#i restarted like 5 times trying out different races and classes but when i made him i knew instantly he was THE ONE

[entreri]

Corvin » Human Soldier / Way of Shadow Monk

#baldur's gate 3 #bg3edit #gamingedit #vgedit #oc: corvin #my gif #bg3* #just dropping by real quick to present my boy #i haven't been on here much recently bc spoilers keep slipping through my filters #i restarted like 5 times trying out different races and classes but when i made him i knew instantly he was THE ONE

[homeworldguide]

5 Stages of Technology Adoption

schools across the globe are going through a development spray of sorts, which is both agonizing and unavoidable. I'm talking, obviously, about innovation reconciliation. Perhaps your class is utilizing a COW (Computer on Wheels) truck one time per week or possibly every understudy in your school is out of nowhere holding an iPad and overseers are tossing around the feared expression "going paperless." Whatever the degree of innovation reconciliation, we as a whole appear to be in some condition of progress toward new innovation at some random time. 

The difficult truth, however, is that regardless of the number of expert improvement meetings we get or the number of devices we are given, numerous grown-ups battle to adjust to new innovation. We approach the new school year completely mindful that our understudies will hack the media and go it to their own degenerate uses before we as educators even figure out how to turn the gadget on. The answer for this issue is straightforward. It's an ideal opportunity to take a page from our understudies' playbook. We need to bounce rapidly over the obstacles of anxiety, dread, and doubt, to beat the competition in the innovation race. 

Beat the Fear of New Technology 

Similar to the 5 Stages of Loss and Grief, all individuals (not simply grown-ups) go through a progression of unsurprising responses when gone up against with new innovation. Realizing that these stages are something similar for everybody and that it's not only you against the world, you can begin to travel through the stages all the more rapidly. You can figure out how to follow the lead of your understudies and transform dread into energy and at last, acknowledgment. 

Stage 1-Denial 

As educators, we strive to sharpen our art. Year to year we make little acclimations to the educational program, our illustration plans, and our homeroom the board frameworks to amplify our viability. Thusly, it can feel like a genuine shock when managers proclaim an unexpected and far reaching development, like a paperless classes, and 1:1 innovation mix (where every understudy deals with a gadget, regardless of whether it is a PC, tablet, or even their telephone). Numerous educators will encounter a programmed reaction to the news. The overall response is "This is never going to work!" 

It turns out this is a typical response toward new innovation. Indeed, even kids, who appear to be adaptable and energetic with regards to each new influx of mechanical turn of events, go through an underlying vulnerability. The way to effective innovation reception is to acknowledge that you will feel baffled and frightened. It isn't unexpected. Just recognizing your dread can assist you with traveling through this stage all the more rapidly. The last thing you need is to allow the dread to dominate and for loss of motion to set in. It's OK to say "I'm gone crazy and I don't this way." But don't stop there. Move past the dread and attempt the innovation. 

Stage 2-Bargaining 

"They can place this in my study hall, however they can't make me use it!" Maybe you'll disclose to yourself that you will gain proficiency with the absolute minimum. You'll utilize the innovation during a key's perception of your group, or you'll utilize it in the main seven day stretch of school and afterward set it aside and return to your customary, demonstrated, schedules. Haggling isn't really something terrible in the present circumstance. It can smooth the pathway toward really utilizing the new gadget. Indeed, even innovation lovers will say "I'll take a stab at utilizing this yet in the event that it doesn't work for me, I'm not going to seek after it." As an instructor, disclose to yourself that you will check the innovation out. In the event that you don't care for it, you can utilize it as negligibly as could be expected, however you will essentially be allowing yourself to give it a shot without a substantial sensation of hazard. 

Stage 3-Experimentation 

This is the vital stage to fruitful innovation reception. It's the metaphorical defining moment for your attitude as an innovation client. When you permit yourself authorization to explore different avenues regarding the innovation and really start navigating it (regardless of whether it is another gadget, for example, an iPad or another site like Edmodo.com) it is through experimentation that we truly defeat our apprehensions. 

While exploring different avenues regarding the new innovation you might hit a detour. Your dissatisfaction might spike, your dread might erupt once more, however don't let that stop you. Trust that you won't harm the gadget just by clicking around on it. You can generally reboot, restart, or reload. Search for an assistance button, client guide, or even YouTube instructional exercise recordings that can assist you with beating these road obstructions. As you test, save a receptive outlook and search for anything intriguing or accommodating to you. 

Stage 4-Excitement 

Usually, experimentation with another apparatus will lead educators to become amped up for the application for their homeroom. Educators are by their very nature inventive and creative individuals. We generally take a gander at materials with an eye for separation and transformation for our understudies. Almost certainly, you will start to consider ways this new instrument will squeeze into your illustrations while you are trying different things with it. Discussions with different instructors are vital to resolving the subtleties and preparing toward real application in your group. Exploration the innovation on the web and read instructor web journals and surveys to become acquainted with the item shockingly better and perceive how others are applying it viably in their classes. 

Stage 5-Acceptance 

The quicker you can move yourself through the past stages, the sooner you will feel sure utilizing the new innovation. Acknowledgment implies you are prepared to compose this innovation into your illustration plans, amplify its helpfulness, and really take advantage of this drive to support your understudies. 

Everybody travels through the phases of innovation reception at their own rate. Anyway staying alert that you will feel an underlying opposition, you can move past your feelings of dread toward a useful degree of investigation and acknowledgment all the more rapidly. As instructors, we don't generally have command over new instructive changes or program drives in our school, however the one thing we can handle is the way we respond to these changes. By moving past the dread we can burn through our effort in more useful manners. Best of luck with whatever your school has made arrangements for the coming year. You can deal with it. Regardless of whether you're not kidding"! 

Everybody goes through 5 phases when confronted with new innovation. 

1. Refusal 

2. Haggling 

3. Experimentation 

4. Energy 

5. Acknowledgment 

By speeding through the initial not many stages and permitting yourself to be baffled and unfortunate, clients can immediately become tolerating of new innovation. 

#5 Stages of Technology Adoption

[meaningofmotorsport]

Rolex 24Hrs of Daytona Review

In most endurance races like this one, we see the field stringing out, finding their place in the pecking order, and we keep entertained by the constant flurry of pitstops, and strategies that take place, with the odd bit of close wheel to wheel action. However, no one seemed to tell the 49 teams who took to the infamous American racecourse that, as we saw intense battles throughout the race in 3 of the 5 classes, which made it feel more like a sprint race, than a 24 hour race.

This meant that we were treated to one of the best Rolex 24’s in a long time, with a showdown for the win to cap it off, but I will get into how each class did in a second, first I do need to address some of the issues with the race. Although you could argue they helped the racing to be so good, it took away some of the fairness and integrity of the racing in my view. This mostly centres around the caution procedure, which I talked about in the preview article as well, the way in which different classes are allowed to pit at different times, and then before the restart the pack is sorted into class order, just removes some of the strategic element from the race of being stuck in traffic, and the excitement of faster cars trying to get through slower ones, but most of all it just makes the race feel scripted and increases caution time, instead of letting it play out by itself. The different pit laps for Prototypes and GT cars kind of makes sense, in terms of safety, but sorting the pack does not in my view. On the other hand, I will praise the IMSA officials for their calls, both on when to bring out the caution, but even more so on penalty decisions, I don’t think I heard a questionable one being given, which is much better than other racing series do!

Let’s start with the bottom class, GTD and work forwards, this was expected to be the most exciting class, with so many varied cars taking part, and it did not disappoint for most of the race. To begin with there were 4 different manufacturers in the top 4 places, then gradually we saw the Mercedes pair of 75 and 57 come to the fore, they did not dominate the class, and were frequently under attack from Aston Martin’s, Porsche’s and BMW’s, as well as the 21 Ferrari, which got pinned onto the grass and spun around. Yet in the end no one could stop them from taking home a 1-2, with the 57 leading home the 75, as this class grows to encompass the entire GT field next year, I am sure we will continue to enjoy the action they give us.

With there being only 6 cars in the GTLM field, as the class gets disbanded soon, we did not expect too much from them, as there shouldn’t been a lot of competition, how wrong we were! Seemingly the entire field was in the battle for the win, even the Weathertech Porsche who was spun just before the race started. Much like the Mercedes in GTD, the two Corvette’s established their position at the front of the race early on, however many times through the race we cut to them being attacked by the Ferrari and BMW’s. Much like the GTD class though, they also could not be entirely usurped, as every time another car got the lead, the GM cars just worked away and brought it back to them, to complete a brilliant 1-2 for the team, a great way to sign off the class, even if the winning No. 3 car had a small crash on the parade lap.

LMP3 was not nearly as bad as expected, yes they did cause some of the cautions, and there was not really any in class battles, however they were not ruining the race for other classes that much, even if they could not match the GTLM’s for pace, which I am sure made restarts annoying, but otherwise they stayed on the whole out of trouble. The Riley Motorsports No. 74 took the win by 3 laps, which shows how spread out the field was. In my opinion, it is not worth having the class in the main race, unless they find some way to improve the racing, and reduce the crashes and spins, I do feel like they were mostly there to boost the car count, and whilst it was not a farce as we feared, it wasn’t great either.

For the LMP2’s, a class which is normally super competitive, they were surprisingly spread out, the pace difference throughout the race for the lead cars, meant that gaps slowly appeared and became laps before long. Once again, the Dallara which had shown pace last weekend, climbed through the field, only to be struck with more issues, this time a damaged gearbox, believed to be broken teeth on one of the gears. The No. 18 Era Motorsport car benefited from the wave arounds, which you can argue either way about how the affect the racing, to get back on the lead lap with the No.8 Tower Motorsport car, which had led so much of the race. It was looking so good for that team, until a strategy mix up at the end, caused them to do one more pitstop than the 18 car, gifting them the win in class. It will hurt for the 8 team so much, but they will learn from this, and come back stronger next time.

Now for the top class, which turned a good race, into a brilliant one. It became clear early on, that the similar pace of all the DPi’s, regular cautions and the pack bunching together under yellow, would keep them all close together and provide us with amazing action. It was quiet early on, but from Sunday morning, things did start to heat up. However, during the night, both the 55 Mazda and the 5 Cadillac had issues and dropped many laps back, it seemed as though Mazda had lost another chance at the win due to reliability, yet it was not over for them just yet. At the front, it was the 10, 31 and 01, before the 48 came on strong overnight, leading a good portion of the race. The 60 was just about hanging on, but clearly could not fight for the win. Kobayashi was incredible on restarts in the 48, going around the outside of other DPi’s who were being cautious on cold tyres, however one time we was too brave, and was forced on to the grass going into Turn 1, causing him to spin whilst battling for the lead, he would come back from it, but I am sure he got a talking to about it.

The 31 car, which had looked the fastest car all week, or on par with the 01, had started to have some issues early in the morning, as the floor was damaged and the exhaust sounded broken, in the end a seemingly unrelated issue cropped up when the car got stuck in 3rd gear, it got fixed but they were unable to catch the DPi’s again. Meanwhile, the Mazda had used good pace and wave rounds to get back on the lead lap, and was up to 2nd as the race entered the last few hours. Then crucially the top 4 split strategies, the 01 and 48 did an undercut to get fresh tyres and pass the two leaders on track, whilst the 10 and 55 ran the full stint, which would allow them to short fill on the last stop. The 01 and 48 were able to get ahead, and hold off the two behind, yet when the final stops came, it swapped back around with the 10 now having an 8 second lead on the 01 who just beat the 55 out of the pits.

The 01 showed it was one of the fastest cars as it closed down the leader, and had many strong attempts to take the lead, but it could not complete the move. Meanwhile the 55 Mazda just lacked the pace to stay with the 01, it did slowly catch the 10, however was never able to challenge it, then a storming Kobayashi in the 48 blew past Tincknell’s Mazda with a few laps to go. Up front the 01 had settled in right behind the 10, unable to get past, but possibly saving up for a last ditch chance. We would never see if it could have taken the win, as a second puncture for the CGR team ruined their race and dropped them to 5th. This allowed the No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing Acura, to come home for their third Rolex 24 win in a row, their first in the Acura, and also possibly their best yet given the many battles they had to endure to keep the lead.

It was a brilliant race to watch, with battles up and down the field keeping you glued to the screen, and the tension in the last few hours was unrivalled. This was a perfect way to start another season of racing, and I am sure has given many people including myself, the craving for so much more!

-M

#motorsport #rolex24 #rolex24h

[operationrainfall]

Title The Legend of Bum-Bo: Bum-Bo Want Coin! Developer Edmund McMillen, James Interactive Publisher Edmund McMillen Release Date November 12th, 2019 Genre Rogue, Match-3, RPG Platform Steam Age Rating N/A Official Website

There was never any question that I would be the person reviewing The Legend of Bum-Bo for the oprainfall site. After all, I quickly became a convert to The Binding of Isaac in recent years, which was also created by Edmund McMillen. Unlike that game, The Legend of Bum-Bo is a rogue dungeon crawler styled game with match-3 mechanics and brutal difficulty. Despite all that, it looks and plays much like fans of McMillen’s art would expect. The question is, did it blow away this Binding of Isaac fanboy? Or should Bum-Bo have stayed home with his coin?

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The Legend of Bum-Bo is a prequel of sorts to Binding of Isaac. We play the hapless partner from that game, Bum-Bo himself. He was a strange character even then, starting as a floating head who eats coins and slowly evolves into a more robust form. The only thing this iteration has in common with that version is his love of coins. In fact, the story starts when Bum-Bo’s lone coin is stolen by some sinister force, and Bum-Bo races into the sewers after it. Thus begins this twisted tale of vengeance, comedy and twisted storytelling.

Unlike The Binding of Isaac, this game is not a twin-stick. It’s still rogue, but more of a mixture of dungeon crawling and match-3 with rogue elements everywhere. I started to envision it as Puzzle Quest with McMillen flair, since you match pieces on the board to initiate attacks and collect Mana to activate spells. There’s 5 different primary types of Mana, and as you might expect, they’re all pretty gross. There’s Yellow Mana (pee), Brown Mana (poo), Green Mana (boogers), White Mana (bones) and Black Mana (teeth). By matching 4 or more of any of them, you’ll be rewarded with something helpful, but not always an attack. White and Black Mana are turned into attacks, with Bum-Bo flinging bones or teeth at foes respectively. Brown and Green Mana are defensive in nature. Matching enough Brown creates a turd wall that blocks an attack, while matching Green hurls a gooey booger at foes, paralyzing them for a turn. Finally, Yellow Mana will provide energy, making it the most vital of all Mana. The reason is, most every version of Bum-Bo in the game only has a limited amount of energy, which translates to how many moves you can make each turn on the puzzle board. Thankfully this doesn’t restrict your spells, which can be cast again and again so long as you have enough Mana. At first I was bothered by having such a limited amount of actions each turn, but it turned out to be a wise decision, since it forced me to be more strategic and not just go for attacks every turn.

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Speaking of multiple Bum-Bos, there’s more than one “class” in The Legend of Bum-Bo. They sort of split Bum-Bo into multiple variations, each with different stats and spells available. You start as Bum-Bo the Brave. He’s pretty basic, having the most health and hitting adequately hard. He starts with one spell that does damage using White Mana and another that rerolls the puzzle board using Black Mana. Frankly he was my least favorite, but a good starting point. Afterwards I unlocked Bum-Bo the Nimble, essentially the thief version with a rapid attack spell, followed by Bum-Bo the Stout, a hefty beast whose Mana pool drains at the end of each turn, forcing you to play super aggressively, followed by my favorite, Bum-Bo the Weird. On paper, Bum-Bo the Weird looks horrible. He has the lowest health of the starting group and his strength is nothing amazing. What makes him my favorite is that whenever Weird kills an enemy, he gains more energy, which means he can move again. When you combine that with his spells that create more of a selected Mana on the board or removes all of a specific Mana to fling it at the foe as a puzzle piece, you start to see how amazing he is. There’s other classes too, but I don’t want to spoil everything. Suffice to say, much like The Binding of Isaac, there’s a lot to do even once you think you’ve totally beaten the game, including some really insane achievements.

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The one bit of advice I’ll give players is to pay close attention to the character select screen, since the passive abilities of each Bum-Bo are spelled out there, but only there. I was initially confused about this, but after playing for some 14 hours, every quirk of each character became second nature. Which is a good thing, since The Legend of Bum-Bo is a hard game. Though that’s hardly unusual in the rogue genre, I will say this game can take it to new heights on occasion. It’s very easy to die only a couple rooms into any run, and each and every boss can wipe the floor with you if you’re not prepared. Hell, even the basic enemies can throttle you, but a lot depends on the RNG that provides your free trinkets and upgrades. Each chapter is peppered with a few battles, and in between you’ll get a freebie. These items will give your chosen Bum-Bo new spells, or even single use items like Tarot cards on occasion. You can only have so many spells at a time, and if you get a new one when you’re full, you’ll have to swap it out for an old one. Another way you can improve your chances is with the Stat Wheel. Once you beat a chapter by defeating a boss, you’ll find yourself in a strange area full of vendors, including a Vanna White looking lady. By spending 15 coins, you can spin her Wheel and improve your stats. I can’t express enough how important this is. You can get more health, more energy, or even boost how much damage your puzzle matches and spell attacks deal. Besides that, you can spend more money to reroll your various spell parameters, such as Mana cost, or try your luck to win a new trinket. So you do have some control over how your game progresses, but never quite enough to feel you’re totally unbeatable.

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I should probably spend some time discussing the primary loop of the game. At the start, there’s just one chapter and one Bum-Bo. By beating it, you’ll unlock another Bum-Bo. Beat the next chapter with the unlocked character, and you’ll unlock another chapter, rinse and repeat. Each chapter is punctuated by several floors full of enemies, and you have to beat them all to reach the boss. As I said earlier, you have to match at least 4 of the same Mana to do anything, though by matching 5 or more, you’ll get more powerful effects. For example, if you match 5 White Mana, you’ll get two bone tosses instead of just one, whereas matching 5 Black Mana throws a more harmful tooth at foes. If you’re able to match more than 6, you’ll get a floor-clearing mega attack, though I usually stumbled upon those. Another important mechanic are the lanes. There’s three lanes that enemies can move on, and they’ll generally get close before readying an attack. This is referred to as Priming, and you can tell it’s gonna happen when you see an exclamation mark above an enemy. You want to kill them quick or block their attack the following turn. It’s just important to keep in mind that you always attack the foes in the front and at the highest altitude of each lane first. Meaning if there’s a fly hovering above another enemy’s head, it will take the attack first. There’s also Hearts (Red Mana) you can match to heal yourself on the puzzle board, though finding these is so rare that I ended up relying on spells and items to heal myself. Especially since matching 4 Red Mana only rewards you with half a heart. If you’re lucky, you find a wildcard, which can match with anything. I liked the combat in the game, though it can be frustrating only having a couple moves each turn. That’s a huge part of why I loved Bum-Bo the Weird, since he was able to effectively attack again and again in a single turn.

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Aesthetically, The Legend of Bum-Bo is quite interesting. The whole game has a handmade cardboard cut-out aesthetic. Think a demonic Paper Mario, and you’re on the right track. Everything is made out of cardboard, even the stalactites in caverns or burning flame foes. Thankfully I didn’t find this off putting, as it meshed well with McMillen’s cute yet creepy art style. Color-wise the game is dark and dreary, which fits it to a tee. Musically, the game has different tracks for each chapter, and they all do a good job. That’s probably because they’re by Ridiculon, who also did the music for Binding of Isaac. So if you liked the tunes in that game, you’ll enjoy it here too. Besides the music, there’s good sound effects, such as the various grunts of Bum-Bo or the squishy sound of worms firing projectiles. Altogether, The Legend of Bum-Bo is great looking and sounding.

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While I did very much enjoy my time with The Legend of Bum-Bo, there’s a few minor niggles I need to mention. One is that the game’s initial tutorial doesn’t explain many of the advanced mechanics, such as some of the lane strategy or additional effects for matching extra Mana. A larger annoyance is that you can’t save your progress in one run and return to it later. I was frankly really surprised by this, especially given how The Binding of Isaac allowed this feature, as well as Seeds to replay runs. While this isn’t a huge problem, since most complete runs won’t take you longer than a half hour or so, it still was a constant irritation. Also, I absolutely hate the blue and purple enemies, which are immune to spells and puzzle attacks respectively. And though I didn’t encounter much in the way of bugs or glitches, one run I was inexplicably unable to hit one type of worm enemy with attacks or spells, and had to restart my game. Other than these, I really found the experience quite enjoyable.

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It’s true that The Legend of Bum-Bo isn’t for everyone. It’s demented, crude, immature and hard as hell. And yet, it’s crazy addictive, fun and very compelling. If you don’t mind losing a lot and like a game with good strategy, I think you’ll enjoy it. I know I loved my time with it, and found it an incredible bargain for only $14.99. I wasn’t sure what to expect from this prequel to The Binding of Isaac, but should have known I’d end up appreciating it. Especially the super clever ending you’ll get once you beat the Basement for the first time. If you’re a fan of rogue or Edmund McMillen’s work, you’ll find a lot to enjoy in the darkness with Bum-Bo.

[easyreview cat1title=”Overall” cat1detail=”” cat1rating=”4.5″]

Review Copy Provided by Developer

REVIEW: The Legend of Bum-Bo Title The Legend of Bum-Bo: Bum-Bo Want Coin!

#Bum-Bo Want Coin! #Dark #Edmund McMillen #funny #match 3 #Prequel #Rogue #RPG #The Binding of Isaac #The Legend of Bum-Bo

[ciathyzareposts]

Game 344: Bandor II (1992)

That’s a lazy title graphic.

                Bandor II

United States

Magic Lemon (developer and publisher)

Released as shareware in 1992 for DOS

Date Started: 26 October 2019

Date Finished: 28 October 2019

Total Hours: 14

Difficulty: Moderate-Hard (3.5/5)

Final Rating: (to come later)

Ranking at time of posting: (to come later)

           I was willing to give some credit to Bandor: The Search for the Storm Giant King (1992) for at least having the originality to try to clone the Gold Box instead of Ultima, Dungeon Master, Wizardry, or any other title that we’ve seen dozens of times. All that good will is gone with Bandor II, which differs so little from Bandor that it feels more like a remake than a sequel–albeit a remake in which very little is actually remade except trivial graphics and interface changes.             

And let’s not over-emphasize those graphics upgrades.

         In the original Bandor, you controlled a party of four adventurers set loose in the titular city to take quests from the council and its chief wizard, Osi. Both games draw heavily from Pool of Radiance in the nature of the plot and quests; for instance, a mysterious warlord organizing monsters in the slums, and someone poisoning a nearby river. In the first game, the city’s woes were revealed to be the machinations of the Storm Giant King, whose defeat ended the game well before I’d completed all the side quests. Here, the game begins with new ills facing the city, including word that the Storm Giant King has returned. Bandor II is subtitled “The Wrath of the Storm Giant King” on some external sites, but the subtitle is never given on a game screen or within the game files.            

Bandor is having more problems.

          I tried to import my characters from the first game but couldn’t figure it out, so I created brand new ones. Classes are warrior, thief, mage, friar, rogue (warrior/thief), and jack-of-all-trades (warrior/thief/mage). Races are human, dwarf, elf, half-elf, and half-dwarf, with only the mongrels able to be jacks-of-all-trades. Attributes are strength, magic, and luck, given as percentages from 0 to 100. Everyone begins with axes and leather armor. Spellcasters have spellbooks that (annoyingly) must be swapped into the weapon slot when you actually want to cast a spell.             

I was uninspired during character creation and chose an uninspiring name.

            The game re-uses the three 40 x 40 maps from the first title: the city of Bandor, the forest, and the underworld (slums) to the city’s east. The underworld has a teleporter to a fourth map, titled “Landthi’s Lair,” which makes no sense until you reach the final encounter. The city map is entirely wasted. The huge space has only a few shops and no special encounters.

This was a huge waste of time.

          A large city council building in the center doles out quests. There are only 5 in the game:             

Retrieve a bottle of Elixir of B’Tet from the Fortune Teller in the slums; bring it back to the wizard Osi. The Fortune Teller has you rescue her brother, the guildmaster, from a group of bandits before she hands over the elixir.

          The Fortune Teller has a sub-quest.

          Investigate unexplained deaths in the city slums near the old Temple of B’Nah. This turns out to be former acolytes of B’Nah attempting to resurrect him. One combat clears this quest.

            Getting rewarded back at the city council chambers.

            Find out who’s poisoning the River Quoth. It turns out to be a dragon.

Investigate the return of the Storm Giant King and find out who is behind his return.

             The council issues the main quest of the game.

          Only the last quest is necessary to win the game, and depending on your exploration pattern, it’s entirely possible that you’ll stumble on that quest first.

Bandor featured three major problems, none of which is fixed in Bandor II:

1. No inventory improvements. From your starting axes and leather armor, you can use your gold to buy slightly better items like long swords and plate armor. Once you have those, there’s nothing else. No upgrades are found during adventuring, or as quest rewards. This means there’s no purpose to the economy except healing and resurrections.               

There’s hardly anything worth buying here.

           2. A horrible mouse-only interface. I hated the mouse-driven interface of both games. Actions require too many clicks; there are no alternatives to clicking; and clicking even slightly away from the center of your target produces a question mark, a pause, and a noxious noise that made me want to punch a kitten. The worst part is that this game was supposed to feature a keyboard interface, and it technically does. But it’s bugged and broken, failing to read your input about half the item. Worse, you have to choose one or the other during configuration. Good games have redundant commands active at the same time.             

Graphics haven’t improved. I don’t know what this was supposed to be.

             3. Too many combats with too few tactics. Bandor tries to emulate the Gold Box combat system but only offers a handful of spells (admittedly, its “Fireball” analog is about as much fun as “Fireball” without being quite so over-powered) and eliminates useful features like backstabbing, delaying, and guarding. Worse, it often puts the party in extremely narrow corridors where only one character can fight and spellcasters can’t cast over their heads because they must have an uninterrupted line-of-sight to the enemy. Random combats are programmed to come along something like every 20 moves, and I found it less annoying to save the game, quit, and reload (which restarts the counter) than to fight all of them.              

Fighting bandits in confined conditions.

          To these inherited problems, Bandor II maddeningly introduces another:

4. No ability to level up until late in the game. If you visit the guild early in the game, you can’t get in. A message on the door indicates that the guildmaster has gone into the slums to investigate the problems there. You have to rescue him from bandits before he’ll return to the guild and train you. But the bandit encounter is so deep in the slums, you could easily do this quest last, or not at all.           

This doesn’t happen until it’s so late you hardly need it.

         The only thing to unarguably improve is the automap, which no longer forgets your progress and clearly annotates physical features like doors and uncrossable foliage.             

A growing automap of the final area looks a bit like Ultima Underworld’s.

            Of the maps, the outdoor forest is the most annoying. It is essentially linear, with trees, bushes, and water blocking any attempt to create your own exploration pattern. In short order, you find a magic staff, talk to a druid who is only able to contact you through the staff, and then fight a dragon to destroy the threat to the city’s water supply. Random battles against ogres and giant rats are more dangerous than the “boss” battle in the area.             

This time, it’s a three-headed dragon instead of a sorcerer named Yarash, but the idea is the same.

           The slums serve up more giant rats and ogres, along with bandits, fire beasts, and “black servants.” (Nothing like a message saying, “You hit the black servant” to test my liberal sensibilities.) Buildings within this area hold the encounters necessary to solve all quests except the Storm Giant himself.              

Threatened by Benson.

            The undead Storm Giant King is found through a portal. He attacks after a bit of exposition with two black servants, and again the combat is easier than some of the random ones found in the same area.          

The Storm Giant King, just like Tyranthraxus, doesn’t know when to stay dead.

            After he’s defeated, you can enter an inner sanctum and find the wizard Landthi, brother of Osi. He takes the credit for raising the Storm Giant King and then attacks with no minions, making the final battle one of the easiest.

The villain delivers his exposition.

The final battle against Landthi in a corner.

            Once you defeat Landthi, Osi apparates in and says that Landthi still lives . . . somewhere. He thanks you for your service and ends the game.            

Maybe we’d like to be heroes of some other city next time.

         I gave the original Bandor 26 points on the GIMLET. Since its sequel uses a near-identical interface, mechanics, and plot, I’m inclined to give it the same thing–minus 2 points for “character creation and development” since you can’t develop for most of the game. I guess I’d also subtract a point for “encounters,” since this game had the same unmemorable foes as the first but without the handful of non-combat encounters that I noted in my review.

If I can say one good thing about Bandor II, it’s that magic and physical combat are well-balanced. You can’t win with just a melee party, but spells aren’t quite the deus ex machina that they are in the Gold Box series. There are only a few of them, and while none of them ever stop being useful (e.g., “Sleep” doesn’t stop working against higher-level foes), they also have logistical concerns that prevent the mage from wiping the floor with every enemy party. For instance, enemies have a chance of dodging spells, you have to be in a line-of-sight to cast them (no other party members blocking), and the spellcaster cannot be in melee range of an enemy.

           Blasting the Storm Giant King with a “Fireball.”

           Still, unless Bandor III (1993) offers a significantly different experience, I won’t be sad if it never surfaces. We’ll see author Don Lemons’ other work with Shadowkeep I: The Search (1993) and The Infernal Tome (1994).

We’ll check in with Camelot next, after which I’ll either take another stab at The Magic Candle III or move on to Challenge of the Five Realms. 

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/game-344-bandor-ii-1992/

#retro games #dos games #retro #crpg #adventure #amiga #oldcomputers #8bit #16bit #blog #repost

[eurekakinginc]

"[D] 8 ways machine learning techniques can teach us about effective human learning"- Detail: ​https://ift.tt/2NK79Ck have been many articles covering how the entire human race is going to be replaced by AI and machine learning. That I don’t know. However, machine learning is in many ways simply mimicking human learning, and I believe we can apply effective machine learning techniques to improve our own learning and education.Be open to improving your decision process to face new challenges based on new data as opposed to outdated data: For an AI model to learn new knowledge or adapt to new problems, it has to have new data. Opportunities will be missed if we don’t keep up to date with current knowledge. For example, many people in Hong Kong doubted that the economy of China would take over one day, even though they were adjacent to China and were emigrating to foreign countries. The economy in China was significantly worse than the rest of the world when I was born in Hong Kong in the 1990s. Nonetheless, I saw many cities in China have gone from Detroit to world-class cities in less than twenty years. Now, if I say I want to work in China people will think of it as a good choice, but if I say Ethiopia people will probably think I am crazy. But hey, let’s look at the following simple plot with GDP growth rate pulled from the world bank: Ethiopia has been having a steady growth rate of 10% for ~10 years. If China could go from dirt poor to having a vibrant economy now, why couldn’t Ethiopia do it?​Will Ethiopia be the new China?2. In problem-solving, try different solutions before focusing. A common algorithm for finding the optimal solution when there is no certain (closed form) solution in ML is simulated annealing, which was inspired by simulating annealing in molding glass. Glass annealing is a process that starts with liquidish glass, which is slowly molded into hard and specific shapes. In each step, the possible shapes become more and more dictated by the shape of the previous glass. And we often get get stuck in the old way of thinking, “If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” And to get to the masterpiece in your mind, you need to be open to start over (random restart). Of course, how often you need to restart is probably worth another post.3. Shrink the problem by finding recurrent patterns: Convoluted and distributed layers from deep learning try to capture recurrent patterns in the data that are important towards the problem. For example, the most effective way to learn about a company is through a concise executive summary. While it is good to generalize, also take care to avoid inaccurate overgeneralization.4. Remember what is important, but don’t get stuck in the past: Long Short-Term Memory made recurrent neural nets more effective by remembering important parts of the data. Life is a journey. We cannot fully predict tomorrow, but we can learn from the past. The most important thing is to focus on the important parts that will impact the future, instead of getting stuck on trivial things. “Always and forever” is a beautiful idea, but our world is always changing in profound ways.5. Don’t get discouraged by making mistakes: Deep learning may be state-of-the-art, but do you know that it fails a lot when it first starts training? Following a recipe is like a rule-based algorithm may yield the simplest solution in the short term, but they fail to adapt and get phased out over time. So which approach are you going to use?6. Try starting with the right information in problem-solving. Pre-training and transfer learning in ML can save a lot of training time and reduce data requirements. Trying to figure out everything by yourself can take a lot a time. It is much better if find a mentor or start with the right knowledge so that you don’t have to learn everything from scratch every time.7. Focus on the important variables. Regularization in model fitting is commonly adopted to avoid overfitting. Don’t let trivial negative things that happen in life ruin you. Focus your decision making based on your most memorable experiences that will maximize your future outcomes.8. Incomplete or biased data can cause a bias in decision making that yields poor results. If the data trained in the ML/AI model is incomplete or biased, so will the decision that the model makes. Try to get multiple perspectives before diving into a conclusion! Also, you might want to read about the MECE (Mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive) principle from “The McKinsey Way” by Ethan M. Rasiel. “Factfulness” by Hans Rosling is also a great book on refining our knowledge about the world.Data is part of every single useful machine learning equation. And data is simply the truth observed. Thus, in a way, what machine learning teaches us the most is that we should always be respectful of the truth in decision making.Author: Brian Tsui, Bioinformatics, Ph.D. Candidate, UC San Diego.Edited by: Tiffany Hwu, Cognitive Science, Ph.D. Candidate, UC Irvine.Reposting the post to here to get some feedback. Do you think it is informative? Is there something missing? Please leave your comments below. Is there something I can do better in reddit posting?Reposted from: https://ift.tt/2MJqDuv. Caption by brianytsui. Posted By: www.eurekaking.com

#machine learning #data science #software #programming #engineering #saas #eCommerce #marketing

[trushachandan-blog]

Product Design 3 (Week 2)

Brief

My Project title for the class is Elderly cat or dog care for urban household.  

My brief for the class is How Might We ensure that your old dog is eating the right kind, quality, quantity of food required at his age.

The Toulmin Model of Argument

Philosopher, Stephen Toulmin had conducted an in-depth study and concluded that there are six essential elements which are required to be present to make any argument successful.

Thus, I believe that leaning about argumentation is essential for all Product Designers so that they can include all these elements while putting forth and presenting their ideas and designs such that they are believed and accepted by others.  By incorporating these elements, It would become easier for them to convey their ideas to their clients while putting their brief. Since there are too many variant products already available in the market, it is essential for them to argue and convince their clients as to how the product designed by them is different and unique from others, how it will affect and improve the lives of their consumers and there by boost the business and revenue of the Company.

Designing For Unconscious Bias

Reading this post helped me identify certain biases that had been unconsciously festering in my mind in relation to my User category

* The first assumption or bias that I had arrived to was that all old dogs suffer from some or the other age related illness which leads to their demise.

* Urban dwellers prefer keeping small dogs at home due to space constraint.

* They lead a hectic, busy life and have no time to care for their pets.

* Most people work in their offices, leaving their dogs alone at home.

* People rush to the Veterinary doctors whenever they detect any unusual change in behavior of their pets.

Inspiration

Levis Commuter Jacket

Levis Commuter Jacket is a  jacket designed for urban commuting. By connecting with your mobile device through touch, it allows commuters to use mobile phones hands-free.

Levis commuter jacket inspired me as according to me it is a very simple easy to use smart wearable device and easily integrates as a part in your life . As It suggests it allows commuter to use mobile phones hands free and thus it would save a lot of time  of commuters waiting to check their phones and responding them. It also prevents you from losing your phone.

Raceya

Raceya is a Vehicle for STEM! It is a fun, fast, customizable cars that teach kids about science and engineering - sparking their curiosity, creativity and even a little friendly competition. The toys aren’t designed for the kids who know it all, but the kids who are excited to see what they can do.

I found this product really inspiring because as a kid i was really interested in programming sensors and loved making fun race cars that can do things. However I used to make them out of cardboard and real gears and sensors and needed help from my dad. However this can really be helpful for kids as it gives them hands on knowledge about sensors, electronics and engineering and is also fun like any other toy. It would also encourage them and learn about stem related subjects at early age.

ELLI -Q

https://elliq.com/

Elli- Q is a smart companion device for old people. 

I really like this device as it seems to be easy to use as naturally  it is made for old people who are not much comfortable with technology and at the same time it give company to them at home. It has a very simple organic design and looks like a sculptural piece in the begining and is not like other smart home devices.

Current Products Available in the Market

PetNet (Food Dispenser)

Pros 

The SmartFeeder feeds your pet the right amount at the right time, automatically!

U also receive app alerts for successful feeds, low food warnings and SmartDelivery shipments.It sends u an alert when the food is running low.

It also recommends the healthiest portions based on your pets breed, age, weight, and activity level.

Bowls easy to clean.

Cons 

The device however works only with small round dry dog foods and doesnt work with dog food of any other size and shape.

Customers have faced issues with the food not sliding properly into the bowl and it would sometimes suddenly stop working.

Owners have to manually feed in their dog activity levels once and it just automatically assumes and suggest food for your dogs everytime and u have to run a trial everytime with foods it suggests if it is useful on your dog or not.

Customers have found it difficult to set up the app.

The device is only helpful for small dogs and not larger dogs .

You cannot put wet food in that dispenser.

PetSafe 5-Meal Pet Feeder

Pros 

Unique dish feeder with digital timer which is very accurate.

Very easy to program and operate and easy to refill.

Programming does not need to be restarted every day, it is one-time-thing so you can relax and forget about it unless you want to change the times or remove batteries.

Deep compartments that hold 1 cup of dry food each.

Made of durable and resistant materials.

It works with rechargeable batteries and batteries seem to work for longer time.

The feeder has a good grip on the bottom.

The food tray is easily removable and dishwasher safe

Good solution for overnight trips.

You can easily set as many feeding times as you like and also set the feeding times at any intervals you like.

Cons

The motor of the feeder makes a whirring noise when the dish rotates (it lasts 2 seconds).

You can program really 4 meals as the first one is exposed to be served at present time.

Works only with batteries (customers report batteries last a long time).

It does not have ON/OFF switch, so you have to remove the batteries if you want to turn it off (if using it every day no needs to turn it off).

The unit does not have “low battery” indicator.

Very difficult to insert and remove batteries.

The unit does not retain programming after removing batteries.

To use with moist food is not good for more than 24 hours as it does not have ice pack underneath the tray (it has one small compartment to put ice and it is set underneath the present feeding compartment).

Sketch Based User Map

Sketches 

After doing a lot of research and interviewing with a number of people I found out that most people were not aware about the nutritional needs of their dog that are required at different ages. Proper nutritional food at early age according to their breed and level of activity can prevent a number of diseases  and food allergies that could affect them in their years of growing up.Also proper food in their golden years of their life (old age ) can save them from diseases getting worse and help them recover sooner and  help lead a happy healthy life.

So I ideated a wearable that would be connected to the food dispenser and the mobile app and  that could be attached on their collar or vest that would monitor their health condition and suggest food accordingly. It would also measure its activity levels ,weight , food allergies and amount of nutrition that he is receiving from the food he eats and the app gives updates about the amount  proteins and nutrients he requires every now and suggests recipes u can cook or order for your pal for him to lead a healthy lifestyle.

Through the food dispenser connected through the app the owners can change and put quantity of food required for that day for them from the app right from their workspace.It and even alerts them if they have eaten their food.  The dispenser also caters for larger dogs and supports wet food.It also gives notification about amount of food left in the dispenser.

 And such products catering to this need haven’t been out in the market.

Prototyping 

I prototyped couple of mechanisms regarding the food dispenser machine as to how the wet food will fall into the bowls and available to the dogs easily without any hastle.I am also trying to cater to large dogs through this mechanism.

I even prototyped couple of designs for wearable for dogs so as to see the mechanism of how the wearable will fit onto their collar as well as their vest at the same time.

Thank You !!

[yahoo-from-the-marbles-blog]

NASCAR Power Rankings: Kevin Harvick's back at No. 1

Welcome to the 2018 edition of our weekly NASCAR Power Rankings. Our continuing feature will attempt to rank and assess the moment’s top 12 drivers in the Cup Series. You’ll probably disagree with our rankings. And that’s fine. Give us your feedback either in the comments below or on Twitter.

1. Kevin Harvick (LW: 3): The first driver to four wins in 2018 is deserving of the No. 1 spot. Harvick’s been as consistent as Kyle Busch and Joey Logano and now has more wins than any of them. He’s also had more speed too. With 201 laps led on Sunday, Harvick has led 741 laps in 2018. Busch has led the second-most with 498.

“I felt like we had a really good car from the time we unloaded, and I think you could tell that from when we qualified,” Harvick said. “That’s usually not my strong point, qualifying up here, and to be able to qualify on the front row, we had three great practices and everything just kind of fell into place, and when they dropped the green flag, it was definitely still good.”

2. Joey Logano (LW: 2): Logano was one of three drivers who pitted during the caution that happened when Kyle Busch’s driveshaft when kablooie. He never regained the track position he lost. Logano ended up 13th.

3. Kyle Busch (LW: 1): Busch’s 35th-place finish at Dover is his worst finish since he was 35th in the spring race at Bristol a year ago. Busch knew his car had a problem in the early stages of the race and sure enough, it only made it to lap 271.

4. Clint Bowyer (LW: 9): Bowyer is suddenly turning in his best season since 2012. He’s fourth in the points standings after finishing second to teammate Kevin Harvick and would have won the race if NASCAR called it after 320 laps because of rain.

“Clearly Kevin was up front was the car to beat most of the day,” Bowyer said. “It was our first shot at tires and taking off in clean air. It makes a big difference. When you’re back in dirty air mired in traffic like we were most of the day it’s tough.”

5. Kurt Busch (LW: 7): Busch continues to help make Stewart-Haas the best team in the Cup Series. He finished fifth on Sunday and is sixth in the points standings, meaning half of the top six positions in the points are occupied by SHR drivers.

6. Denny Hamlin (LW: 5): Guess what? Hamlin got another pit road penalty on Sunday! It wasn’t really his fault, however. He was one of many drivers trying to make it to the end of the first stage without making a late pit stop and he ran out of gas right as the stage ended. He then had to pit before the pits were open to make sure his car didn’t come to a stop on the track.

The end of the first stage was intriguing as hell, and it’s a shame that NASCAR broke its own rules to help teams who needed gas get that fuel sooner. NASCAR opened the pits earlier than normal at the end of the first stage because of the fuel situation that had developed during the stage.

Why? Because according to NASCAR vice president Scott Miller, the sport is in the “entertainment” business.

It’s a lame excuse and one that shouldn’t be tolerated by fans, even if there’s no rule on when NASCAR actually opens the pits in the middle of a stage. Cars running out of gas trying to make a strategy play is entertaining too. And the sport shouldn’t be changing its protocol on the fly because some teams tried something. It’s unfair to the teams who weren’t out of gas.

7. Chase Elliott (LW: 4): Elliott was 12th and third among Chevrolets. That second statistic shows just how poor the new Camaro has performed. While Ford may have rebounded from 2017, how much of that is because Chevrolet has taken a step back with its new car?

We have no doubts Chevy teams will get faster as the season goes on, but it’s remarkable that the learning curve is as steep as it seems.

8. Jimmie Johnson (LW: 6): Johnson was best in class once again, finishing ninth and best of all the Chevys. It feels mean to demote him two spots after a top-10 finish, but it also feels mean to demote Elliott four spots after finishing 12th. So it goes.

9. Ryan Blaney (LW: 8): Blaney was eighth and there’s no post-race quote from him in Ford’s notebook. So this will once again be a short entry for Blaney. Kind of weird for a guy being touted as one of the sport’s future stars, but there’s a lot of weird things in this sport.

10. Martin Truex Jr. (LW: 11): Truex finished fourth at the one track that’s legitimately his home track. His post-race comments reflect the quality of racing at Dover on Sunday. Yeah, there were multiple grooves, but passing didn’t seem all that prevalent.

“Just really hard to pass here today,” Truex said. “Our car was fast in clean air, but I couldn’t pass anybody – especially those last 200 laps once we got somewhere up towards the front, so it was all about where we come off pit road and how we restarted and it’s frustrating, but we just couldn’t seem to make the car turn off the corner all day long. It was tight from the get go and that really hindered me in traffic.”

11. Kyle Larson (LW: 10): Larson bounced back after starting at the back of the field and getting a pit road penalty on lap 98. He got a lap back on Busch’s caution and then worked his way back through the field to 10th by the end of the race.

12. Brad Keselowski (LW: 12): Keselowski was far better at the beginning of the race than he was at the end. He was third in the first stage, second in the second and then finished sixth.

“We kind of fell apart on the last two runs,” Keselowski said.

The Lucky Dog: Daniel Suarez tied a career high with a third-place finish.

The DNF: Corey LaJoie’s engine made it a whopping 20 laps.

Dropped Out: N/A

– – – – – – –

Nick Bromberg is a writer for Yahoo Sports.

Follow @NickBromberg on Twitter

More from Yahoo Sports: • NBA assistant coach resigns amid reports of misconduct • Report: UFC champ rejected Conor McGregor’s apology • Mike Trout reveals the one pitcher he can’t figure out • Hall of Famer has unusual, grim post-MLB career

#hidden:vv_16x09:b995b5e3-b207-31a3-80b2-e7df9c7e80eb #_uuid:5bcf4347-a7a0-34b1-a3fa-5dcef4b0241a #_lmsid:a077000000CFoGyAAL #_author:Nick Bromberg #_revsp:de666450-3434-45fa-ac3d-ea6088f81691

[sbknews]

New Post has been published on Superbike News

New Post has been published on http://superbike-news.co.uk/wordpress/toni-elias-over-cameron-beaubier-in-vir-thriller/

Toni Elias Over Cameron Beaubier In VIR Thriller

Yoshimura Suzuki’s Toni Elias continued to show he has an uncanny knack of being able to win close races in the closing laps, the defending MotoAmerica Motul Superbike Champion stalking race-long leader Cameron Beaubier before taking the lead and ultimately the win with two laps to go at VIRginia International Raceway.

Elias’ victory in the Championship of Virginia today was his fourth of the season and the 20th of his MotoAmerica Superbike career. It also gives him a 26-point lead in the championship going into tomorrow’s second of two Motul Superbike races at VIR.

Monster Energy/Yamalube/Yamaha Factory Racing’s Beaubier was a frustrated second, just .114 of a second from victory after leading the majority of the 20-lap race.

The race was red-flagged before the completion of lap one when Beaubier’s teammate Garrett Gerloff crashed. Quicksilver/LEXIN/Hudson Motorcycles’ Bobby Fong and Yoshimura Suzuki’s Roger Hayden also went down trying to avoid Gerloff. While Fong was able to restart (and crash again), Hayden was a bit banged up and didn’t make the second start. Gerloff, meanwhile, was transported to a local hospital for precautionary chest X-rays.

“We could see this morning that (Cameron) was so strong,” Elias said. “The same situation I was in COTA (Circuit of The Americas). For me, it was clear: make a good start in the beginning. He start to attack. I could defend. When he start to go his pace, it was difficult for me. I was struggling a lot, especially in traction areas. I need to find something for tomorrow. But at the end, the race become easier at and I start to play my cards. I could see he was playing his cards. Both we are playing really good, and at the end I could win but I was not sure. I was not sure because was some struggle. I could feel him in the back. I saw him a couple of times. Always, the victory is nice. Thanks to my team. They are working really hard.”

Beaubier, who had been fastest in practice and also earned his first pole position of the season in this morning’s Superpole session, was frustrated with second place after leading for so much of the race.

“It’s always frustrating to come up short when you lead most of the race, but I’ve got to hand it to (Elias),” Beaubier said. “He rode really good the last couple laps. We were going back and forth, and he was protecting the insides really good on the last lap. We tried to go around him, which didn’t work. I was a little frustrated there in the middle of the race just because I felt like I didn’t have the grip I did in practice, but we’re going to go back and maybe make some changes for tomorrow and hope for a good race tomorrow. I felt comfortable as soon as the bike rolled off the truck this weekend. Yesterday, I had some good practices, felt comfortable. Had good pace and feeling just loose and good on the bike. So, it’s a bummer not to win, but I’m glad I’m up here (on the podium). I got second. We’ve got tomorrow to try again. I just want to give a shout out to Garrett (Gerloff). It sucks to see your buddy and your teammate go down like that. Hope he’s back for tomorrow.”

Yamalube/Westby Racing’s Mathew Scholtz, the South African who has won the two races that Elias hasn’t won this season, finished third and now trails Elias by 26 points in the title chase. Scholtz battled early with Attack Performance/Herrin Compound Yamaha’s Josh Herrin, who ran off the track shortly thereafter and ended up fourth.

“I got a pretty decent jump off the line,” Scholtz said. “I was following Cam and Toni. I don’t think we were setting a really fast pace in the first couple laps. (Josh) Herrin passed me. He was taking really tight lines. Unfortunately, that kind of slowed us down, and Cam and Toni were able to get some breathing room. Then I tried passing Josh. I was running him wide, he was passing me back, then he kind of dropped off. I’m still really happy to finish on the box. It’s been a really awesome weekend for us. I’m happy to be the first privateer. It’s been a pretty focused weekend. The bike’s been working great. I think we can make one or two changes to help us in the second race and hopefully bring something for these two guys.”

Fifth place went to M4 ECSTAR Suzuki’s Jake Lewis, the Kentuckian riding with a heavy heart after his father’s tragic passing this week. Lewis only lost out to Herrin for fourth in the final laps. It was Lewis’ third fifth-place finish of the young season.

Fly Street Racing’s David Anthony finished sixth, well clear of 6D Helmets/KWR’s Kyle Wyman, the team owner/racer suffering with a bad back that almost kept him off the bike yesterday.

Scheibe Racing’s Danny Eslick, Omega Moto’s Sebastiao Ferreira and Thrashed Bike Racing’s Max Flinders rounded out the top 10.

In addition to Fong, Gerloff and Hayden, Genuine Broaster Chicken Honda’s Cameron Petersen also crashed, the South African in sixth place at the time of the get-off.

Supersport: Beach Over Gillim For 2015 MotoAmerica Supersport Champion JD Beach, his Saturday at VIR got off to a rocky start in final qualifying, as he suffered a mechanical issue and, after his Monster Energy/Y.E.S./Graves/Yamaha YZF-R6 was repaired, he crashed and the bike had to be rebuilt in time to start the race.

Everything came good for the Kentuckian, though, as he got a great start, pulled the holeshot, and was never headed all the way to the checkers. Rickdiculous Racing’s Hayden Gillim, also R6-mounted, finished a close second and Quicksilver/LEXIN/Hudson Motorcycles rider Richie Escalante completed the Yamaha R6 podium sweep with his third-place result.

“Yesterday kind of started out a little rough… had a few incidents,” Beach said. “Then, this morning, I destroyed the bike. It’s been a little hard this year just because, unfortunately, it is different just having one rider (on my team). The staff is a little smaller, and we’re still trying to figure it all out. I think the race today was great. It was good to get a win. Hayden was pushing really hard. We definitely have some work to do. We’re going back to that drawing board and see if we can get a bit more speed for tomorrow.”

Liqui Moly Junior Cup: KTM On Top Following the balancing measures that MotoAmerica took to level the playing field in the Liqui Moly Junior Cup, Saturday’s race saw two brands of motorcycles reach the podium, with Orange Brigade/JP43 Training KTM rider Alex Dumas notching his second win out of the three races held so far. Attack Performance/Herrin Compound Yamaha rider Gavin Anthony was second, and AGVSPORT America/MonkeyMoto Yamaha’s Jay Newton earned the first podium result of his MotoAmerica racing career.

After his victory, Dumas said: “We made a change on the bike between qualifying and race one, and I couldn’t manage the bike at first. But, as soon as I figured it out, I was able to get a gap on these guys, and I won by a few seconds. So, I’m happy.”

Twins Cup: The X-Man Cometh In the Twins Cup race, it was an RBoM Racing sweep. The team fielded six riders aboard Suzuki SV650s at VIR, and three of them reached the podium. Xavier Zayat, who has previously competed in MotoAmerica’s KTM RC Cup and Superstock 600 classes, won the Twins Cup race with Road Atlanta Twins Cup winner Chris Parrish finishing second and Curtis Murray, who was third in Atlanta, rounding out the VIR podium again in third.

“Practice and qualifying was my first time on the bike, first time racing in this new series,” the 19-year-old Zayat said. “We ran into a couple of tire issues. We ran the same front tire all weekend and it didn’t give us any grief. It gave us a little grief in the race, so we should have swapped it. On the start, I got away. I had a little strategy just to get out of the gate. I just wanted to get away from the pack. I got a good jump off the line. I was able to do that and fortunately my comrades didn’t follow through. But, we still made it up here. Big shout out to (RBOM Racing’s) Russell and Mike. They are the living, breathing spirit of our team and this (Twins Cup) class. He was able to bring (six) entries on board. Hopefully, this is what they want changed for rules and everything like that because it will only make it fair and better racing, for sure.”

Superbike Race One Results 1. Toni Elias (Suzuki) 2. Cameron Beaubier (Yamaha) 3. Mathew Scholtz (Yamaha) 4. Josh Herrin (Yamaha) 5. Jake Lewis (Suzuki)

Supersport Race One Results 1. JD Beach (Yamaha) 2. Hayden Gillim (Yamaha) 3. Richie Escalante (Yamaha) 4. Cory West (Suzuki) 5. Braeden Ortt (Yamaha)

Liqui Moly Junior Cup Results 1. Alex Dumas (KTM) 2. Gavin Anthony (Yamaha) 3. Jay Newton (Yamaha) 4. Dylan Deutschlander (Yamaha) 5. Jackson Blackmon (Yamaha)

Twins Cup Results 1. Xavier Zayat (Suzuki) 2. Chris Parrish (Suzuki) 3. Chris Murray (Suzuki) 4. Jason Madama (Yamaha) 5. Darrell Ricks (Suzuki)

#CameronBeaubier #MotoAmerica #ToniElias #VIR

[golddyspraxia]

the catch up: Dyspraxia

Trying to get Dyspraxia support at Goldsmiths

This has been a long and draining process so please excuse any typos. I started to try to keep a record of what’s happened over the past year and a half from today, Jan 31st, 2019

I began part-time studies on MA Race, Media & Social Justice in Sept 2017. After meeting with Goldsmiths’ Disability team and paying for and sitting extensive testing, I was diagnosed with Dyspraxia. I was shown options of Assistive Technology Software that could help me in my studies over the next 2 years. I was excited so bought the laptop Goldsmiths Disability support and the DSA suggests, paying £200 towards the total cost on a laptop with Assistive Technology Software. When I received the laptop, it was not working. It took up to 45 minutes just to turn on, it was very clunky, slow, crashed often, generally not usable. I complained to the supplier, Iansyst, straight away. They said it sounded like a hardware problem but they wanted to see if they could fix it via remote access and software updates. They told me it was really import I return it to them before the 30 day warranty so they could exchange it for a new machine. In that time they did a few updates and I was asked to restart it as often as possible. I dedicated entire days, restarting it over and over. With each restart taking 20 minutes to hours, and the computer being too heavy to carry around, this was very inconvenient, but I did it anyways. Around day 28, I called Iansyst and was told the 30 day deadline didn’t mean anything I had a year warranty. After the 30 days they told me the problem was my fault, I wasn’t turning it off properly. I needed to spend more time restarting it. One time I called them and had 5 Explorer tabs open. They said this was the problem, I was being irresponsible trying to use the computer with so many tabs open. Since that point I kept it to one tab open at a time but they still say I’m misusing the computer because they once saw 5 tabs open at the same time. I am at fault.

We spent the next year in a never ending circle of me calling them to complain the problem had not been resolved, them remotely accessing my computer, these phone calls would take a few hours. They would end with the technician doing an overnight restart and asking me to call back in a few weeks because they expect I needed to use it everyday for a few weeks to fix the problem. The problem has never been fixed. There have been moments when the computer works but it is very temperamental, I’ve lost work and it is just too slow and clunky to be used. The laptop is currently with Iansyst, it has been with them since December. They say I am to blame for the computer software not being update when I sent it in. I had not turned it on since the DSA inspector confirmed it was broken. After over a year of it not working properly, doing everything they said, spending days and days restarting it, I was exhausted and no longer saw the point in constantly restarting it before sending it to be inspected. I can’t see anyone spending than a year trying a solution, who would continue to try the same solution.

The only option they have given me is investing a couple more hundred pounds on the computer to speed it up. As they originally told me it was a faulty computer, I don’t want to invest more money into it. I ask for an upgrade option so it would be a new computer as they won’t replace the faulty one but they have not provided any options. I am more than willing to spend more money on a new computer but don’t want to invest in a broken system.

I have not had access to the assistive technology or the support I was assessed to need, over a year ago and I am still not close to finding a solution. I’m still really struggling, spending most of my time speaking with my department, my convenors, my teachers, the disability department, the well-being team, the DSA and the supplier. In December, the disability team said they would try to get me a loaner computer but after speaking with them yesterday I discovered no action has been taken to make this happen. The DSA said they would help escalate my complaint but last week I realised they didn’t use the official channels so nothing has happened and I am still waiting to see if they will take the first step in making an official complaint. I contacted the SU but didn’t get a reply. It is exhausting. I’ve exhausted every avenue I can think of and while I get sympathy no one has actually been of any help.

Rather than concentrating on my studies / beginning to work on my dissertation, the vast majority of my time is dedicated to trying to access the disability support I need. This is causing me really high levels of anxiety and stress. With no end in sight, I am at my wits end and am considering dropping out.

Feb 7th, 2019

[email protected];Disability Office;Clare Graham

Hello Iansyst

My next and final module starts Feb 18th 2019. I need a working laptop with the assistive technology before the class begins. I bought a laptop from you Feb 3rd 2018, over one year ago, I don’t think its unreasonable to expect to be able to use it for at least one module and my dissertation.

As requested from the day the faulty laptop arrived, I would like to return the computer you sent me that has never functioned with any regularity, making it unusable and get a replacement or an upgrade. I am still waiting on prices for an upgrade. You sent me prices for a Macbook but as I can’t use Dragon on a Mac I need a PC option.

Thank you Diana More

Feb 12th, 2019

I got a loaner computer from Goldsmiths IT department through the disability team. It doesn’t have the software I’m used to using, so have asked them for Mindmap instead of Inspiration. It doesn’t have Sonocent so I can’t access any of the recordings I made in class.

Once I have the right software I can try to restart my software tutorials. I took 3 (out of the 6) last year. We spent most of the trying to get the computer to work. I did learn some stuff but forgot most of it as its been nearly a year.  So I don’t want to waste these last three lessons.

Clare received an email from Iansyst Market Development Manager, who has put together the notes about the problems with my laptop. They have provided this to enable DSA-QAG to investigate and take the next steps. The Manager also said he would forward me a letter as evidence that I have followed the formal complaints process with Iansyst. I am still waiting on this letter as I will need both documents before I can contact DSA-QAG to take the complaint to the next level. Clare and I have both follow this up.

I’ve spent most of the day today, trying to get this computer up and running, waiting in line for support, restarting and emailing progress reports and updates

Link to email from Inasyst on their version of events

Feb 13th, 2019

Iansyst replied saying they can’t offer me an option for an upgrade (give me prices) or return because it’s been longer than 30 days. I reported the problem within the first 30 days and asked to return or upgrade the laptop then. It has not worked properly from the day it arrived so I find this response inadequate as they have never supplied me with a functioning computer. They just strung me along until the 30 day guarantee ran out. Now they are trying to outrun the extended warranty.

Sheila and Piotr have been incredibly helpful and I really appreciate all their efforts but I still don’t have what I was accessed to need. However, he loaner computer supplied by Goldsmiths doesn’t have Read & Write (has Claro, an equivalent) or Mindmap (has Inspiration, an equivalent) so I’ll need to learn different software and then if I do ever get a working laptop from Iansyst, I’ll need to switch back. I’m not sure if I should restart my software tutorials, I have 3 out of 6 left.

The loaner laptop  doesn’t have Sonocent at all so I can’t record lectures or access previous lectures. It doesn’t have Zotero either, which is the referencing software the library suggest we use. It’s free to download but I don’t have permission. So that’s going to another afternoon spent sorting out a temporary fix.    

#dyspraxia

[alrightladiesandgentlemen-blog]

YESTERDAY, SUBJECT 1

DAY 2 9/29/17

She texts me this morning saying that she is cold and asking me for a charger, which she later refused as she had borrowed one from someone else. She came to the courtyard of our school and hung out with our group of friends. One girl made a comment comparing Yorkshire to a recently graduated senior, Nathalia. Then our other friend, Noelle, joined our small group. Yorkshire hugged him and the height difference was humourous! She is so much smaller than him that he could lift her with no effort. Our other friend, Susan, compared her to a toddler. We all parted ways and Yorkshire went to find her misplaced notebook, still not found from yesterday. We do not have class together until 5th period. Yorkshire sits in the back of the library her chromebook open in front of her. When I arrive at the library I walk to the back and she shows me a drawing she is working on, it is an avocado. It is very obviously an avocado and there is a tab open on her chromebook with a picture of an avocado, but still she asked me “Does this look like an avocado?”. She redraws her avocado while looking at other avocado art. I inform her that I need a picture of her avocado to post for reference, but she seems reluctant. “Why?” she asks, “this is for my class.” Yorkshire talks with her friend Maanjer about the upcoming Emmaus our school is hosting. Yorkshire then insult me saying “Since, (Author) is writing this as one big joke then I might as well just say something stupid.” I conclude that she has something personal she wants to share and is insulting my work to cover that. “So, what’s the stupid thing you wanted to say?” I ask her hoping to discover the information she is about to share. “Oh, I was just talking about petty shit I did this morning, during the fire drill I closed the door on Raymundo.” Perhaps she is saying that she still has unresolved feelings towards Raymundo. Not romantic feelings, but possibly anger or resentment. Yorkshire continues to draw the avocado blaming Maanjer every time she messes up. Yorkshire comes to the conclusion that she cannot draw. I believe her lack of self confidence may come from how she was raised. I move into the next part of my study and begin my questioning. I believe at this point you already understand her character. So, I feel it is time to begin the questioning part of this study to get an understanding of why she acts the way that she does. Yorkshire makes a comment saying, “[Author] types like a retard” I suppose that she is frustrated that her avocado is not coming out the way she wants it to.

Author-”Yorkshire, where did you grow up?”

Yorkshire- “Well, I was born at Albert Einstein. I grew up in the South Bronx.”

I interrupted her telling Maanjer, “She used to tell me that she grew up on a farm.”

Yorkshire-”Yes, I visited DR with my Aunt over the summer.”

I finish with my questions not wanting to make it obvious that I am interrogating her. She then continues onto another art piece, I believe she is drawing Maanjer, but she earlier said she would be moving on to a turtle. It turns out that I was correct, she is drawing Maanjer. However, after typing that I looked back to her drawing pad to see that she had erased what she was working on. I suppose she was unsatisfied with her work. She restarts her drawing and looks back to Maanjer trying to get her feautures perfect. This is the perfect opportunity for me to ask another question.

Author-”When did you move to Thorough Park?”

I know that she lives in Thorough Park because I have visited her at her home.

Yorkshire-”It wasn’t my decision it was my parent, oh when? I think, hmm, I think somewhere around 2006. But we moved a lot between 2006 and 2008.”

This new knowledge is very important. It shows that she possibly felt unstable as a young child moving around so often. It could also be the root of her trust issues. It is possible that her parents made promised such as “We are staying here” or “This is our new home” only for them to get up and move again. This may have caused her to develop trust issues and never feel stable even in a safe environment. I will ask her if she feels that moving around constantly was hard on her. However, if I ask too many questions she may feel overwhelmed. Yorkshire is very into her drawing that she completely ignores everything around her. Perhaps she will not feel overwhelmed with another question.

Author-”Would you say moving around a lot as a child was hard for you?”

Yorkshire- “I was young at the time, so, it didn’t really bother me as much as it would I guess if i was older.”

She moved 5 times, I believe that she has been impacted, but the constant moving however, she seems to not believe so. Yorkshire continues her drawing, it is disturbing. It appears as if she began drawing realism and then resorted to cartoon because she could not get certain features right. Yorkshire excited to sit on the couches in the library, as this period ended and we have a free next period as well, springs up only to see they are all occupied. She hopes, and I as well, that the other students will leave so that we can sit there. Yorkshire finishes her artwork by titling it Maanjer. There are two open seats at the sofas so I quickly make my way to one of them. I am hoping that the other students will leave as Maanjer grabbed the only other seat and I need to continue my study. Yorkshire comes and tried to squeeze between me and a girl whose name I do not know. She moves to the couch across from us and sits between Maanjer and Mikayla. As I mentioned before Yorkshire is very small and had no trouble fitting into the tight space. THough she is most definitely invading their personal space. The bell indicating the end of 5th period rings and the other students at the couches with us leaves. Yorkshire asks if our teacher who I call Mama Kier would allow Maanjer to sit in one of our classes. I don’t think she would allow this, but stay quiet and allow Yorkshire to come to the conclusion herself. She begins another drawing. Maanjer and Yorkshire have a conversation as a sit at an empty couch, and as I type this my friend Kami sits next me, studying Yorkshire’s actions. She is a very peculiar person. Of course I mean this in a good way. She is interesting to study because she does weird things and has an interesting past. This is why she was chosen to be my first subject. Her behavior is definitely because of everything she had been through and how she grew up. Yorkshire partakes in small talk with Maanjer as she works on her art. She continues to do this and I believe the rest of the period will go on in this manner. Yorkshire asks me “Do you have any stretch marks?” I am unsure of why she is asking me this question. Why does she want to know. I decide to walk over and see what she is drawing.She is drawing Maanjer’s body. I am only slightly concerned. I also notice that she has found her books. She says they were in our theology teacher’s classroom. Yorkshire attempts to ask me a question however she is not allowed to raise her voice so I do not hear her. She abandons her attempts at gaining my attentions and continues to draw. I decide to sit next to her and Maanjer. I changed my mind Yorkshire is drawing an explicit picture that is making me uncomfortable because it is of our friend, Maanjer. Maanjer has apparently given Yorkshire permissions to draw this photo. Maanjer is eating a sandwich filled with cheese and meat, which makes me more uncomfortable than the drawing. The librarian is racing towards us ready to discipline us for sitting three to a couch. I exaggerated she is just looking in our direction. It smells like mayonnaise and deli meat. Maanjer left to the bathroom. Yorkshire and I are in an argument. She likes to criticize my vegan diet and tries to find loop holes to trap me in. For now, I must end this study until 6th period as this entry has gotten much too long. Yorkshire brought up a great point in sociology class regarding the price of medicine. We part ways and she moves on to 8th period. I do not see her for the rest of the day.

MY STUDY WILL CONTINUE ON MONDAY, 10/02/17