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capybaracorn · 2 months

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Satellite photos show Egypt building Gaza buffer zone as Rafah push looms

Despite its opposition to displacement of Palestinians, Cairo appears to be preparing for a scenario forced by Israel.

A satellite image shows the construction of a wall along the Egypt-Gaza border near Rafah on February 15, 2024 [Maxar Technologies/Handout via Reuters]

Egypt is building a fortified buffer zone near its border with the Gaza Strip as fears mount of an imminent Israeli ground invasion of the southern city of Rafah, which could displace hundreds of thousands of Palestinians across the frontier, according to satellite images and media reports.

Footage from the site in the Sinai desert and satellite photos show that an area that could offer basic shelter to tens of thousands of Palestinians is being constructed with concrete walls being set up on the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing, the only non-Israeli-controlled crossing to and from Gaza.

The new compound is part of contingency plans if large numbers of Palestinians manage to cross into Egypt and could accommodate more than 100,000 people, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, citing Egyptian officials.

It is surrounded by concrete walls and far from any Egyptian settlements. Large numbers of tents have been delivered to the site, the report said.

Videos taken by the United Kingdom-based Sinai Foundation for Human Rights show trucks and bulldozers clearing debris from a plot of land of about 8sq miles (21sq km), according to The Washington Post, which obtained satellite images that show 2sq miles (5sq km) was cleared between February 6 and Wednesday.

Mohamed Abdelfadil Shousha, the governor of North Sinai, the Egyptian governorate that borders Gaza and Israel, has reportedly denied that Egypt is building a refugee camp along the border in case of an exodus by Palestinians forced by the Israeli military.

The Sinai Foundation, an activist organisation that has a monitoring team in northern Sinai, said in a report this week that the gated area will be surrounded by 7-metre-high (23ft-high) cement walls.

Israel has said it wants to take over the Philadelphi Corridor, the fortified border area between Gaza and Egypt, to secure it. Egypt has threatened that this would jeopardise the peace treaty the two countries signed four decades ago.

Cairo has emphasised that it does not want Palestinians to be displaced from their land by Israel, comparing such a scenario to the 1948 Nakba, the forced displacement of about 750,000 Palestinians from their homes in the war that led to Israel’s creation.

Tel Aviv’s insistence on going ahead with its planned attack on Rafah despite international pressure has been unshaken even though the area is where 1.4 million Palestinians are living, the vast majority of whom have been forcibly displaced – some multiple times – by Israeli bombardments and ground operations.

Palestinians displaced to Rafah are suffering from a lack of sufficient shelter, food, water and medicine, and the United Nations and human rights groups have warned that the humanitarian disaster in the besieged enclave is rapidly worsening.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered the army to work on a plan of evacuation for more than half of the 2.3 million people of the Gaza Strip who are now crammed into Rafah, but has provided no detailed steps.

He has suggested Palestinians could be sent to areas north of Rafah that the Israeli military has already cleared through a ground invasion backed by bombings.

Avi Dichter, Israel’s minister of agriculture and rural development, has suggested areas west of Rafah and the bombed al-Mawasi refugee camp near the Mediterranean coast, where many are already sheltering.

A satellite image shows new construction and earth grading along the Egypt-Gaza border near Rafah on February 10, 2024 [Maxar Technologies/Handout via Reuters]

The United States and a number of other key allies of Israel have said they oppose a ground assault on Rafah, some warning it would be “catastrophic”.

US President Joe Biden “has been clear that we do not support the forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza”, the Reuters news agency quoted a US Department of State spokesperson as saying on Friday. “The US is not funding camps in Egypt for displaced Palestinians.”

Israel on Wednesday pulled out of US- and Arab-mediated talks with Hamas because it said the Palestinian armed group has had “ludicrous demands” that have included Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza.

Netanyahu and the Israeli war cabinet have continued to push for “total victory” with the prime minister calling Rafah the “last bastion” of Hamas.

For weeks, the fiercest fighting in the Gaza Strip has been taking place in Khan Younis, also located in southern Gaza, with the Israeli military claiming its attacks are aimed at destroying Hamas battalions in the area.

Using shelling, sniper fire and drones, the Israeli army has also for weeks been laying siege to Nasser Hospital, the largest medical facility in the area, which has hundreds of patients and staff and has been a shelter for thousands of displaced Palestinians.

Dr Nahed Abu Taima, the hospital’s director, told Al Jazeera on Friday that Israeli forces were rounding up patients and civilians and had cut off electricity to the medical complex.

“We stand helpless, unable to provide any form of medical assistance to the patients inside the hospital or the victims flooding into the hospital every single minute,” he said.

Israel’s attacks on Gaza have killed at least 28,775 Palestinians and wounded 68,552 since October 7, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza. Several thousand more are missing, presumably buried under rubble.

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goodstuffhappenedtoday · 6 months

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10 years ago, Batkid was battling bad guys and cancer — now he's 15 and healthy

Today, Miles Scott is a healthy teenager with a passion for baseball. He plays catcher for his high school in Tulelake, Calif. "I wear all-black in baseball," Miles said. "So the dugout's always screaming 'Batkid! Batkid!'" Ten years ago, the then-5-year-old Miles won hearts both in his hometown and around the world when he transformed into the black-clad superhero Batkid for a day, becoming an instant media sensation. The Make-A-Wish Foundation, a non-profit that grants wishes to children who are seriously ill, partnered with the City of San Francisco to organize the adventure for Miles, who had been battling acute lymphoblastic leukemia since he was just 18 months old. According to the Yale School of Medicine, the disease is the most common type of childhood cancer. Survival rates used to be low, but these days children with the disease have up to a 90% chance of going on to lead a healthy life. Granting the wish Make-A-Wish went to elaborate lengths to make Miles' dream of becoming Batman's sidekick Batkid true. The foundation enlisted the help of The Mayor of San Francisco (the late Ed Lee), the San Francisco Police and Fire Departments, the San Francisco Giants and many other individuals and entities. San Francisco was re-dubbed "Gotham City" — Batman's fictional home — for the day. Clad in his Batkid costume and accompanied by a grownup Batman (played by Eric Johnston), the pair zipped around in their Batmobile thwarting villains — they prevented The Riddler from robbing a bank vault — and undertaking daring rescues, including freeing the San Francisco Giants' mascot Lou Seal from The Penguin's clutches.

Thousands of people descended on San Francisco to cheer Miles on. He earned a key to the city. The San Francisco Chronicle published a special edition of its daily newspaper to mark the occasion. Then-U.S. President Barack Obama sent Miles words of encouragement via a video message on social media. "The feeling was palpable; you could just feel the positiveness and how the community came together," said Miles' mom, Natalie Scott. "People flew in from everywhere and it just gave everyone some sense of peace almost." The event was covered by many mainstream media organizations, including NPR. And millions of people around the world followed the #Batkid hashtag on social media. Batkid lives on Batkid's legacy didn't end on that day.

The wish was the subject of the 2015 Warner Bros. documentary, Batkid Begins. Media organizations have revisited the story over the years. "He plays Little League, attends fifth grade, helps on his family's farm and sold his first market goat at the fair over the summer," reported his hometown California paper, The Siskyou Daily News, on Batkid's fifth anniversary in 2018.

And Miles himself has been free of cancer for the past few years. "Every year he goes for a checkup, and everything's been on the straight and narrow, so, we hope to keep it that way," said Nick Scott, Miles' dad. Miles has grown out of his Batkid costume. But his kid brother Ben donned it last Halloween. Miles is now in high school and is looking ahead to the future. "Right now, he's dead set on going to Alaska and being a 'pack mule' for his cousin's husband's guide business," said Natalie Scott. "And he has a lot of interest in welding. So we'll see!"

#good stuff #batkid

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growthf · 1 year

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hello! can i request zhongli, al haitham, scaramouche, and xiao with m!reader who is a kpopers? isekaid reader/modern au is okay! i just randomly saw your profile and bam! youre a kpopers(⁠ ⁠╹⁠▽⁠╹⁠ ⁠), its okay if its a girlgroup or boygroup, and if you can only write for only several characters, its also okay! feel free to delete and dont forget to drink water & keep healthy (⁠＾⁠∇⁠＾⁠)⁠ﾉ⁠♪

ask and you shall receive! ٩(ˊᗜˋ*)و

✩ zhongli, al haitham, scaramouche, & xiao x k-fan!male!reader

^^; modern au, reader has a slight (large.) obsession

a/n: thank you for the request! i hope this meets your expectations!!

ZHONGLI

occupancies you to every concert, fansigning, and popup store (all attended with your money btw!!!)

your favorite group is performing somewhere across the sea?? you best believe he’ll be right on that plane with you

doesn’t understand fanchants in the slightest, but always loves the look on your face when you’re enjoying yourself

when he first went to a fansigning with you he was confused ?!?!!

don’t all these people have jobs or something???

you had told him it was a popular event within groups and that most take the day off, but he really felt like the world was cramped into a tiny room that day

follows you around whenever you’re shopping or trying to find a new album

watches you open it purely to see your eyes light up when you get a pc of your bias

if you’re into a boy group he’s probably a little jealous you’re screaming over some guy other than him, but it’s not like he’d ever tell you that

“there’s a performance in a neighboring state? it would be fun to see somewhere new together, i’ll come with.”

AL HAITHAM

super confused at first

you like flying millions of miles ?!!?! to see people sing & dance ??? next to millions of other people !?!?

you might as well had him play some musical cartoons if you wanna see people sing & dance–at least it’s free!!

when you explained clearly he understood a little better

he still stays at home though

UNLESS you go out of state or country, he’ll fly with you but just stay in your shared hotel room till you come back

who wants to deal with people that’ll probably rip him apart if he says the wrong thing in the wrong tone

his first time at your house was a tough one

not only were there posters as far as the eye could see, but your desk and most of your shelves were decorated to the brim with merchandise and other things

how could you even afford all that AND pay bills at the same time???

you forced him to a concert once and he nearly broke.

yelling, screaming, shouting, so many lights and flashes, everything happening all at once

made you drive to the hotel that night.

“call me on your way back, i’ll see if room service offers any midnight treats.”

SCARAMOUCHE

went to one concert at had a love hate relationship with it

you’re enjoying yourself? yay!!! you’re screaming over someone other than him?? boo!!

went to all the concerts with you after that just to make sure you didn’t get any funny ideas

went to a fansigning and oh. my. god.

nearly passed out before y’all made it to the car

he made a mental note for himself to go everywhere BUT fansignings after that incident

bought an album for you as a birthday gift and the way you practically melted made him confused??!?!

what’s so special about pictures of some people who don’t even know you??

(made sure to keep up on your favorite group(s)/solos to see if there’s any upcoming albums so he can see your reaction again)

if you have a decked out room AND ita bag, he’s probably questioned how you manage to stay housed a couple of times

how can you afford bills, concerts, AND merchandise, yet you couldn’t afford the $2 cookies at your last hang out???

does not understand your money logic in the slightest

“anything happening this weekend? ..a fansigning.. you go ahead and have fun, i think i’ll pass on this one..”

XIAO

a mix of al haitham and zhongli tbh

wants to see you have fun but also doesn’t wanna be around all those screaming people

will accompany you to a concert every now and then depending on when and where they’re taking place

says he forgets all your biases but has a note on his phone with every name you mention on it

even follows most of their socials, too

you wonder sometimes how he manages to keep up with things that even you haven’t heard about yet and he’s glad you haven’t figured him out

whenever you talk about a new album or single releasing soon, you’ll always find it outside your door despite not ordering it yet

went with you to a fansigning and honestly he kinda enjoyed it

i mean yeah, the lines were hell and the people in line were annoying–but he liked how your face lit up when you finally made it to the front and got the signature you stood nearly a whole day for

made a promise to keep going with you even if others around were so nauseatingly loud

you showed him your photocard collection for the first time, and he was genuinely impressed with it

when and where did you even get all the money for them!?!

he checks in regularly to see if you have any new additions to the already large collection once in a while now

“what was the name of that group you liked again? right. well, they’re having a performance next week–it’s real close by, too.”

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afeelgoodblog · 1 year

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The Best News of Last Week - November 7, 2022

🏳️‍🌈 - Meet the best-looking couple in the world

1. Miss Puerto Rico and Miss Argentina reveal they secretly got married

Beauty pageant queens Miss Puerto Rico and Miss Argentina secretly tied the knot on Friday after revealing they had been in a relationship.

In a joint Instagram post, newlyweds Fabiola Valentín, from Puerto Rico, and Mariana Varela, from Argentina, said: “After deciding to keep our relationship private, we opened the doors to them on a special day 28/10/22.”

Would this be the best-looking couple in the world? 😂

2. Book banning attempt defeated after community stands up for LGBTQ people

After a heated public debate, the Greenville County Council in South Carolina voted to keep LGBTQ books accessible to children at the public library.

A resolution from city Councilor Joe Dill — who recently lost the Republican primary and will not be maintaining his seat — proposed requiring the 12-location library system in the area to remove books “promoting sexuality” from all children’s sections.

They refused to allow “Aristotle and Dante Discover The Secrets of The Universe” by Benjamin Alier Sáenz on the shelf due to “unnatural sexual behavior” when it has one gay kiss but Twilight has an entire human vampire hybrid. Glad the fight was finally won.

3. Man released from California prison after 38 years following DNA test

Maurice Hastings cleared of murder charge after testing of long-held evidence points to another person.

4. The shrinking ozone hole shows that the world can actually solve an environmental crisis

The ozone is on the path to recovery, if not fully restored. New data released on October 26 by NASA indicates that the annual ozone hole over the Antarctic reached an average area of 8.9 million square miles over the past year. That’s slightly smaller than last year, and continues a trend toward overall shrinking over the past several years.

“Over time, steady progress is being made, and the hole is getting smaller,” Paul Newman, chief scientist for earth sciences at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, said in a statement. “The elimination of ozone-depleting substances through the Montreal Protocol is shrinking the hole.”

5. Children refill a stranger’s empty Halloween candy bowl

6. Icelandair Announces Carbon-Free Flights by 2030

The airline will operate only emissions-free aircraft for its domestic routes. Some of these flights could start as early as 2026.

They will use only electric or hydrogen-powered planes. This decision puts Icelandair at the forefront of sustainable aviation, considering that other airlines are only aiming to reach net-zero emissions by 2050.

7. Blindness Awareness Month: Don’t just be aware, be a friend

October was blindness awareness month, a month devoted to educate others about the realities of living without sight and to advocate for those who are blind or have low vision.

Because of this I wanted to give a shoutout to Be My Eye app. Be My Eyes connects people needing sighted support with volunteers and companies through live video around the world.

That’s it for this week. If you liked this post you can support this newsletter with a small kofi donation:

Buy me a coffee ❤️

Have a great week ahead :)

#best news of last week

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blissfullyabsurd · 10 months

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ATSV SPOILERS AHEAD !!!

ok listen. i love miguel. his character is absolutely phenomenal. but he is so incredibly wrong with his theory.

there are like… so many things that just don’t make sense going after his logic. IF we assumed that miles was the ‚original anomaly‘ then:

wouldn’t the whole universe of earth-42 be collapsing as we speak??? because aside from the fact that there is no spiderman, it seems to be fine. no holes. no glitching. no nothing. the spider was supposed to bite someone there. but it didn’t. canon disrupted right? NOTHING HAPPENED.

mayday wouldn’t be allowed to exist. which like… this makes so much sense why miguel is trying so hard to ignore her here:

according to his theory, she would disappear just like his daughter (i bet the fact that shes alive and well is eating him up inside) and i really doubt he has told any of this to peter b. bc he would definitely lose his support then.

miles universe wouldn’t be unaffected right? like all of the universal disturbances happening (including what’s happening in pav‘s universe) are caused by spot. or more generally: by people messing around with this stuff in the first place. WHAT CAUSED ALL THIS MESS WAS KINGPIN TRYING TO BRING BACK HIS FAMILY. HE WAS TRYING TO PERMANENTLY BRING THEM INTO HIS UNIVERSE. now correct me if i’m wrong but that is VASTLY different from just… saving someone that was „supposed to die“. AND MIGUEL DID SOMETHING EXTREMELY SIMILAR BY TRYING TO PERMANENTLY PLACE HIMSELF IN A UNIVERSE THAT WASNT HIS.

THAT is what made the universe collapse. THAT is what miles and the others prevented from happening when they stopped kingpin. SPEAKING OF: wasn’t penny losing her robot like a canon event? now how could a canon event be triggered in a fight that, considering that miles is an ‚anomaly‘ in the first place, shouldn’t have happened that way?

it’s such incredibly flawed logic and i can’t wait to see miguel realise that in btsv. it hurts sm knowing that he’ll have to come to terms with the fact that… what he is doing won’t prevent any of this from happening again. this whole ‚protecting the multiverse‘ thing is him trying to repent in a way for what happened to his family. but he’ll have to face the fact at some point: he simply fucked up. it is in fact his fault. it’s so tragic that he insists on being the good guys, but it blinds him to reality.

what i think makes way more sense is the original notion of parallel universes miles learns about in the first movie. the whole point of the existence of parallel universes is that they are NON-LINEAR. they’re this web of possible events. POSSIBLE. NOT NON-NEGOTIABLE!!!!! with the existence of parallel universes there’s agency. there’s freedom. because you aren’t disrupting any set future. ITS YOUR CHOICE. THERE ARE A MILLION POSSIBILITIES.

and here we’ve arrived at the whole core message in these movies: DO IT LIKE YOU. NO EXPECTATIONS. JUST KEEP GOING. what both uncle aaron and peter b. tell miles in itsv and what miles repeats before absolutely obliterating miguel. everyone telling him how his story in supposed to go. as spiderman and as miles. him wanting to spread his wings. FREEDOM TO DO THINGS YOUR WAY. YOU GUYS I LOVE THIS MOVIE SM.

#atsv #spider man: across the spider verse #across the spiderverse #into the spiderverse #spiderman #atsv spoilers #across the spider verse spoilers #miguel o'hara #miles morales #penni parker #peter b. parker #absurd rambles #just had to get this out

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canmom · 2 months

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VR observations, 10 months in

I've been a game dev for 10 months now. It's pretty great, I'm enjoying it a lot, I get to spend my days doing crazy shader shit and animations and voxels and visual effects. Hopefully the game that will come out of all this will be one people enjoy, and in any case I'm learning so much that will eventually come back to the personal ~artistic~ side of things. I can't talk about that game just yet though (but soon it will be announced, I'm pretty sure). So this is a post about other games.

Mind you, I don't actually play very many VR games, or games in general these days, because I'm too busy developing the dang things. but sometimes I do! And I think it's interesting to talk about them.

These aren't really reviews as such. You could project all sorts of ulterior motives if it was. Like my livelihood does sorta depend on people buying VR headsets and then games on them. This is more just like things I observe.

Headsets

The biggest problem with VR at the moment is wearing a headset for too long kinda sucks. The weight of the headset is all effectively held on a lever arm and it presses on your face. However, this is heavily dependent on the strap you use to hold it to your head. A better balanced and cushioned strap can hold the headset still with less pressure and better balance the forces.

The strap that comes with the Quest 3 is absolute dogshit. So a big part of the reason I wouldn't play VR games for fun is because after wearing the headset for 30-60 minutes in the daily meeting, the absolute last thing I'd want to do is wear it any longer. Recently I got a new strap (a ~£25 Devaso one, the low end of straps), and it's markedly improved. It would probably be even better if I got one of the high end Bobo straps. So please take it from me: if you wanna get into VR, get a decent strap.

I hear the Apple Vision Pro is a lot more comfortable to wear for long periods, though I won't have a chance to try it until later this month.

During the time I've been working at Holonautic, Meta released their Quest 3, and more recently Apple released their hyper expensive Vision Pro for much fanfare.

The Quest 3 is a decent headset and probably the one I'd recommend if you're getting into VR and can afford a new console. It's not a massive improvement over the Quest 2 - the main thing that's better is the 'passthrough' (aka 'augmented reality', the mode where the 3D objects are composited into video of what's in front of you), which is now in full colour, and feels a lot less intrusive than the blown out greyscale that the Quest 2 did. But it still has some trouble with properly taking into account depth when combining the feeds from multiple cameras, so you get weird space warping effects when something in the foreground moves over something in the background.

The Vision Pro is by all accounts the bees knees, though it costs $3500 and already sold out, so good luck getting one. It brings a new interaction mode based on eye tracking, where you look at a thing with your eyes to select it like with a mouse pointer, and hold your hands in your lap and pinch to interact. Its passthrough is apparently miles ahead, it's got a laptop tier chip, etc etc. I'm not gonna talk about that though, if you want to read product reviews there are a million places you can do it.

Instead I wanna talk about rendering, since I think this is something that only gets discussed among devs, and maybe people outside might be interested.

Right now there is only one game engine that builds to the Vision Pro, which is Unity. However, Apple have their own graphics API, and the PolySpatial API used for the mixed reality mode is pretty heavily locked down in terms of what you can do.

So what Unity does is essentially run a transpilation step to map its own constructs into PolySpatial ones. For example, say you make a shader in Shader Graph (you have to use shader graph, it won't take HLSL shaders in general) - Unity will generate a vision pro compatible shader (in MaterialX format) from that. Vertex and fragment shaders mostly work, particle systems mostly don't, you don't get any postprocessing shaders, anything that involves a compute shader is right out (which means no VFX graph), Entities Graphics doesn't work. I don't think you get much control over stuff like batching. It's pretty limited compared to what we're used to on other platforms.

I said fragment shaders mostly work. It's true that most Shader Graph nodes work the same. However, if you're doing custom lighting calculations in a Unity shader, a standard way to do things is to use the 'main light' property provided by Unity. On the Vision Pro, you don't get a main light.

The Vision Pro actually uses an image-based lighting model, which uses the actual room around you to provide lighting information. This is great because objects in VR look like they actually belong in the space you're in, but it would of course be a huge security issue if all programs could get realtime video of your room, and I imagine the maths involved is pretty complex. So the only light information you get is a shader graph node which does a PBR lighting calculation based on provided parameters (albedo, normal, roughness, metallicity etc.). You can then instruct it to do whatever you want with the output of that inside the shader.

The upshot of this is that we have to make different versions of all our shaders for the Vision Pro version of the game.

Once the game is announced we'll probably have a lot to write about developing interactions for the vision pro vs the quest, so I'll save that for now. It's pretty fascinating though.

Anyway, right now I've still yet to wear a Vision Pro. Apple straight up aren't handing out devkits, we only have two in the company still, so mostly I'm hearing about things second hand.

Shores of Loci

A few genres of VR game have emerged by now. Shooting and climbing are two pretty well-solved problems, so a lot of games involve that. But another one is 3D puzzles. This is something that would be incredibly difficult on a flat screen, where manipulating 3D objects is quite difficult, but becomes quite natural and straightforward in VR.

I've heard about one such game that uses 3D scans of real locations, but Shores of Loci is all about very environment artist authored levels, lots of grand sweeping vistas and planets hanging in the sky and so on. Basically you go through a series of locations and assemble teetering ramshackle buildings and chunks of landscape, which then grow really big and settle into the water. You can pull the pieces towards you with your hand, and then when you rotate them into roughly the right position and orientation relative to another piece, they snap together.

It's diverting, if kinda annoying when you just can't find the place the piece should go - especially if the answer turns out to be that there's an intermediate piece that floated off somewhere. The environments are well-designed and appealing, it's cool to see the little guys appearing to inhabit them. That said it does kinda just... repeat that concept a bunch. The narrative is... there's a big stone giant who appears and gives you pieces sometimes. That's it basically.

Still, it's interesting to see the different environment concepts. Transitions have this very cool distorted sky/black hole effect.

However, the real thing that got me with this game, the thing that I'm writing about now, was the water. They got planar reflections working. On the Quest! This is something of a white whale for me. Doing anything that involves reading from a render texture is so expensive that it's usually a no-go, and yet here it's working great - planar reflections complete with natural looking distortion from ripples. There's enough meshes that I assume there must be a reasonably high number of draw calls, and yet... it's definitely realtime planar reflections, reflections move with objects, it all seems to work.

There's a plugin called Mirrors and Reflections for VR that provides an implementation, but so far my experience has been that the effect is too expensive (in terms of rendertime) to keep 72fps in a more complex scene. I kind of suspect the devs are using this plugin, but I'm really curious how they optimised the draw calls down hard enough to work with it, since there tends to be quite a bit going on...

Moss

This game's just straight up incredibly cute.

youtube

Third person VR games, where you interact with a character moving across a diorama-like level, are a tiny minority of VR games at the moment. I think it's a shame because the concept is fantastic.

Moss is a puzzle-platformer with light combat in a Redwall/Mouse Guard-like setting. The best part of Moss is 1000% interacting with your tiny little mousegirl, who is really gorgeously animated - her ears twitch, her tail swings back and forth, she tumbles, clambers, and generally moves in a very convincing and lifelike way.

Arguably this is the kind of game that doesn't need to be made in VR - we already have strong implementations of 'platformer' for flatscreen. What I think the VR brings in this case is this wonderful sense of interacting with a tiny 3D world like a diorama. In some ways it's sorta purposefully awkward - if Quill walks behind something, you get a glowing outline, but you might need to crane your neck to see her - but having the level laid out in this way as a 3D structure you can play with is really endearing.

Mechanically, you move Quill around with the analogue stick, and make her jump with the buttons, standard stuff. Various level elements can be pushed or pulled by grabbing them with the controllers, and you can also drag enemies around to make them stand on buttons, so solving a level is a combination of moving pieces of the level and then making Quill jump as appropriate.

The fact that you're instantiated in the level, separate from Quill, also adds an interesting wrinkle in terms of 'identification with player character'. In most third person games, you tend to feel that the player character is you to some degree. In Moss, it feels much more like Quill is someone I've been made responsible for, and I feel guilty whenever I accidentally make her fall off a cliff or something.

A lot is clearly designed around fostering that protective vibe - to heal Quill, you have to reach out and hold her with your hand, causing her to glow briefly. When you complete some levels, she will stop to give you a high five or celebrate with you. Even though the player is really just here as 'puzzle solver' and 'powerful macguffin', it puts some work in to make you feel personally connected to Quill.

Since the camera is not locked to the character, the controls are instead relative to the stage, i.e. you point the stick in the direction on the 2D plane you want Moss to move. This can make certain bits of platforming, like moving along a narrow ledge or tightrope, kinda fiddly. In general it's pretty manageable though.

The combat system is straightforward but solid enough. Quill has a three button string, and it can be cancelled into a dash using the jump button, and directed with the analogue stick. Enemies telegraph their attacks pretty clearly, so it's rarely difficult, but there's enough there to be engaging.

The game is built in Unreal, unlike most Quest games (almost all are made in Unity). It actually doesn't feel so very different though - likely because the lighting calculations that are cheap enough to run in Unity are the same ones that are cheap enough to run in Unreal. It benefits a lot from baked lighting. Some things are obvious jank - anything behind where the player is assumed to be sitting tends not to be modelled or textured - but the environments are in general very lively and I really like some of the interactions: you can slash through the grass and floating platforms rock as you jump onto them.

The story is sadly pretty standard high fantasy royalist chosen one stuff, nothing exciting really going on there. Though there are some very cute elements - the elf queen has a large frog which gives you challenges to unlock certain powers, and you can pet the frog, and even give it a high five. Basically all the small scale stuff is done really well, I just wish they'd put some more thought into what it's about. The Redwall/Mouse Guard style has a ton of potential - what sort of society would these sapient forest animals have? They just wanted a fairytale vibe though evidently.

Cutscene delivery is a weak point. You pull back into a cathedral-like space where you're paging through a large book, which is kinda cool, and listening to narration while looking at illustrations. In general I think these cutscenes would have worked better if you just stayed in the diorama world and watched the characters have animated interactions. Maybe it's a cost-saving measure. I guess having you turn the pages of the book is also a way to give you something to do, since sitting around watching NPCs talk is notoriously not fun in VR.

There are some very nice touches in the environment design though! In one area you walk across a bunch of human sized suits of armour and swords that are now rusting - nobody comments, but it definitely suggests that humans did exist in this world at some point. The actual puzzle levels tend to make less sense, they're very clearly designed as puzzles first and 'spaces people would live in' not at all, but they do tend to look pretty, and there's a clear sense of progression through different architectural areas - so far fairly standard forest, swamp, stone ruins etc. but I'll be curious to see if it goes anywhere weird with it later.

Weak story aside, I'm really impressed with Moss. Glad to see someone else giving third person VR a real shot. I'm looking forward to playing the rest of it.

...that's kinda all I played in a while huh. For example, I still haven't given Asgard's Wrath II, the swordfighting game produced internally at Meta that you get free on the Quest 3, a shot. Or Boneworks. I still haven't finished Half Life Alyx, even! Partly that's because the Quest 3 did not get on well with my long USB A to C cable - for some reason it only seems to work properly on a high quality C to C cable - and that restricts me from playing PCVR games that require too much movement. Still though...

Anyway, the game I've been working on these past 10 months should be ready to announce pretty soon. So I'm very excited for that.

#vr #computer games #game development #shores of loci #moss #Youtube

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leeenuu · 2 years

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Ukrainian platoon commander Mariia talks to soldiers in their position in the Donetsk region, Ukraine, Saturday, July 2, 2022. Ukrainian soldiers returning from the frontlines in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region describe life during what has turned into a grueling war of attrition as apocalyptic. Mariia, 41, said that front-line conditions may vary depending on where a unit is positioned and how well supplied they are. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

A view shows a public building destroyed during the Russian invasion of Ukraine in the city of Lysychansk in the Luhansk Region, Ukraine, Monday, July 4, 2022. (REUTERS/Alexander Ermochenko)

Clothes and shoes on display to be distributed to people, at the humanitarian aid headquarters, in Kramatorsk, Ukraine, Tuesday, July 5, 2022. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty)

Local officials stand in front of a damaged residential building in the town of Serhiivka, located about 50 kilometers (31 miles) southwest of Odesa, Ukraine, Saturday, July 2, 2022. A Russian airstrike on residential areas killed at least 21 people early Friday near the Ukrainian port of Odesa, authorities reported, a day after the withdrawal of Moscow's forces from an island in the Black Sea had seemed to ease the threat to the city. (AP Photo/Maxim Penko)

People wait to receive humanitarian aid as Russia's attack on Ukraine continues, in Kramatorsk, Donetsk region, Ukraine, Monday, July 4, 2022. (REUTERS/Marko Djurica)

An apartment building damaged by Russian attack is seen in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Monday, July 4, 2022. As Russia's invasion of Ukraine grinds into its fifth month, some residents close to the front lines remain in shattered and nearly abandoned neighborhoods. One such place is Kharkiv's neighborhood of Saltivka, once home to about half a million people. Only perhaps dozens live there now, in apartment blocks with no running water and little electricity. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

A Ukrainian soldier smiles as he looks at his puppy, in the Donetsk region, Ukraine, Saturday, July 2, 2022. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

First responders work on the scene where a school was destroyed by early morning shelling as Russia's attack on Ukraine continues in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Monday, July 4, 2022. (REUTERS/Leah Millis)

A fresh hole is seen ahead of a funeral, among dozens of recent graves of people who have died since the beginning of Russia's invasion, in the Walk of Heroes section of the cemetery, where people who served as military members, firefighters and police officers are buried, as Russia's attack continues, in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Saturday, July 2, 2022. (REUTERS/Leah Millis)

Viktor Kolesnik cries on the body of his wife Natalia Kolesnik, who was killed during a Russian bombardment at a residential neighborhood in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on Thursday, July 7, 2022. “Dad, that’s it,” his son Olexander said, watching as first responders waited to close the body bag. “She is dead. Get up.” “Don’t you understand?” his father asked. “What don’t I understand?” the son said. “This is my mother. Dad, please. Dad, please.” (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

#war in ukraine #russian world

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animehouse-moe · 1 year

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Kowloon Generic Romance Volume 3: The Walled City

Yes, I know I was at TCAF a week ago and I'm only now reading Kowloon volume 3, but it's just not been something I was really itching to read until this weekend. And I feel like letting it sit was worth it because this volume really grabbed me and made it feel like we were moving at a million miles an hour with its foreshadowing, timeline shenanigans, and the steamy but ill-fated romance between Kujirai and Kudou.

⚠️Warning: Volume 3 Spoilers Ahead⚠️

It's been quite some time since the last volume so a lot of this work feels fresh. One of the things that remains a talking point is of course the art, but I still really like the paneling and layouts of the manga. It feels plenty dense and full, mimicking the surroundings the comprise the walled city of Kowloon, but it all feels deliberate, as the space is used to its full potential in conveying character reactions or details.

Things as simple as a smile beginning to crack in a character's face.

Or grasping finer details and character acting with smaller panels to form an almost storyboard.

And then there's of course the spreads that Mayuzuki includes, which are just beautiful. Simple at times, for sure, but it doesn't detract from the wonderfully expressive and unique character designs, or their sense of motion throughout.

Anyways, hurtling towards the story, I'll certainly say it's not as "fun" as the first two volumes. It's not got as many curveballs as it gets into the nitty gritty, and admittedly that might be something people out there won't be a fan of. It pivots to a more central idea of focusing purely on the romance between Kujirai and Kudou, but rather than relegating any foreshadowing or theories to the background, just places them directly in plain sight. Though that doesn't mean Mayuzuki's hitting you over the head with a sign, as there's plenty of pieces that only poke their heads out. Take this first chapter for example.

There's two pieces that separate this groundhog day-esque situation. The first, Kujirai on the right doesn't have glasses on. And the second is that Kujirai is referred to as a senior in the left panel, while a junior/underling in the right.

You can see something similar with Kudou's observations vs the current Kujirai's circumstances.

This actually has a few pieces of importance placed in it. Obviously, first and foremost, is the little Gene Terra plushie. Kudou's observations of the old Kujirai mention that there's "nothing cute" in her apartment, whereas the plushie disqualifies that.

Additionally, and this is a massively out of left field, tinfoil hat theory, the flowers are different. I wouldn't have thought much myself if the meaning of a sunflower wasn't brought up in this volume. Anyways, I'm not an expert, but I think I've got 2 of the 3 flowers down. The bigger of the two flowers in the first arrangement is a Calla Lily, but I don't know what the other smaller ones are (the leaves are on separate stems). Regardless, a white Calla Lily is a very common and popular flower, and is used to represent beauty and purity. A bit of an interesting yes/no piece, as Kudou certainly sees Kujirai as pretty, but the purity part not so much. As for the second flower, there's a chance that it's a Spider Chrysanthemum, which is a flower that in Chinese culture (sorta works because it takes place in Kowloon) represents things such as a new life.

On to the second arrangement now, we've just got a hibiscus flower, whose meaning changes based on color. If it's orange, it's all about luck and good fortune, while red is centered around romance and love. Both of which work for Kujirai, so it's hard to really pick the correct one out.

So, to finally get to the point, there's a chance that Mayuzuki is using the flowers to tell a story of the two Kujirai's, the one that Kudou was infatuated with, and the one that is infatuated with Kudou. Hardly something that's a huge reveal or is important, but if true, is a really cool little detail to add.

Moving onward, there's a lot of very literal symbolism in how we approach the story and the characters this volume, with Gene Terra at the center of it consistently, thanks to pages like these.

Putting Kujirai into a diamond isn't exactly some abstract idea, as Gene Terra itself is represented as this shape. Similarly speaking, this volume continues the trend of an inverse person occupying somebody's space and life. Xiao Hei gives us a great example, but in a different direction than what we're used to.

This is the first time that a shadow/inverse character has spoken, so it's interesting to see how they speak. Xiao Hei uses the third person regardless, but they don't talk in the past tense.

What is it? The feeling of nostalgia personified, that chains a person to their surroundings? Their other half that arrived in Kowloon first and exist in some format on Gene Terra? It's hard to say, but it plays similarly into the whole conversation on sunflowers.

Kudou's immediately averse to them, and in a sense, sees them as someone watching him. Could it be true, or just a superstition? Another unanswerable question, but one that can help contextualize these inverse characters.

Speaking of Kudou, as I fly all around the place in terms of story, this little detail. A simple throwaway line, but one that fits perfectly considering the differences that Kudou's picked up on in regards to the differences of the two Kujirai's.

And the knowledge of that difference comes to a head with Kujirai in this volume, as she can no longer take the swings in mood and personality that Kudou exhibits. I think overall, it's an interesting conversation that a lot of people end up tackling in media, what comprises the self.

Kujirai contends that she chooses what to wear and how to act, but Kudou fires back. Before the conversation can be concluded though, it's cut short by Kujirai fainting. A very weird twist of fate that makes it feel like the mask of Gene Terra is slipping.

And, before this volume you'd think, "Nah, there's no way that Gene Terra could do something like that", but it's hard to discount with what we know now. A futuristic city lurking outside of Kowloon, a discussion and desire of the absolute. Doppelgangers and/or lookalikes that slink away from the walled city. Hallways and passageways that shift and seal to hide away changes. There's a whole lot of sci-fi that seeps its way into the story, and establishes another interesting concept atop it.

A fight against nostalgia.

#kowloon generic romance #九龍ジェネリックロマンス #reiko kujirai #hajime kudou #manga review #manga recommendation #anime and manga #manga #romance manga

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nerves-nebula · 8 months

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Somewhat interested in the sect of people who hate Lore Olympus as if it isn’t miles ahead of the millions of other straight romances that exist, many of which have a broader reach than a webtoon likely ever will.

I get having a pet peeve media you hate and I get enjoying mythology and disliking the way it’s used here, but some of you guys are NOT taking this thing in good faith or considering its context and are super mean about its creator for no reason.

Anyway now that I’m talking about it, the way lore olympus handled its sexual assault subplot meant a lot to me as a teen. So it’s not like I’m unbiased, I’ve got a soft spot for that comic and I like its art style.

#nnstuff #rambling

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thelavendernarwhal · 10 months

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Keefex Week Day 1

Prompt: Queer-platonic

......

Keefe hated that he still loved this place. Objectively, it smelled like a gulon’s armpit, the ground was covered in an inky film, and he found the area during one of the worst periods of his life. Some part of him still looked over his shoulder whenever a selkie cried in the distance in case it was the Neverseen that disturbed it.

Still… he came back every once in a while.

Keefe sighed, dropping down onto his usual spot. It was one of the only outcrops too tall for the selkies to get to. Was it a pain to get to? Yes, but it was leagues better than staying at Sophie’s house.

Okay, that sounds bad. It’s just…

“-give you some privacy, but I’ll be in the area.”

“Thanks. Mind helping me up?”

“Not a problem.”

“Thanks.”

Keefe shot to his feet, creeping to the outer parts of his nook in a hunched crouch. His heart rate doubled as footsteps came closer. Sinking down farther, he reached for a crystal, any crystal, stuck in his pocket.

“Keefe? Are you there?”

The closeness of the voice made him jump back, but recognition finally hit. Keefe’s breathing evened out slightly. “Uh, yeah. Back here.”

After a few seconds, a welcomed face came into view. “Cozy place you got here.”

“The best.” Keefe backed up, giving Dex some breathing room. He gave the cramped space a once-over before crawling in after. “How’d you know I was here?”

“Panic ring. I was checking the remote functionality. I was going to call you ahead of time, but my imparter said you were out of range.”

He cringed a little. “Yeah…There’s some sort of signal blocker around here.” The from the Neverseen went unspoken. “Sophie would freak if she knew.”

“... Yeah, you’re right.”

An awkward pause followed his words.

Keefe crunched his knees up against his chest, noting that Dex didn’t have anything to say about the technology. Or about else thing for that matter.

He hated that things were like this now; heavy silences, mile-long stares, feeling like glass with a million hair-fractures. The worst part was that he couldn’t fully deny it. What if one wrong move caused his powers to flare? What if he’d never be able to control himself?

What if his friends couldn’t trust him anymore?

“Are you mad at me?”

Dex’s attention changed so fast it might have given him whiplash. “What? No.”

“You sure? It seems like something’s off.”

“And your brain jumps to me being mad?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Most people are.”

“I’m not mad at you-” Dex stopped before huffing out a sigh. “Okay, what you did was really stupid and I’ll probably be peeved about that for awhile, but I’m not actively angered right now.”

“Okay…Cool.”

“Is there someone else who’s especially pissed at you?”

“Well, yeah.” Keefe almost laughed. “It feels like there should be more.” In return, Dex gave him a questioning look. “... It seems like people are letting me off the hook too easily. Even if what I did was for the best or not, I knew it would hurt people. Shouldn’t there be more consequences for that?”

“You realize we don’t like seeing you in distress, right?” Dex nudged him with his elbow. “We were upset, yeah, but a lot of us are more relieved that you’re okay.”

“I guess I see that. Sophie didn’t deck me in that hotel room after all.”

“Trust me, it was a struggle for both of us.”

Dex’s tone changed on a dime; no more joking or teasing, just staring off into the inky pools below. Keefe hated to admit how often this sort of thing happened. Although… Maybe he was starting to figure out a pattern.

“Hey..” Come on, it’s Dex. You won’t scare him off. Chill out. “Is Sophie still kinda a sore subject for you?”

The last thing Keefe expected to get was a full body laugh. “Really? That’s what you’re wondering about?” Dex’s face flushed bright red the way it always did when he was cracking up. If he wasn’t bracing for more awkward silence, Keefe would’ve pointed out how the color gave his hair a run for its money.

“What? That was a rough time.”

“At the time, yeah, but I’m pretty solidly over it. Honestly, I don’t think I ever liked Sophie in that way in the first place.”

“Wait, really?”

The question made Dex calm down. He shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s complicated.”

“I’m not in a rush.” Keefe commented.

The younger of the two’s attention moved upward with a distinct look of concentration. Now that’s the Dex Keefe was used to. “Have you ever had someone you were just drawn to being around?” Keefe nodded although the question was probably rhetorical. “Sophie was- well, still is like that. She’s one of the first people I connected with. She didn’t care that I had no status or that I might never. She never thought I was weird or, at least if she did, she never held it against me. I just liked being around her.”

“I get what you’re saying.” The resulting soft and melancholy smile made Keefe question whether he said the right or wrong thing.

“I guess I thought feelings like that had to be a crush. I mean, I hadn’t felt anything like that towards anyone before and why else would I be so attached?” A tinge of bitterness cropped up in his voice, but it didn’t stick around. “It took me a while, but I realized that a relationship like that wasn’t what I wanted. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be close to people. I shouldn’t have to justify it. Having to categorize my feelings is dumb and, honestly, a waste of time.”

A cold wind whistled past the nook, but it didn’t change Dex’s proud smile. “I never thought of it that way.” Keefe finally let his legs unfurl in front of him,

“Have things with you and Sophie been okay? It seems like you’ve been avoiding any and all Ruewens.”

Can’t get anything past you. “Is it that obvious?”

“Not really. I can’t blame you for avoiding Grady’s interrogation.”

“Did he interrogate you?” Keefe asked. The tight nod said enough. “Man, brutal.”

“Although, back to the topic at hand…”

“Won’t let me avoid my problems that easily?”

“Never.”

Keefe lightly elbowed his side in response. “I kinda relate to what you were talking more than I should.” Dex’s signature “questioning look” (all in the eyebrow, Keefe noted) prompted him to explain more. “I’ve wanted to date Sophie for so long and now that it's happening, I feel like I should be happier about it. Or, I don’t know, my idea of what this relationship would be like is so off that I don’t know what to do with it.”

“Is it still what you want?” Apparently Dex thought beating around the bush was for losers.

Honestly, Keefe could appreciate it. “No clue. Sophie’s still someone I want to be close to, but couple-y stuff feels weird with her. And that’s not just because of the protective parents.” He tacked on.

Before he could stop it, Keefe flopped his head against Dex’s shoulder, letting out a melodramatic sigh. Call it sad and mopey, but the action did help. Something about a solid other person was the grounding presence he needed.

“This is probably bullshit advice coming from me, but you should tell her that. There’s a good chance she’ll understand.” In return, Dex tentatively reached an arm around him. Keefe almost laughed at the irony.

“It’s funny. ‘The one person that you’re drawn to’ thing… The first person I thought of was you.”

A quick look upward revealed a faint blush on Dex’s face. “Yeah…I get what you mean.”

#kotlc #keefex #keefex week #keefe sencen #dex dizznee #kotlc keefe #kotlc dex #KOTLC fanfic

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beardedmrbean · 3 months

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Two bomb explosions near candidates' offices in the Pakistani province of Balochistan killed at least 28 people and wounded dozens on the eve of general elections, officials said.

The first blast killed 16 people in Pishin district, north of Quetta city.

A second explosion left 12 people dead in Qila Saifullah to the east. There was no immediate claim for the attacks.

The vote has been marred by violence and claims of poll-rigging. Former PM Imran Khan is barred from contesting.

Police are still trying to determine the cause of the two blasts.

Resource-rich Balochistan - Pakistan's largest, and poorest, province - has a history of violence. It has seen a decades-long struggle for greater autonomy by various groups, some of them armed. Islamist militants, including the Pakistani Taliban (TTP), operate along the border with Afghanistan.

The bomb in Pishin, a town about 100km (62 miles) south-east of the Afghan border, went off in front of an independent candidate's party office. The provincial authorities said 25 people were also wounded.

Images on social media showed cars and motorbikes blown apart by the force of the explosion. Officials told the BBC the candidate was meeting his polling agent at the time.

The second blast targeted the election office of the JUI-F party. A senior police official told AFP news agency it took place in the main bazaar of Qila Saifullah, about 190km (120 miles) east of Quetta.

Twenty people were wounded in the incident and the number of casualties in the two attacks could rise, officials said.

There have been violent incidents in both Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces in the week before Thursday's vote, and the violence in Pishin and Qila Saifullah was not unexpected.

In mid-January, Baloch Liberation Army-Azad (BLA) insurgents released a pamphlet after claiming responsibility for bombing an election training office. The pamphlet urged people to boycott the elections. Soon after, reports of hand grenade attacks on political party offices were reported from various cities in the province.

Many voters in Balochistan feel neglected by the country's political parties, given the province has so few seats in parliament. They often feel candidates are foisted on them, with few if any links to Balochistan.

And many feel the vote is unfair. "It is a selection," numerous people told BBC Urdu in the city of Turbat last month.

Following Wednesday's attacks, the Balochistan government said Thursday's vote would proceed as planned.

"Rest assured, we will not allow terrorists to undermine or sabotage this crucial democratic process," provincial information minister Jan Achakzai posted on X, formerly Twitter.

More than 128 million voters are eligible to cast ballots in the election. In Pakistan's first-past-the-post system, 266 of 336 National Assembly seats are directly elected.

But many people are questioning the credibility of the vote as Khan and his party, the PTI, have been sidelined.

The PTI won the largest number of seats in the last general election but Khan was jailed on corruption charges last year and disqualified from running for public office. Last week he was convicted in three other cases and faces years in prison - he says all the charges are politically motivated.

The authorities deny carrying out a crackdown, but many PTI leaders are behind bars, in hiding or have defected. Thousands of the party's supporters were rounded up after protests - at times violent - when Khan was taken into custody last year.

PTI candidates are having to run as independents following the electoral commission's decision to strip the party of its cricket bat symbol. Electoral symbols are vital in helping voters mark their ballots in a country with high rates of illiteracy.

The man tipped to win Thursday's election is three-time former PM Nawaz Sharif, who himself was behind bars at the last election. Analysts say it appears he has done a deal with the military to facilitate his return to politics.

A high turnout will be key to the PTI's chances, many analysts say. How to tackle, and who to blame for, the country's economic crisis will be high in voters' minds. Results must be announced within 14 days of the election.

#nunyas news

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duckstabbed · 9 months

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Ah good. You can't read. Perfect. Don't know what I expected. That's my fault I literally never said it was zero accomplishment to grow food. It was an unconnected thought, separated by a picture and a line of explanation, but eh, I guess saying outright that something is about the "natural beauty" defense means its actually about farming. Silly me.

If you value the land, then you shouldnt want people lving there. Per capita, cities are cheaper to operate and haveless environmental impact than the crazy wasteland sprawl of America. 400 million miles of water piping for three houses in a forest that I would have to pay for. Better public services and better schools. And every part of it is better for the environment than any Texas shithole.

Ive never seen more cockroaches than I did in Arizona or Texas. Absolutely shit holes of places. They thrive in wastelands.

I wasn't shitting on you, you picked this fight with me. I do not know, nor will i ever care about you or what youve done. I picked a fight with an actual, loud and proud NAZI and you came screaming in, screeching at the top of your lungs to defend the nazi. Straight up. No metaphor. Nazi defense.

You cannot deny it but you will, because you haven't even made it this far without starting to plan what you're typing, have you. Trying to find some technically in what I said go ahead, little one.

All because your feelings were hurt. Because yanks thrive on emotion and they fucking HATE when someone defends themselves. Hate it. Like you do. You picked the side of a devoted racist because a mean man on the internet said there's meth where you live. Poor yanks. Perpetual bullies and so, so delicate. Always and forever picking the side of the criminal while punishing the victim. Not surprised. Its who you are.

There's a crazy wave of fascist fueled murder coming for your country and I have lost the ability to care.

You sound normal you should definitely keep doing this, I don't think DMs have a character limit. Maybe if you get a little closer we can kiss.

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mariacallous · 1 year

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For now, Alex Lagetko is holding on to his Tesla stocks. The founder of hedge fund VSO Capital Management in New York, Lagetko says his stake in the company was worth $46 million in November 2021, when shares in the electric carmaker peaked at $415.

Since then, they have plunged 72 percent, as investors worry about waning demand, falling production and price cuts in China, labor shortages in Europe, and, of course, the long-term impact of CEO Elon Musk’s $44 billion acquisition of Twitter. After announcing his plans to buy the platform in April, Musk financed his acquisition with $13 billion in loans and $33 billion in cash, roughly $23 billion of which was raised by selling shares in Tesla.

“Many investors, particularly retail, who invested disproportionately large sums of their wealth largely on the basis of trust in Musk over many years were very quickly burned in the months following the acquisition,” Lagetko says, “particularly in December as he sold more stock, presumably to fund losses at Twitter.”

Lagetko is worried that the leveraged buyout of Twitter has left Tesla exposed, as interest payments on the debt Musk took on to fund the takeover come due at the same time as the social media company’s revenues have slumped.

But Tesla stock was already falling in April 2022, when Musk launched his bid for Twitter, and analysts say that the carmaker’s challenges run deeper than its exposure to the struggling social media platform. Tesla and its CEO have alienated its core customers while its limited designs and high prices make it vulnerable to competition from legacy automakers, who have rushed into the EV market with options that Musk’s company will struggle to match.

Prior to 2020, Tesla was essentially “playing against a B team in a soccer match,” says Matthias Schmidt, an independent analyst in Berlin who tracks electric car sales in Europe. But that changed in 2020, as “the opposition started rolling out some of their A squad players.”

In 2023, Tesla is due to release its long-awaited Cybertruck, a blocky, angular SUV first announced in 2019. It is the first new launch of a consumer vehicle by the company since 2020. A promised two-seater sports car is still years away, and the Models S, X, Y, and 3, once seen as space-age dynamos, are now “long in the tooth,” says Mark Barrott, an automotive analyst at consultancy Plante Moran. Most auto companies refresh their looks every three to five years—Tesla’s Model S is now more than 10 years old.

By contrast, this year Ford plans to boost production of both its F-150 Lighting EV pick-up, already sold out for 2023, and its Mustang Mach-E SUV. Offerings from Hyundai IONIQ 5 and Kia EV6 could threaten Tesla’s Model Y and Model 3 in the $45,000 to $65,000 range. General Motors plans to speed up production and cut costs for a range of EV models, including the Chevy Blazer EV, the Chevy Equinox, the Cadillac Lyric, and the GMC Sierra EV.

While Tesla’s designs may be eye-catching, their high prices mean that they’re now often competing with luxury brands.

“There is this kind of nice Bauhaus simplicity to Tesla’s design, but it’s not luxurious,” says David Welch, author of Charging Ahead: GM, Mary Barra, and the Reinvention of an American Icon. “And for people to pay $70,000 to $100,000 for a car, if you’re competing suddenly with an electric Mercedes or BMW, or a Cadillac that finally actually feels like something that should bear the Cadillac name, you’re going to give people something to think about.”

While few manufacturers can compete with Tesla on performance and software (the Tesla Model S goes to 60 mph in 1.99 seconds, reaches a 200-mph top speed, and boasts automatic lane changing and a 17-inch touchscreen for console-grade gaming), many have reached or are approaching a range of 300 miles (480 km), which is the most important consideration for many EV buyers, says Craig Lawrence, a partner and cofounder at the investment group Energy Transition Ventures.

One of Tesla’s main competitive advantages has been its supercharging network. With more than 40,000 proprietary DC fast chargers located on major thoroughfares near shopping centers, coffee shops, and gas stations, their global infrastructure is the largest in the world. Chargers are integrated with the cars’ Autobidder optimization & dispatch software, and, most importantly, they work quickly and reliably, giving a car up to 322 miles of range in 15 minutes. The network contributes to about 12 percent of Tesla sales globally.

“The single biggest hurdle for most people asking ‘Do I go EV or not,’ is how do I refuel it and where,” says Loren McDonald, CEO and lead analyst for the consultancy EVAdoption. “Tesla figured that out early on and made it half of the value proposition.”

But new requirements for funding under public charging infrastructure programs in the US may erode Tesla’s proprietary charging advantage. The US National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Program will allocate $7.5 billion to fund the development of some 500,000 electric vehicle chargers, but to access funds to build new stations, Tesla will have to open up its network to competitors by including four CCC chargers.

“Unless Tesla opens up their network to different charging standards, they will not get any of that volume,” Barrott says. “And Tesla doesn’t like that.”

In a few years, the US public charging infrastructure may start to look more like Europe’s, where in many countries the Tesla Model 3 uses standard plugs, and Tesla has opened their Supercharging stations to non-Tesla vehicles.

Tesla does maintain a software edge over competitors, which have looked to third-party technology like Apple’s CarPlay to fill the gap, says Alex Pischalnikov, an auto analyst and principal at the consulting firm Arthur D. Little. With over-the-air updates, Tesla can send new lines of code over cellular networks to resolve mechanical problems and safety features, update console entertainment options, and surprise drivers with new features, such as heated rear seats and the recently released full self-driving beta, available for $15,000. These software updates are also a cash machine for Tesla. But full self-driving features aren’t quite as promised, since drivers still have to remain in effective control of the vehicle, limiting the value of the system.

A Plante Moran analysis shared with WIRED shows Tesla’s share of the North American EV market declining from 70 percent in 2022 to just 31 percent by 2025, as total EV production grows from 777,000 to 2.87 million units.

In Europe, Tesla’s decline is already underway. Schmidt says data from the first 11 months of 2022 shows sales by volume of Volkswagen’s modular electric drive matrix (MEB) vehicles outpaced Tesla’s Model Y and Model 3 by more than 20 percent. His projections show Tesla’s product lines finishing the year with 15 percent of the western European electric vehicle market, down from 33 percent in 2019.

The European Union has proposed legislation to reduce carbon emissions from new cars and vans by 100 percent by 2035, which is likely to bring more competition from European carmakers into the market.

There is also a growing sense that Musk’s behavior since taking over Twitter has made a challenging situation for Tesla even worse.

Over the past year, Musk has used Twitter to call for the prosecution of former director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Anthony Fauci (“My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci”), take swings at US senator from Vermont Bernie Sanders over government spending and inflation, and placed himself at the center of the free speech debate. He’s lashed out at critics, challenging, among other things, the size of their testicles.

A November analysis of the top 100 global brands by the New York–based consultancy Interbrand estimated Tesla’s brand value in 2022 at $48 billion, up 32 percent from 2021 but well short of its 183 percent growth between 2020 and 2021. The report, based on qualitative data from 1,000 industry consultants and sentiment analysis of published sources, showed brand strength declining, particularly in “trust, distinctiveness and an understanding of the needs of their customers.”

“I think [Musk’s] core is rapidly moving away from him, and people are just starting to say, ‘I don’t like the smell of Tesla; I don’t want to be associated with that,’” says Daniel Binns, global chief growth officer at Interbrand.

Among them are once-loyal customers. Alan Saldich, a semi-retired tech CMO who lives in Idaho, put a deposit down on a Model S in 2011, before the cars were even on the road, after seeing a bodiless chassis in a Menlo Park showroom. His car, delivered in 2012, was number 2799, one of the first 3,000 made.

He benefited from the company’s good, if idiosyncratic, customer service. When, on Christmas morning 2012, the car wouldn’t start, he emailed Musk directly seeking a remedy. Musk responded just 24 minutes later: “...Will see if we can diagnose and fix remotely. Sorry about this. Hope you otherwise have a good Christmas.”

On New Year’s Day, Joost de Vries, then vice president of worldwide service at Tesla, and an assistant showed up at Saldich’s house with a trailer, loaded the car onto a flatbed, and hauled it to Tesla’s plant in Fremont, California, to be repaired. Saldich and his family later even got a tour of the factory. But since then, he’s cooled on the company. In 2019, he sold his Model S, and now drives a Mini Electric. He’s irritated in particular, he says, by Musk’s verbal attacks on government programs and regulation, particularly as Tesla has benefited from states and federal EV tax credits.

“Personally, I probably wouldn’t buy another Tesla,” he says. “A, because there’s so many alternatives and B, I just don’t like [Musk] anymore.”

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ice-dancers-and-chill · 2 years

Text

Consolation Prize

Summary: Jacques' super great plan to cheer up Josée after their TDRR loss.

Rating: K+

Warning: Mild cursing

AN: I've been meaning to write this for YEARS, but alas… a funny, evil hah-hah drabble. Wrote on Docs on mobile 😵‍💫

—

Everyone cheered with congratulations as confetti and sparkles rained down onto the stage—everyone, except for the Ice Dancers. Jacques and Josée both sneered at the Cadets, who were living it up by throwing their newly acquired million dollars into the air to mix in with the confetti.

Jacques hated them. He hated the Surfers. He hated Don. He hated all of the stupide, ugly people here. The only person here that he didn't hate, was Josée. His eyes drifted to the side to check on his partner again, but she was too busy glowering at the back of MacArthur's head to notice.

Stupide MacArthur who saved her life not even a day earlier.

What did she want for it, a medal? It didn't matter that they would have been guaranteed fourth place without her help, it didn't matter that Josée could have… died, without her help. It was still a competition, and she didn't have any right to be all mad at Josée for playing the game as soon as the moment was over.

Jacques huffed. Maybe he was just bitter. This whole damn race was a huge waste of time and a fantastic pain in the butt. He and Josee were so close to total reconciliation back in Montreal, and then they participated in this dumb race. They'd been pushed to their limits, had their absolute worst brought out, and fought with each other so much. And then that fiasco in the Bahamas… Ugh…

"Yes, throw all your money on the ground, very smart." Don chided the Cadets with a host-appropriately peppy side-comment.

Jacques looked to Don, then back to the Cadets two rows ahead of them. Stupide pompous pigs, stupide…

His eyes settled lower, specifically onto the ground between the vegan Mile's sandal-clad feet in front of him. Along with the colorful confetti and some loose bills, a fairly thick clip of hundreds laid there innocently on the floor. Jacques eyebrows raised, mouth dipped low.

Don just finished giving the season outro, and everyone yelled again, save for himself and Josée. No one was looking at him. No one was looking at anything besides the camera at the end of the stage.

Jacques did his best to not smile as he stepped his sneaker on top of the bills, a plan already forming in his bitter, handsome head.

—

"Jacques, hurry up." Josée called back to him, but her voice had lost all of its bite.

Jacques lugged their matching pink duffle bags, one on each arm, as he walked to keep up with her. They didn't have to wear their uniforms anymore, and the straps from their bags kept pulling at his undone jacket every few steps. He stopped at the end of the line beside Josée, and stuck his lip out in thought while he looked over her tired face. Even after a night to sleep off their loss in one of the JFK Memorial Airport's hotels, Josée still looked worn out. His poor Josée, he was sure she must have a lot on her mind.

"Mon chou, why don't you go and sit by the TSA booth? I'll get our tickets and luggage taken care of." Jacques offered sweetly.

Josée looked up at him questioningly, a little miffed by his relaxed attitude after such a horrible finish yesterday. But she turned her head to the very, very long line ahead of them, and figured there was no reason that both of them needed to suffer through it.

"Fine, sure." Josée answered, still annoyed sounding.

Jacques watched her go with a sneaky smile. He felt a little bad for not letting her in on his plan—seeing as she was so put out—but the surprise would be worth it. He felt like he needed something big to boost her spirits, and a surprise like this was a great way to do it.

—

"A'kay! All ready to go." Jacques smiled and offered her ticket to her.

Josée took it from him and got up from her seat, trailing behind him as he walked them to TSA. As they waited in line, Josée looked over her ticket absent-mindedly, only to lose her bored expression to shock. Jacques did his best to look off, as though he hadn't been waiting for her to notice.

"Jacques!" Josée yelled up at him, and he turned nonchalantly to her.

"What is the mat—"

"—You got us the wrong tickets!" Josée berated him, smacking the little paper against his arm. Honestly, was this so hard? Did she need to hover over him for even the simplest things? He knew she was in no mood for little screw-ups like this!

"I diiid?" Jacques asked, feigning ignorance. He took a look at his own ticket. "Ah! Sill-y me, I accidentally booked two first-class tickets for Honolulu!"

Josée's mouth slumped to the side at his moronic grin.

"How do you even mess that up!" She steamed. "Go back over there and fix it, and make sure you get a refund! Do you know how much first-class tickets to Hawaii cost?"

"Ah, oui, I do." Jacques smiled at her smugly.

"...So go!!" Josée threw her arms to the side, in the direction of the ticket counter, but Jacques didn't make any movement to do as he was told. Josée felt like she was going to burst a blood vessel—was she going insane? He looked so damn smug, despite sounding dumber than a bag of bronze right now.

Just when he was sure Josée might actually pop if he pushed her buttons any longer, Jacques raised his hands and patted Josée's shoulders, smoothing out her anger along with the fabric of her blouse.

"Ah ah, Josée! Not to worry, we are not paying for it." Jacques assured her. His smile morphed into something more mischievous when she shot him a confused squint.

"Those pigs are picking up the tab." He smirked, and pulled his jacket to the side just enough to reveal a neat clip of hundred dollar bills tucked into the inside pocket.

Josée stared at the money in surprise, then back up to Jacques as he closed his jacket again. It took her a moment to realize what he was getting at, and she smiled apprehensively.

"Jacques…" Her smile grew a bit. "...where did you get that?"

"Ahh, I cannot remember!" Jacques replied, hand laid against his temple. "It was so confusing yesterday, you know, with everyone yelling, and them throwing their money all around…"

He winked at her and Josée squealed quietly. She threw her arms around his neck in a hug, and Jacques wrapped his arms across her back, his eyebrows bowed up contently. He hadn't heard her laugh at all since yesterday.

"Jacques, that is so underhanded!" Josée pulled back, smiling wide.

"Psh! They don't need it. They probably won't even notice." He rolled his eyes and set a hand onto her back as they walked to move with the line. "But we need a vacation, non?"

Josée looked up at him giddily, just like she had in Argentina. It felt like forever ago, for both of them.

"Oui, I think we do." Josée affirmed, and hugged onto his arm as… professionally as possible.

Jacques beamed with pride.

They hadn't suffered so many losses so close together in years, and then placing third in the finale stung like bullet ant bites. But this was not ice dancing, and this was not for any medal or trophy, so he could convince himself (and then maybe Josée later) that these losses didn't matter. What mattered was that after all the losses and fighting and threats, that they were still together, side by side, arm-in-arm, and always would be. If Vancouver couldn't break them, nothing could.

He snuck a peak at Josée, who was still smiling brightly at nothing in particular. Jacques' lips curved up in admiration. Returning that smile to her face was worth more than the million ever would be.

(But a free trip to Honolulu wasn't bad, either.)

—

AN: Hawaii was special to them, and now it's tainted by cursed lava rock memories. They need some new ones! ;)

#fanfic #jacques is huge brain #mine

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afeelgoodblog · 2 years

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The Best News of Last Week — September 19, 2022

🎮 — Young people passion for eSports and the environment raised plenty of money for charity

1. Patagonia Founder Gives Away the Company — Profits will now go towards climate action

Rather than selling the company or taking it public, Mr. Chouinard, his wife and two adult children have transferred their ownership of Patagonia, valued at about $3 billion, to a specially designed trust and a nonprofit organization. They were created to preserve the company’s independence and ensure that all of its profits — some $100 million a year — are used to combat climate change and protect undeveloped land around the globe.

“Instead of ‘going public,’ you could say we’re ‘going purpose.’ Instead of extracting value from nature and transforming it into wealth for investors, we’ll use the wealth Patagonia creates to protect the source of all wealth.”

2. World’s Largest Container Line Reroutes Around Endangered Blue Whales

The largest container line in the world has rerouted its ships passing near the coast of Sri Lanka in order to avoid potential collisions with endangered blue whales.

“MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company has taken a major step to help protect blue whales and other cetaceans living and feeding in the waters off the coast of Sri Lanka by modifying navigation guidance in line with the advice of scientists and other key actors in the maritime sector,” MSC said in a statement provided to Insider.

3. Two antibodies identified can fight all known COVID strains, study finds

Israeli scientists say they have identified antibodies that are so powerful in neutralizing the coronavirus that they could eliminate the need for more vaccine boosters.

A research team at Tel Aviv University experimented with numerous antibodies and found that two in particular neutralize all known strains of the coronavirus, including Delta and Omicron, in a lab setting. Based on their performance in lab conditions, the antibodies could provide the extra protection that today comes from booster shots, adding that this could potentially make extra shots unnecessary among vaccinated people.

4. French charity stream Z Event raises record-breaking $10.3 million for environmental organizations

Z Event, the biggest charity stream event in Europe, broke a record last night. In fewer than three days, it raised over €10.1 million ($10.3 million) for five environmental nonprofit associations: WWF France, Sea Shepherd France, The SeaCleaners, Time for the planet, and biodiversity association LPO.

Since its creation, the event has been breaking records at every event. Last year, it raised a little less than 2022’s total (corresponding to $11.5M at the time).

5. Palestinian farmer discovers rare ancient treasure in Gaza

The mosaic was uncovered just a kilometer (half mile) from the Israeli border. The floor, boasting 17 iconographies of beasts and birds, is well-preserved and its colors are bright.

“These are the most beautiful mosaic floors discovered in Gaza, both in terms of the quality of the graphic representation and the complexity of the geometry,” said René Elter, an archaeologist from the French Biblical and Archaeological School of Jerusalem.

6. Nurse saves baby who stopped breathing on Spirit Airlines flight to Florida

A nurse is being hailed for her heroic actions after she saved a 3-month-old baby who had stopped breathing during a flight from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Orlando, Florida.

7. Boston Marathon adds nonbinary runner option for 2023 race

Nonbinary athletes will be able to compete in next year’s Boston Marathon without having to register in either the men’s or the women’s divisions, organisers for the United States’ most popular running event said.

That’s it for this week. This newsletter will always be free. If you liked this post you can support me with a small kofi donation:

Buy me a coffee ❤️

Have a great week ahead.

#best news of last week

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