Exceed Expectations?
Can Packers Defense Exceed Expectations? As training camp approaches, the Packers defense will begin to answer ...read more
Bulaga’s Health Will be the Key to the Packers Success in 2018
Protecting the Franchise Should be the Packers Primary Focus There has been a lot of optimism ...read more
This entry was posted in David Michalski and tagged 2017-2018 Green Bay Packers, Bear week, Brett Hundley first nfl win, Brett Hundley touchdown to davante adams, Jamaal Williams, Nick Perry. Bookmark the permalink.
8 thoughts on “Hundley’s First Win Silences Bears Roar”
James C. Drumheller III says:
We took out the trash and got rid of Bennett. This could have rejuvenated the locker room. We need to keep winning and I still believe Rodgers could return with a record of 8 and 6. The division could be decided in the last two weeks I’ve seen it happen time and time again. If Rodgers return was an impossible thing they would have just said see you next season. If he’s indeed throwing in six weeks like one doctor has said anything is possible. Rodgers return will be decided not only by the medical staff but also the win loss record. Our schedule has a very strong possibility for us to be 8 and 6 which is what I said when Arod went down. His blindside will be in good hands with Taylor and Bakhtiari both healthy.All the weapons need to stay healthy and as of right now Hundley couldn’t ask for anything more. He must run the offense and get the ball into the hands of his playmakers and we can win three more games I know that much.
Your point are good, but our offense has no flow or rhythm. Defenses know us and our offense patterns. Maybe a few receiver set changes? More misdirection? As far as defense, not scaring anyone. Every QB has a banner passing day against us, even Mitch with little experience and no receivers! Other, more seasoned QB’a and offenses are and continue to be a problem for Capers schemes. I still feel our Capers run defense is falling on deaf ears with the players. Not much pressure, backs lost, no confidence or swag! Just watch the game, the eyes show even us casual observers.
I here you Dennis. I sure wish we knew if Arod has a chance of coming back or not. Looking at our schedule I can’t help but think that if Rodgers didn’t get hurt we could have won every game starting with Minnesota and I saw only a few road games such as Pittsburgh and Carolina standing in our way. Losing after the bye week didn’t surprise just disappoint me.Detroit’s season was hanging on by a thread had they lost that game. I would like to see Callahan run the offense. I really liked what I saw of him and he will throw the ball downfield to the play makers. Jordy must be more active and we must get the ball to him and Adams. Rodgers will not play again this season unless we can put together wins over Baltimore and Cleveland and Tampa. What a finish it would be to see Rodgers come back to play against Minnesota and Detroit after sports writers have written him off. GO PACK GO!!!
Your points are well founded. I hope you’re right. We squeaked out a win against the bears, but do you really feel good about the offense now? And, do you have any faith in our defense stopping any above average offense. Like said, Capers schemes are read by QB’s easily by studying film for a few minutes. You got to admit, when another offense has the ball aren’t most of us holding our breath and hoping for one stop? We need a new breath of coaching energy I feel.
I have said everything happens for a reason. I truly believe that in life. It’s time for a new GM. Ron Wolf’s son would be an excellent candidate. With a new GM heads will roll and yes a new head coach and DC are long overdue. McCarthy has kept his job in part to having a HOF QB pulling his Butt out of the fire time and time again.Age has affected Dom Capers from being the DC he once was I believe. Rodgers has at least six more good years and let’s not waste them. Remember he sat for the first three years of his career. He really has only been a starting QB for ten years.
Everything you said I agree with. Wolf’s son, excellent. New blood, new life, new energy. I thought too of K. GREEN as DC, and J. LEONARD as co-DC and definitely DB coach. As for head coach, possibly J. Gruden? Others?
Dennis. I just looked at the Vikings schedule and you tell me we don;t have a chance at 8 and 6 with Arod back against the Vikings week 15. Vikings are home this week against the Rams. Then three road games the following Thursday night starts with the Lions then the following Sunday on the road at Atlanta and then the Panthers on the road before back home against the Bengals.We beat Baltimore Sunday and win again at home against Tampa and on the road against Cleveland. Minnesota could be 9 and 6 at best and Rodgers comes back Dec. 23rd against Minnesota at home and then finish on the road with payback in Detroit. It’s not that far fetched. GO PACK GO!!
Hear ya. But you’re assuming many things if Rodgers even returns. Healing, throwing, timing, and game speed may take a bit longer. Now for getting to the finer points. Based on what we’ve seen to date, especially with QB’s with more experience, do you really think our defense can help our offense? Maybe Tampa with their QB out now and at home, and maybe the Browns at Cleveland , which scares me. Ravens game will definitely give us some answers. Failure to beat the Ravens and it’s turn out the lights, party is over. Big Ben, Panthers on the road really tough! Possibly 8 and 7. Hope you’re correct. But last two games against Vikes at home and Lions there, without Rodgers give us a very slim to no chance of beating Vikes and Lions. Ravens first. Go Pack, please, go Pack.
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4308
|
__label__cc
| 0.657413
| 0.342587
|
Trade or Raid: Acadian Settlers and Native Indians Before 1755
26 Pages Posted: 30 Aug 2017
See all articles by Vincent Geloso
Vincent Geloso
Bates College; University of Western Ontario - King's University College
Date Written: August 28, 2017
The peopling of North America by European settlers often conflicted with the property rights of aboriginals. Trade could, and often did, represent a peaceful and mutually beneficial interaction between these two groups. However, more often than not, raid was preferred over trade. This was not always the case (as exemplified in this paper) for the French settlers of Atlantic Canada, known as Acadians, who enjoyed exceptionally peaceful relations with First Nations. In this paper, I argue that this colony was peripheral in the designs of European governments and was largely stateless and was left to fend for itself. As such, all the costs of raiding were borne by settlers who favored trade over raid for more than a century.
Keywords: Rent-seeking, First Nations, Economic history, Violence, Frontier economies
JEL Classification: N31, N41, N91, P26
Geloso, Vincent, Trade or Raid: Acadian Settlers and Native Indians Before 1755 (August 28, 2017). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3028206 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3028206
Vincent Geloso (Contact Author)
Bates College ( email )
University of Western Ontario - King's University College ( email )
266 Epworth Avenue
London, Ontario N6A 2M3
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4309
|
__label__cc
| 0.599921
| 0.400079
|
Pelotonia Opens Registration for the 2019 Annual Bike Ride to Benefit Cancer Research.
Contact: Emily Smith, Communications Manager for Pelotonia | (513) 313-7324 | esmith@pelotonia.org
Pelotonia ’19 registration opens February 21 at noon
COLUMBUS, OH – Feb. 21, 2019– Pelotonia, a non-profit organization that brings people together to accelerate funding for cancer research, opened registration at pelotonia.org/register for the three-day experience of cycling, entertainment, and volunteerism, today. Pelotonia will take place on August 2nd – 4th, 2019.
“We are excited to kick-off registration for Pelotonia 2019. Over the past ten years the Pelotonia community has come together, going above and beyond, to raise money for cancer research,” said Pelotonia CEO Doug Ulman. “Each person who rides, volunteers, raises funds, conducts research, supports, and donates is part of the Greatest Team Ever and has been instrumental in raising over $184 million for cancer research.
In 2018, riders, virtual riders and volunteers broke fundraising records, as well as participation numbers raising a record-breaking $27.4 million, with 8,470 riders. This brought the organization’s ten-year total to more than $184 million raised for cancer research with 100 percent of every participant-raised dollar being donated to The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center -James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research Institute (OSUCCC – James). These donations are used to invest in innovative research, the brightest minds and ideas and the tools and technology needed to reach our collective one goal.
Pelotonia offers a variety of fundraising options to allow everyone to participate in some way.
High rollers, commit to raise a minimum of $5,000
Virtual riders, who are not required to ride, can participate with a $100 minimum fundraising commitment.
Riders will commit to raise $1,250-$3,000 depending on which of the fifteen routes they select.
Volunteers, who dedicate their time and talents to help operate Pelotonia weekend. They are not required to fundraise.
This year riders have fifteen route options from which to choose. The additional routes give riders the opportunity to ride on Saturday and then again on Sunday by adding the new 35-mile route, a frequently requested option during last year’s event. The 2019 routes and corresponding fundraising commitments are:
Columbus to Pickerington, 25 miles, 1-day ride (Sat., Aug. 3), $1,250 fundraising commitment
Granville to New Albany, 35 miles, 1 -day ride (Sun., Aug. 4), $1,500 fundraising commitment
Columbus to New Albany, 45 miles, 1-day ride (Sat., Aug. 3), $1,500 fundraising commitment
New Albany to Gambier, 55 miles, 1-day ride (Sat., Aug. 3), $1,750 fundraising commitment
Pickerington to Gambier, 75 miles, 1-day ride (Sat., Aug. 3), $2,000 fundraising commitment
Columbus to Gambier, 100 miles, 1-day ride (Sat., Aug. 3), $2,000 fundraising commitment
New Albany to Gambier, Gambier to New Albany, 135 miles, 2-day ride with housing (Aug. 3-4), $2,250 fundraising commitment
Pickerington to Gambier, Gambier to New Albany, 155 miles, 2-day ride with housing (Aug. 3-4), $2,500 fundraising commitment
Columbus to Gambier, Gambier to New Albany, 180 miles, 2-day ride with housing (Aug. 3-4), $2,500 fundraising commitment
Columbus to Gambier, Gambier to New Albany, 200 miles, 2-day ride with housing (Aug. 3-4) $3,000 fundraising commitment
NEW FOR 2019: Pelotonia will be offering a 2-day ride option without housing, in addition to the routes listed above.
Columbus to Pickerington, Granville to New Albany: 25 miles on Saturday and 35 miles on Sunday, 2-day ride without housing, (Aug. 3-4) $1,750 fundraising commitment
Columbus to New Albany, Granville to New Albany: 45 miles on Saturday and 35 miles on Sunday, (Aug. 3-4) $2,000 fundraising commitment
New Albany to Gambier, Granville to New Albany: 55 miles on Saturday and 35 miles on Sunday, 2-day ride without housing, (Aug. 3-4) $2,250 fundraising commitment
Pickerington to Gambier, Granville to New Albany: 75 miles on Saturday and 35 miles on Sunday, 2-day ride without housing, (Aug. 3-4) $2,500 fundraising commitment
Columbus to Gambier, Granville to New Albany: 100 miles on Saturday and 35 miles on Sunday, 2-day ride without housing, (Aug. 3-4) $2,500 fundraising commitment
Pelotonia provides all participants with tools to help them meet their commitments. Riders, virtual riders and volunteers have until 11:59pm on Fri., Oct. 4th, 2019 to raise funds and complete their commitment.
Registration for riders is $100 until 12:01am on Tues., June 11, 2019 when the fee will increase to $150. For riders who register after Thurs., July 11, 2019, the registration fee increases to $200. Pelotonia will hold its opening ceremony on Fri., Aug. 2. On Sat., Aug. 3, thousands of riders will embark on 1-day and 2-day rides on routes ranging from 25-200 miles and on Sun., Aug. 5, riders will participate in the 35-mile ride from Granville to New Albany and 2-day riders in the 135-200-mile routes will return to New Albany.
Pelotonia’s operational costs are paid for by major funding partners including American Electric Power Foundation, Huntington Bank, L Brands Foundation, Peggy and Richard Santulli, Harold C. Schott Foundation, Cardinal Health Foundation, and Diamond Hill Capital Management. This funding model enables Pelotonia to direct 100 percent of every dollar raised by its participants to cancer research at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute.
About Pelotonia
Founded in 2008, Pelotonia was established with the objective to fund life-saving cancer research. As a centerpiece of its year-round fundraising efforts, Pelotonia hosts a three-day experience that includes a weekend of cycling, entertainment, and volunteerism. In ten years, Pelotonia has raised over $184 million for cancer research. Thanks to its generous funding partners—American Electric Power Foundation, Huntington Bank, L Brands Foundation, Peggy and Richard Santulli, Harold C. Schott Foundation, , Cardinal Health, and Diamond Hill Capital Management– Pelotonia is able to direct 100 percent of every dollar raised by its participants to cancer research at the OSUCCC – James. For more information, visit pelotonia.org.
About the OSUCCC – James
The OSUCCC – James strives to create a cancer-free world by integrating scientific research with excellence in education and patient-centered care, a strategy that leads to better methods of prevention, detection and treatment. Ohio State is one of only 49 National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers and one of only a few centers funded by the NCI to conduct both phase I and phase II clinical trials on novel anticancer drugs sponsored by the NCI. As the cancer program’s 356-bed adult patient-care component, The James is one of the top cancer hospitals in the nation as ranked by U.S. News & World Report and has achieved Magnet® designation, the highest honor an organization can receive for quality patient care and professional nursing practice. At 21 floors and with more than 1.1 million square feet, The James is a transformational facility that fosters collaboration and integration of cancer research and clinical cancer care. For more information, visit cancer.osu.edu.
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4317
|
__label__wiki
| 0.901278
| 0.901278
|
Pendleton Parks and Recreation is governed by a seven member Parks, Recreation, & Cemetery Commission, who serve a four-year term and are appointed by the Mayor. We also have a Tree Commission who are a proud component of our Tree City USA status, and they are currently working on updating and improving the Tree Ordinance. Meetings are held at Noon on the second Thursday of every other month. All commission meetings are open to the public, and we encourage attendance and public input.
Parks, Recreation, & Cemetery Commission
Meetings are held at noon on the second Tuesday of each month. Location varies; call for details.
Back row left to right: Brett Bryan (past commissioner), John Blessinger, Rick Guenther, and Dawn DiFuria McClendon (past commissioner).
Front row left to right: Kathryn Brown, Molly Turner, and Donnie Cook (past ex officio).
Current Members:
Kathryn Brown, Chair
Caryn Appler
Rick Guenther
Ian Shadle
Molly Turner
(Vacant)
To apply for a vacant position, please download an application HERE and return it to the Mayor's Office at City Hall. Appointments last four years.
John Turner, Mayor
Robb Corbett, City Manager
Liam Hughes, Director, Parks, Recreation, & Cemetery
Jake Cambier, City Council Representative
John Blessinger, School Board Representative
Melissa Porter, Secretary
(Vacant) Planning Commission Representative
2017 Report to City Council (PDF)
Meetings are held at noon on the second Thursday of every other month. Location varies; call for details.
From left to right: Molly Turner, Dave Powell, Donnie Cook (past ex officio), Roberta LaVerdure, Richard Garner, and Chris Johnson (past commissioner).
Dave Powell, Chair
Molly Turner, Parks, Recreation, & Cemetery Commission Representative
Donna LaVerdure
Richard Gardner
Parks Division
The Parks Division maintains Pendleton's parks system, which includes 22 public park areas and 20 landscaped sites. This includes 11 reserve-able park shelters. Maintenance activities include mowing, operation of irrigation systems, restroom cleaning, park garbage pick-up, tree maintenance, leaf and snow removal, and related activities to keep the sites attractive and functional. In addition, the Parks Division coordinates rental of the Vert Auditorium, Club Room, and Little Theater.
The Pendleton Parks Commission was established in 1928, becoming the Parks and Recreation Commission in 1961. Pendleton’s park system developed around 1915 when the site for Til Taylor Park was acquired and land was set aside for Round Up Park, now Roy Raley Park.
The Recreation Division staffs and programs the Aquatic Center, Til Taylor pool, two summer park programs, adult and youth athletic activities, a thriving gymnastics program and many other recreational activities. The Recreation Division stewards the Pendleton Recreation Center, which houses the Helen McCune Gymnasium and the Pendleton Foundation Room. They coordinate birthday party rentals, community use, open gyms, and recreation programs in the facility.
Recreation programming began around 1927 with Pendleton’s ten-week public playground program of supervised play. A newspaper article in 1929 noted that 165 children attended the last picnic of the playground season.
Olney Cemetery, a 49-acre cemetery, is operated and maintained by the City of Pendleton's cemetery division that includes Olney Abbey Mausoleum, the Memorial Garden, and Treehaven Pet Cemetery. Activities include mowing, irrigation, grave openings, tree maintenance, and other activities to keep the cemetery functional and attractive.
The Pendleton cemetery, later known as Pioneer Cemetery, was abandoned in 1891 when Olney Cemetery was established. Most graves/headstones were moved to Olney, but several remain in what is now known as Pioneer Park.
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4318
|
__label__wiki
| 0.818169
| 0.818169
|
Archaeology & Fossils
Scientists discover hidden chamber in Egypt's Great Pyramid
by Brian Rohan
ScanPyramids Big Void 3D Artistic view horizontal option Credit: ScanPyramids mission
Scientists say they have found a hidden chamber in Egypt's Great Pyramid of Giza, in what would be the first such discovery in the structure since the 19th century and one likely to spark a new surge of interest in the pharaohs.
In an article published in the journal Nature on Thursday, an international team said the 30-meter (yard) void deep within the pyramid is situated above the structure's Grand Gallery, and has a similar cross-section.
The purpose of the space is unclear, and it's not yet known whether it was built with a function in mind or if it's merely a gap in the pyramid's architecture. Some experts say such empty spaces have been known for years.
"This is a premier," said Mehdi Tayoubi, a co-founder of the ScanPyramids project and president of the Heritage Innovation Preservation Institute. "It could be composed of one or several structures... maybe it could be another Grand Gallery. It could be a chamber, it could be a lot of things."
The scientists made the discovery using cosmic-ray imaging, recording the behavior of subatomic particles called muons that penetrate the rock similar to X-rays, only much deeper. Their paper was peer-reviewed before appearing in Nature, an international, interdisciplinary journal of science, and its results confirmed by other teams of scientists.
Chances of the space containing treasure or burial chambers are almost nil, said Aidan Dodson, an Egyptologist at the University of Bristol, but the discovery helps shed light on building techniques.
"The pyramid's burial chamber and sarcophagus have already been discovered, so this new area was more likely kept empty above the Grand Gallery to reduce the weight of stone pressing down on its ceiling," he said, adding that similar designs have been found in other pyramids.
Egypt's former antiquities minister and famed archaeologist Zahi Hawass, who has been testing scanning methods and heads the government's oversight panel for the new techniques, said that the area in question has been known of for years and thus does not constitute a discovery. He has long downplayed the usefulness of scans of ancient sites.
"The Great Pyramid is full of voids. We have to be careful how results are presented to the public," he said, adding that one problem facing the international team is that it did not have an Egyptologist as a member. He said the chamber was likely empty space builders used to construct the rooms below.
Khufu's Pyramid 3D cut aerial view Credit: ScanPyramids mission
"In order to construct the Grand Gallery, you had to have a hollow, or a big void in order to access it—you cannot build it without such a space," he said. "Large voids exist between the stones and may have been left as construction gaps."
The pyramid is also known as Khufu's Pyramid for its builder, a 4th Dynasty pharaoh who reigned from 2509 to 2483 B.C. Visitors to the pyramid, on the outskirts of Cairo, can walk, hunched over, up a long tunnel to reach the Grand Gallery. The space announced by the scanning team does not appear to be connected to any known internal passages.
Scientists involved in the scanning called the find a "breakthrough" that highlighted the usefulness of modern particle physics in archaeology.
"It was hidden, I think, since the construction of the pyramid," Tayoubi added.
Known Grand Gallery Credit: ScanPyramids mission
The Great Pyramid, the last surviving wonder of the ancient world, has captivated visitors since it was built as a royal burial chamber some 4,500 years ago. Experts are still divided over how it and other pyramids were constructed, so even relatively minor discoveries generate great interest.
Late last year, for example, thermal scanning identified a major anomaly in the Great Pyramid—three adjacent stones at its base which registered higher temperatures than others.
Speculation that King Tutankhamun's tomb contains additional antechambers stoked interest in recent years, before scans by ground-penetrating radar and other tools came up empty, raising doubts about the claim.
The muon scan is accomplished by planting special plates inside and around the pyramid to collect data on the particles, which rain down from the earth's atmosphere. They pass through empty spaces but can be absorbed or deflected by harder surfaces, allowing scientists to study their trajectories and discern what is stone and what is not. Several plates were used to triangulate the void discovered in the Great Pyramid.
ScanPyramids team Augmented reality review of ScanPyramids Big Void Credit: ScanPyramids mission
While the technology can detect large open spaces, it cannot discern what is inside, so it's unclear if the empty space contains any objects. Tayoubi said the team plans now to work with others to come up with hypotheses about the area.
"The good news is that the void is there, and it's very big," he said.
Particles could reveal clues to how Egypt pyramid was built
More information: Discovery of a big void in Khufu's Pyramid by observation of cosmic-ray muons, Nature (2017) DOI: 10.1038/nature24647 , https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaap/ncurrent/full/nature24647.html
Journal information: Nature
© 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Citation: Scientists discover hidden chamber in Egypt's Great Pyramid (2017, November 2) retrieved 16 July 2019 from https://phys.org/news/2017-11-scientists-hidden-chamber-egypt-great.html
Team testing new scanner on Egypt's Great Pyramid
Egypt says it's found burial chamber dating back 3,700 years
Egypt detects 'impressive' anomaly in Giza pyramids
Remains of a new pyramid discovered in Egypt
Experts in new bid to unravel 'secrets' of pyramids
Extinct human species likely breast fed for a year after birth, study suggests
Genome study reveals extent, diversity of Roman-era pandemic
Strange new species of duck-billed dinosaur identified
Small horned dinosaur from China, a Triceratops relative, walked on two feet
TheGhostofOtto1923
I found a better headline from a newsfeed;
"Cosmic rays reveal mysterious void in Egypt's Great Pyramid..."
-I can't wait for the zahi hawass tv docudrama. You know with the little robots and the spooky music...
No seriously this is great stuff.
Whydening Gyre
I saw that one, Otto.
You tube is gonna be even crazier, now...:-)
It's things like this that illustrate a fundamental problem:
..... all those versions of a hidden chamber in the great pyramid stories that have been out there for 10-20-30-40+ years?
When you give the asshats overly critical deniers what they want, and then they are no where to be seen when it comes to taking back some of the abuse they so gleefully dished out for decades.
What does this say about their innate childishness and stupidites they embody?
To even the balance they'd have to sit still and take it for months, years, even decades straight, on a daily basis - so they can finally understand what they are.
No balls, no integrity, no character, nothing. Just 100% small minded asshole, like they've always been.
Speculation is: Multifaceted resonance chambers. Rf, microwave, mechanical, acoustic, and so on.
The data available on potentials for the pyramid is scientifically fearsome, to say the least.
Importantly, there is no way in hell that it (they pyramid) is some sort of burial memorial device.
It's electromechanical, at the very least. The number of suspicious facts and anomalies that surround it, is a mile long. And there is no way whatsoever, that it's precision can be equaled today, with the best hardware and technology we can muster.
Which means it is a giant unbelievably stinky anomaly that some simply don't want to the general public to be looking at, so all alternative theories are directly and actively poo-pooed.
It's built out of technology that we modern humans still cant reach and it was built a very long time ago.
It turns historical timelines into ground up mush, just like all the recent works in carbon dating new human finds. That the human development timeline is pushed back by over a factor of two now.
They want it dead as it breaks the modern oligarchical control complex wide open.
Typical.
thomasct
KBK.. right, and to be precise.. Built in 71,344BC. (The Pleidian Mission,by Randolph Winters). Built using androids. (The Far Sight Institute). Built with high tech machinery. (http://www.gizapo...g.html). A power./health/communication generator as the Bosnian pyramids, (https://www.youtu...1asei08)
slrlw2017
@KBK
Yeah I saw the Stargate Documentary with R.D. Anderson too.The universe is too aloof, and life on earth too transient to be worried about an "oligarchical control complex". I used to be enveloped by conspiracy theories but the anxiety and paranoia became more of a drag on my life than the new world order trying to convince me the world is oblate spheroid because somehow me knowing it's flat will thwart their control over science and money. Statistics, Evolution, and natural selection are the only Orders we have to worry about.
"Do not lose time on daily trivialities. Do not dwell on petty detail. For all of these things melt away and drift apart within the obscure traffic of time. Live well and live broadly. You are alive and living now. Now is the envy of all of the dead"
Nik_2213
And, actually on topic, it would suit a 'relieving arch' system. Like the basic arrangement over the 'Queens Chamber', and the multi-tier arrangement over the 'Kings Chamber'.
Hmm. If a lot of the unseen interior is NOT 'cut masonry' but mortared rubble, it explains where the 'trimming' debris went.
FWIW, didn't a Egyptologist recently note that the era's term for 'levers' also meant 'rollers' and 'pulleys' ? He worked out that twin teams pulling *down* cleated walkways could easily drag massive masonry *up* a remarkably steep central ramp. No half-mile ramp required, certainly no Psi powers or UFOs...
rrwillsj
Tc, sw2, N_2, now play nice with the 'True Believers'. The poor creatures haven't met a comicbook yet, they will not accept as gospel.
You have to understand, hiding away in their mommies basement? They've never even seen a major construction site. Never been to a shipyard or factory, refinery or steelworks.
To them, reality begins and ends with magic faerie dust and flying cracked teapottys.
bs, damn, you're good! Not many original speculations are offered in these comments.
Please forgive me, but I'm going to steal your idea for an LHC fun ride.
Oh, and what do you think was more important? The pyramids as monuments to bloated egos? Or as a means to keep idle farm workers busy and creatively preoccupying craftsmen?
Hey bs, think about this idea from very recent history...
Whatever reason for building a massively primitive, boondoggle pyramid?
Those empty chambers were useful as somewhere to conveniently dispose of stubbornly breathing cantankerous predecessors, inconvenient relatives competing for the throne and obstreperously ambitious precocious heirs.
How convenient for the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, finding those empty chambers in the pyramid. I'm sure he'll put them to good use as a disposal of his own competitors!
Think of the exhibits possible in future museums, when these boyhood chums are rediscovered.
Sing it out! All together... "The Code of the West is as follows... Do unto others and do it before they do it unto you!"
Now bs, now do you see the advantage of a classical. liberal arts education?
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4327
|
__label__wiki
| 0.850419
| 0.850419
|
The number of single male Magellanic penguins is rising at this breeding colony—here's why
by James Urton, University of Washington
A young Magellanic penguin male. On average, males at Punta Tombo don’t breed until age 7 and, with the increasingly skewed sex ratio, fewer and fewer males are finding mates each breeding season. Credit: Natasha Gownaris
Like most of their stout-bodied, flippered kin, Magellanic penguins spend much of their lives in the ocean. From late autumn through winter and into spring in the Southern Hemisphere, these South American penguins swim off the coast of southern Brazil, Uruguay and northern Argentina in search of anchovies, sardines and squid.
But as spring turns to summer, they swim thousands of miles south and congregate in big coastal colonies. There, males and females pair off, breed and attempt to rear one or two newly hatched chicks. One of the largest breeding colonies for Magellanic penguins is at Punta Tombo in Argentina, where University of Washington biology professor P. Dee Boersma and her team at the Center for Ecosystem Sentinels have studied the penguins since 1982. They have documented a population decline at Punta Tombo of more than 40 percent since 1987, along with a rising male-to-female ratio, and have spent years trying to pinpoint its cause.
In a paper published Jan. 2 in the journal Ecological Applications, Boersma and UW postdoctoral researcher Natasha Gownaris report that juvenile females are more likely to die at sea, which has caused a skewed sex ratio of nearly three males to every female, as well as population decline. Their study incorporated more than 30 years of population data collected by UW researchers—including banding and studying individual penguins—into models of population dynamics. Boersma and Gownaris' models show that juveniles have much lower survival rates than adults in all years, a common phenomenon in seabirds. In addition, among both juveniles and adults, females are less likely to survive than males, but this sex bias is much larger among juveniles. Adult females seem to fare worst in years when overall survival is low, suggesting they are more vulnerable than males to disruptions in the food supply during the nonbreeding season.
"From a conservation standpoint, this study shows us how important it is to try to protect the places where these penguins feed throughout the year, both in the breeding season and the nonbreeding season," said Gownaris. "It all comes down to food for this species."
A Magellanic penguin mated pair mutually preening. Credit: Natasha Gownaris
This study relied on year-to-year surveys of penguins that had been fitted with stainless-steel bands marked with a unique five-digit number. Between 1983 and 2010, Boersma and her team banded 44,374 chicks at Punta Tombo, tracking generations of Magellanic penguin families. Only 3,296 of these individuals survived and were seen again at the colony. In 57 percent of cases, researchers also noted the sex of the individual—no easy task in a species where males and females look so much alike. Each Southern Hemisphere summer, which corresponds to winter in the Northern Hemisphere, researchers noted which individuals returned to Punta Tombo, and gathered information such as body condition and breeding success.
The 3,296 penguins that returned are a small fraction of the hundreds of thousands who came to Punta Tombo over the three-decade survey period. But information about the banded birds helped Gownaris and Boersma learn about the entire population. Gownaris compared the results from her models of banded birds to annual survey data collected throughout the colony. These comparisons allowed her to see whether trends in the banded birds were also seen in the larger population.
One of these trends is an increasingly skewed sex ratio and more single male penguins.
"Two decades ago, there were about 1.5 adult male Magellanic penguins for every adult female at Punta Tombo," said Gownaris. "Today, it's approaching three males for every female."
A Magellanic penguin parent feeding its chicks as its mate looks on. Credit: Natasha Gownaris
Both the survey data and population models indicated that adult sex ratios were skewed because fewer females than males returned to the colony each spring for the breeding season. The surveys of banded penguins showed an average return rate for juvenile males of just 17 percent, and 12 percent for juvenile females. Gownaris' models of the whole population indicated that male juveniles had an average return rate about 33.3 percentage points higher than females. Adult Magellanic penguins had much higher return rates than juveniles, and though females still lagged behind males, the gap was not as large as in juveniles. About 89 percent of adult males returned each year, as did 85 percent of females.
Though this may seem like a small difference, the bias in survival accumulates over time. By the time a cohort of penguins reaches age 25, there are about six males for every female.
Other groups have analyzed Magellanic penguin corpses that washed up off the coast of southern Brazil in winter. Their studies also indicate that females are more likely to die of starvation than males—especially juvenile females.
Though male and female Magellanic penguins look similar, males are about 17 percent larger, and have longer and thicker bills. This may give males a significant advantage when foraging for food in the ocean—especially when oceanographic conditions make finding food in the winter more difficult, as the team showed in a paper published in August.
A Magellanic penguin chick nearly ready to fledge, as shown by the small amount of down on its head, and leave for its first year at sea. Credit: Natasha Gownaris
Using population models, Gownaris showed that the higher mortality of females at Punta Tombo contributed to skewed sex ratios and consequent population declines at the site from 1990 to 2010. This contribution was much greater than that of variation in chick survival. The data also suggest that, due to the skewed sex ratio, the population may be declining faster than suggested by the population surveys that are typically used to calculate population trends in the colony.
"It makes sense that the worsening sex ratio is responsible for so much of the population decline at Punta Tombo based on what we know about penguin behavior," said Gownaris. "Magellanic penguins are serially monogamous—with one male pairing with one female each breeding season—and both parents working together to rear the chicks. So, having fewer females means you have fewer pairings each year overall."
Gownaris wants to survey other Magellanic penguin breeding colonies along the coast to see if they show similarly skewed sex ratios. She and Boersma hope that this information will help new conservation efforts.
"Over the years, this team has helped preserve the land and waters around breeding colonies like Punta Tombo," said Gownaris. "But now we're starting to understand that, to help Magellanic penguins, you have to protect waters where they feed in winter, which are thousands of miles north from Punta Tombo."
After a bad winter in the ocean, female Magellanic penguins suffer most, study shows
More information: N. J. Gownaris et al. Sex-biased survival contributes to population decline in a long-lived seabird, the Magellanic Penguin, Ecological Applications (2019). DOI: 10.1002/eap.1826
Journal information: Ecological Applications
Provided by University of Washington
Citation: The number of single male Magellanic penguins is rising at this breeding colony—here's why (2019, January 3) retrieved 16 July 2019 from https://phys.org/news/2019-01-male-magellanic-penguins-colonyhere.html
Please help me interpret my genetic intellgence results
How natural selection acted on one penguin species over the past quarter century
Penguins marching into trouble
UW conservationists celebrate new protected areas for Argentine penguins
Satellite tracking will help answer questions about penguin travels
Daddy cool: Same-sex penguin couple become parents
Female mammals kill the offspring of their competitors when resources are scarce
Armyworms on the march post-Tropical Storm Barry
Grasshoppers and silkworms have antioxidant capacity similar to fresh orange juice, says study
Insects feel chronic pain after injury
Ancient defense strategy continues to protect plants from pathogens
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4328
|
__label__cc
| 0.583091
| 0.416909
|
Pitt Set to Visit Florida Tight End Brett Seither This Week
Add another name to throw in the mix of tight ends currently getting recruited by Pitt: Brett Seither.
Seither (6-foot-5, 215 pounds) is a three-star recruit from Central Catholic High School in Clearwater, Florida. Seither is originally from Maryland but moved to Florida. He’s a senior in the Class of 2019.
At this point, he holds offers from Pitt, Michigan State, Indiana, Iowa State, Kansas State, Maryland, Purdue, South Florida and Central Florida.
Everyone knows of Pitt’s need for a tight end and tomorrow, area recruiter Rob Harley will be stopping by Clearwater to talk with Seither.
This morning, Pittsburgh Sports Now caught up briefly with Seither to get an update on this recruitment and his talks with Pitt.
“I’ve been talking with [tight ends coach Tim] Salem and Coach Harley weekly,” he said. ‘One week it’ll be Coach Salem and the next week Coach Harley. I talked with Coach Salem last week who told me that Coach Harley, who’s our area recruiter, would be coming down to our practice to see me.”
“We talk about my recruiting, how I’m doing and things about college. Pitt obviously has a great tradition there and great facilities. It’s pretty cool when they text me and send a picture of Steeler players watching their practice. That’s kind of cool to see.”
Seither knows of Pitt’s need for a tight end and I asked him if the opportunity to get early playing time is something that could raise his interest in him.
“That’s definitely intriguing but I’m confident in my abilities and that I can play regardless,” said Seither.
https://t.co/f8VcmcDRuc
— Brett Seither (@_brett18) October 17, 2018
“As a tight end, I definitely feel that I’m more of a threat right now catching the ball but I also feel like I’ve developed this year as a blocker and am capable of doing that. And with the right coaching, I’ll get better at that. I’m also excited to get to a college weight room to see what that can do for me.”
Seither said that Michigan State is recruiting him hard and that he’d like to get back up there for a visit. He also says that he’ll likely be making an official visits to Central Florida and Maryland.
Related Topics:Brett Seither, featured, Pitt football, Pitt football recruiting
Does Pitt Have a Tight End Problem?
Pitt Commit Bryce Nelms to Take Official Visit to Rutgers
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4330
|
__label__wiki
| 0.879827
| 0.879827
|
New York officials respond to criticism over snowstorm response
Posted 10:26 AM, November 16, 2018, by PIX11 News and Katie Corrado, Updated at 10:18PM, November 16, 2018
NEW YORK — Commuters faced heavily congested, icy roadways and snarled public transit during Thursday's snowstorm, prompting New York officials to respond to the criticism.
New York City saw 1,915 collisions reported between noon and midnight, according to NYPD Chief Terence Monahan. That's a 162 percent increase in crashes when compared to the same time last year.
Port Authority was at a complete standstill during the evening rush hour because of the storm, and lines for city buses were extremely long.
“Overcrowding at the Port Authority Bus Terminal was caused by a lack of a supply of buses," a spokesperson for the Port Authority said. "Yesterday, during the 4 pm to 7 p.m. peak, only 232 buses arrived at the bus terminal compared to 1,429 that typically arrive during this same period on a normal weekday, a decline of approximately 84 percent.”
Mayor Bill de Blasio said the storm's unexpected strength caught everyone off guard.
"I just want to say to all New Yorkers... I know how frustrated people are," Mayor Bill de Blasio said at a news conference Friday. "I'm frustrated too. I'm frustrated as a New Yorker who was stuck in traffic like so many other people were. I'm frustrated as mayor of the city that for so many reasons, people didn't get what they should have last night."
Snowstorm forces 200+ West Orange students to stay in schools overnight
De Blasio said there will be a full audit review of city and state agencies, including Port Authority.
"We went into Wednesday night with estimates from the National Weather Service in the 1 to 2 inches of snow range... that's not a snowstorm that any of us would be afraid of," de Blasio said.
Central Park saw 6 inches, breaking previous records for the day and becoming the second-heaviest snowfall ever on record for November. Click here for snowfall totals around the tri-state area.
The MTA also released a statement to PIX 11: “Our buses were held hostage to massive gridlock citywide. Our bus operators and front-line employees fought through epic traffic and kept the subways moving - and we’re grateful for their dedication during a tremendously difficult commute.”
Snowstorm leads to nasty traffic, transit commute
Commuter chaos: Buses at Port Authority delayed hours as commuters stuck waiting outside terminal
Filed in: Local Stories, News
Plans proceed to build new Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York
Over a dozen people injured in bus crash at Newark Airport: Port Authority
Truck crash snarls commute out of NYC on eve of holiday
Manhattan News
Man arrested after plotting to detonate explosives in Times Square
News Transit
FAA holds information sessions on LaGuardia AirTrain proposal
At least 13 children among dozens of people stabbed at bus stop in Japan
Judge blocks 14th Street busway days before rollout
Police activity on Route 495 prompts closure of eastbound lanes
Man ‘trapped in a bottle’ high above Times Square warns of scourge caused by opioid addiction
Local leaders call on NY to OK school bus stop arm cameras
33K pounds of cocaine seized in one of biggest US drug busts
MTA, community groups and riders work on new bus routes in Queens and the Bronx
NJ Transit to host forum to address upcoming Amtrak work
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4331
|
__label__wiki
| 0.929395
| 0.929395
|
“Narendra Modi A Failed PM, Will Lose Elections”, Says Rahul Gandhi
Congress Featured Gujarat National News April 19, 2019 0Comments Mohsin Shaik
Congress president Rahul Gandhi claimed on Thursday that there is an undercurrent in favour of the Congress and Narendra Modi who has “failed” as prime minister will lose the 2019 general elections.
Rahul Gandhi said that the Congress’s ‘Nyay’ scheme has given a big jolt to Prime Minister Modi.
“There is an undercurrent in favour of the Congress party. I am touring all over the country and atmosphere is good for us,” he told reporters after addressing an election rally in Bhuj, Gujarat.
Mr Gandhi went on to claim that PM Modi is going to lose the 2019 general elections as he is a “failed” prime minster. The Congress leader reiterated his charge of corruption in the Rafale deal.
“The real issues this elections are unemployment, suffering of farmers and corruption. In the Rafale deal,” he said, adding his allegation that “Prime Minister has given a free gift of Rs.30,000 crore to Anil Ambani.”
“Now, it has been published in the newspapers of France that they were given tax benefits in that country. Unemployment is at a 45-year high,” he further alleged.
“So, he is a failed prime minister and he is losing this election,” Mr Gandhi claimed.
“Our Nyay scheme, in which we will transfer Rs. 72,000 per year to poor families, has given a big jolt to Narendra Modi,” he said.
Asked about Bihar deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi filing a defamation case against him, Mr Gandhi sounded dismissive, saying, “See they keep on doing such things”.
The Bihar BJP leader has filed the case in a court in Patna against Rahul Gandhi for his reported “defamatory” statement that “all thieves have Modi in their surnames”.
Rahul Gandhi expressed confidence that his party will gain a major success in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
The Congress chief addressed two rallies in Gujarat on Thursday – one at Vanthli in Junagadh district and the other at Bhuj in Kutch district.
Today, Rahul Gandhi is scheduled to address a rally in Bardoli district
General Elections 2019
Rahul Gandhi Takes Back Offer to Resign From Party Chief Post
Tej Sena for ‘platform for change makers’, to launch tomorrow
Will Wait for Congress-JDS Govt in Karnataka to Collapse on Its Own, Says State BJP Chief Yeddyurappa
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4340
|
__label__wiki
| 0.924511
| 0.924511
|
June 28, 2019 feekshow News 0
Nearly 250 individuals have been detained in the capital of Ethiopia and the primary town in its Amhara region since a coup attempt was foiled, state TV revealed on Thursday.
Ethiopia has been on the brink since twin attacks in Addis Abeba on the weekend and the town of Bahir Dar murdered the chief of employees of the military, the president of the region and three other senior officials.
The violence, which the government claims was part of a plot by a rogue general and his militia to take over Amhara, revealed how ethnic tensions are threatening Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s reform agenda.
The state-run Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation gave no more information about who was detained or when.
But a party based in the northern region— Amhara’s National Movement (NAMA)—earlier said 56 of its members were arrested in Addis Ababa on Wednesday.
Ethiopia’s 42-year-old prime minister has earned praise overseas for opening up one of the most closed countries on the continent, but analysts say the fast changes have fuelled uncertainty and insecurity.
As a consequence, ethnocentric groups like NAMA are gaining growing assistance and their rhetoric is fueling severe inter-ethnic violence, the worldwide think-tank Crisis Group said in a briefing note this week.
Since its inception last year, NAMA has appeared in the governing coalition as a competitor to the Amhara party, which has held authority in Ethiopia since 1991. NAMA has condemned the violence of the weekend and rejects any connection to it.
Party spokesman Christian Tadele informed Reuters that he had also received reports of arrests of Amhara people in four cities in the Oromiya region. These, along with the party members ‘ arrests, “were perpetrated against the Amharas because of their identity,” he said. He didn’t elaborate.
Also on Thursday, prominent author Eskinder Nega said that five fellow activists in a pressure group opposed to what he saw as the dominance of the capital’s Oromo ethnic group had been detained.
A Wednesday judge granted police 28 days to investigate those arrested in connection with the suspected coup plot, Eskinder informed Reuters.
“This is a return to the past, this is precisely what the government was doing before the reforms started a year ago,” Eskinder said. “In the previous age, the anti-terror law was used to fight peaceful opposition, and the same thing is happening.”
About feekshow 121 Articles
Hey, Welcome, My Name Is Shola Am Feekshow By Nickname, Am A full time blogger and am admin on this website, i love music so much,,,THANKS
Bandits, kidnappers murdered 310 Nigerians in May, reports
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4341
|
__label__cc
| 0.715296
| 0.284704
|
Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA)
Patient Safety and Quality Improvement: Developing a Systems View (Patient Safety I)
Universidade Johns Hopkins
4.8 (311 classificações) | 3.9K alunos inscritos
Curso 1 de 7 no Patient Safety Programa de cursos integrados
In this course, you will be able develop a systems view for patient safety and quality improvement in healthcare. By then end of this course, you will be able to: 1) Describe a minimum of four key events in the history of patient safety and quality improvement, 2) define the key characteristics of high reliability organizations, and 3) explain the benefits of having strategies for both proactive and reactive systems thinking.
Patient Care, Systems Thinking, Quality Improvement
Even though this course is at the beginner level, its is very useful and effective one to learn the subjects which many of us don't know. Thanks you coursera and JHM
I work in this field and found all of the material, lectures and quiz material/testing to be exactly what a practitioner needs to focus on patient safety. Thank you!
Definitions in Patient Safety and Quality Improvement: An Overview
In this module, you will be reviewing several key terms and tools that are used in patient safety and quality improvement. This will allow you to begin to develop the common language used among patient safety and quality improvement experts and practitioners. By the end of this module you will be able to: 1) differentiate between the terms harm, hazard, error and risk within a patient safety and quality improvement framework, 2) describe how quality and safety overlap and how they are different and 3) differentiate between root cause analysis and a failure mode and effects analysis.
Definitions and Intersection of Quality and Safety3:36
Harm3:09
Sentinel Event1:52
Error4:28
Hazard2:09
Risk5:07
Root Cause Analysis (RCA)5:27
Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA)7:54
Quality3:40
Safety5:32
Culture2:57
Melinda Sawyer
Director, Patient Safety
Our next topic is Failure Mode and Effects Analysis,
for short is an FMEA.
Here's a really great definition that the joint commission provides,
and that is a failure mode and effects analysis is
a systematic method for examining a process prospectively,
by the way a very important word,
because it makes this different than an RCA that we talked about previously.
So, it's a systematic method of examining
a process prospectively for possible ways in which
failures can occur and then redesigning
the process to eliminate the possibility of the failure,
to stop the failure before it harms an individual,
or to minimize the consequences of failure.
Failure mode and effect analysis has been with us for quite a while.
Was actually developed by the military back in the 1940s,
to help us guide missiles and to make the missiles more accurate.
Some years later, it was used by NASA to help get the man on the moon.
So what they had to do, since they had never done that before is anticipate,
what are the failures that might happen,
and how might we prepare for those failures,
if they do happen.
Some years went by,
and the automotive industry got involved following the Ford Pinto tragedy.
The Ford Pinto was designed very poorly and actually was quite hazardous.
The gas tank was way toward the back.
So, if you had a rear end collision,
the car would explode.
Well, that should have been able to be detected,
before they ever put them into production by using an FMEA.
So, that wasn't done.
But since 1979, the automotive industry had become
quite strong advocates of failure mode and effect analysis techniques.
It wasn't until the 1990s,
that health care started using the failure mode and effect analysis,
and we should be able to use this technique,
and we do to our benefit in making our healthcare systems safer and more efficient.
It was... Now currently the Joint Commission requires any institution accredited by them,
to conduct a proactive risk assessment,
but use the failure mode and effect analysis methodology.
And, each institution must do at least one of those every 18 months,
involving a potentially dangerous situation.
So, here are the major steps in failure mode and effect analysis, as an aside,
if you can join a team and actually do a failure mode and effect analysis,
because that's really the only way to learn it.
But here are the major steps.
First, we identify error prone process.
An example, preparing chemotherapy.
Next, we define all of the process steps involved with that.
Next, for each process step, a group of us,
a multi-disciplinary group of us sit around a table,
and try to figure out how might that fail and we can use some imagination.
And so, for each process step that we've identified,
we could very easily come up with three or four potential failure modes,
that we have to anticipate,
that we have to plan for,
to prevent those from causing problem.
Next, is we estimate the severity and the likelihood of each failure.
Then after that, we prioritize which failure modes we're going to address.
When you conduct an FMEA,
it's not unusual to come up with 50,
maybe even 100 different failure modes.
And it's often not possible to address all of those simultaneously.
So, what you want to do is look at the frequency.
If something has moderate severity and it's occurring twice a day,
that might get priority over a severe- a failure mode with severe harm,
that only occurs once every 10 years.
So, we balance frequency with severity to come up with a prioritization scheme,
to address a doable number of these fixes as we try to improve our process.
The next one is, to change the system.
And, as already alluded to the way we change it,
is to eliminate the possibility of the failure,
or to make failures less likely or to mitigate harm if the failure occurs.
Now, as with many things that has benefits and challenges, here are the benefits.
We can anticipate and eliminate failure modes before they occur.
Multi-disciplinary in nature, that's the failure mode and effect analysis,
is a multi-disciplinary process.
It seeks input from front line workers.
When we're talking about safety,
sharp end are those people actually doing the work,
blunt end are the managers,
the support, the Presidents.
Those are the people behind the scenes.
Their job is to allow the sharp end people to do their job.
So, this is a process where we go to the front line,
as well as the support roles to find out what's going on,
and how might we fix it.
And it provides...
The FMEA provides a systematic method for improvement.
It's got a lot of challenges and the main one is it can be very time consuming.
So, I have now talked about FMEA and in one of my previous lessons,
I've talked about RCA.
So let's compare these two,
because they are similar but there are some important differences.
And FMEA is prospective,
it's proactive, and it asks the question what if.
What if this happens, what should we do?
What if that happens, what should we do?
It can help prevent harm.
And, really important, when you're conducting an FMEA,
it should be safe,
for the members of the group to be very frank, open, and honest.
So, it should be safe for them to be there,
and to be very frank.
We don't want a boss say, listening to them,
and they say would be one of the failure modes is not following the policy.
And, the boss might be upset that you're not following a policy.
Well, you need to find out why that policy isn't being followed,
and you need to encourage people to be very frank and open.
In a root cause analysis,
that's retrospective, it's reactive.
So, in an RCA we're looking at one specific kind of failure,
trying to prevent that from happening again,
whereas in FMEA, we're looking at a whole host of potential failures,
trying to prevent them from happening again for the first time.
But in RCA, we're focused on one particular failure that already occurred.
We're asking why did it happen?
Who was involved, and why they were set up to make the error?
It can- what we're trying to do with an RCA,
is to try to figure out how can that harm be prevented in the future.
But like in FMEA,
it also needs frank,
open discussions and it should be safe for our employees to have those conversations.
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4355
|
__label__cc
| 0.593882
| 0.406118
|
Robotics: Aerial Robotics
4.5 (1,995 classificações) | 79K alunos inscritos
Curso 1 de 6 no Robótica Programa de cursos integrados
How can we create agile micro aerial vehicles that are able to operate autonomously in cluttered indoor and outdoor environments? You will gain an introduction to the mechanics of flight and the design of quadrotor flying robots and will be able to develop dynamic models, derive controllers, and synthesize planners for operating in three dimensional environments. You will be exposed to the challenges of using noisy sensors for localization and maneuvering in complex, three-dimensional environments. Finally, you will gain insights through seeing real world examples of the possible applications and challenges for the rapidly-growing drone industry. Mathematical prerequisites: Students taking this course are expected to have some familiarity with linear algebra, single variable calculus, and differential equations. Programming prerequisites: Some experience programming with MATLAB or Octave is recommended (we will use MATLAB in this course.) MATLAB will require the use of a 64-bit computer.
Motion Planning, Robotics, Quadcoper, Matlab
Well balanced mix of theory and practical applicability. Explanation of the material is also very good.\n\nThe assignments are nicely built on the taught material to stimulate understanding.
Exceptional Material, not only are the concept are explained well, the supplementary material are provided for all possible requirement along side. Advance course with minimum prerequisite
Introduction to Aerial Robotics
Welcome to Week 1! In this week, you will be introduced to the exciting field of Unmanned Aerial Robotics (UAVs) and quadrotors in particular. You will learn about their basic mechanics and control strategies and realize how careful component selection and design affect the vehicles' performance. This week also provides you with instructions on how to download and install Matlab. This software will be used throughout this course in exercises and assignments, so it is strongly recommended to familiarize yourself with Matlab soon. Tutorials to help you get started are also provided in this week.
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles7:08
Quadrotors3:48
Key Components of Autonomous Flight1:29
State Estimation7:34
Applications3:43
Meet the TAs0:52
Nemirovsky Family Dean of Penn Engineering and Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics
Selecionar um idiomaChinês (simplificado)EspanholInglêsJaponêsNepaliPortuguese (Brazilian)RomenoSwedishTamil
Welcome to Aerial Robotics, the first course in the Robotics Specialization.
This course exposes you to the mechanics, design, the control and planning
of robotic flight in three-dimensional environments for micro aerial vehicles.
With an emphasis on quadrotors, a special, but
important class of micro aerial vehicles.
You will learn about the opportunities in the field of aerial robotics or drones.
You will get a basic understanding of the dynamics of micro aerial vehicles and
how to control them.
We will discuss the challenges in developing sensors for safe and
autonomous flight.
You will learn how to get robots to plan and
execute complex maneuvers in three-dimensional environments.
We will discuss the effects of size on maneuverability and agility.
We use a combination of simple models, interactive simulations and
illustrative experiments to give you an understanding of how
robotics technology is changing the world we live in.
And now, let's begin.
Unmanned aerial vehicles are closely related to aerial robotics.
Over the last 30 years, the number of UAVs in the world have grown exponentially.
In 2010, there were predictions of a $10 billion industry.
Most of the applications being in the military sector, the civilian sector.
And of course, the DIY sector where there are thousands if not
millions of users developing all kinds of software and hardware platforms for UAV's.
The FAA that year, predicted over 15,000 civilian drones by 2020.
Let's fast forward to today.
It's now clear that this industry is even bigger.
There's widespread interest in UAVs.
In fact, there were 15,000 drones sold in the US alone every month.
It's already a 15 billion dollar industry projected to grow 25 billion in 2020 and
the applications range from agriculture, photography, inspection,
construction, border patrols and producing movies.
There are many other times that we use to reference aerial robots or
unmanned aerial vehicles.
The military uses remotely piloted vehicles as a descriptor for
vehicles that are unmanned.
And of course, the layperson and the press know them as drones.
The military would question the use of the term drones.
General Norton Schwartz, the person who actually used drones and
actually popularized the use of drones within the military is said to have
said that drones mischaracterize what these things are.
They're not dumb, nor are they actually unmanned.
They're remotely piloted vehicles and you can see that in this picture.
There are two UAV operators, operating a vehicle from an air force
base in New Mexico and this is true for every remotely piloted vehicle
that the military uses, but we're not gonna draw the distinction.
For us, UAVs are the same as remotely piloted vehicles and
that's the same as aerial robots and that's the same as drones.
This field is rapidly growing.
In fact, it's evolving and we're just in the beginning of this evolution process.
There's also a lot of concern about regulation.
People are worried about UAVs, whether they are safe or not.
People are worried about privacy.
These UAVs usually have cameras and
the cameras take pictures that can be intrusive.
There's also a question of security,
as adversaries think about how they can manipulate sensors or control systems and
tap into the inner workings of a UAV to do things they were not designed to do.
Our interest in this course is primarily in micro aerial vehicles.
In contrast to the vehicles that you see on the right-hand side of the screen,
which can weigh a lot, which are very big and fly high above the Earth's surface.
The ones on the left-hand side of the screen are much smaller,
they're capable of navigating in indoor environments and
three-dimensional unstructured settings and that's what we're gonna focus on here.
There are many different geometries,
many different designs you can choose to build micro aerial vehicles.
You might consider using fixed wing vehicles.
These have a disadvantage as you think of them as operating in confined spaces.
Vehicles like this cannot just come to a stop in midair.
They cannot hover like helicopters can.
Flapping wing vehicles that are patterned after insects or birds can,
in fact, stop and hover.
If you look at the humming bird,
it's capable of hovering in place by just flapping its wings and
people have tried to build vehicles based on these kinds of geometries.
However, the fluid mechanics is complicated.
It involves studying vortex shedding from wings and
unsteady flows and it's very hard to model these and
invert these models to control these kinds of vehicles autonomously.
The obvious geometry to consider when you consider micro aerial vehicles are rotor
crafts and there are many different type of rotor crafts you might imagine.
Helicopters are the ones that we're most accustomed to seeing.
Rotor crafts would consist of two co-axial rotors spinning in
opposite directions are also a candidate of geometry,
but the simplest geometry are simple rotor aircrafts.
Quadrotors or hex rotors, as you see over here.
This has six rotors, all controlled independently that allow the vehicle
to be controlled in height and in orientation and in translation.
The vehicle of choice in this course is going to be a quadrotor.
Again, this vehicle has four rotors powered by independent motors all
mounted on a fixed frame and we tried to make these vehicles smaller.
Because by making them smaller, you also make them safer and
you make them more maneuverable.
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4356
|
__label__cc
| 0.564917
| 0.435083
|
Gold Craft Furniture’s Boosts Luxury Living with new Owerri Showroom
Gold Craft Furniture’s Boosts Luxury Living with new Owerri Showroom.
As Uche Nwosu, Ozurigbo, Enjoin Imolites to invest in Imo
Gold Craft Concepts INT’L LTD, a home of luxury antique furniture’s, with its show room located on 27 Yaradua drive, new Owerri, IMO state was formally opened for business at the weekend as it boosted shopping experience in heartland city and environ with high quality home, office and hotel furniture at a very competitive price.
Speaking at the opening ceremony of the multi-million naira showroom, weekend, the CEO Mr. Darlington Nwoke , said the showroom which is it’s first outlet in Imo, was immaculately designed with every detail carefully implemented with delightful and exciting customer shopping experience in mind, emphasizing that the store will serve as a one-stop shop for all customer who need sofa,bed, dining ,cabinet, antique, decoration, gold crafted frames,turn key projects, lightening among others.
Darlington Nwoke said “we have created an environment where customers both cooperate and individual clients, with onerous task of making the difference in products quality and service can find everything they want under one roof, get the best quality and have a delightful, fulfilling and exciting shopping trip ”.
From interactions with the young and vibrant Chief Executive officer CEO and a walk through the premises, one could tell easily, that although Gold Craft isn’t currently the largest furniture showroom in the country, it is definitely poised to become the best in Imo state.
He said In attempt for Gold Craft furniture to get closer to its clients, Gold Craft has expanded its showrooms in different parts of Nigeria, with offices in Lagos ( km 20 Lekki express way,Igbo bustop,Efon ,Lekki), Abuja ,Abia and Portharcourt with intense effort to open new offices in other cities.
He further maintained that Gold Craft is composed of a carefully selected blend of well-educated team, both highly skilled and semi- skilled work force, this team are determined to ensure that the company’s aims and objectives are achieved at all times.
The duo of the Chief of Staff to the Imo State government, Hon Uche Nwosu, and the Deputy Speaker of the Imo State House of Assembly, Rt Hon Ugonna Ozurigbo, where both elated and marveled at the state of the art furniture home and thanked the CEO or bring the business home instead of moving it to other cities.
Hon Uche Nwosu who represented the Governor and cut the tapes to the edifice pledged the support of the government to the establishment.
Updated: January 8, 2018 — 8:13 am
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4360
|
__label__wiki
| 0.509765
| 0.509765
|
Why was the Declaration of Independence Necessary?
The colonists wanted to break their political bonds that connected them from Britain and to declare their independence.
What is the Preamble of the Declaration of Independence?
It's the introduction. It stated the subject of independence in clear and simple terms so everyone would understand it. It described the free government that the colonists wanted.
What is the Democratic Philosophy of Government that the Declaration is based on?
All men are created equal
All men have the rights to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
The government is created to protect these rights
The people can change the government if the government become destructive and does not protect the peoples rights.
What is the list of Grievances?
A list of complaints by the colonists that were outlined in the Declaration of Independence. The list was approved by the Continental Congress. The list proved that their was good reason to demand independence from England. They are directed at King George III of England.
What is the significance of the Declaration of Independence?
It was the proclamation of new ideas:
It was the end of hereditary class distinctions
"all men are created equal'
"unalienable rights"
It was the end of divine right of Kings.
Instead the Rule was by "the consent of the governed."
It was the end of colonial government-
People had the right to overthrow and to "institute new government."
self evident
Obvious. Not needing proof.
unalienable rights
rights of people that cannot be taken away
life, liberty ,and the pursuit of happiness
These are the rights given to men by God and that government protects.
consent of the governed
the permission of the people. Governments authority depends on the permission of the people.
abolish and institute a new government
if the government is destructive and no longer protects the rights of the people then the people have the right to remove it and replace it with another governing body
absolute despotism
to rules with violence and threat of punishment
injuries and usurpations
harm and the wrongful seizing by force
absolute tyranny
complete rule by one person called a dictator
"That the united colonies. . .to be free and independent states."
The colonies want to be free from all english rule and law. The colonies would rule themselves and make their own laws, declare war, trade freely, and make alliances with foreign countries.
What is the purpose of the Declaration of Independence?
It stated that the colonies wanted to be free from English control.
Did the DOI justify American Independence?
Yes. The colonists were able to put all their grievances against the tyrannical behavior of Britain in one list directed at the King of England. It explained in clear and simple words that the rights of the colonist were the same traditional rights of all British people that had be fought for and protected for centuries.
Why were the signers of the DOI courageous?
Colonists were English citizens.
Committing treason, the crime of betraying one's country, especially by attempting to overthrow the government) was punishable by death, they and their entire families could have been killed.
what does Thomas Jefferson mean when he wrote "all men created are equal mean?
Thomas Jefferson was referring to white men only. Woman and Native Indians had no rights, black people were slaves.
Why would the DOI document unite 13 separate colonies in 1776?
Because it contained the beliefs of all 13 colonies and made the statement that they would be one people -- Americans.
What are the three values or principles of the DOI that we still share today?
Liberty-freedom
Equality-all people are created equal
Justice-the government is run by the people.
These are still the basic values of our democratic political systems.
#5- The Declaration of Independence
josiesmithhh
The Enlightenment & American Revolution
audrey_gates19
Enlightenment Ideas in the Declaration of Independence
Rebecca_Frei
American Revolution and Enlightenment
Darielisxo
Oscar Wao Words 41-59
ann_stott
masekine4
klevesque
Chapter 2: The Constitution
cells_resp
Shays' rebellion p.22
kwhuh
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4361
|
__label__cc
| 0.535562
| 0.464438
|
The Maze of Greed – Part Eleven : SS.
March 1, 2015 / razorbackwriteraus
Danger is lurking around every corner of the maze. Lydia and her warlock, Raul are going to be reunited in the hunt for Mariela and Bandit. Scar, is still trapped in the hat, but he has sent the young witch’s family to her rescue. While all this goes on, a dark figure watches over all. Death…is coming.
Scene setting : The Maze of Greed – Seven Sins series.
Co-written with Dessy, Phyln, and Artie.
Artie: Bandit helped to keep herself up in Mariela’s arms, her lips pursing slightly at the sounds of hellhounds. Amazing how Lydia got some at her disposal, Lucifer kept them to himself most days. Though, with her obtaining of them Bandit could only assume that they weren’t really the top-notch of his elite squad. “Listen, man, I don’t really know you but those things are literally impossible to kill. You can knock them out but that’s next to impossible. I think our best bet here is to make a run for it, or we’re all going to be fucked.” She looked at Douglas, not quite taking in the irony of her words in that she couldn’t run, much less move her legs at all. She leaned into Mariela yet still felt guilty for having the other person carry her – clearly, Bandit didn’t like relying on others. “And if you even want to see Quinn again, I’m sure you don’t want it to be when she sees your soul thrashing about in the river. That place ain’t for the faint of hearted.
Razorbackwriter: Screaming protests coming from behind him went virtually unheard as the Giant started to run into the direction of where the hell hound roars were coming from. When the chips were down, Duggie was a man of action, not words. This would leave Mariela left behind holding onto Bandit. She’d been given the order to run by the Giant, as he tried to stave off the oncoming attack forces of Lydia. Pounding footfalls raged along the inside of the maze, while a few turns away, the hell-hounds of Greed were getting closer. Their craving for blood so great, having been near starved by the evil Demoness of Greed and Ambition.
As Lydia strolled along behind her trusted dogs of war, there came a spluttering from a nearby hedge wall. It was enough to have the Demoness stop in her tracks. A cloud of leaves spewed out of the hedge covered in spittle, followed by the angry snarl of one very annoyed warlock. Lydia of course, recognized the voice and then stuck her hand into the hedge, only to drag Raul out by his collar. When his head appeared, Lydia leaned down and stared him in the eyes.
“You let yourself get caught in the bushes?!”
“When were you going to tell me that a giant lurked in this maze?” He replied just as angrily. A huge egg like bump on his head. It still smarted. “Giant? What giant?” This was certainly news to her. Lydia brought the maze over from the Fallen mansion. She had no idea that someone was in it. Growling, she gave a good hearty tug of Raul’s collar and the rest of him fell free of the hedge’s grasp. He lay on the ground at her feet, panting heavily, but not before looking up at her. She was wearing a dress and tight pants that were more for hunting. So…she decided to come down off her pedestal and join into the game. The warlock pushed himself up to standing, brushing the leaves off his coat, when Lydia grabbed a fist full of his shirt and snarled at him.
“Don’t EVER disappear on me for the sake of another woman…again!…Do I make myself perfectly clear?” Lydia had a powerful grip, that was easy to see, and though the Warlock tried to pull back he found that she was a lot stronger than she looked.
He was about to answer, when he heard the barking and snarling of the hell hounds that Lydia had released into the maze. “There’s hell hounds in this thing?!” It was the one beast of hell he particularly didn’t care for. They were unpredictable, and savage in their attacks. Rarely paying any attention to their masters, or Mistresses as the case may be. Lydia gave a little shrug, not really caring for his opinion on her actions.
All Raul knew was that his Bandit was in the maze with these hell dogs, and in her state from his recollection, she was not going to possibly outrun the Hell hounds. For once in the evil Warlock’s life, he didn’t want Lydia to win.
“Come along then, my pet and see the end of that cheeky little witch and her babbling alp now!” Skirts swishing as she headed off after her hell hounds, Raul marched along silently behind her. Lydia didn’t know that Scar was no longer in the maze.
Far off in the maze, the first of the hell hounds rounded the corner and leapt up at the Giant, who swung his battle axe with a marksman’s like precision. ~WHACK!~
“Cop that ya stinkin’ mongrel!”
~RB~
Dessy: Mariela continued holding Bandit with ease, only adjusting slightly so she could switch the hat to her other hand. She looked down as Bandit spoke, giving a nod of agreement.“I agree with Bandit. I don’t know much about Hellhounds, but I know Lydia. And if Hellhounds are as bad as described, and Lydia has them – we need to run.” she spoke. Bandit mentioned something about his soul thrashing in a river, but the Giant wasn’t listening. Next thing the girls knew, the giant was running towards the Hellhounds, and he was screaming for them to run. “Well… Looks like it’s just us.”Mariela said simply.
But she didn’t argue. “Hold on tight.” she said, then turned around and began running for it. As they ran, they could hear the Giant and his giant axe being smashed on the Hellhounds. But Mariela didn’t turn around – she had a feeling Lydia was searching for her specifically, since the Hellhounds showed up, but no Lydia. She kind of already figured she’d have to fght Lydia, but at the moment her main priority was getting Bandit to safety.
They made it far enough to where the Giant and the Hellhounds could no longer be heard. Mariela slowed down to a walk, walking over and placing Bandit on the ground somewhere, before catching her breathe. “We’re safe, for now. Just give me a second.” she said, looking down at Bandit. She then paused to look around the maze, and narrowed her eyes as if in thought. “I wonder if…” she started, but trailed off. “Here, watch this.” she told Bandit, placing Scar’s hat beside her. She then walked over to a hedge that was covered in vines, tilting her head. She held out one hand, before picking her other one up slowly and beginning to move it. She moved it forward then moved it back, as if she was pulling the vine. The vine moved off of the wall, following the movement of her hand. She moved her hand to the right, and the vine followed. Mariela then moved her hand over her head, moving it in a circle. The vine began to wrap it’s self around a nearby statue.
“It works!” Mariela said with a smile, stopping the hand above her head, causing the vine to stop moving. She then closed her held out hand, before moving both hands down. “That makes things easier.” she said with a nod, turning around to Bandit. She could control Earth and nature – and being in a maze that was full of plants, vines and nature – she had benefits. She smiled as she walked towards Bandit, kneeling down to pick her up again. But then she felt a strange, yet somewhat familiar energy from behind her. “Shit…” she mumbled, standing up and turning around. She suspected it to be Lydia – so she prepared herself. But that’s not who it was.
There was a light, and then a “pop” as three figures stood in front of Mariela and Bandit. “Marie, stop! It’s me. It’s Tessa.”the female of the group spoke, letting go of the collar they were holding and stepping forward. “I’m here with your brothers… Sam and Sean.” she gestured to them, both stepping forward. Sean held the collar, but they all stared at Mariela.
“What?” Mariela asked, blinking in a bit of confusion. But when they stepped forward and she saw their faces, she widened her eyes before running toward them and getting welcomed in a group hug. “Oh my god!” she said when she pulled away. “Wow! Tessa, you’re as beautiful as ever. And Sam and Sean… you two have grown so much!” she spoke to each of them. “What are you doing here?”
“Scar sent us here. His hat sent him down to Earth, and thanks to the help of a spell in one of your journals we were able to save, he managed to send us back.” Sam spoke, nodding to his brother. “He said you needed help with someone named Lydia after we talked to him in the forest. We didn’t believe him for a second.” Sean spoke. “So Scar is alive…” she spoke, turning around to look at Bandit. “That’s why he wanted us to jump into the hat! It’d send us back to Earth where he knew we’d be safe.” she spoke, before turning back around. “Where is Scar?”
“He couldn’t come with us. But he said if you still have his hat, just call his name into it to summon him.” Tessa said, and Mariela turned around and gestured to the hat. “I do have that hat.” she said. “Good… but we don’t have time for that right now. We have to move.” she said, but paused. “Wait…” she said, taking the amulet off and handing it to Mariela. “That survived the fire. I had to wear it to be brought here… plus, I figured you’d need it to have full control of your powers.” Tessa spoke, and Mariela took the amulet. She looked it over, before slipping it around her neck. The red amulet glowed for a second after she put it on, as did Mariela’s green eyes. She nodded her head, before turning around to Bandit. “I know you’re confused… but I’ll explain later. It’s a long story.” she said, kneeling down and picking Bandit up.
“Who’s she?” Sean asked. “This is Bandit. We’re running from the same person. Me and Scar found her in the maze bruised and bleeding, and I tried to heal her. Unfortunately, something went wrong with my magic and she became paralyzed. So she can’t feel her legs.” Mariela said, receiving a nod from them. “There’s one other in the maze – a giant named Douglas. He was holding back the Hellhounds so we could run off. No idea how he got here.” she said.
“Enough talk. Let’s move!” Tessa said, running over to grab Scar’s hat. She then began running forwards, leading the way. Mariela was next to her with Bandit with her two brothers running behind – it was as if they were guarding her.
Phyln: The group parted ways in front of him the giant dashing right past blinded by his own agenda heading back the way Solomon had come. his head turned slowly as he kept his eyes on the giant until he was out of sight and the sound of combat echoed back. his head snapped back towards the two girls as the quickly headed off the other direction, this made his decision easier pivoting on his heel he followed the direction of the giant. the other two don’t seem to be in any immediate danger my best bet is to head to the area of conflict the clacking of his boots and the methodic tick of his cane on the ground was only overshadowed by the sound of battle gradually growing louder as he approached. With a swift movement he changed his grasp on his cane now holding it like a sword as he covered the last few meters and the giant came into view. the sight ahead of him caught him off guard while the giant alone was quiet a surprising sight the hellhounds were an unwelcome one. such rapid feral beast he could easily get dragged into this. With a sigh he finished his approach and remained a small distance away not close enough for the giant to consider him hostile but still maintaining a good view and with any luck staying out of the way of the hounds. unsure of how they would fair against each other he decided that regardless of the victor of the battle he watched he would either have a giants soul or that of a few hounds.
Artie: Bandit held onto the running Mariela, wincing with each bumpy step. She knew that Mariela was trying to be careful, but it wasn’t pleasant. Walking, she had been able to deal with. Running.. each step of the little witch sent Bandit’s wounds to be on fire, the injuries fixed externally but merely patched together hastily internally. As she was set down, the thief breathed relief and focused on Mariela’s powers. Had she been unaccustomed to such shows, perhaps she would have gazed in wonder, let out a “wow” or “whoa.” Alas, Raul’s more intensive magics only made Bandit gaze with apprehension, her brow raising. “You’re stuck inside a giant maze and you only remember now that you have powers over plants?”
A sigh made her tilt her head back and close her eyes, hand resting limply on the ground. As Mariela finished and leaned over her, Bandit would suddenly open her eyes and blink in surprise. “Shit..”
Imagine an invitation to a family reunion of a roommate, but it wasn’t your family to begin with and your roommate who you’d just met invited you to come. Well, you may possibly be involved with your roommate in the future, so you don’t want to get off on the wrong foot and just say ‘no,’ do you? Yet at the same time as they exchange in their ‘hello’s you feel an profound urge to simply run away, but alas you cannot, because you’ve been forced into this situation to begin with. This was exactly the feeling that Bandit had, intensifying the curses in her head that she held for Raul. Blast him! Blast him to bits! Though, this Mariela character had a good heart, and Bandit suddenly found herself wishing to be more like her. Though, in her core Bandit was, it had just not been realized. Care for someone such as Riley did not come from a thief like Bandit, yet it was there. Somehow, she could be turned into the caring individual that, perhaps, living a normal life would have made her be.
“Can’t you just call the guy while we walk? You can call someone and run at the same time, can’t you?” Bandit wasn’t trying to be sarcastic, just bring light on the situation. She figured that right now, it would be best to have all the people on their side as necessary… especially with hellhounds on the loose. “Why don’t you use your powers and just part all the hedges? There’s got to be an exit, or you can make one, can’t you?” She grunted as Mariela ran, taking the brunt of the movements.
The little thief could only feel pain, but boy, at least it was something.
Razorbackwriter:
Douglas the Giant was fighting valiantly up ahead in the maze. One…two…three hell hounds were attacking one after the other, as the might giant swung his battle axe at them much like a cricketer swings a bat. For each hell hound he hit, another seemed to take his place. One lunged at the giant’s left arm and the Giant twisted his waist and swung the bastard hound off and into the waiting bushes. The hell hound landed a good ten feet away, before coming to its senses and rising once more. These dogs seemed to be unstoppable, and as much as Douglas tried to keep them at bay, it was soon going to be a lost battle. He was trying to give the witch and her disabled companion time in which to make a getaway, or at least find the center of the labyrinth and end their nightmare.
As he swung at yet another barking hound, he could hear the dark cackle of the arrival of the Mistress of the Hounds of Greed. The Princess bitch herself, Lydia – now rounded the corner, and when the Giant clapped eyes on her, he snorted through his huge nostrils and gave her dog one extra powerful whack. This was enough to send the hell hound flying over the nearest hedge wall – yelping as it did so.
“NO!” Lydia roared, raising up her hand as the dark green energy within her was starting to build out of her fury. Raul came around the corner shortly there after and saw the battered giant facing off against Lydia.
“That’s him! The one that knocked me into the bushes.”
“AYE! AND I DIDN’T HIT YA HARD ENOUGH!”
The giant gripped his battle axe with a white knuckled intensity as he stared the two down. “I’m not afraid of you two. Yer the bitch that put this maze here. Bet ya didn’t think I was here, did ya?” Douglas spat down at the ground at her feet, and sneered. “I seen better heads on a mug of beer, Ya ugly trollop!”
~gasp!~ Did the Giant really say that? Lydia brought her free hand up to her face, absolutely horrified that he would make a crack about her new face. Raul, who was standing in behind tried very hard to suppress a chuckle, since the idea of having a crack at Lydia’s appearance was kinda funny.
“You might want to keep that trap of yours shut, unless you want the Princess here to do something nasty.”
“I AIN’T TAKING ORDERS FROM YOU, YA DICKLESS TWAT!”
Douglas roared again as he swatted away yet another hell hound that lunged at him, this time hitting so hard that all you could see was the hell hounds arse sticking out of the hedge.
“This the best you got, bitch! I lived with a freakin’ hell hound. One a darn sight better than your show dogs.”
Raul brought his hands up, as though he had seen enough as the hair on the back of Lydia’s neck bristled. The powerful green ball was glowering in her hand, and it matched the fury with the one on her face. Her hell hounds were coming off second best to the Giant’s fury and powerful swings. But what he didn’t count on, was the Princess’s power. Gritting her teeth in anger, she released the massive green ball of energy at the Giant, which hit him hard in the chest. Douglas staggered backwards as he jerked and spasmed violently. She continued to warp and bend the energy till it wound its’ way all around Douglas, who now had one band of green light wrapped tight around his neck. It was slowly lifting him off the ground.
Watching from in behind, Raul tuttered and folded his arms.
“I did try to warn you, mate.”
The Giant dropped his battle axe and was clutching at the green energy ringlet around his neck, gasping and spluttering violently, as his legs kicked out in desperation. His eyes were bulging practically out of his head, it was a poor way to see the giant fare against the might of Lydia. Lydia threw her hand far right and this sent Douglas spinning up and well over the hedge wall….far out of sight. Only after a good ten seconds did you hear the earth shuddering crash of his body hitting the earth. The tremor was enough to be felt at least a kilometer away. Reigning in her power, Lydia snarled and pushed up her sleeves.
“One down…..two to go!”
The Princess started to march onward, stepping over the bodies of her fallen hell hounds. Raul let out a sigh and followed along behind. Lydia had no idea that there were more in the maze, than just the alp and the witch. She didn’t count Bandit, as she knew nothing of her.
Bandit, collaboration, comedy, danger, death, Douglas, drama, fantasy, fiction, Giant, hunted, Lydia, Mariela, quest, Raul, series, Seven Sins, story, The Maze of Greed, warlock, witch, writing
← Checkmate.
Don’t stop Believin’ – Rock of Ages. →
8 thoughts on “The Maze of Greed – Part Eleven : SS.”
godumusings
Thanks again for visiting my blog today.
Sorry about close loss to NZ yesterday. A great game though! Cheers.
We shall rise again in triumph. Mark my words. Cheers.
I have no doubts. Just hope that you guys don’t do it against us!
ladysighs
I love all the graphics you put with your stories. 🙂
(I confess I have a hard time reading long stuff 😦 but know you have a great time writing with your pals. 🙂 )
Mhm, they are all jumping in with their own gifs to help illustrate their characters.
Let me rephrase my comment to say,
I love all the graphics you all (that’s Texas speak lol ) put with your stories. 🙂
Cheers. I’ll let the other writers know.
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4366
|
__label__wiki
| 0.754773
| 0.754773
|
Carnegie strikes historic PPA for wave energy plant
Carnegie strikes PPA for 2MW wave energy plant as Mike Fitzpatrick emerges with significant stake in Perth-based developer.
Giles Parkinson Posted on 16 July 2012 17 July 2012 0 Comments
Australia’s Carnegie Wave Energy on Monday signed an “historic” power purchase agreement (PPA) with the Australian Department of Defence for its 2MW demonstration plant that is being built off Garden Island near Fremantle in Western Australia.
The PPA means that the HMAS Stirling naval based on Garden Island will buy all the energy from the installation, which will be Australia’s first commercial-scale grid connected wave energy facility.
“It is significant, in light of current efforts by international navies to increase their renewable energy mix such as the US Navy, for the Australian Department of Defence and Royal Australian Navy to be supporting the development of emerging clean technologies like Carnegie’s CETO through the purchase of electricity,” Carnegie Wave Energy CEO Dr Michael Ottaviano said.
Carnegie Wave Energy says it expects to deliver the first power from the project by the end of 2013. Two other Australian wave energy technologies have received funding from the federal government in recent weeks, while US-based OPT last week announced it had teamed up with Lockheed Martin for the development of its delayed 19MW project in Victoria. All technologies expect to have costs down to around $100/MW by the end of the decade.
The PPA was signed just days after a green venture fund led by Mike Fitzpatrick has snapped up a 6 per cent stake in Carnegie Wave Energy at a bargain basement price after picking up the bulk of shares being offered by UK-based Renewable Energy Holdings. REH had its 21 per cent stake up for sale after deciding to wind up its affairs.
A total of 12.6 per cent was sold at just 1c a share to a group of Australian investors, including Fitzpatrick’s 88 Green Ventures, which lifts its stake from around 1 per cent to 6.2 per cent. Fitzpatrick, the former Carlton footballer, is founder of Hastings Funds Management and is a director of Ri0 Tinto. His green venture fund has investments in electric vehicles, fuel cells, silicon production, and sustainable agriculture, as well as wave energy.
The other buyers are an un-named WA family and several smaller funds managers. They picked up their stake at a considerable discount to the prevailing market price, which was 3.5c. The remaining shares in Carnegie held by REH are to be distributed to its own shareholders, which include UBS, Henderson Global Investors and EdF, the French energy giant which is funding its European and Indian Ocean projects.
Ottaviano said the agreement removed a large active seller of Carnegie Wave Energy shares from the market place, and the downward price pressure. “It replaces REH with a small consortium of supportive investors with a long term focus, led by an existing shareholder with an outstanding track record in power and infrastructure investment,” he said.
Should green energy be sold to the lowest bidder?
Intersolar: The solar industry goes mainstream
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4376
|
__label__cc
| 0.72385
| 0.27615
|
Office Central
CommercialUrban Design
SALON - Alper Derinbogaz
Office Central is a masterplan project located in the heart of Istanbul in Şişli. The Şişli – Levent Area, a former industrial and housing zone, has recently been transformed into the business center of Istanbul. Along with high FAR values and non-regulated height restrictions, the area became a fragmented collection of business towers and enclosed shopping malls. Unfortunately, the selfish nature of the functions reflects this intensified, central part of the city more than any similar environment. Neither roads nor pedestrian areas connect any two different towers or shopping malls, therefore achieving an ultimate level of isolation, even though the buildings stand right next to one another. As a result, there is no “street” or “center” feel as you walk the roads of Şişli – Levent. The “Office Central Masterplan” project acts as a combination of private and public commissions, and proposes a shift in the ongoing formation of this crucial zone. On the one hand, Office Central proposes; 1. private investment to engage the surroundings, and 2. public space to stimulate and rejuvenate the building. On the other hand, the project urges the government to motivate public space integration within private investments. The proposed program consists of offices, residences, a hotel, retail facilities and a cultural center. The architectural approach to the scheme attempts to merge the proposed environment with the existing urban texture, in relation to its scale and relative street network. Looking into reversing the logic of an isolated and domestic single inner-yard strategy, multiple public spaces are incorporated along the site boundaries by abstracting new boundaries, outward, from the dense central framework. As the building volumes start low-rise from the corners of the site (referencing the heights of the existing surroundings), they evolve into high-rises at the intersection of all main axes. Towers oriented according to the juxtaposition of view and sunlight create their own central silhouette due to their various heights and geometries. In an attempt to maximize the use of public space in relation to domestic functions, public plazas and streets, and transport connections with a strong urban network, are emphasized through the use of constructed axes that bisect the center of the site. These axes then gather the constructed environment through the central plaza, and relinquish the edges for green and public based uses.
SHARE ON TWITTER SHARE ON LINKEDIN
RECOMMENDED PROJECT
Hub Micro Housing
© 2018 SALON
We use cookies to make your experience better
Please resize your browser
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4380
|
__label__wiki
| 0.619293
| 0.619293
|
Home » Headlines » Kwaku Kwarteng goofed on GHS5.2m Ghana@60 funds – Casely-Hayford
Sydney Casely-Hayford
Kwaku Kwarteng goofed on GHS5.2m Ghana@60 funds – Casely-Hayford
in Headlines July 23, 2017 0
Financial analyst, Sydney Casely Hayford believes that deputy Finance Minister, Kwaku Kwarteng was unprepared for Parliament’s queries on the Independence Anniversary celebrations, thus providing unsatisfactory answers.
Kwaku Kwarteng had revealed in Parliament that government had allocated over 3 million cedis from its coffers, with an additional allocation of over 2 million cedis from the District Assembly Common Fund to the committee for the celebrations despite the Presidentdent having said previously the celebrations would be privately funded.
However, this was denied by the Chairman of the ‘Ghana 60 years on‘ Committee, Ken Amankwah, who said that the 5.26 million was spent on the Independence Day events and not Ghana@60 events.
According to Mr Casely-Hayford, the question from the North Tongu Member of Parliament, Okudzeto Ablakwa on why state money was used to finance the celebration was valid and that the seemingly ill-prepared Kwaku Kwarteng had not delivered convincing responses.
Speaking on Citi FM‘s news analysis programme The Big Issue, Casely Hayford said: “I think Okudzeto Ablakwa was right in asking the question he did. This is what you said and yet we’re hearing something different. Unfortunately on the day the deputy Minister, Kwaku Kwarteng wasn’t ready and adequately prepared for the question and therefore he came across as rather porous.”
“I think in so many ways he goofed because he took his eye off the ball and didn’t have enough facts to be able to answer back when he was asked. But these are the learning grounds and Ministers have to be a little sharper in order for us to get where we want to go.”
He believes that the Ministers need to be better prepared given the increased vigilance of the populace with the growing influence of new media and greater scrutiny from the opposition.
“I think they sometimes forget that we are in the age of citizen journalism and those of us outside tend to have a lot more information and a lot more insight. We are able to exchange views and ideas with fellow citizens much easier and much quicker so we get on top of issues very quickly,” he added.
“Also the ‘babies with sharp teeth’ have had some time to sharpen their teeth even better so they are coming back at the government with more specific questions than necessary. It’s a hard task when you are asked such detailed questions and you haven’t got a piece of paper in front of you to be able to address all of them. ”
This isn’t the first time a government appointee under the current administration has been accused of being unprepared when they appeared before Parliament.
The Member of Parliament for Wa West, Joseph Yieleh Chireh suggested earlier this month that the Health Minister, Kwaku Agyeman Manu was unprepared when he appeared before Parliament on Thursday to respond to questions on the debt at the National Health Insurance Scheme.
According to Mr. Yieleh-Chireh, the Minister did not make an attempt acquire the data required to answer the question despite the fact that the said request had been made two weeks prior to the encounter.
Speaking on Eyewitness News, the former Health Minister stated that the current Minister’s unpreparedness led to a number of evasive answers when he addressed the House.
“My question to the Minister was for him to tell Ghanaians about what the government has done about outstanding payments to service providers. If he was prepared to answer the questions which it appeared he wasn’t he’d have told us the amount outstanding, the amount paid so far and what’s left. He didn’t any of this at all. The purpose was to get information,” he said.
“I don’t expect a Minister to have all this information in his head but this question was posed about two weeks ago. He could have asked the agencies responsible, to provide up-to-the-minute data on how much NHIS had paid to service providers.”
Previous: Government settles GH¢539 million NHIS debt
Next: Hon. Sylvester Mensah Making Waves As He Seeks NDC Leadership!
Left To Rot-video
Mohammed Ahmed Alhassan confirmed as IGP
Severe rainstorm displaces over 700 Tamale residents
PHOTOS: Jake’s body lands in Ghana from UK
I don’t own Merchant Bank – Ibrahim Mahama
Policemen who masterminded my arrest will suffer – Obinim
Old Skuulz Reunion: ‘Jama’ in the rain as schools battle for supremacy
Ghanaian invents pocket PC tablet
Immigration Service to recruit only 500 out of 84,000 applicants
We paid $100,000 to stop screening of Anas video – Nyantakyi’s wife insists
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4383
|
__label__wiki
| 0.627812
| 0.627812
|
MotoGP: Rossi, Lorenzo gear up for Silverstone sprint
Home » MotoGP: Rossi, Lorenzo gear up for Silverstone sprint
Posted 31 August 2016
In MotoGP, Motor Racing, Motorsports
MotoGP: Rossi, Lorenzo gear up for Silverstone sprint2016-08-312016-08-31https://rtrsports.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/logo_with_rainbow.jpgRTRSportshttps://rtrsports.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/MYMm__G021908.jpg200px200px
Movistar Yamaha MotoGP‘s Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo are eager to start the British Grand Prix held this weekend at the Silverstone Circuit.
Rossi arrives at the twelfth round feeling confident after securing second place at the last race in Brno, making it a total of five podium finishes so far this season. He looks forward to riding the fast sweeping corners of Silverstone, where he rode his YZR-M1 to his first victory at this track last year. He had been successful on British soil at Donington Park in previous years, having secured three modern era premier class wins in 2002, 2004 and 2005, and two 500cc victories in 2000 and 2001.
After a difficult last race, that saw Lorenzo having to come into the pits due to tyre problems, the Mallorcan is set on making a strong comeback this weekend at a circuit where the odds are in his favour: he holds the record for the rider with the most MotoGP wins at Silverstone. Over the last six years Lorenzo has secured three premier class victories, in 2010, 2012 and 2013, and is eager add a fourth to his tally this weekend.
Silverstone made its first appearance on the MotoGP calendar in 2010 and is one of the fastest tracks on the calendar thanks to innovations to the circuit‘s lay-out, earning it high praise from the riders. The racing passion of the British fans also adds to the atmosphere of the venue, making the British Grand Prix a must-be-at event
britishGp, jorge lorenzo, motogp, Silverstone, valentino rossi
MotoGP sponsorship: what it is, how it works and all you need to know
Moto2 and Moto3 sponsorship: Why investing in smaller sporting series is more than just a good first step
SIFI and LCR Honda Team working together to spread the eyecare culture
MotoGP: Marquez, Honda head to Silverstone for another back-to-backMotoGP, Motor Racing, Motorsports
British GP: Vinales scores impressive maiden victory in SilverstoneMotoGP, Motor Racing, Motorsports
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4386
|
__label__wiki
| 0.950216
| 0.950216
|
The Young Ones of Guyana
On Tour / Reunion
BBE484ACD
LPx2
Release Date: July 12th 2019
Recorded in London back in 1970, now reissued by BBE Music, On Tour is the debut album by journeyman band The Young Ones Of Guyana. The group gained popularity in Britain through performances in London and Birmingham following the first Guyanese ‘Mashramani’, a celebration of independence from the United Kingdom. We can only assume this album was recorded during that same visit, produced by bandleader Carlton Ramprashad and issued on his own ‘Rampy’ imprint. Aside from the traditional Guyanese folk song ‘Yellow Girl’, the album covers a wide range of popular reggae, latin and calypso songs of the day, deftly performed by a group of talented musicians. Funky interpretations of reggae smash ‘The Liquidator’ and Sly & The Family Stone’s ‘Sing A Simple Song’ have made On Tour a rare and coveted classic for record collectors and DJs worldwide.
The Young Ones Of Guyana was an 8 piece band comprising drums and two percussionists alongside bass, lead guitar, Farfisa organ (played by Geoffrey King), lead vocals and rhythm guitar from founder/leader Ramprashad (apart from ‘That Wonderful Sound, which was voiced by Gordon Bevaun). Recorded at the iconic Lansdowne Studios in Holland Park, On Tour captures a youthful travelling band, carrying the excitement of their nation’s newfound freedom with them as they invited their former colonial rulers to join them in celebration of Guyana’s music and culture.
Label BBE
Genre Reggae-Dub
More from BBE
Joey Negro and Sean P present The Best of Disco Spectrum , title
Various Artists , artist
Grassroots: The Prologue / Deluxe Edition, title
Jigmastas , artist
Raw Movements / Rude Movements, title
Sun Palace , artist
The Library Archive - Funk, Jazz, Beats and Soundtracks from the Vaults of Cavendish Music, title
Various , artist
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4397
|
__label__wiki
| 0.961822
| 0.961822
|
Shannon Rae is 100 Proof California Country Rock. She is a Southern California native raised on The Eagles, Linda Ronstadt and Tom Petty and influenced by Shania Twain, Keith Urban and Carrie Underwood. Her second album, Lucky 13, showcases that Shannon has hit her stride with an original style all her own. Lucky 13 is a sassy combination of Country, Rock, Pop and even a splash of Bluegrass. Grammy award winning producer Chris Lord Alge says, "Shannon Rae has everything it takes to be a country rock star!”
Shannon’s distinctive musical career includes two all-girl trios, pop band Demimonde (Saban/Shuki Levy) and the country influenced Sweetwater Junction, which fed her desire to write and perform as a solo artist. In 2015 Shannon joined forces with producer, songwriter and band mate Dave Polich who together have written and produced a noteworthy catalog of songs, making their mark with the debut hits Walk Away, Both Guns Blazin’ and Beer Trucks & Girls. And now with the release of Lucky 13, you’ll hear the new singles Get Lucky with it’s own original choreographed dance by choreographer Kristal Lynn, and Tequila, a crowd-pleasing sing along!
Her live shows are a must see as Shannon and 100 Proof (her 6 piece band) bring a rockin’ high energy performance of all original country tunes with catchy riffs and engaging lyrics that will get the whole audience singin’ and two steppin!
Be sure to Download The Album today and check our calendar for a show near you!
Get Lucky 3:11
Daddy's Girl 2:35
Somethin' Tells Me 3:09
Both Guns Blazin' 3:35
Beer, Trucks & Girls 3:45
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4404
|
__label__cc
| 0.717841
| 0.282159
|
Home Food Dining Preview Grass-Fed Beef Vs. Factory Farming
Grass-Fed Beef Vs. Factory Farming
Dietary choices can benefit humans, cattle and the environment
by Sarah Biondich
When profit is a business’ bottom line, things canget weird and disturbing, especially within the food industry. Case in point:factory farming. Nearly all the meat, eggs and dairy products sold in U.S.
supermarkets and restaurants come from animals raised in “confined animalfeeding operations.” These immense, highly mechanized facilities are the reasongrocery stores can carry a large stock of ground chuck or beef rib-eye at anaffordable price. But if shoppers knew how these animals were treated and whatthey were fed, they would find that the price tag on that package of groundround doesn’t reflect its true cost.
As the atrocities occurring at these factory farmsmake their way into the public consciousness, consumers and farmers alike arejoining a growing revolt against industrial agriculture by supportingtraditional farming practices, like keeping cattle home on the range.
The life of a steer raised within the ag-industrialcomplex goes something like this: After it’s born, a calf is sent from a barnto a pasture sprayed with synthetic fertilizers and herbicides. When it ishalf-grown, the cow is shipped in an exposed truck or railcar to an enormousfeedlot. There, packed ass-to-elbow with other animals, it is stuffed with ahigh-energy grain diet and synthetic hormones to make it grow faster.
To cut costs, feedlot managers supplement thecattle’s feed with cheap fillers, like municipal garbage, chicken feathers,sawdust and stale chewing gum still in its aluminum foil wrapper. Biologically,cows are ruminants that thrive on a diet of fibrous grasses, plants and shrubs,so when they are fed grain, let alone aluminum foil, it’s like pumping dieselinto a car that takes unleaded gasoline. Their digestive tracts become moreacidic, giving them chronic stomach pain that causes them to kick at theirbellies and eat dirt.
Because of the unsanitary conditions it’s living inat a factory farm, the cow is administered nontherapeutic doses of antibiotics.Once it’s been fattened, the cow is trucked again, this time to aslaughterhouse, where it is butchered and shrink-wrapped.
It was only after World War II that the United Statesbegan confining cattle in factory farms. Until then, cattle grazed from birthto market on their native diet of grassas they still do in most of Europe,South America and New Zealand. Because the cattle are raised in anatural setting and at a natural pace, they lead low-stress lives where the useof antibiotics and growth hormones is unnecessary.
Some people will argue that animals are animals:They’re meant to be eaten and we shouldn’t expect them to be raised by humanstandards. Yet the quality of their meat directly affects human consumers.
When animals are 100% grass-fed, their meat has lesstotal fat, saturated fat, cholesterol and calories than feedlot meat. It’s alsohigher in omega-3 fatty acids, the healthy fats found in salmon and flaxseed,which studies suggest may help prevent heart disease and bolster the immunesystem. It also has more conjugated linoleic acid, which recent data indicatemay help prevent breast cancer and diabetes, among other ailments. In addition,it contains more vitamin E, beta-carotene and vitamin C than grain-finishedmeat.
More important is what 100% grass-fed meat doesn’tcontain. In the 1980s and ’90s, feedlot managers tried to save money by feedingcattle the remains of other cattle in the form of meat and bone meal, whichresulted in an epidemic of mad cow disease. Eating just one serving of beeffrom a cow suffering from the disease can kill a person. The overuse ofantibiotics in factory farming has caused more and more bacteria to becomeresistant to treatment. In addition, the acidity of a cow’s stomach caused froma diet of grain breeds an acid-resistant form of E. coli that can spread from feces-contaminated carcasses to meatwe eat.
We need to end our society’s habit of learninglessons the hard way. Raising our livestock on the least-cost basis common offactory farms puts our health and the well-being of animals at risk. Whenconsumers choose to buy products from animals raised on open pastures withfresh air and sunlight, where they can feast on a natural diet of grass, theyare improving animals’ welfare, maintaining environmental sustainability,supporting family farms and serving wholesome food to their friends andfamilies.
Food Dining Preview Draft Brewers MLB
Poor Grammar
Was this written by a second grader?
James 61 days ago
And yet, we keep on with our factory farms. Is ed...
And yet, we keep on with our factory farms. Is education at an earlier age the answer?
Anonymous more than 8 years ago
In my youth, children did not mature into physical...
In my youth, children did not mature into physical adults at nearly the young age they do today. I will always wonder if all the drugs we give all the animals we eat, is the cause of that change.
gary more than 9 years ago
bad comma use after eat...
bad comma use after eat
I once worked worked for a company that is now own...
I once worked worked for a company that is now owned by another that is the largest Cattle "producer" in the country if not the world at this point. I've firsthand experienced some of the largest Feedlots in the country. While I will say, I think the animals are largely treated fairly by people that view themselves as cowboys (or ranchers) even though they are working for a large corporation, then end result is cheap food that the masses like the taste of. Personally, I would eat a grass-fed beef steak any day over corn fed beef, but there is a difference in flavor that the average consumer leans towards. I think the end result is if the consumer would prefer and purchase meat "produced" in one fashion over the other, that is what will drive the supply.
mkem@ more than 9 years ago
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4405
|
__label__wiki
| 0.90661
| 0.90661
|
James Franco Says Multiple Man Pushes X-Men Into 'New Genre'
by Dan Zinski
– on Nov 27, 2017
Writer/director/actor James Franco says the Multiple Man movie he's developing with Fox and Simon Kinberg will, like Logan and Deadpool before it, push X-Men into a new genre. Franco is unable to reveal specific details about the project, but reports say he and Kinberg are teaming up to develop a spinoff movie built around the character Multiple Man, a mutant who has the ability to make instant duplicates of himself.
Jamie Madrox aka. Multiple Man first appeared in comic book form in Giant-Size Fantastic Four in 1975, going on to appear in various Marvel books over the years that followed, before coming into his own in the 1987 miniseries Fallen Angels. Originally created by Len Wein, the character was further developed by Peter David in his X-Factor books of the 1990s and 2000s. Multiple Man made his X-Men movie universe debut in 2006's X-Men: The Last Stand, where he was played by Eric Dane. James Franco was first reported to be involved in a Multiple Man spinoff film in mid-November.
Related: Multiple Man's Powers Explained
Speaking to THR, Franco stopped short of confirming that he's working on a Multiple Man movie, but did provide some general insight into the project he and Simon Kinberg are bringing to life at Fox. According to Franco, the new film will follow the example of Deadpool and Logan by putting an adult twist on X-Men:
“Our bottom line MO is, how can we push this into new ground? A little bit, but still make it entertaining? [But] what I love about what Simon Kinberg and Fox and the X-Men people have done with Deadpool and Logan — it took a while to get there, maybe 10 years — but they are going to go hard R. And we're going to take this superhero thing and really just push it into a new genre. So we’re working with Simon Kinberg on an X-Men property.”
No director has yet been named for Franco and Kinberg's project, but Wonder Woman writer Allan Heinberg is reported to be handling the script. Franco could conceivably take the directorial reins himself, given his prior experience directing his own sometimes crazy performances, most notably in the acclaimed The Disaster Artist, for which Franco is receiving Best Actor Oscar buzz.
Franco's prior experience in the superhero realm came playing Harry Osborn in Sam Raimi's original Spider-Man movies, back when the actor was still committed to becoming a straight-forward leading man. Since then, Franco has largely rejected mainstream leading man roles, choosing to cut his own sometimes bizarre path as a writer, director, actor, performance artist, Oscar host, YouTube show-off, etc., Given his history as a less-than-conventional performer, Multiple Man would seem an ideal project for Franco, who as it happens already has experience playing multiple characters at once via his dual role as Vincent and Frankie Martino in the acclaimed HBO series The Deuce.
Playing Mutiple Man, a character who is capable of creating and re-absorbing endless duplicates of himself, would give Franco a chance to go nuts with the multiple-role routine. As Franco implied with his remarks to THR, the tone of the movie should be irreverent and R-rated along the lines of Deadpool. Audiences embraced Deadpool and Logan to an unexpected degree, proving there is indeed a market out there for superhero movies that push things in interesting, new, and sometimes dark directions.
MORE: 5 Characters Lizzy Caplan Could Play in the Gambit Movie
Source: THR
Key Release Dates
Deadpool 2 (2018) release date: May 18, 2018
New Mutants (2020) release date: Apr 03, 2020
X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019) release date: Jun 07, 2019
Gambit (2020) release date: Mar 13, 2020
Tags: multiple man
Cooper Hood
Handmaid's Tale Season 3 Has the Opposite Problem to Game of Thrones
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4407
|
__label__cc
| 0.52571
| 0.47429
|
Posts Tagged ‘Wall Street reform’
Who Would Be Worse, Trump or Clinton? (updated)
Posted: June 6, 2016 in Civil Liberties, Economics, Livin' in the USA, Politics
Tags: Climate Change, Cost of education, Foreign policy, Immigration, Income inequality, LGBT rights, Marijuana legalization, Military spending, Obamacare, Reproductive Rights, Supreme Court, TTP, Universal healthcare, Wall Street reform, War On Drugs, Whistleblowers
(All of the things I refer to in the following post are matters of abundant public record. Doubt anything here? — look it up.)
Let’s consider who would be worse in the following areas:
Civil Liberties & Open Government — Clinton has a decades-long penchant for secrecy (see the e-mail scandal and her botched early ’90s attempt at healthcare reform) and has called hero-whistleblower Edward Snowden a “traitor.” Trump wants to make it far easier to sue people for their comments, and has called for the murder of Snowden. Who’s probably worse? — Tossup
Supreme Court — Who would appoint the most anti-civil-liberties, pro-corporate nominees? Clinton would probably appoint middle-of-the-road types, and Trump would likely play to his base and appoint rightist authoritarians. Who’s probably worse? — Trump
Wall Street Reform — Despite his common-man pretensions, Trump, who inherited at least tens of millions, is one of the insiders, and Clinton is seriously beholden to Wall Street. Would she do anything to financially threaten her backers? Highly doubtful. Who’s probably worse? — Tossup
Job Creation — A certain level of unemployment is helpful to employers in keeping wages down, so it’s virtually certain neither of these corporate tools would do anything meaningful in this area. Who’s probably worse? — Tossup
Cost of Education — Fewer and fewer American families can afford to send their children to college, and millions of those who do go come out of college burdened with crushing debt. Trump, who never had to worry about such things, would very likely do nothing about this. Clinton would likely initiate a few token reforms, in effect applying a band-aid to a gushing hemorrhage. Who’s probably worse? — Trump (barely)
Universal Healthcare — Both Clinton and Trump oppose it. Clinton has taken tens of millions from the private healthcare industry, and has promised to “build on” Obamacare rather than expand Medicare or initiate some other single-payer program. Instead, she’ll propose incremental changes to Obamacare that will allow big pharma and the insurance industry to continue to gouge the public. Trump will likely leave Obamacare alone for the most part, as the idea of depriving millions of voters of health insurance is politically radioactive. Neither Trump nor Clinton will do anything to advance universal healthcare. Who’s probably worse? — Tossup
Income Inequality — Trump is spewing the standard GOP Horatio Alger b.s. about “opportunity,” utterly ignoring the fact that the economic system is rigged in favor of the rich, and Clinton is running a “no we can’t” campaign, saying in veiled words that there’s nothing to be done about the theft of massive amounts of wealth from poor and working people and its transfer to the top 1%. Who’s probably worse? — Tossup
Foreign Policy — Clinton likes to kill people. She likes drones. She likes military intervention. She likes coups (e.g., the U.S.-approved coup in Honduras while she was Secretary of State). Trump, judging from his rhetoric, probably does too. But he hasn’t had the chance to fully demonstrate it. They’d both probably continue to support brutal, authoritarian regimes in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, and elsewhere. But it’s certain that Clinton would do so; with Trump — given the incoherence of his statements and positions — it’s hard to tell. They both want to prove how “tough” they are — in other words, how callous, brutal, and bloodthirsty they are. Mayhem will result no matter which of them is elected. Who’s probably worse? — Clinton
Israel/Palestine — Clinton is in the pocket of AIPAC and the Israeli extreme right, and her superpac has taken money from at least one extreme-right, extremely wealthy pro-Israel businessmen. She has pledged “unconditional support” for Israel, which if she actually means it (always an iffy proposition), means that she’ll place the welfare of the Israeli state above that of the United States. (The interests of the U.S. and Israel aren’t identical, and cannot be identical.) Trump probably is just as much a stooge for the Israeli extreme right, but he hasn’t as abjectly demonstrated it. Who’s probably worse? — Clinton
Military Spending — Thanks to easily frightened idiot voters and vested corporate interests, the U.S. currently accounts for 43% of total worldwide military spending–more than the next eight nations combined. Both Trump and Clinton worship at the altar of the military, and will almost certainly continue to do so. Who’s probably worse? — Tossup
Climate Change — Trump is (at least for primary-voter purposes) a climate change denier. Clinton seems to accept the science, but it’s doubtful how vigorously she’d address the problem. She opposes one of the most effective measures to reduce CO2 emissions, a carbon tax, and when Secretary of State she tried to push other countries into fracking. Who’s probably worse? — Trump
Immigration — Both Clinton and Trump would continue to back authoritarian governments and austerity programs overseas, governments and programs that drive people from their homes in droves creating the “immigration crisis.” However, Trump is overtly racist and has proposed horrendous measures at home. In contrast, Clinton would in all probability merely step into Obama’s shoes as “deporter in chief.” Who’s probably worse? — Trump
TTP and other Trade Deals — Hillary Clinton was in favor of TTP until she flip flopped on it last year. Previously, she spoke in favor of it more than 30 times and called it the “gold standard” of trade agreements. Make your own judgments about her sincerity. Trump is so incoherent on trade that it’s impossible to say what he’d do. Who’s probably worse? — Tossup
Reproductive Rights — Trump is openly pandering to his racist/misogynist/authoritarian base. Clinton, in turn, is pandering to those who are voting for her simply because she’s a woman (and who were presumably thrilled by the election of Margaret Thatcher 37 years ago). Nonetheless, one suspects that in this area Clinton actually has some principles and will act on them. In contrast, Trump, who previously publicly favored reproductive rights, is now pandering to the religious right. Who’s probably worse? — Trump
LGBT Rights — Trump, who probably doesn’t care about this issue at all, is currently pandering to the religious right, endorsing its anti-transgender sideshow. Clinton in contrast might actually care about this issue, and would likely deliver on LGBT rights should she be elected, because that would cost her corporate backers nothing. Who’s probably worse? — Trump
“War on Drugs” — Back in 1990, Trump said he was in favor of legalizing drugs to “win” the “war on drugs.” More recently, he’s flip flopped back and forth on the issue. Clinton, characteristically, has repeatedly refused to take a stand even on pot legalization. Given her “no we can’t” incrementalism, it’s highly unlikely she’d initiate any major reforms to scale back or eliminate the “war on drugs.” And she’d be wedged in by the authoritarian “drug warriors” in her own party and by the Republicans, who would very probably go nuts if she’d try to initiate any real reforms. Trump, in contrast, would be much freer to initiate real reforms. Who’s probably worse? — Clinton
One other consideration is that if Clinton is elected, and predictably does nothing about economic inequality, there will very probably be an even more extreme far-right backlash than there is now, as Fox “News” and the rest of the right-wing echo chamber present the authoritarian right-centrist Clinton as a “leftist” or even a “socialist.” She’ll also almost certainly continue Obama’s war on whistleblowers and, under the guise of national security, will whittle away at what remains of our freedoms. And the Democrats will do nothing to oppose her. If Trump is elected, the Democrats will probably show what passes for spine, stand up to some extent to his authoritarianism (which they haven’t done against Obama), and there would likely be a relatively large leftist backlash against Trump and his inevitable failures.
In other words, Clinton’s election would likely lead to the growth of an outright fascist movement, while proto-fascist Trump’s election might lead to a significant antiauthoritarian leftist backlash. At the same time, Trump’s election might embolden his supporters and lead to an outright fascist movement that would attempt to crush leftist opposition. It’s an ugly, all-too-possible scenario.
The upside to all this? If Clinton wins, the look on Trump’s, Mike Pence’s, Jabba the Ailes’, and Trump’s smug, entitled kids’ faces. If Trump wins, the looks on Bill and Hillary Clinton’s, Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s, Diane Feinstein’s, and Rahm Emanuel’s faces. And, if Trump wins, the iron hold of the authoritarian neo-liberal corporatists on the Democratic Party might be broken, or at least loosened.
It’s cold comfort.
Clinton vs. Trump? It’s a nauseating choice. That one or the other of these deeply dishonest, opportunistic, power-mad authoritarians will take control of the vast American surveillance/coercive state is horrifying.
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4410
|
__label__wiki
| 0.62755
| 0.62755
|
Main research site Explore Bristol Research
Awards and activities
Faculties, schools and groups
Volatile organic compounds emitted from faeces as a biomarker for colorectal cancer
Citation formats
[ BibTeX ]
[ RIS ]
Ashley Bond
Rosemary Greenwood
Bernard Corfe
Sanchoy Sarkar
Paul O’Toole
Michael Burkitt
Georgina Hold
Chris Probert
Show more...Show less
Alimentary Pharmacology and Therapeutics
10.1111/apt.15140
Accepted/In press - 20 Dec 2018
E-pub ahead of print - 28 Mar 2019
Published (current) - 1 Apr 2019
Link to publication in Scopus
Background: Colorectal cancer remains a leading cause of mortality and morbidity. The UK Bowel Cancer Screening Programme (BCSP) has demonstrated that detection of colorectal cancer at an earlier stage and identification of advanced pre-malignant adenomas reduces mortality and morbidity. Aim: To assess the utility of volatile organic compounds as a biomarker for colorectal neoplasia. Methods: Faeces were collected from symptomatic patients and people participating in the UK BCSP, prior to colonoscopy. Headspace extraction followed by gas chromatography mass spectrometry was performed on faeces to identify volatile organic compounds. Logistic regression modelling and 10-fold cross-validation were used to test potential biomarkers. Results: One hundred and thirty-seven participants were included (mean age 64 years [range 22-85], 54% were male): 60 had no neoplasia, 56 had adenomatous polyp(s) and 21 had adenocarcinoma. Propan-2-ol was significantly more abundant in the cancer samples (P < 0.0001, q = 0.004) with an area under ROC (AUROC) curve of 0.76. When combined with 3-methylbutanoic acid the AUROC curve was 0.82, sensitivity 87.9% (95% CI 0.87-0.99) and specificity 84.6% (95% CI 0.65-1.0). Logistic regression analysis using the presence/absence of specific volatile organic compounds, identified a three volatile organic compound panel (propan-2-ol, hexan-2-one and ethyl 3- methyl- butanoate) to have an AUROC of 0.73, with a person six times more likely to have cancer if all three volatile organic compounds were present (P < 0.0001). Conclusions: Volatile organic compound analysis may have a superior diagnostic ability for the identification of colorectal adenocarcinoma, when compared to other faecal biomarkers, including those currently employed in UK. Clinical trial details: National Research Ethics Service Committee South West - Central Bristol (REC reference 14/SW/1162) with R&D approval from University of Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospital Trust (UoL 001098).
Handle.net
http://hdl.handle.net/1983/4ea9f805-4676-447a-a86b-686c27b2fe5b
Full-text PDF (final published version)
Rights statement: This is the final published version of the article (version of record). It first appeared online via Wiley at https://doi.org/10.1111/apt.15140 . Please refer to any applicable terms of use of the publisher.
Final published version, 798 KB, PDF-document
Licence: CC BY-NC
https://doi.org/10.1111/apt.15140
View research connections
Related faculties, schools or groups
Bristol Medical School (PHS)
Related by journal
Review article: pathogenesis of Crohn's perianal fistula—understanding factors impacting on success and failure of treatment strategies
Mortality and cardiovascular diseases risk in patients with Barrett's oesophagus: a population-based nationwide cohort study
Systematic review with meta-analysis: the gastrointestinal benefits of COX-2 selective inhibitors with concomitant use of low-dose aspirin
Helicobacter pylori eradication in Western Australia using novel quadruple therapy combinations
Research and Enterprise Development | Feedback
University of Bristol, Senate House, Tyndall Avenue, Bristol BS8 1TH, UK. Email: pure-support@bristol.ac.uk
© 2002-2015 University of Bristol
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4412
|
__label__cc
| 0.64464
| 0.35536
|
Tracking retractions as a window into the scientific process
Help us: Here’s some of what we’re working on
How you can support Retraction Watch
Meet the Retraction Watch staff
About Adam Marcus
About Ivan Oransky
Retraction Watch Database User Guide
Retraction Watch Database User Guide Appendix A: Fields
Retraction Watch Database User Guide Appendix B: Reasons
Retraction Watch Database User Guide Appendix C: Article Types
The Center For Scientific Integrity
The Retraction Watch FAQ, including comments policy
The Retraction Watch Transparency Index
The Retraction Watch Leaderboard
Top 10 most highly cited retracted papers
The Retraction Watch Store
Upcoming Retraction Watch appearances
What people are saying about Retraction Watch
Blood pulls deceased star oncologist’s paper after Stanford inquiry
Fernando Pessoa on Two Harvard-led groups pull well-cited cancer papers for duplication
John Krueger on Forensics Friday: Notice anything odd about this image?
Archives Select Month July 2019 (12) June 2019 (18) May 2019 (28) April 2019 (26) March 2019 (27) February 2019 (24) January 2019 (28) December 2018 (31) November 2018 (24) October 2018 (29) September 2018 (27) August 2018 (28) July 2018 (34) June 2018 (31) May 2018 (35) April 2018 (44) March 2018 (52) February 2018 (35) January 2018 (49) December 2017 (48) November 2017 (50) October 2017 (50) September 2017 (50) August 2017 (52) July 2017 (51) June 2017 (53) May 2017 (51) April 2017 (53) March 2017 (57) February 2017 (44) January 2017 (48) December 2016 (59) November 2016 (53) October 2016 (65) September 2016 (69) August 2016 (64) July 2016 (64) June 2016 (77) May 2016 (73) April 2016 (66) March 2016 (74) February 2016 (74) January 2016 (66) December 2015 (68) November 2015 (66) October 2015 (65) September 2015 (64) August 2015 (59) July 2015 (64) June 2015 (58) May 2015 (53) April 2015 (58) March 2015 (56) February 2015 (53) January 2015 (53) December 2014 (55) November 2014 (50) October 2014 (57) September 2014 (53) August 2014 (54) July 2014 (58) June 2014 (52) May 2014 (51) April 2014 (59) March 2014 (57) February 2014 (50) January 2014 (59) December 2013 (53) November 2013 (54) October 2013 (47) September 2013 (46) August 2013 (49) July 2013 (42) June 2013 (36) May 2013 (53) April 2013 (59) March 2013 (53) February 2013 (49) January 2013 (62) December 2012 (42) November 2012 (43) October 2012 (46) September 2012 (39) August 2012 (38) July 2012 (44) June 2012 (39) May 2012 (31) April 2012 (29) March 2012 (31) February 2012 (31) January 2012 (32) December 2011 (27) November 2011 (19) October 2011 (29) September 2011 (31) August 2011 (26) July 2011 (22) June 2011 (21) May 2011 (24) April 2011 (18) March 2011 (23) February 2011 (26) January 2011 (29) December 2010 (24) November 2010 (21) October 2010 (18) September 2010 (11) August 2010 (15)
credit: Elizabeth Solaka
Thanks for visiting Retraction Watch. I’m Ivan Oransky, Vice President, Editorial, at Medscape, and Distinguished Writer In Residence at New York University’s Carter Journalism Institute, where I teach medical journalism in the Science, Health, and Environmental Reporting Program. I’m also the president of the Association of Health Care Journalists. The views here do not necessarily represent those of any of those organizations.
In the past, I’ve been vice president and global editorial director of MedPage Today, executive editor of Reuters Health, managing editor, online, of Scientific American, deputy editor of The Scientist, and editor-in-chief of the now-defunct Praxis Post. For three years, I taught in the health and medicine track at the City University of New York’s Graduate School of Journalism.
I earned my bachelor’s at Harvard, where I was executive editor of The Harvard Crimson, and my MD at the New York University of School of Medicine, where I hold an appointment as clinical assistant professor of medicine. In 2015, I was awarded the John P. McGovern Award for excellence in biomedical communication from the American Medical Writers Association, and in 2017, I received an honorary doctorate of civil laws from The University of the South (Sewanee).
For more on what this blog is about, see its first post and this profile in the New York Times. Please also visit my other blog, Embargo Watch. Follow me on Twitter — @ivanoransky — or email me at ivan@retractionwatch.com.
64 thoughts on “About Ivan Oransky”
Paul Thompson says:
I am very interested in the information you have about various types of fraud. I am getting involved in the reproducible research issue, which means several things: 1) data well defined 2) methods expressed in a way to be redone 3) papers with a clear path from data to results. One issue that I am interested in is the degree to which “fraud” is actually “sloppy and careless work”. Potti for instance – is he a fraudster, or just a person who needed to hire a competent database person?
Are you keeping records of frauds, classified in various ways? If not, perhaps you should establish a “fraud database”, in which you classify frauds in terms of a) number of distinct actions b) number of persons involved c) papers which result d) citations of papers e) actions from frauds f) how fraud was discovered and so forth.
Hi Paul–I’m not the audience you’re addressing, but have you seen this article: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/17/science/rise-in-scientific-journal-retractions-prompts-calls-for-reform.html?pagewanted=all
There’s a stacked bar graph you’ll like.
cugel says:
ever seen this one??
really upsets me
they retracted a figure!!!
from pretty high profile lab so …go figure
http://www.cell.com/molecular-cell/fulltext/S1097-2765%2803%2900241-7
Dr. Skeptic says:
TERRIFIC blog. Wondering how I had not come across this earlier! 🙂
Very nice blog, congratulations!
Great blog. Just curious. Are you interested in every retraction or only interesting/unique/high profile ones? Because I see many retractions in the literature that go unreported here. Is there a place these can be reported or documented, at least for statistical purposes.
Also, do you think the increased number of retractions is leading to an almost blasé attitude towards the topic now? At least for me, if I see a retraction, it isn’t quite “shock horror” as it once was.
ivanoransky says:
Thanks! We’re interested in all retractions. We keep a list, and get to as many as we can. We’d be happy to hear about any you come across. My email is in my bio above.
I can’t say whether people have a blase attitude at this point, but it’s certainly possible. We don’t!
C Kloess says:
I enjoyed hearing your interview on NPR.
By the way, I was a “whistleblower” several years ago. I contacted PNAS about suspicious results in a scientific article that was published in a then current issue, and I hate to say that I’m not sure I’d do it again. The editor(s) read my complaint and the authors’ rebuttal and decided they could find no problem. I felt bad and embarrassed. Oddly enough, four years later, PNAS printed a retraction of that very article (with practically no explanation) except that they acknowledged that a problem had been identified by a “reader”.
SHORT says:
The most enjoyable thing when reading your blog is that I saw that tiny bits of justice.
Ruth Greenwood says:
Prevention is best–have you compiled a list of best practices for scholarly authors, especially those research and writing practices that could be generalized across the sciences? Have favorites among others’ books or blogs on scholarly writing that would be helpful to post-docs writing their first few articles?
Your blog with a cup of coffee are my necessary eyeopeners mid-morning daily–thanks!
Mike Klymkowsky says:
Perhaps you next public presentation could be recorded, it could be great for teaching graduate students!
John Parker says:
Although I applaud vigilance about research misconduct – I think we all need to be accurate about definitions – what are we seeking of and what is the goal.
About 2 years ago I submitted a manuscript in which we described results of an experiment using a technique previously published/used by our group. As part of our description of the method we published a figure which gave an example of the graphic output resulting from our method which was designed to explain how we make our measurement endpoint. This ‘picture/figure’ was not a datapoint but was methodological in nature. In the figure legend we referenced the original article in which the figure was published.
This, unfortunately was considered ‘duplication’ and the response of the editorial office was this might be construed as fraud. If one uses a method not obvious to all and describes it in a new manuscript – is this fraudulent duplication? I hope not. If we cannot be clear about the definition of this problem – we create a new one.
Bernard Soares says:
That what happened to you is quite sad. I don’t think that it should never be about being
“holier-than-Thou”,or degenerate into something akin to a modern day “Crucible”.
It should be about putting the record straight.
I can only speak from personal experience, but after a recent high-profile case in Germany many people at the same institute we accused of scientific misconduct, as if everybody commits misconduct, and in the belief that the slightest infraction, or perceived infraction, equalled a number of retractions which you need more than your fingers and thumbs to count. Friends did keep their primary data and records, which of course they could show, but there is a lot of collateral damage though. It is an odd feeling, to worry about things you did quite right. It has calmed down now.
P. S. says:
Parker,
I see your concern, and think it is justified, however it is for the best that science becomes strict about such things. If you made clear to the editors the image came from other sources they cannot say you tried to deceive them (the principle of fraud). But they can say you can be misinterpreted by readers for attempted fraud. And that is apparently what they said. In that point I agree with the journal, they were emphatic in saying that the repetition might be seen as fraud by readers, which can harm both your image and the journal’s. Better be safe. I agree with the journal concerns, and you ought not to take that so hard.
For this to be considered fraud by a reader, you’d have to be specifically looking for something to construct as fraudulous. The one potential problem is that the figure was used previously in another journal and may thus be under copyright.
Ben Unger says:
What a great blog! Safeguarding the integrity of the scientific process is thankless but essential work. Just attended former colleague’s, Steve Shafer’s, talk to the New York State Society of Anesthesiology’s Post Graduate Assembly regarding how, over the course of 1400 emails, he dealt with Boldt’s fraud leading to prosecution and retraction you document here. Fascinating stuff. Dr. Shafer is a mountain of intelligence, insight, integrity and good humor. So fun to see this important work documented by you and Adam Marcus.
Schmuck says:
Thank you very much, journals have noted and many have changed their policies
http://www.nature.com/nm/journal/v17/n12/full/nm.2611.html
Patricia Farrell says:
Ivan, thank you for the invaluable work you do. BTW, we are both NYU alums (mine is an MA and Ph.D.). You do all of us proud by your efforts to route out this type of pseudo-scholarship.
As a frequent reader of your blog I only have a suggestion: it would be nice to see which are the posts that are more commented. It would be nice to order the posts for number of comments as those more commented would likely be the more interesting and more impactful. thanks again for your work, very nice blog!
Thanks for the good suggestion. The right-hand column is already a bit cramped, but we’ll see what we can do.
aktfamily says:
http://www.nature.com/cr/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/cr201260a.html
Skiphil says:
Interesting blog which I just now discovered, and added my email to your subscription list. Thank you!
Here’s one to monitor…..Not yet a retraction but this major climate science paper (already fast-tracked into the first draft of the next IPCC report AR5) has suddenly been put “on hold” just 3 weeks after initial online publication with the Journal of Climate:
notice circulated by the co-authors yesterday June 8, 2012:
Print publication of scientific study put on hold
An issue has been identified in the processing of the data used in the study, “Evidence of unusual late 20th century warming from an Australasian temperature reconstruction spanning the last millennium” by Joelle Gergis, Raphael Neukom, Stephen Phipps, Ailie Gallant and David Karoly, accepted for publication in the Journal of Climate.
We are currently reviewing the data and results.
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2012/6/8/gergis-paper-disappears.html
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2012/6/7/another-hockey-stick-broken.html
http://climateaudit.org/2012/06/08/gergis-et-al-put-on-hold/
http://climateaudit.org/2012/06/06/gergis-significance/
http://climateaudit.org/2012/06/03/gergis-two-medieval-proxies/
Sciwatch says:
Erratum notice; at the end editors say that the corrections does not affect the conclusion of the study, but looks it do affect the conclusion, more scoop to follow;
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/nn302963v?prevSearch=%2528diamond%2Bnanorods%2529%2Band%2B%255BContrib%253A%2BShang%252C%2BNaigui%255D&searchHistoryKey=
Zbys says:
u guys are doing a great job.. just wonder if you have experienced any personal ‘threats’.. following some of these ‘exposes’?
Thanks, Zbys. Other than a cease-and-desist letter from a scientific society that didn’t want us to use their logo, we have not had any threats, personal or otherwise. Certainly there are some who disagree with us, sometimes strongly, but that kind of feedback is welcome.
JimR says:
The Wall Street Journal printed an article on August 25 about gaming the citation indices. Two journals have been accused of requiring authors to cite more articles in the journal before they would be published. You can reach the beginning of the article, but must subscribe to read all of it.
Thanks Jim, this link may work: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444082904577609313125942378.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
We reported on the cases that lead off the piece in July: http://www.retractionwatch.com/2012/07/05/a-first-papers-retracted-for-citation-manipulation/
Is it not more appropriate to refer to this as the gaming of IF of journals? or inflating of citation indices by self citation?..BTW although its not the only ‘game’ in town I guess those who should know do know the nature of the game and indeed who the ‘high rollers’ are
A possible or likely retraction to watch for: what appears to be deeply flawed and reckless psychology paper now being dissected and shredded by bloggers:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/01/paging-dr-stephan-lewandowsky-show-your-invitation-list/
on the topic of dubious psychology papers, Steve McIntyre of Climate Audit has just shredded the Lewandowsky paper and the countdown is on for how long before withdrawal or retraction (publication is listed as “in press”):
Anatomy of the Lewandowsky Scam
Controversy ongoing, Lewandowsky has dug in and so far admits no problems, but the very inflammatory title of the paper is unjustified even on his own account of the data, and there seem to be serious problems with the data and analysis. My hyperlink above was broken when Climate Audit re-published the article with a corrected date in the link, but that article and other relevant items can be found here with the “Lewandowsky” keyword:
http://climateaudit.org/tag/lewandowsky/
(lots of relevant info also at WattsUpWithThat, BishopHill, and JoNova, and Lewandowsky has been publishing tendentious screeds in response (8 so far) at his blog ShapingTomorrowsWorld)
No one can say yet how this will end up, but this Lewandowsky et al (2012) is more flawed and the data/analysis more incomplete and distorted than should be considered acceptable for any scientific paper.
wow… Lewandowsky et al (2012) has NOT appeared to date in the journal Psychological Science, even though it was circulated to media in late July as “in press” and published reports were that it was to appear in this Sept. 2012 issue:
http://pss.sagepub.com/content/23/9.toc
Is there any public info about the status? Can anyone get an honest answer about what is going on with this dubious and now much debunked paper? It’s already has its “release by press release” six weeks ago but the published paper seems to be in some kind of unannounced journal limbo??
Climate Audit: Trying Unsuccessfully to Replicate Lewandowsky
http://climateaudit.org/2012/09/16/trying-unsuccessfully-to-replicate-lewandowsky/
Lewandowsky, S., Oberauer, K., & Gignac, C. E. (in press). NASA faked the moon landing—therefore (climate) science is a hoax: An anatomy of the motivated rejection of science.. Psychological Science.
http://websites.psychology.uwa.edu.au/labs/cogscience/documents/LskyetalPsychScienceinPressClimateConspiracy.pdf
Michael Kovari says:
Ivan,
I have been reading science-fraud.org, and I am concerned that its allegations are generally ignored – in fact googling keywords from its stories gives hits from science-fraud and nowhere else. I understand that RW has a very specific focus, but is there any way that allegations that have not resulted in retractions can be publicised more effectively?
Hibby says:
..and you better be quick on this: as you can see Science-Fraud is already being constantly threatened and the good old Abnormal Science Blog has completely vanished from online existence! Maybe one day RW will meet the same fate?
NShah says:
I have been following this blog for some time now and think it’s great! This is not quite a retraction story (yet), but in case you haven’t seen it, it’s fairly ridiculous and thought you would be interested:
http://www.nature.com/news/stem-cell-transplant-claims-debunked-1.11584?WT.ec_id=NEWS-20121016
with some details updated: http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2012/10/stem-cell-claims-by-japanese-res.html?ref=hp
Fernando Pessoa says:
Well spotted! It makes science fun again!
Other things that never really happended may come out soon.
mark van loosdrecht says:
This retraction was until now missed by this site: http://www.scientific.net/AMR.291-294.2750
stpnrazr says:
I just found this rather opaque retraction notice in the most recent version of the Journal of Neuroscience. Essentially zero information.
“At the request of the authors, the following manuscript has been retracted: “Spinal 5-HT3 Receptor Activation Induces Behavioral Hypersensitivity via a Neuronal-Glial-Neuronal Signaling Cascade” by Ming Gu, Kan Miyoshi, Ronald Dubner, Wei Guo, Shiping Zou, Ke Ren, Koichi Noguchi, and Feng Wei, which appeared on pages 12823–12836 of the September 7, 2011 issue”
Another retracted article by an Indiana University professor:
http://agbetsiafawords.blogspot.com/2012/09/dr-agbetsiafa-and-wording-in-retracted.html
This is looking like one for your collection:
http://climateaudit.org/2013/03/16/the-marcott-shakun-dating-service/
Asterix says:
Just have some concerns regarding the Sampaolesi, Cossu, Nature 2006. Using Photoshop, you will notice that the MyHC bands in Figure 4 (Varus and Vampire samples) are identical. They overlay perfectly, although the authors cut off one band on each side (smart). I can send you the Photoshop files but it is obvious!
it might be interesting for you:
deserve to be retracted or just an error?
first version: with identical pictures
Figure 5:(B&E, B is a magnified version of B)also(C&D) :
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1163/092050609X12559317149363
after investigation!!!
second version!!:
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/09205063.2013.775835
michaelhbriggs says:
Cossu was also an author of this retracted paper-
http://www.retractionwatch.com/2013/01/22/clare-francis-scores-a-bullseye-journal-of-cell-biology-paper-retracted-for-image-manipulation/
Mark Morris says:
I am curious if you have looked at the ACS journal Environmental Science & Technology (ES&T)? I am researching the incidence of retraction in environmental science journals. Since I am a member of ACS, I contacted an editor at ES&T about retractions and he told me they almost never happen. I know I have not seen a retraction in the years I have been involved with ACS.
I find this a bit suspicious considering the volume of article that are published by the journal. Not to mention questionable practices such as “pick your reviewer”.
I get the feeling that this site is more tailored to the medical sciences but I thought I would just mention my findings so far.
Thanks for your interest.
Here’s our environmental science category, which includes two retractions in CREST: http://www.retractionwatch.com/category/by-subject/environmental-science/
And here’s our climate change category: http://www.retractionwatch.com/category/by-subject/climate-change/
Steven Walterd says:
Please, I beg you to compare the table in the manuscript “Prepubertal gynecomastia in two monozygotic twins with Peutz-Jeghers syndrome: Clinical and surgical management” by Grella E (JPRAS, Aug 2013) with the table in the manuscript “Prepubertal gynecomastia in two monozygotic twins with Peutz-Jeghers syndrome: two years’ treatment with anastrozole and genetic study” by Grandone A (Horm Res Pediatr 2011).
Please compare the figures in the manuscript “Prepubertal gynecomastia in two monozygotic twins with Peutz-Jeghers syndrome: Clinical and surgical management” by Grella E (JPRAS 2013) with the figures in the manuscript “Management of Prepubertal Gynecomastia in Two Monozygotic Twins With Peutz-Jeghers Syndrome: From Aromatase Inhibitors To Subcutaneous Mastectomy” by Ferraro G (Aesth Plast Surg, July 2013).
CR says:
better post to Pubpeer
Jennifer R. Ewing says:
Thought this might interest RW:
http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/38030/title/Genetic-Test-for-Autism-Refuted/
Akhlesh says:
You may be interested in: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0030401813008602 [Retraction notice to “Quantum key distribution without sharing reference frame using single photon rotational-invariant subspace” [Opt. Commun. 308C (2013) 256–259]]
Honestdoc says:
Could you please give us a simple and direct way to reach you to make suggestions on new cases etc?
“email me at ivan-oransky at erols.com”
stuck-on-the-merry-go-round says:
Hi there, I love this blog even though it highlights the lengths some researchers go to publish-or-die even at the expense of valid research/morals/ethics etc.
I have been searching on your blog, but I cannot find anything about ghost-writing. I am a postdoc and looking to supplement my income with medical writing (our lab recently didn’t get it’s funding renewed, so now on part-time to minimise costs). The most recent jobs I have been offered are two brief reports and one full article. A quick internet search of the person who contacted me shows they are in science and are genuinely wanting papers written (a number are already in print from a variety of peer reviewed journals). But my question is this. Is it ethical to ghost-write a paper? I should note that not only have I been asked to write it, but also to analyse the data and write something that mirrors a paper from 2007. The person in question has openly stated they don’t have all the data/conclusions yet, but they “like” a particular hypothesis.
My personal feeling is this is unethical and dishonest – authorship disputes on papers can turn nasty in even the most civilised of labs. It appears this is not the first time such proposals have been made, which begs the question, are any of the papers already in print ghost-written? I have declined the work as I do not agree with it, but I wondered what other researchers thoughts were on this? Is this a hidden problem and potential can of worms/grounds for retraction?
aceil says:
It certainly is a muddy area where nobody wants to explore. It is not shocking news to tell you that there are many incompetent professors who can not give a 15 minutes talk about their area of expertise notwithstanding the hundreds of papers published in their names. These have either plagiarized or used the services of ghost writers or (fill in the blank). And although suspicion is seen in the eyes of their colleagues , nobody speaks out.
Thank you for declining to serve such phony academics, and I hope that your post will inspire others to follow suit.
But surely it shouldn’t be a muddy area? There is an article published in PLoS Medicine on the use of ghost writers, and whilst it acknowledges this is a “grey area”, it calls for academic writers/ghost writers to be the ones to police it I.e. Push clients to acknowledge the role of the writer. That, in my view, is not enough. There needs to be an active, open discussion on this topic.
It is not restricted to articles, I have also been contacted regarding writing doctoral theses. Again, I have declined the offers. I should not be surprised, but if the dishonesty starts at this stage of the career, where will it end?
Karen Shashok says:
The short answer to your question is, “No, it is not ethical to ghost-write a paper”. The long answer is also “no”.
Ghost writing (for example, writing the first draft for the authors, substantially revising the manuscript with varying degrees of participation by the named authors, but not being named anywhere in the article as the person responsible for this) is considered unacceptable. To make these contributions to a manuscript legitimate and transparent, the person who undertakes them should be named in the Acknowledgments section or list of authors and other contributors, and the role of the non-author contributor should be specified.
Try searching the net with the terms [research article ghost writing ghost author medical writer]. This should locate professional practice guidelines on ethical authorship issued by editorial organizations such as the Council of Science Editors (CSE), World Association of Medical Editors (WAME), Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). Professional associations for medical writers (AMWA, American Medical Writers Association and EMWA, European Medical Writers Association) have also developed guidelines that advise members to avoid ghost authorship.
A PubMed search with [author ghost ethics] will locate articles in the biomed literature on the topic.
The Instructions to authors or Guidelines for manuscript preparation for most reputable research journals will contain information about the journal’s or publisher’s policies on who is allowed (or required) to be named as an author. In many if not most journals, ghost-writing is explicitly forbidden. If your involvement in writing the manuscript meets the journal’s definition of authorship, you should be named in the list of authors together with the other authors. These policies are spelled out precisely to prevent authorship disputes — which, as you note, can turn nasty and be very difficult to resolve to everyone’s satisfaction.
Daron Standley says:
Japan Today reporting that Obokata has agreed to retract both nature papers. Finally!
http://www.japantoday.com/smartphone/view/national/obokata-agrees-to-retract-stem-cell-papers-riken
RWfan says:
A “commentary” is published where a retraction is clearly warranted: http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/05/27/0956797614533802.full
CS says:
Is there a preferred method of submitting questionable published articles?
Notice of Redundant Publication: “Transdermal Rotigotine: Double-blind, Placebo-Controlled Trial in Parkinson Disease”
(Arch Neurol. 2007;64[5]:676-682)
http://archneur.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=794858
I know you focus on more recent publications – but one of the co-authors on these related papers is now a President of a major university, who has recently been subject to several votes of no confidence…. seems as though his questionable behavior started sometime ago.
Sergey Ivanov says:
Thanks for all your efforts to cleanse scientific research from fraud. Here is a serious problem in the cancer research area: even though certain cancer cell lines shared between labs have been characterized as contaminated/misidentified and a big file has been published that lists these cells, previous publications with these cell lines have not been retracted. Moreover, new papers emerge that continue using the same tainted cell lines. What can we do about authors that pollute science and about journals that continue publishing their false research? Could Retraction Watch open a discussion with editorial boards with the goal to retract these papers?
Mary Saunders says:
Especially for medical corrections/retractions, these should be immediately reported to PLOS and other large, mostly free data bases, to get the information out without regard to certs and advantaged-income status of researchers.
This would give lay searchers access to vetted data, along with what other stuff they will find with testimonials on the net.
Cochrane is going to be slower and is not readily accessed by lay people in my recent experience, but I still think they should be copied with what goes to PLOS.
The Endocrine Disruption Exchange has readily available on-line research. It’s tough to use for lay publications, but it can be used in regulatory hearings. This is also a world-wide data base, which makes it much better for us in the U.S. where so much information is astro-turfed and hidden from handy access on the web by those paid to do that.
The call letters for The Endocrine Disruption Exchange are TEDX. Guess how easily that comes up on a search on the first page!
This is a much-needed endeavor. Over the long term, it will lead to better health of researchers and the large-headed personages who have been trying to skate on the efforts of indentured servants. If they fight you, crowd-searching will bite them back. I do not think they will fight much.
hollace henry says:
Love your website. Saw an article about two Doctors in Toronto (in Toronto Star) and followed the story here. Will send it on to a few peeps and hope they do the same. Very interesting even with my limited formal education.
Taisir Hasan says:
Can anybody help where to find generals statistics on research misconducts. I am looking at high level and general cumbers. I appreciate your help in advance
Kamal says:
Hello Ivan,
This is great work you are doing, like Police which keep eye on Civilians, Retraction Watch has emerged as a police for Science Researchers. This will really keep them under ethical circle atleast.
Leave a Reply to Stuck-on-the-merry-go-round Cancel reply
By using this form you agree with the storage and handling of your data by this website per the terms of our privacy policy: https://retractionwatch.com/privacy-policy/ *
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4417
|
__label__wiki
| 0.781896
| 0.781896
|
The Campaign Review: Not Quite There
August 24, 2013 Dawn Eligio Film 0
If “The Campaign” were a meal, it would be a decadent whole baked chicken with the outside skin browned to a golden perfection swimming in a colloidal mixture of aromatic herbs, spices, and grease. However, one bite will have you begging to go to Boston Market as you realize your dinner, although prepared to look like perfection in all its aesthetically pleasing glory, is nothing more than bland, under-seasoned and tough to chew.
“The Campaign” has all the elements to make it incredible, but falls short in its potential.
Emmy award winning Jay Roach, well known for directing the “Austin Powers” movies took the reigns in “The Campaign” and has once again sat himself down as comedy’s godfather continuing his legacy of supreme king of comedy direction. Unfortunately, “The Campaign” did not rank amongst its elder brothers and sisters like “Meet The Fockers”, 2004.
The two opposing main characters of the film were played by actors that were skillfully chosen. Will Ferrel (“The Anchorman”, 2004) and Zach Galifianakis (“The Hangover”) share a compatibility on screen that cannot be denied.
Each actor plays the role of two congressional candidates from North Carolina – Ferrell as Cam Brady, the unrivaled candidate with plenty of charisma and hairspray to woo the ladies, and woo the ladies he does as he campaigns for his fifth consecutive term. An uncouth decision Brady makes goes public and taints his image. This prompts the all powerful, wealthy Motch brothers (played by John Lithgow and Dan Aykroyd) to create an opposing candidate out of the awkward Marty (Zach Galifianakis) to wipe out Brady and carry on their capitalistic plans to turn North Carolina into a sweatshop town.
Of course, what better plot could there be than the story of our country’s own dirty politics? The screenwriters of “The Campaign” seemed to think so, but the execution was nothing more than lackluster and dull.
The two hopefuls battle it out in trash-talking debates, candidate approved television ads blaspheming each other, and one candidate having sex with his opposer’s wife to prove a point. The campaigns of each are dirty and scandalous, but one victor succeeds to become the rightful candidate.
However, the movie is occasionally humorous and will warrant you a surprising laugh or two in its 85 minute running time. The jokes however are not genius. You will find dull witted humor in its unapologetic vulgarity and crude lines that make you wonder if it is a sin to laugh at a punched baby. And of course, Will Ferrell continues to provide the inarticulate shouting that has been seen countless times before.
The plot of the story was adequately entertaining, but the humor seemed to cater to a younger, immature demographic.
Perhaps immature was the goal here, but, sorry kids, it’s rated R. So, for us adults, only a handful can stomach this dumb humor. Still, two stars for the idea of a good plot and good casting.
Unfortunately, “The Campaign” isn’t strong enough to warrant a vote.
Iron Shiek Brings Wu-Tang Beats to the World
Review Fix Exclusive: Paul Heyman Interview
Inside ‘Madden NFL 16’
Review Fix Exclusive: Nashaat Salman Talks ‘Universal Melodies’
Review Fix chats with composer Nashaat Salman discusses his new EP “Universal Melodies.” Breaking down the inspiration for the EP...
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4419
|
__label__cc
| 0.735088
| 0.264912
|
Tag: RCP
RCP (Canada): “Against National Oppression!” & “Aboriginal Peoples and the North”
RCP Programme, section 7: Against national oppression! Against nationalism and chauvinism! Fight for absolute equality for all nations and languages! … Continue reading RCP (Canada): “Against National Oppression!” & “Aboriginal Peoples and the North”
RCP: From Indignation to Revolution
A CALL FOR SOCIALISM FROM THE REVOLUTIONARY COMMUNIST PARTY From Indignation to Revolution Partisan #11 • October 21, 2011 All around the … Continue reading RCP: From Indignation to Revolution
RCP Arrests in Montreal: Communists Under Attack
R.I. Editorial Note: The following is a statement from the RCP Information Bureau concerning the arrest of four activists in … Continue reading RCP Arrests in Montreal: Communists Under Attack
On the International Unity of Maoists – RCP (Canada)
Although the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement (RIM) is no longer working, it is necessary to undertake a serious discussion on the … Continue reading On the International Unity of Maoists – RCP (Canada)
Cops break up May Day march in Montreal
6 arrested as anti-capitalist demonstration turns rowdy By Irwin Block, The Gazette MONTREAL – Police broke up an anti-capitalist May … Continue reading Cops break up May Day march in Montreal
A New Wave of Unity Among Revolutionary Communists
[From Arsenal-Express newsletter, a publication of the Revolutionary Communist Party (Canada). – Ed.]
It is with great pride and a deep sense of responsibility in front of the Canadian proletariat and the international communist movement that we announce the rallying of the Social Revolution Party (SRP) to the Parti communiste révolutionnaire – Revolutionary Communist Party (Canada).
The Social Revolution Party is an Ottawa-based communist group founded in 2009. Created two years earlier, the Revolutionary Communist Party is a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist party that fights for a revolutionary change in Canada, for workers power and socialism, as part of the world revolution.
Following the historic anti-capitalist mobilization against the G20 Summit in June 2010 in Toronto, the Social Revolution Party came into contact with the RCP. During the fall, members of the SRP studied and discussed the program of the RCP. The comrades of the SRP also took part in the Second Canadian Revolutionary Congress organized by the RCP, which was held December 11, 2011 in Toronto. The RCP was then able see the quality of the revolutionary commitment of the SRP and its activists and their willingness to move forward on the path of communism and revolution. Despite being a young organization, members of the SRP already have a rich experience in organizing, especially among the working class.
Continue reading “A New Wave of Unity Among Revolutionary Communists”
RI Articles & Statements
Expose the electoral circus and build the revolutionary forces
From the Central Committee, Revolutionary Initiative (Canada)
This is not the path to revolution.
With the upcoming Federal Elections in Canada, this document offers an assessment by the Central Committee of Revolutionary Initiative on the question of elections in the current international context and given the level of self-organization of the proletariat in Canada. It is organized into five main sections:
The strategic decline of imperialism
The crisis of bourgeois democracy
The role of electoralism in keeping the proletariat demobilized as a class for itself
The strategic position of the proletariat in Canada today: demobilization and disarray
Electoral tactics and revolutionary strategy
Continue reading “Expose the electoral circus and build the revolutionary forces”
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4420
|
__label__cc
| 0.614766
| 0.385234
|
(PN) Literature
“Despisers of the Commonplace”: Meta-topoi and Para-topoi in Attic Oratory
Jon Hesk
Rhetorica: A Journal of the History of Rhetoric, Vol. 25 No. 4, Autumn 2007; (pp. 361-384) DOI: 10.1525/rh.2007.25.4.361
School of Classics, Swallowgate, Butts Wynd, University of St. Andrews, St. Andrews, Fife KY16 9AL, United Kingdom, jph4@st-andrews.ac.uk
View author's works on this site
For correspondence: jph4@st-andrews.ac.uk
Abstract The forensic oratory of classical Athens exhibits two strategies which markedly display their departure from content-specific commonplaces. The self-conscious “meta-topos” and the elaborative “para-topos” are partly reliant upon the display and appreciation of innovation for their persuasive power. This valorization of creativity can be explained by evidence that rhetorical novelty was sometimes encouraged by teachers of rhetoric and was certainly influenced by the competitive display of verse performance genres. Examples of “meta-topoi” and “para-topoi” are discussed with a view to extending our understanding of originality in Attic oratory and of how we might identify instances of it.
© The International Society for the History of Rhetoric
Enter your Rhetorica: A Journal of the History of Rhetoric username.
Vol. 25 No. 4, Autumn 2007
Thank you for your interest in spreading the word on Rhetorica: A Journal of the History of Rhetoric.
You are going to email the following “Despisers of the Commonplace”: Meta-topoi and Para-topoi in Attic Oratory
Message Subject (Your Name) has sent you a message from Rhetorica: A Journal of the History of Rhetoric
Message Body (Your Name) thought you would like to see the Rhetorica: A Journal of the History of Rhetoric web site.
View Full Page PDF
Copyright © 2019 by the International Society for the History of Rhetoric Privacy Accessibility
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4421
|
__label__cc
| 0.532521
| 0.467479
|
Oh Hell No! (1/1), R, Jared/Jensen. - Old Enough To Know Better, Young Enough Not To Care
anne_higgins — (no subject) [+1]
Oh Hell No! (1/1), R, Jared/Jensen.
Title: Oh Hell No.
Rating: R.
Summary: Exactly why is Jensen hiding in the closet in the guest room? It’s all to do with the latest Season Five script, courtesy of Sera and Ben. When he said he’d take one for the team....this wasn’t what he had in mind.
Warnings: None really except for author insanity, and a promise that neither Jensen nor his Sasquatch were harmed in the writing of this story.
Notes: First of all my thanks go to my awesome and long-suffering beta, bigj52, a woman with the patience of a saint, and a goddess like skill in her ability to turn my scribbles into English. Now before any of you brave souls read this, I promise hand on heart (and swear on all I hold dear, including my Supernatural DVDs and photo ops with the boys), this was started before the Season Six finale aired. I started to write this piece of fluff, as a break from my usual beating the crap out of Jensen or Dean angst. I finally decided to pick this up and finish it. So if you happen to spot a couple of plot points from later seasons, trust me - my fic came first *G*
ared opened the front door as Jensen was saying goodbye to Cliff. Another week, another episode. Season Five was going well, angst on high alert mixed with more than a smattering of humour. They had just finished Episode Eleven, and swore he would never be able to watch ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ ever again without hearing Jensen’s cry of “Pudding” and seeing those scrub pants hitting the floor. Damn, he’d had a great view of that ass wiggling.
As Jared was saying good evening to the dogs, Jensen walked by, swatting him on the ass, “Jay, I’m gonna grab a shower. Do you want to...?”
“Come up and join you and spend the next hour or so washing your back?” Jared responded, grinning hopefully.
“Nice thought. No, start going over Sera and Ben’s script. Look, if I’m not down in ten minutes you can go back to Plan A.” Jensen automatically filled and switched on the coffee pot and then walked back towards Jared, handing him two scripts, then he reached up to absently ruffle Jared’s hair.
“Make it five and then all bets are off, and hey, leave the sideburns of doom alone.” Jared said as he took his coat off. Jensen’s laughter rang out through the house, making Jared smile. He let the dogs out and while he waited for them he made himself and Jensen a cup of coffee. He knew Jensen wouldn’t be long. This was a new script for a few future episodes, so it was still rough and this was just to get them familiar with it.
It was sad to admit but they both looked forward to getting new scripts even now, and the idea of Sera and Ben collaborating on a script had led to some interesting suggestions. Jared’s favourite had come from Jensen. It had included Sam gazing wistfully out of a motel room window, weeping softly over Dean, after he’d been kidnapped by a group of murderous stuffed toys. Then he’d been brought to life by Becky armed with a wishing coin. All while he clutched a ransom note, demanding he deliver himself to her, shirtless with his manly chest oiled.
He tucked the scripts under his arm, picked up the coffees and walked into the lounge. Jared sat on the couch, putting his feet on the coffee table. He slid down so he was slouching and decided to start reading through. He was about to take a sip of his coffee when something in the script caught his eye.
Jared sat up straighter, putting his feet on the floor, the coffee forgotten. He moved forward until he was perched on the couch, ready to spring into action. His jaw dropped open as he read, “Oh dear God... they haven’t... oh, they can’t...OH HELL, NO!” Jared had been getting progressively louder, until the last phrase came out in a shout.
As he sat in shock he became aware of the sound of someone coming downstairs at speed. Jensen shot down the stairs, clearing the last three without touching them, running into the lounge. Misjudging the distance he hit the door frame, bounced off it, causing a vase on a table nearby to topple off the table which Jensen caught one handed and brandished like a club.
“What??? For fuck’s sake, are you alright, Jared?” Jensen was scanning the room wild eyed, ready to defend Jared’s honour if needs be.
“The way you screamed, I fully expected to come in here and find you pinned to the dining table, naked, covered in whipped cream and surrounded by ninja fan girls.”
At that suggestion Jared took a quick look around, suddenly nervous, “You don’t think they found out where we live, do you?” He squeaked at Jensen.
“No, don’t panic. Cliff found the last GPS tracker they attached to the car, and he regularly changes routes home so he’s not followed. Anyhow, what the hell was the scream for??”
Before Jared could answer he finally took in Jensen’s appearance. He was stood, wearing his sweat pants, hanging low enough for Jared to see he wasn’t wearing underwear. He was barefoot, and his T-shirt was only half on. One arm was through the arm of the shirt and the other which was holding the vase wasn’t. This meant the T-shirt looked as if it was trying to strangle Jensen. Jared could still see water dripping down Jensen’s chest as he stood there panting from his adrenaline fuelled sprint at hearing his manly yell. As far as Jared was concerned it hadn’t been a scream, no matter what Jensen said it sounded like.
Jensen’s hair was still wet from the shower and was sticking up comically. When Jensen decided that the house wasn’t being invaded by the advance guard of stealth fan girls he put the vase down. He was aware of being watched, no, very carefully scrutinized, “You know that is going to leave a mark in the morning. I’ll get the witch hazel and some ice.” Jared made to stand up.
“Oh no, you’re staying right there, until you tell me what’s going on.” Jensen finally acknowledged the way he’d bounced off the door frame. Jared was right - he was going to have a lovely bruise on his arm. He sighed and pulled his T-shirt on properly so he didn’t throttle himself. He looked over to where Jared hovered, somewhere between sitting and standing. He leant against the door frame watching him.
“You know one day you’re gonna have to tell me if this is some sort of kink you got. I mean, it’s bad enough half the Dean girls nearly combust every time he gets covered in bruises. But when your boyfriend starts positively drooling at the thought of applying ice and witch hazel... should I be worried? Are you gonna pay Gina to leave the bruises on the next time Dean gets whumped.... hang on, Folsom Prison Blues. That black eye - are you sure Gina just forgot to take that off?” Jensen narrowed his eyes as Jared went bright red with guilt.
A smirk slowly appeared as did a mischievous glint in his green eyes; Jensen knew he could have fun with this, “So are we talking doctors and nurses here? Or just doctors and handsome, heroic strangers who are covered in attractive but not serious injuries you can tend?” Jared opened and closed his mouth several times in an attempt to speak. “I know. How about I sneak out in make-up and you can ‘take care of me’ once we get back home?” Jensen waggled his eye brows as he spoke.
Suddenly Jared passed the script over, a smirk gracing his features, “Well if that’s the case, I recommend Page Ten then.” Jared stood back watching as Jensen read, relieved that the script would distract Jensen from this particular conversation, especially in light of the times he had bribed Gina to leave the bruises on. Could he help it if Jensen looked hotter than hell beat up? Well, he liked the make-up kind of bruises but any appearance of the real things usually caused Jared to have a meltdown, and threaten stunt men with long and painful deaths if they did it again.
Jared realized it had gone very quiet by the door; he looked over to where Jensen was standing. In fact, Jensen looked unsteady on his feet. He was just about to move closer when...
“What the hell is this? I know Sera said it was time to give the fan girls a treat. I just thought she meant you getting your shirt off again. I was looking forward to watching you in the gym.” Jensen staggered over to the couch. The two men sat down in unison, Jared reaching over to pick up the other script, staring in horror at its contents.
“Dude, what the Hell? And what’s with the hanging from the ceiling in chains?” Jensen was dumbstruck, and then Jared reached over and turned the page of the script and pointed to halfway down, “A whip? Aww, come on! Do they know what that’s going to do to the fan girls?” Once more silence descended as they both continued to read the script.
From Jensen’s right came a moan, “Look, just skip over Page Eighteen that’s all I ask. Please don’t read that yet. I haven’t had a beer. In fact how about a drink? A really large drink.” Jared got up off the couch and headed towards the fridge. He’d just got two beers when he heard.
“Boxers! Down to my goddamn boxers! They’ve got me hanging there, nearly naked, in only my boxers. Jared, have you read this? And why is it the Sam girls get the seductive half-naked love scenes and the Dean girls get the beat to hell, blood-covered torture scenes?”
Jared wandered back carrying the beers, “Because they know our fan girls so well?” Jared took a long drink as Jensen continued to read.
“They certainly do. Which, as much as I love them, really, really scares the crap outta me” Jensen was reading ahead when he spotted something that nearly made him laugh out loud. He took the offered beer and sat back, looking up at the ceiling.
“I bet you’re feeling really pleased with the fact that Sam’s keeping all his clothes on, aren’t you? Me taking one for the team like this.” Jensen sat upright with a look of horror on his face, “Oh God, you don’t think they’ll make me wax my legs again, like for Season Four, do you?”
Jared nearly choked at the thought of that. It had taken some serious massage and cuddling to get Jensen over the trauma of that, (that reminded him, he still had those red shorts somewhere, after he errr borrowed them from set....so what? Jensen had looked hot as Coach Roth.....sue him) not that Jared had minded in the least. Hell, any excuse to cuddle Jensen was always welcome...well, almost any excuse, just not waxing his legs again. But if he had to he could improvise ear plugs, so he didn’t have to hear the blood-curdling screams from make-up again.
Jensen smirked as Jared sat and read the script direction to his horrified other half.... “Sam rushes into the murky gloom, his eyes brimming with unshed tears as he sees Dean’s broken body hanging limp within his bonds. With one swift movement he is standing beside his brother, tenderly caressing his face softly whispering “Dean” over and over again. Without hesitation Sam tears open his button-down, stripping it off ready to wrap Dean’s battered body in it.” Jensen paused, lifting his eyes to look at Jared over the top of the script.
Jared’s face held a horrified fascination as Jensen had read aloud. He’d deliberately slipped into Dean’s gruffer tones, causing Jared to shift a little in his seat. He knew what that voice did to Jared and he was playing on it without mercy. Finally Jared managed to speak “Rip my shirt off? Oh dear God, I can just see the advertising for it now. Well, at least the show will finally get some promotion.” Jensen raised his hand and continued to read.
“Sam prepares to wrap Dean in his shirt when he spots a knife wound in his left shoulder. Just then Castiel appears besides the two men, and waits in silent contemplation as Sam releases Dean from his chains then, gently passing Dean into Castiel’s strong embrace....” Without looking up Jensen reached over to pound Jared on the back, as he started choking on a mouthful of beer at the image that was suddenly presented to him.
Jensen continued to read without skipping a beat, “Sam grasps his T-shirt in strong calloused hands, and in one decisive movement tears the shirt down the middle. Using it as a makeshift bandage on the shoulder wound...” Jensen had to raise his voice to be heard over the gurgling sound Jared was making as he read. “In one fluid motion he drapes Dean in his overshirt to protect his brother from the shame of his near-naked state and to cover the grievous injuries he has suffered at the hands of the demon torturing him. Then gently taking him from the angel’s arms Sam picks Dean up, cradles him to his chest and strides out of the room. As he walks he speaks softly to Dean, offering words of comfort and support as his head rests against Sam’s shoulder. They are followed by Castiel, his bowed in sorrow at Dean’s suffering.”
Jared finally got his breath back after his coughing fit and wiped the tears from his face. He looked at Jensen appearing to be in shock. “You’re kidding me, right? There is no way that’s in the script.” Jensen solemnly handed his script to Jared; he read it, then picked up his own script and read the scene in his.
They sat in silence each wrapped up in their own thoughts. Jensen was watching Jared struggling with some deep internal turmoil, and damn that purple prose had got him at it now. Shaking his head he spoke.
“Penny for ‘em? You look like the world has just landed on your shoulders.”
Jared met Jensen’s eyes, “Just promise me that nowhere in that script do they have Sam tenderly brushing his lips against Dean’s fevered forehead?” Jared pleaded desperately.
Jensen grinned at his traumatized other half, “Have you been reading hurt comfort fic again? Hell, I’m too scared to find out. Well, what did you think of the subtle use of homo-erotic subtext in the scene?” Jensen asked wryly
“I don’t know. All I could hear were the millions of fan girls imploding and the internet melting from all the Wincest they’ll write if they ever screen that.” Jared smiled at the thought of legions of fan girls gibbering in darkened rooms.
“Just promise me one thing, Jay. No repeat of what happened last time I took my shirt off.”
“I don’t know what you mean.” Jared said, trying to look innocent.
“Oh, come on. Remember my love scene with Anna, what you said to Ken.” Jensen quirked his eyebrow at Jared, and tapped his foot impatiently.
“But he was staring at you.” Jared muttered, blushing slightly.
“He was the camera man; he’s supposed to stare. The guy’s married with three kids, Jay. I dread to think of what you’re gonna be like with me just wearing boxers.” As he said it he heard a faint growl from beside him, so he casually rolled up the script and smacked Jared over the head with it. “Down. Bad boy.” Right, then. I think in light of what we’ve just read we need supplies.” Jensen stood as he spoke.
“What kind of supplies?” Jared brightened up on hearing this; Jensen held out his hand and pulled Jared to his feet.
“Get your mind out of the gutter, Padalecki. I’m talking food and drink here. I think we’re gonna need them to get through the rest of this script.” Jensen started towards the kitchen, pulling Jared behind him, still holding his hand.
“Jen, I ain’t hungry.” Jared said, sighing.
Jensen stopped suddenly, causing Jared to crash into him. He spun and Jared found himself in Jensen’s arms. Jensen then proceeded to dip him backwards, staring into Jared’s hazel eyes with a burning intensity, his lips nearly brushing Jared’s. He whispered, “Jay, how long?” his eyes gleaming with unshed tears.
“How long what?” responded Jared, puzzled and shocked at where he found himself.
“How long did the doctors give you? How could you, Jared? You should’ve told me. I’m too young to be alone. I won’t be able to live without you.”
Jared was going cross eyed trying to focus on Jensen’s grief-stricken face, “What the hell do you mean, leave you alone?” His voice rose in pitch.
“Jay, don’t lie to me. I know you’re dying. You have to be. You never turn down food.” Jensen was trying not to laugh as he fluttered his eyelashes at Jared.
Jared laughed, “Get me up, Ackles. You’ll hurt your poor aging back.” Jensen returned them to a vertical position but not before he took advantage by kissing Jared. It was a slow and passionate kiss and by the time they broke it, Jared was almost light-headed from lack of air.
Jensen walked away, grinning, “Not bad for an old man, hey whippersnapper! Come on, supplies.” He called out over his shoulder, laughing.
Jared watched Jensen’s retreating back. Damn, that had been beyond hot, and usually that kind of thing was the other way round. Jared wondered if he could convince Jensen to do that again someday, preferably in the bedroom, or wherever the mood took him.
He arrived in the kitchen to find Jensen ransacking the place; he grabbed a tray, bowls, bags of chips, some dips and other easy to eat food stuff. “Jay, we need to break out the emergency bottle of Tequila.”
“Are you sure about that?” queried Jared.
“Dude, we’re not even halfway through and they’ve got both of us undressed, me more than you. Not to mention I’m being passed about like a parcel. I think this qualifies as an emergency.” Jensen’s voice was muffled as his head was buried in an open cupboard.
“I’ll see if we’ve got any limes.” Jared said in a distracted tone of voice, as Jensen carried the tray back to the lounge.
Jared soon followed, carrying a plate of limes cut into wedges, the bottle of Tequila, and two shot glasses perched on the plate. “Damn, I forgot the salt.” Jared was about to turn round and go back when he saw Jensen waving the salt cellar at him.
“Ok, are we ready then? Let’s begin.” With that Jared broke the seal on the bottle, poured two shots then licked their hands, sprinkling salt on them. He picked up some lime, licked up the salt, threw back the shots, and then bit the limes.
“Wow! Right then, back to the scripts.” Jensen gasped out. They read in silence for a little while, pausing only to grab some chips or take another drink. Jared was starting to feel the script wasn’t all that bad; anything that got Jensen down to his boxers had his vote.
Jensen was starting to relax as well; he was just thinking about telling Jared to forget the scripts and just go up to bed and do some body shots. He had just taken another drink and was biting on a wedge of lime when something in the script caught his eye.
Jensen choked on the lime, making him gasp for air. He spat the remainder across the room and suddenly Jared found himself with a lap full of Jensen. Jensen lunged forward and caught Jared’s lips with his own. If the kiss earlier had been slow and sensuous then this was all fire, need and passion. And in Jared’s opinion probably the best way Jensen had ever asked to be taken upstairs, stripped naked, and fucked to within an inch of his life. Then after he’d had a rest, start all over again.
Jensen was just sucking and nibbling at Jared’s lips. His own lips parted, allowing Jared to attempt a tonsillectomy with his tongue. Jensen‘s hands were roaming everywhere under Jared’s shirt, trailing across his abs, his nails gently scratching across Jared’s nipples. His hands travelled upwards and he tangled his fingers in Jared’s hair, pulling it gently but urgently as he rolled his hips against Jared. The movement caused Jared to moan at the friction as Jensen’s body undulated slowly.
He was just about to throw the script to the floor, grab Jensen and carry him to the nearest flat surface to continue with Jensen’s polite request when his upstairs brain, as it was turning out the lights and getting ready to leave for the night, whispered maliciously, ‘And what do you think made Jensen start acting like Alec in heat? Don’t deny it, you’ve watched Dark Angel. Now think what he was up to.’
Jared’s control was hanging by a thread as Jensen did something that was either illegal, or physically impossible with his tongue. By now his upstairs brain and downstairs brain had declared war on one another, and the first casualty had been Jared’s libido. It wasn’t that Jensen had to be coaxed into bed, far from it. But why the sudden porn star routine at that precise moment, just as Jared had been about to turn the page of the script?
Letting Jensen continue to nibble and lick at his neck while sinuously rocking against him, Jared edged his hand towards where his script had fallen when Jensen had launched himself at him. As quietly as possible Jared turned the page, picked up the script and very slowly raised his arm above Jensen’s head and proceeded to read it.
Jensen knew the moment Jared had seen the next bombshell. The once relaxed body tensed, he had to admit feeling Jared’s muscle bunch like that felt great. But it also meant his weekend was about to become very interesting, to put it bluntly.
Jensen’s eyes slipped shut and he sighed, his head dropping forward to rest on Jared’s shoulder, “Come on, Jay, it’s not that bad.”
Jared’s script-free hand which had been lazily stroking up and down his back halted, and cupped Jensen’s ass. “Not all that bad? How about I read it to you?” Jared’s voice was pitched low. Jensen prepared to move off Jared’s lap when a whisper pinned him in place.
“Just stay right there, Jen, this won’t take long.” Jensen gave in and prepared to meet his fate.
“According to this direction Sam has just gone to get medical supplies for his poor injured brother, leaving Dean and Castiel alone. Alone with his former charge, Castiel finds himself drawn to sit at the hunter’s bedside. Dean is lying on his right side due to his injuries. Sam has left a bowl of water and a washcloth on the floor - he has been bathing Dean’s forehead in an attempt to lower the fever which has started to rage.
Castiel hesitates and then picks up the cloth from the bowl, squeezing the excess water out. Then with great care he begins to gently wipe Dean’s forehead as he’d seen Sam do earlier. Dean responds to the touch, a low moan escaping cracked lips, eyelids fluttering, too weak to open his eyes. Castiel looks down at Dean’s body which is covered in bruises and cuts, and his soulful blue eyes seem to share Dean’s suffering.
Then Castiel moves the chair closer. Leaning in towards Dean, he continues his gentle ministrations and begins to speak softly in Enochian. Dean has become restless due to fever, calling for “Sammy” but his trembling body stills at the words of the angel. Finally as Castiel grows quiet, he puts down the cloth and reaches out to lay his hand on Dean’s forehead to feel how hot he is. Dean leans into that tender touch and whispers one word “Cas?”
Jensen almost whimpered out loud. He hadn’t got as far as that, having frozen at what the Enochian had said, “Look, Jay, it’s just hurt comfort, and you know how some of the fan girls feel about Dean and Cas.”
“Have you read what Cas says to Dean?” Jared growled.
“Oh yeah. Misha’s gonna dislocate his tongue when he reads that.” Jensen gave a faint laugh, praying Jared hadn’t seen the translation.
“My heart breaks for you. I wish there was a way I could share your suffering and ease your pain. My only regret in being cut off from Heaven is I cannot help you, and yet I would walk the same path again to stand shoulder to shoulder with you. Rest now and I will protect you.” Jared read the translation in his ‘Castiel’ voice
“Jay, come on, don’t worry. There’s no way the fan girls will ever find out what that says.” Jensen sat up so he was looking into Jared’s eyes.
“Never find out? Are we talking about the same fan girls who within half an hour of ‘Yellow Fever’ being screened had translated the Japanese Bobby had spoken. The fan girls who also translate the Latin exorcisms for fun? Did you know there is a Wikipedia site with examples? I give ‘em two days max before they have the translation of Cas declaring his undying love for Dean.” Jared growled softly.
“I know, Jay, but it’s not exactly a love scene, is it? And Cas never says ‘I love you’.” Jensen squeaked as he saw ‘the look’ in Jared’s eyes. The last time he’d seen that was after his scene with Julie. If Jared had one fault it was his response to anyone getting up close and personal with him. It was as if anyone else showing physical affection towards him caused Jared to redouble his own efforts in that department. After the scene with Julie, Jensen had at first been flattered by, and then flattened by all the attention Jared had given him. Jensen had been hoping to stop Jared reading that, so he would get at least had one good night’s sleep over the weekend, and give him time to build up a store of ice packs for the aftermath. Jensen tried one more time to defuse Jared.
“Misha is fully clothed, dude, and he only touches my forehead.” Jensen could see the tell-tale signs of Jared getting ready to prove there was no one else but him. His eyes were darkening, he licked his lips and his breathing was getting a little faster.
“Did you not spot that Cas takes off his trench coat? For him that’s the same as him stripping and what about ‘Castiel’s hand hovers over Dean’s, unsure whether his comforting touch would be welcomed in the hunter’s hour of need?’ ” Jared leant forward at that, pulling Jensen closer to him. Slowly a predatory grin slid over his face, and Jensen whimpered.
Jared stared into Jensen’s green eyes and growled at his apprehensive boyfriend. “How about a little rehearsal of the shirt ripping?” Before Jensen had chance to respond, Jared gripped the collar of his T-shirt with both hands. Then with one brutal movement the thin material gave and Jensen found his shirt being ripped off him. Jared gave another feral grin, running his hands down Jensen’s back, causing the other man to shiver at the touch. Jared shuffled to the edge of the seat, and then he gripped Jensen’s thighs.
“Why don’t we go upstairs and I’ll see if I can soothe your fevered brow?” Jared stood as he spoke, holding Jensen with ease. Jensen quickly wrapped his legs round Jared’s waist and his arms round his neck. He was clinging to Jared like a koala that has just discovered someone is taking a chainsaw to the tree it’s sitting in. Jared laughed and walked towards the door, Jensen resting his head against Jared’s shoulder as they went. He wondered who he should contact to come and help get his exhausted body back on set after Jared had finished with him.
Jensen was just getting comfortable in the dark, warm closet; he’d sent Jared out for a run with the dogs. It was Sunday mid-morning, and this was the first time Jensen had managed to get out of the bedroom since Friday night. He leant back against the wall feeling a little guilty about hiding from Jared, but shit, he needed the rest. Friday night and all of Saturday had seen Jared demonstrating just how much he loved him, and now he was sitting lopsided and aching in places he never knew he had. Every time he’d tried to escape the bedroom, Jared had just seen it as time to start again. Although his showers with Jared had been very nice, he hadn’t realized Jared could hold his breath that long. But now he just wanted a few hours of uninterrupted sleep.
To that end he had convinced Jared to go out and get some fresh air. Once he was sure Jared had gone, Jensen had gotten out of bed and staggered to his clothes. Once dressed, he’d limped downstairs, pinned a note to the fridge door, saying, “Gone out, won’t be long.” He grabbed his phone and returned upstairs before his legs gave out on him. He’d then hidden in the walk-in closet in the guest room, knowing Jared never went in there. It was Jensen’s version of Bobby’s panic room, minus the demon proofing. It was stocked with pillows, sleeping bag and a blanket in case of emergencies like this. He rolled the sleeping bag out and eased himself onto it gingerly, getting comfortable.
From downstairs he heard the sound of Jared’s return; he pictured Jared going to the fridge, seeing the note.... his phone vibrated. “Hi, Jay, what’s up?” Jensen tried to keep his voice light.
“Jen, where are you? Your voice sounds strange?” Jared sounded worried
“I err... I’m just down at the mall. Do you want something? Some gummy worms perhaps?” Jensen was hoping the offer of candy would throw Jared off the scent.
“Ohh yeah, and can you get some fizzy coke bottles as well, please?” Jared sounded as if he was bouncing on the spot.
“No problem. Look, I won’t be long. What are you going to do?” Jensen was lying down, pulling the blanket over him, and getting comfortable on the pillows.
“I think I’ll go down to the gym.” Jared responded.
“Jesus, Jay, haven’t you had enough exercise this weekend?” Jensen all but groaned.
Jensen heard the grin in Jared’s voice, “Well, I’ve had one hell of a cardio-vascular workout, but I want to get some stretches done. Gotta stay flexible. Then I might have another read of the script, to see what they do next. The way things are going, they’ll be getting Sam to give Dean a sponge bath while singing Metallica to keep him calm.” Jared laughed and although Jensen cursed for not hiding the damn things, he joined in.
“Jay, I’ll see ya soon. Don’t work too hard.” Jensen was stifling a yawn.
“Oh, hell no, I have plans for you later. Bye, Jen.” Jared hung up, and Jensen thought about sneaking downstairs and locking him in the gym, instead he let sleep pull him under.
Jensen had barely closed his eyes; at least that’s what it felt like when his phone woke him. He squinted at the display - it was Sera. He sat up quickly, winced at the movement, and lay back down putting the phone on speaker. “Hi Sera, what’s up? Don’t tell me the powers that be have turned down Eric’s request for a flock of inflatable sheep again.” Jensen rubbed at his eyes and yawned.
“Well, hi to you too, Jensen and Eric’s given up on the idea of a flock of demonic sheep. Instead he’s moving towards my idea of having multiple Sams in an episode, having Dean desperately trying to catch them all so they can splice Sam back together. Can you just imagine Jared acting all the different personalities?” Sera’s voice was breathy as she considered the possibility of more than one Sam in the world.
Jensen suspected that at least two of the Sams would be shirtless, and possibly one would be a man whore. Then again the idea had merits. He thought he’d better ask why Sera was calling. Maybe it had something to do with the latest script? Perhaps she was ringing to tell him it was all a hideous mistake, and that sometime soon he’d be able to sit down again without the aid of a bag of frozen peas.
“By the way, Jensen, what did you think of the script? Of course it’s only a rough draft at the moment. Me and Ben are very happy with it. I think it pushes Dean and Castiel's relationship to a whole new level.” Jensen’s jaw dropped when he heard that. A whole new level? That was one way of putting it. Having Cas grope a semi-conscious Dean was definitely a new level for the hunter and angel’s relationship. Then he heard Sera laugh, and he was sure he heard Ben giggling maniacally in the background.
As he sat staring at the phone realization struck, “Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding me, right? Look, Sera, when I said I’d help deal with Jared’s pent-up excess energy, and take one for the team....I meant one, not the past twenty-four hours I’ve just had! You two owe me big time. I’m talking whole episodes without Dean getting teary eyed, or being bounced off every wall in the place. Do you understand me?” Jensen was starting to laugh as he spoke.
In the writers’ room in LA, Sera, Ben and a very puzzled Eric sat round the table. Ben was laughing so hard he was nearly falling off his chair, and Eric was seriously considering calling for the guys with the butterfly nets for his two senior writers. He leant forward, looked at them, and finally the laughter stopped. “I know I’m going to regret this, but what exactly have you two been up to? And why does Jensen sound like Dean after Take Seven in Yellow Fever... you know...the scream?” He looked from Ben to Sera.
Ben smiled at his boss, “Ok. You know how Jared’s been a little more hyper than usual....?” Ben asked and Eric nodded.
Eric remembered the phone call from Bob Singer where his friend at the end of his considerable tether had threatened to tie Jared up, load him into his truck and then drive him out to the middle of nowhere. Then he was going to take Jared’s phone off him and make him to walk back to the studio, if in his words “the sasquatch doesn’t calm the hell down, and stop squishing every crew member he can lay his hands on. I have one PA who hides every time he walks by. And I’m getting ready to confiscate his damn candy.” That last comment had led to mass panic, and an emergency meeting in the writers’ room, where Ben and Sera had promised to ‘deal with it’. At the time Eric had just been glad to dodge a bullet, and he’d been interested to see how those two would deal with the kind of headache he got every day. Now it sounded like the two of them had sent a script bomb to the boys, and now one of his leads sounded like he needed to be in a hospital being treated for exhaustion.
Ben watched Eric’s puzzled face, “Jensen offered to help us with our little problem. He said we could write a little something for him and he’d act it. This is what we came up with.” He hit a few keys on his lap top and sent Eric a copy of his and Sera’s script. Eric got the script, looked at the expectant faces and began to speed read. After a minute his eyebrows shot up so fast they nearly took off, “Holy shit! You sent this to the boys? Oh, good God...actually do you think we could get a nearly naked Dean past the censors? Think of the ratings...” Eric said in a distracted tone and he heard a disgruntled huff from the phone, “Sorry, Jensen, but think of the buzz we’d get on the net with this. Oh yes, I can understand your concern...but why would that upset Jared? Ok, we’d have to hire extra security for the camera crew, but I don’t see what the problem is?” Eric was still bemused by Sera and Ben’s grins and why Jensen sounded like a physical wreck.
“Try a couple of pages on, and then tell me what you think.” Jensen’s tinny voice floated up from the speaker. Eric felt a sense of doom building then he carried on reading. When he reached the section with Dean and Castiel alone in the motel room, he gripped the table and gasped, “Holy Crap! Did we get moved to HBO without anyone telling me? We’ll never get away with that..... How long will it take the fan girls to translate that dialogue? I’m sure we could tell the powers that be it’s a prayer, by the time it screens it will be too late.” Eric was looking at his lap top as if it was about to explode, then after the initial shock of reading the script he was considering just how he could convince Jensen to do it for real...
Sera was watching Eric and she knew exactly what was going through his head. She held up her hand and started to count her fingers down from five. As she closed her fist Eric looked up in horror, “You actually sent this to Jared? Do you know what you’ve done? We’re weeks away from a break. How the hell are we supposed to film an action scene with Dean when he can’t stand up without help? You know how possessive Jay gets. Did the whole Anna and the back seat of the Impala, then watching Jared having to help Jensen round the set for days afterwards, teach you nothing? At the very least if we film this I suggest Jared isn’t on set. In fact I say we ship Jared to LA and have him handcuffed to the Hollywood sign until we’re done.” Eric paused looked heavenward and wondered if that would be far enough away from the set, for Misha’s....sorry, everyone’s safety.
He thought for a few seconds, shook his head and continued, “No, it wouldn’t work; we’d only get phone calls about an irate Sasquatch dragging the H from the sign behind him up the freeway towards Vancouver..... Jensen, speak to me. Are you alright? And more importantly tell me there aren’t any visible teeth marks.” Eric sounded panic stricken at the prospect of Jensen having being half Sasquatched to death.
“Your concern is touching, Eric. I promise Jared is always very careful not to leave marks where Gina and Co would have trouble covering them. And I’m fine. By the way, I promise that Dean will be able to kick ass. Just no kicking down doors or sudden moves for a couple of days. With a pillow in the Impala, I’ll be good to go. By the way, has anyone told Misha what Sera and Ben have done?” Jensen’s voice held an amused tone.
Silence descended in the room. Sera and Ben had been giggling and Ben had been doing his abominable Snowman impression from Looney Tunes, saying “I’ll pat him and hug him and I’ll call him George...Jensen” in a voice sounding remarkably like Jared’s. Ben looked at Sera with horror dawning in his eyes. “Oh shit! Misha doesn’t know. He’ll wander over to Jared to say good morning, and Jay will garrotte him with the belt of his trench coat. Shit, the Cas girls will be out for blood if that happens. Eric, what are we gonna do?” There was an edge of terror in the writer’s voice as he spoke.
Ben was looking wild eyed at his boss...leader.... the poor schmuck who’d have to get between Jared and Misha. Then try to explain to an unhinged, jealous Jared that Misha wouldn’t now be groping Jensen....sorry, looking after a battered Dean, so please don’t castrate him right now. That they’d rewrite...no...scrap the episode due to contractual concerns, i.e. the concern that Jared would get homicidally jealous of a co-star, and then the crew would have to dispose of the body. They couldn’t afford to lose two of their already small regular cast, one dead, one in prison. Jensen may have been good at acting with himself against Green Screen, but even he would have trouble trying to act Sam and Cas’ roles as well. Hell, they’d have to miniaturise the set to make him look like the incredible puppy. That was before he completely wrecked his vocal chords doing Castiel’s voice
Ben’s panic-filled musings were disturbed by something that was happening on the other end of the phone line to Jensen.
As they’d been talking Jensen hadn’t noticed the sound of footsteps outside the closet, or the door being quietly opened. He was too busy enjoying the sound of Ben’s meltdown to pay attention. It was only when a large shadow loomed over him, that he realized he was no longer alone. He looked up and nearly squeaked with terror.
Leaning against the door frame was Jared, with a smile on his face. It wasn’t the usual sunny smile Jensen was used to, or even the ‘when I get you home I’m stripping your clothes off with my teeth, and tying you to the bed for the weekend’ smile that Jared sometimes gave him. No, this smile Jensen had only seen on Sam when he was pumped up on demon blood and ready to cause a little mayhem.
Jensen pressed himself against his pillows and whimpered softly, “I can explain, Jay...” Jensen’s green eyes grew wide with terror, as Jared leant over and gently took his phone from his nerveless grip.
Jared straightened and held the phone, “Hi, guys, how’s it going in LA?” He asked sweetly.
In the writers’ room three people looked at the phone in terror. Sera gripped the edge of the table, and Ben slumped across the table and started to hyperventilate. Eric remained calm and in control, and sat calculating the cost of medical bills for Jensen once Jared had finished with him. He looked at his two writers, hoping for help, but after seeing the wistful look in Sera’s eyes, he knew she wished she had green eyes and freckles about now. And the fact that Ben was gibbering softly to himself, Eric knew he was on his own.
He sat upright and got ready to plead for the life of the elder Winchester brother or at least Dean’s ability to walk straight. “Hi, Jared, how much of that did you hear? I mean, how are you? Having a nice relaxing weekend?” Eric’s voice had risen in volume, as he ignored the sniggering from Sera and Ben after they had managed to pull themselves together. He shot them a glare that told them he hadn’t forgot their part in this, and in the near future they were going to be writing whatever the hell he wanted them to write....for a change.
Eric sat tracing the shape of a devil’s trap on the table absently as he spoke to Jared in what he hoped was a casual tone of voice, “So, like I was saying, is everything alright? And about that script Ben and Sera sent. We’ve decided against running with it, budgetary and time concerns. It was an interesting idea, but I think we may have to give it a miss this season, perhaps in the future. You and Jensen going to be at work bright and early tomorrow?” Eric waited as the silence stretched on, hoping that Jared hadn’t heard the conversation, and he wouldn’t have to get on a plane to Vancouver. His mission was to convince Jared not to kill Misha as a pre-emptive strike, just in case they changed their minds and Misha wanted to rehearse the motel room scene with Jensen.
“Oh, don’t worry about that, Eric. I think it would be an awesome episode, and I’m sure Jensen and Misha would knock it out of the park. All that unresolved sexual tension they’ve got going on between them. The Cas/Dean girls will go wild, and I can’t wait to see the fan fics from it. But if it’s alright by you, me and Jensen will be in a little late tomorrow.” Jared’s voice was silky and relaxed, but everyone in the writer’s room heard the underlying dark edge in it.
Eric saw Sera shiver and then reach for her notepad out of the corner of his eye, and begin to scribble frantically. Eric envisaged a forthcoming episode with Sam threatening someone in exactly that tone of voice.....speaking of which he better try and save what was left of Jensen. Unless they wanted to film a bunch of episodes with just Sam, Cas and Bobby. He wondered if he could sell the fan girls the idea that Zachariah had snatched Dean and he was being held in heaven’s prison, being tortured to get him to say yes to Michael. That The Three Stooges....sorry, Musketeers were going to bust him out.
“No problem there, Jared, I’m sure we can do that....will you both be nice and relaxed? You know, raring to go, refreshed......fully fit....able to walk without help?” The unspoken ‘will we have to get the grips to prop Jensen up when he’s on set?’ hung in the air. Eric was tapping his pen rapidly on the table, waiting with bated breath to hear what Jared had to say.
Back in Vancouver in the closet, Jared was smirking down at Jensen, who had his blanket gripped tightly in both hands, pulled up to his chin. He looked warily at Jared, a nervous smile playing on his full lips. Jared licked his own lips; he had plans for Jensen, “Don’t worry, Eric, Jensen will be fine to film tomorrow. Just make sure there are no stunts.....and try and avoid too many scenes with Dean sitting in the Impala. I think I still have some excess energy to burn off, and Jensen has been so helpful already.” Jared almost purred the words, his smiled broadening as he looked round the closet with a thoughtful expression, before dropping gracefully to his knees in front of Jensen.
In the writer’s room Eric sagged in relief. At least they would still be able to film. True, they would probably have to use Todd, Jensen’s stunt double for any seated scenes, or walking, or any strenuous movement. But he was sure they could work with that. He shared a relieved smile with Ben and Sera. “Well, don’t use up too much energy, Jared. Don’t forget we’re filming the body swap episode next....”
“Yeah, and I bet Jensen wishes he could swap places with Misha right about now.....” Ben sniggered and Eric threw his pen at him. It struck him right between the eyes and he toppled off his chair.
Eric reached for the phone but just as he was about to switch off the speaker he was sure he heard Jared’s voice saying “You know, we’ve never done it in this closet before......time to see if we have the room.....”
Eric quickly disconnected the phone and shuddered, looking at Sera “I think we better call Bob and the guys, and tell them to stock up on cushions and ice packs for Jensen. We should get them to reschedule the Impala scenes. We’ll concentrate on Jared with Gary’s family tomorrow. Let Jensen lie down, err I mean, get some rehearsal time. Oh and Sera next time you and Ben have a bright idea like this, sell it to ‘The Vampire Diaries’. See if you can sabotage their cast instead. There is something in the way Damon and Stefan look at one another that makes me wonder about the two guys playing them.” Eric ignored the sniggering coming from his chief writers.....”Ok then, back to work. Right, guys..... We’re looking over the latest pitch from Sera.” Eric stared down at the typed words in front of him. He heard Ben drag himself back up onto his chair. He looked up to see Ben grinning at him. Eric sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger.
He took a breath and looked back at the paper, “So then, Sera, the latest pitch from you concerns a cursed item that removes the clothing of anyone coming into contact with it....oh and look, Sam picks it up....hhhmmmm I can see where you could take this one, I fully endorse it.” Eric sat back with a satisfied smile as Ben and Sera glanced nervously at one another.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. Eric was meant to go ballistic, throw an epic tantrum and then they would be able to float the musical episode idea past him again. Sera wanted to see Jared performing ‘Singing in the Rain’, preferably wearing a tight white T-shirt whilst getting rained on. Ben wanted to see Jensen singing ‘It’s Raining Men’ while fending off a bunch of demon-possessed male strippers, brandishing bottles of baby oil, determined to recruit Dean for their troupe. Instead Eric was sitting there with a happy expression.
Ben kicked Sera under the table but she continued to stare in horror at Eric. It looked like it was down to him to ask the inevitable question, “Where could we take it, Eric?” There was a tremor to his voice as he spoke.
Eric beamed at his most beloved writers and prepared to stop them in their tracks; he hadn’t got to be show runner by accident. He knew what they were up to; now it was time to remind them who was boss. “I think it’s a great idea! Look, the fan girls will love the concept of Sam’s clothes dissolving, but why stop there? I mean, it could spread, right? Think about it. We could have Dean in nothing but his boots, amulet and a strategically-placed coffee cup....I think one of the Trente ones from Starbucks should keep the censors happy. Cas could be stood there in nothing but his tie....and as for Bobby, we could have him in the wheelchair in nothing but his baseball cap! What do you think, guys?” Eric smirked as Sera and Ben recoiled at the image of a naked Bobby as they spluttered and begged to him to reconsider the demonic flock of sheep.
Meanwhile back in the closet in Vancouver, Jared was slowly crawling up Jensen’s prone body with a predatory gleam in his eye. He gently pulled at the blanket clutched tightly in Jensen’s hands; green eyes looked up at him, wide and slightly frightened. Jared tugged at the blanket more insistently, and Jensen finally left go of the soft fluffy material.
“Jay, listen. I swear I didn’t know Sera and Ben were going to write that. I thought they’d just have Sam carry Dean out of somewhere. You’re not mad, are you?” He asked nervously and then gave a sigh as Jared covered him with his body.
Jared smiled, and softly placed a finger to Jensen’s lips to stop him talking. Then he rocked slowly against Jensen, making him moan at the friction as Jared’s body pressed against his dick. Then Jared ground down harder and he could feel Jensen’s own erection pressing into his hip. Jared grinned and stroked Jensen’s cheek gently, before he bent forward and started nibbling on his neck. As he sucked gently on a pulse point, Jensen grabbed his ass and began to writhe, trying to get him to move faster. Jared just continued his slow movements, knowing they were driving Jensen mad. He let his hand travel down his boyfriend’s body, stopping over his cock, squeezing it gently through his jeans.
Jensen arched up at that and moaned when Jared began to slowly stroke him through the denim he was wearing. Jensen whimpered and his legs parted, allowing Jared to slip between them. Jared took the opportunity to swoop down and kiss Jensen, sucking gently at his bottom lip before slipping his tongue between Jensen’s lips. As they kissed Jared rocked against Jensen faster and harder; he heard a keening sound from the man beneath him.
Jared broke the kiss and started to kiss Jensen’s ear, making him squirm and the motion just made Jared pant down Jensen’s ear. Finally Jared found his voice, “Why would I be mad at you after all your noble efforts for the crew this weekend? It’s truly touching to know just what you have been prepared to sacrifice on their behalf. Laying your body down like this to prevent me from rapaciously and wantonly squishing them to within an inch of their lives. It gets me right here.” Jared put his hand on his heart as he spoke, giving Jensen his best earnest ‘Sam’ expression.
Jensen tilted his head back and frowned up at his boyfriend, “Have you been reading Gina’s Harlequin books again? I’ve warned you about that. Just because you look like one of the models on the cover doesn’t mean you’re actually Fabio.” Jensen smirked as Jared looked wounded at the suggestion.
Jared returned his hand back to Jensen’s body, caressing it gently, exploring the familiar lines and curves. Then he lowered himself until he was looking right into Jensen’s green eyes, smiling when Jensen trembled under his touch. “No, I meant what I said. After all your hard work for the crew, don’t you think you should get some rest? After all, we’re filming and Dean’s gonna get his ass kicked again. Eric’s gonna want you fresh and rested, so you can get the snot beat out of you, as usual.” Jared grinned as Jensen nodded in agreement with him.
Jensen suddenly reached up and tangled his fingers in Jared’s hair and pulled him down for a kiss. It was bruising, passionate and desperate. Jensen’s tongue flicked in and out of Jared’s mouth and Jensen’s hips rolled, rubbing himself against Jared’s cock, making him see stars and groan.
The two men pulled apart, breathing hard. Jared recovered first. Panting, he asked, “Well, do you want me to stop?” Jared’s eyes had darkened with lust as he stared down at Jensen who returned the desire filled stare.
Jensen ran his tongue over kiss swollen lips, an encouraging smirk playing over his lips and whispered, “Oh, hell no!”
online store coupons
Current Music: TV-Leverage
anne_higgins on November 28th, 2011 01:08 am (UTC)
OMG, that was hysterical! Laughed myself silly! And dang, I wish they'd film that ep!
sasha_dragon on November 28th, 2011 07:32 pm (UTC)
Thank you. glad you enjoyed it and found it funny, and I'd love to see the episode myself.
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4422
|
__label__cc
| 0.69704
| 0.30296
|
Request A Callback 1-800-825-2999
Do You Need A Lawyer?
Trust and Estates
Beaufort, SC
Let's Talk About Your
Personal Injury Case
Get the Help You Need Now.
Contact Schiller & Hamilton Law Firm
Divorce Modifications in Rock Hill
After the divorce has been finalized, there are two reasons that a client might come back to my office. It’s critical to note here that after the court rules or you have entered into an agreement, whether it’s a final separation order or a final decree of divorce, the distribution of your assets, the issues of alimony, and anything that has to do with property and debt, generally, are final and cannot be reviewed again. Clients will often come back, however, for a modification of anything that has to do with minor children, including custody, visitation, and child support, which the court does allow to be modified if the party or parent can show a substantial and material change of circumstances.
These changes in circumstances must affect the welfare of the minor child(ren), and must be both substantial and material. So if something happens in the child’s life or something’s happened in the parent’s life that warrants the change, then you can come back and petition the court to make those changes. Some common examples of a change in circumstances would be if one of the parents lost their job or became disabled to the point that they lose their ability to make the money they were earning before and cannot make child support payments. Another change of circumstance might be that one parent gets custody of the children after a divorce or after a custody order, and things go wrong for that parent, such as getting in trouble with the law or involved with drugs, or other things that negatively affects the welfare of the child. The other parent can then petition the court to modify the custody agreement if it is in the best interests of the child. Any time that those changes come in front of the court, the best interest of the child will be the ruling factor for the court.
Another matter that clients might come back to my office about for would be to seek an order for contempt or enforcement of a court order. These types of situations occur when a parent or a spouse fails to perform certain orders or stipulations in their custody agreement or divorce decree, regarding their children or spouse. These responsibilities can be such as preventing a parent from exercising their visitation time or not turning over a certain piece of property as part of the divorce. If a party suspects that the other parent or spouse is violating a court order that party can petition the court for what we call a Rule to Show Cause, which would require the violating party to come into court and show why they should not be held in contempt for willfully violating the court’s orders.
For more information on Modification of Divorce, an in-depth initial consultation is your next best step. Our skilled Rock Hill divorce lawyers will work with you.
Rock Hill Divorce Lawyer
Schiller & Hamilton Law Firm
Need Help? Contact Schiller & Hamilton
Select A Location Near You:
Lancaster, SC
78 Sams Point Road Beaufort, SC 29907
Moday - Friday
(8:30 AM - 5:00 PM)
302 N Main St Suite C
16 William Pope Drive Suites 101 & 103
197 S Herlong Avenue Rock Hill, SC 29732
Start Your Case
78 Sams Point Road
16 William Pope Drive
197 S Herlong Avenue
© Schiller & Hamilton Law Firm 2019 . All rights reserved.
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4426
|
__label__wiki
| 0.703276
| 0.703276
|
CREATED 4/9/2013
• Suuner Lacroix
• Delores Martin
Thomas F ('Tom') Pogue [Prof ]
(Misnamed Robert Pogue in one document)
— A cash-for-comments economist from the University of Iowa, who agreed to work for the tobacco industry. —
Professor Thomas Pogue became part of a network put together by tobacco lobbyist James Savarese and Professor Robert Tollison of George Mason University who collaborated in the 1980s to provide the tobacco industry [through the Tobacco Institute] with a number of academics who would be willing to write propaganda material ... always provided their names were not linked to the industry or to any of the cigarette companies.
The idea was simply that the academic 'sleepers' would be available on a cash-for-services basis when needed to counter attempts to increase excise taxes, or to ban public smoking, or just to appear as independent experts at Congressional hearings and promote the industry causes.
Economist were by far the most useful academics to the tobacco industry because the distinction between economics and politics was never clear: so support of the cigarette companies could always be claimed as support for free-market economics ... the rights of individuals to make public choices ... small government ... or even the first Amendment to the Constitution.
The economist always claimed to be 'independent', 'professionals' and they wre recognised 'academics' from some credible university. They never revealed the source of their funding in their op-eds or letters-to-the-editor.
If ever put under cross-examination, they must be able to claim with weasel-word precision, that they had never received a penny from the tobacco industry. Therefore all payments were laundered, either through tobacco industry lawyers (usually Covington & Burling), the principle organisers, James Savarese & Associates, or through Bob Tollison's Center for the Study of Public Choice at George Mason University.
The aim was to have, in each State, at least one academic economist, one academic lawyer, and one academic from a business management, business law, marketing or advertising discipline willing to jump into action and write op-ed articles for their local newspaper, or to appear at local ordinance or legislative hearings. Copies of these articles were always to be sent to a local Congressman who sat on some important (to the tobacco industry) committee.
The academics were always expected to wave their own and their university's credentials vigorously, and loudly proclaim their "independence' from any crass-commercial motives. And those who could boast of being 'non-smokers' were especially prized — since without this addiction, their non-dependent-on-tobacco status was thought to be proved beyond any doubt!
• Economist University of Iowa, Iowa City.
• See his C/V sent to the Tobacco Institute May 1987
1984 April 30: The Tobacco Institute's Cigarette Excise Tax Plan. This is a long with substantial material about the enlistment of economists to help them fight excise tax battles
It notes that in August 1983, Governor Perpich of Minnesota had created a Tax Study Commission and that
It will release a final report this fall to "provide the Legislature with a data basis and policy guide
for tax policy in the next 10-15 years." (Statement made by
George Latimer, Chairman of the Commission).
One chapter of the Commission's report is titled "Special Sales
and Excise Taxation." This includes tobacco, alcoholic beverages,
motor vehicles, and motor fuel. Tom Pogue, a public finance
economist from the University of Iowa, is the author.
The report was due for release in the Fall of 1984. [See page 85 of 109.]
[This is probably the first time Pogue came to the attention of the Tobacco Institute's lobbyists. The new network of academic economists was just being established in 1984.]
Economists's Network Foundation Document.
This 109 page Draft April 1984 Tobacco Institute file includes the "Cigarette Excise Tax Plan" which was aimed at manipulating the Reagan Administration's tax policy through the use of academic lobbyists to promote disinformation.
It spells out an immediate requirement for the contracted services of:
One public finance economist for 10 days @ $1,000, [Total $ 10,000 ] including meetings with coalition members and/or the Governor's staff; research and preparation; and testimony.
One economist for a union workshop on the tax issue, [Total $5,000] including 3 or 4 training sessions over the course of a convention.
Six economists @ $5,000 and one senior economist 53,000 @ $20,000 for a tax symposium, including publishing the proceedings at $3,000. [Total $53,000] The senior economist would play an oversight/organizational role and would be responsible for editing the proceedings. Such a symposium would be staged for regional or national impact.
One economist provided to a public employee union to do original research on the need for adequate services to be funded by broad-based taxes; this would include the final report and testimony. [Total $ 25,000]
It has draft copy and designs for a couple of different booklets aimed at different states, and at labor/union and racial groups. It also identifies the targetted Congress Committeemen and State Assemblymen most likely to be influenced, and adds an appendix which lists economists who can be enlisted to help.
Potential Economic Consultants:
Following is a list of economists in key states who might assist us as consultants. We have begun contacting them to ensure their willingness and expertise. We are asking each about past experience; work with similar issues; previous work with the indusry; published articles or research; and speaking availability.
As discussed in the body of this program, our intent is to have a group of individuals who we can call upon regularly to testify, conduct special research projects, and discuss their research and/or views on excise taxes with the media.
California, Thomas Borsherding, Claremont College
Connecticut, William McEachern, University of Washington
Florida, Richard Wagner, Florida State University
Georgia, Fred McChesney, Emory University Law School
Illinois, James Heins, University of Illinois
Massachusetts, Harlan Platt, Northeastern University
Minnesota, Thomas Stimson, University of Minnesota (St. Paul Campus)
New York, Harold Hochman, City University of New York
Ohio, David Klingaman, Ohio University
Pennsylvania, Mark Pauly, University of Pennsylvania
Texas, Charles Maurice, Texas A&M University
Washington, Yoram Barazel, University of Washington
Washington, D.C. Robert D. Tollison, George Mason University
Wisconsin, Burton Weisbrod, University of Wisconsin
[Robert] Tollison is the most influential and prestigious on this list. He was hired to consult on federal tax situations, provide an administrative structure, and to oversee efforts of the others throughout the country.
See last page
[Yoram Barzel is the only name on this list who appears to have resisted the Institute's overtures entirely. However Mark Pauly resigned not long after and Harlan Platt within the year. The rest served the tobacco industry for decades.] [ Thomas Pogue was not a member of the network at this time.]
1984 July: The Tobacco Institute's Cigarette Excise Tax Plan.
1984 July 11: The State Excise Plan - Strategy and overview for Iowa.
Thomas Pogue, along with many of the original 42 academic economists who made up the first network, must have been recruited in the last few months of 1984.
IOWA (Sen. Grassley)
• Professor Thomas Pogue
University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa
(Sen. Grassley)
Professor Thomas Pogue
University of Iowa Iowa City, Iowa
1985 Feb 21: Roger Mozingo of the Tobacco Institute is sending his state directors a list of resources available to fight against excise taxes in their states. "Robert" (sic) Pogue of University of Iowa heads their state list of available economic witnesses for Iowa.
1985 May 1: Des Moines Register publishes a Thomas Pogue article "How to have a fair tax reform" which he copies to the Tobacco Institute where it is widely circulated among the cigarett companies. The cigarette excise message is hidden in the list:
Among the products singled out for federal excise taxation are fishing equipment, bows and: arrows, firearms, alcoholic beverages, cigarettes, cigars, wagers, low-mileage (gas guzzler) automobiles, local and long-distance telephone calls, and motor- vehicle fuel, parts and tires.
He forgets to mention in the article that this was written on commission from the tobacco industry.
1985 Aug 1: "Background Information to the Excise Tax issue" is circulated. It includes an Editorial in the Newport Daily News (RI) with quotes from David Wilhelm, exec director of Citizens for Tax Justice, and a number of the network economists:
Joseph Jadlow
Robert Ekelund Jr
Thomas Borcherding
Attached are a range of clippings from different op-eds the economist have written.
Todd Sandler
Michael Crew
Robert Ekelund
Ann Harper-Fender
Thomas Pogue
Lee Alston
Paul Menchik
Henry Butler
Burton Abrams
Ryan Amacher
James Heins
Dominick Armentano
Fred McChesney
William Hunter
Dennis Logue
William Shurgart
Harold Hochman
Celeste Gaspari
David Laband,
Dean Tipps
Allen Parkman
Richard Vedder
Roger Faith
1985 Sep 6: Acey at the Tobacco Institute has sent a bundle of newspaper clippings along to their printer/copier.
Enclosed are 15 original newspaper clipings (don't lose them!) some in better shape than others.
[This economist's article is to be circulated.]
Senator Grassley
Des Moines Register (c. 243,000) May 1
1985 Dec: /E President Ronald Reagan asked Senator Bob Packwood, chairman of the US Senate Finance Committee, to design a proposal for comprehensive tax reform
which would reduce the highest individual income tax rate down to 35% from its current 50% level, but retain adequate incentives for business investment, and avoid inclusion of any new taxes.
In an attempt to do this without reducing the total amount of tax revenue that is currently collected, the Packwood plan proposes to offset reduced revenues from income taxes by what the Wall Street Journal has referred to as a "backdoor increase in excise taxes."
The Packwood plan proposes to eliminate the income tax deductibility of excise taxes and import tariffs paid by businesses [and it] would increase federal excise tax receipts by an estimated $75 billion over five years. Approximately $13 billion of this would be a result of a direct increase in excise taxes on motor fuel, wine, distilled spirits, and tobacco.
See also in this document James Savarese's report to Fred Panzer at the Tobacco Institute on the progress of his Packwood Excise Tax/Op-Ed project. This economist and 18 others are writing opinion pieces for their local newspapers, and sending letters to their congressmen.
[The Packwood Plan triggered a substantial increase in the activities of the cash-for-comments economists already employed by the tobacco industry and led to the creation of the very substantial network of academic economists in every state who could be called upon to help fight tax increases on cigarettes — and later public smoking bans.]
Professor Thomas Pogue (University of Iowa) wrote an op-ed article that appeared in the Des Moines Register on May 1 (major newspaper in home state of Senate Finance Member Grassley). Copies were sent to Grassley.
1986 Jan: The Tobacco Institute's Public Relations Resource booklet for their Regional Directors, lists documents, booklets, article, posters and people who can help them fight local public smoking ordinances and threats to raise the excise taxes on cigarettes.
It provides a long list of economists who are willing to speak at hearings, or write letters to the editor, or op-eds for the newspapers to counter the public smoking or excise tax threat. It lists him as the contact for:
Department of Economics, University of Iowa,
Department of Economics, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA
1986 March: Copies of the letters that the cash-for-comments economists wrote to various newspapers editors, and also the ones they wrote to their Senators — none of which mentioned that they'd been paid by the Tobacco Institute to write both the op-eds and the Congressional letters. These were sent to the Tobacco Institute as proof of their activities:
Thomas Pogue, University of Iowa, wrote to the editor of the Des Moines Register (with his op-ed), and a letter to Senator Tom Harkin and Senator Charles Grassley:
As an economist interested in federal tax policy, I have followed closely the tax revision proposals that Senator Packwood has brought forth for consideration by the Senate Finance Committee. Taken as a whole, these proposals would improve neither the equity nor the efficiency of our federal tax system. I am especially concerned about his proposal to end deductibility of federal excises and tariffs, which in my view is the most unsatisfactory element of the package.
See Pages 1 to 3
Newspaper clippings of some of the network members' published articles for this project are grouped here:
[Printed versions]
Joseph Jadlow, Tax reform Hidden excise boost hurt consumers...
Allen Dalton, Hidden taxes gut Reagan reform plan.
Charles Maurice, Packwood proposal picks our pockets.
Scott Atkinson, Packwood Tax Reform Bill Threatens Wyoming Economy.
[Typewritten draft versions]
Allen Dalton, Tax Revision: Reform or Fraud.
Thomas F Pogue, Senator Packwood's Proposal is Not Tax Reform.
Richard B McKenzie, Excise Taxation: A Misguided Soultion to the Federal Governments Fiscal Woes.
Terry Anderson, Tax Reform We Don't Need.
Michael Crew, Tax Reform Hides Massive Excise Tax Increases: Senator Packwood Is Too Clever by Half.
JJ Bodewyn, Taxwise, We are going to be had.
Anne Harper-Fender, The Packwood Tax Plan: Reform or Expediency.
Scot Atkinson, Packwood Tax Reform Bill Threatens Wyoming Economy.
These draft articles have all been freshly retyped on two different typewriters. This confirms that they are the final output after they've passed the Tobacco Institute's vetting, clearance, and 'improvement' stages.
1986 Mar 20: Tobacco Institute document: Background Update Of the Estimated Effect of the Packwood Tax Plan On the Price Increase Necessary For Cigarettes
If the deductibility of the excise taxes is eliminated, then most, if not all, of this tax increase will be passed on to tobacco consumers as price increases to cover the additional corporate taxes they will be required to pay, plus the indexed excise tax requirement.
On the basis of 1985 sales, and the level of federal excise taxes paid on cigarettes, the level of taxable sales would be: $4.5 billion / $0.16 = 28.125 billion packs — the remainder are either sent overseas as exports or to armed services, or to government institutions.
If the Packwood plan is adopted, and if the effective tax rate on tobacco corporations is 35 percent as in 1983, the increase in corporate income taxes would be about $1.83 billion.
It must be assumed that this tax increase will be passed on to consumers in order to maintain net income. This will cause a decline in demand on the base level of 28.125 billion packs.
1986 Mar 21: Pogue has sent his article along to the editor of the Des Moines Register, along with a letter on University letterhead to emphasise his standing and independence.
On the same day he sends a letter with a copy of the op-ed to Senator Tom Harkin, and another to Senator Charles Grassley. None of these mention that these articles and letters were written on commision from the Tobacco Institute. [The letters have been typed by 'baa' — presumably the Univesity-employed secretary]
1986 April: Professors Joseph M Jadlow (Oklahoma) and Charles Maurice (Texas A&M) have prepared draft articles attacking the Packwood Tax Plan. James Saverese has sent them, together with clippings of articles already published, along to Fred Panzer at the Tobacco Institute for correction and clearance. (See page 10)
It lists many dozens of articles which the cash-for-comment economist on the network have now written, including one:
Prof Thomas Pogue
Submitted to Paper: 3/21/86, DesMoines Register
Current Status: [N/a}
Letters have been sent on to Senators Grassley and Harkin
The Tobacco Institute also keeps a record of his submissions and letters to his State Senators, which is circulated to the tobacco companies (here Lorillard).
One of the network economists, William Mitchell, has also written an "Open Letter to Senator Packwood" attacking his plan, and this is being circulated along with a letter from "Opportunities Industrialization Centers of America, Inc."
1986 Apr 1: An Open Letter to Senator Robert Packwood (by Wm Mitchell) has been sent to the network economists to help them write their articles. This is a checklist of those in the 1) Writing Stage 2) Submitted to Newspapers 3) Letters Written to Senators.
This cash-for-comments participant has written both the article and the letters to Senators, and has obediently attached copies of both, which are sent back to the Tobacco Institute.
1986 Apr 3: James Savarese writes to his stable of economists on the subject of "New Research Opportunities." [A sure-fire come-on with academics]
I would like to thank you for all of your cooperation and diligence in handling the projects we have worked on together. I am taking this opportunity to alert you to some new research opportunities that may be available in the upcoming weeks.
The Tobacco Institute is interested in considering research proposals which would establish a much more realistic examination of the social cost issue as it relates to the smoking issue.
He includes an OTA paper on the dangers of smoking and also...
... rebuttals developed by Bob Tollison and Richard Wagner to the OTA report.
The Institute would like to examine proposals for research that test, in a quantitative way, a number of propositions on the relevant cost considerations that apply to the smoking issue.
If some aspect of this interests you, please provide me with a brief (1-2 page) description of any project you have in mind by April 30. Please include a cost approximation.
The scent of possible research money on top of the op-ed writing must have generated substantial academic enthusiasm. He is listed as one of the recipients of this letter on the "Brainstorming - Research Ideas" project.
1986 Apr 3: This appears to be the approved copy of the letter on "New Research Proposals" that Jim Savarese sent to his long list of network economists. This letter leaves no doubt that these academic economist knew that they were being paid to protect the interests of the tobacco industry.
The economist were also being given outline "rebuttals" developed by Tollison and Wagner to help them in writing their counter-attacks to an an Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) anti-smoking report.
As you know, the tobacco industry is exposed continuously to a barrage of attacks on economic issues. Many of these attacks involve a serious perversion of the concept of social cost. The Tobacco Institute is interested in considering research proposals which would establish a much more realistic examination of the social cost issue as it relates to the smoking issue.
I have attached a report prepared by the staff of the Office of Technology Assessment which is representative of the kind of "research" being put forth by anti-tobacco activists. I have also included the rebuttals developed by Bob Tollison and Richard Wagner to the OTA report.
This went out to the long list of cash-for-comments economist on the network.
1986 Apr 6: A list of excerps from major newspaper editorials and op-eds about the Packwood tax plan.
Thomas F. Pogue, Professor of Economics, University of Iowa, in the Cedar Rapids Gazette. "Packwood Proposal is not tax reform"
"But for most low- and middle-bracket taxpayers, the benefits of lower tax rates and higher exemptions would be more than offset by the higher prices paid for products subject to excise taxes and tariffs."
1986 Apr 11: The Tobacco Institute plans for State-by-State actions to generate opposition to the Packwood Tax Plan.
1986 Apr 15: Jim Savarese is reporting to Fred Panzer at the TI about the [anti] Packwood Tax Plan project. He includes numerous letters sent to Senators, copies of published op-eds, and a revised op-ed for Maine and one for Minnesota, He lists the successes of the network economists, including:
IOWA, Prof Thomas Pogue
[Submitted to] Des Moines Register 3/21/86
[Letters sent to Senators] Grassley and Harking
1986 May: /E A Tobacco Institute list of "Schedule of Payments - Excise Tax Op-Ed project." (April-May 1986) This lists those academic economists who have already planted their article on a local newspaper, and the amount they are to be paid.
They appear to have been paid $900 for each article, and $1025 if they had also made contact with their local Congressman. However a number of the cash-for-comments network members still have not completed their commission.
The George Mason (Uni) production staff of Bob Tollison, Bill Shughart, and Gary Anderson were paid for "rewrites, editing and research, 18 articles", and Carol Robert for the "production of final product. " A total of $18,000 + $1067 expenses [or $1000 per article to make them into saleable propaganda for their local newspapers]
Pogue in Iowa has been given the target of planting his article on the Des Moines Register and was due for payment of $1025.00.
A later Schedule of Payments increases this amount by another "$975.00 — Paid in Full"
The GMU production staff were also being paid another $9,500 for rewrites, editing and research on 9 additional articles, while Savarese seems to have been charging $5,800 + $235 in expenses for recruiting replacement economists in California, Montana, New York, Ohio and Tennessee.
1986 May 1: Pogue, along with dozens of other academic economists, has written an op-ed piece for his local newspaper (intended to influence local politicians and voters) "How to have a fair tax reform" published in the Des Moines Register.
Like most of the Tobacco Institute funded op-eds published at this time, this article attack excised taxes in general while dealing only superficially or obliquely with tobacco. You wouldn't know this was tobacco-funded without access to the archives documents.
Of course the same can apply to euthenasia of the disabled and the elderly, and perhaps the hanging of all academic economists who propound this sort of simplistic nonsense.
1986 Jun: Tobacco Institute document "Federal Markets" on the likely allies the industry has acquired to oppose the earmarking of cigarette excises for healthcare. It also includes a record of their successful activities in each state
Market: IOWA
Academics: Professor Thomas Pogue (University of Iowa) wrote an op-ed article that appeared in the Des Moines Register, on May 1 (major newspaper in home state of Senate Finance Member Grassley). Copies were sent to Grassley.
IOWA, (Sen. Grassley)
[Economist:] Professor Thomas Pogue, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, 319-353-3068
[Speciality:] Fiscal policy; public finance; distribution effects of (state & fed.) government grants.
Robert Pogue Iowa data card
Fire Safety Education Grant to City of Des Moines Fire Dept.
Robert Conner
Des Moines Helping Youth Decide
IOWA (Sen- Grassley)
University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, 319-353-3068
[Specializing in]Fiscal policy; public finance; distribution effects of (state & fed.) government grants.
See two of Pogue's articles on page 186 and 197 of the document bundle.
Professor Thomas Pogue [ Region IV ]
Department of Economics, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52240, 319-353-3068
Packwood
1987 Jan 6: and 12 Jim Savarese advises the Tobacco Institute that some economists were no longer working for his network. However Pogue is still being listed as their main Iowa economist-for-hire.
In order to keep this project straight with respect to the economists, we were specifically assigned to go back to all 42 names on the original list to check to see if the economists were still interested in working for us, still in the same state, and available to meet with representatives from state activities.
We have 34 who fit this criteria and have been contacted. The list is attached. The states that we once had that are currently missing are Arizona, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Jersey, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
The attached invoice covers the project of re-contacting the original 42 economists and coming up with the present 34 people.
[The invoice is missing, and he gives no details of the current project.]
An internal memo within the Tobacco Institute explains to Regional Directors why they had needed Savarese to check on availability:
The primary purpose of this contact is to determine if a given economist is capable of testifying effectively before a legislative body.
They have been informed that someone from TI will be in contact with them.
We request that an initial contact be made by telephone immediately. Please let me know when this initial contact has been made. Personal meetings should be arranged and completed no later than May 1, 1987.
1987 Jan 6: Savarese is charging the Tobacco Institute $3,200 to update the cash-for-comments economists list (with Pogue still active)
1987 Feb 6: James Savarese has finalised his list of compliant economists, and sends them to Susan Stuntz at the Tobacco Institute. It lists all the familiar cash-for-comment economists
Old faithfuls:
Lee Anderson, Terry Anderson, Dom Armentano, Cecil Bohanon, Thomas Borcherding, Henry Butler, JR Clark, John David, Allan Dalton, Arthur Denzau, Clifford Dobitz, Robert Ekelund, David Gay, Anne Harper-Fender, Dennis Hein, John Howe, Wm Hunter, Joe Jadlow, Michael Kurth, Suuner LaCroix, Dwight Lee, C Matt Lindsay, Dennis Logue, Chuck Mason [Masen], Charles Maurice, Fred McChesney, Robert McMahon, Arthur Mead, Wm Mitchell, Allen Parkman, Wm Peterson, Thomas Pogue, Barry Poulson, Raymond Raab, Simon Rottenberg, Mark Schmitz, Richard Vedder, Richard Wagner
plus a few new ones.[
Greg Niehaus, Mario Rizzo, Roger Riefler, and Boon Yoon.]
1987 Feb 6: This is the Tollison/Saverese network list of economists recruited until the end of 1986. It has 64 names, but it still doesn't cover all 50 States. Some States have two or three network members, so newspapers [and sometimes Congressmen] need to be specified for each member to ensure there is no accidental duplication.
Telephone numbers (office and home) are often included in case an urgent op-ed or ordinance hearing is needed. These are grouped by State:
Department of Economics, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, 52240, 319-353-3068
Professor Todd Sandler
Department of Economics, Iowa State University,
Ames, Iowa 50011, 515-292-0745 (H) [/294-5783] (W)
1987 Mar 31: A list of 26 quotes excerpted from major newspaper editorials and op-eds from the TI's cash-for-comments economists about the Packwood tax plan.
The Des Moines Register, March '31, 1987.
"They tax each family according to how it chooses to spend its income and not according to its ability to pay: taxes."
Thomas F. Pogue, professor of economics, University of Iowa
1987 May 5: Cotton Mather ('Matt') Lindsay of Clemson University has written an article "Excise Taxes: Facist Finance" which is being circulated at the Tobacco Institute. He has discovered through his extensive research that:
it is difficult to achieve vertleal equity [equal burden on everyone] through excise taxes because the amount of the tax paid depends on purchases rather than income.
Breweries and tobacco companies write checks to the government for the excise taxes on beer and cigarettes, but here economists agree; these companies pass these taxes on to consumers. One's share of the burden of the revenues raised by these taxes depends on how much beer one drinks and how much one smokes.
The unfairness of these excises is manifest; it is not merely another economists' debating point. The tobacco excise tax, for example, is the most regressive tax in the federal system. It is paid only by smokers who are today predominantly lower-middle income earners, lower income working women and blue collar workers.
Some have argued that these taxes are appropriate because the funds can be earmarked for expenditures like Medicare, environmental protection and even public employee pensions. Why beer drinkers and cigarette smokers ought to pay more for such things is far from clear, however. To the extent that these activities shorten life, they relieve the burdens of Medicare and pension funds by removing potential claimants from the eligibility roles.
Viewed from another perspective, smokers and beer drinkers not only bear a disproportionate share of taxes because they pay excises on these commodities, but they get less for their money, too. Because they live a shorter life span, they collect less in retirement benefits and receive fewer Medicare benefits.
This may be fine for Mussolini, but it is antithetical to tax principles in a free and open society.
This simplistic analysis is accompanied by a list of the cash-for-comments economist from the network [to whom it will presumably be sent as an example (See note "at last....")] together with handwritten notes as to the skills and value of each as witnesses at legislatures or local ordinance hearings.
Professor Thomas Pogue:
"Yes, could be outstanding.."
1987 May 22: Michael Brozek the Regional Vice President for Region IV wrote to George Minshew at the Tobacco Institute presenting his Economic Witness Evaluation He writes:
Please convey to those in charge of the economic witness program; it is one thing to evaluate an economic witness over lunch, by telephone or over cocktails. But, it is quite another thing to evaluate these potential witnesses in the acrimonious, politically charged, circus-like disarray of a committee hearing. In essence, some of these guys (as in the case of Minnesota) fold under any unfriendly inquisition.
The ivory tower is different from the political trenches.
My recommendation, if we are to continue this economic witness program, a political orientation would be advisable in order to better equip these witnesses for potentially politicized circumstances.
He then deals with each of them on a case-by-case basis:
IOWA: Professor Thomas Pogue
TI legislative counsel Chuck Wasker wishes to meet with Professor Pogue after the legislative session in Iowa.
Due to the conference committee format during the successful defeat of a proposed 10 cent cigarette tax increase, Professor Pogue's testimony was not politically expedient. In short, Mr. Wasker and I will meet with Professor Pogue to prepare him for a potential special session.
1987 May 27: In this document, Michel Brozek, the Regional Director of the Tobacco Institute, has been in contact with Professor Thomas F Pogue, who must already be enlisted as an available witness, to evaluate his ongoing value to the tobacco industry. He writes:
[I]t is one thing to evaluate an economic witness over lunch, by telephone or over cocktails. But, it is quite another thing to evaluate these potential witnesses in the acrimonious, politically charged, circus-like disarray of a committee hearing. In essence, some of these guys (as in the case of Minnesota) fold under any unfriendly inquisition. The ivory tower is different from the political trenches.
My recommendation, if we are to continue this economic witness program, [is that] a political orientation would be advisable in order to better equip these witnesses for potentially politicized circumstances. [ie he only wants libertarian or neo-con partisan warriors.]
TI legislative counsel Chuck Wasker wishes to meet with Professor Pogue after the legislative session in Iowa. Due to the conference committee format during the successful defeat of a proposed 10 cent cigarette tax increase, Professor Pogue's testimony was not politically expedient: In short, Mr. Wasker and I will meet with Professor Pogue to prepare him for a potential special session.
A tacked-on CV suggests that Pogue is a member of the Public Choice movement (Hayek/neo-con economists) who's president is Tollison at the Center for the Study of Public Choice, at George Mason University. [See Pogue's C/V.]
1987 June 9: The Tobacco Institute's Phase II - Excise Tax Op-Ed project involved an article-writing campaign by cash-for-comment economists was run by James Savarese & Associates. It was secretly directed by Robert Tollison from George Mason University with Savarese as the organiser and front.
In the mid 1987 period, the project was controlled by Jeff Rose [under Peter Sparber] at the Tobacco Institute and it focussed on defeating cigarette excise tax increases — and especially the threat of such taxes being 'earmarked' to bolster health care budgets.
Saverese and Tollison appear to have been in some form of loose partnership, because Anna Tollison, the wife of Bob Tollison, was employed by James Savarese & Associates to keep a record of the articles generated by their large contingent of academic economists and to organise payment.
She reported that
"In sum, 41 economists were solicited to write editorials. We have publications in 20 states, 14 articles have been written and submitted, and 7 articles are still outstanding." [Others were in the offing]
She included a long list of the economists who wrote the articles, the newspapers in which they were published, together with their circulation figures [eg. the potential number of readers they may have influenced] and the publication date. This economist is featured on her list.
IOWA, Pogue, DesMoines Registe, [circ.] 243,000, [pub date] 3/31/87
1987 June 22: The Tobacco Institute has been sent by Savarese a "Schedule of Payments — Excise Tax Op-Ed Project." It details the name of the cash-for-comment economist, the State, the targetted newspaper, and both past and current payments — with a separate column labled "Total Earned to Date".
In IOWA
[Tom] Pogue for Des Moines Register —Owed $950 — Total to date $2000
Also there were payments to George Mason production staff ( Bob Tollison, Bill Shughart and Gary Anderson) for rewrites ($27,500) and a $5,800 payment for replacement of five economists (presumably because they were unproductive or unsatisfactoy). Carol Roberts was also paid for the final production. ($5,000)
Total here with expenses was $33,810 on top of the $40,525 paid to the network economists.
1987 July: a selected group of the economists have been commissioned to write op-eds about cutting the deficit — and to de-emphasise the value of excise taxes. Generally they follow the line of listing four possibilities approaches
a general consumption tax (efficient but regressive)
increased excise taxes (inefficient and regressive)
a national lottery (regressive and competitive with State lotteries)
increased income taxes (unpopular)
In this bundle are very similar articles planted on their local newspaper in the March-April period by
Dwight Lee (2 of),
Dominick Armentano (3 of),
John Howe,
Joseph Jadlow,
S Charles Maurice (2 of),
Thomas Pogue,
Cecil Bohanon (2 of),
Chuck Mason,
JR Clark (2 of),
Allen Parkman.
Robert Ekelund Jr. (2 of),
William Mitchell,
Cliff Dobitz (2 of),
Barry Poulson,
William Hunter,
Michael Kurth,
John David,
David Gay,
Lee Anderson,
Robert McMahon,
Craig McPhee,
Brian Goff (2 of),
Dennis Logue,
Thomas Wyrick,
Arthur Mead,
Richard Wagner.
[This was one of their most successful projects. Professor Dominick Armentano writes to Anna Tollison [wife of Robert] that "... the article went national"]
1987 Aug 21: Jeff Ross at the Tobacco Institute has prepared a consolidated summary of "Field Staff Evaluation of Economists" for his superiors, William Kloepfer and Peter Sparber. They have been asked to look at 34 of these academics. This includes an outline of their recent achievements.
Professor Thomas Pogue University of Iowa Iowa City, IA
Excise Tax Op Eds: Des Moines Register — 03/31/87
Economic Witness/Testimony: (nil)
Field Staff Contact: Meeting scheduled.
Field Staff Evaluation: None.
1988 Feb 8: The Tobacco Institute to its Regional VPs and Directors.
Attached is an updated list of The Institute's cadre of excise tax economists. These economists are available for testimony, one-on-one meetings with legislators, writing letters and op-ed pieces in the states in which they teach, as well as in any state you deem appropriate.
This economist is listed.
1989 Jan 11: The Tobacco Institute's Scientific Consultancy Activity 1988-89
This is an 80 page mixed bag of files dumped together [Well worth perusing]. The first document is from 1990 [ordered in reverse]
Pages 3 to 23 begin with Witness Appearances in 1988 and 1989 involving both "Indoor Air Quality experts" who work for the Tobacco Institute, and three economists [Bob Tollison, Richard Wagner and Dwight Lee]
Pages 24 to 31 Labor IAQ Presentations in 1988 and 1989 which involves key figures in the labor movement and a few "IAQ experts."
Pages 32 to 39 IAQ/ETS conferences attended by tobacco industry disinformation experts in 1988 and 1989
Pages 40 to 41 Academic and Unaffiliated Scientfic Witnesses
Pages 43 to 53 Smokers Rights Legislation in various states.
See page 54: Tobacco Institute "Confidential" memo on "Tax Hearing Readiness" which is their battle plan to counter earmaking of cigarette excise taxes to fund health programs. It lists a large number of organizations and a few congressmen who can be relied on to help. It also has both primary and secondary lists of economists from Tollison's "cash-for-comments" network willing to give testimony.
Economists: [Primary]
Bill Orzechowski, Tobacco Institute
Robert Tollison, George Mason University
Richard Wagner, George Mason University
Dwight Lee, University of Georgia, Athens
Michael Davis, Southern Methodist University
Gary Anderson, California State at Northridge
William Prendergast (resource: Prendergast/Solmon papers)
Other Network economists [see Secondary attached list below]
"Due by mid-year is a book examining earmarking and "user fees" from a public choice perspective. The treatise will contain 8-10 chapters written by respected economists, including, Henri LePage and Nobel laureate James Buchanan."
The Tobacco Institute's list of cash-for-comments professors and senior academics who were available to write op-eds and give evidence at Congressional hearings, etc. had grown extensively.
Prof Thomas Pogue, University of Iowa
Prof Todd Sandler, Iowa State University
[TI budget papers show that each op-ed now earned the economists $3,000. Presentations to conferences earned them $5,000. Savarese was paid $70 to $100,000 pa for this project, and Ogilvy & Mather $250,000.]
1989 Jan 11: He was one of two economists still working for the tobacco industry in 1989 when the Tobacco Institute document of available economists, ordered by State, was distributed to their Regional and State Directors. It had him listed:
Professor Thomas Pogue Department of Economics, University of Iowa
Iowa City,. Iowa 52240 319-353-3068
The phone numers were now being included in these lists, presumably to allow quick record-free contacts to be made when emergencies arose.. The Tobacco Institute's list of cash-for-comments economists has now blown out to 64 — not including Robert Tollison, the principle organizer of the economists network.
1989 April 18: Susan Stuntz (Issues Manager) at the Tobacco Institute memoes her boss Sam Chilcote. She is sending him material previously used for a two-day "Gerry Long" presentation. He wants to use it in a shorter one-day (unspecified) briefing session.
[Gerald H Long was the CEO of RJ Reynolds who in 1988 had just taken over as Chairman of the Tobacco Institute's Executive Committee and wanted to make changes.]
This document has the speaker's powerpoints, including a list of network economists divided on a State-by-State basis. Note the document is 117 pages
The outline for the Powerpoint slides is here in full, together with the names of the politicians they were required to influence. It boasts that the..
Economists' Network 64 Strong [is] Targeted to Congressional Tax Writing Committees [and utilizing the] Production of Op-Eds on Federal Tax Policy.
[List of economists]
1989 June /E Pogue appears to be one cut from the network at this time because the Tobacco Institute needed to save costs, and so dumped a large number of their State-centered projects.
1990 May 7: The Tobacco Institute's "1991 Tax and Social Cost Plans" have sections on
"Social Costs" Hearings Readiness (preparation for fielding witnesses at Congressional hearings.) They list here the arguments that the Institute and its allies must be prepared to present.
"Tax" Hearing Readiness (as above, but for excise tax increases, State and Federal)
List of cash-for-comment network economists in each State.
This is an updated list with the current locations of each, with phone numbers and addresses.
Department of Economics, University of Iowa
Department of Economics, Iowa State University
1995 Dec 8: The Savarese Status Report on the FDA Op-ed Program says that
"Profesor Pogue has been contacted. We are waiting to hear whether he will be able to participate."
1995 Dec 21: Savarese & Associate's Status report to Carol Hyrcaj at the Tobacco Institute on the FDA op-editorial program [Dec 8th].
As reflected in the status report, we have replaced Iowa, Wisconsin, and the Houston congressional district with three new states (California, Massachusetts and West Virginia). As you know, we have already received Robert Sexton's (California) article, as well as confirmation that the economist in Massachusetts is able to participate.
At this time, we are asking those economists that have published, to forward a copy of their article to their congressman/congresswoman.
Clearly some of their draft articles were not entirely satisfactory and required rewrites by Savarese's staff. The notes include some additional revealing items such as:
Professor Cecil Bohanon — "Revised op-ed returned to economist 11/10"
" Professor Pogue has been contacted. We are waiting to hear whether he will be able to particpate."
Professor Kurth — "Will have op-ed to us by next week" [for checking]
Professor Ridgway — "Will have op-ed to us in a week"
Professor Gallaway — "Returned revised op-ed to economist 11/2"
Professor Davis — "Returned revised op-ed 11/3"
Clifford Fry, Resources Inc, Bryan Texas — "Had to identify new economist. Sent materials 11/14"
Prof Charles Breeden, Marquette University, — "Had to identify new economist. Sent materials 11/14"
[These last two were obviously a fill in for a Texas and a Wisconsin economist who had dropped out of the network.]
Excise Tax Forum
1996 Aug 14: Philip Morris and RJ Reynolds were trying to put together a coalition of tobacco and alcohol companies and organizations to run a three-day "Comprehensive Inter-industry Forum on Excise Taxes", to be held early January 1997 in Palm Beach, the Bahamas, or Nassau.
It would bring together "15 Leading Academics, 10 Industry Representatives, 5 Decision Makers, and 5 Representatives from the Public Policy Community [eg. think-tank operatives]."
It would be funded by the tobacco companies through the Coalition Against Regressive Taxation (CART) [a tobacco front], but officially run by the Tax Foundation [A subsidiary of Citizens for a Sound Economy which is now known as FreedomWorks.]
The Excise Tax Forum will produce two immediate deliverables:
A special journal supplement, and related articles summarizing the proceedings of the meeting. It is anticipated that this will be published in a scholarly economic journal:
Press materials and video summarizing the meeting, and its findings.
In addition, participants in each of the four workshops will determine at least one area for additional research. The result of each of these research projects will be an academic journal article and related press material.
Estimated Cost.
Provisions wIll be made to provide small honoraria to forum participants [those who attend, not just those who speak] and all expenses will be paid by the sponsors. These expenses include airfare, ground transportation, 2 hotel nights, and all food and sponsored entertainment.
As currently envisioned, the cost for the Excise Tax Forum will be approximately $195,000.[Plus the cost of future research committed.]
It is recommended that a small New York based boutique shop, Current Medical Directions (CMD), be hired to undertake this event.
See also $205,000 version of document
The Savarese network of economists continues behind the scenes until at least early 1999. However, after the Cipollone Case (when thousands of tobacco documents were released to the public) and following the Master Settlement Agreement (1997-98) when millions of documents were put on-line, the evidence of later network activities disappears from the tobacco archives.
This doesn't mean that these economists stopped working for the tobacco industry — just that they kept their communications to the telephone — and Savarese didn't send their material on to the Tobacco Institute for vetting and legal checks because it no longer existed. It was dismembered as part of the Settlement Agreement.
Professor Pogue appears to have remained a member of the network to the end. Savarese died in February 2009.
CONTRIBUTORS:sjc2 samf in22
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4428
|
__label__cc
| 0.674224
| 0.325776
|
richardmitnick 3:38 pm on July 11, 2017 Permalink Reply
Tags: Astrobites ( 298 ), Astronomy ( 7,793 ), Astrophysics ( 4,923 ), Basic Research ( 10,766 ), Cosmology ( 5,116 ), DES - Dark Energy Survey ( 20 ), Extreme variability quasars, PanSTARRS ( 3 ), SDSS ( 36 )
From astrobites: “Extreme variability quasars”
Astrobites
Suk Sien Tie
Title: Extreme variability quasars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and the Dark Energy Survey
Authors: Nick Rumbaugh, Yue Shen, Eric Morganson et al.
First Author’s Institution: National Center for Supercomputing Applications, IL.
Status: Submitted to ApJ, open access
Active galactic nuclei (AGNs), the central active regions of supermassive black holes, have many masks. They span a large range of luminosities from roughly ten billion to ten thousand Milky Ways (even at their dimmest, they are still one of the brightest objects in the Universe). They have varying radio brightnesses and the presence of radio jets is not a luxury to be had by all. When scrutinized with a spectrograph, they reveal telltale signs of different anatomies. Some exhibit broad emission lines, others narrow, and still others both. Therefore, AGNs carry a myriad of different names, such as Seyferts, blazars, and quasars. However, the multifaceted appearances of AGNs are deceiving — the AGN unification theory postulates that which type of AGN you see depends on your viewing angle and the wavelength of light you’re looking in. Otherwise, you’re simply looking at one and the same object, the central bright region of a supermassive black hole.
All AGNs have one thing in common: they vary in brightness. In (not quite) the (exact) words of Shakespeare, an AGN by any other name would always vary. In particular, quasars (the highest redshift and most luminous subclass of AGN and the main focus of the paper) are known to vary by 10%-30%, corresponding to ~0.1 mag to ~0.3 mag, over the course of many years. The physical mechanism for their variability is still an open question, with the leading theory being temperature fluctuations in the black hole accretion disk driven by an X-ray source near the central black hole. The authors of this paper are not interested in regular varying quasars, instead they are interested in quasars that vary by 1 magnitude or more — the extreme variability quasars.
There is a hint of such a population from previous studies, such as a joint PanStarrs-SDSS search that uncovered ~40 quasars that vary by more than 1.5 magnitudes.
U Hawaii Pann-STARRS1 Telescope, located at Haleakala Observatory, Hawaii
SDSS Telescope at Apache Point Observatory, NM, USA
Extreme variability quasars are thought to be the larger class of an intriguing group of quasars that has only recently been discovered (oh no, not another group), known as changing look quasars (see this for an example). Changing look quasars pose a significant challenge to the AGN unification model, because they change from one AGN type to another over the course of several decades. More often than not, these changes are accompanied by a large magnitude variation. Aside from studying the properties of the extreme variability quasars, the authors also hope to build a larger sample of changing look quasars in order to probe their origin(s).
Using both SDSS and the Dark Energy Survey (DES) to construct a search baseline of ~15 years, the authors found ~1000 spectroscopically confirmed quasars that vary by 1 magnitude or more.
Dark Energy Camera [DECam], built at FNAL
NOAO/CTIO Victor M Blanco 4m Telescope which houses the DECam at Cerro Tololo, Chile, housing DECam
They also recovered all previously known changing look quasars that fall within their footprint. Figure 1 shows the light curves and spectrum for one of their objects. In addition to finding that extreme variability quasars have stronger emission line strengths compared to regular quasars with similar redshifts and luminosities, their Eddington ratios are also lower. The Eddington ratio is a ratio of the quasar luminosity, which depends on the accretion rate, to the Eddington luminosity, which is the theoretical maximum luminosity. Figure 2 shows the relation between the maximum variability of the extreme variability quasars and their Eddington ratios. There is a trend of decreasing Eddington ratios with variability, leading to the interpretation that the extreme variabilities are connected to the Eddington ratios. By extension, the authors attribute the reason changing-look quasars change types to their varying accretion rates caused by internal accretion disk processes.
An example extreme variability quasar discovered in this study. The top and middle panels show its light curves in two different filter bandpasses at different wavelengths, both of which have dimmed by more than 1 magnitude over ~15 years. The bottom panel shows its SDSS spectrum, which contains the usual broad emission lines associated with quasars. [Figure 2 in paper]
Fig. 2: Eddington ratio as a function of maximum variability for the extreme variability quasars (red) and regular quasars with similar redshifts and luminosities (black). The blue points are the median Eddington ratio in bins of maximum variability. There is a trend of decreasing Eddington ratio with increasing variability. [Figure 11 in paper]
Using a simple model, the authors estimated the intrinsic fraction of extreme variability quasars to be between ~30-50%, which is much higher than the observed fraction of 10%. With more frequent searches over a wider area and longer period, we should discover more of these exotic objects to help shed light on the physical mechanism of quasar variability and the phenomena of the quasar population as a whole.
Astrobites is a daily astrophysical literature journal written by graduate students in astronomy. Our goal is to present one interesting paper per day in a brief format that is accessible to undergraduate students in the physical sciences who are interested in active research.
Why read Astrobites?
Reading a technical paper from an unfamiliar subfield is intimidating. It may not be obvious how the techniques used by the researchers really work or what role the new research plays in answering the bigger questions motivating that field, not to mention the obscure jargon! For most people, it takes years for scientific papers to become meaningful.
Our goal is to solve this problem, one paper at a time. In 5 minutes a day reading Astrobites, you should not only learn about one interesting piece of current work, but also get a peek at the broader picture of research in a new area of astronomy.
← From Centauri Dreams: “Terrain Clues to Ice in the Outer System”
From Symmetry: “A new model for standards” →
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4429
|
__label__wiki
| 0.529698
| 0.529698
|
What did Lore get from collaborating with the Crystalline Entity?
In the Next Generation episode DataLore we are introduced to the Data's brother Lore and the Crystalline Entity. Through the episode it is shown that Lore had a partnership of sorts with the Entity, having been responsible for it attacking the colony Omicron Theta and planning to feed the Enterprise crew to it.
While it is true that Lore held little regard for humans, believing them to be a lesser species, he doesn't come off as someone who would help another for no personal gain. So what did Lore receive from the Crystalline Entity in return for leading it to, or bringing to it, sources of food. Was Lore doing this simply for the feel good feeling of killing people, or was there some other motive?
star-trek star-trek-tng
XantecXantec
I think it was revenge against the colonists, protection, and to sate his thirst for sadism, which seems to be his main flaw. – Mark Rogers Jun 3 '13 at 15:15
IIRC he used the CE to get revenge on the colonists for having him deactivated. He thought they were all jealous of his abilities but they were really just afraid of him because Lore saw them all as inferior.
In a later episode (Brothers), Noonian Soong reveals to Data and Lore that the colonists were terrified of Lore as he was malfunctioning.
djmdjm
Perhaps a silly question, but if Lore was de-activated, then how did he do anything? It seems difficult to imagine that a de-activated android could find a new species, learn to communicate with it, and conspire with it in a revenge plot. Not saying that revenge isn't a good motive, but there seems to be something missing here. – Zoredache Jun 4 '13 at 0:01
@Zoredache: Believe it or not, I was thinking the same thing on the drive home! Lore would have had to terrify all the colonists, the colonists complain, Lore makes deal with CE, Lore gets deactivated and then the CE eats everyone but Dr Soong. Yeah, there's probably more to that story... – djm Jun 4 '13 at 0:56
@Zoredache - Not a silly question at all. This answer is most unsatisfactory. How would he communicate with the Crystalline Entity if he was deactivated? Obviously he communicated, then was later deactivated (and neatly stored), then the entity arrived. – Valorum Oct 20 '17 at 15:26
Lore needs to use the Crystalline Entity to kill the colonists as he's unable to disobey his creator; Dr. Noonian Soong.
We know that Lore was built with a more "human-like" personality than Data as well as being exposed to the scanned memories of the colonists on Omicron Theta. Whether this process is what pushed him over the edge of sanity or whether he was always going to go insane is not explained but regardless of the cause, Dr Soong identifies that the colonists were terrified of Lore and petitioned Soong to deactivate him, something that he was able to do with ease.
Soong stands and turns to Lore.
SOONG : You were the first. You meant as much to me as Data ever did. But you were unstable. The colonists weren't envious of you, they were afraid of you. You were unstable.
There's no canon reference as to when Lore first learned to communicate with the Crystalline entity but what's apparent is that somewhere between the date of his creation and his ultimate deactivation, he made contact with entity and drew it to the colony with the main intention of killing the colonists, something that Lore can't do because of the block on his free will
SOONG : (continuing to Data) Lore is far from the maniacal android you have made him out to be. In any case, he'll obey me. He always did.
The Crystal Entity appears to be both sentient and intelligent, responding to direct verbal commands given by Lore over a communication channel. Since the entity isn't bound by the same restrictions as Lore (e.g. to obey Soong) it makes perfect sense that Lore would have contracted out the murders to a third-party hitman.
Is there any canon evidence that Lore had this sort of "block on his free will" that prevented direct violence, besides the line "he'll obey me. He always did"? That line could be interpreted as just Soong trusting that Lore will treat him as a father and be obedient, not an Asimov's-laws-of-robotics type programmed constraint (wouldn't Asimov's first law forbid inciting violence?), and I think the latter interpretation is pretty clearly invalidated in the episode "Brothers" where at the end Lore grabs Soong's wrist and throws him across the room, giving him what proves to be a fatal injury. – Hypnosifl Apr 15 '14 at 22:53
@hypnosifl - The fact that he can be summoned, the fact that he sits on command. Those suggest to me that it's taken a considerable amount of time for him to get around his programming to the point that he can contemplate direct violence. Note that he can only do this after getting the emotion chip – Valorum Apr 16 '14 at 7:09
I agree that Lore is using the CE as a 'hitman' but I don't agree that he is unable to disobey his creator, necessarily. Instead, I would point out that it would be dangerous and time-consuming for Lore to kill all the colonists himself; though strong and resilient, he is not invincible. – EleventhDoctor Aug 18 '15 at 15:03
My understanding was that Lore used the CE to take revenge from the colonists, but it is not clear then why he called it back to feast on the Enterprise.
TrekkieTrekkie
Hi, welcome to the site. Any further information or citations that you can add in support of your answer will improve it, and make it more likely to be accepted. – The Giant of Lannister Mar 27 '16 at 8:14
Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged star-trek star-trek-tng or ask your own question.
How did Lore come into a relationship with the Crystalline Entity?
How did Lore summon the Crystalline Entity when he was dismantled at the time?
How did the Crystalline Entity travel at warp speeds?
Is a Borg Cube larger than the Crystalline Entity?
Is (was) the Crystalline Entity unique?
Can the Crystalline Entity “eat” energy?
Was Data safe from the Crystalline Entity?
Did Data murder Lore?
Would Worf (and other Klingons) try to fight the Crystalline Entity?
Is the Traveler the same entity in all timelines?
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4430
|
__label__cc
| 0.567693
| 0.432307
|
Concert Reviews, News
Festival Review: Day 1 Metal Fest 2014; Loreley, Germany
June 25, 2014 skullbone76 1 Comment
Fan of the day
Philip H. Anselmo and the Illegals
M.O.D.
Battle Beast
SteelWing
Fueled By Fire
Winterstorm
So my summer festival season begins and I start it off with a BANG by attending legendary Metal Fest in Loreley, Germany. I first want to say a big THANK YOU to all the people who donated to my crowd funding campaign to take to this wonderful country and great music festival. Without your help I would not have been able to attend the show and see the beautiful landscape on the river Rhine. I hope I will provide pictures to all my donors that are pleasing and worthy of their money.
Metal Fest 2014 took place in on top of the Loreley Rock along the River Rhine and is a beautiful place to have a metal festival. The land has a rich cultural history and metal music seems to be a perfect fit for the scenery with castles lining the river side. The day started off cool and pleasant and after some initial confusion on where to get my press credentials I was finally set to enter the festival grounds to take photos and listen to some new bands. So With further Adieu, let’s get to the bands!
WinterStorm (DE)- I had heard of Winterstorm but never really got a chance to hear them out. As I mentioned I had ran into some problems trying to figure out where to get my press credentials and as a result I missed the start of Winterstorm’s set. After I was able to finally get in and listen I was impressed with what Winterstorm had to offer. The band plays a blend of traditional styled metal with a Power/Folk mixtures that lends to song’s catchy choruses and crowd pleasing anthems. While Winterstorm was essentially the opening band for the festival they had a good share of fans already there cheering them on which is great to see. The band was energetic, interactive with the crowd and played some great, fun songs.
Recommend: YES
https://www.facebook.com/winterstormarea?fref=ts
Zodiac (DE) – Next we have the doom/stoner band Zodiac. I have always been a hit or miss guy when it comes to these styled bands. They either REALLY sound good to me or they REALLY put me to sleep. On the plus side Zodiac didn’t put me to sleep but then again thinking back, I can’t really say I was overly impressed with either. I guess it really is matter of taste with these styled bands, or this one at least. The band played well and was good at what they do but unless you are a fan of this genre of music I don’t think they will be the band that will convert you over either.
Recommend: NO
https://www.facebook.com/Zodiac.Rock
Fueled By Fire (USA) – Fueled by Fire is a band I have seen before live at a previous Metal fest in
the Czech Republic several years back. When I saw the band then they kind of just reminded me of a standard Death Metal band and was not really impressed. However in those two years the band seems to have really matured in their playing style and musicianship. Here, the band played some great catchy riffs, some great solos and had a different kind of confidence on stage than a few years back and it made a whole difference in how the band came across live. While I am still not a death metal fan as the vocals really are not what I like Fueled By Fire is a band that has developed their talent to the next level and has the potential to go further as well. I wish them success and best of luck
https://www.facebook.com/FueledByFireOfficial
SteelWing (SWE)- A true traditional heavy metal band!!!!! I love those….unfortunately I was having to prepare for my interview with Sabaton and didn’t get to really listen to too much of their show. HOWEVER, I was able to listen to a small portion and the parts I did I really liked the old school feel to their music. Crunchy riffs, high pitched vocals, catchy, pump your fist songs. All ingredients for a great band. They reminded me a bit of Canada’s Skullfist and that alone makes me want to check out more of the band and see what else they have to offer.
Recommend: MAYBE
https://www.facebook.com/steelwingmetal
Battle Beast (FI) – AH!!! One of my favorite new bands. I think Battle Beast is one the best new bands to come out in some
time. They remind me of some Neo-80’s metal band that if the 80’s were to happen today, (with some cyber punk) Battle Beast would be one of the premiere acts along the lines of Iron Maiden and Judas Priest were in the heyday of the 80’s. Fronted by a banshee screamer Noora Louhimo the band plays some great in your face songs that forgo the soft female voice of many metal bands these days and has Noora reach down your throat and rip your heart out. Noora has a great raspy voice that fits the lyrical subject matter of Battle Beast’s songs perfectly. The songs range from fantasy to sci-fi and along with Anton’s great guitar work and Pyry’s great drumming the band has a perfect mix to be a truly great and successful band. The band as a whole put on a great show and it is rare when you see each member of a band seem to have distinctive personalities on stage and roles they play in terms of delivering a performance. Also I still think Noora possesses what any front man or front woman of any band should. STAGE presence and a certain attitude. Noora knows how to hold herself, pose herself and conduct herself which is always important. Battle Beast, a great band that plays traditional styled metal but with neo-80’s modern touch with a super great talented group of people behind the instruments.
Recommend: YES!
https://www.facebook.com/battlebeastofficial
M.O.D. (Method of Destruction) (USA) – Ok. I never was a big S.O.D or M.O.D. fan..thought I did think A.I.D.S. was a funny as song. But really the hardcore/punk bands never did much for me…and really M.O.D. still doesn’t. I actually was really surprised that the band had the turn out they did as many people were there and cheering them on which is good to see but for me this is not my thing.
https://www.facebook.com/ModMethodOfDestruction
Death DTA (USA) – Death were and are legends of the death metal scene in the United States. Unfortunately when Chuck Schuldiner died from cancer it put an end to Death. Now friends, family and musicians who knew Chuck have put together Death DTA as a tribute to Chuck himself and his music. I actually saw death on what turned out to be their last show before Chuck died in Atlanta when they were touring with Hammerfall of all bands. I remember watching the show and think wow, this guy can really play guitar. While not a death metal guy the man could play some killer stuff. Death now is still a very competent act and it’s nice to see Chuck’s memory being honored in a respectful way. While not my kind of music I respect what Death DTA are doing.
https://www.facebook.com/DeathDTATours
Saltatio Mortis (DE)- The BIG surprise for me of the day and possibly of the entire festival. Saltatio Mortis plays some
Salatatio Mortis
kind of renaissance/folk music with a stage full of guys that play some kind of wind/bag flute things and other assorted folk instruments mixed with metal guitars and a singer who knows the meaning of theater! Again this band knows the meaning of how to put on a show. The singer is a very charismatic front man who actively engages the crowd. He engaged the crowd so much in fact he went out and crowd surfed with them as he sang. THAT is what I call fan participation. Also Saltatio Mortis has songs that are tailored for crowd participation and the crowd responded I think more to this band than any other in terms of chanting and moving to songs. The songs themselves are anthem in nature and provide the perfect way for fans to get involved which leads to Saltatio Mortis being a VERY fun band to see live and hear. Just a pure fun time is to be had by watching this band and I highly recommend you check them out.
https://www.facebook.com/saltatiomortisofficial
Philip Anselmo
Philip H. Anselmo and the Illegals (USA) – You know, I guess it’s good to see Phil Anselmo still doing stuff and that he isn’t dead in a ditch somewhere…but I was not buying into this band. They just did not sound good to me and I was not getting what they were playing or trying to play? Maybe some kind of hardcore thing? I Don’t know…also there were supposed to be Pantera Classics played…I never heard Cemetery Gates or Cowboys From Hell…and those are about the most classic you can get. So unless I passed out from boredom and missed those songs…they were not played.
https://www.facebook.com/Philipillegals
Sabaton (SWE) – And now we come to the big daddy of the night. The mighty Sabaton. The band that is a heavy metal military history lesson. I have seen Sabaton several times live and the band NEVER disappoints. Again it goes to a band knowing how to engage their audience and the members of Sabaton know the importance of this. Each member knows how to come out, hold themselves on stage and then let their music do the rest. Also it helps that the drum kit is a huge freaking tank with Gatling guns! Now that is a stage set! The band has just released their new album ‘Heroes’ and it has been a great and well deserved success for the band with it charting very high in many countries. Sabaton plays songs that are patriotic and full of anthem styled lyrics and choruses that are suited well for big crowds like at metal fest. They also played ‘Price of a Mile’ which was great to hear. Also Joakim is a great front man and he always makes sure to go out to the crowd and find someone to interact with and especially young kids and this day was no exception. He went out, found a 10 year old kid and brought him onstage with the band which is great to see and I see more bands starting to do these type of things which I feel is important for the metal genre to do as it is a music genre that is for and about the fans. Sabaton again put on a great show and if you get to see them live please do so you won’t be disappointed.
https://www.facebook.com/sabaton
Overall, day 1 of Metal Fest was really fun. Most of the bands were great to see and many were pleasant surprises for me to hear, especially Saltatio Mortis who really blew me away. Once again Battle Beast put on a great show as did Sabaton.
With only a few disappointments in the first day lineup I felt day one turned out to be a great way to start the festival. Follow this LINK for Day 2! Follow this LINK for Day 3
black metalclassic rockconcertsdeath metaldoom metalentertainmentextreme metalfestivalsfolk metalgermanyhard rockheavy metalheavy metal reviewshorrorhorror moviesinterviewslive musiclive showsloreleymetal fest 2014metal fest 2014 concert reviewmetal festivalsmusicmusic festivalsmusic reviewsnew albumnewsoccultpower metalSabaton Philip H. Anselmo and the Illegals Saltatio Mortis Death M.O.D. Battle Beast SteelWing Fueled By Fire Zodiac Winterstormskullbangerskullbanger mediaskullbanger.netspeed metalsymphonic metalthrash metaltour datestravel
Previous PostVideo Interview: BloodBound Metal Fest 2014; Loreley, GermanyNext PostFestival Review: Day 2 Metal Fest 2014; LORELEY, GERMANY
One thought on “Festival Review: Day 1 Metal Fest 2014; Loreley, Germany”
Pingback: Festival Review: Day 3 Metal Fest 2014 LORELEY, GERMANY | Skullbanger
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4434
|
__label__cc
| 0.687825
| 0.312175
|
Tag Archives: rock
Adrestia Inked Record Deal With Wormholedeath
July 15, 2019 Carla Morton Leave a comment
Swedish crust punk act ADRESTIA, inked record deal with Wormholedeath to release the new album “The Wrath Of Euphrates”.
Below you can also watch a lyric video for the track ”The Message” featuring Tomas Jonsson.
adrestiametalnewspunkrockWHD
The Way Of Purity Reveals A New Single and Video ”Spectral”
July 7, 2019 Carla Morton Leave a comment
THE WAY OF PURITY are back with a new single and video for ”Spectral”, track taken from the new album ”Schwarz Oder Rot”.
dark metaldeathcoreindustrial metalnewspost black metalpost rockrockthe way of purityTWOPvideoWHD
New Mecanica new video ”Chronophobia”
May 10, 2019 Carla Morton Leave a comment
Portugesse metal act NEW MECANICA released a new video for ”Chronophobia”, track taken from their new album ”Vehement”, out via Wormholedeath records.
metalNew Mecanicanew videonewsrock
Tarja Turunen new video ”Dead Promises”
May 3, 2019 Carla Morton Leave a comment
TARJA TURUNEN released a new lyric video for the new song taken from the upcoming new album, ”Dead Promises”.
The aggression she speaks of is brought to the front, not threatening to shatter something fragile, but reinforcing its power. Fans will find that the album includes an amazing duet version of the song with guest vocals by Björn Strid of SOILWORK.
heavy metalmetalrocksymphonic metaltarjatarja turunen
Interview – Gorilla Pulp
March 13, 2019 Carla Morton Leave a comment
It was a pleasure to have a chat with GORILLA PULP after 4 years. The Italian stoner rock act released a new album in 2017 called “Heavy Lips“ and this year looks like are happening more fun and interesting stuffs and to find out about these all, you can read below and interview I had with Maurice (vocals and guitar) and Angelo (guitar).
Hello guys and welcome back to Romania, as I know you were here last year aswell to a jazz festival or something like that…
Maurice- Yeah last year to Transylvania Blues festival in Brasov, was amazing!
And tonight is your first time playing here in Bucharest. What expectations do you have from the crowd tonight?
Maurice- I hope that it would be a good crowd, we will make a lot of noise and we will enjoy the show!
So it’s been a while since we had our first interview, 4 years ago.
Maurice- Yeah, long time ago, the first work, the first EP. This year is our 5th year of Gorilla so we are celebrating our 5th birthday.
Back in 2015 we spoke about the debut album andf the EP if I remember well, in 2017 youțve released a new album called “Heavy Lips“. What is the feedback on the songs from the corwd during the gigs?
Maurice- Ah is a good feedback, people usually enjoy rock n roll stuffs, we are playing a mix of stoner rock, blues stuffs and bit melodic, bit groovy, then people seems that they’re enjoying the shows everytime and the beautiful thing is that we are always celebrating the women, also because today is Women’s Day and this is very good because the difference between metal and stoner rock and other genres is that a lot of women are coming to our shows.
Your music has a lot of elements and vibes from the 80’s and 90’s, when I’m listening to your songs, especially the riffs it sends me to bands like Thin Lizzy maybe, some Motorhead here and there, how do you manage to find the perfect sound for your music?
Angelo- Usually in the practice room we are like “Hey, I got a new riff, listen!“ and we all work togheter to our songs. In every part of our songs you can listen my sound, Maurice’s sound, Choris sound and Giorgio’s sound, is all special for us, is our trade.
Maurice- We find our perfection in our practice room; practice, practice, practice and we find what we want. We are also very lucky to have Choris’s bass, that he’s building amps.
What about a new album, are you going to release a new one, considering that every 2 years you have released one.
Maurice– Yes, we are going to release it maybe in 2020 because this year we are going to make a split album and we are going to be on the compilation, we’re going to record a few stuffs and managing it with our producer for the new stuffs, so not an album this year.
I noticed also starting from your logo and then your pictures and the videos that somehow, they are looking in retro style and times. I think there are rare bands that I’ve seen being like this so why did you choose going this way?
Maurice- Because the 70’s and 80’s are the years that I like the most, is what we like, we don’t do it just for fancy things, so yeah, we like to be this way. What you see is what we are!
You’re trying to be original as much as possible.
Maurice- Yes, original as we are in order to let people see what we are inside and outside.
I also want to find out about the band’s origin name, Gorilla Pulp, it’s like you created your own world, a jungle.
Maurice- We wanted to make the name like a big animal, we also loved and added the name “pulp“ from the movie and also Th Gorilla game, so the flesh of the gorilla and the pulp is the music. The 2 names were very good togheter.
Angelo- And we are very noisy guys like a monkey! (laughs)
Hahaha, that was a good one! Are you going to have more gigs this year aswell?
Murice- Of course, we are going to open for Jon Spencer this month and we are already confirmed for 2 festivals and we are also planning the autumn tour for this year, the last leg of “Heavy Lips“ .
And the last question is, what do you consider to be the best goal that Gorilla Pulp have achieved?
Maurice- The best goal of this year will be featured on the new video game with the soundtrack for Playstation, Xbox, PC video game that is called “Wreckfest“. The best is to see our song finally in the game.
Nice! I did not know about the game thing. I’ll definitely chek this out maybe, even that I’m not a gamer.
Angelo- He’s a gamer (pointing to Giorgio-drums).
I can’t wait to see you performing tonight. When I saw on the fest poster your name I said to myself that I must go to see you, because we’ve also talked before so I know about you! Thx a lot for the interview again!
Maurice- Thx a lot too and good luck to you. Cheers and rock n roll!
https://www.facebook.com/gorillapulpofficial/
Gorilla Pulpheavy metalinterviewmetalmetal from Italyrockrock n rollstoner rock
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4435
|
__label__wiki
| 0.691928
| 0.691928
|
SmartCityStates.io
The New Athens & Associates presents Smart City States
Welcome to Smart City States
The New Athens & Associates
The Blockchain as DNA for Civilisation
SmartCityStates.io – megaliths, antiquitech, a playlist
Gilgamesh – ‘He who inspires perfect Awe’
Edward Mirza
Epic Triptych (panel I, left); Gilgamesh Cycle
5,500 x 2,100 x 10 mm
Exhibited in Gilgamesh & Orpheus, January 2015, at The Coningsby Gallery, Fitzrovia, London.
This 5.5 metre canvas narrates a conspectus of episodes from The Epic of Gilgamesh, believed to be the world’s oldest surviving work of literature. Gilgamesh is believed to be one of the earliest mythological city builders, hence we have his likeness hanging over our site to remind us of the giants on whose shoulders we stand.
The first written version of the poem dates from twelve Sumerian stone tablets inscribed in Mesopotamia during The Third Dynasty of Ur (circa 2100 BCE). The principal figures are Gilgamesh, King of Uruk (now Iraq) – the archetypal wily warrior hero whose genealogy includes classical mythological figures such as Heracles, Achilles, and Odysseus – and his shadowy wild-man companion Enkidu.
Further references to historical heroes such as Alexander the Great, who is also fabled to have wrestled with lions, and Genghis Khan, anchor the exploits of Gilgamesh in a real-world continuum of founding myths and show the cyclical nature of the questing hero. Gilgamesh is regarded symbolically as a lion, a reference to his later incarnation as Nurgle, Lord of the Underworld (who was sometimes depicted as a black lion), the vanquished Venus in two guises, and a face formed from entrails – a reference to his wisdom, and clairvoyance. The face of Gilgamesh is foetus-like – the embryonic hero.
Our Touchstone
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desart. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is OZYMANDIAS, King of Kings.”
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Of that Colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
– Percy Bysshe Shelley.
The New Athens email
The New Athens facebook group
The New Athens instagram
The New Athens linkedin
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4438
|
__label__wiki
| 0.942355
| 0.942355
|
Recent arrests by Punjab police – a conspiracy to dilute case of Jaspal Singh Gurdaspur’s killing: Dal Khalsa
September 18, 2013 | By Sikh Siyasat Bureau
Amritsar, Punjab (September 18, 2013): Putting question mark over the recent arrests of around 20 teenaged youths within the span of 2 weeks, the Dal Khalsa has blamed the Punjab Police for ‘manipulating the arrests’ to dilute the case of Bhai Jaspal Singh Gurdaspur, who died on March 29 last year after he was hit by a bullet fired by policemen in Gurdaspur.
Party head Harcharanjit Singh Dhami in a statement sent to the Sikh Siyasat News (SSN) said the case of Jaspal Singh was pending before the Punjab and Haryana High Court, where the petitioner has prayed for CBI inquiry.
Skeptical over the arrest spree, H. S. Dhami pin pointed the timing of busting of these new militant modules. The circumstantial evidence signals that there are more to it than meet the eyes.
Narrating the sequence, he said, “it’s noteworthy that the Punjab and Haryana high court on September 2 summoned the Punjab chief secretary and director general of police to be personally present in the court on September 10 after the state counsel failed to file the status report in the case of Jaspal Singh”.
Exactly four days after the court reprimanded the state police for its inaction, on Sep 6, Fatehgarh Sahib police announced that it had busted a terror module by arresting 7 youngsters, who were planning to kill Shiv Sena leader to avenge the murder of a Sikh youth (read Jaspal Singh) of Gurdaspur district.
A week later, the Gurdaspur police claims to unearth another “terror module” with the arrest 3 persons including Sukhjinder Singh, the close relative of deceased Bhai Jaspal Singh Gurdaspur under the same charges/allegations.
H. S. Dhami said “the reported statement of Guria village’s panchayat and parents of arrested youth has strongly refuted the police claim”.
To instill fear psychosis in the minds of youth in general and family members of Bhai Jaspal Singh in particular, his close relative has been framed, Dhami alleged.
He said it looks the police wants to coerce Jaspal Singh’s family “not to pursue the case in the court”. “The police is hell bent to show Bhai Jaspal Singh in poor light so as to dilute his murder case and shield his killers”, he alleged.
Dal Khalsa leader took a dig at Home Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal for showering praises on Punjab Police, whose style of functioning has always been under suspicion. Condemning the misuse of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, he said the free-run given by the ruling party to the police has created a scare in Punjab.
Related Topics: Arrests of Sikh Youth by Punjab Police, Dal Khalsa, Punjab Police, Shaheed Jaspal Singh Gurdaspur
Audio Articles on June 1984 (14): ਜੂਨ 1984 ਦੇ ਸਾਕੇ ਦੀਆਂ ਕੁਝ ਯਾਦਾਂ... (by Harpal Singh Pannu)
"JUNE 1984 DI PATARKARI" (Journalism of June 1984) - author Jaspal Singh Sidhu
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4442
|
__label__wiki
| 0.761282
| 0.761282
|
A Private Matter 1992
Description: The real storyline of Romper Room host "Miss Sherri" Finkbine, who, after the devastating results of thalidomide were discovered in the early 1960s, sparked a firestorm of controversy with her determination to receive an abortion.
Released: 20 Jun 1992 Director: Joan Micklin Silver Writers: William Nicholson Actors: Sissy Spacek, Aidan Quinn, Estelle Parsons, Sheila McCarthy Genres: Drama
See A Private Matter (1992) Drama on youtube.
See A Private Matter Trailer 1992 on youtube.
See Lifetime movies 2017_ A Privat on youtube.
See Lifetime movies ✿ A Private Ma on youtube.
See A Private Matter 1992 Drama PG on youtube.
See Duplicates 1992 TV Movie on youtube.
See A Private Matter TRAILER HD on youtube.
See Lifetime Movies on youtube.
See A private matter on youtube.
A Private Matter similar movies given below. Rate each movie or TV Series, add your own reviews and suggest new title as related. See big list of best top movies that are like A Private Matter film.
A Private Matter Similar Movies
Top movies like A Private Matter complete list given below.
Movies Like A Private Matter:
Django: la otra cara
Niloofar
Description: Niloofar is a twelve-year-old woman whose dream is to read and write, but she lives in a village where education is only for boys. Her mother, a well-known midwife, insists that Niloofar become her apprentice. While assisting her mother during a delivery, Niloofar meets a feminist girl who undertakes to teach her in secret. Unfortunately, in exchange of a palm tree field, Niloofar's father promises her in marriage to an older boy once she becomes a woman. Horrified by this notion, Niloofar does everything in her power to postpone her first periods. Eventually, the inevitable occurs. HOwever, Niloofar, who is determined to hold her freedom as long as possible, arranges to conceal the fact from her family for other two years until the truth can no longer be hidden. Then, rather than live in a marriage without love, Niloofar runs away with her friend. Shocked, her family considers itself dishonored and sends her step-brother to track her down
Astronauter og filmstjerner
Description: Kristoffer, Karoline, Jonatan, Marikken, Jesper, Ole and Aurora are finally out of the Norwegian school system. They don't know every another very well, and they don't have a lot of plans for the upcoming year.
The OceanMaker
Description: The OceanMaker is a 9-minute animated short movie that takes zone after Earth's oceans have disappeared. It says the tale of one courageous pilot who wars vs vicious sky pirates for control of the last remaining source of water: the clouds.
Description: Peping wakes up to search out that Gima, their goat, is missing. His family create a living out of the milk provided the goat. He hides the truth from his grandmother. His father is also arriving the next day so he needs to search Gima before its too late. Together with his younger sister, Lita, the two go on a seemingly impossible find for the goat in the landscape of the island of Sabtang, in Batanes. A series of frustrating episodes tag the day, tension and desperation growing as natural and human forces conspire to frustrate them at each turn. The odyssey teaches the man about the real meaning of life- where kindness and cruelty can be found in close proximity.
Mga Alaala ng Tag-ulan
Description: A coming-of-age love storyline about a young man’s first encounter with love, romance, and heartbreak, said in bits and pieces of poetic and melancholic memories that began on one rainy night.
Measure of Love
Description: Short movie written and directed by Lauren Miller.
Description: Life in a rural industrial town: a teenage boy, his family, mates and failed attempt at love are investigated through stark black-and-white photography and static long takes. Filmed in a fusion of authentic and staged documentation, with robotic performances by actors and non-actors, the piece meditates on the mundane existence of human and animal life.
Párbeszéd
Description: The movie depicts the period between 1945-60 through the life of a communist couple. Barna Judit, just released from a concentration camp and Horváth László, with an illegal past are brought together by the communist movement. They study and create plans together in the hope of a future that will create sense. The marriage they just entered, however, gets crashed later by the happenings of history.
Debts Due
Description: Two boys working for a personal organization with a special way of customer payment are sent to retrieve some overdue finances from a risky client.
Between the Devil and the Deep
Description: An abalone poacher, a dead son, and a broken love storyline are all bound together by a single theme: the curse of the abalone - an endangered marine snail prized as an aphrodisiac in China, but illegal harvesting has disastrous results on the traditional fishing community near Cape Town, South Africa.
99 Cahaya Di Langit Eropa Part 2
Description: A continuation of the previous movie 99 Light in the Sky Europe . In addition to revealing the secret history of the development of Islam in parts of Europe especially Cordoba, Istanbul and Turkey, parts of the movie to respond some of the things that is a complement to the end of the storyline such as; friendship between Khan with Stefan previously often hostile, meeting again with Fatma Pasha in Turkey previously disappeared without a word and ending sweetness Rangga educational trip with Maarja presence in their lives in Europe.
Soha, sehol, senkinek!
Description: Vendel Imre is a driver, his wife is expecting a baby, they have two sons. Before 1945 Vendel was a military officer. In 1951 they obtain a letter from the Ministry of Interior: they will be transported to a forced domicile, allowed to take 50 kg private belongings per person with them.
Ártún
Description: A man from a tiny city has never kissed a girl. One day he and his mates decide to go to the 'big city' to see if they have more luck there. In the city, the men receive much more than they bargained for.
Frankie and Johnnie
Description: The storyline of a woman, Frankie, and the boy who has done her wrong, Johnnie.
The Wisdom Tree
Description: Three very various folks — a quantum physicist, a neuroscientist (Sheetal Sheth), and an FBI agent — search themselves drawn into a spiraling mystery. Confronted with a mysterious vehicle accident, the three gotta interpret clues that defy common sense. Their collective quest takes them from science to art to melody to mysticism in a widening find for answers. After an intense outward chase to satisfy their rational minds, the trio realizes the answers they desire lie buried deep within themselves. As every seeker starts to embrace the real nature of reality, every is rewarded with revelations beyond their wildest imaginings. What they learn leaves them humbled and in awe of the strange and pretty universe we call home. When everything makes sense, nothing makes sense. This highly philosophical narrative has been applauded by scientists, artists, thinkers, scholars, media, academia, students and audiences from 10 to 80+ years old.
Description: When Georgina dies, her husband Alcides tries to give her a dignified funeral, which is quite difficult, because they have no cash and are living in the poorest district of Bogotá.
Przerwany lot
Description: The reminiscences of a Russian pilot, shot down over Poland during the war, of his first nice love there.
Hope Bridge
Description: After a high school man learns that his father committed suicide, he starts a adventure to search hope and reconciliation in the midst of his grief.
Mennesker mødes og sød musik opstår i hjertet
Description: A dancer and a Danish student meet on a train; she is going on tour to Rio, and he decides to follow her. Based on the novel by Jens August Schade.
Freies Land
El bosque de Karadima
Description: Based on real events, involving strong Catholic priest Fernando Karadima, who committed crimes of kid abuse and pedophile between 1980's-2000's. The struggle of his victims, to be able to reveal the truth and look for justice.
Description: A storyline of two popular actors who used to be a couple. They reunite after the son's death and obtain a letter asking them to visit five territories at Death Valley, which will create the son reappear.
Description: Aram, a young boy from Marseille of Armenian origin, blows up the Turkish ambassador's vehicle in Paris. Gilles, a young cyclist who was passing at that precise moment, is seriously injured. Aram's mother feels guilty and feels the need to visit Gilles at the hospital and beg for his forgiveness, something that Gilles does not understand. Vs the tip of his comrades in Beirut, Aram decides to go meet his victim.
Description: When an Ethiopian man moves in with distant relatives he takes his pet sheep with him but the upcoming holidays spell danger for his beloved friend.
Description: David is a nurse who works with terminally ill patients. Dedicated to his profession, he develops powerful relationships folks he cares for. But outside of work, it's a various storyline altogether.
Description: The life storyline of a photojournalist who documented the plight of migrant farm workers during the Nice Depression, and whose photography inspired John Steinbeck's 'The Grapes of Wrath.'
Description: Fatima, a Moroccan-born girl who actually lives in France with her two teenage daughters, with whom she is barely able to communicate.
Description: Believing they have left behind shadowy figures from their past, newlyweds Christian and Ana totally embrace an inextricable connection and shared life of luxury. But just as she steps into her role as Mrs. Grey and he relaxes into an unfamiliar stability, fresh threats should jeopardize their satisfied ending before it even begins.
Буферна зона
Description: The film's motto is: "The globe of the elderly is a globe that is constantly shrinking. Tiny things become big. Several folks are necessary to us, but they are very important." Federico Fellini.
Itanong Mo sa Buwan
Description: A robbery goes wrong and the bank's teller, Josie (Jaclyn Jose) is abducted by lone gunman Angelito Asuncion (Mark Gil). A several weeks passes and Josie escapes to say a tale of terror and mayhem. She asserts to have faked falling for him in order to victory his believe while Angelito surfaces to claim otherwise. Josie is not really a victim but has been his lover for sometime. In fact, they planned the entire thing so they should begin a fresh life together. Who is saying the truth?
Grampa's Cabin
Description: Short drama
Culpables
Pulsiones
Description: Carlos, a boy who has a doubt, and a month before his wedding, decides to hire a gigolo to satisfy his homosexual curiosity.
Enjoy the Abyss
Description: When young, innocent Angel goes to live with her sex maniac stepmother Anne, she starts having twisted, perverted fantasies and enters a fresh life filled with carnal lust.
Baddesley Manor: The Phantom Gambler
Description: Part of a series known as “Haunted Castles”.
The Bishop of the Ozarks
Description: A angry doctor uses his powers of telepathy to control a pretty young girl. The survival status of the movie is presumed lost.
Usporeno kretanje
Description: A 40 year old former football star and idol of his generation feels that there's a gap between him and the rest of his peers. In order to cross divides over, he makes 20th anniversary party for his school mates he graduated with, only to search out that things are more complicated than he first thought.
Movies Like Descendentes: O Destino dos Irmãos 2017
Movies Like One Hour in Wonderland 1950
Movies Like The Child in Time 2018
Movies Like Who's Watching Oliver 2018
Movies Like Senga: Tsubo 1925
Movies Like 29 de Noviembre 2018
Movies Like Lame d’un père, l’âme d’un sabre 2005
Movies Like Frente a Frente com os Xavantes 1947
Movies Like Captain America: The First Avenger - Heightened Technology 2011
Movies Like Wired for Sound: A Guitar Odyssey 1997
Movies Like 49:5ive 2016
Movies Like Hugo Pratt, trait pour trait 2016
Movies Like Три медведя 1958
Movies Like Ätsch 1988
A Private Matter Reviews:
Sissy Spacek plays true life Sherri Finkbine in Phoenix Arizona in 1962, Miss Sherri on television's Romper Room. She finds that by having taken thalidomide tranquilisers, she has endangered her unborn baby, and she gotta decide whether to abort, as there is a powerful possibility that the kid will be severly deformed. The law on abortion in Arizona is that it can only be done when the birth presents a risk to the mother's life, and the sentence for an illegal abortion is 2 - 5 years in jail. The teleplay by William Nicholson initally presents Sherri as a progressive woman, working vs the wishes of her husband (Aiden Quinn), though we might think the cost of feeding their 4 kids would demand both parents be employed. However as the narrative enfolds and the stress of the case impacts on the couple, we observe the weaknesses in the base relationship. Her mother (Estelle Parsons) praises Sherri as a "good girl", someone who has been selfless, but Sherri reveals that this has been something she has created to conceal her real rebellious nature. Sherri also feels disempowered by the patriarchal system of husband and doctors and judges who wish to control what she does with her body. Nicholson uses the Finkbone husband and wife to reinforce stereotypes of boys as unemotional and rational, and girls as the opposite. He also repeats Quinn's line "Do we have to do this now", as "We don't have to do this now" in variation, which still doesn't gratis it from being false dialogue, on the lvl of "We can receive beat this thing". Director Joan Micklin Silver's approach seems to determined not to sensationalise that she overdoes the 60's kitsch, opening with When I Fall in Love, giving the girls unflattering hairstyles, using a banal melody score by James Newton Howard, and even hackneyed slow motion as Sherri wars through crowds so we can see how heroic/tragic she is. Apart from Spacek's bursts of edgy anger, and the test of a glove puppet named Krazy Cat which allows her to test a various speaking and singing voice, the only unexpected thing is a woman kids fight. The greatest stage is when Spacek baits Quinn in frustration, screaming in their backyard at 3am, calling him a coward and taunting him to hit her, even if Silver resolves the argument in dull sentimentality. Watch for William H Macy in one scene, here billed as WH Macy, funny as a psychiatrist assessing Spacek.
A nice example of the surprising strengths of made-for-television movies, 1992's "A Personal Matter" is blessed by a typically terrific performance by Sissy Spacek, as well as a truly fascinating true-life story: While hosting the children's tool "Romper Room," a pregnant Sherri Finkbine discovers her unborn kid will likely suffer from malformation, and her decision to even consider an abortion has a domino impact on her career and family life. Like most tv films it doesn't have time for subtlety or nuance, but luckily Spacek can do wonders with even the most abrupt lines, and elevates what should have been a rushed examination of women's choices in the 1960s into a contemporaneously relevant treaty on private agency.
Strong and knockout. See it Spacek ... 10 Quinn ...9 Parsons... 8
Best movies like A Private Matter
A Private Matter similar films
Top A Private Matter similar movie
A Private Matter alternatives
Reach Me 2014 Similar Movies
Jeśli ujrzysz kota fruwającego po niebie 1971 Similar Movies
2013 Moments In Time 2013 Similar Movies
Samurai Headhunters 2013 Similar Movies
Copenhagen 1937 Similar Movies
Stockholm: Pride of Sweden 1937 Similar Movies
The Smart Way 1937 Similar Movies
Hockshop Blues 1937 Similar Movies
Pakistan zindabad: Longue vie au Pakistan 2007 Similar Movies
Eskimo Day 1996 Similar Movies
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4444
|
__label__cc
| 0.663806
| 0.336194
|
Give someone you love the gift of a personalized
(truly only-for-them) Audio LoveGram
Just $45 for a message of love they’ll love to hear —
and listen to over and over again for a lifetime.
Your loved one typically gets 5-7 minutes of pure appreciation.
Audio LoveGrams are warm and soothing audio messages that arrive out of the blue, offering appreciation, kindness, support, compassion, and caring to someone you love.
What people want and need most in this world is to be appreciated and understood. These audio notes let someone know that you’re right by their side — to cheer them or lift them up.
Audio LoveGrams arrive at an unexpected time and in unexpected form, which adds to the charm of this gift.
These one-of-a-kind, customized Audio LoveGrams are just $45 each!
Listen to a sample Mother’s Day LoveGram: https://simplycelebrate.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Mothers_Day_Judy.mp3
Listen to another sample Mother’s Day LoveGram:https://simplycelebrate.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/noreen.mp3
Listen to a Birthday LoveGram:https://simplycelebrate.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Michelle.mp3
Listen to a sample LoveGram from a niece to her auntie:https://simplycelebrate.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/nadine-audiogram3.mp3
Listen to a sample LoveGram from a wife to her husband:https://simplycelebrate.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/todd.mp3
*If you are on a mobile device and unable to listen to this audio, email me and I will send you a sample MP3. Or, you can easily listen from your computer. Apologies for any inconvenience!
*Since people’s musical tastes vary, your Audio LoveGram will *not* have a musical background. Your message itself will be music to their ears!
How to: 3 Easy Steps
Simply purchase a $45 Audio LoveGram by clicking on the buy button below. Note: we need at least three days notice if you need the Audio LoveGram delivered by a specific date.
You will receive a link to a short form so I have all the information I need for this unique gift. You’ll also be able to choose the occasion and personalize your message. You will receive this information within 24 hours of purchase.
When the Audio LoveGram is finished, I will email it directly to the recipient. I will also send a copy to you via email.
Note: Folks should easily be able to click the “play” button within their email on their smart phone or on the computer in order to hear the Audio LoveGram. If the recipient is elderly or doesn’t have email, you can call them and play the MP3 for them over the phone!
Voila! You’ve made someone’s day. Just like that.
Click below to order an audio love-gram for someone in your life
*Please order LoveGrams at least 3 days in advance.
I’ve created audio love-grams for almost every occasion and every need for support: for someone’s best friend who was going through a hard divorce, for a guy who made a big splash at work, for some sisters after their father passed away, for a son after a big disappointment at school, and for a girlfriend—just because! After you order, you’ll have the chance to choose the reason for the audio gift and tell me more about the recipient.
Celebration/appreciation/Love
Uplift/boost
Number of Lovegrams
1 $45.00 USD2 $90.00 USD3 $135.00 USD
Note: Within 24 hours of purchae, you will receive an email confirmation of your purchase and a form to complete for your Audio LoveGram.
What folks have to say about their audio love-grams:
“After my mom received her audio love-gram, she called me and was all teary and appreciative. Frankly, thinking about the things I love about her made me a little teary, too.” — Willem Knibbe
“I really appreciated this audio experience. I will always draw from it, and it will continue to be a source of future growth. This was priceless. Thanks again.” — Yvette Batterly
“Oh, Sherry. Your words are so important and arrived at just the right time. This gift you have of celebrating others is beyond extraordinary. More than extraterrestrial.” — Susan Harrow
“This. Is. Totally. Perfect. I am in awe of what you created, and I KNOW Michelle will be, too. THANK YOU for choosing that poem — it is exactly what Michelle could use in her back pocket.” —Maya Stein
“WOW Sherry!! This is one of the coolest things anyone has ever done for me. It was fun to listen to your recording on my way home from a long hard work day. Thanks!” — Corey Jahnke
“Sherry, the audio gift you created for my friend is breathtakingly beautiful! Wow, I drank in every single word you spoke… your voice is so soothing and so loving. I had never heard anything like that, it’s so pure and angelic! This was such a wonderful and surprising gift to give.” — Emily Nature
“I received the Audio LoveGram from one of my oldest and dearest friends. It made me cry. Tears of happiness, that is!! It was the greatest gift! Thank you.” — Lora George
“My friend Teresa told me how much she enjoyed/loved the personal message you sent! She was so touched. She said she was speechless and felt so appreciative receiving such an awesome gift. This is an amazing idea and such a lovely, way to tell people you love how special they are!” — Tonya Jahnke
“I could hear the sincereness in your voice as you described Todd even though you’ve never met him. From my simple email it sounded like you’d like to meet him some day. It was very cool! It made me cry and made him give me a GIANT hug. We needed that. Even my son (who’s 10) said, ‘Dad keep that on your phone and listen to it anytime you’re feeling sad or you miss Mom.‘” — Paula Campbell
I guarantee that your Audio LoveGram recipient will be moved and delighted by this gift from you. If not, just email me and I will refund your money.
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4445
|
__label__cc
| 0.700347
| 0.299653
|
"All About Lisa"
Mitzi Gaynor in an American actress.
When Lisa started to work for Krusty Sideshow Mel told her that if he mentioned Mitzi Gaynor, which he will do, she must act like she knew who she is. Later when Lisa managed to remove the pastrami in his Krusty's teeth, he told her that she is the best thing that's happened to this business since, with Lisa cutting him off before he could continue. She asked if he meant, Mitzi Gaynor. Krusty replied that he was gonna say cheap Korean animation, but thought that worked as well.
Episode – "All About Lisa" (mentioned)
Mitzi Gaynor at Wikipedia
Retrieved from "https://simpsonswiki.com/w/index.php?title=Mitzi_Gaynor&oldid=473483"
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4446
|
__label__wiki
| 0.898595
| 0.898595
|
Ariana Grande »
PopBopLove at first listenFarofaBest of 2019
Ariana Grande (born Grande-Butera on June 26, 1993) is an actress and a pop vocalist from Boca-Raton, Florida. She had performed in multiple plays as a child, but didn’t make a major dent in her dream to become an R&B star until being cast as a cheerleader in the Broadway musical 13, earning a National Youth Theatre Association Award for her performance.
Soon after, she was able to land a role in the Nickelodeon hit TV series, Victorious, which Read Full BioAriana Grande (born Grande-Butera on June 26, 1993) is an actress and a pop vocalist from Boca-Raton, Florida. She had performed in multiple plays as a child, but didn’t make a major dent in her dream to become an R&B star until being cast as a cheerleader in the Broadway musical 13, earning a National Youth Theatre Association Award for her performance.
Soon after, she was able to land a role in the Nickelodeon hit TV series, Victorious, which propelled her to become a teen idol as her on-screen character seemed to be “very impressionable and easily swayed” but “generally sweet.” From this point on, she was able to garner the fan base that allowed her to create tracks that worked only towards promotion of the show, like “Put Your Hearts Up”.
She would have to wait until August 2012 to see the cancellation of Victorious, which allowed Grande to finally make music her priority. With her life now revolving entirely around this passion, she was able to release her debut album, Yours Truly: the result of a three-year endeavor. She completed the album, originally titled Daydreamin, in June 2013; it was released on August 19, 2013. In September 2013, it debuted at No. 1 on the US Billboard 200 albums chart, with 138,000 copies sold in its first week, making Grande the first female artist since Ke$ha to have her first album debut atop the charts. It included top 10 hit "The Way" with Mac Miller.
On August 25, 2014, Ariana released her second studio album, My Everything. Selling 166,000 copies in the first week, My Everything also debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Top 200 chart. “The Honeymoon Tour” kicked off in February of 2015, and further promoted the album. It included top 10 hits "Problem" with Iggy Azalea, "Break Free" with Zedd, and "Love Me Harder" with The Weeknd.
On October 30, 2015, Ariana released “Focus.” The song was originally intended to be the lead single for Grande’s 3rd album, however, it was removed in favor for the album’s title track. The song made an appearance on the Japanese release of the album. On May 20, 2016, Grande released Dangerous Woman, which became her first album to not debut at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 200 chart, rather debuting at No. 2, selling 129,000 copies in the first week. It included top 10 hits "Dangerous Woman" and "Side to Side" with Nicki Minaj.
On February 3, 2017, Ariana started her second tour, the “Dangerous Woman Tour”, to promote the album. On May 22, 2017, during the Manchester Arena show, Grande’s performance was interrupted by a terrorist bombing. The tragedy killed 22 people and injured almost 800 people, and in June of the same year, Grande organized a benefit concert One Love Manchester to support the victims and their families.
Over two years later, Grande released her fourth studio album, Sweetener, on August 17, 2018. The album became her third No. 1 album, and it included top 10 hits "no tears left to cry" and "God is a woman."
On February 8, 2019, only six months after releasing Sweetener, Ariana released her fifth studio album, thank u, next, which included the Billboard No. 1 hits “7 Rings” and “thank u, next”, and the top five hit, “break up with your girlfriend, i’m bored.” It's her most acclaimed album to date.
01Bloodline
02Problem
03Break Free
04One Last Time
05Love Me Harder
06Into You
07Thank U, Next
08Side To Side
09No Tears Left To Cry
10Dangerous Woman
117 rings
12Santa Tell Me
13God is a Woman
14The Way
15Break Up with Your Girlfriend, I'm Bored
16Focus
17breathin
18Imagine
19Be Alright
20Everyday
21Nasa
Bloodline 0:00 / 0:00
Ariana Grande Track 1/20
Source: Ariana Grande - bloodline (Audio)
by Ariana Grande
Because I'm trying to do the best I can
And they can't find something to satisfy me, ugh
Mmm, yeah, yuh
Even though you're bad for me, I know
You're the one that I'm thinkin'
Got me feelin' so incredible
Would you mind maybe linkin'?
Love me, love me, baby
Are you down? Can you let me know?
Love me, thank you, leave me
Put it down, then it's time to go
Get it like you love me
But you don't, boy, it's just for show
Take it or leave it, you gotta take it or leave it, like uh
Don't want you in my bloodline, yuh
Just wanna have a good time, yuh
Ain't no need to apologize, no
But you gon' have to let this shit go
Not tryna make you all mine, yuh
But you gon' have to let this shit go, yeah
Yeah-eh-eh
Yeah-eh
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yuh
No, we won't be talking the next day
I ain't got nothin' to say
I ain't lookin' for my one true love
Yeah, that ship sailed away
Take it or leave it, you gotta take it or leave it like uh
Don't want you in my bloodline, yuh (Don't want you in my)
Not tryna make you all mine, yuh (Not tryna make you)
Ain't no need to apologize, no (Ain't no need to, yeah)
Oh, yeah
Yeah, yeah, yeah
Say I know what you want, what you want from me
I know what you think, what you think you see
I know what you looking for, but I'm complete
I know what you need, but it won't be me
I know what you want, what you want from me
I know what you need, but it won't be me (But it won't be me)
Don't want you in my bloodline, yuh (Don't want you, baby)
Just wanna have a good time, yuh (Just tryna have a good time)
Ain't no need to apologize, no (No)
But you gon' have to let this shit go (Yeah, yeah)
Yeah-eh-eh, yeah
Written by: Ariana Grande, Ilya Salmanzadeh, Max Martin, Savan Harish Kotecha
Ariana Grande - bloodline (Audio)
Ariana Grande - bloodline (Lyrics)
ARIANA GRANDE - Bloodline | Kyle Hanagami Choreography
Ariana Grande ~ bloodline ~ Lyrics
Ariana Grande - bad idea (Audio)
Ariana Grande - bloodline (Music Video)
Ariana Grande “bloodline” LIVE @ Sweetener Tour LA - STAPLES Center 5/7/19
Ariana Grande - Bloodline (Live in Philadelphia Sweetener World Tour 2019)
Ariana Grande - Bloodline @ TD Garden Boston
Ariana Grande and Victoria Monét - MONOPOLY
People React to bloodline - Ariana Grande
Ariana Grande - bloodline | iMISS CHOREOGRAPHY
Ariana Grande - God's Bad Bloodline
Bloodline - Ariana Grande DANCE VIDEO | Dana Alexa Choreography
Ariana Grande, Nicki Minaj - bloodline (feat. Nicki Minaj) (Remix) [Mashup]
ARIANA GRANDE BLOODLINE #DEXTERCARRCHOREOGRAPHY FEAT. MADDIE ZIEGLER, CHARLIZE GLASS & TESSA BROOKS
ARIANA GRANDE ( Side To Side - Bloodline & 7 Rings )
ARIANA GRANDE | bloodline [Live at Albany Sweetener World Tour 2019]
Ariana Grande - Bloodline | Hamilton Evans Choreography
Ariana Grande - Bloodline (Sweetener World Tour, Vancouver)
bloodline [Live 4K HD] - Ariana Grande - Sweetener Tour Boston
"Side to Side & Bloodline" Ariana Grande@Wells Fargo Center Philadelphia 3/26/19
Ariana Grande - Bad Idea (Sad Version)
Bloodline - Ariana Grande (OFFICIAL)
bloodline • Ariana Grande Sweetener World Tour • Los Angeles May 6th
ariana grande // bloodline (español)
Ariana Grande - bloodline (Lyrics) 🎵
JINYOUNG class | Ariana grande - bloodline | E DANCE STUDIO | 이댄스학원 JINYOUNG CHOREOGRAPHY
Ariana Grande - Bloodline
“Bloodline" cover Ariana grande
Ariana Grande - Bloodline (Clean Lyrics)
Ariana Grande - bloodline / HAZEL Choreography.
Ariana Grande - bloodline | 8D Audio 🎧 || Dawn of Music ||
Ariana Grande - bloodline (Tradução)
Ariana Grande - bloodline (Bass Boosted)
bloodline - Ariana Grande Chicago June 5th 2019
Ariana Grande Bloodline (Official Fanmade Music Video)
bloodline — ariana grande (SLOWED)
Ariana Grande - Bloodline (Nightcore)
bloodline || Ariana Grande Lyrics
BLOODLINE - Ariana Grande Dance Cover By Liz
ARIANA GRANDE - "BLOODLINE" / Choreography by Chemmy
Ariana Grande, Rihanna - BLOODLINE x RUDE BOY [Mashup]
Ariana Grande: "bloodline" (Official Album Instrumental)
Ariana Grande -Bloodline | DVD Sweetener World Tour Live [HD]
Ariana Grande - bloodline [SpeedUp]
bloodline Ariana Grande live Sweetener World Tour Miami
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4449
|
__label__wiki
| 0.572259
| 0.572259
|
Get Outside for Fresh Air and Wellbeing
By now it’s not a scientific mystery that spending time outdoors is good for your health. Numerous studies illustrate that time in nature can help you feel good physically and mentally. For starters, exercise can help reduce stress, build bone and muscle strength, and improve your cardiovascular system. Beyond that, spending time outside is said to improve mental health by reducing stress, improving concentration, and elevating your mood. And on most Southern Arizona days, you can expose your skin (in small doses and with sunscreen, of course) to natural Vitamin D, which is said to help fight osteoporosis, cancer, depression, and heart attacks.
Here are a few of our favorite hikes to get you outside.
Rillito River Trail
Trailhead: Rio Vista Park at the north end of Tucson Boulevard is a midtown access point, but there are many.
Distance: Varies
This Pima County trail park runs along 12 miles of the Rillito Riverbed from I-10 to Craycroft Road. It’s an easily accessible walk along a waterway (often dry, but floods during monsoon season) that gives you the feel of the wild. The paved pathway makes for easy walking or jogging, but note cyclists and strollers, too. Find great views of the Santa Catalina Mountains here, along with soaring hawks and shy coyotes.
Wasson Peak
Trailhead: Camino del Cerro
Directions: From I-10, exit on El Camino del Cerro and head west until the end of the road.
Difficulty: Moderate to hard
This hike leads to Wasson Peak, the highest peak in Saguaro National Park, at 4,674 feet. Follow the Sweetwater Trail through saguaro forests and, after a wet winter, wild flowers to join King Canyon Trail, where you’ll head north towards the peak. Signs mark the trail. With over a 2,000-foot elevation gain, this trail will get you breathing hard. If offers spectacular views of the Tucson basin.
Butterfly Trail, Mt Lemmon
Trailhead: Upper Butterfly Trail, Coronado National Forest
Directions: From the start of Catalina Highway, drive 27 miles to trailhead
Distance: 5.7 miles one way, 11.5 out and back
If you’re wanting to “bathe” in the forest, head into the Coronado National Forest and Mount Lemmon Recreation Area. The up-and-back route along the Butterfly Trail leads you through various tall ponderosas, Douglas fir and alligator junipers, giving you views of Mt. Bigelow, and the northwest side of the Catalina range. You’ll drop into a canyon to see Novio Falls before climbing towards Mt. Bigelow. Follow a side trail to find an old plane crash. Elevation gain is a little under 2,000 feet, down then up again.
Cienega Creek and Davidson Canyon Trails
Trailhead: Gabe Zimmerman Trailhead
Directions: From Tucson, I-10 east to exit 281 (Sonoita/Patagonia), turn left to cross I-10 to Marsh Station Road. Northeast on Marsh Station Road, about 3 miles to trailhead.
This trail commemorates the life of Gabe Zimmerman, a political aide killed on January 8, 2011 by a gunman at a public event where six others were killed and Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was seriously injured. For that reason alone, it’s a special place. But there’s more. Follow a well-marked sunny path to Davidson Canyon then walk along a sandy wash to arrive at Cienega Creek, one of the few precious riparian areas in the desert. The creek is part of a 4,010-acre natural preserve designated by Pima County to protect wildlife habitat and allow for the recharge of groundwater. Water in the desert always feels miraculous.
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4451
|
__label__wiki
| 0.673221
| 0.673221
|
April 29, 2016 | By Space for Giants | In In The Media, Latest News
BBC: “Giants Club elephant summit: Kenya calls for end to ivory trade”
President Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya has urged an end to Africa’s illegal ivory trade, saying it means death for elephants and death for tourism. He is hosting a summit of African leaders, business people and scientists in Nanyuki, central Kenya, to discuss how to save elephants from extinction. Experts warn Africa’s elephants could be extinct […]
April 28, 2016 | By Space for Giants | In Latest News
Join us for Round the Island Yacht Race, 2nd July 2016
[slideshow_deploy id=’1145′] Round the Island is a one-day yacht race around the Isle of Wight that attracts 1,700 boats and 16,000 sailors, making it one of the largest yacht races in the world!
Independent: “Rugby world comes together to save Africa’s elephants”
Around 200 diners gathered on Wednesday night for the Giants Dinner, a fundraising event in aid of Africa’s elephants organised by Space for Giants and Saracens Rugby Club. Hosted by Will Greenwood and attended by rugby legends Phil Vickery, Jacques Burger and Nils Mordt among others, it was the latest event in a long-standing relationship […]
Elephants: Facts and Figures
The Poaching Crisis It’s estimated that there were 1.2 million elephants in Africa in 1980 – today according to the Elephant Database approximately 400,000 remain 100,000 African elephants were killed by poachers between 2010 to 2012 That’s equivalent to almost 100 African elephants killed every day or one killed every 15 minutes 60% of elephant deaths […]
Independent: “Loisaba Conservancy: Where hope survives for the world’s endangered elephants”
The best way to protect wild animals is for the people who live among them to benefit from conservation. Loisaba Conservancy is an example of this – it is a breathtaking 56,000-acre landscape in northern Kenya’s Laikipia County, which is being managed sustainably to conserve wildlife habitat and benefit local communities.
April 9, 2016 | By Space for Giants | In Latest News
Connecting children to nature
Space for Giants organised performances for children at the Kiandege Secondary School near Rumuruti in Kenya to explore issues of poaching, conservation and conflict. It is part of our efforts to engage local people in a relaxed setting to help them understand the value of elephants, the role of institutional bodies and to encourage them to […]
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4452
|
__label__wiki
| 0.796827
| 0.796827
|
Post 2019 Election Review: Only 21 Recommendations of Foreign Missions Can be Implemented Internally – INEC
July 9, 2019 clement Top Stories 0
INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu
By Chibuike Nwabuko
Abuja (Sundiata Post) – The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said that only 21 of the 69 recommendations of foreign mission can be implemented internally.
Recall that the foreign missions made the recommendations after their observation and monitoring the 2019 general election to improve future electoral processes in the country.
The commission’s chairman, Yakubu Mahmood, said this on Monday, during the post 2019 general elections review with the media.
Mr Mahmood said most of the recommendations made by the missions would be implementable only if there is an amendment to the Electoral Act by the National Assembly.
Foreign missions including the European Union Election Observation Mission (EU EOM), the Common Wealth, the National Democratic Institute (NDI)/International Republican Institute (IRI) had made separate recommendations in June to INEC on the lapses that marred the 2019 elections.
The EU made 30 recommendations, CW issued 24 while NDI/IRI jointly made 15 recommendations.
The INEC, after reviewing the recommendations, said only nine of EU’s recommendations can be implemented; eight of CW’s would be implemented; and four of the NDI/IRI’s recommendations would be implemented.
Mr Mahmood, however, explained that in many cases, amendment to the electoral legal frameworks is actually beyond INEC. “We have to go to the National Assembly.”
He further said the commission was committed to ensuring that some of the recommendations would be implemented by administrative actions in the forthcoming Bayelsa and Kogi governorship elections scheduled for November 16, 2019 and the first by- election for August 3 in Pengana constituency, Plateau State.
INEC’s voter education commissioner, Festus Okoye, said constitutional and legal alterations alone cannot solve the challenges of the electoral process, except there is also a change in attitude by major stakeholders to play by the rules in the electoral process.
Culled from Premium Times.
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4463
|
__label__cc
| 0.726226
| 0.273774
|
The Intellectual Property disclosure will inform users that the contents, logo and other visual media you created is your property and is protected by copyright laws.
A Termination clause will inform that users’ accounts on your website and mobile app or users’ access to your website and mobile (if users can’t have an account with you) can be terminated in case of abuses or at your sole discretion.
A Governing Law will inform users which laws govern the agreement. This should the country in which your company is headquartered or the country from which you operate your web site and mobile app.
A Links To Other Web Sites clause will inform users that you are not responsible for any third party web sites that you link to. This kind of clause will generally inform users that they are responsible for reading and agreeing (or disagreeing) with the Terms and Conditions or Privacy Policies of these third parties.
If your website or mobile apps allows users to create content and make that content public to other users, a Content section will inform users that they own the rights to the content they have created.
The “Content” clause usually mentions that users must give you (the website or mobile app developer) a license so that you can share this content on your website/mobile app and to make it available to other users.
Because the content created by users is public to other users, a DMCA notice clause (or Copyright Infringement ) section is helpful to inform users and copyright authors that, if any content is found to be a copyright infringement, you will respond to any DMCA take down notices received and you will take down the content.
A Limit What Users Can Do clause can inform users that by agreeing to use your service, they’re also agreeing to not do certain things. This can be part of a very long and thorough list in your Terms and Conditions agreements so as to encompass the most amount of negative uses.
Source: https://termsfeed.com/blog/sample-terms-and-conditions-template
Automation - Loxone
info@smartbusinesstools.be
Staylocal bvba - About us
We select, resell and integrate the best products for small businesses shops and home offices to work more efficiently.
Sign up here to receive discount Coupon Codes when available
Copyright © Staylocal bvba
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4467
|
__label__cc
| 0.616984
| 0.383016
|
Parish Contacts
Worshipcome and pray
Liturgy Planning Group
OUTREACHwhat we do
Outreach Group
Parish Pastoral Care
Faith FormationLearn the faith
Faith Formation Group
Chief Catechist
Children’s Formation
Sacramental Formation
Children’s Liturgy
Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA)
Catholic Schools in The area
Eventsjoin us
Social Events Group
Sunday Coffee and Tea
AdministrationSupport our parish
Administration Group
OUR CHURCHMore info
Find the church
A LOOK AROUND THE CHURCH
HISTORY OF OUR PARISH
St Edward The Confessor
Centenary 2
Children’s Catechism
Confirmation Preparation
RCIA – The Rite of Christian Iniation for Adults
Sick Calls
Catechists Page
Catechism sessions are open to all children who attend St Edward’s church. The sessions are held during the school terms immediately after the 10.30am Mass each Sunday and last for half an hour. (The Confirmation group meets for longer sessions at a different time). Parents are warmly encouraged to attend Mass with their children and are invited to coffee in the hall whilst they wait for the sessions to finish. The children meet in groups according to their age in various rooms in the Parish Hall area:
for children aged 5-6 Sacristy Annex
for children aged 6-7 Bar Annex
for children aged 7-8 Bar Lounge
for children aged 8-9 Hall Annex
for children aged 9-10 Hall
for children aged 10-11 Hall
for children aged 12-13 Upper Room (classes not yet started)
for children aged 13-14 Classes start September 2013
At the end of Mass children are asked to wait until the final hymn is finished and then to go promptly to their groups. (Refreshments are always available after the sessions!)
Further details can be found at the “Catechists Page“.
Most groups follow the Walk With Me catechism programme which is used widely in the Westminster Diocese and is recommended by the Conference of Bishops in England and Wales. In each session the children are helped to reflect on experience in the light of Catholic belief, Scripture, doctrine and liturgy.
Walk With Me provides a four year cycle of life/faith themes and topics. The repetition of the nine life/faith themes each year enables these key aspects of Catholic faith and practice to be deepened as the children grow and develop.
I Belong is the preparation programme for First Communion.
Parents wishing to enrol their children onto the Children’s Catechism sessions for the first time need to complete a registration form and see Deacon Anthony or Irene Yew.
Parents are the first teachers of the faith. It is they who nurture their children’s faith by fostering in them Christian values, by bringing them to church, praying simple prayers with them and introducing them to stories from the Bible. Both programmes recognise this crucial primary role of parents in their children’s catechesis and therefore encourage parental involvement. A home workbook and a Parents’ Guide accompany “God’s Greatest Gift”.
First Communion Preparation
Children are prepared to share in the Eucharist for the first time as part of the programme detailed above. The children enrol in September and sessions are held every Sunday after the 10.30am Mass. A high level of attendance and parental support is expected throughout the year. Parents are invited to attend three Saturday afternoon sessions with their children during the year. The First Communion celebrations normally take place on two Sundays in May during the 10.30am Mass.
Children must be baptised before sharing in the Eucharist for the first time and a copy of the Baptismal Certificate is needed for parish records. Fr Tony Convery should be informed if a child wishes to join the First Communion group and has not been baptised.
The Confirmation Programme consists of fewer, longer sessions spread across the year. These are also held on Sunday mornings after the 10.30am Mass. Parents are involved in the preparation and are encouraged to attend at least one morning session per term with the candidates. The Programme includes a day of reflection which, for the last two years, has been led by the “Ten Ten Theatre” company. During Lent the candidates take part in a sponsored 24 hour fast beginning at 9.30am on Saturday. During the afternoon they attend a workshop on development issues and the work of CAFOD. Their families are encouraged to support their children in this challenge by taking part in the fast themselves and everyone breaks the fast together on Sunday morning.
The Sacrament of Confirmation is celebrated in the summer – usually in June or early July.
The success of the Children’s Catechism in St Edward’s is due to our committed team of parish Catechists who give their time freely each Sunday to work with the children.
During the 10.30am Mass children in the congregation are called forward, after the Opening Prayer, to go to the Hall for their own Liturgy of the Word. The Children’s Liturgy is aimed at children between 4 and 12 years old. Parents are welcome to accompany their children. However, it is not appropriate for babies and toddlers or younger children who are not used to sitting quietly for this length of time.
The catechist leads them in singing the Alleluia to greet the proclamation of the Gospel. Then, by involving the children in discussion and by asking questions, the catechist helps them to understand the message of the Gospel. The children may profess the Creed together and the Liturgy concludes with prayers. The children return to the church in procession bringing forward the gifts of bread and wine for the Liturgy of the Eucharist.
– Catechetical Co-Ordinator Deacon Anthony (Clark@mymitac.demon.co.uk)
Safeguarding procedures – See under Parish Groups
RCIA, the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults
The RCIA Programme takes place on Thursdays in the Parish Hall at 8.00 pm. The Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) is the means through which adults become full members of the Catholic Church. It restores the ancient sequence of Baptism, Confirmation and Eucharist as the inter linked sacraments of Initiation. It provides the model upon which the sacramental preparation in the parish is based. It emphasises that conversion to Christ is an on-going process, that it takes place within a community of the faithful, and that it is marked by the celebration of liturgical rites.
Adults who are interested in becoming Catholics or asking for adult confirmation meet weekly with other members of the Parish Community to study and discuss areas of Catholic Belief and Practice, and to pray and to reflect on the Word of God together. They celebrate the stages of their journey into the Church by public rites, culminating in their full reception into the Church at the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday. The RCIA group meets on Thursdays at 8.00 pm in the Parish Hall. We welcome those interested in becoming Catholics or wanting to know more about the Catholic faith, those willing to sponsor and support enquirers, and Catholics who want to learn more about their faith.
RCIA Co-ordinator: Joan How
Further information? The next step ….. Speak to Fr Tony the Parish Priest or to Joan How or e-mail goldersgreen@rcdow.org.uk.
Couples must contact the Parish Priest in person, after Sunday Mass at least six months prior to the proposed wedding date (regulation of the Archdiocese of Westminster). This includes couples getting married at another church in this country or abroad.
Infant Baptisms
Complete the Infant Baptism leaflet to be found in the porch and hand it to Fr Convery. There are two sessions of Baptism preparation, normally in the Church Hall on Tuesdays (see below) and when these have been completed, the arrangements for the baptism of your child may be made with the Fr Convery.
9 October 2012 7.30pm – 8.30pm
16 October 2012 7.30pm – 8.30pm
13 November 2012 7.30pm – 8.30pm
Please contact the Parish Priest (tel: 8455 1300) immediately in the case of serious illness or death. The Parish Priest brings Holy Communion to the sick and housebound regularly and should also be informed if any parishioner is confined to the house or hospital for any length of time.
If you are admitted to hospital please ask the Sister in Charge to notify the RC Chaplain that you have been admitted so that you can receive any necessary Sacraments.
Fr Tony Convery Parish Priest
Rev Anthony Clark Deacon
Mary Whittle Jones Music Coordinator
Alvaro Scrivano Chief Catechist
Kasonde Konie Parish Council Coordinator
Marie Cooney Parish Secretary
All can be contacted on
St Edward the Confessor Roman Catholic church
700 Finchley Road , Golders Green.
London NW11 7NE
Tel/Fax: 020 8455 1300
Click to find St Edward the Confessor Roman Catholic church
Website design in London by Perceval Design ltd
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4468
|
__label__cc
| 0.711353
| 0.288647
|
Final Straw – Snow Patrol [#471]
As regular readers will know, my music collection is comprised of CDs and MP3s inherited over 30 years of relationships as well as those I’ve obtained nefariously and legitimately. Today’s album falls into the inherited bracket.
I’ve never been much of a follower of what some people call mainstream music. Bands like Oasis, Blur and Pulp passed me by in the nineties and likewise, bands like Coldplay and Snow Patrol feature on my life’s soundtrack purely as “music that’s on the radio too much”. Such music often becomes illustrative or indicative of the period or era of our lives. For example Duran Duran, Visage and Human League will forever be synonymous with being in primary school in the eighties for me, Deacon Blue takes me to being a teenager at secondary school and Simple Minds will always transport me to my first stint at University.
Listening to Snow Patrol’s album Final Straw I was immediately transported to the noughties at a time of my life when I was in my thirties living in Liverpool. However, I’m not, as I often say, a fan. Over saturation of airplay frequently is frequently a cause of this and I often feel cheated or left out when, years later I revisit songs and bands with a more mature outlook. Much like how I feel about Elbow and Reef.
Final Straw is Snow Patrol’s third album and was released in 2003. Award winning and, as previously described, overplayed, I inherited the rip of this album from Gay Jamie along with a whole brace of other albums.
2003 Snow Patrol
Comments Off on Final Straw – Snow Patrol [#471]
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4469
|
__label__cc
| 0.687041
| 0.312959
|
The Marriage Market Boxed Set
The boxed set of the first four books in The Marriage Market Series is now available.
Amelia:
Fresh out of Mrs. Pettigrew's School for Young Ladies, Amelia Westcott and her two best friends are ready for adventure. Suddenly a life filled with social obligations and meaningless gossip seems unappealing. On a whim, the girls investigate the phenomena of young women heading west to marry, and Amelia is captivated by the freedom such a decision offers.
Hugh Jordon needs a wife. The severe shortage of women in the Pacific Northwest makes advertising for a bride seems reasonable. As long as he finds a wife who is the exact opposite of his tempestuous mother, he'll be well satisfied. Studying the applicants, he chooses one that seems to best fit his needs, and delegates his head clerk with the critical task of sending polite rejections to the others. Unfortunately, most of them never get the letter Hugh anticipated and soon the brides descend, all expecting to marry the same man!
Amelia is horrified, and realizes that the adage "marry in haste, repent at leisure" has never been more true. How could he do that to her? What sort of man was he, to propose to so many women? She simply must have their wedding annulled and return to Massachusetts at once.
Hugh has other ideas. In his opinion, the perfect place for his bride to learn about faith, loyalty and commitment is in his home and over his knee!
Grace Wentworth and Effie Lane are cautiously optimistic when their dear friend Amelia decides to travel west to become the bride of a man she's never met. Despite their misgivings, they're stunned when Amelia writes to inform them she's made a dreadful mistake in marrying Mr. Jordon. Determined to rescue her dear friend from the clutches of a scoundrel, Effie makes plans to leave for Seattle immediately. Grace plans to follow when she can escape the ever watchful eye of her mother.
However, everything changes when Grace is forced to accept the proposal of a cruel and violent man. Suddenly, her mother's wrath doesn't even compare with what she would face as Horace Remmington's wife. Throwing all caution aside, she flees with Effie, even knowing her mother will most likely hire a Pinkerton man to find her - which she promptly does.
She just never expected to fall for him.
For Jonah Blackthorn, apprehending a runaway socialite seems like an easy assignment. Locating two young, inexperienced women should take him no time at all, and the five thousand dollar reward offered by the frantic fiance will go a long way, as Jonah has plans to leave the agency and begin a new chapter in his life.
What he doesn't plan on is being outwitted by the brats - or the fact that Effie Lane isn't relying on her wits alone to get them safely to Seattle. He also didn't expect to come to care for the redhead traveling with her gun-toting friend. When he finally catches up with them, he's going to give Grace the spanking of a lifetime - or kiss her senseless. Maybe both.
Effie:
Euphemia Lane had a feeling from the get go that Samuel Jordon was going to give her trouble. In his rude letter, he threatened to spank and disarm her should she show up in Seattle with her pistols. However, his warning doesn't deter Effie from her mission. Come hell or high water, she and Grace are determined to travel to Seattle to rescue their friend, Amelia. How was she to know that Amelia's letter was a huge mistake, or that Horace Remington would follow them and nearly kill her? And there was no way she could have anticipated what would happen once she and Grace arrive at the Jordon home.
Never would she have imagined that she would receive her very first spanking at the hands of her nemesis. It was galling to say the least, and to top it all off, he relieved her of her pistols after she destroyed a treasured family heirloom and shot Horace. Now she is in Sam's protective custody until the Marshal determines she had acted in self-defense. The problem seems to be: who is going to protect her from Sam?
Samuel Jordon is so angry when Marshal Cole Hadley sticks him with Miss Lane that he sees stars. In his opinion, she is a sassy-mouthed witch hiding in a sweet little body. His determination to be firm yet detached, lasts all of two days. Who knew one little drop of frosting on one luscious lip would change his life forever? What kind of young woman can turn a well-balanced, confirmed bachelor into a perverted fiend who can't keep his hands off her?
In this, the third book of her Marriage Market series, Stevie MacFarlane has taken her writing to a new, even more erotic level. If spanking and other explicit content offends you, please do not purchase this story.
Suzanna:
In the fourth book of the popular Marriage Market series, the mail-order mayhem continues. Suzanna and Charlotte, two southern belles who couldn't be more different, both answered the same ad seeking a husband.
Raised in a world of wealth and privilege, Suzanna feels entitled and will do anything to get what she wants. Charlotte, sweet and generous, falls in love with the man Suzanna has tricked into marriage. Nothing goes as planned for either of these women, yet somehow they both get what they deserve. It's complicated.
DISCLAIMER: This book contains the spanking of adult women and explicit sexual scenes. If any of these offend you, please do not purchase this book
Amazon Buy Link
Warming Emerald by Maren Smith
She is the ‘savage’ of the Red Petticoat Saloon, a white woman raised by Indians only to be ripped from her adopted family by enemy soldiers and—with her half-breed son in tow—forced back into a life she does not remember or want. She does not smile; she does not trust, but she will, for a few extra dollars, put her buckskins on before taking a man to bed. Called Emerald, she has bitten more customers than she has forgiven. It never once occurred to her that anyone would find that treatment enamoring… until the day of the Great Brawl when the eldest Drake brother stormed the Red Petticoat in his vengeful hunt for Gabe and the youngest, Garrett, tackled her to the floor. She’d lived up to her reputation that day, grinding her teeth into the palm of his hand until she tasted blood, and forever won herself the erstwhile affections of a man who refused to understand the concept of ‘get lost’.
No one knew how to hide behind a smile like Garrett Drake. Haunted by a past he would never honor with words, he knew the soul-biting pain of incorporeal scars when he saw it. And from the moment he clapped eyes on Emerald—and she clamped her sharp little teeth on him, painting her lips with his blood—Garrett recognized his suffering soul’s long absent mate. She was prickly, temperamental, tense… afraid… what about that could draw him as intensely as it did, he had no idea, but the more she insisted he go away, the more impossible he found it to leave.
And then soldiers came to Culpepper Cove with orders to remove Emerald’s very young son to a reservation in which she could not go. After that, leaving ceased to be an option. Armed with an off-kilter joke and a smile, Garrett allied himself to the woman he loved…whether she wanted him to or not. Because she was warming to him, by God, and that right there made everything he was about to do worth it.
DISCLAIMER: This book contains the spanking of adult women and explicit sexual scenes. If any of these offend you, please do not purchase this book.
“You’re not spanking me,” she breathed, hating how it came out of her low and trembling. As if she were afraid. She wasn’t. She wasn’t afraid of anyone, much less Garrett.
Garrett both nodded and winced. “I am hoping I won’t have to, but you’re kind of backing me into a corner. Let’s see if we can avoid it.” He patted his knee. “Sit.”
She’d sooner sit on a cactus. Her look must have said as much, because his look also changed. Only his eyebrows moved, and yet that feeling of ominous warning began to grow heavy all throughout the room.
“One,” he said, in a tone that was no less menacing for all that it held notes of amusement.
“One, what?” she countered, honestly unsure what she was more: confused over why he should think counting numbers worse than simply spanking her, or annoyed that he had to sound so damned paternal while he did it. She had a father. Hell, she’d had two. They were both dead now, and she wasn’t in any mood to be adopted by a third.
He pointed to his knee and with even softer authority said, “Sit down, Lydia. Right here.”
Sit, not bend over? If not for his grip on her arm, she would have recoiled. It was a trap, it had to be. Lydia shook her head. “You don’t have any right to—”
“Two,” Garrett said, cutting off her protest mid-sputter.
She floundered, blinking rapidly, at a total loss for how to proceed. “H-how many do I have?”
“Not nearly enough, I promise. Your hairbrush fell out of your bag when you threw it at me. It’s there on the floor behind you. Would you mind handing it to me?”
Startled, Lydia twisted far enough to—sure enough—see the hairbrush lying bristles-down on the floor practically under her skirts. Just as startled, she looked back at him. “Yes, I do. I think I mind very much. If I hand you that hairbrush, you’ll use it on me!”
“Would you like to sit on my knee instead?”
Indignation, embarrassment, anger—the heated flames of all licked up behind her cheeks, flushing them hot as a sunburn. “If you think I’m just going to let you spank me like—like—like some errant farm girl dancing to the tune of your hickory switch—”
“Nice imagery,” he complimented, a spark of interest in his eyes even suggesting that compliment was sincere. “Hairbrush, though. There aren’t any good switches here in town.” He brightened. “All the best ones grow out behind my house. Don’t ask me how I know. A man should never reveal the secrets behind his brother’s harmonious household.”
“—you can think again!” Lydia stubbornly continued, her voice rising in volume and shrillness. “I do not accept your authority over me!”
His smile turned wry. “I’ve noticed.”
I am a wife, coffee whore, pain slut, administrator at two local BDSM dungeons, resident of the wilds of freakin’ Kansas (still don’t know how that happened) and submissive to the love of my life. An USA Bestselling Author, I have penned more than 120 novels, novellas and short stories, and am the author of the Masters of the Castle series, of which Kaylee’s Keeper reached #1 on all Amazon.
Visit her blog here:
http://badgirlscorner.wordpress.com
Friend her on Facebook
(which she visits far more often than she does her blog):
http://facebook.com/Maren.Smith.10
Don’t miss these exciting titles by Maren Smith and/or Blushing Books!
Masters of the Castle:
Book 1, Holding Hannah
Book 2, Kaylee’s Keeper
Book 3, Saving Sara
Book 4, Sweet Sinclair
Book 5, Chasing Chelsea
Book 6, Owning O
Book 7, Maddy Mine
Corbin’s Bend:
Last Dance for Cadence (Season 1, Book 8)
Have Paddle, Will Travel (Season 2, Book 7)
A Few Other Titles:
Angel of Hawkhaven
B-Flick
Daughter of the Strong
The Great Prank
Jinxie’s Orchids
Katy Run Away
Life After Rachel
The Locket
Morogh the Demon
The Next Ex
Something Has To Give
The Suffragettes
Varden’s Lady
Up-coming New Releases:
Maren is currently hard at work on four new stories due to be released between now and March of next year. Sadly, they are all super secret and, under penalty of pain and certain death, she has been sworn to silence until everyone is ready to announce each project.
Okay, “death” might be a bit extreme, but you can’t just tell a masochist, “Don’t tell anyone, or there will be pain!” At that point, you may as well announce it yourself.
The Gunslinger's Woman by Kelly DAwson
A hardened gunslinger, a sassy woman. Is his quick draw enough to keep her safe?
The last thing nineteen-year-old Jeannie Cooper wants is to be a prim and proper lady, so when her older brothers try to send her off to finishing school she runs away from the family ranch to keep them from putting her on the train to Boston. She plans to hide out on the prairie and return in a few days, but things go horribly wrong when she stumbles upon the infamous Mullins gang.
Danny Coulter is a hardened gunslinger with more than enough enemies already, but when he sees a beautiful young woman held captive by outlaws his conscience forces him into action. Rescuing Jeannie turns out to be only the beginning of his troubles, however. Her sass and defiance quickly test the limits of his patience as he endeavors to get her home safely, and before long he is left with little choice but to take her over his knee for a sound spanking.
Though Danny's firm-handed discipline leaves her bottom sore and her cheeks blushing, Jeannie is nonetheless excited when her brothers offer him a job at the ranch. Soon he is courting her in earnest, and after a local busybody witnesses him giving Jeannie the first bare-bottom spanking of her life, Danny proposes marriage to avoid a scandal. But with the Mullins gang out for revenge, will his quick draw be enough to protect his woman?
Publisher's Note: The Gunslinger's Woman includes sexual scenes and spankings. If such material offends you, please don't buy this book.
She reached for his gun, to remove it from the holster, so she could wipe it clean, then she froze as she remembered exactly what Danny was. He was a gunfighter. A killer. Entirely the wrong type of man to be lusting after. Danny didn’t wear a gun just for protection, as she and her brothers sometimes did; his guns were a part of him. They defined him. Without his guns, Danny Coulter, the fastest gun in the west, would be nothing.
“Leave it.” His command was hoarse, there was pain in his voice, but there was no denying the dominant manner in which it was said. “You bandage me up, I’ll clean my gun. Nobody touches my guns.”
“It won’t take long to clean it.”
“I said leave it.” His fingers took hold of her chin then, and he tilted her face up to look at him. “You know what will happen if you disobey me.” His threat rumbled in her ear, sending waves of electricity through her. Yes, she knew exactly what would happen. Her buttocks clenched again, involuntarily, at the thought, and she held her breath. The air was too thick to breathe again. She could feel her face flushing as the waves of electricity surging through her reached that aching juncture between her thighs.
“You’re hurt,” she pointed out.
He smiled in spite of the pain, his eyes crinkling up at the corners as he looked down at her. “Not too hurt to spank a naughty girl who disobeys.” As if to prove his point, he drew back his hand and smacked her bottom, reigniting the burn Her eyes widened in shock as she reached back to rub out the sting. Hurt or not, his hard hand was still strong. She felt a spasm right in her very core at his touch. His dominance turned her insides to mush.
The hand that had smacked her returned to her chin and he tilted her face sideways slightly so he could whisper huskily in her ear. “So leave my guns alone.”
“Yes sir,” she breathed.
Amazon Buy Link: https://goo.gl/ercXLQ
Kelly Dawson loves anything to do with horses, rodeos and cowboys, and loves to get lost in a good book - preferably one containing spanking!
A life-long closet-spanko, Kelly started writing spanking stories on every spare scrap of paper in the house as a child. So when she discovered the internet and spanking romance along with it, she was most excited. But it took her a good decade of devouring these stories before she got up the courage to submit her own. And now, here she is, 7 books later, with a plethora of ideas still to write!
She lives literally at the bottom of the world in the South Island of New Zealand, with her husband, four kids, a dog and a cat.
My blog: http://www.kellydawsonauthor.blogspot.co.nz/
Google+: https://www.google.com/+KellyDawsonauthor
Twitter: https://twitter.com/KELLYDAWSONauth
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/kellydawsonau/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/13257528.Kelly_Dawson
Amazon author page: https://www.amazon.com/author/kellydawson
Newsletter sign-up: http://eepurl.com/bRukkv
WIDOW ON THE LOOSE
Twenty years ago Claire Wellington was in love with two men. She chose the wealthier, mild mannered George and lived a privileged and comfortable existence. The three stayed friends, even though Travis Forrester didn't always approve of the way Claire behaved. When his best friend George died he asked Travis to take care of Claire and for two years Travis tried, keeping things on an impersonal level and managing her inheritance.
Even though Travis has loved Claire for the past twenty years, he no longer likes the women she has become. He knew if wouldn't be long before she crashed and burned. When she does, he has to decide if saving Claire is worth losing his heart a second time. Will she accept that she not only needs him to take control but that she craves what he is offering, even if that means she’ll be sitting uncomfortably when her behavior is out of control? Can he help her find the sweet, loving woman she’d been when they met decades earlier? Is she worth the risk?
DISCLAIMER: This book contains the spanking of adult women, elements of light age-play, explicit sexual scenes involving anal play. If any of these offend you, please do not purchase this book.
“Okay, Travis. You’ve made me sweat suitably, done your best to shame me, now write the damn check. I have things to do,” she hissed, glaring at him.
“No?” she asked, stunned.
“That’s what I said, Claire. I will not write you a check. You receive a more than adequate monthly allowance to maintain your lifestyle and yet like clockwork you present yourself in my office each month asking for more. It’s going to stop, and I mean right now,” he informed her firmly.
“But it’s my money,” she stammered, her eyes wide and somewhat confused.
“Oh Claire,” Travis sighed. “You’re such a child at times,” he continued, shaking his head. “Yes, it is your money, but in what I consider one of the smartest things your husband ever did, he put it in trust for you.
“George adored you, but he wasn’t entirely blind to your faults, thank God.” Travis explained for the umpteenth time. “A trust means the money is safe, protected and doled out over time so you don’t find yourself in a situation where you can’t afford to live. He appointed me the trustee for two reasons. One, I could be trusted and two, you wouldn’t be able to sway or manipulate me away from my duties.”
“But you’ve given me extra money lots of times,” she exclaimed.
“Yes I have. You were grieving, honey, and I cut you some slack. I see now, after this trip,” he informed her, picking up the stack of bills, “that you are no longer the heartbroken widow and I’ll be damned if I let some loser take advantage of you.”
“It’s none of your business what I do with my money,” she cried, rising and stomping one foot.
“Unfortunately, it is, I write the checks,” he said, unable to hide his smile. Lord she was pissed. He watched her struggle to rein in her temper and then sidle around the desk. Pushing his large executive chair back she plopped down on his lap.
“Please don’t be nasty to me, Travis,” she pleaded. Claire ran her fingers through the touch of silver at his temples. “George trusted you to take care of me,” she pouted, resting her head on his shoulder.
“And that’s exactly what I’m going to do,” he assured her, wishing she’d stop wiggling her bottom. “Claire, if I let you continue unchecked, you’ll be broke within ten years. You can’t spend money like water and expect it to last forever. I won’t allow you to fall victim to some guy looking for a cougar.”
“A cougar,” she cried, bolting upright on his knees. “You think I’m old? That someone will only want me for my money?”
“I think you’re perfectly lovely and always have, but you’re almost forty, Claire. It’s time to grow up, baby.”
“I am grown up, and I know my rights,” she insisted angrily, her dark eyes flashing. “I’ll have you replaced as my trustee.”
“I’m sorry, but that’s not possible. George’s will was very explicit for just that reason. The only way you’ll get a new trustee is if I die.”
“Don’t tempt me,” she retorted, taking hold of his tie and pulling.
“Careful Claire or you’ll find yourself facing the other way over my knees,” he warned, locking his gaze on her.
“You wouldn’t,” she insisted.
“Don’t count on that, honey. I’ve wanted to blister your ass since the night of your and George’s first anniversary party when you tossed your drink at him over some silly little remark.”
“I was drunk. That shouldn’t count,” she whispered in protest.
“On the contrary, that was no excuse and I would have spanked you for overindulging too.”
Slowly she began to skootch off his lap and for a moment he grasped her hip, holding her in place before allowing her to escape. When she was safely on the opposite side of his desk she leaned forward, planting her hands palms down on the cool dark wood.
“I always knew there was something different about you,” she sputtered, “something…unyielding. That’s why I picked George, even though I loved you both. George was so…”
“Manageable?” he drawled sarcastically.
“Yes, exactly! And don’t say it like it’s some kind of flaw,” she barked out.
“George was a great guy, fun, loving, easy-going. I miss him,” Travis admitted sadly, “but he didn’t do you any favors.”
“How can you say that?” she demanded. “He did everything for me.”
“Yes, and now you can’t seem to do anything for yourself; even manage your finances so you don’t have to come in here every month asking for more money. He left you well off. You should be grateful.”
“I would be, if you’d let me have enough money to have some fun once in a while.”
“Claire, this discussion is over,” Travis snapped rising. “You can expect your monthly allowance in your account on the 1st, but you’re not getting another dime before that. Have I made myself clear?” he asked sternly.
“Abundantly,” she shot back, picking up her purse. “It doesn’t matter anyway. I have plenty of things I can sell outright, including my apartment,” she sneered, “although I hardly think that’s what George had in mind.”
“Claire, don’t you dare sell that apartment,” he ordered rounding the desk.
“You may control the trust, Travis, but you can’t stop me from doing what I want with the rest of my things. Maybe if I’m homeless a judge will overrule you and give me my inheritance in a lump sum,” she called over her shoulder as she walked to the door.
“I’m warning you, Claire,” he growled. “Your attitude is not acceptable. Come back here!”
“Sorry, the cougar has left the building,” she cooed just before slamming the door behind her.
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4472
|
__label__wiki
| 0.743273
| 0.743273
|
Sunderland 2nds cruise past Bradford 2nds winning by 31 points
Sunderland led from start to finish as they blew out a Bradford team who only had five players to choose from.
The hosts dominated from the first whistle to the last as Bradford couldn’t keep up with the pace of Sunderland. The lead extended to 30 points in the fourth quarter as Sunderland piled on the pressure.
Sunderland came into the game looking to get their third win of the league season as the team returned to City Space.
Ivan Nie asserted himself as a big threat for Sunderland and his quickness was a real danger for the Bradford defence. He was the main man early on and scored eight points in the first five minutes of the match.
Sunderland dominated the first quarter and led by eight points after the opening period came to a close 16-8 to the hosts.
The home team with more than double the players of Bradford extended the lead to 14 early in the quarter. Their fast-paced play was too much for Bradford and scored some great fast break plays.
Sunderland continued to keep a ten-point lead as Shijie Gu and Sirui Zhao for Sunderland was finding their touch inside and continuing to run at the Bradford players.
Bradford only had five players to choose from and it was evident that fatigue was affecting them. The hosts finished the half up by 18 points as the scores finished 36-18.
Sunderland 2nds up by 12 at City Space #BUCSWednesday pic.twitter.com/E71NNCM7fB
— SportsByte (@Sports_Byte) December 5, 2018
Darryl Nyoni for Bradford was doing his best to get his team back into the game and was always looking to get to the basket and score. He was constantly getting to the free throw line as Sunderland were guilty of giving away too many fouls.
Bradford proved to be no match for the Sunderland team who time and time again got easy layups to extend the lead to the 30 points.
Zhao was having a fine game for the Wearsiders, he drove to the basket spin round two players and scored an incredible reverse layup. Sunderland with a big lead were clearly enjoying their play and scoring basket after basket.
Sunderland were passing it around with ease and making use of the away team’s tiredness as they moved the ball around brilliantly. The Wearsiders were up by 28 at the end of the third quarter in an incredibly one-sided game, the period finished 67-39.
Sunderland up by 30 points now with only two minutes left to play #BUCSWednesday pic.twitter.com/hdfzU8c9pY
Nyoni was really trying to give his side a fighting chance and euro stepped his way to the hoop for the two points. He top scored for his team and was a constant threat inside.
Sunderland were putting Bradford to the sword as they extended the lead to 31 points with a deep three from 11. The home team continued to attack as the scores finished 83-52 in a dominant win for Sunderland.
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4474
|
__label__wiki
| 0.913024
| 0.913024
|
YouTube removes 7.8m videos for breaching site rules in Q3
By Andrew McDonald
14th December 2018 @ 11:59
YouTube removed 7.8m videos that violated the platform’s guidelines in the three months from July to September, according to company stats.
YouTube said that 81% of the removed videos were first detected by machines, not viewers, and that 74.5% of these machine-detected videos had never been viewed.
“The vast majority of attempted abuse comes from bad actors trying to upload spam or adult content,” said YouTube in a blog post.
“Over 90% of the channels and over 80% of the videos that we removed in September 2018 were removed for violating our policies on spam or adult content.”
The figures are contained in the video giant’s latest quarterly YouTube Community Guidelines Enforcement Report – something it introduced in April this year as part of its commitment to transparency.
When YouTube detects a video that violates its guidelines it removes it and applies a ‘strike’ to the channel that uploaded it. Entire channels are removed if they are dedicated to prohibited content or “contain a single egregious violation, like child sexual exploitation.”
YouTube said that videos containing violent extremism or child safety issues are the most egregious types of content it has to deal with but are also “low volume” areas.
“Our significant investment in fighting this type of content is having an impact,” said YouTube. “Well over 90% of the videos uploaded in September 2018 and removed for violent extremism or child safety had fewer than 10 views.”
YouTube said that 10.2% of its video removals were for child safety, while child sexual abuse material represents “a fraction of a percent of the content we remove”.
In terms of clamping down on user comments that violate its guidelines, YouTube removed more than 224m comments on videos in the third quarter.
It said that the majority of these were spam comments and the total number of removals represents a fraction of the billions of comments posted on YouTube each quarter.
YouTube uses a mixture of smart detection technology and human reviewers to flag, review, and remove videos and to remove abusive or spam messages. YouTube introduced new guidelines to take a tougher stance on hateful, demeaning and inappropriate content in 2017.
Tags: YouTube
ComScore: Netflix leads by US use and engagement
Netflix has the highest household penetration and viewing time per month among the major OTT content services in the US, according toComScore. The research firm’s ‘2017 US Cross-Platform Future in Focus’ report said that Hulu wasn’t as widely accessed but attracted comparable viewing engagement on a per-household basis, while YouTube and Amazon Video had the second and […]
Mobile now the ‘go-to’ destination for YouTube
Mobile is now the ‘go-to’ destination for most video viewers, according to ComScore research. The firm’s analysis claims that in the UK, mobile now accounts for the majority of video minutes spent watching content on YouTube across all age and gender demographics. Women aged 35-44 do 85% of their YouTube viewing on a mobile device, […]
YouTube Premium unveils German originals
YouTube Premium has commissioned its first German originals The trio of formats form part of a three-part global strategy that will see YouTube work with talent with large following, focus on music docs and programmes, and invest in tentpole shows such as its Karate Kid spin-off Cobra Kai as well as feature film acquistions. YouTube […]
Edinburgh TV Festival unveils State of the TV Nation panel
YouTube’s EMEA chief Ben McOwen Wilson, Channel 4 CEO Alex Mahon (pictured) and Lionsgate TV Group president Sandra Stern are among senior executives set to appear on a ‘State of the TV Nation’ panel at the Edinburgh TV Festival in August. They will be joined by All3Media CEO Jane Turton and president of NBCUniversal International […]
BBC commerce chief: focus is on online, talent & finance
Snapchat users love comedy and sport, shun docs
NATPE: YouTube Red 'beats target', preps launches
Netflix: VR not compatible with binge-viewing
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4478
|
__label__wiki
| 0.537271
| 0.537271
|
← 24 Hour Planet
Fact of the day: →
Explosions in the dark…?
Picture the scene. You’re drifting in intergalactic space. There are no stars punctuating the darkness, like there are here on Earth. Instead of stars, the points of light you can see are fuzzier looking. Far fewer points of light than you’d see from home here in the Milky Way, those lights you’re seeing are whole galaxies. Indescribably distant. You’re all alone, lost in the inky blackness of intergalactic space. There’s nothing out here but silent drifting clouds of hydrogen gas, and ultraviolet photons. Or is there? Suddenly, a bright light illuminates the void. A supernova. But where did it come from?
That’s the puzzle that’s been perplexing a number of astronomers at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) for some time, now. Intergalactic supernovae, apparently orphaned from whatever host galaxy may have spawned them. But on closer inspection, it seems that at least one of these supernovae may not have been intergalactic after all.
These images show a supernova named SN 2009z. The left image is a sky survey image, with a box showing the location of the supernova. The right image is a zoom of the box, with boosted contrast and inverted luminosity to help see what you’re looking at. The cross marks the location of the supernova, but… The fuzzy blob there? That’s a galaxy known as N271, and the supernova seems to be associated with it. Mystery solved, right? Actually, not quite.
You see, N271 is a Low Surface Brightness (LSB)★ galaxy. It definitely isn’t a faint, distant galaxy either. With a redshift of a little over 0.2, it’s relatively nearby. As you can probably work out by now, LSB galaxies are so called because they’re, well, not very bright. These are believed to be old galaxies, full of so much dust that very little light reaches the “surface” of the galaxy☀. Old dusty galaxies are practically galactic corpses. Depressingly, they’re no longer capable of supporting much, if any star formation. The light seen from some LSB galaxies probably comes from the last generation of stars that galaxy will ever produce. Yes, in time, even the galaxies die.
But there’s the paradox. This supernova was a type IIb. That’s an explosion caused by the death of a massive star — specifically a massive star which, one way or another, has been robbed of its outer layers of hydrogen. That normally only happens in binary star systems when a gluttonous companion star steals all of that hydrogen. Simultaneously, a stellar companion makes it hard to believe that this is an extragalactic star, but massive young stars shouldn’t be formed in an old galaxy like N271.
In their paper, the group of ESO scientists suggest that this star formed in N271 during a brief starburst. A temporary flurry of star formation, before the galaxy quietened down again. They go on to suggest that if this is the case, then theories on the nature of these dark and dusty LSB galaxies need some revision.
So if N271 went through a starburst phase, then what happened to all of the other stars? Only the most massive stars go supernova, and they’re also the shortest lived. A starburst in N271 should have left behind a population of O and B-type stars. Actually, that fits too. The authors of the paper find a relatively young age in the stellar population, based on the UV output (O and B stars emit a lot of ultraviolet).
There is always the possibility that some intergalactic supernovae may be the death throes of hypervelocity stars. Violently jettisoned at speeds of several hundred kilometres per second, tens of thousands of such hypervelocity stars are expected to exist in the Milky Way’s halo at any one time. Supermassive black holes routinely fling hypervelocity stars out of galaxies♣. It’s also known that in massive galaxy clusters, trillions of intergalactic stars may exist, sometimes more than in any single galaxy in the whole cluster! But that can’t really be the case here. It can (and I’d be willing to bet does) happen elsewhere. But in this case, there’s nowhere else the star may have come from. Supernovae are essentially time bombs, and no other galaxy is close enough to have ejected this star. It would have exploded before it got too far away. Plus it’s obviously closely associated with N271, and arguing otherwise would be foolishness.
I suppose (based purely on speculation), a hidden third option exists for the cause of a mystery supernova. A collision between two stars could, in theory, account for something like this. Two stars would collide and merge to form a blue straggler, causing their interiors to homogenise and allowing them to burn far more of the hydrogen the resulting star would have. This merged star would burn for a lot longer than most supernova progenitors, and if the two original stars were massive enough, the merged star may be massive enough to go supernova. In theory, this could create a type IIb supernova, but the chances of this happening are… well… astronomical.
In short, I’d agree that the authors of this paper have done a lot of work on N271. Their theories, as far as I can see, are watertight. N271 did indeed go through a recent starburst (or is currently starting to going through one), and this is either it’s first such burst, or it’s been dormant for a long time. What could trigger such a burst? Who knows? Perhaps a collision with one of those clouds of intergalactic gas I mentioned at the start of this entry.
And actually, personally I can’t help but find this conclusion rather comforting. Dusty galaxies like these may not be quite so dead after all!
P. -C. Zinn, M. Stritzinger, J. Braithwaite, A. Gallazzi, P. Grunden, D. J. Bomans, N. I. Morrell, & U. Bach (2011). Supernovae without host galaxies? The low surface brightness host of SN 2009Z Astronomy & Astrophysics arXiv: 1111.1833v1
Upper – Zinn et al (2011)/ESO
Lower – Manipulation (by yours truly) of the Black Eye Galaxy from NASA and The Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI).
I was originally going to credit The Daily Galaxy for my finding this story, but on closer inspection it seems they ripped off their article from one published by Universe Today a few months ago. For shame, Daily Galaxy! For shame!
★ Astronomers just love using arcane abbreviations for things.
☀ Technically, a galaxy doesn’t actually have any “surface” to speak of. It’s just a metaphor used in astronomy to make it easier to describe the brightness of any extended source, like a galaxy or a nebula.
♣ Rather like a very big and rather fearsome baby throwing its toys out of the pram.
This entry was posted in Imported from Livejournal and tagged galaxies, stars, supernovae. Bookmark the permalink.
1 Response to Explosions in the dark…?
Pingback: ResearchBlogging.org News » Blog Archive » Editor’s Selections: Unexpected supernovae, Cosmic Ray and Tree Rings, and Multitasking Cells
|
cc/2019-30/en_middle_0006.json.gz/line4486
|
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.