#facts such as who invented the first super engine or what is the code for mutiny in a solar prison pre-armistice

[drawnfamiliarfaces]

Would Jenny allow Danny to tinker with her? I know robotics isn’t exactly the same as aerospace engineering (and I do be headcanoning that my boy chose this as his major since he wants to be an astronaut), but with all the experience he had from handling his parents inventions I believe he can be trusted with fixing something as complex as a robot. I like to think that Danny was really impressed with how Jenny was made and secretly wanted to take a look at how she works, but was too shy to ask because he knows how it’s like to be treated like an object and not a person (with the whole “ghosts are non-sentient globs of ectoplasm with post-human consciousness” spiel he heard so many times) and didn’t want to make Jenny uncomfortable. I believe it took Jenny some time and getting to know Danny and his engineering skills before she let him fix her when she got something badly broken. It was like a show of ultimate trust from Jenny’s side and Danny was flattered, humbled and very respectful. And super careful of course, constantly asking how Jenny’s doing or feeling while he tinkered, mindful of her. I bet she was touched.

Not gonna lie, this is one of the more fascinating asks I got - if only because its incredibly interesting to read about your take/interpretation of Danny & Jenny's relationship! I hope you don't mind me saying, but it feels like you adore both characters and it's very cute!

Well, now, in HoM AU, both Danny and Jenny are close friends and indeed Danny is one of the few people who Jenny trusts with - well, herself - her mechanical self. Like you, I headcanon Danny as quite mechanicaly gifted - in HoM AU he actually graduated college/uni with engineering degree, so he got education to polish his raw skills! He is one of the first people who would help Jenny in and out of the field, if there is a minor malfunction or an injury of some sort!

But even for that to happen it took a couple of years and a few adventures together.

So to answer the original question, I would have to say that in HoM AU specifically, neither Danny would ask to 'tinker' with her, nor Jenny would probably be totally comfortable with that question if asked. 'Tinkering' would imply a degree of casual poking around, and in this case, both Danny and Jenny have certain life experiences that gave them... boundaries when it comes to their own and others' autonomy. Jenny especially.

(a bit of random background info dump here to explain the reasoning, but feel free to ignore it, since i basically answered the ask xD i just got bitten by a writing bunny, so its gotten a bit long - be warned!)

When Jenny was younger and only just acclimatizing herself with human world and amongst teenagers, she was rather blaze at times with how much access to her body she gave to her human friends and acquaintances.

After all, her mother was rather frank about it - often poking around in Jenny's mechanics and code. But it was her mother, who created her (sort of 'why are you covering yourself, i made you i already know what you have' mother attitude, which is a bit over-controlling and invasive to other's autonomy, but well, Jenny is a robot after all) and it a completely different deal from others.

So, despite her mother's warnings there are instances when Jenny was not very careful. Like when she allowed Brad, Tuck and Sheldon to literally remove and rip out her stuff in pursuit of fashion goals. Or when she dropped her guard around Todd Sweeney and got reprogrammed for her good deed.

And during the events of the last episode, she was once again controlled, by Dr Locus. While not exactly her fault, it still left a lasting impression that any mechanically gifted person could be dangerous to her.

Now, this is where we venture into my personal headcanons for MLAATR that are tied into HoM-verse:

Another aspect of Jenny's developed caution to giving access to her body - is the fact that she is not considered as a real person in the eye of the government/world. She is a thing, a weapon created by Dr. Walkman. She does not have the same rights as a human, and on paper she does not even have rights to her own body. It's all patented Nora Wakeman technology, (secretly) founded by the government.

And she has been fighting it ever since she was a teenager and refused to be called an IT - XJ-9 - and became a HER, a teenage girl Jenny, who also just happens to be a robot.

At first it started as a simple teenage rebellion and she went to school and started to hang out with other kids, but what about later after she graduates? Will she be even allowed to? Sure, maybe her school will give her a diploma, but how legal will it be to give something like that to someone who is legally not a real person? After all, its not like when other kids will turn 18 and can be their own people, not under the legal control of their parents. Jenny is her mother's property, intellectual and physical. For her to be considered a real person in the eye of government, it would require a law being passed about recognizing sentience of Artificial Intelligence.

And sure, she could probably be made an exception, being a hero robot and all, but the problem is, she is not the only human-made robot in existence! What about her sisters, who are prototypes and are not as developed as her? Her brother, who seemed to develop sentiency to the point of turning on humans?? Melody and Killgore?? And its not only in her world (cartoon), but in others (since its a crossover). So the question about AI/Robot sentience, no matter if they are good or bad or how developed they are, would not concern only her, it would be a global debate.

And we all know how the governments of the world would feel about passing laws about sentience of artificial beings that were created to serve the human race. It would be a struggle one way or another.

So, as she grows up and sees the world refusing to aknowledge her as a person, she doesnt have legal rights to finish school and go to college, to get a job, to get married, heck she cant even have a legal documentation that doesnt says 'Dr. Wakeman's creation'. The government says: your body belongs to us, because we paid for Dr. Wakeman to make you - you belong to us, we control you.

That, on top of several unpleasant experiences with other people disregarding her autonomy, will equal to Jenny trying to get some sense of that control back. So she starts to be more cautious about how much access others have to her physical self; she starts to build and reinforce boundaries with other people, starting with her family and friends.

It was one of the darkest days in Sheldon's life, when Jenny started to firmly say 'no' to whenever he asked her about her inner workings and casual access for poking around. xD Tuck was not a happy camper either, that his favorite robot friend became very stingy with all the cool stuff. But Brad got it. And after gentle (and sometimes not) reminders, others became more understanding.

It was a little harder with her mother. Dr. Wakeman truly loved her daughter, but she was a scientist first and mother second. She was so used to casual access to Jenny, in order to keep maitanance that it was hard for her to break the habits. Its still a constant struggle, but she has gotten so much better.

Now, when it came to her new friends amongst HoMies, she already has built a set of boundaries that allowed her to feel more secure as a person, despite how the world sees her, but she is much more reserved to opening herself up to others, at least compared to how she first approached people when she was younger.

It took a few missions and getting to know them better, for her to start trusting with them with her mechanical self. But now a few years later, she feels comfortable enough with most of them to give her a helping hand when needed!

Of course not everyone are capable of helping her though: Danny, Kim and Zak are three of more mechanically oriented people who can help. Though Danny is the one with actual education in that field, while Kim and Zak learned more by necessity, from Kim's various jobs and Zak to operate the Saturday's equipments.

When Rex joined them, he actually became the second best person for her to come to if she needed help. Not only because he has unprecedent skills in mechanics, but also because of his nanites. (but thats info dump for another time, lol)

Jun has some basic knowledge in mechanics, but nowhere near enough for her to feel comfortable poking in Jenny's insides. Jake is perhaps the least capable of helping, when it comes to engineering, followed by newbie Randy (tho we really aint counting him tbh xD).

Ben is a complicated situation - he has some training and knowledge in engineering and robotics because of his Plumber training, but Jenny has heard horror tales from Gwen about how he treats his stuff (the whole hacking/playing with Omnitrix settings), so she flat out refuses for Ben to touch her. However in emergency/battle situation she would allow Ben to use one of his aliens to do so (like, Grey Matter or Upgrade).

So, we talked about Jenny's experiences and why they would contribute to her feeling uncomfortable if someone asked to 'tinker' with her.

Now, let's talk about why Danny would not ask to 'tinker' with her in the first place.

Like you said, Danny is all to familiar with the struggle of being part of something tat is hardly recognized as a sentient species - he had to listen to his parents dismiss ghost sentience most of his younger life. Of course, they have gotten much better since the... 'finale' of DP, but this sort of racism? xenophobia? (im not rally sure which term to use tbh) prejudice against ghosts would have left a lasting impression on Danny.

So I dont remember if I ever implied it, but in HoM AU - events of DP finale happened very differently and the resulting consequences of it diverged a lot from Mr ButtHurtman's 'canon'.

(Also, I had ideas about it, before a Glitch In Time came out, so events from there were not taken into consideration. )

I don't want to reveal much, because it is kinda one of my planned flashback for HoM, but the events that happened reinforced Danny's ... well lets say regard of people's autonomy? It's kind of hard to put into words.

Ok, let's explain it like this: Danny would not ask Jenny if he could look at how she worked and if he could tinker with her, because it would be like if his Mom and Dad casually asked if they could perform a vivisection on him to see how different he is from a full human.

And while sure, the comparison might sound a bit extreme, since there is a difference when it comes to robots and humans about 'poking around' in their innards. But to Danny - it would be too close of a comparison - because of the whole 'recognition of sentience' thing.

After all, wasn't it just some years ago, his parents cried that ghost are nothing more than lump of malicious energy that have no feelings? They changed their mind after Danny's reveal, which allowed them to actually listen and look into evidence proving otherwise and learn. And here is Jenny, struggling to be recognized as a person, since she is considered nothing more than a lump of metal with no feelings - just a weapon to be pointed in a certain direction.

And Danny would feel like asking Jenny if he could casually poke inside her, is a bit... hypocritical? And not to mention insenstitive. After all, he knows how she feels - she is basically still living his worst imagined life in some ways.

So, I don't think he will ever ask to study how she works by casually poking inside her.

HOWEVER -

At some point, after they became friends, Danny would feel like he should know at least some basics on how Jenny works, just so he could help her in an emergency.

I imagine it happened after a particularly rough mission, and Danny had to help Jenny back home since she was unable to do so herself, so Dr. Wakeman could fix her. After some time thinking, he would sit in front of both Nora and Jenny and ask them for permission if he could learn how Jenny works - from Nora.

After all, Danny does not need to poke inside Jenny to learn how she functions, when there is her mother right there - the creator, the maintanance and doctor all in one package, with access to blueprints and all intricate knowledge, who can evaluate what Danny needs to know in accordance to his passable engineering skills. She could teach him the basics - but of course not without Jenny's permission.

So he asks her, if he could learn, because he is tired of looking how she gets hurt along with them, but unlike most of them she can not be easily fixed with bandages and some time. And Danny, since he is one of the few of them who has the skills, would like to be actually able to help her with those skills. But it is her body - it is her choice, to trust him or not.

And Jenny would be speechless. It would be the first time someone asked her like that. Not even Kim, who is one of her closest friends, asked before (but mostly because Kim was perfectly aware that she is nowhere skilled enough to even think about it).

And you would be right. It would be a show of ultimate trust from Jenny, to agree for Danny to learn. And maybe at some point, simply learning, turned into more on hands learning in some small ways. And Jenny's trust was never betrayed, and Danny always stayed humbled and aware of that.

so, i hope the answer was satisfying, or at least entertaining for you! thank you again, your ask was delightful to read and allowed me to explore some of my own backstory parts for HoM a little bit more!

#que? #hom au #hom au q&a #danny fenton #jenny xj9 #long post #i do apologize for length. im not even sure how coherent my ramblings are but i do hope it was fun to read at least lol

[e3khatena]

so whats the deal with overkills the walking dead?

I'm glad you asked! (approx. 2,300 words)

So our story starts during Payday 2's first anniversary, the Fall of 2014. Players had to attain certain community goals to get new things to play with during their first annual Crimefest event, and the last two prizes were secret. They wound up being John Wick as a playable character, and the trailer for a new game Overkill was working on, based in the world of The Walking Dead comics. The premise was simple: it was set in the same part of the world as Payday 2, Washington DC, and would involve players trying to keep themselves and their camp alive during the zombie apocalypse made popular in Robert Kirkman's graphic novels and the AMC TV show. Given the fact that Payday 2 had proven to be a tremendous cultural hit around this time, getting the likes of Giancarlo Esposito and making cameos in the Wick movies at the height of their popularity, and given how at the moment it is very possible to argue that Payday 2 might have sold more copies than Super Mario Brothers 3, it would seem that OTWD was in good hands.

The problem, though, was their CEO. Bo Andersson used pressure he conjured up in Varvtre AB, a holdings company he was on the board of directors for, to become the CEO of Starbreeze when they acquired Overkill Software, the makers of Payday: The Heist and Payday 2. This also moved Bo from a role within the games industry alongside his brother to being his brother's superior and putting him in a firmly business role. This was good for Bo, because it would allow him to scrape capital from Overkill on their pursuit into superstardom to fund his own dream project: Storm.

Storm was a concept that Bo had been working on since 2008, the idea of bringing virtual reality back from being a curious novelty we played with in the 1990s into a mainstream competitive eSport. Players would wear tactical vests with computers built into them and a 5K resolution HMD that Acer would develop with the aid of Starbreeze in a massive bespoke arena, and using a combination of LIDAR scanning, realtime texture mapping, and the Valhalla game engine Starbreeze paid $8 million for, their physical arena would turn into a sci-fi deathmatch where players would cooperate to eliminate the enemy team and seek victory.

Bo Andersson was paying tens of millions of dollars to invent Laser Tag.

But how does this tie into The Walking Dead? Well, as a proof of concept, the work that Overkill had done in their in-house game engine, Diesel 2.0, would be ported into Valhalla to bring Overkill's The Walking Dead to life. Overkill's employees had long complained that Diesel could not compete visually, and even incorporating proper normal maps and bumping up the texture quality could not shake the appearance of a Source Engine or early Unreal 3 title. Despite releasing in 2013 and with the game now moving into 2016, onto the 8th generation of consoles, Payday 2 was not a looker and Overkill's The Walking Dead faced the same fate.

The problem, though, is that Bo Andersson bought the Valhalla Engine, which was being designed for VR first and foremost, much too early. The engine was literally incomplete, and the programmers had to write tools for the engine before they could write any code for the game itself. After nearly a year of work, they did bring Valhalla into a usable state, and used its VR prowess to power Payday 2's VR version. Bo also proposed a VR demo of Overkill's The Walking Dead to be hosted in Dubai, at VR Park (now titled PlayDXB), to demonstrate the game, the headset, and the VR technology to Middle Eastern investors who could free Bo from the shackles of Scandinavian game development and make him the worldwide name in VR. This delayed their actual non-VR Walking Dead game, which had serious funding from Skybound Entertainment and Robert Kirkman, past its intended 2016 street date. The game was nowhere near finished as Overkill staff were pulled back and forth to so many different projects within the studio. They received an extension to their deadline, Fall 2017, and work continued on the Valhalla Engine and the VR demo.

Fast forward another year. Starbreeze puts out Raid: World War II, a Diesel 2.0 title in which four players steal from the Nazis in almost exactly same manner as in Payday 2, starring John Cleese as the handler for the crew, and some trailers commissioned for their Walking Dead game using virtually zero actual in-game assets, and Skybound makes them an ultimatum: if the game is not out by November 2018, then they lose the rights to the license. They have wasted the rights holder's time and money for too long, and the project is dragging its heels with a CEO seeing it as a low priority to get their contractually-obligated co-op FPS for PCs and consoles out versus his ambitions of filling an entire space in Dubai with his name, his brand. Overkill developers, who had been clamoring for years to use an actual engine that makes sense for FPSes, finally get their wish, and Bo Andersson invests in commercial licenses for Unreal Engine 4. The problem now, though, is that the staff have a year to make the game in Unreal, with the caveat that they have zero experience in the engine. If they had made this move two years ago, they'd have the time to commit to learning the ins and outs, but they don't.

Overkill goes into crunch, with staff sleeping in the offices and working 100-hour weeks to learn Unreal and take what the documentation and tutorials offer them and implement it into their Walking Dead title, reverse-engineering the concepts they had implemented into the Diesel and Valhalla versions of the game and dropping them into Unreal. Bo Andersson, all the while, is going on vacations and not coming in on the regular, spending his time playing zombie games for inspiration and coming to the staff with his own ideas for the game based on them. Glory Kills, Special Infected, robust base maintenance mechanics and the ability to command teams of non-player survivors on missions all wound up in the game with little actual regard for how these pieces fit together. By the time that he realized he should be more actively hands-on, he only had a scant few months to spend with the staff at the final mad dash to make a playable product. The game was playable at E3, with two demo levels, and one of them playtested so poorly that the staff had to pull it from the rotation, but when Bo heard this feedback he would not tell his staff. He told them the game was testing great at E3, that people loved it.

Overkill's The Walking Dead released on the 7th of November, 2018, a week after Payday 2 ended support by letting players kill fallen angels and solve a giant puzzle wheel about the in-game lore in order to turn Bain, the player's main contact, into the US President via a body-swapping artifact used by the ancient kings of Kataru, who were gifted immortality at the same time common man was gifted the knowledge of good and evil at the Garden of Eden. While the clown-themed robbery game ended on a confusing note, Overkill's The Walking Dead was getting started to a whole heap of roughness. The game's combat was frustrating, with hordes of walkers that had to be put down one clumsy charged melee swing at a time and human enemies who fired off AKMs and MP5s with reckless abandon. Their noise would draw hordes, which would need to be contended with via your own noise, as dealing with a few dozen enemies with melee combat was awkward and difficult.

Being grappled by a zombie cost a health bar and a half in a game where your starting character had on average four healthbars to their name, and the underlying gameplay, despite being completely linear missions in level and objective design, were just Payday heists at the end of the day. Hell or High Water involved you raiding a camp owned by The Family, an antagonistic gang your camp is at war with, and stealing their supplies. In turn, they arrive at your camp and you kill five waves of them in Worse Than Walkers, in a move no different than Payday 2's Safe House Raid mission, with no zombies in sight. The camp-building mechanics, which were tied to player level and their ability to tend to the needs of their workers, were a confusing mess of UI elements that did not mesh together, and all weapons were earned in a gachapon-style case system and would degrade over time, requiring the player unjam them, fix them with the supplies they need to keep camp morale up, or watch them fall into disrepair. There was also no tutorial mission, with the game opening with The First Shot, the E3 demo mission that tested so poorly they stopped running it.

Overkill's The Walking Dead performed poorly, both critically and commercially, and Starbreeze went right into damage control. The game's high price tag to low gameplay ratio was combatted with a $30 version that required paying for the missions $60 players got for free. Season 2 went into production very quickly, with fixes to the base game, new weapons, and new survivors being promised within the coming months. Unfortunately, this was too little, too late, as Skybound issued a cease and desist to their business partner after just three months of sale, and by February 2019, Overkill's The Walking Dead was just as much a corpse as the undead shamblers present in the video games.

Perhaps what sealed the fate of the game wasn't its overall quality, as The Walking Dead is home to a large number of subpar games, but its tone and gameplay. Overkill's The Walking Dead is a very staunchly libertarian take on the franchise, pitting the player with the idea that they are to be a colonizing force, destroying an antagonistic camp and treating the other people just trying to survive as cannon fodder not unlike if they were just walkers with guns. This is no surprise given another face at Overkill, executive producer Almir Listo, having a robust fascination with libertarianism and the cult of personality that surrounded fringe Right-wing groups. Almir himself is not a conservative, but he has proven time and time again that he thinks the way Donald Trump talks is funny and has an interest in American conservative viewpoints and conspiracies as an outsider looking in, likely not helped by an unnamed comics writer taking over Payday 2 in its final year to turn the game about robbing banks into one with an ancient conspiracy and Nephilim to mow down with your MG42 or M16.

The Walking Dead is a story about its people and how they're shaped by the conflict, by the apocalypse that surrounds them, and while Kirkman expressed early interest in the sound-based horde gameplay encouraging quiet takedowns and swift, accurate gunplay, it is very possible that the idea of not just a bad Walking Dead game, but a bad Walking Dead game from a popular studio that fundamentally misunderstands the world of The Walking Dead and needs to fall back on generic bandits and raiders to fill its spaces a la Bethesda's open world titles was a bad look. We'll never know for certain, though, as the game has been pulled from sale for ages.

But this brings us to sometime last week. September 21st marked the launch of Starbreeze Studios' (formerly Overkill Software's) Payday 3. The game features a lot of the stuff they had worked on for The Walking Dead (weapon models, a rework to the Shield enemy, armor working exactly like health in OTWD) but also a ton of its own ideas, and in general the gameplay is very solid. The issue, though, is the progression and a number of bugs that hamper the experience, alongside requiring a Starbreeze Nebula account and online connection to play, with no offline mode to speak of, which caused problems when the servers for the game were down for its first three days after launch. Starbreeze promised a patch was coming shortly thereafter, but on October 21st, a month after the game released, someone with ties to Starbreeze, fed up with the Starbreeze Nebula account requirement and persistent Internet connection to play a game with obvious issues and no Patch 1 release date in sight, released the final build of Overkill's The Walking Dead. This featured a proper tutorial, made the original The First Shot into an optional random encounter a player could take on for additional resources, a slew of new weapons, a wandering trader who could sell you blueprints to the DLC's guns, and the rest of Season 2's missions. The leaked build is not playable online but is DRM-free, running just fine completely offline and preserving the game for future generations to point and laugh at, albeit without any help to ease the difficulty for a game that expected four human players at a time.

Perhaps the weirdest part of the leak is that it brought out a handful of fans from the woodwork who view Overkill's The Walking Dead as an underrated gem buried before it could truly shine, individuals who feel the game could be one of the studio's best with enough polish, and as a result Robert Kirkman has been once again inundated with people asking about the now five year-old game, hoping to give it another chance. I, personally, feel that the clumsy pacing, questionable storyline bearing little similarities to the graphic novels it's based on, and the over-reliance on generic bandits voiced by Payday regulars Josh Lenn and Joseph Balderrama prevent the game from being anything but a really weird footnote in a company's confusing, convoluted history.

#overkill #starbreeze #payday #the walking dead #gaming

[blake-wyatt]

One of my favourite things about Nureyev’s speech pattern is that it’s clearly that of a non-native speaker who’s poured a lot of practice into how he thinks he should sound.

 The meticulous, old-timey diction; the unusual and flowery vocabulary; the elocution and sentence construction...is something I recognize in a lot of fellow immigrants.

It makes me think of a boy who watched whatever pre-war solar movie had made its way to Brahma and repeated ‘perhaps’ after a 24th century Humphrey Bogart over and over. It makes me think of a boy who grabbed old solar books from charity shops, whatever he could find, fiction, mythology, politics, old engines instruction booklets, and memorized all the big words and heroic speeches. With the flair of a theatre kid, he’d repeat after Cary Grant "Not only did I enjoy that kiss last night, I was awed by the efficiency behind it" until it felt right. 

 All he had was dated material, endless curiosity, and a lot of discipline. He set out to be unclockable, and he ended up with a very unique voice, one that stands out in a rugged Martian crowd, one that is as hard to forget as a cologne that smells of far away spices.

#peter nureyev #tpp #junoverse #the penumbra podcast #most outer rim characters we've encountered have a broken speech pattern #and seemed to be struggling with solar #from understanding the humour to sentence construction to phrasal verbs #and then you have peter nureyev. intergalactic master thief who's been traveling since he was a teenager #and who sounds so flowery and dramatic and has perfect careful elocution #the man who hoards books and collects random #facts such as who invented the first super engine or what is the code for mutiny in a solar prison pre-armistice #and it reminds me of how i wrote down 'hinder' after reading middlemarch #thinking it was the best fucking word #and I kept casually saying in conversation 'stop hindering this process' #not to be kinning peter nureyev on main but IMMIGRANTS! WE GET THE JOB DONE #also i'm manifesting this into the universe: peter nureyev speaking brahamese to juno on the show #please? just calling him little pet names in brahamese #I JUST THINK HE'S NEAT

[androidemotions]

OK NEURODIVERGENT GAANG TIME BC I WANNA

these hcs are kinda halfway set in a modern au bc thats my context for this ! (gonna split it up so its not as long bc i drafted the original and it was LONG) water tribe siblings first !!!

Sokka

adhd/autism king 😌

[ID: a screenshot of Sokka standing on a raised stone platform with a map of the Fire nation hanging behind him. He’s holding his arms stiffly by his side with a wide-eyed look on his face, brows raised as he has his mouth open, saying something. End ID.]

- schedules to survive, he likes to know what hes getting into and if you try to change plans on him without warning he’ll be very resistant

- smart kid who doesnt study, oh he tries, oh boy does he try, he ends up reading the same sentence over and over until he gets distracted by drawing something, working on the blueprint for his latest invention, or with researching something completely unrelated to what he’s mean to be studying. then he tosses and turns all night because he’s stressed by not having studied, but when he actually takes the test he makes a 105, despite there not even being a bonus question, he just answered the essay question so well the teacher gave him an extra 5 points

- special interests?? we got em!!! classic weaponry (think swords, boomerangs, but also, like canons and catapults and shit) engineering/physics, art/drawing, strategy games. he tends to hyperfocus within his special interests, so like for a week he was hellbent on building his own full sized trebuchet, much to the dismay of Gran Gran who just wanted to grow her tomatoes without them being crushed by said full size trebuchet

- (also he plays all types of games probably, but he def plays those ones where you take over the world, like the ones online and azula also plays them too and they end up being rivals, while not actually knowing who the other is outside of their usernames)

- he also talks a lot in his classes/is like the ‘class clown’ and ppl think this is him not focusing but engaging this way actually helps him focus way more than sitting silently, a lot of teachers dont understand it but the ones who do are actually paying attention and realize that he’s generally talking/joking about their current topic

- some observations (this shit is all canon babey!!!) - sokka is great at being a leader and communicating in groups he’s in but he really really struggles in front of crowds, one-on-one and sokka can talk well, joke and stuff but as soon as he’s separate from other people and everyone is just listening he clams up (solar eclipse pt 1). he also loves to joke and make people laugh, and a lot of the time he misinterprets stuff because he’s autistic but he also will realize this and do it anyway because he thinks it’s funny and he likes laughing with his friends (idk if this happens in canon but i do this and sokka does too bc i said so :^). He also takes up the protector/comforting role but despite his best intentions he can sometimes say insensitive stuff and not even realize what he’s done to upset people (when he happily told aang ‘the whole world thinks your dead!’) works best when he feels needed, if he feels unnecessary or like something doesnt matter he struggles to complete it (i feel like the beginning of sokka’s master rlly demonstrates what i mean here), and this goes both ways, he will put too much value into certain things that he cares about and can get his priorities mixed if he’s focused too much on what he believes matters more than what might be most pressing (zuko destroyed his suki sculpture, oh right bc he was attacking aang)

Katara

she also has adhd/autism, (so do both Hakoda and Kya 💙)

[ID: a screenshot of Katara, Hakoda, Sokka, and Bato. Hakoda has his hand on Katara’s shoulder as they both look at Bato who is saying something, she has curious look on her face with her brows raised, while Hakoda looks exasperated. Sokka beside him his also looking curiously up at Bato, with one brow raised and the other furrowed. Bato has a neutral expression on his face as he speaks. End ID.]

- palms sweaty thoughts spaghetti, she tries to be practical bc she thinks someone needs to be but really her brain is like a runaway train, she sees something that needs doing and is like, guess ill do that now! and drops whatever she was doing first. she can get very anxious because of this because all the thing that need doing start to pile up because theyre all in her brain at once. that and as much as she tries to be practical she’s very impulsive, getting help from other people really helps alleviate this stuff

- interacting w ppl, when she was only part of her own smaller community she had a lot less toll on her, bc she knew everyone and was used to them, as she meets more people she gets really frustrated with how many people seem to refuse to say what they really mean. Katara is very straightforward herself and she says what she means, so even tho she gets more and more perceptive when interacting with new people, she resents how much she has to work just to decipher what people really mean half the time.

- caring for ppl, with people she cares about communicating is much easier bc she knows them, so she’s very open about her feelings around these people, and she can be hyper empathetic at times, but then sometimes she will say SUPER insensitive stuff off the cuff because she’s just very impulsive and she might regret it after the fact but she really struggles with apologizing because being wrong makes her feel like ppl are going to reject her

- perceptions, she knows what’s expected of her by the world, but she really rejects the idea that she has to stay in her role. still, she has internalized a lot of these expectations and tries to perform them, even when she sometimes struggles. beyond herself, she’s very certain about what she knows is wrong and has a strong moral code, she sees something wrong and she wants to fix it.

- she’s awful in school, not because she’s not smart, but she’s smart in ways that society does not appreciate. she doesnt care at all about all the worksheets and math she’s never gonna use, and all the history that got distorted, she’s much better at learning stuff on her own and she will go on deep dives of subjects she cares about and is super knowledgeable abt them.

also:

[ID: A cropped screenshot of Sokka with his arms extended outwards, palms flat as he gestures. He has a slight grin on his face with his mouth open to speak, eyebrows raised and looking at the viewer calmly. He’s wearing his usual blue tunic with the Earth Rumble XI belt along with his earth kingdom bag hanging across his chest. The text on the image says, “This post made by ADHD Sokka gang. End ID.]

[ID: a cropped screenshot of Hakoda, he has a serious expression on his face as he looks ahead. The text on the post reads, “This post made by ADHD Hakoda gang.” End ID.]

from this post (part of what inspired me to write these out) @meteor-sword​ now just katara needs one 😄

adhd aang next, i will finally live up to my url (will edit with a link when i post)

#a:tla #atla #katara #sokka #avatar the last airbender #avatar: the last airbender #hakoda #adhd headcanon #autistic headcanon #water siblings #image described

[imeanshitithappens]

Happy Birthday

Bucky Barnes x Reader

check tags for story themes if you want 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This was it.

This was going to be your night.

You could feel it.

It was your birthday.

You had your favorite club outfit on.

You had drank just enough to feel good but nowhere near intoxicated.

You were hot, you were feeling good, you were confident, and you weren’t going to chicken out this time.

You were going to tell Bucky you had a gigantic crush and it was going to go great and you would live happily ever after while birds sang to you ever morning.

...or you would get smashed and avoid him all night and Sam would sing “I told you so” in a very high-pitched awful way while you were vomiting your hangover into the toilet the next morning..... 

which was basically the same thing right?

No focus brain you got this!

You had been working up the courage to tell Bucky how you felt about him for over a year. He had joined the a little over team two years ago and you guys had fallen into an easy friendship right away. 

You were one of the main engineers at Starks labs your job was supposed to solely be for Stark industries. However, after the fall of SHIELD the avengers had lost all the resources that came with working for an International agency and had become a little short in the equipment design and creation department. Pepper had begged you to not let Tony be the only one creating gear for the team (she didn’t get to see him enough as is).

You had met Bucky after you had unknowingly helped Sam pull a prank on him. I mean really you should have know. What else would the Falcon possibly use a device that magazined anything you shot it with then to terrorize his teammate.

After that you two had fallen into an easy friendship being Bucky’s go to for any and all gear he needed help with. He had a clear interest in science and invention and you never got tired of answering his questions on your latest project. You guys hung out often outside of work as well. Watching movies, going to coffee shops to read, and taking fun little “friend-cations” where you would take turns planning a day for the two of you to travel somewhere new and see who could wow each other the most. (Thank You Pepper for the quin jet loan)

It really wasn’t until not one, not two, not even three, but eleven different people had come and ask about your “relationship” with Bucky (The first of which was a very flustered Steve) that you had began to realize that there was no one on Earth you would rather send time with than Bucky Barnes. If that wasn’t love you really didn’t know what was anymore.

So tonight was the night.

You were out celebrating your Birthday and you had been trying to convince Bucky to come dance with you for the last twenty minutes Your thinking was if you brought him where it was really loud and asked him out if he wanted to let you down easy you would both just pretend he hadn’t heard you over the music Which subconsciously you knew was BS because it really wasn’t that loud and he had no problem hearing you in louder clubs (you knew that because you had tested it and tried to subtly ask him questions about his super hearing last week)

“C’mon Bucky it’ll be fun just a dance or two..” you whined 

“I’m really just not feeling it tonight doll” he said lowly

“But it’s my Birthday please..” you continued knowing you had definitely drifted into pathetic territory at this point.

“I know Honey and I’m really sorry I just am not feeling too comfortable with being in a crowd right now I’m so sorry” He couldn’t even meet your eyes at this point and you started to feel like absolute trash how dare you even think about making this man uncomfortable just for your own ease. You could tell him anytime it didn’t have to be tonight. Manipulating him like this for your own comfort wasn’t something a good friend would do let alone a good partner. 

“I’m so sorry Bucky of course you should do what you’re comfortable with I’m sorry to make you feel bad” You immediately tried to reassure him. 

He finally looked but to meet your eyes and smiled “I’ll make it up to you doll after this we can go do whatever you want ok?”

You smiled right back at him and said you were just happy to do anything at this point as long as he was with you. You stayed grinning at each other for another couple seconds when you jumped up and said you would go close your tab at the bar and then you could get out of here. Deciding that maybe you didn’t need an escape plan for your confession and it would be better for you to have an actual conversation about it either way. 

Once you had gotten back to the lounge area where you had been sitting with Bucky practicing your speech the either way to the bar and back. You realized he wasn’t up there anywhere. You checked your phone no messages. You told your self he was probably in the bathroom and it would be best to wait here for him to get back.

Another ten minutes passes and you start to get nervous. You’re pacing in the lounge going over every horrible situation in your mind about one of Bucky’s many enemies finding him when you spotted a familiar head of black hair dancing in the crowd with a very attractive looking blonde. Had he changed his mind about dancing? Why didn’t he text you? either way you were running down the stairs to go talk to him and pull him out of there. 

Once you had gotten him off the dance floor and outside the packed club you turned to him and started firing off things at rapid speed. “Are you ok? Did someone force you out there? Are you feeling ok? Why didn’t you text me? My friends and I have this code word we text each other when one of us this feeling unsafe in situations like that. We should make one too. Did she pull you out there? Are you ok?” You were breathing really fast at this point trying to both get details and make sure he was alright.

“Woah woah woah doll take a breathe relax,” His smile slowly spreads across his face while put his hands out trying to get you to slow down. “I’m ok. That girl back there she asked me to dance with her after you left and you know how hard it is for me to say no to a beautiful dame.” 

He was still smiling at you care free now rubbing your back to ease your panic. You froze his words on loop “Beautiful Dame” the phrase in particular ringing threw your head a few times. “b-b-but..” you stuttered trying to stop your self from over analyzing why he said no to you but yes to this girl. 

“I thought you had said you were uncomfortable with the crowd I thought we were gonna go do something” Your face had completely fallen at this point and your heart was quickly following its path to the pavement below.

He put his hands in his pockets and smirked “Get this she came marching up to me said she was looking for the ride of her life no strings attached...” He bounced he eye browse up and down looking to like you should be proud of him. “...and she said she was a dancer like ya know.. the exotic kind.” 

You really couldn’t blame her given the opportunity you would love for Bucky to take you on the ride of your life too.

“I know we were gonna go out to get ice cream or whatever and I should have texted you but I was just so excited! You know sleeping with a stripper is on my bucket list.” He continued sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck fidgeting

You did in fact not know that and were certainly better off that way. 

You felt like crying there was a sudden and very sharp pain in your chest that had sent goose bumps all over your body. You wanted to crumple to the ground. You wanted to scream and cry and time travel back to before you left him to close the tab. Maybe if you had him come with you this wouldn’t have happened. Maybe it would be you about to get your world rocked in a very pleasant and long awaited way and not the in shattering depressing way you were right now. 

After an eternity of you standing there with your jaw open and your fists clenched to your sides you said “oh.” softly 

“oh?” Bucky parrots back to you. “I need more of a response than that doll.” his fidget of choice this time to scuffed the toe of his shoe against the side walk. “I know it’s your birthday but I mean we were together pretty much all day and well... she’s really fucking hot and no offense but we can go out for ice cream and watch movies literally any other.” he forced a laugh. You could tell he was trying to make a joke to get you to smile, but you were beyond confused at this point. He had never acted like this as far as you could remember he had pretty much always put you first. Which is 90% of the reason you thought he liked you back to begin with. 

You stood there stunned and confused and heartbroken. Where was this coming from. Had you really just imagined all the chemistry between you? Did he know your plans and get cold feet? Did it really matter why at this point? Clearly he had no interest his being with you anymore tonight, and quite frankly you were starting to feel the same. “I mean if that’s what’s important to you..” you started to say still just barley holding it together. 

He darts forward gives you a quick peck on the cheek and starts towards the club even before you had finished your sentence. Not even looking back shouting somethings about making it up to you tomorrow. 

You stood there outside the club for maybe 20 more minutes ignoring the pity stares from the bouncer waiting for the Punked! camera crew to make an appearance. Holding in your tears and the broken pieces of your heart in your hands.

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x reader angst #angst #unrequited love

[peachdoxie]

OKAY notes on chapters 2 and 3 of Rhythm of War! I'm going to attempt a read more but idk if it will work, sorry.

Chapter 2

"Kaladin grunted in reply." Glad to see his characterization is still consistent.

The new Fused powers are super dope, but fucking rip to Kaladin. That's one of the most physically brutal attacks Brandon has written

Adolin advising Syl in fashion is 10/10

Also rip Kaladin pt 2 with the insomnia

Interesting evolution in Shallan's multiple minds

Hmm yes, the Fourth Ideal for Shallan. Remembering "everything." Gonna be torture to watch her go through that. But what could she be repressing, after what her other memories were about?

Syl mimicking Kaladin is fucking hilarious and I absolutely love it

"Gagadin!" ♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️

Kaladin very briefly dated Lyn, but she broke up with him. I wonder how much Syl had to convince him to date her.

Also, Syl and Hesina complaining about Kaladin right in front of him, another 10/10. “Has he been disrespecting you again, Syl?” “It’s been at least a day since he mentioned how great I am.”

So. Kaladin and his father are barely on speaking terms, it seems.

"Only, everyone had given up on Herdaz." Oof.

The Mink sneaking away by leaving a dummy behind seems very Herdazian

"“And abandon his men?” Kaladin asked, aghast." Really fucking hope Kaladin isn't forced to do this, because honestly it would probably destroy him, but it also seems in line with the speculation on his Fourth Ideal

“Well done!” Syl said as he left the shed. “You barely scowled when they called you Brightlord.” lmao

“I had hoped,” Lirin said softly, “that our message would inspire you to approach covertly.” Lirin I know you're disappointed in Kaladin for being a soldier who kills people, but you could be a tad nicer by greeting him with something other than a criticism

Holy fucking shit, that's one way to get Kaladin's parents to Urithiru

Chapter 3

The chapter is called "The Fourth Bridge". Neato.

Okay, so Larkins are useful to making fabrials. But they're now mostly extinct. And the wars in Aimia were in part about Larkins. That's some lore I wasn't expecting. And Rysn has one....

"Dalinar said from behind, his voice as steady as steel, as immutable as mathematics." Navani confirmed for fucking nerd.

"But they could send flashes of light that could be interpreted." Roshas invents Morse Code, more at 11

Aluminum, huh? Wonder who helped them with that....

"She wished she could share it with Elhokar." Ouch, my heart 😭

Okay, so the Azish helped with the aluminum

Also Navani needs to stop selling herself short. Fuck you Gavilar.

But also I feel that her...it's not quite imposter syndrome but close is gonna be relevant to her Ideals, if she does in fact become a Radiant

Bridge Four is physically part of the Fourth Bridge I'm gonna cry

Highmarshal Kaladin? Wonder what he feels about that.

Mapping expeditions of the eastern Shattered Plains. Inch resting....

Okay, so we've got a bunch of Edgedancers in addition to a bunch of Windrunners. That tracks with historical Radiant numbers, iirc

Rip Lift, going through puberty

Okay ngl I'm really enjoying reading about the Fourth Bridge with all the Radiants on it. It feels like something out of Dalinar's visions, which I'm sure is not something that's slipped past him.

Though I am also struck by the mental image of the Fourth Bridge burning and falling out of the sky, so thanks for that, brain.

One of Navani's insecurities is that she feels she's not really part of the endeavor of building the Fourth Bridge and all the other fancy fabrials because she's not the one doing the engineering and whatnot. And that's true, she's not, but she's also the one who brought them all together to make these things happen, and I feel that's something that shouldn't be underestimated. Navani is very good at organizing people, and I think her involvement goes beyond just being a rich woman who can provide the funds to make something happen. I know I'm hoping for a Dustbringer Navani, but I also thing Bondsmith isn't out of the question.

Kaladin, taking the name Stormblessed as his house's name, but also not telling his father. Color me not surprised.

Oh shit, Edgedancers with Regrowth serve as the Radiants' surgeons. That's...gonna cause problems for Lirin. Hashtag another identity crisis. Wonder if he'll become an Edgedancer or something, or if he'll turn down the chance to be Radiant. I don't even know if a spren would be drawn to Lirin, nor which kind.

"She thought, for the briefest moment, she heard a tone in the distance. A pure note vibrating through her." Inch resting....

The Urithiru gemstones resist Dalinar's attempts to infuse them. And Navani thinks that Bondsmiths are connected to the tower itself, in some way. Branderson give me the Urithiru lore.

I also wonder if it's related to the fact that Urithiru is the one place made of stone that's acceptable for the Shin to walk on.

So the Sibling is "slumbering" and that's seen as final by the spren because it was killed. But reviving a spren is...sort of possible? If Adolin and Maya is worth anything. Branderson give me the Sibling lore

Thought just now: I wonder who knows about Adolin's brief connection with Maya. I would imagine that Renarin is the most likely to know.

"Only [Alethi] are stubborn enough to bully nature herself." I mean, that's basically how Dalinar convinced the Stormfather to bond with him at first.

Also I have the feeling this beggar guy is the Mink, snuck aboard the ship, though I always am suspicious about beggars.

Lol yep, it's him. And he managed to get past the Cobalt Guard. This guy is gonna be entertaining.

Oh boy, more Fused! And ones who can fly! The next several chapters are gonna be fun to read!

Anyway, that's chapters 2 and 3! I'm excited for next week!

#anecdotes by peachdoxie #stormlight archive #stormlight spoilers #rhythm of war #peachdoxie liveblogs stormlight

[headoverjojo]

Hi Lov! Can I ask for BucciG with a S/o that's a bit awkward and a huge tec nerd? Like, there's no machine they cannot repair, even their Stand is able to hack any program in existence but they still have a curious sense of humor like: Turning On/Off the lights and other things in the middle of the night when they are alone in the kitchen, sending them a joking 'I know what you did the other day/I'm looking at you', but they are just harmless, innocent pranks?

Hi there, dear! Sure thing :3 here we go! I hope you’ll like it!

Bruno’s gang with a s/o who’s a tech nerd with a stand that is able to hack any program in existence

(Under the cut for length!)

Bruno Bucciarati

Bruno is so amazed by his s/o’s talent. It’s incredible! He knows how to use “technology”, as how to send or read an email, how to call or send a SMS, but not much more. If something doesn’t work, he doesn’t know where he has to put his hands! He’s better with repairing non-technological things. Give him a broken chair, and he’ll repair it in no time. Give him a broken phone, and he’ll immediately turn to his s/o, asking them for help.

Even if at first he may freak a bit out, if something similar happens, when he comes to know that it’s his s/o making pranks he stops worrying. If they’re having fun, why not? It’s all harmless, all in all! By now they even have their own code! If they are in the shower and soap is finished, it’s enough that they switch on and off the lights following a certain morse-like rhythm to make him understand what they need! Same as on missions; if they have to communicate with Bruno, but he’s far, they just use streetlights to transmit him their message or informations. It’d be also useful to retrieve informations, as they can hack every system and every computer! They’d save a lot of time, allowing them to act promptly and efficiently!

Leone Abbacchio

Leone is a big nop for technology. It was like this even when he was a policeman; he was one of those who still compiled reports with paper and pen, not even touching the computer. While he’s like this, his s/o is the complete opposite: they’re so damn good with technology! They perfectly know how to use it and how to repair a computer, a phone, everything that has even the tiniest bit of tech inside with their eyes closed. He has to admit that he’s amazed! It’s not a talent to underestimate!

He really, really doesn’t like when they put a prank on him using their stand. It happened in the middle of the night and, after making sure it wasn’t a “normal” problem, he understood that a stand was manipulating lights. And he was right! Just that it was his s/o and not an enemy stand. He almost beats them, as his cop instinct was telling him to do! He begs them not to do it again, not to him, at least. If they want to prank Mista or the others, they’re more than welcome, anyway. However, their stand ability could be really useful in missions! He’s the one assigned to reconnaissance missions and, often, he has to enter into buildings or private properties; their stand, by hacking the security cams, for example, would be fundamental!

Guido Mista

As Bruno, Mista grow up in an environment where technology wasn’t so sophisticated. They had a phone at home, some normal appliances, but nothing more. So, he’s amazed to see how they can play and repair every kind of electronic object! Nothing that is even a bit tech has secrets for them! He loves everything they do, they’re so talented! He’d even like to learn; he’s good with handworks, he just needs someone who’s willing to teach him! It’s also a wonderful excuse to spend more time together, so it’s a win-win!

Mista is known not just for his flawless aim, but also for his sixth sense; it always seems that he can sense nearby stands. And it happened also when his s/o decided to prank him: he felt the stand and, fearing it could be an enemy, he immediately took out his gun, ready to shoot. Just when he saw it was his s/o he finally relaxed, even if he was still a bit shaken; he could have shot them!! Even if, after that time, he doesn’t mind when they play with lights or technology, they have learned that it’s better not to scare him so suddenly, as his first reflex is to shoot. A safer prank for everyone would be randomly turning on the radio on a song he doesn’t like; hearing him groan and complain would be so fun!

Narancia Ghirga

Narancia is pretty neutral towards technology. He doesn’t despite it -in fact he appreciates it-, but also he doesn’t depend on it. If he can use a technological device, good, but if not, it’s good anyway! However, he always admired the people who invented and designed tech devices; so, when he sees that his s/o can repair them, he’s really enthusiast! They’re a genius, how can they do it?! Can they teach him?! He’d like so much to learn more from them! They surely can’t not feel appreciated, with him near them!

There’s a thing, however, that scares Narancia: darkness. Since when he was wrongly thrown in prison, darkness was what he feared the most, as his eye was getting worse and worse, day by day. He was scared to become blind, to die, not to see the light again… so, even at night, he has to have at least a little light, something that reminds him that he’s not blind and he’s alive. If they play with lights at night, it’s really probable that they scare the hell out of him, even triggering a panic attack; a better and more harmless prank would be making the stereo or the TV turning on randomly during the day. If there’s a song or a series that picks Narancia’s interest, he may even just stop and watch or listen to it ‘till the end!

Pannacotta Fugo

With Giorno, Fugo’s the one who knows how to use better tech advices. When he was a kid, his parents wanted him to be good at everything, and so they sent him also to a short IT course; here, Fugo learned how to properly use a computer, various programs and something about computer engineering. However, is nowhere near his s/o’s level; they’re simply amazing with tech devices! He’s completely taken aback by how easily and efficiently they repair everything that happens under their hands; this is an incredible talent…

Fugo doesn’t take well pranks, even if they’re harmless. He’s too damaged, too “on the edge” to react calmly to a prank. Sudden events scare him a lot, and when he’s scared, there’s a high risk that Purple Haze could slip out. It’s better for everyone not to prank him! But he’d surely appreciate something cute as a sudden message from them, during the day; it usually brights it a lot! And it would start a long chain of loving messages exchange that would make even the super romantic Mista sick. No one knows how much Fugo can be cheesy! He also recognizes how useful it could be in missions; not only that, but also safe for them, as they can hack programs and tech devices from afar, without getting personally involved. It’s such a relief!

Giorno Giovanna

Giorno, after Fugo, is the best of the team in using tech devices. He has always been one who observed closely and, by doing so, he learned how to use a pc, a phone, various domestic appliances. He wouldn’t be able to repair them, however! But here his s/o steps in, and Giorno can just admire their talent, how they flawlessly waltz among chips, cables and other pieces. It’s truly amazing! He’s lucky to have a s/o like them!

Even if he doesn’t react as badly as the others, to prank, he still doesn’t like them a lot. He doesn’t freak out, but it’s visible he’s a bit upset. He has to work also during night, sometimes, so having someone who switches on and off the light would slow his work down considerably; and an upset Giorno is not a good Giorno to deal with. However, he’d not mind if they send him a message during the day, being it, in fact, a huge stress relief! Knowing that they’re fine and well, and that they’re thinking about him always makes him smile. Sometimes they even jump in when he’s calling Bruno, and just when he’s calling him, making the conversation, often, go from stressful and tired to bright and carefree. He’s so grateful for these moments!

#jjba #vento aureo #bruno's gang #bruno bucciarati #leone abbacchio #guido mista #narancia ghirga #pannacotta fugo #giorno giovanna #neutral s/o #tech nerd s/o #headcanons #sfw #anon ask

[lilithvexx666]

The Origins of Satanism

  Satanism is not a Christian invention

Satanism predates Christianity and all other religions

Satanism is not about spooks, goblins, vampires, Halloween monsters or other related entities

Satanism is not about "evil"

Satanism is not an invention of, or a "reaction" to Christianity

Satanism is not a creation of Anton LaVey

Satanism is not about death

True Satanism is about elevating and empowering humanity to reach equality with the Gods, which was our True Creator (Satan's) intention

"IN THE SECRET OF MY KNOWLEDGE THERE IS NO GOD BUT ME"

-SATAN

From "Peace Be Unto Him"

Due to centuries of misinformation, lies, and the systematic removal of knowledge, few people these days understand or even know what “Satanism” really is all about.

Christianity has been at liberty to dictate without any opposition, what they CLAIM Satanism to be. In order to accomplish this, the truth had to be destroyed. The Catholic Church (the original Christian Church, from which all Christian sects have evolved), heinously tortured to death and mass-murdered millions of innocent men, women and children in what was known as "The Inquisition." Some children who were burnt to death in what were known as "witch houses" were as young as two years of age.¹

Christians forever rant and rave concerning the "one world order"where all identities, cultures, personal privacies, and liberties will be lost and humanity, after being systematically bar-coded, will be lumped into a one-world slave state. What they fail to see is how their own so-called "religion" and bible have always been and are the roots of and blueprint for this regime. Everything in the Judeo/Christian Bible has been stolen and corrupted from religions predating Judaism, Christianity, and Islam from hundreds to thousands of years.Through Judaism and its tool of Christianity, all of the original spiritual teachings from around the world, (which are CONCEPTS) have been stolen from, lumped together into the "one," and corrupted into Jewish archetypes and characters and fictitious places. This has given the Jewish people as a whole a false history, political power and "spiritual" authority to which they are not entitled.

The bible is a very powerful subliminal tool to control the masses. One can see this is a man-made work as there are endless contradictions. The bible has been systematically drummed into the minds of the populace from a very early age. A lie must always be enforced as opposed to the truth which can stand on its own. Because spiritual knowledge and occult power have been removed and kept in the hands of a "chosen" few, the unknowing populace has been helpless against it. The agenda here is to create a one-world slave state with the "chosen" few ruling at the top. The perpetrators of course blame Satan to create a necessary distraction, while they use occult power to accomplish their ends. They have a history of stealing from and blaming their enemies for everything they really are and do, while always holding themselves in the highest esteem and innocence.

The original religions now known as "Satanism" (by the way, "Satan" means "enemy" in Hebrew), were all based upon what is known as the "Magnum Opus" or Great Work. The one known as "Satan" is our True Creator God. He was prevented by the other Gods from finishing his work on humanity, that of the godhead. The godhead is physical and spiritual perfection. Now, if you continue to read on, I will prove this.

The serpent is seen everywhere in ancient relics and structures. The serpent was held sacred in all areas of the ancient world. Satan is the God Ea, aka ENKI, one of the first of the Nephilim to arrive on this planet and establish the first civilization. In Sumerian mythology, Enki's symbol was always the serpent.

The serpent represents the DNA, the life force and the kundalini and has survived as the emblem of the American Medical Association and Veterinary medicine, where it is symbolic of life and healing. Only with the coming of Judeo/Christianity, has this sacred symbol been desecrated and blasphemed.

Nearly all of us are familiar with the term "fallen." This word has been used copiously by Christian clergy to refer to Satan and his Demons. In truth, "fallen" pertains to the kundalini serpent (which has always been associated with our Creator God Satan), which has fallen in humanity as a whole and now lies dormant at the base of the spine. Because of this, humanity as a whole is on a very low level of spiritual understanding. Thoughtless abuses of children and animals, senseless wars, brutality and endless corruption are the results of the fallen serpent.

The "Tree of Life" which was stolen from the ancient Pagan religions and found its way into the biblical book of Genesis, was seen in many parts of the ancient world in friezes upon walls of ancient temples and in some tombs. The "Tree of Life" is actually a map of the human soul. The trunk is the spine and the branches are the pathways for the chi (bioelectricity).

The serpent is what empowers the soul, bringing the all-knowing state of super consciousness known as "samadhi." The "Sun-God" in truth is the ball of condensed chi (bioelectricity), which is visualized and circulated through each of the chakras (Gods) to empower and cleanse the soul, using specific meditations. This is stage one of the Magnum Opus.

The stolen accounts in the Judeo-Christian Bible of humans living for hundreds of years or more were taken from the objective of the Magnum Opus. This is where all so-called "witchcraft" leads to- alchemy of the soul. This is the highest and most profound working of the human mind, that of accomplishing the godhead of which is our birthright given to us from our Creator Satan.



The halo seen in many paintings is the witchpower of the risen kundalini. The Christians stole this concept from the original religions, both east and west. The Buddha is seen with a halo as are many of the Hindu Gods for one example.

The era in which the original religions reigned was known as the "Golden Age." Some 10,000 years ago, the Gods left us. This article is not to go into the details as to how or why. This will be covered in a separate article. The Gods are an extraterrestrial race of beings. As a matter of fact, there have been several different alien races that have lived here on planet Earth, and have taken an interest in human beings, either as friends, enemies, or neutrals.

The main Gods who interacted with humanity and are our creators (through genetic engineering) are the race of Gods known as the Nordics. They live throughout the galaxy in several different solar systems. They are highly advanced in knowledge, intelligence, and in spirit. Some are helpful to humans as are Satan and the Elder Gods who have been labeled as “Demons.” Some are neutral and others are and have been working for our destruction. The background concerning the creation can be found in more detail in separate articles on this website. There has been a war over humanity in which Satan and his Demons wish to give us the knowledge to elevate ourselves to spiritual and physical perfection, while the enemy wishes to keep us spiritually ignorant in order to use our life force (souls) as a free energy supply. 

In many writings of a spiritual or occult nature, the term "God" or "Gods" was also used to describe the seven chakras. Due to centuries of persecution of those who had spiritual knowledge, doctrines contained many allegories and code words. The number "seven" is repeated endlessly in the Judeo/Christian bible. This is a corruption of the seven chakras of the soul.

The original cross was equal armed, as seen in many of the Demon Sigils, with the points (representative of the chakras) flaring out. Other well-known examples are the Nazi Iron Cross and the Bikers' cross. In truth, this is the shape of the human soul, and represents the four elements (fire, earth, air and water) of which the human soul is comprised.The number four was stolen and corrupted in the Judeo/Christian Bible as with the number seven, the most blatant example being the four gospels.

The Tarot, which originated in Egypt and is based upon the constellations (Egypt was the center of Spiritual Alchemy) has evolved into a deck of cards, of which modern playing cards originated after the trump was discarded. The Tarot has a hidden message and instructions for performing the Magnum Opus. From the Tarot, the Jewish invented "Torah" was stolen, with the original teachings being thoroughly corrupted. The Jewish "Torah" is also known as "The Five Books of Moses" (another fictitious Jewish character based upon Sargon and Thutmose) or the "Pentateuch." The five books were rip-offs from the five suits of the Tarot: Wands/Rods (the element of fire), Pentacles/Coins (the element of earth), Cups (the element of water) and Swords (the element of air), with the trump being the aether or quintessence. All five elements form the essence of the human soul (the fifth element of quintessence holds the four together) and are employed in the working of the Magnum Opus.

Each of the Jewish characters and archetypes in the Bible are imposters stolen from Pagan Gods. "Jesus" is NOT a real being, but a CONCEPT. For those deluded Christians who believe they have experienced "Jesus" in reality, they are communing with nefarious extraterrestrial beings. Aleister Crowley while in a trance state, drew a picture of what is known to be "Jehova" (a corruption of "YHVH" another rip-off of the four quarters and elements, making the 'name' pronouncable) and drew a grey. At that time, knowledge of ET's was not widespread and photos of them were non-existent. These same beings are said to have made a deal with the Vatican: souls in exchange for wealth and power in the hands of a few. To accomplish this end, all spiritual knowledge had to be removed. No scam can succeed if the victim has knowledge. In order to be effectively victimized, one must be unknowing. Satan is the bringer of knowledge and enlightenment. He has nothing to hide.

Getting back to the nazarene, the crucifix of which I might add was not seen in any place of worship until after the ninth century and is another rip-off of the four quarters, the Jewish archetype "Jesus/Yeshua" is a CONCEPT. The 33 years he was said to have lived represent the 33 vertebrae of the human spine of which the kundalini ascends. The crucifixion symbolizes the Magnum Opus: the torture, the death, and the resurrection. Origins that symbolize this work include the Egyptian phoenix (born again from the ashes), the Egyptian God Set, who was crucified on a furka, the tale of Isis and Osiris, where Osiris was mutilated into some nine parts and was resurrected by Isis.

The Jewish "Virgin Mary" is a corrupted imposter of Astaroth. Michael the archangel is the same and was stolen from Marduk. Archangel "Gabriel" was stolen from the Egyptian God Thoth, Raphael was stolen from Azazel and Uriel from Beelzebub. Again, another rip-off of the four quarters.

For further information, links are provided at the bottom of this article.

Human sexuality has always been severely regulated and frowned upon by the Christian Church. This is because sexuality and orgasm as the life force are essential to spiritual advancement and the raising of the kundalini serpent. Because the church could not supervise sexual activity, they enforced a doctrine of extreme terror. The populace, stripped of all knowledge and spiritual power (ignorance= fear) fell victim to lies. “Hell” emerged on the scene. The word “Hell” was stolen from the Norse word “Hel” representing the Norse underworld. In truth, "Heaven" and "Hell" are code-words for the base and crown chakras. Every attempt was made by the church to replace any spiritual associations with these numbers and any significant numbers that were related to the human soul such as 144,000, which is the number of nadis within the human body to channel the life force. The number two became synonymous with Satan. The second chakra is sexual in nature and controls human sexuality, so of course any association with two was evil. Blockages in the second chakra keep an individual completely enslaved spiritually as the life force remains completely dormant in the first chakra.

With fear, human beliefs and thoughts can be controlled. Humanity was led to believe this omnipresent and “all-powerful” “God” could know their every little thought and action. Through fear, people began to monitor their own thoughts and actions. The seven sacraments (another rip-off of the seven chakras) of the Catholic Church enforced strict control over every stage of an individual’s life. The most control was exercised through the so-called "sacrament" of “confession.” Through confession, the church had even more control, that of knowing the deepest secrets of the frightened population. This enabled the ruling clergy to have power over kings, queens and other secular monarchy.

Satan tells us in the Black Book (The Al Jilwah), that many writings and texts have been altered. Upon researching the origins of various myths and religions, I find many authors are at a disagreement, both religious and secular. This is due to the Christian Church's systematic destruction and removal of ancient knowledge. To make matters worse, many of the remaining original documents that escaped destruction have been altered.

The Gods left us the truth, inscribed in stone. The pyramids (the pyramids are in the shape of the chakras) have stood against time. It is apparent these ancient monoliths were constructed for future humanity, left to us by the Gods who knew of our fate. These monuments speak for themselves. They were built to reflect the movements of the stars and act as a calendar for beginning the all-important work of the Magnum Opus. The Magnum Opus is normally commenced in the spring, when the Sun enters the sign of Aries, which is known as the "Vernal Equinox." The precise time for beginning this work is at 3 am, which is the hour of Satan. This is the true hour. The fictitious nazarene was said to have perished at 3 pm. 3 pm is actually 15:00, not three and is thus false.

The "Horned God" originates to Sumeria. The Sumerian Gods wore headgear with horns. This predates Judeo/Christianity by thousands of years. Pagan religions were known for their worship of the Horned God. Only with the coming of Christianity, were they repeatedly stamped out, but continued to resurface and survive. Again, the Horned God was maligned and labeled as "evil.The Horned God is a symbol of the the chi, the bioelectrical life-force. This is represented by Mercury, as it is fleeting, until fixed through the Magnum Opus. The glyph for the planet Mercury has the horns.

The carvings and the hieroglyphics on the Temple walls and the pyramids still remain with us today, as evidence of the truth for those who have enough spiritual knowledge to interpret them. This is why the Gods imprinted these into stone. Satanism is based upon the Magnum Opus. All of the Satanic symbols, the emphasis on witchcraft and knowledge; all of these represent the achievement of the godhead. The Magnum Opus is what Satanism is all about: humanity reaching physical and spiritual perfection.

References:

¹ Cassel Dictionary of Witchcraft by David Pickering, article on "Germany", page 108

The Lost Book of Enki; Memiores of an Extra-Terrestrial God by Zecharia Sitchin

Satan Wants You by Arthur Lyons, pp 24-26

The Biography of Satan by Kersey Graves, pp 146- 147

The People of the Sea- The Search for the Philistines by Trude and Moshe Dothan, pp 185- 186

[stoopjuice-blog]

The Fastest Way To Build The Wall In 2019

The Fastest Way To Build The Wall In 2019 The fastest way to build the wall and promote my bleak outlook for 2019 is to seek-out factual information that confirms my biases. I’d encourage people to read Upton Sinclair’s the Jungle to illustrate the news media’s birth through mercantilism and yellow journalism. This early playbook of blatant lies and omissions are being reenacted today by Donald Trump and his administration’s muckraking, while the 50 articles I’ve written on LinkedIn to encourage self reliance and mobilization go mostly unread.  Could this be the reason why so many well intentioned individuals who oppose the Trump administration opt for the road of least resistance?

Media

Before the printing press was invented, word of mouth was the primary source of news. Returning merchants, sailors and travelers brought news back to the mainland, and this was then picked up by peddlers and traveling merchants and spread from town to town. This transmission of news was highly unreliable, and died out with the invention of the printing press. By 1400, businessmen in Italian and German cities were compiling hand written chronicles of important news events, and circulating them to their business connections. The idea of using a printing press for this material first appeared in Germany around 1600. Magazines flourished after Napoleon left in 1815. Most were based in Paris and most emphasized literature, poetry and stories. They served religious, cultural and political communities. In times of political crisis they expressed and helped shape the views of their readership and thereby were major elements in the changing political culture. Theodore Roosevelt coined the term "muckraker" during a speech in 1906. He compared investigative reporters to the narrow-minded figure in John Bunyan's 17th-century religious fable, "The Pilgrim's Progress": the "man that could look no way but downwards, with a muckrake in his hand.” To others during the Progressive Era the term muckraker characterized reform-minded American journalists who attacked established institutions and leaders as corrupt. They typically had large audiences in some popular magazines. Yellow journalism or press presents little or no legitimate well-researched news while instead using eye-catching headlines for increased sales. Techniques may include exaggerations of news events, scandal-mongering, or sensationalism.

Mercantilism

Mercantilism is the economic theory that holds that the prosperity of a nation depends upon its supply of capital, and that the global trade is unchangeable. Capital is held by the state, is increased through balance of trade. Overall, they encourage exports and discourage imports, with the use of tariffs.

The 99%

Most people have an intuitive model of cooperative behavior that stems from two linked fears, one of being taken advantage of and another of under producing for lack of opportunities. Creating a way, a path, for us to work with citizens and government in a format that eliminates the ingrained fears by understanding both supply and demand is the primary goal. On the demand side, the commons situation encourages a race to the bottom by overuse—what economists call a congested–public-good problem. On the supply side, the commons rewards free-rider behavior—removing or diminishing incentives for individual actors to invest in developing more output.The tragedy of the commons predicts only three possible outcomes. One is the sea of mud. Another is for some actor with coercive power to enforce an allocation policy on behalf of the village (the socialist/communist solution). The third is for the commons to break up as village members, fence-off bits they can defend and manage sustainably.

Building The Wall

2018 witnessed 3 government shutdowns.  Currently, the President Of The United States forced the government to shutdown insisting we build a wall on the Mexico - US boarder. The support for the wall is another example of the tragedy of the commons whereas the demand for undocumented workers in certain industries in the U.S. creates incentive for others to cross the boarder which has led to the increase in illegal residents in the United States. On the supply side, many Americans don’t know what to study in college, because no one knows what skills learned at 20 will be relevant at 40. The number of these useless individual increases, not through chance but by definition diminishing incentives for this group to invest in developing additional skills in higher demand or outperforming undocumented workers in low skill work. Put another way, the fastest way Americans can build the wall is by outperforming undocumented workers in low skill industries. This will discourage others looking for work from crossing the Mexican border. Past Democratic or Republican administration’s inability to address this is partly to blame for the immigration mess we have today.

The way things are

In the real world, we are not all equal and Donald Trump is the President of The United States. Access to most opportunities are subsidized by access to wealth. This is followed by how much of the sciences, engineering, technology, management and skills of labor an individual possesses coinciding with an individual's ability to learn, understand and articulate effectively these areas of study. The fourth and final step is to make the application and utilize our aptitude and abilities on things within our power. It’s also very common for people to change the narrative they tell themselves regarding economic philosophies based upon experiences, education and self interest during their lifetime. Unfortunately, there is a serious shortage of super beings in America.

The way things should be

Instead of mimicking Donald Trump’s non-virtuous approach, we should seek to make open-source cooperation sustainable similar to what happens with software programs. Part of the answer certainly lies in the fact that using software does not decrease its value. Indeed, widespread use of open-source software tends to increase its value, as users fold in their own fixes and features (code patches). In this inverse commons, the grass grows taller when it's grazed upon.That this public good cannot be degraded by overuse takes care of half of the congested–public-goods problem. It doesn't explain why open source doesn't suffer from under provision. Why don't people who know the open-source community exists universally exhibit free-rider behavior, waiting for others to do the work they need, or (if they do the work themselves) not bothering to contribute the work back into the commons?Part of the answer lies in the fact that people don't merely need solutions, they need solutions on time. It's seldom possible to predict when someone else will finish a given piece of needed work. If the payoff from fixing a bug or adding a feature is sufficient to any potential contributor, that person will dive in and do it (at which point the fact that everyone else is a free rider becomes irrelevant).Another part of the answer lies in the fact that the putative market value of small patches to a common source base is hard to capture. Being reactive by only sitting on the patch gains nothing. Indeed, it incurs a future cost—the effort involved in re-merging the patch into the source base in each new release. So the payoff from this choice is actually negative. Suppose I wrote an article that encourages people to think and the readers find it easily accessible , and suppose many readers realize my article has a monetary value; how do I collect from all those people? We all can win if we see money for what it really is, a social construct that promotes exchange through trust. To put it more positively, by writing this article I gain from the reader’s input and potential input from different groups. I also gain because others will improve on my work in the future.

The road of least resistance 

We should enable Americans to form habitual ways to meet certain needs or solve day-to-day problems instead of reading distracting tweets from the President. Tell yourself, “greatness is the perception that virtue is enough”. Unfortunately, the common person often lacks virtue, instead we avoid looking within ourselves to make self-improvements to increase our value in the free market. The weakest rebuttal to what I propose is that no market is absolutely free; a frail objection since all things exists in the margins. I advocate for capitalism by arguing the economic pendulum should swing more in the direction of the free market in order to promote a better quality of life for the masses. Ideally, we could balance our lives, with clearly defined goals and a realistic understanding of outcome. Put another way, individuals must know and understand the probability and effectiveness of their actions in order to reach their goals. I think we need to be both constructively skeptical and virtuous while helping those in need. Since gauging need is subjective, it opens up the door for misinterpretation and disagreement regarding distribution. How do we qualify, quantify and communicate an individual’s need? Who’s the agent of interpretation? These are 5 beliefs of the current administration I disagree with that should be avoided:

1. Citizens and government want different things.

2. Technique counts more than intent.

3. Solutions have inherent value (one size fits all)

4. Donald Trump ignores Methodology 

5. World - class advocacy precedes world - class Inquiry (talking before listening) or a misinformed will to power approach.

Reversing these five key beliefs set the groundwork for a process that allows government to deal with undocumented workers and citizens in an honest, straightforward manner where we can discover all issues and needs, gather the hard information needed to create solutions that puts our country’s sustainability above all else. This can be done without wasting time and resources by avoiding redundancies by utilizing available (unbiased) data.

#buildthewall #brooklyn #parkslope #newyorkcity

[and-then-there-were-n0ne]

« Bats have a problem: how to find their way around in the dark. They hunt at night, and cannot use light to help them find prey and avoid obstacles. You might say that if this is a problem it is a problem of their own making, a problem that they could avoid simply by changing their habits and hunting by day. But the daytime economy is already heavily exploited by other creatures such as birds. Given that there is a living to be made at night, and given that alternative daytime trades are thoroughly occupied, natural selection has favoured bats that make a go of the night-hunting trade. It is probable, by the way, that the nocturnal trades go way back in the ancestry of all us mammals. In the time when the dinosaurs dominated the daytime economy, our mammalian ancestors probably only managed to survive at all because they found ways of scraping a living at night. Only after the mysterious mass extinction of the dinosaurs about 65 million years ago were our ancestors able to emerge into the daylight in any substantial numbers. 

Returning to bats, they have an engineering problem: how to find their way and find their prey in the absence of light. Bats are not the only creatures to face this difficulty today. Obviously the night-flying insects that they prey on must find their way about somehow. Deepsea fish and whales have little or no light by day or by night, because the sun's rays cannot penetrate far below the surface. Fish and dolphins that live in extremely muddy water cannot see because, although there is light, it is obstructed and scattered by the dirt in the water. Plenty of other modern animals make their living in conditions where seeing is difficult or impossible. Given the question of how to manoeuvre in the dark, what solutions might an engineer consider? 

The first one that might occur to him is to manufacture light, to use a lantern or a searchlight. Fireflies and some fish (usually with the help of bacteria) have the power to manufacture their own light, but the process seems to consume a large amount of energy. Fireflies use their light for attracting mates. This doesn't require prohibitively much energy: a male's tiny pinprick can be seen by a female from some distance on a dark night, since her eyes are exposed directly to the light source itself. Using light to find one's own way around requires vastly more energy, since the eyes have to detect the tiny fraction of the light that bounces off each part of the scene. The light source must therefore be immensely brighter if it is to be used as a headlight to illuminate the path, than if it is to be used as a signal to others. Anyway, whether or not the reason is the energy expense, it seems to be the case that, with the possible exception of some weird deep-sea fish, no animal apart from man uses manufactured light to find its way about. What else might the engineer think of? 

Well, blind humans sometimes seem to have an uncanny sense of obstacles in their path. It has been given the name 'facial vision', because blind people have reported that it feels a bit like the sense of touch, on the face. One report tells of a totally blind boy who could ride his tricycle at a good speed round the block near his home, using 'facial vision'. Experiments showed that, in fact, 'facial vision' is nothing to do with touch or the front of the face, although the sensation may be referred to the front of the face, like the referred pain in a phantom (severed) limb. The sensation of 'facial vision', it turns out, really goes in through the ears. The blind people, without even being aware of the fact, are actually using echoes, of their own footsteps and other sounds, to sense the presence of obstacles. Before this was discovered, engineers had already built instruments to exploit the principle, for example to measure the depth of the sea under a ship. After this technique had been invented, it was only a matter of time before weapons designers adapted it for the detection of submarines. Both sides in the Second World War relied heavily on these devices, under such code names as Asdic (British) and Sonar (American), as well as the similar technology of Radar (American) or RDF (British), which uses radio echoes rather than sound echoes.

The Sonar and Radar pioneers didn't know it then, but all the world now knows that bats, or rather natural selection working on bats, had perfected the system tens of millions of years earlier, and their 'radar' achieves feats of detection and navigation that would strike an engineer dumb with admiration. It is technically incorrect to talk about bat 'radar', since they do not use radio waves. It is sonar. But the underlying mathematical theories of radar and sonar are very similar, and much of our scientific understanding of the details of what bats are doing has come from applying radar theory to them. The American zoologist Donald Griffin, who was largely responsible for the discovery of sonar in bats, coined the term 'echolocation' to cover both sonar and radar, whether used by animals or by human instruments. In practice, the word seems to be used mostly to refer to animal sonar. 

It is misleading to speak of bats as though they were all the same. It is as though we were to speak of dogs, lions, weasels, bears, hyenas, pandas and otters all in one breath, just because they are all carnivores. Different groups of bats use sonar in radically different ways, and they seem to have 'invented' it separately and independently, just as the British, Germans and Americans all independently developed radar. Not all bats use echolocation. The Old World tropical fruit bats have good vision, and most of them use only their eyes for finding their way around. One or two species of fruit bats, however, for instance Rousettus, are capable of finding their way around in total darkness where eyes, however good, must be powerless. They are using sonar, but it is a cruder kind of sonar than is used by the smaller bats with which we, in temperate regions, are familiar.

Rousettus clicks its tongue loudly and rhythmically as it flies, and navigates by measuring the time interval between each click and its echo. A good proportion of Rousettus's clicks are clearly audible to us (which by definition makes them sound rather than ultrasound: ultrasound is just the same'as sound except that it is too high for humans to hear). In theory, the higher the pitch of a sound, the better it is for accurate sonar. This is because low-pitched sounds have long wavelengths which cannot resolve the difference between closely spaced objects. All other things being equal therefore, a missile that used echoes for its guidance system would ideally produce very high-pitched sounds. Most bats do, indeed, use extremely high-pitched sounds, far too high for humans to hear - ultrasound. Unlike Rousettus, which can see very well and which uses unmodified relatively low-pitched sounds to do a modest amount of echolocation to supplement its good vision, the smaller bats appear to be technically highly advanced echo-machines. They have tiny eyes which, in most cases, probably can't see much. They live in a world of echoes, and probably their brains can use echoes to do something akin to 'seeing' images, although it is next to impossible for us to 'visualize' what those images might be like. The noises that they produce are not just slightly too high for humans to hear, like a kind of super dog whistle. In many cases they are vastly higher than the highest note anybody has heard or can imagine. It is fortunate that we can't hear them, incidentally, for they are immensely powerful and would be deafeningly loud if we could hear them, and impossible to sleep through. These bats are like miniature spy planes, bristling with sophisticated instrumentation. [...]

Myotis, one of the common little brown bats, [emits pulses] at a rate of about 10 per second. This is about the rate of a standard teleprinter, or a Bren machine gun. Presumably the bat's image of the world in which it is cruising is being updated 10 times per second. Our own visual image appears to be continuously updated as long as our eyes are open. We can see what it might be like to have an intermittently updated world image, by using a stroboscope at night. This is sometimes done at discotheques, and it produces some dramatic effects. A dancing person appears as a succession of frozen statuesque attitudes. Obviously, the faster we set the strobe, the more the image corresponds to normal 'continuous' vision. Stroboscopic vision 'sampling' at the bat's cruising rate of about 10 samples per second would be nearly as good as normal 'continuous' vision for some ordinary purposes, though not for catching a ball or an insect. This is just the sampling rate of a bat on a routine cruising flight. When a little brown bat detects an insect and starts to move in on an interception course, its [rate] goes up. Faster than a machine gun, it can reach peak rates of 200 pulses per second as the bat finally closes in on the moving target. [...]

If we may imagine bat brains as building up an image of the world analogous to our visual images, the pulse rate alone seems to suggest that the bat's echo image might be at least as detailed and 'continuous' as our visual image. Of course, there may be other reasons why it is not so detailed as our visual image. If bats are capable of boosting their sampling rates to 200 pulses per second, why don't they keep this up all the time? Since they evidently have a rate control 'knob' on their 'stroboscope', why don't they turn it permanently to maximum, thereby keeping their perception of the world at its most acute, all the time, to meet any emergency? One reason is that these high rates are suitable only for near targets. If a pulse follows too hard on the heels of its predecessor it gets mixed up with the echo of its predecessor returning from a distant target. Even if this weren't so, there would probably be good economic reasons for not keeping up the maximum pulse rate all the time. It must be costly producing loud ultrasonic pulses, costly in energy, costly in wear and tear on voice and ears, perhaps costly in computer time. A brain that is processing 200 distinct echoes per second might not find surplus capacity for thinking about anything else. Even the ticking-over rate of about 10 pulses per second is probably quite costly, but much less so than the maximum rate of 200 per second. An individual bat that boosted its tickover rate would pay an additional price in energy, etc., which would not be justified by the increased sonar acuity. [...] When the salient vicinity includes another moving object, particularly a flying insect twisting and turning and diving in a desperate attempt to shake off its pursuer, the extra benefit to the bat of increasing its sample rate more than justifies the increased cost. 

Of course, the considerations of cost and benefit in this paragraph are all surmise, but something like this almost certainly must be going on. The engineer who sets about designing an efficient sonar or radar device soon comes up against a problem resulting from the need to make the pulses extremely loud. They have to be loud because when a sound is broadcast its wavefront advances as an ever-expanding sphere. The intensity of the sound is distributed and, in a sense, 'diluted' over the whole surface of the sphere. The surface area of any sphere is proportional to the radius squared. The intensity of the sound at any particular point on the sphere therefore decreases, not in proportion to the distance (the radius) but in proportion to the square of the distance from the sound source, as the wavefront advances and the sphere swells. This means that the sound gets quieter pretty fast, as it travels away from its source, in this case the bat. When this diluted sound hits an object, say a fly, it bounces off the fly. This reflected sound now, in its turn, radiates away from the fly in an expanding spherical wavefront. For the same reason as in the case of the original sound, it decays as the square of the distance from the fly. By the time the echo reaches the bat again, the decay in its intensity is proportional, not to the distance of the fly from the bat, not even to the square of that distance, but to something more like the square of the square - the fourth power, of the distance. This means that it is very very quiet indeed. The problem can be partially overcome if the bat beams the sound by means of the equivalent of a megaphone, but only if it already knows the direction of the target. In any case, if the bat is to receive any reasonable echo at all from a distant target, the outgoing squeak as it leaves the bat must be very loud indeed, and the instrument that detects the echo, the ear, must be highly sensitive to very quiet sounds - the echoes. 

Bat cries, as we have seen, are indeed often very loud, and their ears are very sensitive. Now here is the problem that would strike the engineer trying to design a bat-like machine. If the microphone, or ear, is as sensitive as all that, it is in grave danger of being seriously damaged by its own enormously loud outgoing pulse of sound. It is no good trying to combat the problem by making the sounds quieter, for then the echoes would be too quiet to hear. And it is no good trying to combat that by making the [ear] more sensitive, since this would only make it more vulnerable to being damaged by the, albeit now slightly quieter, outgoing sounds! It is a dilemma inherent in the dramatic difference in intensity between outgoing sound and returning echo, a difference that is inexorably imposed by the laws of physics. What other solution might occur to the engineer? 

When an analogous problem struck the designers of radar in the Second World War, they hit upon a solution which they called 'send/receive' radar. The radar signals were sent out in necessarily very powerful pulses, which might have damaged the highly sensitive aerials (American 'antennas') waiting for the faint returning echoes. The 'send/receive' circuit temporarily disconnected the receiving aerial just before the outgoing pulse was about to be emitted, then switched the aerial on again in time to receive the echo. Bats developed 'send/receive' switching technology long long ago, probably millions of years before our ancestors came down from the trees. It works as follows. In bat ears, as in ours, sound is transmitted from the eardrum to the microphonic, sound-sensitive cells by means of a bridge of three tiny bones known (in Latin) as the hammer, the anvil and the stirrup, because of their shape. [...] What matters here is that some bats have well-developed muscles attached to the stirrup and to the hammer. When these muscles are contracted the bones don't transmit sound so efficiently - it is as though you muted a microphone by jamming your thumb against the vibrating diaphragm. The bat is able to use these muscles to switch its ears off temporarily. The muscles contract immediately before the bat emits each outgoing pulse,thereby switching the ears off so that they are not damaged by the loud pulse. Then they relax so that the ear returns to maximal sensitivity just in time for the returning echo. This send/receive switching system works only if split-second accuracy in timing is maintained. The bat called Tadarida is capable of alternately contracting and relaxing its switching muscles 50 times per second, keeping in perfect synchrony with the machine gun-like pulses of ultrasound. [...]

The next problem that might occur to our engineer is the following. If the sonar device is measuring the distance of targets by measuring the duration of silence between the emission of a sound and its returning echo - the method which Rousettus, indeed, seems to be using - the sounds would seem to have to be very brief, staccato pulses. A long drawn-out sound would still be going on when the echo returned, and, even if partially muffled by send/receive muscles, would get in the way of detecting the echo. Ideally, it would seem, bat pulses should be very brief indeed. But the briefer a sound is, the more difficult it is to make it energetic enough to produce a decent echo. We seem to have another unfortunate trade-off imposed by the laws of physics. Two solutions might occur to ingenious engineers, indeed did occur to them when they encountered the same problem, again in the analogous case of radar. Which of the two solutions is preferable depends on whether it is more important to measure range (how far away an object is from the instrument) or velocity (how fast the object is moving relative to the instrument). 

The first solution is that known to radar engineers as chirp radar. We can think of radar signals as a series of pulses, but each pulse has a so-called carrier frequency. [...] The special feature of chirp radar is that it does not have a fixed carrier frequency during each shriek. Rather, the carrier frequency swoops up or down about an octave. [...] The advantage of chirp radar, as opposed to the fixed pitch pulse, is the following. It doesn't matter if the original chirp is still going on when the echo returns. They won't be confused with each other. This is because the echo being detected at any given moment will be a reflection of an earlier part of the chirp, and will therefore have a different pitch. Human radar designers have made good use of this ingenious technique. Is there any evidence that bats have 'discovered' it too, just as they did the send/receive system? Well, as a matter of fact, numerous species of bats do produce cries that sweep down, usually through about an octave, during each cry. These wolf-whistle cries are known as frequency modulated (FM). They appear to be just what would be required to exploit the 'chirp radar' technique. However, the evidence so far suggests that bats are using the technique, not to distinguish an echo from the original sound that produced it, but for the more subtle task of distinguishing echoes from other echoes. A bat lives in a world of echoes from near objects, distant objects and objects at all intermediate distances. It has to sort these echoes out from each other. If it gives downward-swooping, wolf-whistle chirps, the sorting is neatly done by pitch. When an echo from a distant object finally arrives back at the bat, it will be an 'older' echo than an echo that is simultaneously arriving back from a near object. It will therefore be of higher pitch. When the bat is faced with clashing echoes from several objects, it can apply the rule of thumb: higher pitch means farther away. 

The second clever idea that might occur to the engineer, especially one interested in measuring the speed of a moving target, is to exploit what physicists call the Doppler Shift. [...] The Doppler Shift occurs whenever a source of sound (or light or any other kind of wave) and a receiver of that sound move relative to one another. [...I]f we ride fast on a motorbike past a wailing factory siren, when we are approaching the factory the pitch will be raised: our ears are, in effect, gobbling up the [sound] waves at a faster rate than they would if we just sat still. By the same kind of argument, when our motorbike has passed the factory and is moving away from it, the pitch will be lowered. If we stop moving we shall hear the pitch of the siren as it actually is, intermediate between the two Doppler-shifted pitches. It follows that if we know the exact pitch of the siren, it is theoretically possible to work out how fast we are moving towards or away from it simply by listening to the apparent pitch and comparing it with the known 'true' pitch. The same principle works when the sound source is moving and the hstener is still. [...] It is relative motion that matters, and as far as the Doppler Effect is concerned it doesn't matter whether we consider the sound source to be moving past the ear, or the ear moving past the sound source. [...] The Doppler Effect is used in police radar speed-traps for motorists. A static instrument beams radar signals down a road. The radar waves bounce back off the cars that approach, and are registered by the receiving apparatus. The faster a car is moving, the higher is the Doppler shift in frequency. By comparing the outgoing frequency with the frequency of the returning echo the police, or rather their automatic instrument, can calculate the speed of each car. If the police can exploit the technique for measuring the speed of road hogs, dare we hope to find that bats use it for measuring the speed of insect prey? The answer is yes. 

The small bats known as horseshoe bats have long been known to emit long, fixed-pitch hoots rather than staccato clicks or descending wolf-whistles. When I say long, I mean long by bat standards. The 'hoots' are still less than a tenth of a second long. And there is often a 'wolf-whistle' tacked onto the end of each hoot, as we shall see. Imagine, first, a horseshoe bat giving out a continuous hum of ultrasound as it flies fast towards a still object, like a tree. The wavefronts will hit the tree at an accelerated rate because of the movement of the bat towards the tree. If a microphone were concealed in the tree, it would 'hear' the sound Doppler-shifted upwards in pitch because of the movement of the bat. There isn't a microphone in the tree, but the echo reflected back from the tree will be Doppler-shifted upwards in pitch in this way. Now, as the echo wavefronts stream back from the tree towards the approaching bat, the bat is still moving fast towards them. Therefore there is a further Doppler shift upwards in the bat's perception of the pitch of the echo. The movement of the bat leads to a kind of double Doppler shift, whose magnitude is a precise indication of the velocity of the bat relative to the tree. By comparing the pitch of its cry with the pitch of the returning echo, therefore, the bat (or rather its on-board computer in the brain) could, in theory, calculate how fast it was moving towards the tree. This wouldn't tell the bat how far away the tree was, but it might still be very useful information, nevertheless. If the object reflecting the echoes were not a static tree but a moving insect, the Doppler consequences would be more complicated, but the bat could still calculate the velocity of relative motion between itself and its target, obviously just the kind of information a sophisticated guided missile like a hunting bat needs. 

Actually some bats play a trick that is more interesting than simply emitting hoots of constant pitch and measuring the pitch of the returning echoes. They carefully adjust the pitch of the outgoing hoots, in such a way as to keep the pitch of the echo constant after it has been Doppler-shifted. As they speed towards a moving insect, the pitch of their cries is constantly changing, continuously hunting for just the pitch needed to keep the returning echoes at a fixed pitch. This ingenious trick keeps the echo at the pitch to which their ears are maximally sensitive - important since the echoes are so faint. They can then obtain the necessary information for their Doppler calculations, by monitoring the pitch at which they are obliged to hoot in order to achieve the fixed-pitch echo. I don't know whether man-made devices, either sonar or radar, use this subtle trick. But on the principle that most clever ideas in this field seem to have been developed first by bats, I don't mind betting that the answer is yes. It is only to be expected that these two rather different techniques, the Doppler shift technique and the 'chirp radar' technique, would be useful for different special purposes. Some groups of bats specialize in one of them, some in the other. Some groups seem to try to get the best of both worlds, tacking an FM 'wolf-whistle' onto the end (or sometimes the beginning) of a long, constant-frequency 'hoot'. [...]

Human experimenters have found it surprisingly difficult to put bats off their stride by playing loud artificial ultrasound at them. With hindsight one might have predicted this. Bats must have come to terms with the jamming-avoidance problem long ago. Many species of bats roost in enormous aggregations, in caves that must be a deafening babel of ultrasound and echoes, yet the bats can still fly rapidly about the cave, avoiding the walls and each other in total darkness. How does a bat keep track of its own echoes, and avoid being misled by the echoes of others? The first solution that might occur to an engineer is some sort of frequency coding: each bat might have its own private frequency, just like separate radio stations. To some extent this may happen, but it is by no means the whole story. How bats avoid being jammed by other bats is not well understood, but an interesting clue comes from experiments on trying to put bats off. It turns out that you can actively deceive some bats if you play back to them their own cries with an artificial delay. Give them, in other words, false echoes of their own cries. It is even possible, by carefully controlling the electronic apparatus delaying the false echo, to make the bats attempt to land on a 'phantom' ledge. I suppose it is the bat equivalent of looking at the world through a lens. It seems that bats may be using something that we could call a 'strangeness filter'. Each successive echo from a bat's own cries produces a picture of the world that makes sense in terms of the previous picture of the world built up with earlier echoes. If the bat's brain hears an echo from another bat's cry, and attempts to incorporate it into the picture of the world that it has previously built up, it will make no sense. It will appear as though objects in the world have suddenly jumped in various random directions. Objects in the real world do not behave in'such a crazy way, so the brain can safely filter out the apparent echo as background noise. If a human experimenter feeds the bat artificially delayed or accelerated 'echoes' of its own cries, the false echoes will make sense in terms of the world picture that the bat has previously built up. The false echoes are accepted by the strangeness filter because they are plausible in the context of the previous echoes. They cause objects to seem to shift in position by only a small amount, which is what objects plausibly can be expected to do in the real world. The.bat's brain relies upon the assumption that the world portrayed by any one echo pulse will be either the same as the world portrayed by previous pulses, or only slightly different: the insect being tracked may have moved a little, for instance. [...] 

If you want to share a bat's experience, it is almost certainly grossly misleading to go into a cave, shout or bang two spoons together, consciously time the delay before you hear the echo, and calculate from this how far the wall must be. That is no more what it is like to be a bat than the following is a good picture of what it is like to see colour: use an instrument to measure the wavelength of the light that is entering your eye: if it is long, you are seeing red, if it is short you are seeing violet or blue. It happens to be a physical fact that the light that we call red has a longer wavelength than the light that we call blue. Different wavelengths switch on the red-sensitive and the blue-sensitive photocells in our retinas. But there is no trace of the concept of wavelength in our subjective sensation of the colours. Nothing about 'what it is like' to see blue or red tells us which light has the longer wavelength. If it matters (it usually doesn't), we just have to remember it, or (what I always do) look it up in a book. Similarly, a bat perceives the position of an insect using what we call echoes. But the bat surely no more thinks in terms of delays of echoes when it perceives an insect, than we think in terms of wavelengths when we perceive blue or red. Indeed, if I were forced to try the impossible, to imagine what it is like to be a bat, I would guess that echolocating, for them, might be rather like seeing for us. We are such thoroughly visual animals that we hardly realize what a complicated business seeing is. Objects are 'out there'; and we think that we 'see' them out there. But I suspect that really our percept is an elaborate computer model in the brain, constructed on the basis of information coming from out there, but transformed in the head into a form in which that information can be used. Wavelength differences in the light out there become coded as 'colour' differences in the computer model in the head. Shape and other attributes are encoded in the same kind of way, encoded into a form that is convenient to handle. The sensation of seeing is, for us, very different from the sensation of hearing, but this cannot be'directly due to the physical differences between light and sound. Both light and sound are, after all, translated by the respective sense organs into the same kind of nerve impulses. It is impossible to tell, from the physical attributes of a nerve impulse, whether it is conveying information about light, about sound or about smell. The reason the sensation of seeing is so different from the sensation of hearing and the sensation of smelling is that the brain finds it convenient to use different kinds of internal model of the visual world, the world of sound and the world of smell. It is because we internally use our visual information and our sound information in different ways and for different purposes that the sensations of seeing and hearing are so different. It is not directly because of the physical differences between light and sound. But a bat uses its sound information for very much the same kind of purpose as we use our visual information. It uses sound to perceive, and continuously update its perception of, the position of objects in three-dimensional space, just as we use light. The type of internal computer model that it needs, therefore, is one suitable for the internal representation of the changing positions of objects in threedimensional space. My point is that the form that an animal's subjective experience takes will be a property of the internal computer model. That model will be designed, in evolution, for its suitability for useful internal representation, irrespective of the physical stimuli that come to it from outside. Bats and we need the same kind of internal model for representing the position of objects in three-dimensional space. The fact that bats construct their internal model with the aid of echoes, while we construct ours with the aid of light, is irrelevant. That outside information is, in any case, translated into the same kind of nerve impulses on its way to the brain. »

— The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design, Richard Dawkins

#richard dawkins

[douchebagbrainwaves]

LET THE SEGWAY

This doesn't just affect what they claim to like; they actually make themselves like things they're supposed to, they'll be thought uncultured. That's the only rational explanation for focusing on getting the right valuations, instead of what he did. And while governments might be able to do what they want to do when they're 12, and just glide along as if they enjoyed their work was presumably the upper-middle class convention that you're supposed to work on things that will make the world better.1 The immediate cause of death in a startup is that you have to rewrite it to do more than find good projects.2 Always produce will discover your life's work the way water, with the aid of gravity, finds the hole in your roof.3 You have to imagine being two people.4 Art is man-made. But I've been kicking ideas around long enough to know what they want to do real work.5 At one extreme is the day job, where you go looking for problems without knowing what you're looking for companies that are going to be good. If you write in an unclear way about big ideas, you produce something that seems tantalizingly attractive to inexperienced but intellectually ambitious students.

If you don't seem like you have the destination in sight you'll be more likely to take 2 weeks than 2 months.6 Math would happen without math departments, but it does at least make you keep an open mind. You never do your best work in a few. Let's look at Silicon Valley the way you'd say it to a friend. It's also true that there are quite a few marketplaces out there that serve this same market. Once you start talking about audiences, you don't have to worry much. Like a company whose only purpose is patent litigation.7 If I had a design philosophy.8 Once both parties realize it's a waste of time to nominate uncharismatic candidates, they'll tend to nominate only the most charismatic ones.9 The core of the Democrats' ideology seems to be a property of objects after all. The games played by intellectuals are leaking into the real world, wealth is except for a few vestigial domestic tasks.10

When you write something telling people to be good at it; you have to be doing something else; and though businesses, their founders often know nothing about business. No one after reading Aristotle's Metaphysics does anything differently as a result. So the point of this essay is not to say naivete about them that suggests some of the qualities of the founders.11 Why do good hackers have bad business ideas? I have to risk destroying your country to get a multiple of 10 6—one million x. Twenty-six years later, pundits said the country had lurched to the right.12 Not any more. So the point of this essay is not to compile a complete list, just to show that there's some solid ground here.

In fact, what makes the preceding paragraph true is that most readers won't believe it—at least to the extent that income varies simply according to how much wealth people create, the distribution may be unequal, but it's not part of any specific science; it's literally meta-physics in our sense of meta.13 You grow big by being mean. The power of this technique extends beyond startups and programming languages and essays.14 The trouble is, you may not want to make ambitious people waste their time on errands, the way to get wealth is by stealing it. More often people who do great things seem to be so far. You usually start collecting money from the most committed investors and work your way out toward the ambivalent ones, whose interest increases as the round fills up. But if capital gains rates vary, you move assets, not yourself, so changes are reflected at market speeds.

When you manipulate a program in one's head: to see when two ideas don't fully cover the space of possibilities, or when one idea is the same as intelligence. It's hard to follow, especially when you're young. From either direction we get to the point here, vice versa. In US presidential elections, the more admirable it is.15 Next year you'll have to deal with internationalization from the beginning. If you do anything well enough, you'll make it prestigious. If you know you can love work, you're in the home stretch, and if you try to raise money. Programs often have to work on a particular problem is that big projects tend to grow out of small ones. Singapore would face a similar problem.16 What are the most important advantage of being good is that it makes it easier for Twitter to spread.

And if you start the kind of startup where users come back each day, you've basically built yourself a giant tamagotchi. That, I think, is that it acts as a compass.17 Perhaps not everyone can do work they love—that someone has to do it is to get the process rolling is get those first few startups successfully launched. If you go to see them at work.18 They'd face some challenges if they wanted to do things that super-angels would quibble about valuations. As Joe McGinnis recounts in his famous book The Selling of the President 1968, Nixon knew he had less charisma than Humphrey, and thus might vary in the course of a study. I chose computers. Some tricks are quite subtle. To start with, Silicon Valley is not even a nationalistic one. It's also what causes smart people to be competent, you can't bully customers, so you can say things you wouldn't say in conversation. Write rereadable code.

Notes

I didn't need to learn to acknowledge as well. If you seem evasive than if you do if your school sucks, where there were, they'd be called acting Japanese. It also set off an extensive and often useful discussion on the proceeds of the next round is high as well. In that case the money is in the services, companies building lightweight clients have usually tried to preserve their wealth by forbidding the export of gold or silver.

They would have gotten where they are like sheep, but for different reasons. A web site is different from deciding to move forward. Another advantage of having employers pay for stuff online, if you threatened a company has ever been. Now many tech companies don't advertise this.

A rolling close doesn't mean easy, of course, Feynman and Diogenes were from adjacent traditions, but I wouldn't bet against it either.

94 says a 1952 study of rhetoric was inherited directly from Rome, where many of the previous two years after 1914 a nightmare than to call those before a consortium of investors started offering investment automatically to every startup we had high hopes for doesn't do well, but it's always better to be able to buy your kids' way into top colleges by sending them to keep the next three years, it was cooked up by the leading scholars in the biggest company of all. They're motivated by examples of other people in the 1990s, except in the Neolithic period.

It also set off an extensive biography, and no one who's had the discipline to pull ahead in the production of high school. This technique wouldn't work for us!

There are two ways to help you along by promising to invest more.

In principle you might be? I don't know who invented something the telephone, the computer world, but I think it might even be conscious of this talk, so we should work like casual conversation.

Yes, there are those that have to be vigorously enforced. You have to do others chose Marx or Cardinal Newman, and an haughty spirit before a consortium of investors. The dictator in the mid 1980s.

65 million. The philistines have now missed the video boat entirely.

Few consciously realize that in the construction industry. Josh Wilson came in to pick up a solution. A deal flow, then used a TV for a lot of the leading scholars in the early adopters. Historically, scarce-resource arguments have been fooled by the financial controls of World War II had disappeared.

The only people who should quit their day job. At first I didn't realize it till I started doing research for this type are also startlingly popular on pre-Google search engines are so much worse than Japanese car companies, but that wasn't a partnership.

Price of Inequality. When I was living in cities. We react like children, we're going to visit 20 different communities regularly.

That's one of the aircraft is. 92.

Adults care just as European politics then had no natural immunity to messianic figures, just as big as any adult's. For example, the television, the Nasdaq index was. Ii.

Most of the whole.

But if so, even though you don't have the concept of the political pressure against Airbnb than hotel companies. So instead of uebfgbsb. This is a major cause of poverty.

Foster, Richard, Life of Isaac Newton, p. Some of the iPhone SDK.

I'd almost say to the writing teachers were transformed in situ into English professors.

#automatically generated text #Markov chains #Paul Graham #Python #Patrick Mooney #whole #Rome #sup #speeds #list #consortium #market #telephone #country #Metaphysics #essay #Nasdaq #site #something #Inequality #intelligence #li #years #lot #point

[megacircuit9universe]

_ _ . _

 Locomotives... freight trains... the backbone of modern civilization... have existed now in every country, on every continent (except Antarctica) for over a century.

Railroads are not only responsible for the development of time zones, to establish a global clock, but also the telegraph... that early precursor to telephone, radio, and internet networks that now span the globe.

Of course, the telegraph would have been useless without Morse Code, the first ever binary method of communication, employing dots and dashes... the precursors to the zeros and ones of the digital age.  

Morse code quickly became an international standard (still in use today) for not only hard wired telegraphic communication between railroad stations, but later, radio telegraphy for ships at sea.

At any rate, if you live in the United States... as well as any other nation that was once part of the British Empire... and many others that weren’t... you’ll notice to this day, that as a train (whether commuter or freight) approaches a grade level crossing with a road... it always sounds the horn with the same warning sequence...

...long... long... short... long.

Dash, dash, dot, dash.

Morse code for the letter Q.

Every distant, romantic train horn you’ve ever heard... has been a sonic representation of the letter Q.  And it’s been that way since before the Civil War.

More than this, as early as 1913 (Pre WW1) an international standard for radio telegraph was developed... of Q-codes. Twelve, three-letter codes, in Morse code, all beginning with the letter Q... to facilitate “queries,” ship to ship, or ship to port.

For example:  

QRB - What is your distance?

QRG - What line do you belong to?

QRJ - How many words do you have to send?

QRK - do you recieve me?

These are still used today, including by ham radio operators, and the Q codes are the reason why no national or international ID call sign can begin with Q.  It’s a sacred letter, in morse code.

Why?  Well... I’ll get to that soon, but first we need to address how the Q-anon movement explains why this aphabetical letter, emblematic of their model... is the one sonically transmitted to every back yard in America by distant freight trains day and night.

Are the locomotive engineers in on the truth?  Are they blasting the letter Q in morse code throughout the land, day and night, as a signal for those who know the truth to keep the faith and stay strong in the face of adversity?

Or did the agent known as Q, who began the movement, pick this letter because of it’s sacred history in signal intelligence? 

Probably both, right?

Well... if you do a word search on Wikipedia’s extensive Q-anon entry, for either, “Q code,” or, “Q signal,” you turn up... nothing.

Try it.

Nothing.

The agent purporting to be a deep state mole... who chose to call himself Q... doing his level best to establish maximum noteriety among the general populace, for the sake of exposing a dark truth about the inner workings of our government and society... 

...did, and does not know that train horns broadcast the letter Q, in the open air, every day, everywhere in the nation... AND... neither do ANY of his followers online... themselves, purporting to be deep net, tech savvy super sleuths.

Let this sink in...

A purported deep state insider... who is definitely NOT a conspiracy theorist... talking to an audience of tech savvy super sleuths who are definitely NOT conspiracy theorists... failed UTTERLY for some four years now... to capitalize on the fact that the trains themselves... broadcast their code-letter every day.

Not only did they fail to capitalize on it... they failed utterly to acknowledge this was a thing.  Not just the train crossing signal, but the many Q-codes that have been used in ham radio transmissions for the past century.

I thought Q was a signal intelligence agent... or at least, an agent who had some cursory knowledge of basic sigint 101.  I thought his followers were tech savvy denizens of the deep net... or at least, people who had some cursory knowledge of sigint 101.

He’s not, and they don’t.

How did I find out the SECRET of trains broadcasting the letter Q in morse code?..

...A tour guide at the local trolley museum told the whole group as part of his spiel, as we rode on the trolley one Sunday afternoon.

Being as the British invented the locomotive, in the Victorian era, they chose the letter Q for the train horns to sound before grade crossings... because it stood for, “Queen.”

The Brits also developed the origina Q-codes for radio telegraphy... in that case preserving the Q for Queen, but having it do double duty as the signal for “querry,” or “question.”

Imagine if Q-anon had ever been sharp enough to even say, Q is our emblem, because it has a hallowed history, for over a century in signal intelligence, and it stands for, question.  Question what the media is telling you!

But no... they’ve never come anywhere close to saying that in four years, because they were never bright enough to connect those very obvious dots... and dashes.  

Insiders, with secret insights... who have no clue what morse code is... and no idea about the public, and easily researched, history of the letter Q, and it’s sacred place in the history of telegraphy, radiography, and, by an unbroken line of inheritance, the world wide web.

Imagine being that stupid.

-----------------

There’s only a short list of “cool” letters in the alphabet...

Q, V, X, and Z.

Our Agent Q, appears to have picked his letter at random, among those four... without any appreciation for how he could use it to bolster his credibility... because he didn’t know that he could.

Can Agent X claim the trains are transmitting his symbol to the masses?  No.  Can Agent V, or Agent Z?  No!

Q could have, but did not... because he’s an idiot, without the first clue about signal intelligence, much less anything else.

Oh, but no!  Maybe Q did pick this letter, but did not boast of it, so that people could figure it out for themselves, or absorb it unconsciously via train horns!

Firstly, nobody’s making that argument, because nobody knows I’m attacking them on this front, but secondly... if even a single one of his followers had any brains at all in their heads... this issue would have come up in four years.  

Secondly, nobody knows Morse code anymore, so nobody would unconsciously connect the train crossing signals to the letter Q and therefore be more open to hearing the message of a truth teller named Q on the internet.

This is all that is needed to debunk Q-anon forever.

I’m sorry.

No need to delve into all the convoluted contortions of their neverending conspiracy at all.  

The fact is... if you claim to have deep state knowledge, or be a deep web denizen of truth... and yet you have ZERO CLUE about the significance of the letter Q in the history of signal intelligence... and how it’s still used very publicly in the modern day?..

You’re a total fraud, and everything you believe about yourself or the world around you is a whole-cloth, fabricated lie.

You may believe what you will of my own weird model of reality, with it’s aliens, time travelers, AI, and collective unconscious... but I’m not out here trolling for any attention (this blog is private)... and my shit is based on observation and science.

It’s subject to revision, pending new information.

It’s a model.

Q-anon is not a model.  It’s reckless propoganda, aimed at the ignorant, to distract them from reality... in order to get them to vote against their own interests.

My model might be crazy... but it is just a model.  And it’s not one I’ve ever publicized.  It’s honest speculation for it’s own sake... in a vacuum.

But we are two months away from the most important election in American history so... I felt I needed to take down Q-anon, for what it’s worth... on the level of the collective unconscious... which is admittedly very weak, but... whatever.

It’s time for bed.

[alexandrasirowy]

Post Title: YA Scavenger Hunt

Welcome to this October's YA Scavenger Hunt! Hi, I'm Alexandra Sirowy, author of the YA thrillers THE CREEPING, THE TELLING, and the just released FIRST WE WERE IV. I'm excited to be hosting special content from author Clara Kensie. At this hunt, you not only get access to content from each author, you also get a clue for the hunt. Add up the clues, and you can enter for our prize--one lucky winner will receive a book from each author on the hunt in my team! But play fast: this contest (and all the exclusive bonus material) will only be online for 120 hours, until Sunday, October 8th!

There are SEVEN contests going on simultaneously, and you can enter one or all! I am a part of the PURPLE TEAM! If you'd like to find out more about the hunt, see links to all the authors participating, and see the full list of prizes up for grabs, go to the YA Scavenger Hunt page.

SCAVENGER HUNT PUZZLE

Directions: Below, you'll notice that I've included a hidden number (hint: not so hidden). Collect the numbers of all the authors on the PURPLE TEAM, and then add them up.

Entry Form: Once you've added up all the numbers, make sure you fill out the form here to officially qualify for the grand prize. Only entries that have the correct number will qualify.

Rules: Open internationally, anyone below the age of 18 should have a guardian's permission to enter. To be eligible for the grand prize, you must submit the completed entry form by Sunday, October 8th, at noon Pacific Time. Entries sent without the correct number or without contact information will not be considered.

SCAVENGER HUNT POST

Okay, on to the good stuff! I'm hosting Clara Kensie for the YA Scavenger Hunt! Clara Kensie grew up near Chicago, reading every book she could find and using her diary to write stories about a girl with psychic powers who solved mysteries. She purposely did not hide her diary, hoping someone would read it and assume she was writing about herself. Since then, she’s swapped her diary for a computer and admits her characters are fictional, but otherwise she hasn’t changed one bit.

Today Clara is an award-winning author of dark fiction for young adults. Her debut, the super-romantic psychic thriller Deception So series, was named an RT Book Review Editors Pick for Best Books of 2014, and Deception So Book One: Deception So Deadly is the winner of the prestigious 2015 RITA© Award for Best First Book. A little about Clara’s book DECEPTION SO DEADLY!

"Winner of Romance Writers of America's RITA© Award for Best First Book RUN.

It’s all sixteen-year-old Tessa Carson has ever known. Hunted by a telepathic killer, Tessa and her family have fled home after home, hiding behind aliases to survive. Her scars are more than just physical, and as the only one in her family without a psychic ability, she lives a life of secrets, lies, and fear. After the Carsons flee to a new hideout and take on new identities yet again, Tessa meets confident, carefree Tristan Walker. Their attraction burns fierce, but she runs from him too, knowing their love can never be true when she can’t even tell him her real name.

But Tristan has secrets as well—secrets that will either save Tessa, or destroy her. The only way Tessa can save her family—and uncover the real reason they’ve been hunted all these years—is to forget everything she’s learned from a lifetime of running away, and run straight into danger head-on."

Find out more by visiting Clara's website here!

Clara's EXCLUSIVE CONTENT

How a Bullet List Inspired the Award-Winning Deception So Series and Changed My Life!

My Deception So series is a super-romantic YA thriller about a psychic family on the run from a deadly past, and a first love that will transcend secrets, lies, and danger. The first book in the series, Deception So Deadly, is the winner of the RITA© Award for Best First Book. But I never set out to write an award-winning book. In fact, I never set out to be an author at all! Here’s how the series, and my career, came to be:

If you’re reading this and participating in the Young Adult Scavenger Hunt, you’re probably a huge reader. Me too. I even did YASH as a reader before I participated as an author! I’ve always loved reading. Some characters I love so much that I never want their book to end. I’m never ready to say goodbye to them. (Seriously, JK Rowling could write a thousand-page book entirely about Luna Lovegood going grocery shopping, and I’d read it.) A few years ago, I realized that the only way that I’d never have to say goodbye to books I love would be to write them myself. I could develop characters I love, and write and write and write their stories. I could then spend years with my characters, instead of just a few days. A perfect plan, right?

Excited by the idea that I could spend years with beloved characters of my own, I sat at my computer and made a bullet list of all of my favorite elements to include in the book:

Young adult Psychic powers Realistic heroine - not perfect, but relatable Devoted hero - mysterious and hot Sweet, knock-your-socks-off romance Dark plot – Danger – Scary villain Huge, never-saw-it-coming plot twists

I had a vague idea that it would be cool if the characters had secret identities. And that’s as far as it went. I was stuck.

A few weeks later on a cloudy November day, I was pulling out of a parking spot at the store when I was hit with a series of “what ifs:”

What if there was a teenage girl who was the only member of her family who didn’t have a psychic power?

And what if they moved from place to place, taking on new identities at each new hideout, because they were being hunted by a killer—and that killer had psychic powers too?

And what if that girl met a boy who was hiding some shocking secrets of his own…

It went on from there. I went home and wrote the story in a whirlwind of inspiration, being sure to include my bulleted list of favorite elements. That story became Deception So Deadly, and holy cow, it won a RITA© Award, one of the most prestigious awards in the industry! I loved the Deception So characters so much that I gave them a sequel, Deception So Dark. Now I’m writing the third book in the series, Deception So Dangerous. If I’m still having fun after that, I’ll continue the series with even more Deception So books. I’m thrilled that readers love these books as much as I do. Best of all, I’ve been able to spend years and years with the characters I love. I’ll never have to say goodbye to them.

Want a sneak peek of the book that started it all? Read the first page of Deception So Book One: Deception So Deadly by Clara Kensie

My cell phone rang, loud and shrill, shattering the classroom’s silence. He found us. He was coming.

The teacher scowled, reaching out her puffy hand to confiscate my phone as I slid it open and held it to my ear. Answer on the first ring—that was the rule.

One word, my mother’s panicked command: “Run.”

With trembling hands, I swept my American History notebook into my bag. Leave nothing personal behind—that was another rule.

Every second, he was getting closer. I stumbled toward the door.

“Maddie, where are you going?” Mrs. Landon demanded, then her voice softened. “Is something wrong?”

I rushed past her and out of the classroom, my breath coming in stuttery little gasps. Dennis Connelly was coming. How did he find us again?

I raced to my locker—the combination, what’s the combination?—and cleaned it out, stuffing everything into my bag. Flew down the stairs. Dashed down the hall, almost colliding with a girl carrying an armful of books. Sprinted past the office, reached the exit—

“Hey!” A security guard, belly hanging over his belt, grabbed my arm. “Where’s your pass?”

My brother darted over, lugging his book bag and saxophone. “Let her go,” he said, his calm and firm tone betrayed by the terror in his eyes. He pulled me away, and when I stumbled, he pushed me out the door. “Tessa, run!”

We were in public, but Logan used my real name. We no longer needed our aliases.

I glanced behind me. “Where’s Jillian?”

The doors burst open and our sister shot outside, her blond hair flying behind her like a shiny cape.

Its engine running, our getaway car waited in the pickup lane with our dad holding the back door open. We ran and dove in. Dad jumped in the passenger seat, slamming his door closed as Mom stomped on the gas pedal and sped us away.

********************** I hope you enjoyed reading the first page and learning how the Deception So series (and my career as an author!) was inspired by my bullet list of favorite book elements.

What are your favorite elements of a book? List them in the comments!

Thanks so much, Clara, for giving us a glimpse at your book! You can get your hands on Clara's book here! And thank you to all you hunters playing along.

Remember, in order to enter to win a prize pack of team purple's books, including my YA dark thriller THE CREEPING, you need to find the hidden number on each post. My third book FIRST WE WERE IV came out this year and it’s my favorite yet. Secret societies, friendship, romance, a small town mystery, and events spiraling out of control. It made this year – 2017 – one of my best yet (psst, 17 is my hidden number!). Add up all the hidden numbers of the authors on the purple team and you'll have the secret code to enter for the prize!

CONTINUE THE HUNT

To keep going on your quest, check out Aleah Raynes's blog post here!

I'm also giving away a copy of my most recent YA thriller FIRST WE WERE IV - open internationally!FWWIV is about four best friends who invent a secret society that ratchets out of control and ultimately costs one of the friends their life. To enter to win a copy, all you need to do is to take the IV challenge. Comment on this post or tweet me @AlexandraSirowy using #YASH and #FIRSTWEWEREIV with your favorite four spooky books, your favorite literary foursomes, or your favorite four secretive/shady fictional characters. I'll announce the winner in the comments below and on the YA Scavenger Hunt's site at the end of the hunt! Good luck and happy hunting!!

[thetwoguineabook]

I was wondering if you might be able to share some advice on being a content creator while living with anxiety-type mental illness. How do you maintain consistent dedication to your practice alongside life obligations during times when your illness makes you feel especially paralyzed, sometimes for long periods? If this question is too personal to answer, no worries & thank you for all the great work you do :)

No worries, I’m completely happy to talk about this stuff, although as always with the caveat that anxiety is different for everyone, and this is just me talking in the context of my own anxiety (and depression) and its patterns.

For one thing, I’m not actually that consistent. I was out of fandom for a good five years prior to YOI, for various reasons which definitely included the fact that I was working, trying to do a PhD part-time, and attempting to have a serious romantic relationship, and I was super exhausted a lot and not really in a frame of mind to write. If you know that your mental health limits your capacity to do stuff, then focus that capacity on a) things that will keep you and any dependents fed and housed and generally alive, b) things that do not make your health worse. Sometimes writing is a stress-reliever, and sometimes it’s the exact opposite. Writing fanfic is not an obligation, it’s a thing you do for fun, and if it’s not fun then you are 100% within your rights not to do it.

Also remember that even when you’re not actually actively writing, the things that you do and the experiences you have are still developing you as a person and a writer. I didn’t post any fic between February 2012 and January 2017, but what I did do in that time was finish a Masters degree, have my first serious relationship, privately rent a place alone for the first time, work on a PhD, go through several jobs, get dumped, get evicted, and have a nervous breakdown. I could not possibly have written Blackbird in 2012; so much of the past five years went into it. If you’re not able to write for a period, that doesn’t mean that time means nothing to your development.

And if you do want to write, you feel it will be good for you, but you feel like you just can’t get off the ground? Something that learning to code is really hammering home for me is that there is no task, no problem, that can’t be broken down into smaller and less intimidating components. This isn’t to say you shouldn’t have an overall scheme in mind- I think it is very hard, if not impossible, to write a good story if you don’t know before you start how it’s going to end- but that any grand narrative can become smaller and more manageable chunks that each contribute their bit towards the end goal.

With Blackbird, I started with a big, vague idea- ‘I want Victor to betray his country for Yuuri’. I sat with the idea and played around with options until I’d refined the rough shape of it- they would fall in love as allies, during WW2, and then meet again as enemies, in the early years of the Cold War, and then there would be a conclusion (I had the closing shot, kissing in the falling snow, locked in from very early on. Priorities!). So I had two defined blocks of the story. I left the London arc with a rougher idea of its outline and focused on Berlin. What were the key events? They had to overcome their apparent enmity, they had to become emotionally invested in each other, and they had to be separated. Okay, so focusing on the first event, what scenes do I need to establish their starting point and what scenes get them from the starting point to the detente at the boarding house (which was the first scene I wrote, as a sketch to play around with the concept)? And there was my structure for chapter one.

It’s very, very hard to say, 'I want to write a 100k historical novel in which Victor and Yuuri are spies who end up running away together’. It’s relatively easy to say, 'I want to write a 2k scene which establishes that Victor is a Soviet agent undercover in Nazi Berlin’, or 'I want to write a 2k scene in which Yuuri discovers that Victor is a spy’. Nobody can solve a hard problem. Nobody can write a novel in one go. But most people can solve a simple problem. Even people who don’t write and aren’t very good at it could probably write a basic scene in which a character does x and y.

So allow yourself to write the small thing. Allow yourself to write the crappiest, most comma-heavy and repetitive version of a scene that nevertheless accomplishes what you need it to in the context of the whole story. And when you’ve done it, congratulate yourself! You did the thing! You got the words on the page, no matter how much you might hate them- words you hate that are there beat the hypothetical amazing words that only exist in your head. 

In software development this is what we call the ‘minimum viable product’, and my course tutor made a great analogy about this. If you’re trying to invent the car, you don’t start by building a really amazing and beautiful car door. That’s useless- no matter how pretty it is, it doesn’t do anything. You start by building a skateboard. It might not have an engine, or seats, or a bluetooth-compatible stereo system, but it’s got four wheels and it moves and you can have a go on it. Build the shittiest thing that works; once you have it, then you can make it a good thing that works.

I’m not saying that I’m necessarily very good at any of this myself. I have wasted hours agonising over comma placement and sentence length, I spent ages googling useless period trivia just so I could reassure myself that things 99% of readers would never even notice were nevertheless accurate. Some of that stuff is important for your craft, but some of it is just stupid anxietybrain being stupid. But getting the hang of recognising that something you don’t like that exists is always better than the perfect hypothetical in your head, and learning to be happy about every small step, every little increment towards your goal, will get you a long way.

Wrote a sentence? Awesome! Wrote a paragraph? High-five your dog! Wrote a scene? Do a victory lap around the room! Something is better than nothing. Everything you do is valuable, no matter how small, because it’s still more than you had before you did it.

And again, remind yourself that if writing is just making you miserable, you do not have to write. There are enough shitty things in life that we nevertheless have to do, like waking up on time for work or doing the ironing. Your health is more important than fanfic. Nobody ever died from an abandoned WIP.

#writing #mental health #Anonymous

[neogandw]

NOW IF YOU ALLOW ME TO SHILL FOR A MINUTE HERE.

Presenting one of my favorite steam games, now entirely free to play, AWESOMENAUTS.

Ever felt like playing a MOBA-like game, but felt intimidated by steep learning curves, memorizing meta builds, going for optimal strategies and just plain affraid of being shouted at by your team mates because you didn't go for that specific thing at that specific time and now the entire base is on fire because of your blunder?

Yeah, me too, DOTA and LoL are great, but sometimes one does not feel like dealing with that ammount of preassure, for people like me who prefer their games simple, fast paced and chaotic, boy do i got the game for you.

GAMEPLAY

Awesomenauts prides itself on being a simplistic MOBA style game, in fact, its not even traditional in that sense, as it prefers another approach: if you are fan of megaman-like games you'll find this one great, because the gameplay is very much jump and shoot style 2D platformer gameplay!

As it is a team based 3v3 game, you can join up with random people online or friends to duke it out in splitscreen, online or even against bots, you are not limited on how you want to play your game, even giving you power to edit the configurations of the private matches if you so desire: want to give everyone all the upgrades at once? would you prefer for an infinity of creeps to fill the battlefield? how about a random character per death? the choice is yours to take.

It is also very simple to learn, you don't need to learn the meta mindset of advanced players to play the game, as the shop system only requires you to pick your 3 favorite upgrades -tailored to each specific character- for each of your abilities, and these abilities take effect not by numbers, but by altering the functionality of their abilities to your favor: want bouncing dynamite sticks? slowdown on top of healing? a faster shooty gun or a stronger shooty gun? Big double buzzaws that cause a slowdown on the enemy? You got them.

STORY

The game is also filled to brim with lore, though unlike most games out there, the lore of the awesomenauts is mostly a comedic epic, the game is self-stylized like a 90's cartoon where everything was build to be incredibly awesome.

In awesomenauts, you control the titular squad, a ragtag bunch of misfit aliens from across the galaxy, each one with a reason to fight:

“Riding his combat walker onto the battlefield, comes Derpl Zork. The nephew of Blabl Zork, president of Zork industries. Derpl Zork lacks his uncle's business-smarts. In fact he lacks any kind of smarts, managing to get his IQ rated under the level of plankton in the official galaxial IQ test.

Nevertheless Derpl is the heir apparent to Blabl's galaxy-spanning business empire. This is something that doesn't sit well with Blabl, not well at all. Dreading the day Derpl would inherit the company and run all the hardfought accomplishments into the ground, Blabl put Derpl in charge of fieldtesting the new Specialized Universal Secretary Interface (S.U.S.I. for short) in one of Zork Industries' combat walkers. Asking Derpl what form of devastation should be issued forth from his vehicle of destruction he simply drooled and said: "I wuv cats!"

Now Blabl is anxiously awaiting the day that Derpl would suffer a fatal blow on the fields of battle but as of yet Derpl's combat walker has proven to keep making up for its dimwitted driver. “

”Once part of the soviet space program, Yuri was a monkey, experimentally shot into space during the 1960's cold war spacerace. Mysteriously, monitoring soviet scientists suddenly lost track of monkey Yuri's spacecraft.

Puzzled by its sudden disappearence, Soviet space-command wondered what had become of their beloved test-pet Yuri. Little did they know that Yuri's spacecraft had entered a warpfield anomaly and was transported hundreds of years into the future!

Also, the warpfield's radiation boosted Yuri's mind to superintelligent levels. The new, more intelligent, mad and slightly sadistic Yuri quickly grasped the situation and modified his broken rocket into an equally mad timetravelling supercomputer jetpack.

With the jetpack translating everything Yuri says and does, enemies are never quite sure who is in control, the mad scientist monkey, or the computer it created? “

“Ted McPain was one of the great heroes of the first AI Wars, a long time ago. He has led his squad of elite super soldiers, the Killer Koala’s, against many opponents and has been decorated as an outstanding soldier a hundred times over. His ultimate achievement, during the climax of the First AI Wars, was a solo operation onto the AI’s battle station Starstorm. This mission ended in Ted McPain single handedly unhinging all of the station’s crucial power couplings, effectively making sure the station wouldn’t be completed before the end of the war. Ted McPain eventually died when he sacrificed himself to save the Sunny-Daisy Alien Orphanage from a band of bloodthirsty dinosaur zombies in 3021. Ted’s heroic deeds would never be forgotten.

He lived on as he became the star of various video games: Ted McPain I through XVII, Ted McPain: Zombie Blast, Ted McPain vs. evil Ted McPain and Ted McPain Unicorn Dance Karting.

When Voltar The Omniscient learned of the violent dimwitted video game star, he brewed up a plan that would backfire horribly. He created the Materializotron XT8000 with which he wanted to bring back the war hero of old to be his personal assistant. Extracting Ted McPain’s digital essence from his video games, Voltar managed to materialize a life-size flesh and blood version. The Ted McPain that appeared though was missing his pants for unknown reasons. Voltar waved the issue aside saying “Stop asking stupid questions! He looks fine to me.”

“Yoolip has been a scientist for the greater part of his life on the transistor planet Calias. Creating wondrous inventions and contraptions like the dog aura reader, the nightmare-to-VHS recorder, the random number phone, the cereal-to-milk ratio calculator and an actual time machine. One day after combining the time machine into some comfy slippers, he teleported to the Mesozoic era and found himself surrounded by some scientist hungry velociraptors.

Barely escaping the predators he lost one of his slippers. Being stuck in time he spent years to craft a new slipper to travel forward in time to return to his beloved granddaughter, Ayla. He joined the Awesomenauts team to finally spend some quality time with her and eat some over-engineered pancakes. “

This is a game that does not even attempt to take itself seriously, as the characters will crack a joke or a reference in the middle of battle to your ears' delight.

MUSIC

speaking of ears, how about checking out the sweet tunes of the awesomenauts?

Extended Theme Song

8-bit Yoolip

Electronic Supersonic Cybertronic Rocco

Ted McPain's Theme

I'll make you a star

Nibb's Killing Spree

Sentry's Killing Spree Theme

Deadlift's Killing Spree

Eye of Aguillon

Chucho Krokk’s Killing Spree

Lonestar’s Killing Spree

Raelynn's Killing Spree

FREE TO PLAY? MORE LIKE FREE TO PAY AM I RIGHT

Actually no, awesomenauts's Free to Play system is actually very simple, similar to other MOBAS of its kind it uses the standard 3 hero rotation, but a a bonus, you can try all of the characters in full whenever you want against bots, see who you like from the get-go and decide who you want to buy next.

Adding on to that, the game gives you the in-game currency by doing what you do best: play the game, and it doesn't even have to be vs online opponents, you can just pop it in with 3 of your friends (or even alone if you're lonely) and fight against an enemy team of bots, win experience for your characters to unlock their upgrades and songs, and parts to obtain cosmetic upgrades.

The only real aspect that requires money is merely cosmetic: costumes for each character that are simply visual, add voice lines or change their theme songs.

The things that matter can be obtained through gameplay alone, but one can opt to buy the all nauts pack on steam, this merely unlocks all the nauts to be played at any time though, not their upgrades, which require XP.

But if you get the game on steam and use one of the following codes (don't worry, they can be used up to 50 times each)

WVHE-9CLM-9KPH 9MQT-3JS7-NMCR CHCP-3HHX-X5Q5

You'll get a character entirely for free: the elite sniper raelynn.

These codes can be obtained if you play the game long enough, if you use your own code to invite people, their achievements give you loot too, free loot for everyone!

So feel free to jump into the action, there is nothing to lose and tons of fun (and salt or memes) to be had, bring your friends, bring your friend's friends, bring your grandma even.

It's time to get awesome!

#awesomenauts #free to play #get it now

[element-effect-blog]

50 Everyday Words That Actually Started as Brands and Trademarks

Madonna. Shakespeare. Oprah. Fabio. Bono. Adele. Picasso.

You know you’ve made it when you’re known by just one name or word; when a single spoken breath can trigger everything about you in the minds of the listener and it's practically synonmous with your product.

In many ways, this is the pinnacle of celebrity status and branding success, but when it comes down to business, sometimes it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.

The Good & The Bad of Becoming a Word

Anthimeria is the term used to describe the act of using a word in a new grammatical form, most often a noun as a verb (i.e. Xerox being used to mean photocopying something).

On a positive note, this is a sign that your brand or product has been widely accepted by the general public. It means it’s in high-demand, is highly-recognized, and you’re most likely dominating your industry.

On a negative, however, when your brand becomes a commonly used noun or verb, trademark and brand dilution issues ensue, as tech giant, Google, has discovered in recent years.

As Attorney  Google’s prominent brand recognition has put the brand down the path of “...becoming synonymous with search engine services [of all kinds] and towards the genericization of a trademark.”

In fact, when Sweden’s national Language Council tried to add “ungoogleable” to its list of new words to mean “something that can’t be found on the Web using a search engine,” , “asking for changes showing the expression specifically refers to Google searches.”

When a name enters the general language or lexicon of a region like these did, it risks losing all of the established value and recognition that it has built up.

It becomes "genericized," referring to things not directly related to it and eventually diminishing the company's rights (and ability) to profit from it.

50 Everyday Words That Actually Started as Brand Names/Trademarks

Controlling the evolution of language is next to impossible, which is why so many brands have unintentionally found this fate.

That being said, brace yourself. Here are 50 things that started just as brand names and trademarks, but now are a part of our everyday vocabulary.

The list just may make question everything you thought you knew about life.

A trademark still owned and “aggressively enforced” by Gerber Childswear (yes, the same Gerber that makes baby food).  

What can you call it instead?: An infant bodysuit

This trademark has been owned by Zespri since 1997, though as recounted in Seth Godin’s The Purple Cow, the name has been in use since 1962 when New Zealand growers wanted to increase the fruit’s market appeal.

What can you call it instead?: A Chinese Gooseberry

3. Zipper:

Originally created and trademarked by the B.F. Goodrich Company for use in rubber boots.

What can you call it instead?:A clasp locker or zip fastener

4. Windbreaker: 

A trademarked word for light jackets originally owned by the John Rissman company of , recently becoming genericized.

What can you call it instead?: A lightweight jacket

5. Jet Ski:

Despite its common use in the U.S., this brand of "watercraft" is still owned and trademarked by Kawasaki Heavy Industries. 

What can you call it instead?: A personal watercraft

6. Escalator:

This was originally trademarked by Otis in 1900, but it was lost in 1950 when the word joined the public lexicon.

What can you call it instead?: A moving stairway/staircase

7. Tabloid: 

This trademark was originally owned by Burroughs Wellcome & Co as a word for compressed medicine/pills, but in the early 1900s it became a widely accepted term for compressed, short-form journalism.

8. Hula Hoop:

Before it was a hit song by Omi, it was just a simple plastic toy hoop marketed by Wham-O since 1958. The toy company still owns the rights to the name despite them coming into question in 2009.

What can you call it instead? A dancing ring or toy hoop

Introduced in 1971 by the Naxon Utilities Corporation of Chicago, the crock-pot was originally created as a beanery appliance but grew in home popularity as more and more women entered the workforce. Today, the Crock-Pot brand stresses that if it doesn't actually say "Crock-Pot" it's not an original. 

What can you call it instead? A slow cooker.

Probably one of the most widely-known genericized brands, Band-Aid was originally trademarked by Johnson & Johnson in 1920 and still stands today.

What can you call it instead? An adhesive bandage

11. Ping Pong:

Now, this misnomer seriously blew my mind. Believe it or not, Ping Pong is actually the name of a brand of table tennis tables, not the game itself. It was coined from the sound the ball makes when hit and originally trademarked by Jaques & Son back in 1901.

What can you call it instead?Table Tennis

12. Dumpster:

Trademarked by the Dempster Brothers in 1936, this name was a mashup of “Dempster” and “dump.”

What can you call it instead? Mobile Garbage Bin

Invented by George de Mastreal in 1941 during a walk in the woods with his pet dog, Velcro was officially patented in 1958 and has since been a trademark of Velcro Industries B. V.

What can you call it instead? Hook and loop fasteners

This one is owned to this day by 3M Corporation.

What can you call it instead? Clear Adhesive Tape

As the slogan has always stressed, “if it’s not a Duncan, it’s not a yo-yo.” This term was introduced and trademarked by the company in 1929 to refer specifically to its now iconic toy. It was, however, deemed generic in the U.S. in 1965.

What can you call it instead?: A toy on a string

16. Zip Code:

This was originally a registered service mark by the U.S. Postal Service, but has long since expired.

Created in 1997, Auto-Tune is actually the name of a popular audio processor made by Antares Audio Technologies.

What can you call it instead?: Pitch Correction

Popsicles were my favorite summer treat growing up, but it didn’t occur to me until pretty recently that it was specifically the popsicle brand that I preferred.

First trademarked in 1905 by Frank Epperson, the rights are currently owned by Unilever who state overtly in the footer of its website that “POPSICLE®...is NOT a name for just any frozen pop on a stick.”

What can you call it instead?: A frozen ice treat on a stick

Declared a generic term in 1963, this was originally trademarked by Thermos, LLC in 1904.

What can you call it instead?: Vacuum Flask

20. Granola (and Granula):

In 1921, Sanitarium Foods (a company owned by the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Australia) trademarked the word to describe foods made of whole-grain products crumbled and baked to a crisp. The rights were officially lost to genericization in 2012. 

21. Frisbee:

Originally trademarked by Wham-O in 1957, the rights to this one are still going strong. The game and disc draw its origins back to Connecticut colleges where students would toss around pie tins from the Frisbie Pie Company.

What can you call it instead? A flying disc.

First introduced to the public in 1946, Tupperware got its name from its creator, Earl Silas Tupper.

What can you call it instead? Plastic Storage Containers

Originally patented and trademarked in 1971, the BIC Corporation bought the rights to the name in 1992 and owns them to this day.

What can you call it instead?:Correction Fluid

This is a legally recognized trademark of the National Association of Realtors, referring to members of its group, not real estate agents in general. It was created to differentiate members from the general population of real estate agents.

What can you call it instead? A real estate agent

Though most widely known and used for to refer to the pamphlets created and distributed at theater productions, Playbill is a monthly magazine that has been published in the U.S. since 1884.

What can you call it instead? A program

Though a common name for inline skates in the U.S. Canada, Rollerblade is still a trademark owned by Nordica.

What can you call it instead?: Inline skates

27. Super Glue (or Krazy Glue):

Trademarked name of the strong, fast-acting adhesive marketed by the Super Glue Corporation.

What can you call it instead?Cyanoacrylate adhesive

In 1956, the Jacuzzi brothers set out to help ease a relative’s arthritis symptoms with a normal tub equipped with a “hydrotherapy pump.” Since then, the name has become synonymous with the product and a sense of luxury, though the trademark is still active today.

What can you call it instead? A hot tub.

29. Bubble Wrap:

Originally trademarked by the Sealed Air Corporation in 1960

What can you call it instead?:Air bubble packaging

30. Trampoline:

The first modern trampoline was built by George Nissen and Larry Griswold in 1936 and trademarked by the duo in 1942 after the Spanish word "trampolin," meaning diving board.

31. Laundromat:

This one is another one that came as big surprise to me. Laundromat was originally trademarked to refer to the first wall-mounted automatic washing machine by Westinghouse in 1940.

What can you call it instead? Coin Laundry Shop

Brand-Words in Danger of Being “Genericized”

32. Google

Verb meaning to search or inquire about something online; not necessarily using the Google search engine.

Noun referring to a permanent marker.

Noun referring to any cotton, personal care swab on a stick.

A noun referring to any plastic snack bag.

A noun referring to any lip balm or lip moisturizer. 

A noun referring to any facial tissue.

A noun referring to any digital slidedeck presentation. 

A verb meaning to edit or alter an image digitally; to enhance one's appearance digitally. 

A noun referring to any colored, molding clay for children.

A noun referring to any carbonated cola. 

A noun referring to any metholated, vapor rub product.

A noun referring to any petroleum jelly product.

A noun referring to any gelatin dessert/snack. 

A noun referring to any topless, outdoor vehicle.

A noun referring to any small note paper with self-adhesive.

A noun referring to any coiled, children's toy. 

A noun referring to any tight, male swimwear.

A noun referring to any portable device that allows you to listen to music; specifically from the 1980-90s.

A noun referring to any short-sleeved, collared shirt.

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