#have been graded on a Very Generous curve is just. astounding | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

politicalloading620 · 3 years

Text

Simulation 3d Software

Magazine> resources

In the market for 3D modeling software? Here are the best programs out there to make your 3D dreams come true—including 10 free 3D modeling software options!

Ansys engineering simulation and 3D design software delivers product modeling solutions with unmatched scalability and a comprehensive multiphysics foundation. AnyLogic PLE is the only free simulation software that combines discrete event, system dynamics, and agent-based simulation methods so you can model any real-world system or process. 3D Simulation Software Meet your digital workforce. Jack and Jill are the best workers ever. They’re always on time, they never complain, and they’ve been known to put in a 24/7 work week. You’re right: Jack, Jill, and their elite virtual pals aren’t going to produce any physical products for you. General Purpose, includes 2D and 3D magnetics solvers, both static and harmonic. 3D solver is based on the Whitney AV formulation of Maxwell's equations. References edit ^ Hoffmann, J.; et al. What makes it special: Tailored specifically for product design and engineering applications and loaded with tools for simulation and manufacturing. Inventor 3D CAD software offers professional-level 3D mechanical design. The program comes with freeform, direct, and parametric modeling choices.

With 3D modeling software, you can create just about anything. The industry is changing so fast, however, that it can be a little challenging to determine which 3D modeling program is the best for your 3D modeller needs.

We walk you through the 19 best 3D modeling software options on the market right now. Even better? We share 10 free 3D modeling software programs for the budget-conscious 3D artists.

Once you have the right 3D modeling software, you’ll be able to produce stunning 3D designs for your online design portfolio—and featuring such a hot skill is sure to lure in potential clients and employers on the hunt for modeling software experts.

Now, let’s take a look at the best 3D modeling software programs out there!

3d Simulation Software Open Source

Best 3D Modelling Software

1. Autodesk Maya

Type: SubscriptionPrice: $245/month

When you ask any professional 3D modeller in the industry which program they use the most, Autodesk Maya is the most common answer, and for good reason. Most of the leading animation studios use it (Pixar included) due in part to the massive array of powerful tools offered within the package. The last few years have seen some especially amazing new features burst into the limelight such as truly jaw-dropping live rendering.

There’s a catch, though: Maya isn’t cheap, and you’re going to need to learn to use it before you can create much of anything. There’s a lot to learn in 3D modeling programs, and if you can devote the time to truly learn this new artform then every penny you spend on Maya will be worth it. If you want a portfolio that floors clients from the start, this is how to do it.

2. Autodesk Mudbox

Type: SubscriptionPrice: $245/month

In addition to the titan known as Maya, Autodesk also offers Mudbox. It’s one of the easiest 3D modeling software packages on offer, but it’s more aligned to editing and sculpting 3D models using a simple, intuitive and tactile toolset than it is able in doing more complex 3D tasks. You can increase polygon counts on the fly, set up layers, and gradually adjust your 3D models until they are absolutely perfect. Then, built-in functions create textures, paint colors, correct meshes, and produce Normal maps.

You can also create things from scratch with this program, sculpting whatever you choose, but rigging, texturing, and animation are not its focus. To complete those steps, you’ll need Maya or other similar 3D modeling software. Master Mudbox and your design portfolio will be all the richer for it.

3. Houdini

Type: LicensePrice: $1995, $4495, or $499/year

Similar to Autodesk Maya, Houdini is another industry-standard tool that ranks as one of the best 3D modeling software packages available. It uses a different methodology than Autodesk Maya, using a node-based procedural style of production that affords artists a huge amount of control. Similar to Maya, there’s a rather steep curve to learning all the tricks needed to succeed with this modeling software. You won’t be creating masterpieces in 20 minutes, but, with a bit of persistence, you won’t have too much trouble making works of art.

It’s on the expensive side, offering yearly licenses or perpetual purchases of Houdini and Houdini FX, but there is also a free version called Houdini Apprentice available that we’ll detail in the second half of this article. All in all, Houdini is a solid choice for any VFX artist, and will help you create some stunning CGI to make your online design portfolio truly amazing.

4. Cinema 4D

Type: LicensePrice:$480/year to $2,850

Maxon’s Cinema 4D is also a serious competitor and easily among the best 3D modeling software programs you can find. Designed for creating perfect motion graphics, this powerful tool can compete head-to-head with the above entries and hold its own. It can crank out amazing quality that can turn heads, but it’s strongest lead over competitors is a simple one: it’s much (much) easier to learn. This could be a great help in making your design portfolio as gorgeous as possible—trying out a variety of 3D projects is a great way to show your range to clients.

A caveat (and one that will be problematic if you don’t have deep pockets): the cost. With a hefty cost to perpetual licenses (some of which expire), you need to make sure it’s the right choice for you before you commit. Thankfully, they also offer a free trial that lasts a bit longer than a month to help you make the decision (and they offer student licenses at a reduced cost).

5. Modo

Type: Subscription or LicensePrice:$399/year to $1799

To stand out from the crowd, Modo does things a bit differently than the other 3D modeling programs. The Foundry made Modo with art in mind, not just animation, which led to it offering a rather robust and interesting selection of tools. Most notable is how user-friendly it is, allowing neophytes the ability to pick it up with relative ease and become a 3D modeller without years of training.

While it lacks the higher-end tools offered in programs like Autodesk Maya, Maya won’t let you intuitively create great quality renders with a low degree of effort: Modo is easy to pick up and figure out in comparison. Finally, Modo sports a wonderfully powerful rendering engine that is easily on par with other high-end programs, allowing you to create pro-quality on the fly.

6. Autodesk 3Ds Max

Type: SubscriptionPrice:$216/month to $1740/year

Hacer antenna wifi biquad antenna. 3Ds Max has been around for a long time, as far as modeling software goes. It predates almost every other current program by several years and has plenty of performance patches under its belt as a result. It’s one of the most stable 3D modeling programs around (probably the most stable option on Windows, period) and has a gigantic library available that provides access to countless functions that can make the process of modelling less tedious. Many of these mods also make things easier for beginners.

It has a higher price point but offers free student licenses and a trial that allows you access to all of the features the app has to offer for 30 days, which should provide further incentive to give it a go and wow your clients.

7. ZBrush

Type: LicensePrice:$895

When it comes to sculpting amazing creatures, people, and places, there are no competitors that come anywhere even close to ZBrush. It’s a staple in VFX on movies and television, and there are few 3D modeling programs that can match its stature in the video game designer industry. If you’re into 3D printing, this is definitely your go-to option: nothing beats ZBrush for making vinyl toys or action figures. You will need training on the various tools and features to make the most of ZBrush, but know that this training is absolutely worth it.

8. Rhinoceros

Type: LicensePrice:$995

Uninhibited design is the focus of Rhinoceros, providing all the tools and features you would expect in the best 3D modelling software, but with an easy-to-learn toolset that allows you to get cracking right away. It’s compatible with just about everything and has a well-designed rendering engine that can process even complex animations without unexpected slowdown.

It’s free for 90 days, after which point you’ll need to purchase a license to continue taking advantage of its features and power. It’s worth a look, especially if you want something simple to grasp and get started with.

9. Substance Designer

Type: LicensePrice:$19.90/month and up

There are many steps to 3D model creation, and producing realistic textures can be very time-consuming and involved. Enter Substance Designer, one of the most powerful and astounding texture creation applications there is. It can generate some truly astonishing surfaces for your models, and the resulting texture maps will turn your creations into extremely detailed art that not only looks realistic but saves you a ton of time fiddling with bits and bobs.

If you’re serious about becoming a 3D modeller, you owe it to yourself to at least give it a try. We guarantee that the results will please you, and afterwards, you won’t want to use anything else for your skinning and texturing.

Free 3D Modeling Software

If you’re on a fixed income and can’t afford to shell out hundreds of dollars for a full license but still want to learn the skills needed to become a 3D modeller, you’re in luck: there are some free 3D modeling software options out there as well, and many are quite powerful and capable of producing professional-grade content.

10. Blender

The king of the castle among free 3D modeling software is, without a doubt, Blender. It’s been around since 2002 and is quite polished. Running on every major operating system, it provides all the tools you expect in modeling software, including rigging, texturing, sculpting, UVing, and animation. With a solid rendering engine, it has proven itself time and again when compared to the fancier programs out there.

As an added bonus, it’s open-source! This means that there are constant improvements and available add-ons for new functionality are not only common, but always free of charge. This puts a lot of power in your hands. If you can’t swing an expensive license for Maya, this is the next best thing.

11. Daz Studio

Recently made free to all, Daz Studio is accessible to newcomers as well as experienced 3D modellers, and is focused around creating art using people, animals, and other assets from their list. Unlike most other entries on the list, this is more akin to a posing tool than one designed to create high-end 3D models for production.

While the program itself is totally free, be advised that a lot of the content on their marketplace is not: this means that to really make the most out of it, you’ll still need to plunk down a bit of cash. If you are in it to make art rather than animation for your portfolio, you can’t really go wrong: a large amount of content is available right from the start, and anything you make is royalty-free!

12. SkethupFree

A surprisingly easy 3D modeling software option,SketchUp works on every major operating system—it will even run smoothly on your Chromebook!

You can draw, set orbits, and combine elements to create true 3D art with ease in a natural, sketch-based approach. Through Sketchup, you can draft some cool home layouts, furniture, and isometric art without needing to create primitives and extrude for hours. This is super-handy for those looking into becoming an interior designer. You’re also spared the rigor of rigging, and the annoyance of UV maps as well. This is a great tool for those more looking to make cool art.

13. Sculptris

Sculptris has a lot going for it: it has, for example, some of the sculpting power of Zbrush (but none of the price associated with it). It’s the absolute best free 3D modeling software for sculpting; nothing else even comes close to it. Within a few short minutes, you’ll be able to figure out the way the controls operate; even pint-sized artists have no problem, and can get to creating silly faces in no time.

3d Simulation software, free download

While it can produce some truly neat models, you will still need another 3D program to make the most out of it. If you are looking for a way to make insanely awesome sculpts and feel like a master 3D modeller without shelling out for Zbrush, nothing else available can compare.

14. Houdini Apprentice

SideFX’s Houdini is a great program—one of the best free 3D modelling software options on our list, in fact. Equipped with all the power and flexibility offered by the paid version of the program, Houdini Apprentice will allow you to learn to use all its features without shelling out the $2,000 required for the pro version. Personal projects are totally fine, but without a license, you’ll still need to purchase the full version to make use of it for commercial purposes.

15. Vue

Vue is known for being the 3D modeling software of choice for creating amazing 3D landscapes. Compelling worlds are a breeze to shape, and it even has numerous features bundled in to make sure your creations don’t look too real. Camera lens distortions, depth of field and anti-aliasing strategies all combine to give a huge amount of control to your scene and how it renders.

The catch? You won’t be able to save in the same format compatible with the paid version, and your files will be auto-watermarked to avoid the use of assets in commercial products.

16. Autodesk Maya

If you want a chance to learn the best 3D modeling software on the market, you have that opportunity: Autodesk Maya offers a 30-day trial to everyone interested in checking out what it has to offer. Students can even enjoy a student license for the duration of their studies. This gives you plenty of time to hone your abilities and master the program by the time you’re serious about using it professionally.

The only limit you have with the free version is a simple one: you can’t use the assets you create in commercial products.

17. FreeCAD

FreeCAD is still in active development, but it already has tons of cool features. As far as free 3D modelling software goes, it’s hard to beat something with this many useful tools. Thanks to parametric models, you’re able to define shapes based on properties (and even other objects), which means you can recalculate entire sections on-demand.

18. MakeHuman

With a simple UI, MakeHuman allows budding 3D modellers to easily design humanoid characters with a suite of useful and intuitive tools. As simple 3D modelling software goes, it’s extremely focused and serves a single purpose: character design. If you’re looking to dive into the pools of 3D art this is a great place to start. Within a few minutes you’ll be able to figure out how to combine meshes and create interesting personalities for use in your next project.

19. OpenSCAD

Less about the artistic and more about the functionality, OpenSCAD is entirely intended for the more technical side of 3D asset production. Through programming and math, this program excels at producing exact replicas of your designs in a 3D printer, making it an exceptional option for anyone who is looking to make devices and toys rather than character models and creatures.

Don’t Forget to Upload Your Creations to Your Online Portfolio!

If you’re looking to cut your teeth in this fun and relatively new art form, now is definitely the right time to do it: the gaming industry is booming; and VFX are used in just about everything we consume online, on TV, and on the big screen. And clients love finding designers that you can keep up in this 3D modeling software realm.

Once you’ve created some awesome new pieces of work, make sure to upload them to your online portfolio. If you don’t have one, just use a website builder to build one in minutes. Pick an online portfolio that comes with stylish templates along with designer-friendly features like client proofing, so your clients can proof designs, right on your website.

You can create entire worlds in 3D modeling software—now go have fun!

*Need some more design inspiration?

A Guide To Graphic Designer Salaries—And How To Negotiate Them 14 Neat Ways To Boost Your Typography Skills 63 Extremely Cool Adobe Illustrator Tutorials *

Get the best of Format Magazine delivered to your inbox.

Simulation means copying the action of a real-time process over time.

It requires software which represents the key features, characteristics, and functions of selected areas of a process.

Simulation software develops real case phenomena with a set of mathematical derivations and formulas.

For instance, a teacher can explain a scenario with the help of relevant or clinical examples.

This software helps a person to understand a scenario with simulation without actually executing the operation.

The Best Simulation SoftwareCompared (in full)

Rna 3d Simulation Software

Consider the following simulation software carefully while taking your needs into account. By the end, you will know which one is right for your business.

1. AUTODESK

Autodesk is American software by Multinational Corporation which develops software to be used by engineers, architects, designers in construction, media, manufacturing and entertainment industry. It was released in 1980 in the United States.

It was best known for AutoCAD, but now it is used for multiple purposes. Similar to AutoCAD, Autodesk provides a free trial version to qualified students and teachers through the Autodesk Education Community. This software is very well known for color grading, visual effects, game development, and editing. You can also use it for film creation.

Autodesk is one of the best simulation software. It delivers better designs and develops solutions for digital prototyping.

Key features of Autodesk

3D rendering and shading

Suitable color management

Additional look development shading nodes

Improved vector graphics workflow

Enhanced look development

Easy and quick setup

2D and 3D drafting

Personalized drawing and modelling

2. Simul8

SIMUL8 simulation software is preferred for its cost reduction feature. This software aims at reducing cost and maximizing efficiency. It is used for planning, re-engineering, design, manufacturing, production, logistics and in-service systems.

It aims to identify bottlenecks and evaluate operational decisions before real execution. It makes it easy to apply statistical methods and derive outputs.

Key features of SIMUL8

High production rate

High capacity of production equipment

Fast and flexible modeling

Good simulation results

Building creative productivity

Displays visual logic

Fast results

3. MathWorks

This software is privately owned by American Corporation and was released in 1984. It specializes in providing mathematical computing solutions. Simulation software helps in predicting the action of a system. You can evaluate a new design, check for problems and test a model under various conditions to get output. The main products under MathWorks include MATLAB and Simulink.

It is comparatively less expensive to create and simulate models than building and testing prototypes. Hence, we can easily test different designs before building one in hardware. We can further connect and integrate the design fully in the system. It provides the user with time-based simulation, event-based simulation and physical-systems simulation.

Key features of MathWorks

Dynamic system behavior

Parallel computing

Easy algorithm development

Embedded code generation

Rapid prototyping

Data acquisition and analysis

Verification, validation and testing

4. Arena

Arena is discrete event simulation software that works with SIMAN processor for simulations. Its recent achievements include providing significant enhancements in the field of animation and design.

This software provides high-level flexibility and functionality to meet the needs of the user. It does not work on a trial and error or guessing basis; the user gets the right output in one try.

It provides specific and unique events every time and they are flexible and activity-based.

Arena has been the top simulation software for the last 30 years.

Key features of Arena

Flowchart modeling methodology

Complete range of statistical distribution

Realistic 2D and 3D animation design

Reduce operating costs

Increase profitability through operations

Reduce delivery time

Diagnose and eliminate bottlenecks

5. FLEXSIM

This simulation software makes it possible to optimize and study any system in any industry. It is in a category of discrete event simulation tools developed by Flexisim Software Products. It was released in 1993 in the USA. It uses little or no computer code. Most of the work is done with arrays or drop-down lists and property windows to customize user-required models. Flexisim supports user-oriented design.

You can build models by dragging and dropping already defined 3D objects.

Key features of Flexisim

Manufacturing: job shop, assembly line

Logistics and distribution: supply chain design, storage layout

Transportation: system traffic flow, custom traffic congestion

Material handling: packaging and warehousing

Networking data flow

Mining processes

6. Simulations Plus

This software provides simulation and modeling to improve productivity across different areas. Simulations Plus provides solutions for biochemical, pharmaceutical, chemical, cosmetics and herbicide industries. It supports specific product software such as GastroPlus, MembranePlus, ADMET, DDDPlus, KIWI etc.

Key features of Simulations Plus

Dynamic system behavior

Increase profitability through operations

Flowchart modeling methodology

Wide verification, validation and testing

Higher production capacity

3D rendering and shading

7. SIMULATION X

This software is a computer-aided engineering application which can be run on Microsoft Windows. It was released in mid-1980s and was developed on the concept of discrete network application.

The user can choose from 1D, 2D or 3D as per requirements and obtain results as needed. The simulations require parameters and build libraries with integration. The software includes signal blocks, mechanics, fluid power and power transmission. It is used for designing, analyzing and modeling complex systems and transforms them into simpler solutions.

It offers ready-to-use simulation models and pre-configured components. It serves quick results and builds interfaces with Microsoft entries.

You can get the software on a trial basis for students and faculty.

Key features of SimulationX

Efficient integration of simulation programs

Rapid control prototyping

Code compilation schemes

Wide scripting features

Reliable productivity

Code export

8. Schneider Electric Software

This software specializes in energy management and automation solutions. It is a French-based corporation software that's been in use since 1967.

The software provides solutions by unlocking profitability, maximizing output, and minimizing costs related to design. It optimizes efficiency and increases productivity. It is comparatively less expensive to create and simulate models than to build and test prototypes. Users can easily test different designs before building the real thing in hardware. Afterwards they can connect and integrate the design fully in the system.

Key features of Schneider Electric Software

Exposure to markets and strategy

Maximizes business performance

Conserves energy and power resources

Scalable and powerful management software

Saves time

Flowchart modeling methodology

Minimizes cost

9. Exa

Exa software is a provider of Computer-aided engineering. The product it provides is called PowerFlow. It was released in 1991. The main aim of Exa Services is to provide you with solutions fast. Qualitative product people like engineers, designers and architects can rely on this software for accurate results.

It has top brands associated with it such as NASA, JAGUAR, TESLA, ONROAK AUTOMOTIVE etc. It is used in various fields such as aerospace design (in-cabin comfort), avionics cooling and system thermal management.

Key features of EXA software

Supports Exacloud

Supports commercial, aerospace as well as automotive industries

Improves design effiiency

Improves engineering processes

Connects to the real world

Clinical performance

Conclusion:

Simulation software is necessary when we want to understand how systems work without actually designing prototypes. Users can tweak and modify models to see how they behave in real life.

Boba fett bounty hunter game. As you evaluate the software discussed here think about your particular industry and needs.

You May Also Like:

0 notes

jsmlwriter · 6 years

Text

Halo Haze Re

Summary: Unexpected was an understatement. Tsuna's plans for his life hadn't included a strange baby, getting shot or ending up in boxers. Loudly asking Kyoko-chan on a date was totally off the agenda and so was promptly fainting afterwards.

Each time Tsuna uses his dying will flames, he passes out and sees a horrific future...one where his family and friends are dead, he’s cursed to wear an orange pacifier, and he finds a tall, dark, zombie man with curly sideburns who’s wrapped in a dark cloak, bandages and piercing chains.

Author's note: Names of a Japanese origin will be presented (Surname, Personal name). Otherwise, they will be normally written (Personal name, Surname).

Target 001

Sawada Tsunayoshi was not an ambitious individual. He had not created an outline of his future life. He had no plans to achieve anything other than survive school at the moment. Tsunayoshi was a no-good loser and everyone knew it. He knew it. His Kaa-chan, Nana, knew it. His entire school and community knew it. Despite his uselessness, Tsuna like to have some kind semblance of a routine in his life. Wake up. Go to school. Fail classes. Fail sports. Get picked on. Stay after everyone else left to clean. Play games. Avoid homework. Sleep. Or something similar. His life was relatively simple. Curve balls were not welcome. His life did not need a-

"HOME TUTOR!?"

"Hai!" Nana affirmed, showing the young teen the unfolded piece of paper. "There was an interesting flyer in the mailbox." She turned it around and read it out loud. "I will raise your kid to be the new leader of the next generation. Grade and subject doesn't matter. Reborn." She beamed. "Isn't it great? I've never seen a promotion like this before."

He got up off of the floor of his room where he'd been laying and reading comics and stood up, facing her in disbelief. "It smells like a scam!" Tsuna shrieked. Who sends out shady stuff like that anyway? Schools like that don't just send out tutors to anyone, especially loser people like him. Tsuna inwardly grumbled. Now Kaa-chan would spend the rest of the week pestering Tsuna about the delusional so-called home tutor. Stupid scam flyer. How'd they get Tsuna's information anyway? He couldn't recall sending any letters or reports to anyone and there'd been no exams for something like this at school lately.

"It's probably a tutor from a professional business school for young men," his mother continued, lost in her own thoughts now. "I've wanted a teacher like this for you."

"Don't create your own image of him!" he huffed, turning away before facing towards her again with insistence. "I refuse to have a tutor, okay! I'm not good at anything I do anyway!"

"Ciaossu."

Tsuna and Nana simultaneously glanced down, where the small voice had come from. Among the mess of CD cases, candy wrappers and gaming accessories, there was a baby standing in the middle of his bedroom. He was small, adorned in an all black suit and black boots, wearing a black fedora with a thick orange stripe running across the sides of the cone. The infant had black spiky hair and curly sideburns and wore a sun yellow pacifier around his neck. And was that a chameleon on the brim of the hat? The baby carried a brief case with him and he looked foreign.

Ano...

"I arrived three hours early but as a service, I'll evaluate you now," the baby announced. Tsuna blinked in confusion. What was this kid talking about? And the way he spoke didn't sound like a normal baby.

Nana put her hands on her knees to get a better look at their sudden guest. "Hey, whose kid are you?" she inquired softly.

The kid looked at her with bright eyes and a small smile, giving her his full attention. "Hm? I'm Reborn, the home tutor." Talk about coincidental timing.

Tsuna choked back his laughter and Nana smiled in amusement.

"I was wondering what kind of person created that crappy flyer," Tsuna lightly mocked. "It's this baby!?"

The baby glanced at him. "So you're Tsuna."

Tsuna's laughter was no longer contained. "I'm sorry but there's nothing I can learn from you!"

A boulder seemed to knock into Tsuna's stomach. The baby's foot?! Caught off guard and completely winded from the sheer force of the blow, Tsuna gasped. His legs no longer supported his body and he tumbled to the floor. The next thing he knew, Tsuna's arm was being pinned behind his now arched back. Just who was this baby? Kaa-chan looked at the visitor in surprise.

"Let's get started. This is Tsuna's room, right?" Reborn prompted. Nana nodded, getting over her shock rather quickly. "Very good. I am going to evaluate my new student and get acquainted with him."

Nana hummed in delight, happy that her son was receiving much needed help now and left the boys on their own in the room.

As soon as Nana left, the baby let go of Tsuna and let an unforgiving gravity pull him back down to the ground. Tsuna's head smashed into the floor, granting him starred vision. "I-iteee," he moaned. He pushed himself off the floor and knelt down shaking the dizziness away. "What was that?" This kid didn't have normal strength but he was still a kid. Was Tsuna that weak? That it only took a baby to defeat him? The thought was kind of depressing. Tsuna blinked and then looked up in irritation, ready to confront the little devil.

Zzzzz.

No way. The baby was asleep already?! Was that even possible? The boy's irritation grew. "Hey, wake up!" Tsuna snapped, shaking the small figure awake. "I won't forgive you just because you're a baby!" A small hand shot out and grabbed Tsuna's tie. Huh? Suddenly, it was whipped around and tightly yanked at his neck. Tsuna flew backwards into the ground again. As he sat up, the world was spinning and a dull ache coursing through his body. What is this kid?!

"I have no openings," the baby stated while Tsuna regained his bearings. "My true line of work is assassination." The baby snapped open the brief case and in a few seconds assembled a gun. Reborn smirked at Tsuna. "My real job is to make you a mafia boss." Assassination? Tsuna's head was still reeling. And Tsuna was a maf- Hiiieee?

"Wha...?! A MAFIA BOSS?" Tsuna cried.

Surreal needed a new definition.

"I was assigned by a certain man to train you to become an astounding mafia boss," the baby explained, unaffected by Tsuna's blatant freak out. "The method by which your training will occur is left up to me." Was this baby's head okay?

"Hey just a minute!" Tsuna blurted. "How old are you supposed to be anyway?"

"Right now, I am perceived to be five years of age."

Tsuna frowned. "You look like you're two."

Click. Reborn aimed the gun at Tsuna's head. "Should I shoot you once?"

"Wha- HEY! Is that thing real?!"

"Very," confirmed Reborn. Tsuna kind of doubted that.

"Yeah well, I don't get any of this mafia story you're talking about. Just who's idea was it to send you over here and say all of these things?" Perhaps someone had paid this kid to do all of this as a joke. Some people had a very twisted sense of humor.

"You are heir to the Vongola famiglia, the largest family organization in Italy." Out of nowhere, Reborn produced a piece of paper that showed some sort of family lineage. The gun-wielding kid pointed to a name towards the top. Tsuna couldn't read it, it wasn't in kanji. "This is Giotto, Vongola Primo, the founder of Vongola. Only his descendants are valid candidates to take over as head of the famiglia." Reborn moved his finger towards the bottom of the page where Tsuna's own name stood out to him. "You are the great-great-great-grandson of Vongola Primo, making you eligible to become the next Vongola boss. The other three candidates died, leaving you as the final candidate."

"But I don't want to be a mafia boss," Tsuna protested.

Reborn ignored him. "With my customized training program, even a no-good student like you will become a boss with the potential to lead the Vongola to greatness. Your training begins-"

~Grumble~

Reborn's stomach interrupted his speech.

"-at another time. Later!" With that, Reborn spun around and marched out of Tsuna's room, closing the door behind him.

Tsuna collapsed backwards, aghast with the sudden information thrown at him. Just what in the world?

Decimo...a single voice whispered in his head. It spoke to him as if it were one of his own conjured thoughts, without any male or female identity. Deh...chi...moh...Decimo ka?

And then, without warning, as if someone had decided to grind his head between two rocks, pain and pressure wrung through every nerve in his brain and poured through each vessel of his bloodstream. His room twisted and warped. Blinding light filled his vision and a sensation of burning heat pressed against his chest. Tsuna felt as if an electric shot of a million volts had were zapping through him. He opened his mouth to cry out but his voice jammed in his throat and his airways clogged. The blinding light faded to a void of black. Empty, energy sucking darkness.

Decimo...Decimo...Juudaime!...Brat...Vongola...Bossu...Dame-Tsuna...TRASH!...Boss!...Tsunayoshi-kun...Decimo! Decimo! DECIMO!

Gone.

The pain and pressure were suddenly absent. The voices in his head vanished with a faint echo. His vision cleared and the world had righted itself. Tsuna's hands were clenching knotted sections of his naturally gravity defying hair and he was lying on the ground, breathing heavily. There was something digging into shoulder blade. Probably his gaming controller, left on the floor, and he took no notice of it. He laid there, wondering what had just happened. He didn't know what to make of any of that, of what to think or do next. The remaining fogged darkness in his mind dispersed and he closed his eyes as his next thoughts crept into his head of their own volition.

I was assigned by a certain man ('Nono' something extra supplied) to train you to become an astounding mafia boss...

Reborn's earlier explanation echoed in Tsuna's mind and oddly, it felt like Tsuna had heard it before. To say Sawada Tsunayoshi was beginning to panic was putting it lightly. In less than an hour, his day had turned completely weird and he never wanted to experience that kind of pain again. He continued to lay on the ground, not knowing for how long, breathing in and out, in and out. Doing any homework now was out of the question. He didn't even feel up to playing some games or listening to music.

Tsuna decided he needed some air.

He pushed himself up with relative ease and left his room.

He headed down the stairs to go outside and clear his head from this entire...day. "Kaa-chan, I'm headed out," he called.

"Tsuna, what about dinner?" Nana offered.

"I don't want it," said Tsuna. "I'm going to eat out so can I have some money?" He reached the bottom of the stairs. "And about that tutor..." he looked at the kitchen and stopped. Eh?

Reborn was sitting at the table, enjoying a meal prepared by Nana. His mother smiled cheerfully. "Reborn-kun's contract states that he'll be living here until your grades go up."

HIIIIEEEE?!

"Eh, why are you following me? Don't you have to go to grade school?"

Tsuna was walking down the street, hands in pockets and feeling put out that this so called home tutor was trailing after him.

"Assassins don't go to grade school," Reborn stated simply as if it were common logic.

"Tch, quit the assassin act already," Tsuna grumbled. An unbidden image of Reborn in a costume disguise that nobody else could see through flashed in his mind. Reborn, in black graduate robes, solving a seemingly impossible math problem. Tsuna paused and blinked. A quiet voice, similar to Reborn's, echoed in his mind, introducing himself as Riboyama-sensei. Tsuna glanced down at Reborn with an odd look. Had he met this kid before?

"Tsuna?" Reborn inquired, noticing the odd look. Tsuna opened his mouth to say something but a figure with short golden brown hair caught his eye. His brain ceased all logical thought. Immediately, he dashed off behind a nearby corner, in terror. Reborn gave him a questioning look and turned to see what had scared his newly appointed student off. To Tsuna's chagrin, he made no effort to hide. A young girl, Tsuna's age approached him. The girl, Sasagawa Kyoko, noticed the infant and crouched down to address with the adorable figure.

"Ciaossu," Reborn greeted.

"Kawai! How cute," gushed Kyoko. Tsuna's mouth dropped open with a silent gasp of disbelief as the two began interacting. "Why are you wearing a suit?" she asked.

"Because I'm in the mafia."

Tsuna sweat dropped for the both of them. Seriously? Reborn decided to say that? A haze of new thoughts suddenly entered his brain.

"Cause I'm a hitman."

"Hey, Reborn! Don't say such things in the middle of the day!" he protested. SLAP! A girl from another school...Haru...pain...confusion...annoyance...

"What are you teaching him!? An assassination technique!? Babies are angels with pure white hearts!"

Anger...fear...misunderstanding...more pain...

Tsuna shook the scene away. Was that a...memory? It certainly felt like it, like a deja vu again but he couldn't recall anyone he knew named...Haru?

Miura Haru. He didn't know how he knew that, but he did.

"Waaah," Kyoko-chan exclaimed. "How cool!"

Tsuna felt his heart drop. Wha-! He couldn't tell whether her response had been playing along with the joke or she actually believed him. Either way thought, the popular Sasagawa Kyoko already liked the little brat.

Kyoko gave Reborn a beaming smile and stood up, heading off. "Well good luck," she said with a small wave. "Bye bye."

"Ciao ciao." Reborn responded.

When Tsuna had decided he needed some air earlier, this was definitely not what he'd been planning. The self-proclaimed hitman turned to him with a glint of something (bad, bad, run away! his thoughts supplied) in his eyes. Reborn smirked.

"You have a crush on that girl, don't you Tsuna?"

"That's not any of your business!" Tsuna denied. Just how did the kid know how he felt towards Kyoko?

"I've mastered the art of mind reading," supplied Reborn.

Wait, what?! He hadn't said that out loud. Tsuna was feeling an edge of frustration seep into his mood. "That's enough, alright? Just leave me alone," he yelled.

"No."

PAIN! His body was forced to be spun around. His arm was twisted and wrenched back behind him. Unwelcome tears filled the corners of his eyes. "I-ta ta ta-ah-ow-ow OW! I give! I give!" he shrieked. His arm was immediately let go and Tsuna stepped away from the satanic hitman in apprehension, rubbing his now sore shoulder and arm. The guy was definitely not a normal baby.

"Have you confessed your feelings to the girl yet?" the hitman prompted not so innocently.

"No, of course not!" Tsuna admitted.

"Why not?"

Tsuna didn't want to go into a whole explanation for the kid but he relented. "Kyoko-chan is our school's idol. A loser like me isn't even her league. Telling her how I feel would be useless."

The home tutor cocked his head to the left. "That kind of thinking is so pathetic it's fantastic. You really are a Dame-Tsuna."

"Hey," Aside from the insult, "how do you know that nickname?"

"Gathering information is a basic skill. Now go confess your feelings to her."

Tsuna frowned. Didn't this baby get it? "No way, that's too scary and she'd never say yes."

Reborn tilted the brim of his fedora down. "Then it looks like it's finally time," he said cryptically.

"Huh?" Time? Time for what?"

Suddenly, the point of a real looking gun was pointed at his face. Click. Tsuna's mind wiped blank and overwhelming feelings of trepidation, terror and excitement settled in his chest.

Come die in an instant. A well known infant with a sadistic sense of humor.

Come die in an instant. An unfamiliar man in a suit and fedora with a strangely recognizable aura.

Come die in an instant. Reborn. Vongola. Flames. Dying will. His dying will. Death. His death. The future...? Reborn!

"Die." Reborn chirped.

Dread. "Huh!?" To be fair, that was the only comprehensible response Tsuna could choke out at that moment.

"H-hey, that's a toy, r-right?" You know it's not, it whispered.

"Come die in an instant."

Tsuna stumbled back. "Hey..." he mumbled. "W-what are you doing?"

Reborn hesitated only for less than a moment. Something had just happened, he thought, with Tsuna. He pushed the inhibition away. "You'll find out when you die," he said. And pulled the trigger.

The bullet plunged deep into the fore of Tsuna's skull. A light blood splatter flew from the wound while the young teen's eyes widened and he fell, fell, (falling, flying) back, to the ground.

I'm...I'm going to die...I'm parting with the world...

Dead. He's dead. A coffin. The sniper. Blood. Iron. Screaming. Sad. Why were they sad? Death. There was death. Dying. He was dying! Juudaime! No, Boss! TSUNAAA!

His friends. His family. No, he hadn't told them...hadn't told them how-how much he'd miss them...how proud he was of all they had accomplished...that he loved them...that he wanted to protect them...protect them...because he...he needed to do something. He was dying. He should have...should've told them how much they mean to him...with a dying will.

His body ungracefully landed with a soft thud and the world faded to black.

#katekyo hitman reborn #fanfiction #this chapter is still in rough draft form #in need of much editing and a finishing scene #khr #tsuna #reborn #vindice!reborn #arcobaleno!tsuna #post curse of the rainbow arc #time-traveled memories #halo haze re

5 notes · View notes

jareddillian · 7 years

Text

The Last Time We Saw This Trend Was Before The Financial Crisis

There has been a bit of a buzz about covenant-lite bonds lately. This isn’t really new news. You can see from the chart below that cov-lite issuance has been high for a few years now.

Source: @tracyalloway

But the old-timers know that when the cov-lite paper comes out, it is usually toward the end of a cycle.

Let Me Define a Few Terms Here, First.

When a company issues bonds, those bonds usually come with a legal agreement called an indenture.

The indenture has covenants which provide constraints on the borrower’s behavior over the duration of the loan.

There are no such restrictions on consumer debt. If you take out a car loan, and then you take out a bunch of student loans on top of it, there is not much the bank can do about it.

But in the world of corporate debt, you can. Bond covenants can take the form of restrictions on taking out additional debt, or maintenance of certain financial ratios, like interest coverage; stuff like that.

If a borrower is found to be in violation of the covenants, the debt can be downgraded by a rating agency or can be pushed into technical default.

Covenant-lite is when a company borrows from the public basically free of any restrictions whatsoever—kind of like your car loan. If they want to borrow from you, and then go and take out a bunch of additional debt, they can.

Here is how credit markets work.

During bear markets, nobody trusts anybody, and bond indentures are full of covenants. In 2009, during the financial crisis, only 2% of bonds that year were considered to be covenant-lite.

Now, about 75% of bond deals are cov-lite, and it’s been that way for a while. At the top of the cycle, all the cov-lite deals come out. And bond investors are usually very sorry a few years later—when default rates rise, and recovery rates are far below where they would otherwise be.

A Disproportional Risk for a 5% Yield

All of this is when yields (and coupons) on debt are at historical lows, and people are taking on this immense additional risk just to get a 5% yield on very risky paper.

Here’s a chart of HYG, which is considered to be the benchmark high-yield ETF. It’s not a complete picture of the high-yield market, but it’s close enough.

What would make those bonds go to default? Well, generally, default rates are low during expansions and high during recessions. In fact, when credit starts to croak, it is usually a pretty good leading indicator of a recession.

During a recession, default rates can skyrocket to 10 or 12 or even 15 percent—annually. The cumulative probability that a given 5-year bond will default is very high. Yields get out to very high—and attractive levels.

I’ve had some success in timing credit cycles over my career. One of my greatest trades (even though it was small because I was still young and poor) was to buy a high-yield convertible bond fund pretty much at the lows of the credit cycle in 2002.

The yields were astounding. I like buying 14% bonds, not 5% bonds. Don’t you?

The Trade

What is the trade?

The trade is to evaluate your holdings of corporate debt, even the investment grade stuff.

A lot of investors have been pushed out the risk curve into high yield by low interest rates, and that’s not good. People have short memories about how exciting credit can get during a downturn.

It’s even worse when you think about some of the possible liquidity issues that the bond market could have in a disorderly market.

Lots of people think you have to short stuff to be a smart investor. Shorting is hard. I don’t like shorting stuff… Most of the time, just not buying it is good enough.

Cash is great. Keep your powder dry until the next downturn, get some of those 12–14% bonds.

It feels like I bring this up every other week—cash cash cash cash cash. Cash is an option to buy something at a lower price later. As the price of nearly everything is high right now, it’s a great time to hang out in cash.

One of the hardest things to do in investing is to wait—especially to wait for an opportunity to come along. You feel like your money isn’t working for you. Yes, it’s a shame that there’s little-to-no interest in a bank account.

That doesn’t mean you have to go out and take stupid risks just to make a couple hundred basis points.

Grab the Exclusive Special Report, The Return of Inflation: How to Play the Bond Bear Market, from a Former Lehman Brothers Trader

Don’t miss out on this opportunity to cash in on the coming inflation.

Jared Dillian, the former head of Lehman Brothers’ ETF trading desk, reveals why inflationary price increases could be much higher than 1% or 2% and how you can position yourself for big profits as the bond market falls.

Download the special report now.

#covenantlite #bonds

1 note · View note

scienceblogtumbler · 4 years

Text

Grading on a curve? Why AI systems test brilliantly but stumble in real life

The headline in early 2018 was a shocker: “Robots are better at reading than humans.” Two artificial intelligence systems, one from Microsoft and the other from Alibaba, had scored slightly higher than humans on Stanford’s widely used test of reading comprehension.

The test scores were real, but the conclusion was wrong. As Robin Jia and Percy Liang of Stanford showed a few months later, the “robots” were only better than humans at taking that specific test. Why? Because they had trained themselves on readings that were similar to those on the test.

When the researchers added an extraneous but confusing sentence to each reading, the AI systems got tricked time after time and scored lower. By contrast, the humans ignored the red herrings and did just as well as before.

To Christopher Potts, a professor of linguistics and Stanford HAI faculty member who specializes in natural language processing for AI systems, that crystallized one of the biggest challenges in separating hype from reality about AI capabilities.

Put simply: AI systems are incredibly good at learning to take tests, but they still lack cognitive skills that humans use to navigate in the real world. AI systems are like high school students who prep for the SAT by practicing on old tests, but the computers take thousands of old tests and can do it in a matter of hours. When faced with less predictable challenges, though, they are often flummoxed.

“How that plays out for the public is that you get systems that perform fantastically well on tests but make all kinds of obvious mistakes in the real world,” says Potts. “That’s because there’s no guarantee in the real world that the new examples will come out of the same kind of data that the systems were trained on. They have to deal with whatever the world throws at them.”

Part of the solution, Potts says, is to embrace “adversarial testing” that is deliberately designed to be confusing and unfamiliar to the AI systems. In reading comprehension, that could mean adding misleading, ungrammatical, or nonsensical sentences to a passage. It could mean switching from a vocabulary used in painting to one used in music. In voice recognition, it could mean using regional accents and colloquialisms.

The immediate goal is to get a more accurate and realistic measure of a system’s performance. The standard approaches to AI testing, says Potts, are “too generous.” The deeper goal, he says, is to push systems to learn some of the skills that humans use to grapple with unfamiliar problems. It’s also to have systems develop some level of self-awareness, especially about their own limitations.

“There is something superficial in the way the systems are learning,” Potts says. “They’re picking up on idiosyncratic associations and patterns in the data, but those patterns can mislead them.”

In reading comprehension, for example, AI systems rely heavily on the proximity of words to each other. A system that reads a passage about Christmas might well be able to answer “Santa Claus” when asked for another name for “Father Christmas.” But it could get confused if the passage says “Father Christmas, who is not the Easter Bunny, is also known as Santa Claus.” For humans, the Easter Bunny reference is a minor distraction. For AIs, says Potts, it can radically change their predictions of the right answer.

Rethinking Measurement

To properly measure the progress in artificial intelligence, Potts argues, we should be looking at three big questions.

First, can a system display “systematicity” and think beyond the details of each specific situation? Can it learn concepts and cognitive skills that it puts to general use?

A human who understands “Sandy loves Kim,” Potts says, will immediately understand the sentence “Kim loves Sandy” as well as “the puppy loves Sandy” and “Sandy loves the puppy.” Yet AI systems can easily get one of those sentences right and another wrong. This kind of systematicity has long been regarded as a hallmark of human cognition, in work stretching back to the early days of AI.

“This is the way humans take smaller and simpler [cognitive] capabilities and combine them in novel ways to do more complex things,” says Potts. “It’s a key to our ability to be creative with a finite number of individual capabilities. Strikingly, however, many systems in natural language processing that perform well in standard evaluation mode fail these kinds of systematicity tests.”

A second big question, Potts says, is whether systems can know what they don’t know. Can a system be “introspective” enough to recognize that it needs more information before it attempts to answer a question? Can it figure out what to ask for?

“Right now, these systems will give you an answer even if they have very low confidence,” Potts says. “The easy solution is to set some kind of threshold, so that a system is programmed to not answer a question if its confidence is below that threshold. But that doesn’t feel especially sophisticated or introspective.”

Real progress, Potts says, would be if the computer could recognize the information it lacks and ask for it. “At the behavior level, I want a system that’s not just hard-wired as a question-in/answer-out device, but rather one that is doing the human thing of recognizing goals and understanding its own limitations. I’d like it to indicate that it needs more facts or that it needs to clarify ambiguous words. That’s what humans do.”

A third big question, says Potts, may seem obvious but hasn’t been: Is an AI system actually making people happier or more productive?

At the moment, AI systems are measured mainly through automated evaluations — sometimes thousands of them per day — of how well they perform in “labeling” data in a dataset.

“We need to recognize that those evaluations are just indirect proxies of what we were hoping to achieve. Nobody cares how well the system labels data on an already-labeled test set. The whole name of the game is to develop systems that allow people to achieve more than they could otherwise.”

Tempering Expectations

For all his skepticism, Potts says it’s important to remember that artificial intelligence has made astounding progress in everything from speech recognition and self-driving cars to medical diagnostics.

“We live in a golden age for AI, in the sense that we now have systems doing things that we would have said were science fiction 15 years ago,” he says. “But there is a more skeptical view within the natural language processing community about how much of this is really a breakthrough, and the wider world may not have gotten that message yet.”

source https://scienceblog.com/516399/grading-on-a-curve-why-ai-systems-test-brilliantly-but-stumble-in-real-life/

1 note · View note

the-connection · 6 years

Link

If this longtime Republican stronghold fell to the Democrats it would be a seismic artistic switching. But insurgent nominee Beto ORourke has an uphill task

On a balmy darknes in Austin, against the backdrop of the glittering high-rises of the city's booming downtown, Beto O'Rourke is laying out his audacious plan to change the face of Texas, and America.

In front of him, parcelled into an open-air common, a largely young gathering of 40, 000 is thrumming with rarely enclose gaiety. Even in the radical bubble of Austin they have never experienced anything like this: a Democrat seriously in the running for a Senate seat, emulating to topple Ted Cruz, the Tea party freak whom even fellow Republican call " Lucifer in the flesh "~ ATAGEND.

" We are not running against anything or any registered political party ," O'Rourke tells his supporters. He swipes his arm in the air like a pumped-up revolutionary while simultaneously chasing them with a crooner's charms.

The message is relentlessly positive. The 45 -year-old has nippped Barack Obama's 2008 catchphrase" Hope and change" for darker hours, so now it becomes:" Hope over dread ".

" We are extending for each other and this country that I desire so much better ," he says, to a giant roar.

Audacious is too detached a word for O'Rourke's campaign. "Nuclear" goes closer. That a punk rocker-turned-politician who a year ago was scarcely known outside El Paso, their own borders municipality he represents in Congress, should be competitive at all in Texas is miraculous.

The state last-place encountered a Democratic US senator 25 years ago. It has filled every statewide office with Republican since 1998.

The recent ballots put the race within boundaries of error. The respected Cook Political Report astounded spectators by recently grading such elections as a "toss-up". Real Clear Politics' tracking canvas has Cruz up four stages, but it also has the contest as a toss up.

A toss-up? The ramifications flood in. Were O'Rourke to send Cruz packing it is able to hand back command of the Senate to the Democrats, with all that necessitates for Donald Trump's program- and possible impeachment.

The recent ballots introduced the scoot between O'Rourke and Senator Ted Cruz within margins of mistake. Picture: Laura Buckman/ AFP/ Getty Images

Embed

But the reverberations would go much further than that. Texas has the second highest person in the society. With the increasing numbers of Texans projected to double to more than 50 million by 2050- visualize California and New York compounded- its once outsized influence on US culture and politics is set to explode.

Lawrence Wright, the Pulitzer-prize winning author, points out where reference is gratify in his hometown of Austin that any indicate of the state growing genuinely in play would be a displacement of seismic results." Formerly that happens, the whole nation's politics changes. The Republican presidential strategy could be used as deep trouble- they can't win the White House without Texas ."

Wright's book God Save Texas was published the beginning of this year when what might be called the Beto effect had yet to take off. Which is miraculous. Wright's thesis- that Texas comprises the key to the future of America, both as the beginnings of much of the rightwing tribalism that grips Washington, and as its possible medicine- is precisely what is at stake in this epic senatorial battle.

" Cruz and O'Rourke represent different eyesights for the future of the state, and the country ," Wright says." Cruz's vision is very exclusionary, cold-hearted, out of adjust with the more centrist political current that really extends through the position ."

Wright has been amazed to attend" Beto for Texas" mansions spring up in heavily republican areas such as the Dallas suburbs. That is all the more surprising sacrificed O'Rourke's background as bass participatein a punk banding and his unashamedly radical positions on universal healthcare, gun control, in-migration reform and dope legalization.

It's as if O'Rourke has taught umpteen boreholes and unleashed substitutes of pent-up political force, like geysers of black oil gushing from the Texas prairie. The coerce is evident at his downtown Austin rally.

Young beings in the crowd say they are drawn to what they see as a new wording of politics crafted by Beto( everyone uses his given name, pronounced "Bet-Oh" ). They like how he eschews focus groups and strategists, speaks his recollection and refuses to take fund from big corporate sponsors. The" Beto for Texas" campaign insignium is printed in black and white rather than Democratic off-color to signify a desire to cross boundaries.

Many at the revival, like Kaitlyn Watson, 19, are first-time voters who see in O'Rourke an fleeing from suffocating reactionary pasts. For her to vote in favour of a Democrat is an act of disobedience coming as she does from Beaumont, an intensely republican town.

In Watson's final year of high school she affixed a tweet critical of vice-president Mike Pence for being anti-gay. The tweet disappeared viral, and she was spate by castigations from her Trump-supporting schoolmates.

" Beaumont is most republican and closed-minded. I went out as soon as I could ," she says.

Watson's friend and fellow Beaumont resident, Aimee Huckeba, 20, has also been enticement for radical examines. Her educator reached recreation of her in front of classmates and other students bullied her when she spoke in government class.

Now it's payback term: she is spending her spare hours persuading young Texans to cross-file to vote for O'Rourke." This is our chance to make change ."

Embed

Huckeba is not alone . Something is afoot in the largest territory of Texas. About 1.6 m added honours have been added to voter moves since the 2014 midterm polls, a surge that could play critically in O'Rourke's favor.

One of his capital ways is that Texas is not a republican territory or a liberal government- it is a non-voting government. Trump earned Texas by nine times in 2016, but he and Hillary Clinton were lashed by the army of Texans who bided home.

Just 43% of registered voters went to the referendums- one of the most difficult turnouts in the nation- and the percentage of young people who participated was substantially lower. If O'Rourke could tap into that possible among young, as well as low-income and Hispanic Texans who tend to lean Democratic more elect sporadically, then what seemed to be a pipe dream just a few months ago could be within his grasp.

Ted Cruz, who razzed the Tea Party curve into the Senate in 2012, is for the first time facing a viable challenge from the left. Image: Pool/ Reuters

Then there are women like Jennifer Harris, 45. She is the proud owner of a bumper sticker that predicts:" Republicans for Beto ".

Harris has been a Republican voter for 20 times, but will be voting for O'Rourke in November." Moderate, college-educated dames like me, we've had enough of the tribalism, of the policies of no that Ted Cruz represents ."

Harris has a pre-existing state ailment, and has no religion Republicans will protect her healthcare coverage. Under the influence of the Tea party, Texas has the highest number of parties without health insurance in the country- some 4.3 miliion, including 623,000 children.

She also has a 10 -year-old son, and has watched with fright as low-tax Tea Party Republican have pared investment in education down to about $9,000 per public schoolchild a year. That's 25% below the national average, in a state that hosts one in 10 of all American children.

The last straw was Ted Cruz's support of Brett Kavanaugh for the US supreme court despite sexual assault allegations against the justice, further compounded by Trump's mocking of his accuser Dr Christine Blasey Ford this week. Harris has come to believe that Cruz has put self and gathering before country.

" Republican brides are mad ," Harris said." We certainly might decide the parliamentary elections. The pendulum is likely to be swaying back ."

Embed

The last era the pendulum swing in Texas was 30 years ago. The commonwealth was rock-solid Democratic for decades, but in the 1980 s and 1990 s it did a full fling and grew rock-solid Republican.

Two individuals did more than any others to bring about that sea change. One of them was the most celebrated Texan of them all: Lyndon Johnson, who following the assassination of John F Kennedy gave the Lone Star state on the planned with his surly Texan channels and Great Society reforms.

Johnson knew that his landmark civil right legislation proscribing discrimination and diversifying voting rights to black people would go down like a lead balloon in the then Democratic south, his house regime included. He is reported to have said " we have lost the south for a generation ".

And so it came to pass. In differentiate to Johnson's achievements- the process of developing Medicare and Medicaid and the "war on poverty"- Cruz and co have shut down the federal government, reduced public services and promoted anti-transgender bathroom proposals. Last-place time they transcended themselves by legalizing open carry of swords on Texan streets.

So how would Johnson see his beloved Texas today now that it has turned not only Republican but rabidly Tea Party? I positioned the question to his nephew Philip Bobbitt, a constitutional law academic at the University of Texas at Austin who as a young man lives in Johnson's White House.

" I don't see Lyndon wringing his hands about it ," Bobbitt says." He was a doer, a man of action. He would say,' Let's get moving! Let's get out the vote !'"

Supporter Caroline Korst stands for a photograph after awareness-raising campaigns rallying for Beto O'Rourke. Picture: Laura Buckman/ AFP/ Getty Images

That sums up Beto O'Rourke's policy towards dealing with Ted Cruz. Instead of bleating about the die of progressive politics, he is a doer. He has called all 254 counties in the district, sowing seeds of a possible Democratic reawakening as he goes.

A least positive take over the Democratic bid for rebirth is given by the second individual who did more than any other to wrest Texas into the Republican camp: Karl Rove. Rove is good known nationally for securing two presidential terms for George W Bush, but in Texas he is legendary for having given the mood a total makeover, systematically supplanting the Democratic old guard with Rove Republicans.

I ask Rove whether Beto O'Rourke could be about to do what he did, but in reverse.

" Texas could fluctuate back into the Democratic row ," he begins." But not with Beto O'Rourke. He is one of the most heedless applicants I've ever seen in "peoples lives" ."

Reckless?

" He has this habit of cuss extensively in the wrong lieu, like town hall meetings in rural areas in Texas. That might be charming in hip places in Houston, but O'Rourke says the f-word and a whole lot more in front of a bunch of churchgoers in little town ."

Rove is even more scathing about the viral video of a pronunciation in which O'Rourke said there was " good-for-nothing more American" than NFL players kneeling through "the member states national" anthem." I can think of a million stuffs more American than participate in the knee ," Rove says," like honouring the flag or wearing the uniform ."

The master strategist goes on:" Beto is a media start. Is he going to come closer than Democrat in recent scoots? Likely. Is he going to earn? I find it highly unlikely ."

That will be music to the ears of Ted Cruz, who for the first time is facing a viable challenge from the left. When Cruz rode the Tea Party gesticulate into the US Senate in 2012, his only event was internal- between the right and the far right- over who would be Republican candidate.

In effect, he was elected in the primary that time by 631,000 votes- in a state of 27 million.

Cruz, who is only two years older than O'Rourke but comes across as part of a crustier contemporary, is following the conventional safarus playbook: pumping big bucks into negative ads attacking his rival's stability. Being Cruz though- he was, after all, the politician who brought us " machine-gun bacon " - his attempts at character assassination has significantly descended flat.

Last month he warned that his contender was plotting to ban barbecue in the different regions of the mood. Less charming was the dog-whistle tweet he put out including a time of O'Rourke expressing outrage at the recent killing by a female police officer of an African American husband in his Dallas apartment.

Cruz captioned the time" In Beto O'Rourke's own texts ". The implication was clear: that there was something reprehensible about blaming the police for hitting an unarmed black being in his own home.

Some of the attacks on O'Rourke have come closer to their celebrate. This week he was forced to apologise after a review of a Broadway show he had inserted in 1991, when he was 19, was dredged up in which he said the only qualifications of the female actors were there" phenomenally vast hearts and tight rears ".

But overall O'Rourke's refusal to be sidetracked from his positive politics has worked. It's a sign of how rattled Cruz is that he has had to call in the artillery, in the shape of his arch-enemy Donald Trump.

Play Video

4:11

'I can think of nothing more American': Beto O'Rourke responds to question on NFL asserts- video

In the 2016 presidential primaries, Trump ridiculed him as" Lyin' Ted Cruz", shaped crude notes to his wife and proposed his father was behind the JFK assassination. Cruz dissidents are compiling the most of this awkward history. They have placed a blown-up tweet in which Trump slams Cruz for achieving "absolutely nothing" on the side of a truck which they park for maximum embarrassment in front of the Republican candidate's public appearances.

Trump will make a stump look for Cruz this month- an astonishing capitulation for the Texan granted such visceral revulsions in their past." Cruz requires Trump to come to Texas to tell all Trump boosters to vote for him, and then he necessary Trump to go away and have nothing more to do with it ," said Mark Jones, a political scientist at Rice University.

Despite the evidence of jitters on Cruz's part, it's way too early to write his political obituary. The merely voting motifs of Texas suggest the odds are stacked in the Republican's favor.

In 2004 the government reached a historic landmark when its minority populations- Hispanic, African American and Asian- outdistance the lily-white majority. Since then the Latino community has grown steadily, standing today at 40% of all Texans and in turn cringing the percentage of non-Hispanic white-hot Texans, or Anglos, to an approximately equal 42%.

That represents a fundamental demographic alter that every year performs the overwhelmingly white-hot male rightwing Republicans look more unrepresentative of the Texan people. But don't be fooled. The jolt is slow-going to filter through electorally. White Texans still account for the lion's share of those who actually turn out at the polling stations. In 2016, 9.5 million Texans voted in the presidential election, of whom 62% were Anglos.

Embed

It doesn't take the significant efforts to find those Trump-supporting, Tea Party-friendly lily-white voters upon whom Cruz's survival depends. The minute you step out of the Austin bubble and head out into the scrubby ranchlands that border it, they are everywhere.

Drive a couple of hours south to Gonzales, a small town of 7, 000 in cattle country, and you enter another Texas. If Austin, with its shining brand-new Google skyscraper, is the face of Texas's and America's future, Gonzales is viewing firm to the past.

The town's claim to fame is that it was here that the first shot of the Texas Revolution was fuelled in 1835 after immigrants refused to hand back to Mexico a borrowed cannon. As they faced off the Mexican legion, Gonzales colonists elevated a homemade banner on which they had sketched the cannon with the words:" Come and take it ".

The refrain has been co-opted by the Tea party as a representation of Texan grit and devotion to grease-guns. Ted Cruz wore a" Come and take it" pennant pinned to his lapel when addressing the US Senate.

WR Low, 75, a retired rancher, poses at the Cow Patty, a eatery in Gonzales, Texas. Low is to report to O'Rourke. Photo: Katie Hayes Luke for the Guardian figcaption > generator >

A massive' Come and take it' pennant now flies on one side of Gonzales square. On the other side another facet of Texan history is celebrated in the form of a 30 ft article bearing the bronze of a Confederate soldier. The memorial faces north to ward off the invading- and slavery resisting- yankees.

A short-lived drive from the town hub, four cowboys are remaining in the Cow Palace diner after a long morning on horseback. Three cowboys, to be accurate. The fourth, the elder statesman of different groups, says:" I'm a cowman, I predict ."

As he munches on deep-fried steak smothered in white-hot sauce, WR Low, 75, tells me why talk of a competitive election is baloney." I don't think there's going to be a race. No one proportions that guy ," he says, referring to O'Rourke whose appoint he seems powerless, or loath, to speak.

Why not?

"' Cause he's an idiot. His platform's all mistaken. He's against officers and members of the military. He requires everybody to come across the border and get welfare ."

Low thinks that if" that guy" were elected, the cowboys' way of life would be under besiege." We are contending already in rural areas and that guy would lean everybody on aid- all we have left would flow right out of township ."

Out on his ranch, Gary Henderson, 64, is surveying his cows sheltering under mesquite and American oak. He ponders the problem with Democrats is that they repute money proliferates like needles on those trees." It has to stop somewhere- they impede contributing millionaires tax breaks ."

But Trump has just given a $30 bn tax break to souls obliging more than$ 1m a year.

" That's true, but it wasn't political ."

Did you benefit personally from Trump's tax sections?

" Not much. But at the least my taxes aren't going up ."

Gary Henderson, illustrated at his 160 acre ranch in Gonzales, is one of countless Trump partisans in Texas. Image: Katie Hayes Luke for the Guardian figcaption > root >

The adulation shown by small-town and country Texans toward Trump helps explain why Cruz so cravenly needs a helping hand from the man who humiliated him. But it should also be a alerting to Beto O'Rourke.

That foreboding is italicized back in the center of municipality, where the Latino owneds of Milupita Taco House are clearing up after lunch. Gonzales is 40% Hispanic, though you wouldn't know it. The community is virtually invisible, with most people working in meat-producing mills in the environs while those working in township remain an extremely low profile.

Sebastian Esquivel, 21, is one of the cooks in the family business. He has never had voted in favour of their own lives, and in his extended family of about 20 relatives in Gonzales- US citizens every one- he knows of but one who previously gave a ballot.

Esquivel does not recognise the names of Beto O'Rourke or Ted Cruz, and cannot identify their respective parties." To be honest, to me it doesn't really matter ," he says.

What does matter?

" My family and me. Putting nutrient on the table, paying statutes ."

That's what Beto O'Rourke is up against. Entire communities of marginalised voters have been so excluded from the political process- purposefully so, over many years- that it will take more than one luminary applicant in a single political cycles/second to designate them right.

The future of Texas, of America, is in their hands. But it's still information to them.

Read more: http :// www.theguardian.com/ us

0 notes