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Articles, Featured, News, Video
Jeezy Says We Done It Again
Tiffany Lewars
By Tiffany Lewars
In light of the presidential election, a slew of celebrities who have supported President Obama throughout his political journey have took to a number of platforms to express their pride in his reelection.
One celebrity who couldn’t hold back his elation for the president is rapper Young Jeezy. The Atlanta rapper hit the studio in an effort to pay homage to the president with his latest track “We Done It Again.” The Bad Boy Records artist is no stranger to slinging hard social and political lyrics over a tight beat, as he previously recorded “My President is Black,” which was featured on his album, The Recession, in honor of the president’s first victory. His new three-minute track brings up contemporary issues such as the Trayvon Martin shooting, Hurricane Katrina, and the nation’s economy.
His hood demeanor may spur stereotyped judgment by people unfamiliar with his work, but Jeezy has often had a hand in raising political awareness for minorities and underprivileged people. The track is dedicated to “every ghetto in the world,” and he insinuates that President Obama could be the country’s savior. The track’s grimy beat sets the tone for the theme of the song with a sample in the background resembling a person crying out in the distance.
I’m sure we’ll be seeing a lot more songs dedicated to President Obama from fellow celebrities; until then, check out the Snowman’s track.
activismactivistBarack ObamaMy President is BlacksocialThe RecessionWe Done It AgainYoung Jeezy
Did Swift Imitate “All Too Well”?
Kaki King, 11/5
(T)rap Wars
Tenedra Bafford
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The Cambridge Companion to Modern Russian Culture
Part of Cambridge Companions to Culture
Editor: Nicholas Rzhevsky, State University of New York, Stony Brook
Nicholas Rzhevsky, Dean S. Worth, Michael S. Flier, Dmitry S. Likhachev, Mark Bassin, Timothy Westphalen, Abbott Gleason, Catriona Kelly, David M. Bethea, John E. Bowlt, Harlow Robinson, Laurence Senelick, Nikita Lary
Date Published: May 2012
availability: Temporarily unavailable - available from August 2019
$ 108.00 (P)
Russia's size, the diversity of its peoples and its unique geographical position straddling East and West have created a culture that is both inward and outward looking. Its history reflects the tension between very different approaches to what culture can and should be, and this tension shapes the vibrancy of its arts today. The highly successful first edition of Rzhevsky's Companion has been updated to include post-Soviet trends and new developments in the twenty-first century. It brings together leading authorities writing on Russian cultural identity, its Western and Asian connections, popular culture and the unique Russian contributions to the arts. Each of the eleven chapters has been revised or entirely rewritten to take account of current cultural conditions and the further reading brought up to date. The book reveals, for students, academic researchers and all those interested in Russia, the dilemmas, strengths and complexities of the Russian cultural experience.
Offers an overall introduction to Russian culture with special focus on the arts
Reflects the state of current scholarship in a wide range of fields
Fully updated and revised new edition, including up-to-date further reading
contains: 17 b/w illus. 1 table
Introduction to Russian culture Nicholas Rzhevsky
Part I. Cultural Identity:
1. Language Dean S. Worth and Michael S. Flier
2. Religion Dmitry S. Likhachev and Nicholas Rzhevsky
3. Asia Mark Bassin
4. Boundaries: the West Timothy Westphalen
5. Ideological structures Abbott Gleason
6. Popular culture Catriona Kelly
Part II. Literature and the Arts:
7. Literature David M. Bethea
8. Art John E. Bowlt
9. Music Harlow Robinson
10. Theatre Laurence Senelick
11. Film Nikita Lary
Nicholas Rzhevsky, State University of New York, Stony Brook
Nicholas Rzhevsky is Professor and Chairman of the Department of European Languages, Literatures and Cultures at the State University of New York, Stony Brook.
Cambridge Collections Online offers subject or theme based collections within a richly functional, cross-searchable environment.
The Cambridge Companion to Twentieth-Century Russian Literature
Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies
NEW TO CAMBRIDGE IN 2016Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies is an internationally recognised, peer-reviewed journal…
Slavic Review
African and Caribbean literature
Anglo Saxon and medieval literature
Asian literature
English literature: general interest
English literature 1700-1830
English literature after 1945
European and world literature: general interest
Literary texts
Printing and publishing history
Renaissance and early modern literature
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The Legitimacy of International Human Rights Regimes
Legal, Political and Philosophical Perspectives
Part of Studies on Human Rights Conventions
Andreas Føllesdal, Universitetet i Oslo
Johan Karlsson Schaffer, Universitetet i Oslo
Geir Ulfstein, Universitetet i Oslo
Johan Karlsson Schaffer, Andreas Føllesdal, Geir Ulfstein, Samantha Besson, Steven Wheatley, Kristen Hessler, Başak Çalı, Ian Hurd, Lynn Dobson, Richard Bellamy
The past sixty years have seen an expansion of international human rights conventions and supervisory organs, not least in Europe. While these international legal instruments have enlarged their mandate, they have also faced opposition and criticism from political actors at the state level, even in well-functioning democracies. Against the backdrop of such contestations, this book brings together prominent scholars in law, political philosophy and international relations in order to address the legitimacy of international human rights regimes as a theoretically challenging and politically salient case of international authority. It provides a unique and thorough overview of the legitimacy problems involved in the global governance of human rights.
Analyses international human rights treaties as a specific and theoretically challenging case of international law and global governance, thereby allowing for a better understanding of the complex rules, constraints and legitimacy of the human rights judiciary
Assessment of current problems and issues related to the legitimacy of human rights regimes will facilitate evaluation of reform suggestions, both for international human rights courts and domestic constitutional reform processes
Contributing authors consist of outstanding scholars from a range of different backgrounds, who provide a unique, high quality, multidisciplinary account of the legitimacy of international human rights regimes
1. International human rights and the challenge of legitimacy Johan Karlsson Schaffer, Andreas Føllesdal and Geir Ulfstein
2. The legitimate authority of international human rights: on the reciprocal legitimation of domestic and international human rights Samantha Besson
3. On the legitimate authority of international human rights bodies Steven Wheatley
4. Equality, human rights, and political legitimacy Kristen Hessler
5. The legitimacy of international interpretive authorities for human rights treaties: an indirect-instrumentalist defence Başak Çalı
6. Torture and the politics of legitimation in international law Ian Hurd
7. Legitimacy, institutional power, and international human rights institutions: a conceptual enquiry Lynn Dobson
8. Legitimacy, global governance and human rights institutions: inverting the puzzle Johan Karlsson Schaffer
9. The democratic legitimacy of international human rights conventions: political constitutionalism and the Hirst case Richard Bellamy
10. Much ado about nothing? International judicial review of human rights in well-functioning democracies Andreas Føllesdal.
Andreas Føllesdal is Professor of Political Philosophy at the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights, University of Oslo, Norway.
Johan Karlsson Schaffer is a senior researcher at the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights, University of Oslo, Norway.
Geir Ulfstein is Professor of International Law at the Department of Public and International Law, University of Oslo, Norway.
Constituting Europe
The European Court of Human Rights in a National, European and Global Context
UN Human Rights Treaty Bodies
Law and Legitimacy
Legitimacy, Justice and Public International Law
International Organization is a leading peer-reviewed journal that covers the entire field of international affairs.…
European Political Science Review
The European Political Science Review (EPSR) publishes high quality scholarly research in political science, focusing…
Ethics & International Affairs
The aim of Ethics & International Affairs, the journal of the Carnegie Council, is to help close the gap between…
European Journal of International Security
NEW IN 2016 - The European Journal of International Security (EJIS) publishes theoretical, methodological and empirical…
Arbitration, dispute resolution and mediation
International economic and trade law, WTO law
Law: general interest
Legal skills and practice
Medico-legal, bioethics and health law
Socio-legal studies
UN and international organisations
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PNAS: The Pandemic Potential Of Eurasian Avian-like H1N1 (EAH1N1) Swine Influenza
Credit ECDC – 125 years of Pandemic History
While we watch the avian H5 and H7 influenza viruses make tentative jumps to humans - and are justifiably concerned over their pandemic potential - as far back as modern science will allow us to look (about 125 years) the only influenza viruses known to have sparked a human pandemic were either types H1, H2, or H3.
We've looked at the theory that Pandemic Viruses Are Members Of An Exclusive Club on numerous occasions, but the data is fairly limited.
History suggests at least a dozen `influenza-like’ pandemics occurred in the 400 years prior to the 20th century, but we've simply no idea what subtypes might have been involved.
We do know that the H1, H2, and H3 viruses are hosted not only by humans, but by birds, and a variety of mammalian species - including pigs. Also included are dogs, and horses, and even marine mammals.
The assumption is that H1, H2, and H3 viruses of swine or avian origin likely have a smaller `leap' to adapt to humans than do the strictly avian H5 and H7 subtypes.
And indeed, we saw that very thing play out with the 2009 H1N1 `swine flu' pandemic, which had been bouncing around North American pig herds for a decade or longer.
Last August we looked at a study that examined two recently discovered swine variant strains (see J. Virol: Novel Reassortant Human-like H3N2 & H3N1 Influenza A Viruses In Pigs) of concern. They described both of these novel subtypes as
“. . . virulent and can sustain onward transmission in pigs, and the naturally occurring mutations in the HA were associated with antigenic divergence from H3 IAV from human and swine’” and goes on to warn that ``. . . the potential risk of these emerging swine IAV to humans should be considered”.
In recent years we've also been watching evolution of several swine variant viruses (H1N1v, H1N2v, H3N2v), all of which have reassorted with - and picked up the M gene segment from – the 2009 H1N1 pandemic virus (see Keeping Our Eyes On The Prize Pig).
While an avian flu pandemic might be a lot deadlier, many flu researchers worry another swine-origin pandemic virus is more likely to emerge.
All of which brings us to a new study published in the early edition of PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy Of Science), where Chinese and Japanese scientists have isolated and characterized a number avian H1N1 virus variants circulating in Chinese pigs that they believe have considerable pandemic potential.
Prevalence, genetics, and transmissibility in ferrets of Eurasian avian-like H1N1 swine influenza viruses
Huanliang Yanga,1,Yan Chena,1,Chuanling Qiaoa,1,Xijun Hea,Hong Zhoub,Yu Sunb,Hang Yina,Shasha Menga,Liping Liua,Qianyi Zhanga,Huihui Konga,Chunyang Gua,Chengjun Lia,Zhigao Bua,Yoshihiro Kawaokac,2, and Hualan Chena,2
Pigs are important intermediate hosts for generating novel influenza viruses. The Eurasian avian-like H1N1 (EAH1N1) swine influenza viruses (SIVs) have circulated in pigs since 1979, and human cases associated with EAH1N1 SIVs have been reported in several countries. However, the biologic properties of EAH1N1 SIVs are largely unknown.
Here, we performed extensive influenza surveillance in pigs in China and isolated 228 influenza viruses from 36,417 pigs. We found that 139 of the 228 strains from pigs in 10 provinces in China belong to the EAH1N1 lineage.
These viruses formed five genotypes, with two distinct antigenic groups, represented by A/swine/Guangxi/18/2011 and A/swine/Guangdong/104/2013, both of which are antigenically and genetically distinct from the current human H1N1 viruses.
Importantly, the EAH1N1 SIVs preferentially bound to human-type receptors, and 9 of the 10 tested viruses transmitted in ferrets by respiratory droplet. We found that 3.6% of children (≤10 y old), 0% of adults, and 13.4% of elderly adults (≥60 y old) had neutralization antibodies (titers ≥40 in children and ≥80 in adults) against the EAH1N1 A/swine/Guangxi/18/2011 virus, but none of them had such neutralization antibodies against the EAH1N1 A/swine/Guangdong/104/2013 virus.
Our study shows the potential of EAH1N1 SIVs to transmit efficiently in humans and suggests that immediate action is needed to prevent the efficient transmission of EAH1N1 SIVs to humans.
In the `Significance' section the authors boil it down to this:
Here, we found that, after long-term evolution in pigs, the EAH1N1 SIVs have obtained the traits to cause a human influenza pandemic.
Xinhua News has an English Language report on all of this, with interviews with the lead author, which you can read at the following link:
Avian-like H1N1 swine flu may "pose highest pandemic threat": study
WASHINGTON, Dec. 28 (Xinhua) -- The Eurasian avian-like H1N1 (EAH1N1) swine flu viruses, which have circulated in pigs since 1979, have obtained the ability to infect humans and may "pose the highest pandemic threat" among the flu viruses currently circulating in animals, Chinese researchers said Monday.
"Pigs are considered important intermediate hosts for flu viruses," Chen Hualan, director of China's National Avian Influenza Reference Laboratory, who led the study, said in an written interview with Xinhua.
"Based on scientific analysis and comprehensive comparison of the main animal flu viruses: H1N1, H3N2, H5N1, H7N9, H9N2 and EAH1N1, we found the EAH1N1 is the one most likely to cause next human flu pandemic. We should attach great importance to the EAH1N1."
For more on the potential of the next pandemic to emerge from pigs, you may wish to revisit:
JID: Evolutionary Dynamics Of Influenza A Viruses In US Exhibition Swine
Live Markets & Novel Flu Risks In The United States
Study: Reassortants of H1N1pdm & Swine H1 & H3 Viruses in Japan
EID Journal: H3N2v Swine To Human Transmission At Agricultural Fairs – 2012
Posted by Michael Coston at 5:59 PM
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North West Turns 6: Kim Kardashian and Others Share Sweet Tributes
Happy birthday, North West!
Kim Kardashian and Kanye West's first daughter and eldest of their four children turned 6 on Saturday and received sweet birthday tributes from her mom and other family members.
Kim posted on Instagram a slideshow of throwback photos of her and her little girl, including a pic of them sitting together at a restaurant, sharing a kiss while standing in shallow water on the beach, and cuddling on a swing.
"Happy Birthday my sweet girl!" she wrote. "The last 6 years have been the best of my life raising you and seeing you grow up. Mommy loves you forever and beyond!"
"Happy birthday lil sassy northie!! We love you!" commented Kimora Lee Simmons.
"Happy birthday North! ♥️" commented Kim's longtime friend and makeup artist Mario Dedivanovic.
"Awww HBD little Northie!" wrote family friend and hairstylist Jen Atkin.
Kim's brother Rob Kardashian posted on his Instagram page a throwback photo of North with the family's dog Sushi.
"Happy birthday North!! ❤️ #NorthWest," he wrote.
Grandma Kris Jenner also shared on Instagram a slew of pics of North, including a couple showing both of them together, one of the little girl rocking a shimmering green outfit and sunglasses, a few pics of her with her cousin Penelope Disick, who will turn 7 next month.
"Happy Birthday to my little Angel Northie!!!!" Kris wrote. "What a bright light you are and such a blessing to our family!! Your magic and sunshine lights up every room and I adore how creative and smart you are. You are so kind and loving to everyone you know and have a beautiful heart and soul...I love you so much precious North and it is a pleasure and a privilege to be your Grandmother. I love you ❤️ Lovey xo #HappyBirthdayNorth."
Watch Keeping Up With the Kardashians on Sundays at 9/8c only on E!
https://www.eonline.com/news/1049805/north-west-turns-6-kim-kardashian-and-others-share-sweet-birthday-tributes?cmpid=rss-000000-rssfeed-365-topstories&utm_source=eonline&utm_medium=rssfeeds&utm_campaign=rss_to
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Aspiring 2 Wellness
Personal Resilience, Mindfulness and Coaching
A2W: enabling you to thrive
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Dr Caroline Hough
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Mindfulness testimonials
“Caroline brings together the disciplines of mindfulness and coaching in a very thoughtful and empathetic way. I attended one of her one-day workshops and came away with a set of useful, practical insights for integrating powerful techniques into daily life”.
“My life has taken on a new meaning. I find myself having slowed down. I feel more focused, intentional and enthused with a purposeful meaning. I feel more loving, kinder, calmer, more alert, sharper, more attuned and focused. I feel inner peace”.
“I was at Caroline mindfulness workshop. Caroline was fantastic. She is very knowledgeable and incredibly easy to talk to. She re-frames the most difficult things with ease and her recommendations are easy to follow. I immediately followed up and have made some major shifts especially about being vulnerable. Thank you”.
“You will not know how much this can help you and you can help yourself too, until you try it”.
“This is an interactive course where everybody can express their thoughts and experiences that helps themselves and the rest of the participants as well”.
“The day was like a breath of fresh air“.
“I really enjoyed it and it gave me a lot of food for thought”.
“Would be good if this could be rolled out for all staff this would create a healthier work environment. Helping one’s self to control a stressful environment helps us to stay healthy”.
“...it was a beautiful day of learning and reflection, and I know I’ll continue to enjoy the benefits in the future”.
“I think this course will help people in positive ways to find themselves and to be more professional”.
“Caroline knows her craft and delivers the subject in a kind and inclusive way”.
“[Most helpful was] trying different mindfulness exercises and sharing the experience as a group”.
“Mindfulness feels gentle to me, it’s about acceptance, not fighting. It’s a relief to be able to acknowledge this. It feels like adopting an adult state in your mind”.
“A very good course which would be useful to a lot of people and help with the demanding elements of work and personal life”.
“[Most helpful was]the fact that mindfulness is portable – it’s always with me and that it is instantly accessible when I return to my breath”.
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Mindfulness and coaching have helped me to balance my life and get it back on track. Mindfulness moved me from being very ill to being unwell, adding coaching enabled me to flourish. A psychologist colleague said “….it was like having rocket boosters put under you.” Aspiring 2 Wellness allows you to discover that achieving mind, body and emotional balance is possible and leaves you more able to take personal responsibility for achieving this balance.
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Home World
Tunisia fishermen saved Bangladeshi migrants among others in Mediterranean
A Tunisian fishing boat arrives at the port of Zarzis in the southern coast of Tunisia on May 21, 2019. Photo: AFP
AFP, Tunisia
The Tunisian trawler radioed in for help as it passed the migrant boat carrying some Bangladeshi nationals among others, in distress out at sea.
Fishermen from the North African country are spending more and more time pulling in stranded migrants after a sharp decline in humanitarian and European naval patrols along the stretch of water between war-wracked Libya and Italy.
Bourassine, his crew and three other fishing boats ferried the 69 migrants back to shore on May 11, five days after their boat pushed off from Zuwara on the western Libyan coast.
"The area where we fish is a crossing point" between Zuwara and the Italian island of Lampedusa, said Badreddine Mecherek, a Tunisian fisherman from Zarzis near the border with Libya.
Fisherman from Zarzis have saved the lives of hundreds of migrants in recent years, and as the number of boats leaving western Libya for Europe spikes with the return of calmer summer seas, they will probably have to save even more.
"First we warn the authorities, but in the end we end up saving them ourselves," Mecherek grumbled as he tinkered with his rusting sardine boat.
European countries in the northern Mediterranean are trying to stem the number of migrants landing on their shores, and the Tunisian navy with its limited resources only rescues boats inside the country's territorial waters.
Since May 31, Tunisia itself has barred 75 migrants from coming ashore after they were saved in international waters by a Tunisian-Egyptian tug boat.
Contacted multiple times by AFP, Tunisian authorities have refused to comment.
'Angel'
"Everyone has disengaged" from the issue, said Mecherek, adding it was hampering his work.
Fishermen who run across migrants on their second day out at sea are at least able to have done a day's work, he added, "but if we find them on the first night, we have to go back".
"It's very complicated to finish the job with people on board."
The complexity of the rescues grows when fishermen find migrants adrift closer to Italy.
When Bourassine and his crew last year tugged a boat towards Lampedusa which was adrift without a motor, they were jailed in Sicily for four weeks for helping the migrants. It took months to recover their boat.
Humanitarian boats and those of the European Union's "Operation Sophia" anti-piracy force had scooped up most stranded migrants in recent years, but rescue operations dropped in 2019.
"Now most often we are the first to arrive... if we aren't there, the migrants die," Mecherek said.
On May 10, a Tunisian trawler just barely saved the lives of 16 migrants after they had spent eight hours in the water. Sixty others drowned before the ship arrived.
Survivor Ahmed Sijur said the boat's appearance at dawn was like that of "an angel".
"I was losing hope myself, but God sent us the fishermen to save us," the 30-year-old from Bangladesh said.
'Police of the sea'
Mecherek is more worried than proud.
"We don't want to see all these corpses anymore. We want to catch fish, not people," he said, adding his crew was growing uneasy.
"I have 20 seamen on board asking, 'Who will feed our families?'" he added.
"But local fishermen will never let people die at sea."
For Tunisian Red Crescent official Mongi Slim, the fishermen "are practically the police of the sea", adding that many migrants say large ships won't stop to help.
Under pressure to catch their quota during a short annual season, big tuna boats out of Zarzis often call the coast guard instead of stopping themselves to help.
"We report the migrants, but we can't bring them back to shore... We only have a few weeks to fish," said one crew member.
For Chamseddine, the summer months look difficult.
"With fighting having resumed in Libya, traffickers are free to work again.... There's a risk of many shipwrecks."
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‘You must be stupid’
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Rumbolt, Nolan snag All MASCAC honors in Baseball
2018 All MASCAC Baseball Team
North Adams, MA- MCLA baseball players Logan Rumbolt and Liam Nolan were named to the All MASCAC team as announced by the league offices this afternoon. Rumbolt (North Adams, MA), a sophomore, was a first team utility player, while Nolan (Pittsfield, MA) was tabbed as a second team selection as a pitcher. The honors are the first for each respective player during their careers at MCLA.
Westfield State swept the major awards as Anthony Crowley was selected as the MASCAC player of the year and John Gegetskas was tabbed the Pitcher of the Year. Westfield State head coach Nathan Bashaw earned the Coach of the Year honor. The MASCAC rookie of the year went to John Teehan of the Massachusetts Maritime Academy.
Rumbolt had a breakout season for MCLA in 2018. The sophomore saw action in multiple infield positions and then settled in as a right fielder for most of the conference slate. He is currently third in the conference as he ended the season batting .376 which led the team. Rumbolt played in all 29 games for the Trailblazers and led the team in runs scored with 22. He collected 8 doubles which also led MCLA and drove in 15 runs and stole 7 bases.
Nolan had an outstanding senior season on the mound for the Trailblazers. He was the ace of the staff and led the team with a 3.74 ERA in 10 appearances. He went 3-1 overall with wins over Framingham State, Salem State, and Colby Sawyer in 2018. He struck out 63 batters which is currently tied for third in the league in just 53 innings pitched. Nolan struck out a career best 12 Framingham State hitters in the MASCAC opening round game.
Rumbolt and Nolan led MCLA back into the MASCAC postseason for the second consecutive season. The Trailblazers finished this season at 13-15-1 overall which included a 6-7-1 conference mark.
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Russia Says NATO Is Using Ukraine Crisis To Boost Appeal
[April 10, 2014] MOSCOW (Reuters) — Russia's Foreign Ministry accused NATO on Thursday of using the crisis in Ukraine to boost its appeal to members and justify its existence by rallying them against an imaginary threat.
Russia and the West are locked in a Cold War-style stand-off over Ukraine and NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told Moscow to pull back troops from the Ukrainian border or face consequences if they intervene.
The ministry said Rasmussen's remarks were confrontational and that in recent months he had not offered "any constructive agenda" for Ukraine, adding that it was adding to instability in the region.
"The constant accusations against us by the secretary general convince us that the alliance is trying to use the crisis in Ukraine to rally its ranks in the face of an imaginary external threat to NATO members and to strengthen demand for the alliance ... in the 21st century," it said.
NATO has suspended all practical military and civilian cooperation with Russia, although it said political dialogue could continue at ambassador level or higher, since Russia incorporated Ukraine's Crimea region last month.
The Western military alliance has also limited access for Russian diplomat's to its headquarters and is reviewing a 1997 co-operation agreement with Russia and subsequent Rome declaration of 2002 that prevented it from setting up bases in eastern and central Europe.
Russia has responded by accusing NATO of having a Cold War mentality and has expressed concern over the possibility of deploying the alliance's troops in eastern Europe permanently.
(Reporting by Gabriela Baczynska; editing by Elizabeth Piper)
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10,000 Pakistanis who registered as Afghan refugees detected
ISLAMABAD (Dawn/ANN) - The National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) has tracked over 10,000 Pakistanis who have registered themselves as Afghan refugees for dollars, as the UN High Commission for Refugees had set $400 for each Afghan refugee returning to their homeland under a voluntary repatriation scheme.
This was disclosed by Nadra chairman Usman Yusuf Mobeen while giving a briefing on blocked Computerised National Identity Cards (CNICs) at a meeting of the Senate’s standing committee on interior, which was presided over by the committee’s chairman Senator Rehman Malik.
Mr Mobeen said the cases of fake identities were caught by the Nadra system when they came to obtain CNICs, as their cards had been blocked. He explained that CNICs were blocked in five different categories of suspicious cases.
Revelation made in a briefing given by Nadra chief to Senate panel.
While briefing the Senate committee, the Nadra chairman said around one million Afghan refugees had been repatriated to Afghanistan under the voluntary repatriation scheme. Each refugee ready to return home was to be given an assistance package of 400 dollars by the UN High Commission for Refugees. Even for their newborn, the UN provided assistance that was increased during different times and stood at a rate of $400 per individual at present.
The issue of Nadra’s refusal to issue CNICs to Pakhtuns living in Balochistan had been raised by Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz Senator Yaqoob Khan Nasar in the Senate on a point of public importance.
“There were 2.4 million registered Afghan refugees in Pakistan at one time,” Mr Mubeen said, adding that 1.5 million unregistered Afghan refugees were also living in the country. He said that many of those Afghan nationals got fake CNICs posing themselves to be part of the family trees of Pakistani nationals in connivance with some government officials. Even those Pakistanis were suspected cases whose family trees were used to issue these fake CNICs, the chairman said. However, he added, there were some Pakistani nationals who voluntarily allowed them to become part of their family.
He said the authority had found 156,000 suspected cases during a national verification drive. He explained said that a parliamentary committee during the last PML-N government had devised a mechanism to verify the documents of those people whose identities as Pakistanis were doubtful. In the light of the recommendations of that committee, the government issued a notification that deputy commissioner of every district would head a verification committee to decide such cases. He said the parliamentary committee had decided that every applicant in question would have to produce at least one of the seven identity documents before their respective district committee to prove their nationality.
Even Abdol Malek Rigi, former head of an Iran-based terrorist group and his family, had succeeded to get Pakistani CNICs by intruding into the family trees, the chairman of the Senate standing committee observed.
Senator Malik said: “Nadra should have clarity between the Afghan refugees and Pakistanis.” He said the seven documents’ requirement to give proof of nationality should be reviewed to make the verification procedure easy but effective. He said laws could be amended to ease the process of registration for the people who were not literate.
Meanwhile, the Senate committee through a unanimously adopted resolution decried and rejected Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s anti-Pakistan tweets.
The resolution moved by Senator Malik said Mr Ghani’s statement was “factually baseless and a gross interference in the internal affairs of Pakistan”. The committee called upon the government to register a serious protest with Afghanistan and demand that President Ghani “withdraw his statement immediately and tender an apology”.
Mr Malik said Pakistan was facing serious security threats, as terrorist groups were being sponsored and activated from across the border.
1,200 pilgrims stranded
The Senate committee chairman informed the meeting about the issue of lack of security due to which hundreds of Pakistani pilgrims returning from Iran and Iraq were stranded at Taftan, Pak-Iran border.
“I have been informed that around 1,200 pilgrims were stranded for the last two weeks in Balochistan due to lack of security needed to escort their buses to Quetta,” he said.
Senator Malik said that IG FC Balochistan South Region Major General Saeed Ahmed Nagra and an FIA director had assured him of their complete cooperation in ensuring safe travel of the stranded pilgrims. He directed the federal and provincial authorities to make immediate arrangements for the rescue of pilgrims and submit a detailed report on it.
He noted that no structural monitoring or standing operating procedure was being followed for the pilgrims’ travel and safety.
The meeting directed that the ministry of religious affairs, the interior ministry, the Balochistan government and other relevant authorities to formulate and finalise some facilitation plan on the pattern of Haj pilgrims for the zaireen as well.
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Of Culture and Business
Over the weekend, the Asheville Citizen-Times published a fascinating analysis of how the deal to lure Deschutes went sideways. If you're interested at the intersection of public policy and business, it's a great piece. But beyond general lessons, there are some particularities that jumped out at me. There were so many moving parts, it's hard to know what tipped the scales in Roanoke's favor, but it looks like culture played a dominant role. Consider:
"The beer culture fit well with what the outdoors tourism officials were trying to promote, said that city’s economic development director, Wayne Bowers. 'We’re on the Appalachian Trail. And the Blue Ridge Parkway comes right through town,' Bowers said." All you have to do is pick up a bottle of Deschutes to understand how central the outdoors is to the brewery. It's embedded very deeply into their DNA.
Asheville sold Deschutes' first-choice site, but Deschutes stayed engaged because Asheville is such a beery city.
On the one hand, Deschutes was dealing with this from Ashville: "Republican Commissioner Joe Belcher later would say that his problem with the arrangement was bigger than the land purchase. Belcher said he was opposed to alcohol in general due to 'a deep personal and religious conviction.'"
And if some in Asheville didn't love beer, Virginia was going all out for the deal. The state launched an online campaign that Virginians could participate in, and they got the governor involved in the courting process. And then there was this, which cracked me up. "Those intangibles also included ... the discovery that Haymore and Deschutes President Michael LaLonde were fellow 'Deadheads....' It was in the middle of one of the Dead’s most well-known tunes 'Franklin’s Tower' that McAuliffe got the handshake from LaLonde that he wanted, Haymore said."
If you're planning for the next few decades, brewery location isn't a casual consideration. You're stuck with that very expensive property. The natural environment, beer culture, and cultural mores of the city and state will play a huge role in whether the brewery succeeds. One might imagine that sweetening the pot with a few million dollars would make the decision easy, but against these long-term considerations (and an $85 million price tag), location and culture has a lot more to do with it.
East to West?
It's a little surreal to read about how much two states (and South Carolina was an early contender, as well) wanted Deschutes. I absolutely cannot imagine an Oregon city working with local businesses and the governor to try to score a new, say Dogfish Head, Boston Beer, or Yuengling plant. For one thing, Oregon has invested on the front end. The state already brews well over a million barrels of beer a year (not clear whether this stat includes CBA or not). By encouraging breweries with a good regulatory environment, self-distribution laws, and low taxes, Oregon has already developed five of the top 50 largest breweries in the US. Virginia, South Carolina, and North Carolina have developed none.
But of course the bigger thing is that Oregon has such a strong self-identity as a brewing state. We don't import breweries, we build them. We don't drink beer from elsewhere (for good and mostly bad), we drink Oregon beer. I suppose Dogfish Head could set up a brewery here for distribution purposes, but it's hard to envision a scenario outlined in the Citizen-Times playing out here.
All beer is local. That's starting to make things confusing, but only to a point.
Update (9:41am). I meant to add this point. A few people on social media have made the point that one reason for the west-to-east migration of breweries has to do with population densities. West Coast breweries are moving east because that's where the people are, and it's why we're not seeing the reverse. That's true to a point--but only a point. There are a lot of people in the NE, but they're not a giant market. Yet. One of the reasons West Coast breweries grew so fast (fourteen of the fifty largest US breweries) is because there are a lot of people here drinking those beers. Deschutes and Widmer Brothers sell 200,000 barrels of beer in Oregon alone--three times the amount all New Jersey breweries made last year.
Labels: Beer Biz, Deschutes
Unknown 9:59 AM, April 18, 2016
I don't know where I read this, but I also heard it's cheaper to ship things east to west than west to east. So having an east coast brewery can reduce those costs a lot.
Multimedia Friday
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Home > Naked > Ariel naked cartoon
Ariel naked cartoon
Ariel falls in love with a human prince named Prince Eric after saving him from drowning, and visits the sea witch, Ursulawho agrees to turn her into a human in exchange for her voice. Slut stories tumblr. It featured a gallery of human women with no clothes on, posing on every page.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. But Daddy, I'm sixteen years old," Ariel began in her defense. Ariel naked cartoon. Ariel exited the kiss with a gentle bite on Jasmine's lower lip and moved further down on her hot body, kissing every inch of her belly, teasing her as much as possible, just like she always pictured she would do in her daydreams. A little longer down the beachline, a man was taking a walk.
Without thinking, she just began sucking on them, making Jasmine moan a bit. It features many rides and attractions themed around the Little Mermaid. Retrieved 20 July Ariel must make Prince Eric fall in love with her and romantically kiss her within three days, lest she belong to Ursula forever. Actions Add to Community Report Abuse. Xnxx party videos. It was early morning so she thought nobody would be there.
First of all, this is rated M for a reason. The former is a cover album mainly focusing on Samuel E. In the first Kingdom HeartsAriel's story has an unrelated plot to that of the movie. The Floating Palacewhich is part of the computer-animated television series Sofia the First.
Buena Vista Home Entertainment. Edit The Little Mermaid Hentai style babies in lesbi action. The Shimmering Star Necklace. Retrieved 21 July It was noted that red hair contrasted better with Ariel's green tail, red was easier to darken than yellow, and Disney's live-action branch Touchstone Pictures had recently released Splash that had a blonde mermaid; Ariel's red hair was ultimately kept. She moved her fingers to the clit, just vibrating it like crazy.
The series follows Ariel's adventures with her friends and family and sometimes has Ariel foiling the attempts of enemies that are intent on harming her or the kingdom of Atlantica. Sexy Winx girls Leyla and Flora. A re-designed version of the attraction, called Ariel's Undersea Adventurewas built as part of the major expansion for Disney California Adventure Park. Archived from the original on Return to the Seaand direct-to-video prequel The Little Mermaid: In a new subplot, Grimsby holds a contest inviting all the princesses in the land for a singing competition for Eric to choose his bride; Ariel cannot sing, but she dances for Eric, and he chooses her.
Triton trades himself for Ariel, enabling Ursula to steal his crown and enabling her to claim his trident, a fascination which angers Ariel, who will not allow Ursula to destroy merfolk and humans. William levy nude photo. Ariel is one of the original 8 characters that were included at the franchise's launch.
And I went and told those guys, 'I really wanna do Ariel. Chapter 14 - Megara They were both trapped in each other's pupils. Ariel often took off her seashell bra, touching and squeezing her tits and pinching her nipples when she was alone with her magazine.
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When we first heard this one, we were skeptical, but once we started looking back at photos of Aladdin—and some of his cocky mannerisms, not to mention those big, expressive brows—we had to say that the resemblance to a young Tom Cruise is pretty striking.
Not long after the film was released, late Muppet creator Jim Henson proposed a live-action show based on the film, titled Little Mermaid's Island. The series follows Ariel's adventures with her friends and family and sometimes has Ariel foiling the attempts of enemies that are intent on harming her or the kingdom of Atlantica.
Ariel, youngest daughter of King Triton, is dissatisfied with life in the sea. Mature pussy solo tube. I really do try my best though so be kind. She then again licked the clit like mad and sucked on it. Carr; King Triton, Beware! Ariel and sailormen in rape gallery. She marries Prince Ericwhom she rescued from a shipwreck, and together they have a daughter, Melody. Ariel naked cartoon. Baby German is playing with Jessica. Return to the Sea Cinderella II: Apparently, the Disney animators behind the film initially looked to Michael J.
But Daddy, I'm sixteen years old," Ariel began in her defense. Bozena big tits. A bi-annual convention called ArielCon is dedicated to the character. Chapter 18 - Alice Mulan and army of Emperor Yang of Sui China.
Fantasyland Expansion at Magic Kingdom Park". In some pictures, they would show what was between their legs; some would touch it and it seemed this gave them pleasure. Meg is making blowjob to Aid. The Little Mermaid character. A Jewel Story first ed. Interview with Glen Keane. Haley wilde nude pics. Even though she helps her get to land, what Ariel doesn't know is that Ursula has plans to destroy her to get revenge on her father.
My Fairytale Adventure The New York Times. Ariel was to be portrayed by Marietta DePrimaand she would interact with various puppet characters created by Jim Henson's Creature Shop. A mermaid princess makes a Faustian bargain with an unscrupulous sea-witch in order to meet a human prince on land. Jasmine had beautiful brown eyes, and Ariel had equally beautiful blue eyes. Ariel's relationships with various characters from the film are highlighted and expanded, such as the love and occasional conflict between Ariel and her father, how Ariel met Flounder and Scuttle, the relationships between Ariel and her sisters, and Ariel's early fear and avoidance of Ursula the sea witch.
For the character from Thundarr the Barbarian, see Thundarr the Barbarian. This land consisted of several kingdoms and villages, but the ultimate king was Mickey Mouse who had the overview of everyone and everything, and sometimes — but still rarely — he interfered in people's lives. The Little Mermaid Blu-Ray: Triton trades himself for Ariel, enabling Ursula to steal his crown and enabling her to claim his trident, a fascination which angers Ariel, who will not allow Ursula to destroy merfolk and humans.
Sofia wishes for help, and the magical amulet of Avalor summons Ariel in her mermaid form, who gives Sofia advice on what to do. Secondly, if the characters, who are on the young side in the actual Disney lore, are in an "adult situation", I just want to clarify that all of the characters in this fic are at least 18 in this version as I don't want to encourage any form of child pornography or something of that kind. With Sebastian's assistance, Ariel finds her mother's music box, and they decide to return it to Triton.
Triton returns Ariel to human form, the wall separating Eric's castle from the sea is torn down, and contact between humans and merfolk is restored. Ariel appears in all 31 episodes of the series, which is set an unspecified time before the first film. Return to the SeaAriel, now the new queen of Prince Eric's kingdom has given birth to a daughter named Melody.
The bluish-green color of Ariel's fin was a hue specially mixed by the Disney paint lab; the color was named "Ariel" after the character. Sebastian and his band are imprisoned and the club is closed under Triton's orders. Ariel also appears in Songs and Story:
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alyxxndon.com © 2011-2017 Ariel naked cartoon.
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This Week In Gaming 10-23-18
Started by Legolas_Katarn, October 24, 2018
Legolas_Katarn 1,807
Anla'shok Na
AJSA Commander
SN: Legolas 43
BattleTag: Sivian#1306
Discord Tag: 0936
EA Battlelog: Legolas_Katarn
PSN ID: Legolas_43
Steam ID: Legolas_Katarn
Xbox Gamertag: Legolas 43
Uplay: Legolas_Katarn
Jason Schreier speaks with dozens of current and former Rockstar employees and finds a culture of intense overtime, People Make Games tells the story of one man's difficult journey into the games industry and where he ended up, Haydn Taylor's write up of Emily Grace Buck's talk discussing working at Telltale and starting to have serious conversation about unions, UK magazines GamesTM and GamesMaster close, NyaAutomata on how westerners often view Japanese media as representing their entire culture while treating the west as morally superior, Chris Compendio on how Night in the Woods helped them to navigate through the trauma of losing a friend, Devil May Cry 5 shows off weapons while Hitman 2 shows all level locations and target Sean Bean, remembering Far Cry 2 for its 10th anniversary, Bethesda tells players to expect spectacular bugs and issues in Fallout 76, History Respawned talks to Dr. Kate Cook about Assassin's Creed Odyssey's setting, and more.
Gaming News (Announcements, previews, release dates, interviews and writing on upcoming games, DLC and game updates, company and developer news, country news, tech, mods)
Hitman 2 – Sean Bean Elusive Target #1 Reveal | PS4
Sean Bean stars as Mark Faba in HITMAN 2’s first Elusive Target mission, The Undying. Releasing November 20th, you only have 10 days to take down Faba.
All Hitman 2 locations revealed in new trailer – here’s Mumbai, New Zeala
Hitman 2’s Untouchable trailer has just launched, and with it IO Interactive has provided confirmation of every single location in the game. We’ve already seen plenty of the Miami and Colombia in pre-release promotions, but now we’ve also gotten a look at Hawke’s Bay, Mumbai, Vermont, and the Isle of Sgàil.
How Hitman 2’s developers turned its gigantic levels into ever-evolving playgrounds
2016’s Hitman reboot was a fascinating experiment in reviving a classic formula with a new twist. IO Interactive, the developer behind the assassination sandbox series, decided to combine the best efforts of 2012’s more linear but highly polished Hitman: Absolution with the open-world spirit and heavy experimentation of the series’ first three major entries.
Devil May Cry 5 - NYCC 2018 Panel
Devil May Cry 5 director Hideaki Itsuno and producer Matt Walker take us through an in-depth look at Dante's weaponry and other devilish new details in #DMC5.
In the Wake of Their Mother’s Death, How Two Brothers Rebuilt Their Video Game
When brothers Andrew and Brian Allanson finally decided to buckle down and make their dream game in 2013, their enthusiasm seemed bottomless. Their idea fit neatly into the indie milieu that was rocketing off around that time, especially for “Earthbound”–esque games: “ YIIK: A Postmodern RPG,” pronounced Y-2-K, a retro 3D JRPG with a distinct low-poly art style inspired by cult 16-bit hits like “Mega Man Legends.” Rather than pitching the game on Kickstarter, the Allansons leveraged their excitement into a prodigious work ethic, producing a fully-featured prototype for the game in just 52 days, ahead of the gaming convention PAX East. “It was kind of a crazy thing,” Andrew says. “We booked the booth without having anything to show. It was a cowboy move, but we managed to do it in time.”
Gameplay Impressions Of Battlefield V's Single-Player
In this excerpt from the Game Informer Show, Suriel Vazquez joins Ben Hanson and Matt Bertz to share some mostly positive impressions from his time playing DICE's Battlefield V's single-player campaign at a preview event.
The full Battlefield V interview – why single-player is important to the FPS
Today, military shooters are largely about their online multiplayer. It’s why single-player campaigns in FPS titles have, in recent times, felt like cursory add-ons – short in length and familiar in structure. Instead, competitive gaming is what a huge section of the audience comes for now – as such, it’s where the money can be found.
Battlefield 5's singleplayer offers surprisingly fresh perspectives on World War II
Battlefield 1 had a surprisingly strong singleplayer campaign, splitting it up into several distinct 'War Stories' that teleported us from the mud-and-blood of the western front to the semi-mythology of Lawrence of Arabia. It addressed concerns about depicting the less familiar, more sacred of the two world wars by telling tight, personal stories, using some artistic flourishes to explore this rarely-trodden territory with sensitivity. It still brimmed with silly solo heroics, tank battles, super-saturated fires and explosions, of course, but it felt like it earned how silly it was.
Ode To A Moon is a psychedelic horror adventure "inspired by actual events"
Ever since playing Bloodborne I’ve been vaguely suspicious of the moon, so seeing its influence tearing the very fabric of reality asunder in Ode To A Moon‘s debut trailer reinforces my prejudices. The latest from 0°N 0°W creator Colorfiction, it looks to be yet another walk through a surreal reality, although this time more coherent than their previously disconnected dreamscapes. Below, a strange and lurid launch trailer – given some of the fragmented spaces shown, I’m certainly hoping this was only vaguely inspired by real events, as Colorfiction claims.
Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden trailer explains what 'Duck XCOM' is all about
The video demonstrates real-time exploration, mutations, and the strange gameworld.
Wargroove’s release date slips to early 2019
Charming turn-based tactic title Wargroove had been due for release in the second half of this year, but Chucklefish said they decided to move the release window to the first quarter of 2019 in order to “provide players with a really robust package when the big day comes.”
Ace Combat 7 Footage Flies Us Through A Stormy Dogfight And An Attack On Enemy Base
Bandai Namco shared the latest footage of its upcoming combat flight simulator Ace Combat 7 with a mission that takes you on an attack against an enemy base in the desert region and one that throws you in a dogfight in the middle of a storm.
Bethesda warns Fallout 76 fans to expect 'spectacular' bugs and issues
In a note to fans, Bethesda calls Fallout 76 'a starting line', not a finished game, and thanks them for continued support.
Strategic shooter hybrid Executive Assault 2 enters early access
My brain is not up to playing Executive Assault 2 today. I could maybe handle a basic RTS, or maybe an FPS but not this complex hybrid of both plus space combat. Making its early access debut yesterday, it’s a sequel to Hesketh Studios’s 2015 Executive Assault. In the first game, players commanded a robot army RTS-style to take down your corporate rival’s CEO, leading from the front in FPS combat. In the sequel, you’re juggling all that and the third dimension as the battle moves into space. Below, a little video peek at the game, including some impressive fleet combat.
New Gameplay Today – Generation Zero Beta
Brian Shea joins Tired Leo and Sick Cork for an early look at Avalanche Studio's open-world robot killing simulator, which releases in 2019.
The Flare Path: Iron Curtain Call
Before the Su-17s showed up, the defence of Großenlüder was going like clockwork. Dug in behind wire and minefields, my Chieftains were dominating. Their poppy-brushing 120mm guns had barcoded the eastern horizon with pillars of black smoke. Nothing of Soviet manufacture had made it as far as the village, and nothing looked likely to. But then the napalm came. Tumbling canisters of molten lava delivered by low-flying, thunder-trailing Fitters. Tumbling canisters of molten lava that burst on impact, turning protective vehicle scrapes into Hadean pools of flame.
Cool wizards will battle in a royale manner in Spellbreak
What if battle royale but wizards? Okay, Battlerite Royale, sure. But what if battle royale but wizards and big flashy magic spells hurling whirlwinds and rocks and giant walls of fire and spaffing special effects all over? Ah, for that you’ll want to look to Spellbreak, an upcoming battle royale starring cool wizards. Mate, even if you’re not interested in battlers royale, you might want to see this new trailer for the fancy spells these wizards are tossing off.
PlayStation delays Days Gone
Zombie thriller slips from February to April to avoid clash with Anthem and Metro Exodus
Atomic Heart, the offbeat Soviet-era shooter, gives us its weirdest teaser video yet
In today's showing of Weird But Cool Atomic Heart footage, a character appears trapped in a tunnel of molecular mass. Even from the little we've seen so far, I'm certain that won't be the strangest sentence ever written about Munfish's upcoming alternate Soviet-era shooter.
Retro City Rampage Sequel Shakedown Hawaii Release Date Set For Q1 2019
Shakedown: Hawaii, the next Retro Rampage-style game from VBlank Entertainment, has a release window. People will be able to find it on the Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, and PC in the first quarter of 2019. After the game is finished and gets through certification, more exact release dates will be revealed.
Override: Mech City Brawl faces down an alien invasion in a new trailer
Looking at the latest trailer for The Balance’s giant robo-biffer Override: Mech City Brawl, I’m officially jealous I wasn’t able to take it for a spin at EGX last month. Looking a bit like old PS2 gem War Of The Monsters, it’s a game about oversized cartoon robots knocking seven shades of steel out of each other, or sometimes alien invaders if you’re running solo. It all looks a little Pacific Rim meets Megas XLR, and that’s pretty much a match made in heaven, so far as I’m concerned. Below, a fresh peek at the game, its features and its big ugly space-monsters.
Four Things You Need to Know about BATTLETECH Flashpoint
BATTLETECH Flashpoint is the first expansion for BATTLETECH and it launches on November 27th.
Lokhir Felheart and Vampire Bloodlines are coming free to Total War: Warhammer 2
Lokhir Felheart, the Krakenlord of Karond Kar and essentially a salty Dark Elf pirate, is coming free to Total War: Warhammer 2. Just as excitingly, the Vampire Counts are getting a ‘bloodlines’ mechanic in their promised rework. It’s all part of the game’s next free content patch which, since it’ll land alongside the Vampire Coast DLC on November 8, is appropriately named the Aye-Aye Patch.
HITMAN Halloween Pack
The HITMAN Halloween Pack is a FREE download for PS4, Xbox One and PC that invites you to Colorado and gives you full access to everything the location has to offer for a limited time.
Dirty Bomb to cease development
Free-to-play team shooter Dirty Bomb is ceasing live development after disappointing player numbers failed to keep the game financially viable, developers Splash Damage said in a post this week.
Shadow Of The Tomb Raider Bombed With Negative Reviews For Sale Price
When Shadow of the Tomb Raider released last month, fans were fairly split on the game. Our own review felt like the game wasn't entirely fulfilling its potential, but user reviews on digital distribution service Steam were in the "positive" range, which means that 70% of reviewers were high on the game. Now that positive has fallen after the Steam community has become upset that a sale price for the game that owners feel is premature.
Epic Games Sues YouTubers, Says They Were Selling ‘Fortnite’ Cheats
Over 1.7 million people subscribe to the “Golden Modz” YouTube channel where its owner, Brandon Lucas, posts videos of himself using mods to troll players in games like “GTA Online” and “Fortnite.” But, Epic claims Lucas also uses those videos to promote game cheats he sells on his website and it’s now suing for copyright infringement, breach of contract, and unfair and deceptive trade practices.
UK magazines GamesTM and GamesMaster to close
GamesMaster has been running for 25 years and say it's 'the UK's biggest multiformat magazine'. GamesTM is also a multiformat product and has been running since 2002. It was originally owned by Imagine Publishing, but the entire Imagine portfolo was acquired by Future in 2016.
Layoffs hit Trion Worlds after company sold
Rift and Defiance developer said to be down to just 25 people
Layoffs At Dreadnought Developer Six Foot (Update: Studio Confirms)
"In August, Six Foot informed its staff of the upcoming potential for major changes to our company structure, including continued development of Dreadnought as a live product. Everyone on the games team was given the option to stay on and continue working or begin searching for other opportunities with the full support of the company and the aid of our staffing team, while still receiving pay in the interim. New updates on the company’s status were delivered to the full team every two weeks from there.
GOG Account Publishes Yet Another Awful Tweet
Yesterday, GOG, CD Projekt Red’s digital storefront, posted a tweet that included a hashtag that has been circulating to advocate for trans rights. However, the tweet was a promotional post about the storefront. The post was soon deleted, and today, the company explained the retraction. This is all familiar.
Zombie Orpheus cancels contract with GOG over transphobia
Zombie Orpheus Entertainment has announced it will terminate its contract with GOG.com following an offensive tweet yesterday on the game and media distribution platform's social media account - the third such tweet on its connected platforms this year.
Controversial Streamer Suspended From Twitch, Barred From TwitchCon After 'Harassment'
Last week, controversial Twitch streamer Ali “Gross Gore” Larsen landed himself in hot water after attendees of official Runescape convention RuneFest alleged that he’d harassed women and gotten into a physical altercation with another streamer. Now he says he’s been suspended from Twitch and forbidden from attending TwitchCon, but, he claims, this happened because of a different incident at the Runescape convention.
Ubisoft executive says politics in games is 'bad for business'
It's an interesting stance to take, particularly for Ubisoft. Along with The Division, a game about anonymous agents of a previously secret Homeland Security unit who respond to a devastating pandemic in New York City by killing truckloads of Americans whose core crime is not wanting to starve and die, Ubi also publishes Ghost Recon Wildlands (American hit team infiltrates Third World nation to topple the government) and Far Cry 5 (Christian fundamentalist cult takes over a slice of backwater Montana and only heavily-armed locals can stop them).
What First on Discord means for indie developers – “we’re trailblazers”
Steam has been the dominant market force when it comes to PC games for years. GOG and Humble, as well as publisher-specific platforms such as Origin and Uplay, have existed in the background, but each offer a very different end product. If an indie developer wants to release a new game the chances are they’d have to go through Valve’s platform if they want to see significant sales numbers.
Rockstar QA Studio Told That Overtime Is Now Optional After Workers Said It Felt Mandatory
Rockstar Lincoln, a UK-based studio that has been handling a lot of the quality assurance testing for Red Dead Redemption 2, is swearing off an approach that many employees say they had interpreted as mandatory overtime.
Independent Game Shops Told They Won't Get Red Dead Redemption 2 Until November
In the lead-up to Red Dead Redemption 2’s October 26 release, Zach Gieg spent over $3,300 adorning his small, local chain of Pennsylvania video game stores with billboards, flyers, posters, and other displays touting the the highly-anticipated Western adventure game that his customers began preordering two years ago. It was at the store’s own expense, but Gieg figured that the advertising dollars would surely convert to sales of the upcoming game. But a couple of weeks ago, Gieg says, his distributor had some bad news: he wouldn’t be getting the game on time for its release. Across the country, other local game stores were hearing the same thing.
Germany Is Officially Recognising Sim Racing As A Legitimate Form Of Motorsport
If you’re into racing, chances are, you’ve played at least one racing game in your life. With technology ever on the rise and sim racing becoming more than just a ‘game’, Germany’s racing governing body, Deutsche Motor Sport Bund, has decided to officially proclaim sim racing as a legitimate motorsport discipline.
"More people have played Florence in Mandarin than in English"
At Game Connect Asia Pacific, Mountains founder Ken Wong emphasised the importance of Asian markets - for studios of all sizes
16-year-old Tetris prodigy Joseph Saelee beats 7-time world champion to win 2018 CTWC
A new face popped up at the 2018 Classic Tetris World Championship and stunned the entire community by knocking off seven-time Tetris World Champion Jonas Neubauer to win the whole thing.
Massive Tekken 7 Tournament Win Marred By Hardware Glitch
After 12 hours of intense play, MASTERCUP 10’s Tekken 7 team competition ended with the previous tournament’s runners-up finally claiming the title that they had almost managed to win a year ago. But what should have been a joyous occasion was tainted by controversy due to a slight technical malfunction during the championship match.
Team Disqualified From Counter-Strike Tournament After Player Was Caught Cheating During The Tournament
It's an unfortunate reality that sometimes people are going to cheat at competitive things. As a general rule, though, you don't want to cheat so blatantly that people can immediately notice and see you actively delete the cheating program. That rule got tested at the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive eXTREMELAND ZOWIE Asia tournament in Shanghai today when a player got his entire team booted from the tournament for cheating.
Outspoken FIFA 19 pro quits game after EA ban for abusive behaviour
Kurt "Kurt0411" Fenech, from Malta, was banned from competing at EA's FIFA 19 esports tournaments for two months for "abusive behaviour" towards FIFA players and others in the community.
League of Legends star Faker is donating his October revenue to charity
League of Legends’ World Championship is currently raging in Korea, but this year, for the first time since 2014, one player in particular isn’t there to fight for the Summoner’s Cup. But instead of sitting at home twiddling his thumbs, SKT T1’s Lee ‘Faker’ Sang-Hyeok is trying to do some good in the world.
“Stay true to yourselves,” says League of Legends’ rookie sensation in rousing exit speech
League of Legends’ World Championships are currently underway, with the best teams from the game’s biggest regions fighting to lift the Summoner’s Cup in early November. The tournament’s group stage wraps up today, and this week has seen multiple teams leave the tournament.
Crowdfunding News (not sharing everything I find, just ones that look interesting, have known talent behind them, and a chance to succeed)
The Waylanders RPG
The Waylanders: a party-RPG with classical style and innovative features like formations and time travelling
Content I found interesting this week (interviews, recommendations, think pieces, history, music, culture, design, art, documentaries, criticism, etc)
Inside Rockstar Games' Culture Of Crunch
In the final year of development on Red Dead Redemption 2, the upcoming Western game, the top directors decided to add black bars to the top and bottom of every non-interactive cutscene in hopes of making those scenes feel more cinematic, like an old-school cowboy film. Everyone agreed it was the right creative move, but there was a catch: It would add weeks of work to many people’s schedules.
Rockstar employees past and present offer mixed takes on company's work culture
In general, across the numerous anecdotes and shared experiences of the Rockstar employees at its eight studios, there seemed to be a consensus that whatever was happening now was an improvement over the stories that came out of the studio in the early 2010s, from the first Red Dead Redemption to L.A. Noire to Max Payne 3 to Grand Theft Auto V. Employees mentioned everything from confirmations of the Rockstar spouse letter's depiction to multiple work weeks in the vicinity of 70-hours. This crunch was seen as mandatory at the time, with stigma attached to those who departed early or didn't work weekends.
A post-mortem of Telltale Games
"Telltale Games often got knocked for being very buggy and having a lot of frame skips," said Buck. "Yes, we had some of those, but a lot of the time what people thought were frame skips or buggy parts of our engine, were actually scenes that had gotten redone so last minute, that there was no time to smooth out the cinematography or the animation.... what you were seeing was not a product of a buggy engine, but buggy management system."
What will be left of the people who make our games?
Our games are getting bigger, but the cost is way too high
No Respawns: Telltale, Rockstar & Crunch
I’m not good at Darkest Dungeon. I love tactical games, and the art in Red Hook Studios’ gothic adventure is wonderful in a truly disturbing way, but I am not skilled at playing it. At least, not in the small ways in which it permits success — for failure is part of the fun — but I’d built a solid team, and I was confident in our performance. I was a fool.
I’d recruited an Abomination for our expedition. Chained and scarred, a meek soul and shapeshifting nightmare capable of incredible feats at the cost of other party members’ calm. One trying encounter and one transformation too many sent our group spiraling into mental exhaustion, panic and death.
Fortunately, the Stage Coach arrives regularly, and it is always filled with more willing souls to be recruited.
Japan is a place on Earth
So for this one I have a lot to say that I’ve wanted to say for more than a few years so I’m just jumping straight to my thesis right here at the top of the page: People use Japan as a handwavey scapegoat as a result of a background culture of “wacky Japan” jokes and growing up joking about Japanese video games. They also use it as a catch-all marker of reactionary sentiment partially in reaction to the supposed popularity of anime amongst the resurgent online right wing. The problem with all this is that it almost invariably extends beyond the media itself or even the (deserving) targets of mockery that this stuff is meant to lampoon. Especially in circles that spend a lot of time on nerdy bullshit like video games and TV shows, what arises is a kneejerk response to anything appearing to be of Japanese aesthetic sensibilities and a strange defensive environment where things are on some level expected to be enjoyed in spite of their country of origin. When Japanese media is reactionary, it is said to be a representation of a whole culture, when it isn’t it is said to be a surprising break from it and thus, no matter what, the discussion ends up at the supposed inherent backwards reactionary nature of Japanese popular culture.
The secret of Sniper Elite and Rebellion's growing success
I visited the studio behind the likes of Alien Vs Predator, 2000 AD and many other projects.
The Sierra Discovery Adventures
Among the most rewarding hidden gems in Sierra’s voluminous catalog must be the games of the Discovery Series, the company’s brief-lived educational line of the early 1990s. Doubtless because of that dreaded educational label, these games are little-remembered today even by many hardcore Sierra fans, and, unlike most of the better-known Sierra games, have never been reissued in digital-download editions.
How the Red Dead franchise began
It started with Peter Gabriel, Resident Evil 2 and Patrón
Teen Developer Makes Game Inspired By '90s Shooters That Came Out Before He Was Born
Jakub Cislo is a game developer who wears his influences on his sleeve. His just-released game, Project Warlock, is a chunky shooter stew made from the gory giblets of classics like Wolfenstein and Doom. It’s a pretty typical palette of influences—until you consider that Cislo is 19, and all those games came out before he was born.
Some Rockstar employees dispute the idea that they’re overworked
Rockstar employees are speaking out against reports that the developer forces its workers into extreme crunch. The company has given its staff permission to share their experiences online, according to dozens of Rockstar developers on Twitter, many of whom say they’ve never endured the harsh work conditions that the company has recently come under fire for.
How brutalism has shaped games
It's easy to understand why brutalism has been such a potent source of architectural inspiration for games. The raw forms - solid, legible and with clear lineation - are the perfect material for level designers to craft their worlds with. Simultaneously, these same structures are able to ignite imaginations and gesture outwards, their dramatic shapes and monumental dimensions shocking and attention-seizing.
How Night in the Woods Guided Me in Mourning a Friend
There was something so uniquely terrifying, yet profound about my playthrough of Night in the Woods. It felt uniquely suited to my mindstate by the time I played through it, at a level where booting up the game sometimes felt like a stressful and daunting task, as it inadvertently had me confront some of my inner thoughts and life experiences.
Analyzing the Historical Context of The Last of Us Part II’s Violence
Society is much more meaningful and larger than the rule of law. It’s a dynamic process of meaning-making among people. It’s complex and ever changing; symbols and values change over time. Societies can reproduce good ideals as well as bad ideals. Nevertheless, societies have the ability to remain somewhat intact in the face of hardship and people can work to construct some semblance of community, even in the most dire of circumstances.
Far Cry 2's daring open world design is still paying off 10 years later
For Far Cry 2's anniversary, we look back at how it changed the way designers looked at freedom and open worlds.
Far Cry 2 was way ahead of its time
10 years later, the influence of Far Cry 2 can be seen just about everywhere in gaming
Circle Empires Is A Strategy Game That Forces You To Rely On Your Gut
Circle Empires forces me to constantly worry about merfolk shooting my troops with orbs. When it comes to dragons, I can deal. Zombies? No problem. But merfolk with orbs can hit my melee troops with an freezing attack, turning them into sitting ducks for the mer-archers. It’s a problem.
Valkyria Chronicles 4's Squad Stories Made Me Fall in Love With its Secondary Cast
The characters attached to said victory quotes are the reason I'm enjoying Valkyria Chronicles 4 a lot. The game puts special focus on the "lesser" soldiers who fight with you, more so than in previous games. While Valkyria Chronicles 4's main story and primary character roster aren't too strong (barring Kai, the A-team's level-headed but troubled sniper), its secondary characters—the recruits who trickle into Squad E as the game goes on—narrate the game's best war yarns through the new "Squad Stories" feature.
The Rise and Fall of Skate
Please consider supporting us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/GVMERS
For a brief period of time in the early 2000s, skateboarding video games were inescapable. The countercultural sport had been adapted into bits and bytes many times in the past, but following the genre-defining release of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater in 1999, it became one of the hottest commodities in gaming. Year after year, players couldn’t stop shredding elaborate digital combos, and developers couldn’t stop pumping out opportunities for players to do so.
Games as Lit. 101 - Literary Analysis: The World Ends With You (Part 1 - First Week)
The Game Professor begins a deep dive into the cult classic RPG, The World Ends With You, beginning with the first in-game week.
Enjoy the series? Support it on Patreon! http://www.patreon.com/gamesaslit101
The Playful Suspense of Luigi's Mansion | PostMesmeric
Luigi's Mansion has grown from an underdog Gamecube launch title to a full-on franchise, and with a 3DS remake out and a third installment on the way, it's time to see how this cult classic approached horror gameplay in a totally Nintendo way. Time to check out the playful suspense of Luigi's Mansion.
What Makes a Good 3D Platformer?
This channel is ad-free and funded entirely through fan support! https://www.patreon.com/NickolaiBoulton
3D Platformers are now better than ever! But what separates the good from the greats? Let's critique games like the Nintendo Switch's Super Mario Odyssey, A Hat In Time, Spyro, Crash Bandicoot, Banjo Kazooie, and even Spider-Man to analyze what makes a good 3D Platformer!
Getting into the games industry
Given that we're called People Make Games, it only felt right to tell this particular story from a real person's perspective.
Support People Make Games: https://www.patreon.com/PeopleMakeGames
History Respawned: Assassin's Creed Odyssey
Bob talks with Dr. Kate Cook about Assassin's Creed Odyssey. Topics include the Peloponnesian War, life in Athens and Sparta, women in ancient Greece, the importance of the arts and artists in Athenian society, the politics of Greek plays, and the nature of myth and religion in ancient Greece.
*Special thanks to Dr. Hannah Culik-Baird for helping to set up this episode.
Please consider supporting us on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/historyrespawned
Why does Snake fight like that? | Fighting Styles Explained
Let's take a moment to remember the basics of CQC. Snake's unique fighting style is a grab bag of martial arts maneuvers from Japan and beyond, that he uses to impressive effect. We break down one of his coolest fight scenes from Metal Gear Solid move by move to see what we can learn.
How Halo 3 Builds Large-Scale AI Battles | AI and Games
AI and Games is a crowdfunded show and wouldn't be possible wthout the wonderful people who support it on Patreon. https://www.patreon.com/posts/22116442
Other Places Walks: Athens (Assassin's Creed Odyssey)
In this first episode of Other Places Walks we wander the streets of Athens and soak up the atmosphere of the ancient Greek capital. Headphones recommended.
How Telltale Went Broke
How a reliance on investment funding, a fruitless formula, and leaks to the press precipitated one catastrophic week in Telltale's 14-year history.
Bendy and the Ink Machine Chapter 4: How Bendy Conquered The World
Next week Bendy and the Ink Machine Chapter 5, as well as its finished, complete version on Switch, Xbox One and PS4, finally arrives.
In honour of this, we're continuing our ongoing series, cataloging every chapter of the development of Bendy and the Ink Machine.
Things I found entertaining throughout the week relating to the game industry
Morgana Reads Go The F*CK to Sleep! | Persona 5 Parody
The ultimate Persona 5 parody! "Go the F*CK to Sleep," the new audiobook edition, read for you by Morgana. // I'm the voice actor for Morgana in Persona 5 and after telling thousands of gamers to "go to sleep" over and over again, it's time to for you to listen to me once and for all. F*&%ING SLEEP!!!
Go To Topic Listing This Week In Gaming
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Last updated on May 23rd, 2019 by lay kim
Albert Einstein quotes our death is not an end if we can live on in our children and the younger generation is a line taken from the letter which he wrote to the widow of physicist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes in 1926.
Besides death, he also talked about afterlife, immortality and soul.
If you have read through my authentic collection of Albert Einstein thoughts on God and religion, you would know that he rejected the formal, dogmatic religion.
Einstein did not believe in immortality of the individual.
According to him, there is no such thing as, punishment for misdeeds or rewards for good behavior in any afterlife.
For him, the so-called Theosophy and Spiritualism, was no more than a symptom of weakness and confusion.
As Einstein explained that since our inner experiences consist of reproductions, and combinations of sensory impressions, the concept of a soul without a body seem to me to be empty and devoid of meaning. (source)
Albert Einstein Quotes Our Death Is Not An End
Now, let’s dig out Albert Einstein quotes on death from various reliable sources.
“Death… is a reality… Life ends definitely when the subject, by his actions, no longer affects his environment. . . . He can no longer add an iota to the sum total of his experience.” – Albert Einstein
(Glimpses Of The Great By George Sylvester Viereck, Duckworth, 1930, P. 370)
“Our death is not an end if we have lived on in our children and the younger generation. For they are us; our bodies are only wilted leaves on the tree of life.” – Albert Einstein
(The Ultimate Quotable Einstein By Albert Einstein, Princeton University Press, 2010, On Death, P. 91)
(The quote in German is found in: Durch Herrn Lorentz höre ich, von dem schweren Schlage, Kamerlingh Onnes, Heike (Receiver), Archival Call Number: 14-389, 1926-02-25, Einstein Archives Online)
Note: From the letter to the widow of physicist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, February 25, 1926.
“I do not believe in immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern with no superhuman authority behind it.” – Albert Einstein
(Albert Einstein, The Human Side: New Glimpses From His Archives Selected And Edited By Helen Dukas And Banesh Hoffmann, Princeton University Press, 1981, P.39)
Note: From Einstein’s hand-written remark on the letter by Alice M. Nickerson, a female Baptist pastor, July 17, 1953.
(The letter by Alice M. Nickerson with the quote is found in: In the Reader’s Digest for May 1953 I read an article, Nickerson, Alice M. (Author), Einstein, Albert (Receiver), Archival Call Number: 36-552, 1953-07-17)
“…I have faith in my purpose here on earth. I have faith in my intuition, the language of my conscience, but I have no faith in speculation about Heaven and Hell.” – Albert Einstein
(Einstein and the Poet: In Search of the Cosmic Man By William Hermanns, Brandon Press, 1983, The Third Conversation, P. 94)
“One lives all one’s life under constant tension till it is time to go for good.” – Albert Einstein
(Albert Einstein, The Human Side: Glimpses From His Archives, Edited By Helen Dukas And Banesh Hoffmann, With A New Foreword By Ze’ev Rosenkranz, Princeton University Press, 2013, P. 16)
(The quote is also found in: Princeton Alumni Weekly, Volume 79, Albert Einstein Answers His Mail, March 12, 1979, P. 16)
(The quote in German is found in: Alle beklagen sich ueber meine Schreibfaulheit und mit Recht., Archival Call Number: 29-417, Einstein (Winteler), Maja “Maria” (Receiver), 1935-08-31, Einstein Archives Online)
Note: From the letter Einstein wrote to his sister, Maja winteler-Einstein, August 31, 1935.
“Brief is this existence, like a brief visit in a strange house. The path to be pursued is poorly lit by a flickering consciousness whose center is the limiting and separating “I.” – Albert Einstein
(The Ultimate Quotable Einstein Collected And Edited By Alice Calaprice, With A Foreword By Freeman Dyson, Princeton University Press, 2010, On Death, PP. 93-94)
(The quote in German is found in: Words spoken [without notes] at funeral service for R. Ladenburg, Ladenburg, Rudolf (Mentioned in), Archival Call Number: 5-160, 1952-04-01, Einstein Archives Online)
Note: From the obituary for physicist Rudolf Ladenburg, April 1952.
“The only way fate can strike you two down is when you yourselves die one day.” – Albert Einstein
(Historical Auction 84, April 18, 2016,P. 61)
(The quote is also found in: At such a young age you have been struck by the worst thing that loving parents, Archival Call Number: 124-334, Einstein, Hans Albert(Receiver), Einstein-Knecht, Frieda (Receiver), 1939-01-07, Einstein Archives Online)
Note: The letter where Einstein expresses his condolences for the loss of Albert’s child, Klaus Martin, at age six.
The image of the original letters in German, together with the English translation is found here.)
“I want to go when I want. It is tasteless to prolong life artificially; I have done my share, it is time to go. I will do it elegantly.” – Albert Einstein
“Ich möchte gehen, wann ich möchte. Es ist geschmacklos, das Leben künstlich zu verlängern. Ich habe meinen Anteil getan. Es ist Zeit zu gehen. Ich möchte dies elegant tun.” (German)
(The Ultimate Quotable Einstein Collected And Edited By Alice Calaprice, With A Foreword By Freeman Dyson, Princeton University Press, 2010, On Death, P. 95)
Note: This line was quoted by Einstein’s secretary and estate administrator Helen Dukas in her letter to Abraham Pais, Einstein’s biographer, April 30, 1955.
Here is the news on the death of Albert Einstein as reported in The Daily Princetonian , Monday, April, 1955)
“…I have grown old myself and have come to regard death like an old debt, at long last to be discharged. Still instinctively one does everything possible to delay this last fulfillment. Thus is the game which nature plays with us.” – Albert Einstein
“…ich selber alt geworden bin und den Tod empfinde, Wie eine alte Schuld, die man endlich entrichtet. Dabei tut man doch instinktiv alles Mögliche, um diese letzte Erfüllung hinauszuschieben. So ist das Spiel, das die Natur mit uns treibt.” (German)
(Einstein On Peace, Edited By Otto Nathan & Heinz Norden, Simon and Schuster, 1960, P. 616)
(The quote in German is found in: Zeit, Tod Und Ewigkeit By Horst Gädtke, Books on Demand, 2006, Albert Einstein Über Sterben Und Tod, P. 214)
(The quote in German is also found in: Bei Personen, die stark und differenziert fühlen, ist jedes Gemüts-Erlebnis gewaltig, Archival Call Number: 39-532, Warschauer, Gertrud (Receiver), 1955-02-05, Einstein Archives Online)
Note: From the letter to Gertrud Warschauer, the widow of a Berlin rabbi, living in England, February 5, 1955
“Remember your humanity and forget all the rest. If you can do so, the way lies open to a new Paradise; if you cannot, there lies before you the risk of universal death.” – Albert Einstein
(The Russell-Einstein Manifesto Issued In London, 9 July 1955, P. 2)
“Neither on my death bed nor before will I ask myself such a question. Nature is not an engineer or contractor, and I myself am a part of Nature.” – Albert Einstein
“An individual who should survive his physical death is also beyond my comprehension, nor do I wish it otherwise; such notions are for the fears or absurd egoism of feeble souls.” – Albert Einstein
“Auch ein Individuum, das seinen körperlichen Tod überdauert, mag und kann ich mir nicht denken; mögen schwache Seelen aus Angst oder lächerlichem Egoismus solche Gedanken nähren.” (German)
(The World As I see It, Einstein’s Views On Life, Science & Human Nature By Albert Einstein, General Press, 2018, Ch. 1, Part I: The World As I See It, The World As I See it)
(The quote in German is found in: Mein Weltbild Von Albert Einstein, Herausgegeben Von Carl Seelig, Ullstein-Taschenbuch-Verlag 2005, I. Wie Ich Die Welt Sehe, P. 10)
(The quote in German is also found in: Mein Weltbild. Hrsg. von Carl Seelig, Europa Verlag, 1953, P. 10)
“Now Besso has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.” – Albert Einstein
(An Einstein Encyclopedia By Alice Calaprice, Daniel J Kennefick, Robert Schulmann, Princeton University Press, 2015, Friends, Michele Beso, PP. 65-66)
(The quote in German is found in: Es war wirklich lieb von Euch, dass Ihr mir so getreulich, Besso, Vero (Receiver), Besso [Jahn-Rusconi], Bice [Beatrice] (Receiver), Besso, Michele Angelo (Mentioned In), Archival Call Number: 7-245, 1955-03-21, Einstein Archives Online)
Note: From the letter of condolence to Michele Besso’s son, Vero, and sister, Bice Rusconi, 21 March 1955.
Note: All the above Albert Einstein quotes our death is not an end are verified authentic.
*Read this selection of Albert Einstein advice on life quoted from various reliable sources.
*Find out Albert Einstein critical thinking techniques quoted from credible sources.
Quotationize is authentic quotations with valid citations
Continue reading Albert Einstein Quotes Our Death Is Not An End Can Prompt You To Find The Meaning and Purpose Of Your Life
Topics albert einstein, death Keywords death, fate, fear, god, illusion
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OFF FARM 17 London-based fashion design and bespoke manufacturing company Knyttan is revolutionising the way apparel is made, one stitch at a time. Knyttan offers consumers the chance to customise the design of a 100 per cent Merino classic crew-neck jumper or scarf via a web app, and have the item produced to order at the company’s factory and shop in London. Using a standard industrial knitting machine, the key to the customisation lies in the software. Using Italian-spun yarn from the finest Australian Merino wool, Knyttan aims to bring production back to central London by removing the layers between customers, designers and manufacturing – giving everyone more choice for quality clothing. By using templates for each garment, the customer ultimately gets individual stitch control whilst ensuring the expertise of Knyttan’s fashion team is hard-coded into every garment, ensuring the highest level of quality and fit is achieved. Customers become the designer, and can choose from a perfect-fitting jumper, classic scarf or a must-have blanket scarf. Every item has your name in the label and an individual number that dates from Knyttan’s first ever garment, making your choice unique. “Knyttan is a young company changing how the fashion industry works,” explains Knyttan creative director Ben Alun-Jones. “We’ve modified the way manufacturing happens and now what we’re trying to do is change the way how people design their clothes as well. “We started Knyttan to remove the layers between designers and customers – and by doing so, give everyone a better choice.” Working alongside AWI’s London office, Knyttan recently held a competition for UK fashion design students during London Fashion Week to design a pattern to then be knitted onto a jumper. Using the Spring/ Summer 2016 edition of AWI’s The Wool Lab as a source of inspiration, students took the seasonal themes as a guide and came up with an original design. Three lucky winners were chosen to not only see their design turned into reality, but the jumpers then went on sale in Knyttan’s London store. "With knyttanOS, we can take a designer’s sketch and turn that directly into the code to control our factory in minutes. This means you can go from a sketch to wearing a jumper with your design in a couple of hours,” Mr Alun Jones said. Mr Alun-Jones was also a guest speaker at AWI’s ‘Naturally Inspiring’ seminar for students in London earlier this year, helping educate the next generation about the exciting and innovative opportunities within the wool industry. MORE INFORMATION www.knyttan.com • London-based company Knyttan enables customers to easily design their own 100 per cent Merino jumper or scarf – and have the product made by the company within just a matter of hours! • With support from AWI, Knyttan recently gave UK fashion students a chance to create their own design for a Knyttan jumper, with the winners’ designs made and sold at Knyttan’s shop during London Fashion Week. Three UK fashion students have won an AWI-supported jumper design competition. Pictured left to right are: AWI’s business development coordinator in the UK, Marta Amat; Knyttan co-founder and creative director, Ben Alun-Jones; fashion student at Kingston University, Nathalie McCubbin (winner of the People’s Choice award), fashion student at the University of Brighton, Martina Simeonova (winner of the Knyttan Prize); fashion student at the Arts University Bournemouth, Holly Halkes (winner of the Industry Prize); and Knyttan co-founder, Kirsty Emery. The three winning jumpers, made from 100 per cent Merino wool, are displayed on the wall behind. KNYTTAN PUTS CUSTOMERS IN CHARGE
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The Kindness Of Strangers : Landmark
Dave Georgeson posted a very informative "State of the Alpha" update on the official forums today. Of course, you'll only be able to follow that link to its conclusion if you're registered for alpha, in which case you'll almost certainly already have read it. Don't know why I mentioned it now... Fortunately for any other interested parties he also gave an interview to Massively which covered most of the best bits.
A new server is due either tonight or tomorrow with more to come, which should first alleviate and then resolve by far the most serious problem, namely the extreme lack of Land on which to make your Mark. That should make Rowan happy. Also Mrs Bhagpuss and thereby me.
I did manage to stake a Claim, albeit out in some god-forsaken, waterless boondock but even that was not to last.
Man, when they build the Mall I'm made!
Under the pitiless desert sun I built something that vaguely resembled the first level of a mock-medieval multistory car park. I built it out of dirt. When I logged back in later both my eyesore and my claim had vanished, the former healed by the land, the latter, presumably, lost to a bug. My attempt to reclaim the same spot was firmly rebuffed and I couldn't find anywhere else so that was that.
In my brief time as a landowner I'd not been able to place the Saw Table I was carrying around with me, although whether due to another bug or my own inability to figure out what I was supposed to do with it, I couldn't say. I needed that table to make some planks to make a bronze pick so I could stop getting the annoying message that pops up when you try to dig up something too sophisticated for your current primitive tool.
That pile of logs burst into flame when I touched it. I was ridiculously impressed.
A quandary, then; how to make planks on a table you are only able to carry around on your back? Well that's where the multiplayer aspect of this whole enterprise kicks in. I found a thread on the forums listing the names and locations of players who had constructed crafting stations on their claims and flagged them for public use. This is why we like alphas and betas!
It can't be a trap. PvP isn't in yet.
Picking the first off the list, a quick trip via spire along the ley lines (Norrath has ley lines. Who knew? The Combine Empire, apparently...) a short run due north to the foothills of a mountain range and there it was, Canibaal's Claim, all aglow with the welcoming light of the forge. Or possibly the fire under his cook-pot.
You always remember your first
From his saw table I was able to make the planks I needed for my Bronze Pick but that was skipping a crucial step. To make a Bronze Pick first take your Copper Pick. I have no idea why just like I have no idea why it takes one thousand plain wood logs to make a Copper Pick. It just does, alright?
That kept me occupied for a while. Luckily for me, Canibaal built his craft center on the edge a delightful little forest. It's in a clearing now. Oh, hush! I'm doing him a favor. It's easier for freeloaders visitors to find his place now. Anyway, they'll grow back. Eventually.
What matters is I got my Bronze Pick so now I can mine iron and aquamarines and make an Iron Pick. You'd be surprised just how much I'm looking forward to it.
Labels: alpha, crafting, Landmark, MMO
skapusniak February 5, 2014 at 8:14 AM
I'm pretty sure claims do get lost for real, and the self healing land is something they've been battling to find a definitive fix for past day or so, but there is definitely another bug where you log into the server where it says your claim is located, and it sends you to the exact same location on the exact same island, but on the wrong server.
First time it happened to me I thought I'd lost my claim, but then I noticed all the claims around where I'd put mine, were different too. Logged out, poked around with server selection, somehow ended up on the right server and there was my claim.
So its worth going to the portal crystal thing and making sure you're on the server you think you are.
Bhagpuss February 5, 2014 at 8:34 PM
That did occur to me but I wasn't sufficiently committed to that spot to go look. I presume I'll find out if I still have an extant claim when I try to clam a new spot on one of the fresh servers. Can't say I really understand the claim process very clearly yet.
Rowan Blaze February 5, 2014 at 12:12 PM
I did finally find a claim on the new Serenity server I'm hoping to be able to move it slightly so Scooter can claim a spot nearby.
Grats! Just about to log in now to see if anything's left on Serenity. Probably going to have to wait for the next batch of servers but I don;t really have time to ply until the weekend so that's fine.
Wilhelm Arcturus February 5, 2014 at 7:35 PM
My prediction for a genuine go live, no longer beta date for Landmark was October 15, 2014. How does that date feel now that you are poking about in the early alpha?
Well, it may be majorly feature-incomplete and buggy as a swamp in June but actually it's way more playable and polished than I expected and already surprisingly enjoyable to play. Clearly needs a LOT of work yet, though.
Still, they're being being pretty bullish about the whole thing. First they start the Alpha a full month earlier than the latest start date they floated; then they dropped the NDA after 24 hours when they had previously said it would last all Alpha and possibly some of closed beta. In the first "what's coming" post on the forums just a few days after launch Dave Georgeson is already suggesting some of the things we weren't expecting until beta may make it into late Alpha.
For whatever reason they seem to be on fast-forward with Landmark so I would say October is quite a bit too far out for a final launch. I know the shovelware F2P houses like to go into Open Beta and sit there for years but I don't think either the American or Japanese corporate mind works that way. They will want the perceived authority of an official launch.
If you look at the website the Founder's Pack now implies a hard date for Closed Beta of 31 March (they've changed the wording) although the FAQ still says "on or before". My guess is they would like to go to Open Beta no later than the beginning of June. If that goes well I can't see a reason to stay in OB longer than a month at the most.
So, I'd plump for a July Live date. Whether they can actually have the game "finished" by then is another matter. If they do get Landmark out the door in the Summer I wouldn't be surprised to see EQN go to the same schedule and process, namely a buy-in Alpha starting very early in 2015.
There is a Rumour of Spring developing on the Serenity Server. Someone has sailed off to get busy digging up gold and treasure in a new world.
Yay! My claim's on Serenity too. No guild structure in yet but when it comes let's organize :P
Burke's Law or Never Ask A Question Unless You Alr...
The Cat In The Hat Strikes Back : GW2, Istaria
What's My Motivation? : GW2
It's Alpha! : Landmark
There Can Be Only One : EQ Next, Landmark
The Fall Of Lion's Arch : GW2
All The MMOs I Have Ever Played (And Then Some) Pa...
Who Knows Where The Time Goes? : EQN Landmark
The Road Ahead : EQN Landmark
What Does Landmark Tell Us About Everquest Next?
A Trip To The Islands : EQNext Landmark
Twin Peaks : EQN Landmark
Very First Impressions : Landmark
NDA? We Don' Need No Steenkin' NDA! : Landmark
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Head Full Of Steam : City of Steam
I sometimes refer, rather glibly, to "my top five favorite MMOs of all time", which makes it sound as though I keep a list. I don't. I tend to slot things in and out on a whim as the occasion arises, as my mood changes or, as is most often the case, as I remember some game I'd entirely forgotten and succumb to a surge of nostalgic affection.
One such title is City of Steam. I have a lot of history with that unlucky and mostly unloved MMO. There are more than fifty posts tagged for the game here on Inventory Full, starting with my thoughts about the pre-alpha Sneak Peak back in March 2012 and ending with a brief mention in May of this year, when I said "One of my favorite MMORPGs and definintely one that failed to live up to its full potential".
I also wrote "The original vision for the game was... a real labor of love". What I neglected to mention then, or probably ever, was that the "original vision" was also a published pen and paper roleplaying game.
I vaguely knew it existed. Or once had. The subject came up occasionally on the forums but that provenance was never really pushed as heavily as it might have been. Instead, Nexus seemed to emerge, fully formed, out of the void, something that was - and still is - quite common with MMOs.
Nevertheless, it's clear from early promo trailers like Room for Rent that someone knew a backstory we didn't. I felt much the same about WildStar. It's a good way to create interest in an otherwise unfamiliar property.
On a few occasions I've commented that City of Steam was at its very best in its earliest incarnations. It's commonplace to claim that MMOs are better in beta. That's not always objectively true - there are several subjective factors - exclusivity, novelty, camaraderie - that influence opinion - but also it is an indisputable fact that games do often change radically in development.
City of Steam changed many times. The Sneak Peak was perhaps the purest, most distilled version of creator David Lindsay's original vision, while some of the Alphas may have been the most immersive. I called the first Alpha "a disturbingly compulsive experience".
The game changed a lot in beta and in it's various Live iterations, first drifting and then sprinting away from its original conception. The final version, City of Steam: Arcadia, was arguably a better game but it was also as a neon-lit carnival, almost a parody of the dark, brooding, anxiety-inducing retro-future I'd fallen in love with five years before.
City of Steam shuttered in early 2016. There were vague hints that it might not be the end for the concept but Mechanist Games moved on to a new project, Heroes of Skyrealm.
HoS was a mobile game. I've played it. It was quite good, in its way. It almost felt as if it was part of the same world as City of Steam, but much shinier and more upbeat. Yesterday, for arcane reasons I won't go into, I thought of it and went to check the website to see how it was doing.
It's dead. But I didn't know that until this morning.
Heroes of Skyrealm launched in the Spring of 2017 and closed in June 2018, just over a year later. I only learned that five minutes ago as I was fact-checking for this post. The website is still there, frozen in time at the moment before Open Beta began in February last year. The links still go to the Google Play and Apple Store but the game is no longer there. I found the sunset announcement on Facebook.
The reason I didn't discover the sad news of the demise of Heroes of Skyrealm yesterday is that as I was following links back to Mechanist Games to see what they were up to I landed on the "About" page, where I read this:
"City of Steam: Arkadia... is based on The New Epoch, a series of table-top game books written by David Lindsay, co-founder of Mechanist Games"
So I googled "The New Epoch" and found this. Minutes later I was the happy owner of Watermarked PDFs of both The Character Codex and The Adventure Codex for what is to all intents and purposes the roleplaying game edition of City of Steam.
I've written before about how reassuring and comforting it is to have a solid, physical representation of a virtual world. Novels, gamebooks, comics, even soft toys all help shore up confidence against the inevitable day when the last server goes offline.
Best of all, though, is a full set of roleplaying rules that let you feel that you could re-create the entire gameworld on your kitchen table. If you wanted to. You never will, of course, but you could, and that's what counts.
A PDF isn't quite as good as a printed book but it's a darn sight better than nothing. And these PDFs are stylishly designed and lavishly - gorgeously - illustrated in full color.
I haven't had time to read much in depth as yet. I need to transfer the files onto a device I can hold in my hand before I get stuck in to the detail.
Even so, at a skim, I can already tell just how fascinating a read it's going to be. It's not just the pre-cursor to the game I loved - it is that game. Some of the illustrations in the book are even the very same ones that were used in the early promotional videos.
One of my few gaming regrets is that I never finished the storyline in City of Steam or saw all the zones. I can't change that but now I have another chance to dig deeper into the lore and history that was always evident but ever elusive in the game itself.
And, I guess, one day I might even get to tell some stories of my own.
Labels: #BlaugustReborn, Character, City of Steam, Heroes of Skyrealm, Mechanist Games, MMO, RPGs, virtual world
HZero August 27, 2018 at 10:23 PM
Man, that feeling! I didn't play CoS, but the joy of finding *more* to something you love, especially something you thought done and gone, is amazing.
I remember finishing book five of the Lone Wolf series back in the days before internet and feeling A Great Sadness. And then a year later finding book six somewhere, with the opening pages listing books up through twelve and being giddy with excitement.
Happy for you as a fellow gamer that you found this! And holding out hope that one day GoG.com will open up an MMORPG section and let us play old MMO's on personal servers. :-p
Bhagpuss August 27, 2018 at 10:49 PM
That would be amazing! And thanks, it is a great feeling. I transferred the PDFs onto my tablet today and I'm looking forward to reading through them in depth.
Nogamara August 29, 2018 at 11:53 AM
> One of my few gaming regrets is that I never finished the storyline in City of Steam or saw all the zones.
See, reading this I now remember many, many years ago that I heard something about a Steampunk MMO and was kinda excited. And then I missed everything you described, including the betas, the launch and the shutdown :(
It's not like there have been a whole lot of Steampunk MMOs either. I played NeoSteam, Gatheryn and City of Steam, all of which claimed to be at least steampunk influenced but only CoS really was.
Then We Came To The End
My Emptiness
Now We Are Six : GW2
The Way We Play Now
Walking My Dog Named Cat : Bless Online
The Rhythm Method
Long Summer Days : EQ2
It's The Beginning Of A New World
Now That's What I Call A Patch Message Vol 1
Publish And Be Damned : Ashes of Creation
Bless Online : First Impressions, Part Two
Bless Online : First Impressions, Part One
Pictures Or It Didn't Happen : Bless Online
Warm Fuzz - EQ2
Bless Online - Creating A Character
Back On The Horse And How We Got There
Bandwagonesque : WoW
Get Smart : GW2
A Little Late or Always Read The Instructions : GW...
No Means No. Except When It Doesn't.
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Avant Game
A blog about why games make us happy and how they can change the world.
Please feed (but don't fetishize) the participation
I'm feeling a bit squeamish about a lot of the lonelygirl discussion going on this week, in the wake of the previously secret puppet masters' curtain call. As someone who designs participatory experiences, often games with a serial narrative component, I think it's really important that we stop and look at the kind of participation and engagement actually engendered by projects that purport to solicit the collaboration of the audience.
In the LA Times, the producers of the You Tube serial drama describe their goals for engaging the audience:
The intent was to allow fan response posted in the comment section of lonelygirl15's YouTube and MySpace pages to determine the direction of each subsequent episode.As an example of the fans' influence over the story line, what the team calls "collaborative storytelling," they pointed to an episode in which Daniel reveals his romantic feelings to Bree. "In the 'Hiking' video," Beckett said, "where Daniel filmed her, there were a ton of comments saying, 'Daniel likes you. It's obvious that the cameraman was completely in love with you.' We saw the comments and said this is the perfect opportunity to address this."
Okay, fair enough. I'm all for collaborative storytelling. But I don't think it's right to accept this account of the kind of participation that happened during the lonelygirl project at face value. Today and yesterday I spent a lot of time reading through pretty much every single comment left on the lonelygirl videos, the space where the audience was purportedly invited to help decide and direct the course of the narrative. I would encourage anyone else interested in the currently much praised and hyped lonelygirl "community" to do the same. A great hub for doing this is here.
As the statistics on this traffic counter show, each lonelygirl video has roughly 1000-4000 comments, nearly all of them left before the puppet masters were unmasked. And I have to say this: the level of hate, mean-spiritendess, crudeness and often downright misogeny of the majority of them is impossible to ignore.
As we talk about the “new art form” or “participatory culture” aspects of this project, I want to be very careful that we don’t fetishize the participation aspects of this experience that was had by a very few who may have intelligently, passionately and seriously investigated and responded to the texts and the media objects. I want instead to think about the mainstream experience of and participation in this project and the success of the platform provided for engagement.
To give you an idea, here is a sample of comments that I would characterize as representative of at least 33% if not more of comments to the lonelygirl videos:
You are pretty boring. Get a psychologist.
Ok. Why don’t you just keep your personal problems to yourself and stop making a scene
show us your tits
you are really ugly i hope you know that
Your eyebrows are too far apart. But, you’re still pretty.
Fuck you. Welcome to the new world we Don’t Have to Respect what you think. get over it
I hope Daniel rapes you. No hard feelings.
WHORE lol
HHHmmmmm,your caucasian,live in a decent to luxurious house, are well taken care of,and it looks like you are one of those spoiled girls that kiss ass to thier daddy.Think you have it rough?Why dont you come live in East Los Angeles,whee you cant go anywhere without being shot at,you fuckin spoiled brat.
Cry me a river bitch, your a teenager, do what your parents say bitch.
(Most discussion in the comments is not about whether lonelygirl is real or not-- they appear to accept the videos at face value, or otherwise not to care whether they are insulting a "real" girl or an actress.)
So: Is this really the birth of a new art form? Is this a kind of social participation that we like or find interesting? I'm all for participatory entertainment. But let's carefully design platforms, vehicles, and contexts for participation that really work to engage audiences, players, makers, collaborators in meaningful ways.
One more point I want to make: I think this question of "is she real or not" and how does the audience feel about being hoaxed or played with is a really important one. Although many, many viewers were openly skeptical or cynical about the verity of lonelygirl's professed identity, from what I can tell, far more took it close enough to real to play along.
Now I've written a lot about, and worked on quite a few, projects that ask players to perform belief in the story and game experiences, but--and here's the key distinction--without presenting actually credible fictons. (Stories set 500 years in the future, for instance, or involving poker rooms full of ghosts). The media itself never clearly said "I'm not real", but the content absolutely had no chance of fooling anyone. So I'll come out and say it: I don't personally like entertainment in the form of credible hoaxes. Not necessarily from a moral position, but rather because I believe that "real or not" distracts from the more important question: How can I meaningfully engage?
I agree that serial drama on You Tube is a great art form (so are traditional ARGs, the more elaborate art form that lonelygirl represents a pared back style of, in my opinion), but the real conversation should be not about the realness, but rather: How do people want to participate in it? Do they want to be the makers of their own videos? To have role-playing style conversations in the comments? Do they want to directly influence the narrative or to just speculate and gossip about it so they can be proven right by what happens next? And most importantly how do we inspire participation that is more than hostile juvenile comments? How do we create a real participatory community around an entertainment property, and what forms of participation are possible... and desirable?
Posted by Jane at 11:25 AM
Autumn said...
I heard about this from someone outside the community. My first thought was "creative" but then... I thought, where's the back up, the work, the something that makes it obviously a game?
For me, as a sometimes player, and friend of many ARGer's, I agreed with you. I think it should be clear we're playing a game - I don't like the idea that this "could be real" because that changes the way the player interacts with the game. Don't misunderstand me, the BeeKeepers LOVE (because there is no other word) for Durga/The Sleeping Princess is strong still and I imagine she will always be a very important character in our lives. But everyone knew from the onset she was a character, was able to love her or hate her passionately like we do a character in any book or movie.
Risking making you character a "real" person, where you don't know if it's happening or not in real life... I think that changes the way you think, the way you balance decisions, the way you communicate. If this person is real your effecting a person life, not just a story line and I think, when you get down to it - people care about that.
Mike Sugarbaker said...
Should we also consider the possibility that the proportion of insulting comments was high because the content was obviously fake? It's both safe and, from a juvenile viewpoint, amusing to insult someone who isn't real.
So I've been thinking about this this evening, and while I agree that the comments you posted are hideous, I'm not convinced that they're typical. Oh yes, it's clearly typical for there to be a number of such posts, but looking at the most recent fifty odd comments to her latest video they're really not bad - most are commenting on the fakeness but htere are only a couple of horrid ones. I think mean comments attract more mean comments and wonder whether you found a rut of extra bad ones? The other YouTube profiles I've surveyed (just in a couple o fhours though, certainly not a systematic survey) don't have many bad comments either, which suggests that perhaps the LonelyGirl15 videos got these hate-comments after going mainstream?
Counting comments and doing content analysis could answer some of our questions - how large a percentage of comments are vicious? How many refer to sexual attributes of the person in the video? For lonelygirl15? On average? For young women posting video blogs? For men? Does it increase with increased popularity? Did lonelygirl15's get worse when she became "famous"? When she was found to be a fake? Is there a correlation between numbers of links from outside YouTube and the nature of the comments? Are vicious commenters productive - do they make videos or just troll the comments?
But all this is counting kind of research and would require statistical analysis and that's not the sort of research I do well... Would be a great project for someone to do though - I'd love to read that essay.
My comment analysis focused heavily on posts made before the puppet masters were revealed. The comments in the past couple of days have been very different in tone from those left during the pre-reveal experience, and I think if we want to explore the participation generated by the core experience itself, we should be looking way back through the middle and early comments as well. The comments I posted here are completely typical of those stages of the experience. So are simple comments like "hang in there it will be okay" and "lol your eyebrows are cute" (unbelieveable number of eyebrow comments!), but even if you want to argue that a lot of the comments were banal and cordial, it is still a far, far, far cry from the level of meaningful engagement being ascribed to the project, in my opinion, by some people looking to laud anything that is remotely participatory.
Basically, with something like this, I would be looking for a more constructive opportunity to engage and participate-- I guess I have found that in ARGs, which give you specific ways to interact with the characters to solve the problems presented by the narrative, in an environment less prone to degenerating into hostile puerile discussion--whether it be through leaving strategic voice mail messags, social engineering, letter writing, puzzle solving, video making, photo taking, and event staging.
Brian Enigma said...
I have to agree with you (and with Autumn in an above comment) about believability (or the suspension of disbelief.) I like my games to be games--to be a diversion from everyday reality. When an ARG or other game starts trying to blur the lines between what's real and what's not, I start to get uncomfortable. When it's fake, but plausible within its own framework (be that the future, a ghostly casino, with superheros, or with spies), it falls well within my comfort level, leaving me more able to get engrossed in the game/entertainment and not worry about anything else.
One of my personal pet peeves with this has been that YouTube has so few *boundaries* for participation. As you pointed out in your analysis of the comments provided by Bree's loving "community," the viewers' participation followed a few trends: First posters (OMGZORS! I #1), "your [sic] a big fakey mcfakeypants", fascination with Bree's eyebrows (I don't understand it, either), a few "you rule!"s, and then the really disturbing suggestions you mentioned in your post along with my personal favorite "just commit suicide." Naturally, this mix of diametrically opposed brains with no direction, filtering, or guidance led to a big pile of 1000 comment flamewars. Pair the adversary nature of the comments with the "real or not real" hoax discussion that was engaged and what I see is mass chaos. That the creators are suggesting YouTube was a burgeoning community influencing the story narrative seems to be to be a naïve, overly positive, assessment of their creation. Something like this is almost a Pandora's Box - you open it expecting a big golden nugget, but unleash the beasts that you can't control. (Perhaps because you had no plan in place to deal with anything but gold. That's another discussion for another time.)
Looking at some of the other forums discussing LG15 (the Alyssa forum gets referenced often, though I have no desire to register to actually SEE it), they seem to have a better handle on the situation, allowing for some more fruitful discussion of the narrative and the questions about the characters it poses. Perhaps those communities are what the creators are basing their assessment on. *crosses fingers*
I wonder whether a more direct engagement between Bree and her audience - for instance, some form of *reward* for the viewers participating fruitfully: a shoutout, a "so Suzie Charmschool asked me..." etc - would have fostered a more positive interactive experience on YouTube, perhaps drowning out the more juvenile and lewd crowd. YouTube is an interesting platform in that the viewers can record their responses to videos, posting them alongside the subject matter - to me, that was an ample opportunity to create a "face to face" community on a strictly web platform, but I'm not sure that was actually created. It would have been interesting for Bree to have *asked* her viewers to participate. The form of the video narrative was free enough to experiment with the engagement of the viewers. Perhaps I missed the point, but to me, it was more of a passive viewing exercise than an opportunity for active participation.
While I continue to ponder wildly on a blog not my own, it is also entirely possible that some of negative poo might have been subdued had there not been the overwhelming question of Bree's place in reality :P (I say some, as I do remember a number ILB "omgzorz this is all fake for microsoft" on Dana's blogspot, despite the irrationality of the fictional situation. There always seems to be SOMEONE out there determined to educate the masses following the dangerous hoax. See also "Who Is Benjamin Stove," which I believe treaded the reality line with some danger, though seemed to ease the threat of its thinly veiled game-iness by providing a controlled community that was able to respond pretty effectively to questions.)
I could also just be a big cynical McPoopypants who has been spoiled by great games.
Shakespeare's plays were first performed in front of crowds accustomed to shouting crude comments and causing general disruption if displeased. Gifted writers learned to please both the high and the low; performers learned to roll with the punches. To hope for a 'high minded' audience on such a rough-and-tumble platform as Youtube is a waste of time. The creators clearly read what they wanted, judging their audience while staying within the bounds of decency (how different it would have been if she had shown us her tits!)
On the subject of hoaxes, I get enough uncreative hoaxes in my inbox every day in the form of spam, phishing and kind nigerian diplomats with poor spelling; to be had by a hoax as interesting as this one was a pleasure.
Jane, have you looked at the video comments to the lonelygirl videos? I certainly haven't looked at all of them (there are a lot!) but the ones I've seen do seem to have more of an investment of self and to be less vicious. There are lots of spoofs and parodies of the lonelygirl videos in these responses, and certainly it's not all the kind of engagement we'd like to see in a collaborative narrative, but there's definitely some good engagement too.
The video responses do get a "reward" - they're prominently displayed right after the lonelygirl videos, and so are likely to get lots of clicks - and lots of clicks gets them more viewers, which gets them higher up in the ranking system.
I actually saw one young girl who jeered at the trolls in her comments (there were some pretty nasty comments going on) saying ha, you're just raising my comments score, idiots. So I do think getting up the ranking lists (most discussed, most viewed, most subscribed) on YouTube has value for the players of hte youtube game. It makes your videos more visible too.
I really appreciate all of the excellent comments here-- even when I don't necessarily agree with all of the points raised, it's great to hear them.
Chris, I feel there is a big difference between people being crude and shouting obscenities to characters on a stage during a live play, which is obviously a framed entertainment and not taken for real, and people being shockingly aggressive and hostile to a stranger that by all evidence many took to be real, or at least possibly real. It's not the crudeness I necessarily object too-- your Shakespeare point is well-taken on that front. But the fact that this is what passes for social interaction online, and people's sense of entitlement to be cruel to others, is a problem both in "real" and entertainment social spaces. We shouldn't celebrate that, we should wonder about it and try to channel that energy into something a little less hostile. That's just my personal mission, I understand if not everyone agrees.
And Jill, to your last comment-- indeed, as we were discussing on your blog, the You Tube community has certainly constructed a kind of game around views and ranks. But just because a system can be gamed, does that necessarily make it a game we want to play? I feel instead that anyone aspiring to invent a new, participatory art form should aspire to raise the level of the game beyond personal ego-boosting.
I was interested to find this comment from Jessica Rose, the actor who plays lonelygirl15, in an MTV interview:
Just as the creators had hoped, that vast space has been filled with an emerging community dedicated to lonelygirl15. Rose says she's received copious feedback from across cyberspace.
"I've had so many positive e-mails sent to me. People were concerned that I was going to be getting hate mail, which I haven't," she said. "All of their e-mails are like, 'I'm sorry for all the hate mail that you must be getting.' And I'm like, 'I'm not. There's none.' I've had so many positive and lovely messages, so it's been really nice."
I seem to remember reading research about how we treat each other in emails vs f2f - I think the more perceived distance between us the less humane, polite, empathetical etc we are? Maybe some of that's coming into play here too - especially if the emails she's getting directly are friendly.
I agree with your basic point though, Jane, that there are better ways of doing participatory art.
SBC said...
Is it possible that the lonelygirl15 performance is designed to elicit the kind of responses Jane mentions?
Even in her name, lonelygirl15 invites a kind of openness and abstraction for the audience to shape in whatever way they choose. Her status is simultaneously singular (lonely, alone, isolated) and multiple (1 of 15, or more?) She is not unique, but neither is she connected to clearly-defined groups lacking cultural markers of identity. She is anyone; she is the one.
This openness is further accentuated in the face of the actress, whose facial structure (often a subject of not only comment [eyebrows], but also her own manipulation) and close proximity to the screen make her into a kind of projection surface. The blankness of her look, the emptiness of "plot" in the episodes (for lack of a better word), and her apparent lack of engagement with the outside world (home-schooled, and filmed predominently in a single room) invite a way of looking in which the viewer can manipulate the image into whatever he or she wants to imagine. Compared to other vaguely similar YouTube videos, which are saturated with objects and statements that define the identity of the creator, lonelgirl is an unusally blank slate. I suspect it is this openness that was/is so attractive to viewers, who could project themselves into the open spaces of the performance.
The revelation of lonelygirl as a performance obviously forecloses this imaginative space, thereby reducing the aggressive comments, and I would expect eventual viewership.
This, it seems to me, is very different from both both the live theatre, which relies on a willing suspension of disbelief and games, which require a different kind of (performance of) belief. And it's far more troubling.
Dilettante Ventures said...
To throw some thoughts out...
I am surprised by the impulse many people here have towards delineating "appropriate" interaction. It would seem to undermine any notion of "true" interactivity. That is, by trying to create "constructive" forms of engagement, you are really trying to *limit* interactivity (as base as it may be at times) within preemptive constraints.
To say the "real or not" question gets in the way of participation seems to deny the particpatory nature of the discussion. There are many for whom the debate itself is part of the pleasure of the narrative no?
WriTerGuy said...
"This is not a girl"
I seem to recall that years ago, Dr. Marcus Welby regularly received letters asking for medical help, despite the fact that he was a television series. I don't recall anyone being alarmed (or harmed) by this form of participation in the show.
Trolling is a sad reality and a difficult one for me to ponder, but I wouldn't want to give it more power than it's due. If an art museum had a device that recorded the thought of every viewer of an artwork, it might read more uncharitably than YouTube. That shouldn't put limits on art.
broadway mylosh said...
the reason why the video comments are less vicious is because of this thing we got here going on in the internet called "keyboard bravery", its been around since the early 90s, with vid comments though youre not 100% protected.
anyways youtube message boards are particularly mean, pardon the misogyny but go look at message board comments of say a girl high school fight, it almost always errupts into a race war or a comment about physical appearance. Think Mean Girls and the Biggest Bully at your high school times 1000 when it comes to youtube comment bravery.
That's the youtube message board community for ya
Piscin said...
I appreciate your comments about the You Tube interactivity. I too feel uneasy about some of the extremely mean spirited comments left not only on lonelygirl15's channel, but also on people's channels who are posting content based on their real lives.
That said, I think that you should look at some of the forums that have spun out of the lonelygirl15 phenomanon. The first was lonelygirl15.com, and it was set up by the creators of the series. However, it was very poorly moderated and a lot of mean spirited comments and lengthy digressions from the main purpose of analysing the videos ensued. In addition, a lot of the users were unsatisfied with its messy organization.
So another forum was set up at www.anchor-cove.net. It is well moderated and organized, and the users that tend to migrate to it do not stand for the mistreatment of fellow users.
Perhaps in your analysis, you should consider how easy it is for users to create and/or move to other forms of internet interactivity if they are displeased in any way with how an initial site/forum is being run.
Also, by looking at the www.anchor-cove.net site, you will come to understand how loosely the creators of lonelygirl15 are using the words "collaborative storytelling", how uninformed they (as well as many, but not all, lg15 participants) are about args, and how unresearched they are on many of their key plot points. Afterwards, you will understand that "new art form" for the creators is probably a euphemism for "we got really lucky and have been more successful in the mainstream in a newish, but already developing medium that we barely understand."
Axel said...
A very intersting article. I would simply like to point out that you are jumping to conclusions when you take the YouTube comments as the main source of particatory involvement with the audience.
Firstly, because the Puppetmasters (referred to in the LG15 community as The Creators) have in their first OOC communication implied that they aim to provide a separate community, which will incidentally not be based on YouTube, but on the more restrictive Revver.Com.
Secondly, that YouTube provides such crude communication and participation tools.
And finally, that the actual community at YouTube seems to be undergoing a bit of an existence crisis. Traditionally the domaain of vbloggers, hence very much invested in the perceived 'real', but also swarmed with an audience that does not want to play along to this earlier self-understanding. Prominent vbloggers (e.g. Renetto) have come out and challenged this limited view on the worth of the 'real' versus the often invoked 'fake' (i.e. produced, scripted, acted) in the sense that in the end only the quality of the content should matter, if YT is supposed to grow beyond its initial identity.
These are growing pains in the community, and also evidence of the old John Gabriel 'General Internet Fuckwad Theory': Normal Person + Anonymity + Audience = Total Fuckwad.
The evidence in the comments on YouTube have no bearing on the meaningfulness of audience participation narratives, beyond the clear indication that moderation is obviously necessary.
For better examples of the core audience of LG15, I invite you to examine the discussion at http://www.anchor-cove.net
Interestingly enough, there seems to be a renegade story spinning-off the original content that might very well be a true ARG. It certainly has drawn the attention of some veterans at UnFiction.com
I think a lot of this commentary is premature...we've only seen Act I. I expect these guys (Miles and Greg are Berkeley grads, Jane, BTW,) have a lot more up their sleeves with interactivity. And, let's face it, had they been transparent from the beginning, would we have even heard of them? Would anyone outside of You Tube?
Just for balance, I would look at the comments of any other popular video on YouTube – the comments on YouTube videos are consistently offensive. Considering the source of the comments, what is surprising is the amount of positive feedback. The comments of LonelyGirl15 suggest a community of caring viewers because there are comments beyond the typical chorus of mean-spirited one-liners. The YouTube “community” does not typically have dialog, and any analysis of the comments might want to take that into consideration… Or consider that the second highest rated video today is “Buddhism is Stupid and Evil.”
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