#lend me the power to work on a research paper by reading and commenting on my fic <3

[waitineedaname]

Greed was ten years old when he ran away for the first time. He got his ass kicked for that stunt, but that didn’t deter him. He’d gotten a taste of freedom, and he wanted more. He tried again when he was thirteen, and fourteen, and twice when he was fifteen. It wasn’t until he was sixteen that it finally stuck. He loaded all his worldly possessions into the back of a friend’s car under the dark of night, and he never looked back. He still wasn’t sure if he’d truly succeeded or if they had just given up on chasing after him. He was thirty-two now, and yet as he stood in his family’s driveway, he couldn’t help but feel like that ten year old again, awaiting the punishment that was sure to come.

homunculi family drama, modern au edition! this one is a bit shorter than the others, but boy does it have me Thinking about things

#fma #fmab #greed fma #lust fma #martel fma #father fma #pride envy wrath and bido all make appearances as well #surprisingly ling does NOT make an appearance for once #he is mentioned tho. #my writing #I have to work on a paper all day tomorrow so I wanted to post this now!!!! #lend me the power to work on a research paper by reading and commenting on my fic <3 #there were so many parts of this fic that I have been thinking about for Forever #the bit about him running away possessed me so bad I had to write it in my notes app before I forgot #the bit in the summary is the truncated version bc I didn't want the summary to be too long #fma modern au

[missroserose]

Wednesday Reading Meme: Atmospheria Edition

Hello, tumblr!  I used to post these over on Dreamwidth, but for the past two and a half years, I’ve been reading almost exclusively fanfiction, with only occasional forays into book-land.  I’ve thought occasionally about writing about the fic I was reading, but frankly, most of it was short-ish works intended for easy gratification.  (Not that I'm knocking easy gratification!  But a 3500-word story about a captive Dean Winchester watching an evil version of himself and Castiel have sex is...entertaining, certainly, just maybe not in a way that lends itself to a lot of deeper analysis.) (Well, other than perhaps a judicious use of the "this better not awaken anything in me" meme.  Ahem.) That said! I've read a lot of fanfiction over the past few years, and plan to continue.  So I think I'm going to add a Fanfiction Spotlight slot to the Wednesday Reading Meme format.  Chances are there'll have been something I've read in any given week that feels like it deserves attention.  And in the meantime, I’ve been reading Actual Paper Books lately, largely as a way to wean myself of the doomscrolling habit...and since I’m low-key boycotting Goodreads these days, I figure I’ll try writing about them here.

So without further ado...

What I've recently finished reading The Starless Sea, by Erin Morgenstern.  I'd previously read The Night Circus on a long-ass plane flight, and it turned out to be almost the perfect book for it—pure escapism so heavily drenched in dreamy poetic atmosphere that I could sink into it like a hot bath, and forget for much of the six-hour flight time that I was crammed into a tiny coach seat.  Sea is definitely in that same vein, but this time around I found the thinness and uncertainty of the plot to be rather more frustrating, in a way that overpowered the richness of the atmosphere.   There was still plenty there to enjoy, including a portal fantasy to any bibliophile's world of pure wish-fulfillment, and some meditations on love and change, and one quote in particular on the nature of love that's stuck with me...but I don't think the whole thing hangs together as well as it promised, at the start.  And while (as a fellow author) I completely understand that things change as you write them, when you reach a point in a story where it feels like the author has as little idea as you do what happens next, I find it a little demoralizing. Morpho Eugenia, by A.S. Byatt.  Now that I think about it, this novella makes for an interesting comparison to Sea, because it's similarly atmospheric, albeit less in the dreamy-imaginative-lovers-and-poets vein than the neo-Victorian highly-organized-and-tightly-laced-household-full-of-dark-undercurrents style.  It also does absolutely nothing surprising, plot-wise; it's 180 pages long and I think I'd identified most of the major themes and guessed the major arcs/big plot reveal by page fifteen.  That's not necessarily a fault in and of itself—there's something comforting about a story that does exactly what you expect, and it does a good job threading the needle of ladling on the foreshadowing without (quite) hitting you over the head with what's going on.  But frankly, the narrative stumbles somewhat in its slavish devotion to form.   As an example:  our protagonist is an entolomologist and atheist, penniless in the wake of a shipwreck that robbed him of his specimens and research, who finds himself living on the largesse of a wealthy family whose patriarch has an interest in natural philosophy.  So there are, of course, extensive passages on the nature and habits of various insects (meant to be excerpts from his work), on the potential space for the existence of God in natural selection (meant to be arguments from the patriarch), and even an extensive semi-allegorical insectoid fairy tale (written by another character entirely), which...certainly is all in keeping with the Victorian style, but none of which really feels particularly necessary to the story, here in this age where encyclopedias are a thing and anyone reading a neo-Victorian novella probably has at least a passing familiarity with the Deist arguments being held in the wake of Darwin's publication of On the Origin of Species.  Some cynical part of me wonders if Byatt was trying to write a whole novel, only to discover that the main thrust of her story was nowhere near substantial enough to support one, and even with all the padding she only managed to reach novella length. What I'm currently reading Technically I haven't started it, but The Conjugial Angel is the other Byatt novella in the collection I picked up, so I'm probably going to power through that just so I won't feel guilty about tossing the book on the "to be donated" pile.  If it's anything like Morpho Eugenia, I expect to feel thoroughly "meh" about it, but hey!  Maybe I'll be surprised! What I plan to read next I have two specific recommended-by-friends books in my queue.  The first is Aleksander Solzhenitsyn's One Day In The Life of Ivan Denisovich, which I'm rather looking forward to despite my somewhat uneven relationship with Russian literature.  It was recommended to me by @coffeeandchemicals, and the bits and pieces of Solzhenitsyn I've encountered in the wild make me suspect I'll find his perspective interesting.  And even if I end up hating it, well...it's short. The second is Margo Lanagan's book Tender Morsels, which I know very little about other than it's a dark fairy tale.  But it was sent by @introvertia, who's become quite dear to me, and the theme of it (the jacket cover promises an Edenic tale of three women turned out of their personal Heaven and having to deal with the harsh realities of the outside world) certainly feels appropriate to 2020. Fanfiction Spotlight I was particularly taken with the premise of @zoemathemata's Supernatural/Supernatural RPF story "Folie a Deux".  Sam and Dean Winchester are held captive in Lofty Pines Mental Institution for unknown reasons, slowly being brainwashed into thinking that they're two run-of-the-mill dudes named Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki...or are Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki two men suffering from the delusion that they're supernatural-creature hunter brothers named Sam and Dean Winchester?  And if they're brothers, how do they square that with the fact that they can't seem to keep their hands off each other...? It's a clever idea, with the sort of meta-analytical flavor that's very in keeping with the show itself, and zoemathemata makes full use of the opportunity to break down the many inconsistencies and flaws that any long-running serialized story accumulates but that we, the audience, overlook for the sake of the Plot of the Week.  My one personal complaint about it is that it ends too soon—the most immediate plot threads are resolved but there's a distinct sense that this is the beginning rather than the ending.  The author says in the comments that they didn't continue it in part because they couldn't decide which was the reality—and I totally get not wanting to spend months or years writing a novel-length fic out of what's supposed to be a quick bit of fun—but there's just so much you could do with this idea.  Even without picking sides, it could be a Total Recall-style ambiguously-themed case fic, or a "Frame of Mind"-esque dark psychological thriller, or any number of other options...

What can I say?  I have a weakness for unreliable narrators.

#wednesday reading #erin morgenstern #a.s. byatt #aleksandr solzhenitsyn #margo lanagan #zoemathemata #the sunless sea #morpho eugenia #one day in the life of ivan denisovich #tender morsels #folie a deux #books #supernatural #fic rec

[arcanalogue]

On Keeping Important Things To Yourself, Or: ‘The Revelation Will Not Be Instagrammed’

I had a really profound experience this past weekend, while staying out in the desert with friends. In fact, it was the kind I might even capitalize: a Profound Experience!

(Don’t worry, I’m not going to tell you about it!)

Naturally though, I cataloged the entire thing, writing notes to myself so I wouldn’t forget a single detail. And before we’d even returned home, I was well into the “research” phase of the Profound Experience, tumbling down Wikipedia rabbit-holes in search of terminology, precedents, areas of overlap with others’ Profound Experiences, established traditions that might explain what had happened and (perhaps most importantly) tell me what to do about it. 

It’s an exhilarating feeling, that research phase, uncovering the vastly interconnected nature of our history, our cultures, our entire reality. You can’t just pull one thread, the whole fabric comes with it. Before the internet, this would have taken weeks. 

But even after a couple days of trying to pin this Experience down, I was getting tired and frustrated. I’d only spent a few minutes having the Experience in the first place, and now I’d gorged myself on all this additional context. It was began keeping me from being able to recall the Experience purely, as it had happened. Why was I doing this to myself??

Fortunately, in my groping I stumbled across this article about the Tao Te Ching, which commented:

"’The unnameable is the eternally real. Naming is the origin of all particular things.’ The second line of Mitchell's translation opens up the nature of the dysfunction. We're accustomed to perceiving our world and all the objects in it by naming them. But what if we stop obsessively naming everything and instead just — pardon me while I slip in to full on hippy mode for a moment — rest in awareness?

What the Tao Te Ching does, time and time again, is attempt to show us how we might see things if we could spend more time in awareness, and less in naming. ‘Practice not-doing, and everything will fall into place.’"

To my tired brain, reading this felt like cool water splashed across a hot sidewalk, making it passable for tender bare feet. (I grew up in the desert, I’m not just a tourist!)

So I closed all of my Wikipedia tabs, and went for a walk outside in the afternoon sunshine. I wanted to see if I could feel the Experience, become illuminated by it once again, even faintly, and grasp its truth just as closely, just as palpably, simply by relaxing my focus instead of straining toward it. 

Not only was this successful, but walking with this glow unexpectedly reminded me of my ultimate purpose as a diviner. 

We find messages. We find meanings. That is the work of a diviner. We must always strive to embody that quality, whether we’re searching on behalf of ourselves or others. 

I find messages. I find meanings. Not everybody does, but I do, and always have. Powerful words and images make their way to me, as if by magic. Interpreting them is something that comes after; first you have to find them, recognize them. 

Messages don’t always come with a calling card or ingredients list attached. It’s not always clear who or what is speaking, or whether the face we see is a mask worn by something else. It probably is! Just assume it is. 

But we care about getting these things right, about being in harmony with all the forces out there which are greater than ourselves (which is nearly everything, kids). And the part of our mind that’s anchored to this world, this time and place, craves to know things and do things. Without something to know or to do, we can get very restless and grumpy indeed.

And have you noticed? There’s a tendency among mystical types to attempt speaking with authority, to draw oneself up to an impressive (yet still #humble) height and declare: “I am a practitioner of [insert tradition here], and/or a worshiper of [insert entity], who speaks to/through me.” There are certainly material benefits to behaving this way. Certainty confers trust, and trust leads to faith, and faith — whether in a belief or a person — is a lucrative business. 

This is why we spiritual and occult weirdos (especially white folks, most of whom weren’t born into a tradition that provides context for our Profound Experiences) end up relentlessly sniffing out the pedigree of our own gnosis, sort of like how Mormon moms go overboard with geneaology. 

The message itself ends up tucked away a drawer, almost secondary to the quest for unassailable authority in determining its authorship, which also ultimately determines its audience. But... and I ask this sincerely... who cares?

I’m not faulting this instinct of ours. How could it be otherwise? We’re a bunch of lonely, hallucinating apes who want to feel understood. Which is why I try not to look askance at others’ work, or weigh my methods or Experiences against theirs. What would be the point? 

I feel the same way about labels related to magical practice. There are times when we urgently feel the need to name ourselves, claim a title that we can then labor to live up to. But almost immediately we discover the limitations of these labels. I love thinking of myself as a witch... so many enticing connotations! Right up to the moment when someone else refers to me as a witch, and then I feel the seriousness and specificity of what I’m attempting is undermined, since “witch” and “witchcraft” can be applied to nearly anyone and anything. I’m more than this word, dammit. At times, I’m something else altogether. 

But the word itself isn’t the problem, the act of naming is. 

Consider this post is a message in a bottle to you, whomever may be reading. Just as there is power in naming things, there can be even greater power in NOT naming things. This is the meatiest kernel of truth contained in the Powers of the Sphinx, that old chestnut of Western occultism: “To Know, To Dare, To Will, and To Keep Silent.” 

Silence is a necessary component of reflection, and reflection is a necessary component of divination.

One of the things I’ve discovered along this journey is that the qualities that make a good diviner don’t necessarily lend themselves to crafting an exciting or successful web/social media presence. We end up performing what we know, polishing our thoughts and expressions into nice, glossy, digestible packages. That’s a useful skill to have! But it’s also a short leap from there to only valuing the kinds of experiences that lend themselves to being shared, slowly grooming oneself to only have the kinds of thoughts that can be expressed through these media.

It’s a mindfuck, dear reader.

I want would-be diviners to know that it’s possible to hear a call, and answer it, without ever putting pen to paper, without plugging words into a search engine. It’s written on your heart, where nothing is ever truly forgotten. You can honor this experience by sitting with it, or expressing it through your deeds, without ever having to explain or justify it to anyone. 

And a reminder: just as it’s valuable to inspire and draw inspiration from others, your own Profound Experiences mustn’t end up being constrained to whatever you can manage to broadcast to others in words or pixels. If you’re struggling with that, consider keeping it to yourself for a while so it can distill and speak to you more deeply. As Kahlil Gibran wrote:

“And in much of your talking, thinking is half murdered. For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words may indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly.”

The irony of blogging about this isn’t lost on me, so I’m doubling down and including some pics from last weekend. Did you know people are far more likely to engage with your content when they can see your face? 

😐

#divination #revelation #tarot cards #oracle

[aidanchaser]

Harry Potter and the  Half-Blood Prince: Everyone Lives AU

Table of Contents beta’d by @ageofzero, @magic713m, @ccboomer, @somebodyswatson, and Aubs

Chapter Eleven Hermione’s Helping Hand

Hermione Granger was easily stressed, and this year’s lessons were exacerbating that particular flaw of hers. Each day felt as if she was cramming weeks of content into her head, and the subject matter itself was more complex than she was used to. Transfiguration theory was growing far more challenging than her Arithmancy classes, which were already complex enough. Nonverbal spells were expected in all lessons, which while challenging, was not as frustrating as Harry’s new-found success in Potions.

Hermione believed in concrete, factual, evidence-based research. It was why Divination had been such a struggle for her. Divination created patterns where there were none and broke rules it created itself. It was why Hermione loved Arithmancy, because all theories were observable and provable. Potions was supposed to be more like Arithmancy. She followed the instructions, she learned about ingredients, their properties, and how those properties interacted with each other. To find that this Half-Blood Prince, and by extension Harry, suddenly knew more than she could learn from her textbook did not make sense to her. This was why Harry’s success bothered her. It had nothing to do with jealousy nor frustration that her usual position as top of the class was crumbling beneath her.

At least, despite her struggles to keep up with Harry in Potions, Slughorn had easily picked her out as one of his best students. It felt nice to be recognized for her hard work in Potions, for a change. The tradeoff was that Defense Against the Dark Arts was more challenging than ever, but Hermione was slowly getting a grasp of nonverbal spells, and a lot of her success was a result of Harry’s teaching. It was surprising to see Harry struggle in Defense, a subject he was usually at the top of. Hermione was certain that it had less to do with a nonverbal spell-block and more to do with a Snape-block.

Snape wasn’t the only professor they were having issues with. Hagrid was no longer speaking with Harry, Ron, and Hermione. At least, he pretended not to hear their greetings at mealtimes. None of them had yet gathered up the courage to tell Hagrid they hadn’t had an interest in taking Care of Magical Creatures at the N.E.W.T. level, and it had clearly upset Hagrid.

“We’ve got to go and explain,” she said at breakfast that Saturday morning.

Ron made a noise of protest around his orange juice. He swallowed and said, “We’ve got Quidditch tryouts this morning. And we’re supposed to be practicing that Aguamenti Charm from Flitwick! Anyway, explain what? How are we going to tell him we hated his stupid subject?”

It was Hermione’s turn to whine in protest. “We didn’t hate it!”

“Speak for yourself, I haven’t forgotten the skrewts. And I’m telling you now, we’ve had a narrow escape. You didn’t hear him going on about his gormless brother at the Welcome Feast — we’d have been teaching Grawp how to tie his shoelaces if we’d stayed.”

“I hate not talking to Hagrid,” said Hermione, looking upset.

Harry, eyes focused on his plate and studiously ignoring Ron and Hermione, managed to interject with, “We’ll go down after Quidditch.” He put his fork down and ran his hands through his hair suddenly. “But trials might take all morning, the number of people who have applied. I dunno why the team’s this popular all of a sudden.”

Hermione, though she could tell how nervous he was, rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on, Harry. It’s not Quidditch that’s popular — it’s you! You’ve never been more interesting, and frankly, you’ve never been more fanciable.” She glared briefly at Ron as he choked on a foolishly large bite of his kipper. “Everyone knows you’ve been telling the truth now, don’t they? The whole Wizarding World has had to admit you were right about Voldemort being back and now that they’re calling you ‘The Chosen One’ — well, come on, can’t you see why people are fascinated by you? And you’ve been through all that persecution from the Ministry when they were trying to make out you were unstable and a liar. You can still see the marks on the back of your hand where that evil woman made you write with your own blood, but you stuck to your story anyway —”

“You can still see where those brains got a hold of me in the Ministry, look,” Ron interrupted.

“And it doesn’t hurt,” Hermione pressed on, “that you’ve grown about a foot over the summer either.”

“I’m tall,” Ron said.

Before Hermione could remind Ron that it was Harry who needed cheering just now, the post arrived. Two square brown packages thudded to the table in front of Ron and Harry while a rolled up copy of the Daily Prophet arrived for Hermione.

As she unrolled her paper, she saw Ron peel back the brown paper to reveal, Advanced Potion-Making.

“Oh good!” said Hermione. “Now you can give that graffitied copy back.”

Harry laughed. “Are you mad? I’m keeping it! Look, I’ve thought it out.” He pulled the wretched and abused cheater’s guide to Potions out of his bag and tapped the cover of his book with a muttered spell. The cover fell off neatly, and Hermione strangled a gasp. Then he did the exact same thing to his new book. He swapped the covers, said a quick, “Reparo!” and had two books sitting neatly in front of them, undamaged. One with a pristine cover, straight from Flourish and Blotts, but with insides scribbled on and marred with ink, and the other looking worn and battered, but with freshly printed insides.

“I’ll give Slughorn back the new one,” Harry said, tossing both books into his bag. “Now he’s got a brand new copy to lend to students, and I can keep this old thing.”

Hermione wished that she had power as a prefect to take the book away, but short of telling Slughorn — which she would never do — she could not stop Harry. With as much distaste on her face as she could muster, she disappeared behind the Daily Prophet.

“Anyone we know dead?” Ron asked, as if he were asking her to pass the pitcher.

Hermione hastily scanned the front page. Only one name jumped out at her. “No — but there have been more dementor attacks. And an arrest.”

“Excellent,” said Harry. “Who?”

“Stan Shunpike.”

“What?”

Hermione read the article to them. “‘Stanley Shunpike, conductor on the popular Wizarding conveyance the Knight Bus, has been arrested on suspicion of Death Eater activity. Mr Shunpike, 21, was taken into custody late last night after a raid on his Clapham home.”

“Stan Shunpike, a Death Eater?” Harry’s voice was still full of disbelief. “No way!”

“He might have been put under the Imperius Curse,” Ron suggested. “You can never tell.”

“It doesn’t look like it,” Hermione said, though she wished she could deliver Harry better news. “It says here he was arrested after he was overheard talking about the Death Eaters’ secret plans in a pub. If he was under the Imperius Curse, he’d hardly stand around gossiping about their plans, would he?”

“It sounds like he was trying to make out he knew more than he did,” said Ron.

“I dunno what they’re playing at,” Harry said, his disbelief taking on a darker tone, “taking Stan seriously.”

Hermione chewed on her lower lip. “They probably want to look as though they’re doing something. People are terrified. You know the Patils’ parents want them to go home? And Eloise Midgen has already been withdrawn. Her father picked her up last night.”

“What!” Ron gaped at her. “But Hogwarts is safer than their homes, bound to be! We’ve got Aurors, and all those extra protective spells — and we’ve got Dumbledore.”

Hermione, though she largely agreed with Ron, glanced at the staff table and Dumbledore’s empty chair. “I don’t think we’ve got him all the time. Haven’t you noticed? His seat’s been empty as often as Hagrid’s this past week. I think he’s left the school to do something with the Order. I mean… it’s all looking serious, isn’t it?”

Harry and Ron looked down at their plates, and Hermione wished she’d chosen different words. Of course to them it had been serious for much longer, hadn’t it? Their parents were in the Order. She may have spent a summer at Grimmauld Place and a summer with Ron, but she didn’t spend her year worrying that Death Eaters would attack her parents in the middle of the night or while they were out shopping. Caught in a Muggle attack, perhaps, but not targeted. It would be nothing like what happened to Mr Weasley last Christmas or to Mr and Mrs Potter last summer. Or to Hannah Abbot, who had just been pulled out of Herbology because her mother had been found dead.

Their meal was quiet after that. Hermione decided to abandon her homework and support Ron and Harry at Quidditch tryouts that morning. She felt it was important to stay with them, even if she would end up sitting in the stands alone.

On their walk through the light rain, they passed Lavender Brown, who paused her conversation with Parvati to give Ron a wide smile and a wave. The dour mood of breakfast hardened into sharp relief and Hermione glared at the stadium ahead of them in lieu of glaring at Ron’s foolhardy strut or Lavender’s overly giddy smile. When they reached the Quidditch Pitch, she left the boys for the stands without comment.

Hermione did not count the number of applicants on the pitch, but it seemed to her that at least half of Gryffindor had turned up, and even a handful of non-Gryffindors. At least this year the Slytherins hadn’t turned up to heckle the players.

Harry quickly whittled through the hopefuls by giving them a basic flying test. First years, a few Hufflepuffs, a pair of Ravenclaws, a group of giggling girls comprised of all three houses, and a handful of incompetent fliers were sent from the pitch without getting their feet up off the ground.

The stands, which had been occupied by just Hermione, the Patil twins, Lavender, Sophie and Sally, and a few seventh years who might have been friends with Katie Bell, quickly filled with the removed competition. The giggling of girls each time Harry blew his whistle never ceased.

Those who had been deemed flight-capable stood on the edge of the pitch, just below Hermione’s bench. She could hear each of their hopeful comments and a few gushing comments about Harry’s brilliantly green eyes. She had her own opinions about who was right for Harry, but she at least trusted that Harry had the sense to know who was wrong for him.

She also overheard Cormac McLaggan make several comments about Ginny as she flew in the first group of Chasers that made Hermione’s ears red. They were mostly connected to how she rode her broom, and other things she might ride. He wasn’t terribly kind about Ron, either, nor the Weasley’s reputation for sympathizing with Muggles and struggling with money. Hermione thought that if Harry was sitting beside her, he would have hexed the mouth off of McLaggan.

It took Harry nearly two hours, but he managed to work his way through the group of players with relative efficiency. He took them in groups: first the Chasers, from which he selected Katie Bell, Demelza Robins, and Ginny Weasley; next the Beaters, which he narrowed down to Jimmy Peakes and Ritchie Coote; and finally, the Keepers.

Hermione wished Harry had done the Keepers first, but instead the stands had filled with not only the dismissed applicants but also plenty of other students who had found that they had nothing better to do after a late Saturday breakfast than heckle the Gryffindor Quidditch team.

To make matters worse, while each of the other applicants saved perhaps two goals out of the five chances they were given, Cormac McLaggen was on track for a perfect record. Ginny, Demelza, and Katie lobbed Quaffles at the hoops and McLaggen blocked the first, the second, the third —

When he saved the fourth, Hermione decided to lend Ron and Harry a hand. For the sake of her friends and for the sake of the Gryffindor Quidditch team she was not about to let someone like McLaggen through the tryouts. The trouble was that she wasn’t great at silent spellcasting, not yet. Perhaps it wouldn’t even work. But she was at least going to try. She put her hand on her wand, aimed as subtly as possible, and concentrated.

McLaggen shot off in the opposite direction of the Quaffle.

Hermione let out a sigh of relief and tried not to look like she was cheering too hard as she clapped along with the crowd who laughed and booed in equal measure. She leaned forward as Ron took his turn. He looked so pale and unsteady on his feet, she was about to call out some encouragement to him, all coldness forgiven, when Lavender Brown, in an overly-cheerful voice and a dramatic wave shouted, “Good luck!”

Hermione buried her face in her hands.

She lifted her head just in time to catch Ron saving the first goal. She was on the edge of her seat for each one, praying, hoping, desperately for Ron to save all five. She knew Ron would be utterly miserable all year if he did not make Keeper, but more than that she wanted Ron to succeed. She may not have understood Quidditch or appreciated it the way Harry and Ron did, but she knew it was important to them, and she wanted them to be able to enjoy it, especially since last year had gone so dismally.

When Ron saved the fifth goal, Hermione was so relieved she rushed onto the Quidditch pitch.

“You did brilliantly, Ron!” she shouted.

She reached a very proud Ron, just as Harry, after a brief confrontation with McLaggen, was confirming with all of the team that their first practice would be the following Thursday. Then, as Harry had promised, the three of them headed down to Hagrid’s.

While they walked, Ron had a bounce in his step, and seemed, somehow, taller than usual.

“I thought I was going to miss that fourth penalty,” Ron said. “Tricky shot from Demelza, did you see, had a bit of a spin on it.”

Hermione could not help but grin with him. “Yes, yes, you were magnificent.”

“I was better than that McLaggen anyway. Did you see him lumbering off in the wrong direction on his fifth? Looked like he’d been Confunded.”

Hermione tried to maintain her smile, but her cheeks grew very warm. She let Ron carry on about each of his saves, just as he had after his successful Quidditch match at the end of last year. She’d known what she was getting into when she’d helped him get on the team.

Ron was still describing his fifth save when Hagrid’s boarhound, Fang, let out a loud bark that carried across the grounds and bounded over to them. His enormous paws nearly knocked Ron to the ground, and Hermione had to use her scarf to wipe his slobber from her cheeks.

“Oi!” shouted Hagrid, coming around from the back of the hut. He wore a flower-print apron over his rugged groundskeeper robes and his thick, dark beard was full of stray leaves. “Yeh mangy mutt — oh. It’s you lot.”

Hagrid took in the sight of the three students approaching his garden, then strode into his cottage without a word. He let the echo of his door slamming shut speak for him.

“Oh dear,” Hermione said. She knew Hagrid was upset with them, but she had hoped he’d at least hear them out.

“Don’t worry about it,” said Harry. “If I can talk Sirius round from one of his tantrums, I’m sure I can manage Hagrid.”

He strode up to the door and knocked as hard as he could. “Hagrid! Open up. We want to talk to you!”

Hagrid did not answer, not even as Fang barked.

“If you don’t open the door, we’ll blast it open!”

“Harry!” Hermione said, shocked to see him actually pull out his wand. “You can’t possibly —”

“Yeah, I can! Stand back!”

But before Harry could throw a spell of any kind at Hagrid’s door, Hagrid yanked the thick wooden door open. He towered at least five feet over them and glared down at them from beneath thick, bushy eyebrows

“I’m a teacher!” he shouted, though they were right in front of me. “A teacher, Potter! How dare yeh threaten ter break down my door!”

“I’m sorry, sir,” said Harry, throwing an unusual emphasis into the “sir.” Despite his cheek, he did put his wand away, to Hermione’s relief.

Hagrid was as still as if Harry had cast a Stunning Spell. “Since when have yeh called me ‘sir’?”

“Since when have you called me ‘Potter’?”

The growl in Hagrid’s chest was deep, low rumble, like distant thunder. “Very clever. Very amusin’. That’s me outsmarted, innit? Alrigh’ come in then, yeh ungrateful little…”

Whatever he was going to call them was lost as he turned away from the door to give them space to enter. Hermione’s lip trembled as she hurried in after Harry. She’d known Hagrid would be upset with them for not taking Care of Magical Creatures, but she had not expected this kind of cold treatment.

“Well?” Hagrid said as they sat down in the oversized chairs that had been squeezed into the one-room cottage. “What’s this? Feelin’ sorry for me? Reckon I’m lonely or summat?”

“No,” Harry said. “We wanted to see you.”

“We’ve missed you!” said Hermione, and she could hear her voice crack as she did.

“Missed me, have yeh? Yeah. Righ’.” Hagrid continued muttering to himself, but despite his irritation with them, he was the same host he always was. He grumbled as he took the kettle off of the fireplace and poured dark, bucketfuls of tea into enormous mugs. Hermione knew from experience that it was exceptionally bitter, but she sipped it to be polite, especially because she knew she would risk breaking a tooth if she tried one of his cakes.

“Hagrid,” she said, “we really wanted to carry on with Care of Magical Creatures, you know.”

He snorted, loud enough that Fang lifted his head from Harry’s lap to see what was the matter.

“None of us could fit it into our schedules!” she insisted. Which was, at least for her, very true. And Harry and Ron were terrible enough with time management, especially with Quidditch in their schedule.

“Yeah. Righ’,” Hagrid grunted

Hermione wanted to protest again, but a strange squishing sound in the corner distracted her. When she saw the giant barrel of slimy, wriggling, enormous pale maggots she could not help but scream. Even Ron jumped from his chair and moved to the other side of the table.

Harry was the only one who did not seem bothered. “What are they, Hagrid?”

“Jus’ giant grubs.”

Ron raised an eyebrow. “And they grow into…?”

“They won’ grow inter nuthin’,” Hagrid grunted. “I got ‘em ter feed ter Aragog.” And then he burst into tears.

“Oh! Hagrid!” Hermione hurried to his side and put an arm around him. She hardly could reach around his shoulders, but she patted his back. “What is it?”

“It’s… him…” Hagrid said between large, gulping sobs. “It’s Aragog…. I think he’s dyin’. He got ill over the summer an’ he’s not gettin’ better…. I don’ know what I’ll do if he… if he…. We’ve bin tergether so long….”

Hermione had never met Aragog, but she’d heard about him and his children from Ron and Harry, who had braved the Forbidden Forest while she was Petrified in the hospital wing. Aragog may not have tried to kill Ron and Harry, but he hadn’t done anything to stop his vast numbers of enormous spider children from trying to kill them.

“Is there — is there anything we can do?”

Ron, terribly pale, shook his head, desperately trying to avoid a commitment to helping Hagrid. They’d smuggled a baby dragon for him, raised Blast-Ended Skrewts, and tried to reason with his giant brother — not just giant in size, but a literal giant. Hermione did not blame Ron for not wanting to help with this, but Hagrid was their friend, and it seemed the polite thing to say.

Thankfully, Hagrid did not ask for their help.

“I don’ think there is, Hermione.” He wiped his cheeks with his floral print apron and blew his nose into it. “See, the rest o’ the tribe… Aragog’s family… they’re gettin’ a bit funny now he’s ill… bit restive…”

“Yeah, I think we saw a bit of that side of them,” Ron grumbled.

“... I don’ reckon it’d be safe fer anyone but me ter go near the colony at the mo’. But thanks fer offerin’ Hermione…. It means a lot….”

Hagrid blew his nose again, and they chatted about their lessons. Hermione was glad to know that there were some students at N.E.W.T. level, and Ron was eager to recount his success at Quidditch tryouts. Harry was quieter than usual, even when Defense with Snape came up. He did not mention to Hagrid that he’d earned himself a detention on his first day of lessons.

When they left Hagrid’s that evening, Harry moaned that he was starving. “And I haven’t got much time for dinner, before detention with Snape tonight….”

They walked as quickly as they could, hoping Harry could stuff something into his face before heading down to the dungeons. As they walked through the enormous castle doors, Hermione caught sight of Cormac McLaggen attempting to walk into the Great Hall. He ran into the wall on his first attempt, stepped away, puzzled, and reoriented himself to walk in. Hermione’s face grew warm and she looked at Ron, but Ron only laughed and headed into the hall himself.

Hermione, relieved, went to follow, but Harry caught her arm.

“What?” she snapped, perhaps more sharply than she’d meant to.

“If you ask me, McLaggen looks like he was Confunded this morning. And he was standing right in front of where you were sitting.”

Hermione considered lying to Harry, but though Harry was a terrible liar, he was rather gifted at knowing when he was being lied to.

“Oh, alright then, I did it,” she hissed. “But you should have heard the way he was talking about Ron and Ginny! Anyway, he’s got a nasty temper — you wouldn’t have wanted someone like that on the team.”

“No, no I suppose that’s true. But wasn’t that dishonest, Hermione? I mean, you’re a prefect, aren’t you?” But his tone wasn’t accusing. His grin said he was teasing.

“Oh, be quiet,” she snapped.

Ron reappeared in the doorway, none too happy with being ditched. “What are you two doing?”

“Nothing,” they said at once, and hurried after him.

They were nearly at the Gryffindor table when Professor Slughorn appeared so suddenly that it was as if he had Apparated, though Hermione knew he couldn’t have done.

“Harry, Harry, just the man I was hoping to see!” he said. “I was hoping to catch you before dinner! What do you say to a spot of supper tonight in my rooms instead? We’re having a little party, just a few rising stars. I’ve got McLaggen coming and Zabini, the charming Melinda Bobbin — I don’t know whether you know her? Her family owns a large chain of apothecaries — and of course, I hope very much that Miss Granger will favour me by coming too.” Slughorn even gave her a polite little bow, though he ignored Ron entirely.

“I can’t come, Professor,” said Harry. If he had meant to sound regretful, he had failed spectacularly. “I’ve got a detention with Professor Snape.”

Slughorn’s pleasant smile turned crestfallen. “Oh dear! Dear, dear, I was counting on you, Harry! Well, now, I’ll just have to have a word with Severus and explain the situation. I’m sure I’ll be able to persuade him to postpone your detention. Yes, I’ll see you both later!”

Harry shook his head as he, Ron, and Hermione finally took their seats in the hall. “He’s got no chance of persuading Snape. This detention’s already been postponed once. Snape did it for Dumbledore, but he won’t do it for anyone else.”

Hermione could not help but whine. “Oh, I wish you could come. I don’t want to go on my own!” She did not know Melinda, but she knew McLaggen, and she was not interested in spending an entire supper with him.

“I doubt you’ll be alone,” Ron grumbled. “Ginny will probably be invited.”

Hermione thought about saying something comforting, but the Evening Prophet arrived. She quickly buried herself in its contents while she ate.

“Anything new?” asked Harry.

“Not really…. Oh!” she flattened the paper out on the table. “You’re dad’s in here, Ron — he’s alright — It just says he’s been to visit the Malfoys’ house. ‘This second search of the Death Eater’s residence does not seem to have yielded any results. Arthur Weasley of the Office for the Detection and Confiscation of Counterfeit Defensive Spells and Protective Objects said that his team had been acting upon a tip-off from the Auror Department.’”

“So she did say something!” said Harry. “I told Tonks about Malfoy and that thing he was trying to get Borgin to fix. Well, if it’s not at their house, he must have brought whatever it is to Hogwarts with him.”

“But how could he have done, Harry?” Hermione folded up the newspaper. “We were all searched when we arrived, weren’t we?”

Harry raised his eyebrows. “Were you? I wasn’t.”

“Oh — of course you weren’t — I forgot you were late. Well, Flich ran over all of us with Secrecy Sensors when we got into the entrance hall. Any Dark object would have been found. So you see, Malfoy can’t have brought in anything dangerous.”

“Someone’s sent it to him by owl, then” Harry suggested. “His mother or someone.”

Hermione resisted the urge to roll her eyes at Harry’s persistence. “All of the owls are being checked, too. Filch told us so when he was jabbing those Secrecy Sensors everywhere he could reach.”

Harry looked to Ron for help, but Ron still looked sullen, and when Hermione followed Ron’s gaze, it ended on Lavender Brown. She buried herself back into the Evening Prophet.

“Can you think of any way Malfoy —?

“Oh, drop it, Harry,” Ron snapped.

“Listen — it’s not my fault Slughorn invited Hermione and me to his stupid party. Neither of us want to go, you know.”

“Well, as I’m not invited to any parties, I think I’ll go to bed.” Though it was ridiculously early for such a dramatic pronouncement, Ron abandoned the dinner table and left the Great Hall.

Hermione considered, briefly, going after him, but if he wanted to be hurt by something she and Harry had no control over, that was a choice he could make for himself. She and Harry ate in silence, her poring over the paper and Harry, she assumed, still trying to puzzle out how Draco Malfoy was planning to do the Dark Lord’s bidding here at Hogwarts.

When they finally got up to leave, they ran into Atalanta Shafiq, a third-year Slytherin and former member of Dumbledore’s Army.

“Harry?” she said, a little shyly.

“Yeah?”

“I’ve got a message for you.”

“From Professor Slughorn?”

Though Harry had said he didn’t want to go to the party, Hermione noticed the hopeful note in his voice.

“No — from Professor Snape. He says you’re to come to his office at half-past eight tonight to do your detention — er — no matter how many party invitations you’ve received. And he wanted you to know you’ll be sorting out rotten flobberworms from good ones, to use in Potions and — and he says there’s no need to bring protective gloves.”

“Right. Thanks.”

#hermione granger #harry potter #hp everyone lives #harry potter and the halfblood prince #harry potter fic

[growningupgeek]

With A Little Help

Word Count-1930

Characters-Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester, Reader

Warnings-Missing/Injured Sam, mentions of toture(not graphic), canon level violence.

Summary-When Sam goes missing on what should have been an easy case, a hidden friend decides to lend a helping hand.

A/N-Thanks to @skybinx-blog for beta reading and giving me a great laugh in the middle of a crappy night at work. You know you’ve done something right when the comment starts out “Goddamnit, Cat!”  

Feedback is more than welcome

also on AO3

Tags are under the cut.  If you want on or off my list Please drop me an ask or message. 

-JediCat

Edit is mine.  Please do not repost any of my work on anyother site with out my written permissions.

The sound of someone crying led Dean through the bunker to Sam's room.  He knew it had to be Y/N, the only other person in the bunker since Sam had vanished a few weeks before.  He'd left on what should have been a simple salt and burn, saying he could handle it himself and never returned.  Dean had followed a few days later, after shaking the cold that kept him home in the first place, only to find no trace of Sam. No one in the town remembered seeing him, there was no sign of the car he'd taken and he'd never checked into the one motel in the area.  He stood outside the door of the room that Y/N and Sam had shared wondering if he should disturb her.  As far as he knew she hadn’t been back to this room in weeks, choosing to sleep in the room she’d used when she first joined them rather than where she had been so happy for a few months.

The sound of her sobbing was what finally decided him.  Quietly pushing the door open he found Y/N sitting on the bed with Sam’s blue flannel spread across her lap clutching something in her hands.  He sat next to her and put his arm around her shoulders pulling her closer to him.

“What’s wrong, kiddo,” he asked a gentle voice.

She turned her tear stained face towards him and in a broken voice replied, “Did you know?”

“Know what,” he was confused.

She tightened her hands around whatever she was holding. “I came in to get one of his shirts, I just wanted something that smelled like him, ya know.  This was the first one I grabbed and this fell…”

Another sob ripped through her as she opened her trembling hands.  She was holding a small, velvet box that she flipped open.  Inside was a delicate looking, silver ring set with a small emerald and a (y/bs) with multiple protective runes carved into the band. Dean had known Sam was serious about Y/N, but not that serious.

“No, honey,” he said softly.  “I didn’t.  If I had I’d have gotten it out of here before you found it.”

Y/N drew in a deep breath. “Dean, this is an engagement ring.  He was going...”

Her voice trembled to a stop.  Dean wrapped his other arm around her and pulled her into a hug as her sobs rang through the bunker.  He wished he had the words to comfort her.

Deep in the bunker something stirred, one of its charges was in pain.  It followed the path of aching loss to the woman Sam and Dean called Y/N.  The bunker knew Sam loved her so that deep ache was a bad thing.  It was surprised to find her in Sam’s room being held by Dean as she cried.  A quick scan of the area showed Sam was nowhere nearby, so it delved into both Y/N and Dean’s memories.  The ones it needed were fresh and raw, and it felt anger that someone had possibly harmed one of the Legacies.  It reached down into the earth for the magical node it was built on and followed the leylines to where Sam was supposed to have gone.

Hundreds of miles away, Sam was tied to a chair feeling half dead.  What looked like a haunting had turned out to be a town full of demons.  He’d done his best but eventually their numbers had overwhelmed him and he’d been taken down.  While he was unconscious the demons had searched him thoroughly, taking all his weapons and his phone and placing them on a table where he could see them.  It was just one more way to torture him, leaving everything he needed where he could get to it if he could only get free.  But who ever had tied up had known what they were doing and the knots were out of his reach.  So instead of looking at what he couldn’t have, Sam used the time they left him alone to try to get some rest.  Ignoring the blood that dripped down his chest from the latest session he closed his eyes and tried to get what sleep he could.  

As he drifted into the twilight between the waking world and sleep that was as close as he got to true rest he felt it.  There was a tickling at the edge of his mind in a place that he had thought long dormant, a place that he thought he could only get to when he was drinking demon blood.  It didn’t feel dark like those powers did, it felt curious, like it was looking for something or someone.  Deciding to take a chance that it was a young physic stretching their mental muscles he drew on those long ago lessons from Ruby and reached back.

‘My name is Sam and I need your help, please,’ he thought. There was no response, at least not in words.  A feeling of surprise, followed by stronger curiosity.  An empath probably, Sam hoped that whoever it was could catch images or words along with feelings.  He let some of the desperation he felt into the link along with an image of the town he’d gone to, the head demon with black eyes then a piece of paper with Dean’s name and current phone number on it.  After a minute there was a wave of understanding and then the other presence was gone.   But it left behind something Sam hadn’t felt in a while, hope.

The bunker pulled back the feelers it had sent into the leylines, it had Sam’s location now it just needed to get the information to Dean.  His natural shield and the protections that the angel had given him were too difficult to get through so planting the information in his mind not an option; Y/N was a different story.  She had some natural shielding but not as strong as Dean’s.  It could get into her mind as she slept and plant the information in the form of a dream.  All it had to do was wait until she tried to sleep.

Y/N dragged herself out of the library, having exhausted herself researching a way to find Sam.  She’d already tried a half dozen tracking spell but none of them had worked, Dean had abandoned the search for another hours ago in favor of sleeping but she had kept going until the print on the page in front of her made no sense to her sleep deprived brain.  The room she was using seemed so far away that she ended up in Sam’s room.  Curling up in the blankets with her head on his pillow she could almost believe that he was just cleaning up the library before he came to bed.  Comforted, she fell into a deep sleep for the first time in weeks.

The dreams started almost immediately; visions of the town Sam had been heading to, a man with the black eyes of a demon, Sam overwhelmed by demons then tied up and tortured, an abandoned house miles outside of town deep in the woods.  She jerked out of sleep with the sure knowledge that Sam was alive and in more trouble than even he could handle.  She jumped out of bed and raced to Dean’s room.

She pounded on the door until he opened it then poured out her dream in a rush of words, barely stopping for a breath between sentences.  When she finished she kept her hopeful eyes on Dean, praying that he’d say let’s go.

Instead he crushed her hopes.  “Honey, I already looked…”

“Fine, I’ll go by myself,” she yelled turning her back on him. “And when I come back with Sam I’ll expect a lavish apology.”

Dean watched as she ran off and heard a door slam down the hall.  After a minute, he sighed and went to the room that Y/N was using.  He walked in without knocking to find her packing her duffle bag.  He watched as she jammed jeans, tee-shirts and flannels into, then grabbed her gun from the top drawer of the night stand and checked it before putting it in the waistband of her jeans.  

“What makes you so sure,” he asked finally.

She looked at him for a minute before shrugging. “I don’t know, Dean, I just am.  I’m also sure that if we don’t get there soon it’s going to be too late for him.”

She picked up her bag and shoved past him and headed for the garage.  Knowing that he would never change her mind, Dean grabbed his go bag from his room and followed her, because if she was right Sam would never forgive him for letting her go alone.

                           Sam clung to that shred of hope even though he could feel his body fading, he didn’t know how long he’d been captive or how much blood he’d lost but he knew he couldn’t hold out much longer. He was aware of the sounds of a scuffle outside the door of the room but ignored it.  It was probably just the demons arguing over who was next to torture him, something that happened fairly often as they weren’t very good at sharing.  It took a while for him to realize that instead of getting quieter as demons dropped out the sounds were getting louder and closer.  Something hit the door hard causing a loud sound that made him jump a little.  Then a very familiar voice shouted, “Dean, over here! This door is locked.”

Seconds later the lock clicked and the door opened slowly to reveal Dean and Y/N, both armed with angel blades.  Before he could say anything, Sam’s head was jerked back and he felt the edge of a knife press against his throat.  He felt a split second of despair that he was going to die with rescue so close, but he shoved that feeling down.  He was not going to die in front of his family, not tonight.   He closed his eyes, not wanting to see their faces as he tried to think of a way to help.

“Drop the weapons or he dies right here, right now,” the demon said, tightening his grip until Sam flinched.  There were several moments of silence, then he heard the blades hit the floor.  He opened his eyes and when he caught Dean’s attention he glanced down at his feet.  Dean gave a barely perceptible nod and Sam closed his eyes again.  He counted to three then pushed his feet against the floor with as much strength as he could muster.  It wasn’t much, but it was enough to move the chair he was tied too and knock the demon off balance.  He heard a scream at the same time as he felt the knife cut into his skin.  His last thought as he went into the darkness was that maybe that hadn’t been such a good idea.

The bunker waited patiently, something it knew how to do very well.  It was a week later when the door opened again and Sam was helped in by Dean and Y/N.  He was battered and bruised but it would help with that by activating the healing spells hidden in the sigils in its walls.  As Dean helped Sam down the hall to his room Y/N placed her hand on the wall.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “I know you helped us find him.”

The Usual Suspects- @darkcastersruletheworld​​ @black-shad0w-w0lf​​ @imagine-that-supernatural​​ @ladysaraharper​​ @thedepthsoffandomminds​​ @kbrand0​​ @soaringeag1e​​ @supernaturalismalife​​ @iwantthedean​​ @jojomonsterbunni​​ @little-red-83​​ @growleytria​​ @ashleymalfoy​​ @jerkbitchidjitassbutt​​ @halespecterwinchester​​ @driverpicksthemuusic​​ @isometimeswritesomethings​​ @whyisleepacesoamazing​​ @mist-and-echoes​​ @sassysupernaturalsweetheart​​ @kaylas-obsessions​​ @aerisawriting​​ @letsgetoutalive​​ @divinitycas @leatherwhiskeycoffeeplaid​ @jodyri​​ @soab1967​​ @busybee612​​ @appleschloss​​ @kazchester-fanfiction​​ @oriona75​​ @screeching-pterodactyl-fangirl​​ @deandoesthingstome​​ @littlegreenplasticsoldier​​ @sammy-moo​​ @for-the-love-of-dean​​ @mrswhozeewhatsis​​ @kittenofdoomage​​ @sandlee44​​ @apeshit7x​​ @purgatoan​​ @fast-times-in-the-impala​​ @wereallbrokenangels​​ @wonderless-screwup​​ @dontsassmecastiel​​ @cherrie-liquor​​ @deascheck​​ @mrssamfuckingwinchester​​ @winchesterprincessbride​​ @tjforston​​ @babi-correia​​ @helixiaray​​ @writingthingsisdifficult​​ @mysaintsasinner​​ @mogaruke​​ @wheresthekillswitch​​ @skybinx-blog​​ @bohowitch​ @hexparker​ @jensen-jarpad​ @ellen-reincarnated1967​ @masksandtruths @getyourrocksalt

#supernatural #sam winchester #dean winchester #eldrich bunker #self aware bunker #sam x reader #reader insert #with a little help #supernatural fan fic #spn fan fic #spn fanfic

[wolfandpravato]

Leave the Supreme Court ghostwriters alone

The Supreme Court Building is seen in Washington. (J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press)

Rumor has it that when a victorious party is trying to persuade the Supreme Court not to grant cert. in their case, they will sometimes hire experienced specialists in Supreme Court practice to write the brief in opposition, but then keep their names off the papers so that it looks as if the case remains unexceptional from the respondent’s point of view. I’ve been giving this practice some thought ever since reading a very smart post by Ian Samuel this month, arguing that this ghostwriting practice is unethical. (Ian and his co-host Dan Epps also discuss this at length in the subscribers-only “Patreon” episode of their excellent podcast, First Mondays, but Ian’s post and the ensuing comment thread contain the core arguments.)

Ian’s argument is simple and powerful, which is that the practice is unethical because it is a form of deceptive concealment from the court of a material fact. As I understand Dan’s position, it’s that the court’s rules probably do not reach so broadly, but he would be open to seeing them reformed. Similarly, even some of the skeptical comments on Ian’s post profess agnosticism on whether it would be good to reform the rules and forbid ghostwriting.

So I thought somebody should lay out the basic case against regulating legal ghostwriting, and it may as well be me.

First, I take it as common ground that this is a question on which the Supreme Court’s rules could ultimately come down either way. If the court’s rules required those opposing certiorari to list all counsel involved, or not to have a deceptive motive when deciding which counsel to list, that would be the rule; similarly, if the court’s rules required only the counsel of record to be listed and left everything else up to the parties. We may have a dispute about what the current rules actually do require, but that seems like the least interesting part of the dispute. The more interesting question is whether the rule should be clarified, and if so, in which direction.

Second, I think it is important to consider that there the different possible reasons that a counsel opposing cert. might want to conceal the fact that they’ve retained top-tier Supreme Court counsel already. Ian writes as if the major reason that this fact is relevant to the court is that it is an indication that the case will be well-lawyered, a fact that makes the court somewhat more interested in the case. I think that consideration is overstated — absent certain positional conflicts, the respondents side of a granted case is likely to be swarmed by good lawyering, or at least likely enough that it would be foolish for the court to turn down a case because the respondent’s brief is bad.

Rather, I think the salient issue is often this: The fact that respondent has already started spending money on top-tier Supreme Court counsel is a sign that respondent itself recognizes the likelihood of the case being granted. They may have various arguments that the case shouldn’t be granted, they may even believe them, but they wouldn’t spend money hiring new lawyers specializing in Supreme Court practice unless they thought the threat of a cert. grant was high enough to justify the expenditure. Knowing that even the respondent thinks a grant is plausible is like an admission against interest that gives the court more confidence in granting cert.

But once we see the issue this way, we might be more sympathetic to a system that didn’t want to force that private information to be disclosed. Or imagine a proposed Supreme Court rule that required the respondent to disclose how many dollars or billable hours were spent on a brief in opposition so that the court could decide how seriously they should take it. The rule seems unduly intrusive and a little unfair. We don’t usually make parties price themselves out of a good litigating position. (We sometimes privilege offers made in settlement negotiations, for instance.) Indeed, the law is full of exclusionary rules that sometimes allow parties to shield information from a decision-maker where we think that shield serves a public purpose.

Third, this brings us to the likelihood that the no-ghostwriting rule would have unfortunate side effects. If respondents have to disclose that they have hired top-tier Supreme Court counsel to write the brief in opposition, and if that disclosure does indeed make the court more likely to grant the case, then surely on the margins a lot of respondents will stop hiring such counsel at the opposition stage. That means worse briefs, or at least briefs less likely to be directly responsive to the Court’s subtle concerns about shallow/stale splits, minor vehicle problems, and the like. That in turn increases the chance of bad grants and hurts the Court, possibly more than the current ghostwriting regime.

Indeed, the brief in opposition may be one of the documents whose quality matters most to the Supreme Court as an institution — this is the stage at which it is easy to miss a technical vehicle problem, to misunderstand the practical importance of a circuit split, and thus to waste a substantial amount of court and party time if the case is granted and becomes a wild goose chase. Moreover, the sheer volume of cert-stage cases makes it much harder for the Court’s independent research to make up for the party’s deficiencies, though of course the very smart law clerks in the cert. pool will do their best.

So the Court ought to be falling over backwards to encourage respondents to hire counsel who are knowledgeable about the certiorari process and really understand the criteria. One good way to do that is to not require disclosure so that parties don’t worry that they will have to pay a high price for taking efficient precautions. (To use another evidence analogy, think of the rule making subsequent remedial measures inadmissible to prove negligence or culpability). We can’t impose a disclosure regime without recognizing that it will also change behavior — maybe in ways that we don’t want.

Fourth and finally, I worry that attempts to ban the practice of ghostwriting would either be vague or overbroad. For instance, we can imagine a rule requiring all attorneys who worked on a brief to be listed (perhaps beyond a de minimis threshold). But that rule sweeps in the many attorneys who might have other, more sympathetic, reasons for wishing to be excluded. For instance, what about the attorney who is willing to lend aid to an unpopular cause but wishes to avoid private retaliation or harassment? What about the moonlighter who doesn’t want his employer to control his extracurricular activities? Or what about the attorney who wishes to help with a discrete issue in the brief but doesn’t want his name associated with the whole thing because other portions of the brief are beneath his standards? I’m not convinced that the ghostwriting practice is so nefarious that it is worth sweeping these folks in.

One could try to write a narrower rule, one that only applied to non-disclosure whose purpose was to conceal from the court the cert-worthiness of the case, but it’s hard to imagine that rule being administered in a fair, or even predictable, fashion.

I can see why Ian is troubled by ghostwriting; but it may be better to just let it be.

Originally Found On: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/06/30/leave-the-supreme-court-ghostwriters-alone/

#Law #Lawyer

[seventhstar]

we’ve all got one...

i feel like every person has that one pet peeve that drives them up the wall in media and for me it’s medical inaccuracies. not even just biological inaccuracy for dramatic effect but like. logistical issues.

so below the read more, me complaining about the nonsensical portrayal of hospitals in zexal. no one needs to read this, i just want to have it archived somewhere for future reference.

Okay, so we see the hospital in Heartland City portrayed under 2 circumstances: Ryoga’s constant trips to the hospital because he’s way too hardcore about Yuuma, and in the context of Rio’s unending comas. 

I’m gonna start with Rio: first off, the writers have no idea how comas work, but I’m going to give them a pass on that because frankly a large percentage of all media don’t understand how comas work. Also, Rio canonically has magical alien powers that include coming back from the dead, turning into a faceless rock alien, and seeing the future. So I’m willing to buy that these powers include enhanced healing. 

However...how did Art Stanley even get her out of the hospital? A coma patient is going to be hooked up to a lot of machines to monitor her vitals, to give her fluids and nutrition, etc. Even if he could safely remove all those things and if he was strong enough to carry her out of the hospital, you can bet someone would notice if the patient in room 4 just stopped having a heartbeat or blood pressure or whatever. At the hospital where I worked, if you unhooked the heart monitor, it started beeping shrilly. 

Also, he would have to carry an unconscious girl through the hospital and to a water tower without getting flagged down by anyone, which is...unlikely. But okay, he’s being possessed by the Barians, let’s chalk that up to magic.

I don’t think anything weird happens in Rio’s second coma besides a jellyfish villain breaking in to tentacle poison her, but...yeah. Yeah. 

So, let’s move on to Ryoga. He first gets hospitalized after Kaito steals his soul. Whatever is going on with him is magically induced -- having a soul removed is not an accepted diagnosis -- so I don’t think anything really weird happens during this segment. 

Ryoga is then hospitalized after the WDC duel, after playing a card game causes him to be injured. Specifically, he is taken to the hospital...in a helicopter? I tried to do some research on this, to see how airlifting in Japan actually works -- as far as I could tell, they do use ground ambulances -- and they do have air ambulance services. So maybe it’s common to transport patients by helicopter as opposed to ground ambulance, although it does seem to me like airlifting would be reserved for patients with high levels of acuity. And it’s worth noting that the hospital isn’t far away from anything in canon, so distance isn’t an issue.

I don’t think anyone in Zexal ever gets taken to a hospital using ground transport, plus both the Arclights and Faker have helicopters, so...I don’t know. Maybe this is a Japan thing I just am too ignorant about to comment on. 

However, my actual issue isn’t with the use of the helicopter. It’s that, having been taken to a hospital, we see Ryoga run out of the hospital and into a collapsing building the same day! Admittedly, in that scene Ryoga is wearing his street clothes so it’s possible he was being discharged at that point, but if he was so injured he had to be rushed to the hospital, who is discharging him literally hours later?

Ryoga runs into Heartland Tower to rescue Yuuma. He teams up with Kaito, Kotori, and Orbital 7, and they fight their way to Faker. In the process, Ryoga gets stabbed in the side by a robot. It’s hard to tell just how serious this injury is, and I’m by no means any kind of expert on abdominal stab wounds, but he’s bleeding pretty heavily, and your abdomen is full of internal organs and blood vessels that you probably don’t want there to be holes in.

Ryoga makes it through the duel without dying, but he has to be airlifted back to the hospital after the duel is over. He’s bleeding and he was just in the hospital a few hours earlier, plus Ryoga has already been hospitalized once this season, so you would expect the doctors to hold him this time, right?

Wrong! He’s on a bridge with his bike watching Yuuma and Kaito duel! He’s in his street clothes and covered in bandages! Which is nonsensical -- Yuuma and Kaito’s duel unfolds in real time, so that means Ryoga went to the hospital, was treated, discharged, had time to go get his bike from wherever it was, and was able to come back to Yuuma and Kaito to smile...in under an hour.

That is impossible. Ryoga’s entire torso is covered in bandages. I refuse to believe any doctor could see him, administer treatment, and let him leave in that amount of time. Even if Ryoga left the hospital against the doctor’s advice -- which, he cooperated enough to get bandages and the danger is over, why would he do that -- there is just not enough time. Getting a patient out of the hospital is a process! You can’t just let people go in and out willy-nilly!

So, hospitalization four. Yuuma is dueling, then he needs rescuing, so Ryoga tries to save him. Then they both fall off a cliff, because the writers hate Ryoga that much. They both have to go to the hospital. We actually see them in hospital gowns, in beds, and they’re held overnight (which only lends credence to my earlier ranting -- what, bleeding stomach wounds can be fixed in an hour but a fall with no visible wounds merits an overnight stay? Okay). 

At some point during this stay, Ryoga is able to steal the Key, get dressed, and break onto the roof. There, he heals Yuuma by dueling him and then they run around under a rainbow while Kaito stalks from a nearby rooftop. 

How...how did Ryoga get into the roof? I seem to remember the roof also being a helipad, but even if that’s not the case...the door to the roof wouldn’t just be open. There would probably be a lock and an alarm. Also, again, patients can’t just wander around the hospital if they’re admitted. Why does no one in the hospital say “Wait a minute! Those two kids are missing! Security!”

Ryoga’s escaped the hospital twice already. I bet his chart has a note in it. “Watch him like a hawk, he thinks he’s Houdini.”

Actually, that brings up another thing! Shouldn’t someone from the authorities be involved at this point? I do not know how social services for orphans work in Japan, so I’m not even going to comment on that. But we know that there’s a rash of prematurely aged soulless people in Heartland City and that the cases are getting media attention, because the Numbers Club are able to find out about them on the internet. Possibly the police are involved. We don’t know what happens to the souls of all the people Kaito dueled, but it’s possible none of them got their souls back? Except Ryoga. So you have this kid who is hospitalized under weird circumstances with a mysterious medical condition, just like a number of other cases. Except he recovers completely! And he might be the only one that does so, meaning he’s the only one who might be able to shed light on what the heck is going on.

Then he ends up in the hospital again, under weird circumstances. We don’t know what kind of damage being possessed by Tron and Shark Drake actually caused -- possibly there was no physical damage, possibly there was -- but again, it is kind of weird. Then he ends up in the hospital the same day, this time with an obvious injury. How does Ryoga explain his stab wound to the doctors? Are they obliged to call the cops at that point? I don’t think Ryoga can explain what happened, not without implicating Faker and Mr. Heartland in illegal activity. There seem to be no consequences of the Numbers running loose all over Heartland City in Zexal II beyond Kaito dying of overuse of Photon Mode, so...I have to assume the authorities never got involved. 

I could maybe buy Ryoga leaving the hospital to go rescue Yuuma from Faker but I absolutely cannot buy him being able to escape a second time. At that point, surely someone would be asking questions?

I know I said that I was going to give Rio’s magical coma a pass but I lied. I lied. People don’t just go into comas and wake up magically better. Rio should have atrophied muscles. She should have brain damage. She would never have just been able to stroll out of the hospital and head back to school like nothing happened. And if she could, there would be hoards of doctors following her around asking her to be their papers. 

Also, I realize Kaito’s “duelist immune system” has already been done to death, but...that isn’t how the immune system works. Also, detoxification happens in the liver/kidneys. Having “blazing hot blood” would not help you. Kaito, please calm down. 

This would bother me a lot less if Kaito weren’t supposedly a scientist who built a sentient robot as a child. Really? You can build Orbital 7 but you can’t Google “immune system?” Okay.

#analysis #zexal #ygo zexal #me complaining #ignore this post #headcanon

[journalofsportsmedicine]

Theory and Experiment in the Science on Human Motor Behavior | Juniper Publishers

Juniper Publishers- Journal of Physical Fitness, Medicine & Treatment in Sports

Introduction

The Experimental Bias

Let us start from the quotation from N.A. Bernstein of 1947: “The overflowing stream of new information in all the branches of natural science and, directly to its growth, the increasing differentiation of scientific and scientific-practical professions, create an increasing danger of turning their representatives into narrow specialists lacking any general horizon, blind to anything except the narrow path that they have chosen in life… it emasculates creative thinking, impoverishes their work with respect to fresh ideas and wide perspectives. Jonathan Swift, also about 200 years ago, predicted the emergence of such “Gelehrters” with blinkers on their eyes, blind, confused cranks; Swift sharply ridiculed them in his description of the Academy of Sciences on the Island of Lagado [1]”.

Typical Experimental Paper A Specific Rationale for Experimental Paper        

In 1963 Bernard K. Forscher of Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, published the paper entitled “Chaos in the Brickyard” [2]. It is easily available in Internet; hence I will not describe it in detail. Its “take home message” was that we observe the excessive bias towards experimental research while compared with theoretical works. Such a phenomenon slows down the real progress in science yet does not impair the feeling that producers of “new, original, experimental data” are “genuine” scientists. Symptomatically enough, the paper has been written more than half a century ago…

Guy Sorman interviewed Karl R. Popper, who stated: “universities, completely foolishly, have fragmented the knowledge into different, specialized branches; each of them, without any necessity, has been closed into its own ritual and terminology [3]”.

Richard Schmidt and Timothy Lee, while commenting the achievements of Edwin A. Fleischman, wrote: “Fleishman’s work leaves a legacy for future efforts on solving problems of prediction” [4]. What seems worth emphasizing: not “for solving problems”, but “for future efforts on solving problems”.

While comparing with these quotations, the following statement by Gerd Gigerenzer sounds rather ominously: “Some years ago I spent a day and a night in a magnificent library reading through issues of the “Journal of Experimental Psychology” from the 1920s and 1930s… What depressed me was that nearly all of this meticulous work has been forgotten. Most of it involved collecting data without substantive theory. Data without theory is like a baby without a parent: Its life expectancy is low. Are these the kind of babies we want to produce?” [5].

The “limited applicability” (it is for sure understatement) of rough or merely slightly statistically processed “new, original, experimental data” may originate in the phenomenon which Peter Medawar described with the words: “theory destroys facts” [6]. Moreover, only the theories make the science, and not the facts themselves. They may only serve as shapeless ashes, fertilizing the ground on which the theories grow.

However, the “intellectual environment” of the contemporary science is being characterized by two important factors:

I. Easiness of data collecting, especially while using modern technological devices; then quotation of “learned” references and simple statistical processing endows the whole with some “scientificity”.

II. Naïve belief that the quantity of data will “by itself” transform into science quality.

As the “intellectual daughter” of the latter might be regarded the “big data” technique. Cathy O’Neil has shown how dangerous or even disastrous might be thoughtless application of simplified–or even primitive, while compared with the complexity of reality–mathematical algorithms in the regions, where they are hardly useful or not applicable at all. She has even coined the ominously sounding term “weapon of math destruction” [7]. However, the mathematical equations work “by themselves”; hence, they release scientist from thinking. In addition, already in 18th century Joshua Reynolds remarked. “There is no expedient to which a man will not resort to avoid the real labor of thinking”.

This is why Jack Cohen and Ian Stewart argue that “At least 999 out of a thousand scientific papers are about complex details, but the one that we treasure and for which we award a Nobel Prize is the one that reveals a new simplicity” [8]. Still further went Paul Feyerabend, who argued that the society should be protected against science-apparently dignified, with nearly liturgical rituals, but in fact often worthless [9].

To sum up, one might state that the experimental results belong to reality, whereas science resides in the sphere of abstraction. There is no one-to-one relation between them. The gap between worlds of things, phenomena and processes on the one side, and words, statements and theories on the other, has to be bridged by reasoning and concluding, which by no means is clear and unambiguous. Nevertheless, it makes one and only way to science creation. Especially in disciplines, which nearly completely rely on reasoning and concluding, and to very limited extent on experimental data. Like, e.g., the science on human motor behavior.

Let us take as an example a properly elaborated, precisely written, peer-reviewed, solid experimental paper. In 2018 Satoshi Unenaka, Sachi Ikudome, Shiro Mori and Hiroki Nakamoto published in “Frontiers in Psychology” the article entitled “Concurrent Imitative Movement During Action Observation Facilitates Accuracy of Outcome Prediction in Less Skilled Performers” [10]. It bases on results of researches into outcome prediction in two basketball players groups: skilled and less-skilled one. In abstract, they wrote: “The results showed that skilled group had degraded accuracy of outcome prediction in the self-motion condition compared to the observation condition. In contrast, accuracy in the less-skilled group was facilitated in the imitative-motion condition compared to the observation condition”.

In fact, the authors presented the results of their experiments, supported by observations of other scientists (references). They associate, in some places of the paper, their results with the different theoretical findings of other scientists and have processed their results statistically. However, the statistics may make an image of reality sharper, indeed, but it is not able to explain “by itself”, what namely is being presented on the image. In this respect, instructively sounds the following, slightly malicious, reflection of unknown author. “Statistical Analysis: Mysterious, sometimes bizarre, manipulations performed upon the collected data of an experiment in order to obscure the fact that the results have no generalizable meaning for humanity. Commonly, computers are used, lending an additional aura of unreality to the proceedings”.

More detailed, and very instructively, the potentialities and limitations of statistics–and even some “dictatorship” of this discipline in modern science – have been described by Garland O. Ashley [11]. He argued, “The statistical method has become used in altogether too many inappropriate and wholly inapplicable places in our professional life.”

Hence, statistics is a discipline of science for statisticians, but only one of many tools for non-statisticians. It does not build a science “by itself”. Here inevitable is an interpretation (by definition – subjective) and creation of a hypothesis. Unfortunately, Unenaka and his colleagues do not invent any coherent, conceptual rationale for their findings. Let us try to invent a specific rationale. To deserve the noble title “scientific”, it has to be prone to critics and modifications.

At first, let us categorize the “self–motion” as a motor operation controlled with the feedforward mode, and the “imitative-motion”-as a motor operation controlled with the feedback mode. The latter is by far more time-consuming and “intellectually expensive” [12]. However–not without reason–the feedback control mode is being regarded as one of the greatest achievements of evolution. Because it enables learning and perfecting the operations (also motor ones) under consideration. Nevertheless, the final aim of the feedback control mode is… elimination of the feedback loop. One might say that its mission is in fact suicidal. Hence, a skilled performer uses swifter and “intellectually cheaper” feedforward control mode. S/he does not need any extrinsic cue, and-to protect the “intellectual cheapness”-s/he blocks and rejects such cues.

By the way: Already in 18th century historian, Edward Gibbon remarked (very aptly) “the power of instruction is seldom of much efficacy, except in those happy dispositions where it is almost superfluous [13]”.

While analyzing control modes of a motor operation, one might build a specific “control space”. On its one border, we have the “hit-or-miss” method, typical for novices. It relies fully on feedback control; hence, it uses the extrinsic cues. Therefore, it is fully opened to learning process. On the other border of such a space, we have routine, which relies fully on feedforward control mode and ignores any extrinsic cue. Consequently, it is tightly closed to learning process.

In this respect, telling might be such a comparison. My driver’s license is by far older than, e.g., that of Lewis Hamilton. However, he is no doubt much better driver than I am. Because I have attained some level of experience long ago and it is enough for me. It has already transformed, to great extent, into routine. I have only to learn, what mean the warning lights and indicators on the dashboard of my car, which did not exist in 1960s, when I have got my driver’s license–long before Hamilton was born. However, to protect his title of champion, Hamilton has incessantly apply the TTL–i.e., “testing the limits”–technique. He has to be open to incessant improvement of his driver’s competence. In other words, while driving a car I can use the “intellectually cheap” feedforward control, whereas Hamilton is forced to apply the “intellectually expensive” feedback control mode.

The other problem is that the “imitative–motion”, as by Unenaka and his colleagues, needs visual information processing, whereas the technique of free shot in basketball bases on contact stimuli (player’s hand – ball), which cannot be observed from outside. However, a detailed analysis of this problem would need another theoretical paper. To great extent, it has been described in [12].

One more remark. Richard Schmidt wrote: “Since laws are the product of human creativity, different laws can be formulated by two different individuals who are examining the same observations. Laws do not automatically spring forth from the facts [14]”.

Thus, “new, original, empirical data” evoke no doubts, whereas the theory is always ambiguous. Nevertheless, the Science (with great “S”) consists of theories.

Symptomatic are the following statements of Uneneka et al., “In contrast, although learners accumulate knowledge about kinematic-outcome associations during perceptual training via perceptual experience, several recent studies have indicated the importance of motor experience for enhancing prediction abilities of athletes… Furthermore, recent evidence suggests that perceptual and motor experience develop different prediction mechanisms namely visual- and motorbased prediction, respectively. Motor experience more greatly improves prediction abilities based on kinematic cues than does perceptual experience such as observation of other’s action”.

Such a relation between visual and haptic aspects of a motor operation is coherent with the system-theoretical perspective of motor control in humans (1; 12; 15; 16; 17). Accordingly, such aspects are not separated from each other, but they form a single, coherent-yet not homogenous-system. In other words, it is possible to invent a system-theoretical, scientific model which will account for such phenomena. Already in 1852, William B. Carpenter postulated close connection between mental and motor aspects of movements in living beings, sometimes even independent of current physical stimuli [18]. This phenomenon makes a basis for mind-to-muscle and muscle-to-mind techniques [19].

The reductionist analysis of such an aspect cannot explain the mechanism of human motor behavior. Because it “kills” probably the most elusive – and powerful as well – product of a system: the unpredictable, qualitatively new, emergent system effect. While seen from system-theoretical perspective, the science on human motor behavior consists mainly of system effects. This is why in this discipline mathematics seems to be hardly applicable.

              Conclusion

The presented paper may be regarded as a comment to only several, arbitrarily chosen aspects of the typical, proper, solid experimental work by Unenaka and his colleagues. In conclusion, the authors of this paper wrote: “Further studies are needed to clarify the mechanism of enhancement in prediction through concurrent imitation because it is unclear from the results whether the less-skilled participants were actually using a type of motor-based simulation process”.

Instead of a long exegetical analysis of this statement, let us remember the following anecdote about Albert Einstein: “During his stay in Zurich, the woman doctor, Paulette Brubacher, asked the whereabouts of his [Einstein’s] laboratory. With a smile, he took a fountain pen out of his breast pocket and said: “here” [20]”.

It seems more and more evident that in the science on human motor behavior we need like an oxygen the Einstein’s fountain pen rather, and not new, original, experimental data.

Last (but not least) remark. Contemporary science is not a noble searching for objective truth, but simply business. Here applies the rule “publish or perish”. However, to publish a paper, an author has to pay a publication fee. As a result, nowadays the “scientific strays” like, e.g., the young assistant examiner, III level, in the Federal Office for Intellectual Property in Bern, Switzerland, named Albert Einstein -with no financial support from any institution, have no chances to make their ideas known to wide auditory. No matter, how valuable such ideas might be.

For more Open Access Journals in Juniper Publishers please click on: https://juniperpublishers.com

For more articles in Journal of Physical Fitness, Medicine & Treatment in Sports

please click on: https://juniperpublishers.com/jpfmts/index.php

For more Open Access Journals please click on: https://juniperpublishers.com

#Motor Science #Experimental Research #Theoretical Considerations

[hodldrgn-blog]

New Post has been published on https://www.cryptomoonity.com/relayer-report-13%e2%80%8a-%e2%80%8ainterview-with-augurs-joey-krug-and-governance-experiments/

Relayer Report #13 — Interview with Augur’s Joey Krug and Governance Experiments

Relayer Report #13 — Interview with Augur’s Joey Krug and Governance Experiments

Relayer Report #13 — Interview with Augur’s Joey Krug and Governance Experiments

The latest updates from the 0x ecosystem: November 2nd, 2018

Sign up for Relayer Report  and how they’ll go down over time. Of the fees you mention in the article (fiat onramp, gas, volatility, market creator), which ones do you think will be the easiest to fix? Hardest?

J: On-ramp + volatility + creator fees will be the easiest, all fixable within the year. Gas costs and slowness of blockchains in general will take the longest.

R: What are you looking forward to in Augur V2?

J: Dai support mainly! As well as better UX that involves not needing to sync an app for hours haha.

Governance, Governance, Governance

Will and Peter presented “Building Self-Sustaining Ecosystems Through Governance” at DevCon. Our first governance experiment will be an elected committee of ZRX stakeholders who can decide where to allocate community funds. It’s important to note two things:

This is an experiment (on a highly experimental technology that is built on top of another piece of highly experimental technology)

The end goal is to decentralize power in the network and give ZRX stakeholders influence over how the protocol upgrades over time

Reading through this deck I was reminded of a picture from Chris Dixon’s article “Why Decentralization Matters”:

This S-curve has been the standard mode of operation for tech companies, but the 0x vision is to invert this, giving more and more power to stakeholders over time.

Ecosystem

LedgerDex (Matt):

We have started supporting the EIP712 standard for typed message signing. Now when users use MetaMask to sign a new order, they will see the order details showing up on MetaMask

To prepare for MetaMask’s upcoming security upgrade (which will stop automatic injecting of Web3), we have updated our web app so that users can still use MetaMask smoothly after the change happens

We broke our record in daily trading volume: traded token value equivalent to USD $59,000 in a single day

DDEX (Diane):

Wallet connect feature in development: connecting desktop DDEX to mobile Wallets using end-to-end encryption by scanning a QR code

DDEX Wallet (iOS, Android) selective test for recovery words feature in development

DDEX assists in the launch of WBTC (Wrapped Bitcoin Tokens) for bringing Bitcoin to Ethereum

Radar Relay (Beatrice):

sETH has arrived Radar Relay, read more about it on our educational site http://shorttokens.io

DNN token is now on Radar Relay

The market order handler has been updated and is now denominated in the quote token rather than the base token, take a look before you place your next order

STAR BIT (James):

STAR BIT EX 3.0 version and new homepage released with UI/UX renovated: STAR BIT EX

Support EIP-712 and we could check order detail before signature

STAR BIT EX 3.0 is able to set the trading pair based on different token or coin, such as SBT, DAI, TUSD

Bamboo Relay (Josh):

Completed 0x v2 Standard Relayer API integration

Worked on a draft implementation of bZx Standard Relayer API — you can now programmatically lend and borrow ERC20 assets

Added logos, project details and links to each token pair with the view to enhance this further

Instex (Tim):

Completing implementation of the SRA v2

Testing relayer before beta launch

Paradex (Katie):

Our team is busy at Devcon4 this week in Prague!

Veil (Paul):

Revamped our data feeds infrastructure to automatically report on Augur markets and created a webpage to list and explore Veil supported data feeds

Launched the first version of a leaderboard and user profiles, including an activity feed and stats (see @pfhas an example). We think of this as an important first step towards social markets

Opened up Veil’s alpha, so users not using a web3 wallet can still view the product without having to first log in. We also opened up registration — now anyone can use Veil on Kovan

OpenRelay (Greg):

We introduced OpenRelay in October 2017, and between from Flings(!) to MBGN Airdrops, and what a Massive first year it’s been

What is an Instrument Token? Find out the surprising answer in Greg’s debut post on our official blog

OpenRelay’s LitElement Widget Framework is now LIVE! (Follow the really long link to check out the interactive docs)

The Ocean (Monica):

We’re hard at work revamping all things The Ocean! If you’d like to help provide feedback or contribute to our developer portal, reach out to us at [email protected]

Our CEO, John, joined the Wyre team for their Wyre Talks podcast. Give it a listen to learn more about the infrastructural risk inherent in traditional finance and how cryptocurrency can be the solution

Jobs

Product Marketing Associate, Technical Support Associate @ Radar Relay

Links

Gluon Plasma: A Plasma Variant for Non-custodial Exchanges (Bharath Rao):

A company called Leverj, dubbed the decentralized leverage exchange, released their white paper recently, with the idea of using plasma sidechains for a high speed, low latency decentralized exchange.

Dex Research (Gnosis):

This Gnosis spec goes over a new kind of DEX design that involves batch transactions and STARKS.

WBTC: A Community Effort to Bring Bitcoin to Ethereum (Loi Luu):

Introducing Wrapped BTC, a collaborative effort by Kyber, BitGo, and Republic (with DDEX and Radar Relay as launch partners, among others.) All WBTC is fully collateralized by BTC, with atomic swapping between WBTC and BTC. While still very early, great to see more experiments on the cross-chain side of things.

Cute Cats Power Serious $15 Million Funding for CryptoKitties Creators (CoinDesk):

Dapper Labs (creators of CryptoKitties) raised another $15 million in funding, bringing its total to nearly $30 million. These are some phat cats. dYdX also raised a $10 million Series A with some of the best investors in the space.

How I Learned to Start Analyzing and Stop Building Inscrutability (Philip Daian):

Philip from IC3 tears apart security in decentralized exchanges (among other things), pointing out problems in front running, cancellations, and gas costs.

Fun Stuff

I read a really interesting interview with early free software pioneer Richard Stallman.

If you know anything about you me, you know I love watching documentaries on YouTube. Check out Nosebleed about the world of high stakes poker, and The Smash Brothers about the competitive gaming scene of Super Smash Bros Melee.

A tale of car companies and short sellers getting squeezed — Elon would love this.

Much love,

Rahul

Questions, comments, or suggestions? Message me on Twitter

Relayer Report #13 — Interview with Augur’s Joey Krug and Governance Experiments was originally published in 0x Protocol on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Source

#0xproject #augur #Blockchain #cryptocurrency #Ethereum

[cristinajourdanqp]

Dear Mark: Following the Money, HIIT Workouts, HIIT and ACL Recovery, Spinach, Collagen Timing

For today’s edition of Dear Mark, I’m answering six questions from readers. First, is funding from a biased source sufficient to negate a study’s results? Second, what are some good high intensity interval training workouts that people might not have considered? Third, what can someone recovering from an ACL tear do for HIIT without triggering knee pain flareups? Fourth, how do I like to eat spinach? And finally, how and when do I like to take collagen?

Let’s go:

On the nuts vs. carbs study, I want to say ‘follow the money’ since it was funded by the International Tree Nut Council Nutrition Research and Education Foundation. Then again, it was also funded by the Peanut Institute, so I don’t know what to think…

“Following the money” isn’t enough to come to any conclusions about the worth of a study. We can’t declare a study tainted based on bias alone, especially because we can’t avoid bias. Every person reading studies and deciding which one to write about is biased. Every organization meting out funding has biases. Every entity in the known universe has an agenda. It’s not “bad” (or good). It simply is.

If the cow consortium funds the “red meat is actually good for you” study, red meat is still good for you. The bias doesn’t negate the facts. Big Soy funds the “don’t worry about the quarter cup of soybean oil in your restaurant food” study, but it’s only a mark against the paper if the science was shoddy and the conflict of interest exerted influence (which it probably was and did).

But I totally understand where you’re coming from. There’s an entrenched bias against most of the health advice we support. The powers that be have spent decades telling us to avoid the sun, restrict meat (especially red meat), go vegetarian, eat low-fat, get “more complex carbohydrates,” use seed oils, do cardio over weights, eat less salt, and blindly drink more water. They’re not just going to go away—and they aren’t.

So whenever I see a study’s been funded by an obviously biased source, I can’t help but wonder and look more deeply at the paper with a skeptical eye. It sounds like you do the same. That’s great. It’s the kind of healthy skepticism we should all have and employ in our search for good information.

We just can’t stop there.

If the results  of a study are unfavorable to the funders, it’s a strong indication that the funding didn’t interfere with the science.

If the results are favorable to the funders, our hackles rise. We examine the study methods, design, and results to see if bias affected the results. Many times it doesn’t. Sometimes it does.

Can you point us in the direction of a good HIIT workout and what it should look like?

Here are a couple ideas:

Hill sprints. Find a hill and run up, then walk down. Walking down serves as active recovery. Steeper hills, shorter sprints with more rest. Hills with a gradual incline, longer sprints. All permutations work. Though extremely difficult, hill sprints are good options for many people with lower body injuries that flare up on flat ground sprints; running up a hill is gentler on your joints.

Barbell complexes. Pick 3-4 barbell movements. Clean and press for 5 reps. Romanian deadlift for 5 reps. Clean to shoulders, then front squat for 5 reps. Finish with 5 bent over rows. Do that without stopping or dropping the weight. That’s a complex. Drop the bar and rest a minute or two, then do another complex. Repeat. This works with any barbell movement, and you can even do kettlebell or bodyweight complexes. Adjust weight and reps accordingly. These complexes should be hard (but over quickly).

I tore my ACL 6 months ago. Although I am walking 5-7 miles a day and doing heavy lifting for my upper body. I am only able to do ball squats carefully at this point. Any HIIT ideas for me at this point? The bike causes pain on the front of my knee still.

Check with your doctor, but deadlifts are probably safe during knee rehab. Do them right and there’s very little knee flexion (it sounds like flexion hurts the knee); it’s all hip extension.

Deadlifts can become “cardio” if you drop the weight and increase the reps. Just maintain impeccable form. Don’t sacrifice technique (and back health) for a couple extra reps.

If you can deadlift safely for high reps without pain, the next thing to try is the kettlebell swing. Swinging a kettlebell is very similar to deadlifting a barbell—it’s all hip extension—and lends itself well to high-rep, HIIT-style workouts.

I’m one of few people I know who enjoys eating basically any type of offal (no problems with raw), but can’t handle spinach by itself. Any advice? Also, ever tried meditatin’?

And here’s where I’ll get thrown out of my own movement because of one of the ingredients.

Sauté spinach (frozen or fresh) in butter for a minute, add a handful of corn kernels (fresh or frozen, but organic or at least non-GMO), add salt, pepper, and dried chipotle pepper powder (as much as you can tolerate), cover, and turn heat to low. After about ten minutes, it’s ready. Finish with grated sharp cheddar or pecorino romano.

I don’t eat this often (never while keto), and it’s certainly not the only way I enjoy spinach. A good raw spinach salad is fantastic, as is basic sautéd spinach without the corn. But I’ve never met anyone who didn’t like the spinach-corn-chipotle recipe, even avowed spinach haters like yourself.

I’m curious about when Mark was supplementing heavily with collagen. Did he do that at breakfast as his only food, lunch in lieu of some other protein, a shake between lunch and dinner? What have other folks done?

I’m wary of too much protein in one sitting.

I would have 2-3 tablespoons of collagen with a little vitamin C half an hour before a workout. That’s been shown to increase collagen synthesis, a necessary step for healing tendons and other tissues.

That’s it for today, folks. Thanks for reading and take care!

Be sure to add your own comments, questions, and input down below.

[watsonrodriquezie]

Dear Mark: Following the Money, HIIT Workouts, HIIT and ACL Recovery, Spinach, Collagen Timing

For today’s edition of Dear Mark, I’m answering six questions from readers. First, is funding from a biased source sufficient to negate a study’s results? Second, what are some good high intensity interval training workouts that people might not have considered? Third, what can someone recovering from an ACL tear do for HIIT without triggering knee pain flareups? Fourth, how do I like to eat spinach? And finally, how and when do I like to take collagen?

Let’s go:

On the nuts vs. carbs study, I want to say ‘follow the money’ since it was funded by the International Tree Nut Council Nutrition Research and Education Foundation. Then again, it was also funded by the Peanut Institute, so I don’t know what to think…

“Following the money” isn’t enough to come to any conclusions about the worth of a study. We can’t declare a study tainted based on bias alone, especially because we can’t avoid bias. Every person reading studies and deciding which one to write about is biased. Every organization meting out funding has biases. Every entity in the known universe has an agenda. It’s not “bad” (or good). It simply is.

If the cow consortium funds the “red meat is actually good for you” study, red meat is still good for you. The bias doesn’t negate the facts. Big Soy funds the “don’t worry about the quarter cup of soybean oil in your restaurant food” study, but it’s only a mark against the paper if the science was shoddy and the conflict of interest exerted influence (which it probably was and did).

But I totally understand where you’re coming from. There’s an entrenched bias against most of the health advice we support. The powers that be have spent decades telling us to avoid the sun, restrict meat (especially red meat), go vegetarian, eat low-fat, get “more complex carbohydrates,” use seed oils, do cardio over weights, eat less salt, and blindly drink more water. They’re not just going to go away—and they aren’t.

So whenever I see a study’s been funded by an obviously biased source, I can’t help but wonder and look more deeply at the paper with a skeptical eye. It sounds like you do the same. That’s great. It’s the kind of healthy skepticism we should all have and employ in our search for good information.

We just can’t stop there.

If the results  of a study are unfavorable to the funders, it’s a strong indication that the funding didn’t interfere with the science.

If the results are favorable to the funders, our hackles rise. We examine the study methods, design, and results to see if bias affected the results. Many times it doesn’t. Sometimes it does.

Can you point us in the direction of a good HIIT workout and what it should look like?

Here are a couple ideas:

Hill sprints. Find a hill and run up, then walk down. Walking down serves as active recovery. Steeper hills, shorter sprints with more rest. Hills with a gradual incline, longer sprints. All permutations work. Though extremely difficult, hill sprints are good options for many people with lower body injuries that flare up on flat ground sprints; running up a hill is gentler on your joints.

Barbell complexes. Pick 3-4 barbell movements. Clean and press for 5 reps. Romanian deadlift for 5 reps. Clean to shoulders, then front squat for 5 reps. Finish with 5 bent over rows. Do that without stopping or dropping the weight. That’s a complex. Drop the bar and rest a minute or two, then do another complex. Repeat. This works with any barbell movement, and you can even do kettlebell or bodyweight complexes. Adjust weight and reps accordingly. These complexes should be hard (but over quickly).

I tore my ACL 6 months ago. Although I am walking 5-7 miles a day and doing heavy lifting for my upper body. I am only able to do ball squats carefully at this point. Any HIIT ideas for me at this point? The bike causes pain on the front of my knee still.

Check with your doctor, but deadlifts are probably safe during knee rehab. Do them right and there’s very little knee flexion (it sounds like flexion hurts the knee); it’s all hip extension.

Deadlifts can become “cardio” if you drop the weight and increase the reps. Just maintain impeccable form. Don’t sacrifice technique (and back health) for a couple extra reps.

If you can deadlift safely for high reps without pain, the next thing to try is the kettlebell swing. Swinging a kettlebell is very similar to deadlifting a barbell—it’s all hip extension—and lends itself well to high-rep, HIIT-style workouts.

I’m one of few people I know who enjoys eating basically any type of offal (no problems with raw), but can’t handle spinach by itself. Any advice? Also, ever tried meditatin’?

And here’s where I’ll get thrown out of my own movement because of one of the ingredients.

Sauté spinach (frozen or fresh) in butter for a minute, add a handful of corn kernels (fresh or frozen, but organic or at least non-GMO), add salt, pepper, and dried chipotle pepper powder (as much as you can tolerate), cover, and turn heat to low. After about ten minutes, it’s ready. Finish with grated sharp cheddar or pecorino romano.

I don’t eat this often (never while keto), and it’s certainly not the only way I enjoy spinach. A good raw spinach salad is fantastic, as is basic sautéd spinach without the corn. But I’ve never met anyone who didn’t like the spinach-corn-chipotle recipe, even avowed spinach haters like yourself.

I’m curious about when Mark was supplementing heavily with collagen. Did he do that at breakfast as his only food, lunch in lieu of some other protein, a shake between lunch and dinner? What have other folks done?

I’m wary of too much protein in one sitting.

I would have 2-3 tablespoons of collagen with a little vitamin C half an hour before a workout. That’s been shown to increase collagen synthesis, a necessary step for healing tendons and other tissues.

That’s it for today, folks. Thanks for reading and take care!

Be sure to add your own comments, questions, and input down below.

[cynthiamwashington]

Dear Mark: Following the Money, HIIT Workouts, HIIT and ACL Recovery, Spinach, Collagen Timing

For today’s edition of Dear Mark, I’m answering six questions from readers. First, is funding from a biased source sufficient to negate a study’s results? Second, what are some good high intensity interval training workouts that people might not have considered? Third, what can someone recovering from an ACL tear do for HIIT without triggering knee pain flareups? Fourth, how do I like to eat spinach? And finally, how and when do I like to take collagen?

Let’s go:

On the nuts vs. carbs study, I want to say ‘follow the money’ since it was funded by the International Tree Nut Council Nutrition Research and Education Foundation. Then again, it was also funded by the Peanut Institute, so I don’t know what to think…

“Following the money” isn’t enough to come to any conclusions about the worth of a study. We can’t declare a study tainted based on bias alone, especially because we can’t avoid bias. Every person reading studies and deciding which one to write about is biased. Every organization meting out funding has biases. Every entity in the known universe has an agenda. It’s not “bad” (or good). It simply is.

If the cow consortium funds the “red meat is actually good for you” study, red meat is still good for you. The bias doesn’t negate the facts. Big Soy funds the “don’t worry about the quarter cup of soybean oil in your restaurant food” study, but it’s only a mark against the paper if the science was shoddy and the conflict of interest exerted influence (which it probably was and did).

But I totally understand where you’re coming from. There’s an entrenched bias against most of the health advice we support. The powers that be have spent decades telling us to avoid the sun, restrict meat (especially red meat), go vegetarian, eat low-fat, get “more complex carbohydrates,” use seed oils, do cardio over weights, eat less salt, and blindly drink more water. They’re not just going to go away—and they aren’t.

So whenever I see a study’s been funded by an obviously biased source, I can’t help but wonder and look more deeply at the paper with a skeptical eye. It sounds like you do the same. That’s great. It’s the kind of healthy skepticism we should all have and employ in our search for good information.

We just can’t stop there.

If the results  of a study are unfavorable to the funders, it’s a strong indication that the funding didn’t interfere with the science.

If the results are favorable to the funders, our hackles rise. We examine the study methods, design, and results to see if bias affected the results. Many times it doesn’t. Sometimes it does.

Can you point us in the direction of a good HIIT workout and what it should look like?

Here are a couple ideas:

Hill sprints. Find a hill and run up, then walk down. Walking down serves as active recovery. Steeper hills, shorter sprints with more rest. Hills with a gradual incline, longer sprints. All permutations work. Though extremely difficult, hill sprints are good options for many people with lower body injuries that flare up on flat ground sprints; running up a hill is gentler on your joints.

Barbell complexes. Pick 3-4 barbell movements. Clean and press for 5 reps. Romanian deadlift for 5 reps. Clean to shoulders, then front squat for 5 reps. Finish with 5 bent over rows. Do that without stopping or dropping the weight. That’s a complex. Drop the bar and rest a minute or two, then do another complex. Repeat. This works with any barbell movement, and you can even do kettlebell or bodyweight complexes. Adjust weight and reps accordingly. These complexes should be hard (but over quickly).

I tore my ACL 6 months ago. Although I am walking 5-7 miles a day and doing heavy lifting for my upper body. I am only able to do ball squats carefully at this point. Any HIIT ideas for me at this point? The bike causes pain on the front of my knee still.

Check with your doctor, but deadlifts are probably safe during knee rehab. Do them right and there’s very little knee flexion (it sounds like flexion hurts the knee); it’s all hip extension.

Deadlifts can become “cardio” if you drop the weight and increase the reps. Just maintain impeccable form. Don’t sacrifice technique (and back health) for a couple extra reps.

If you can deadlift safely for high reps without pain, the next thing to try is the kettlebell swing. Swinging a kettlebell is very similar to deadlifting a barbell—it’s all hip extension—and lends itself well to high-rep, HIIT-style workouts.

I’m one of few people I know who enjoys eating basically any type of offal (no problems with raw), but can’t handle spinach by itself. Any advice? Also, ever tried meditatin’?

And here’s where I’ll get thrown out of my own movement because of one of the ingredients.

Sauté spinach (frozen or fresh) in butter for a minute, add a handful of corn kernels (fresh or frozen, but organic or at least non-GMO), add salt, pepper, and dried chipotle pepper powder (as much as you can tolerate), cover, and turn heat to low. After about ten minutes, it’s ready. Finish with grated sharp cheddar or pecorino romano.

I don’t eat this often (never while keto), and it’s certainly not the only way I enjoy spinach. A good raw spinach salad is fantastic, as is basic sautéd spinach without the corn. But I’ve never met anyone who didn’t like the spinach-corn-chipotle recipe, even avowed spinach haters like yourself.

I’m curious about when Mark was supplementing heavily with collagen. Did he do that at breakfast as his only food, lunch in lieu of some other protein, a shake between lunch and dinner? What have other folks done?

I’m wary of too much protein in one sitting.

I would have 2-3 tablespoons of collagen with a little vitamin C half an hour before a workout. That’s been shown to increase collagen synthesis, a necessary step for healing tendons and other tissues.

That’s it for today, folks. Thanks for reading and take care!

Be sure to add your own comments, questions, and input down below.

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[nancyedimick]

Leave the Supreme Court ghostwriters alone

The Supreme Court Building is seen in Washington. (J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press)

Rumor has it that when a victorious party is trying to persuade the Supreme Court not to grant cert. in their case, they will sometimes hire experienced specialists in Supreme Court practice to write the brief in opposition, but then keep their names off the papers so that it looks as if the case remains unexceptional from the respondent’s point of view. I’ve been giving this practice some thought ever since reading a very smart post by Ian Samuel this month, arguing that this ghostwriting practice is unethical. (Ian and his co-host Dan Epps also discuss this at length in the subscribers-only “Patreon” episode of their excellent podcast, First Mondays, but Ian’s post and the ensuing comment thread contain the core arguments.)

Ian’s argument is simple and powerful, which is that the practice is unethical because it is a form of deceptive concealment from the court of a material fact. As I understand Dan’s position, it’s that the court’s rules probably do not reach so broadly, but he would be open to seeing them reformed. Similarly, even some of the skeptical comments on Ian’s post profess agnosticism on whether it would be good to reform the rules and forbid ghostwriting.

So I thought somebody should lay out the basic case against regulating legal ghostwriting, and it may as well be me.

First, I take it as common ground that this is a question on which the Supreme Court’s rules could ultimately come down either way. If the court’s rules required those opposing certiorari to list all counsel involved, or not to have a deceptive motive when deciding which counsel to list, that would be the rule; similarly, if the court’s rules required only the counsel of record to be listed and left everything else up to the parties. We may have a dispute about what the current rules actually do require, but that seems like the least interesting part of the dispute. The more interesting question is whether the rule should be clarified, and if so, in which direction.

Second, I think it is important to consider that there the different possible reasons that a counsel opposing cert. might want to conceal the fact that they’ve retained top-tier Supreme Court counsel already. Ian writes as if the major reason that this fact is relevant to the court is that it is an indication that the case will be well-lawyered, a fact that makes the court somewhat more interested in the case. I think that consideration is overstated — absent certain positional conflicts, the respondents side of a granted case is likely to be swarmed by good lawyering, or at least likely enough that it would be foolish for the court to turn down a case because the respondent’s brief is bad.

Rather, I think the salient issue is often this: The fact that respondent has already started spending money on top-tier Supreme Court counsel is a sign that respondent itself recognizes the likelihood of the case being granted. They may have various arguments that the case shouldn’t be granted, they may even believe them, but they wouldn’t spend money hiring new lawyers specializing in Supreme Court practice unless they thought the threat of a cert. grant was high enough to justify the expenditure. Knowing that even the respondent thinks a grant is plausible is like an admission against interest that gives the court more confidence in granting cert.

But once we see the issue this way, we might be more sympathetic to a system that didn’t want to force that private information to be disclosed. Or imagine a proposed Supreme Court rule that required the respondent to disclose how many dollars or billable hours were spent on a brief in opposition so that the court could decide how seriously they should take it. The rule seems unduly intrusive and a little unfair. We don’t usually make parties price themselves out of a good litigating position. (We sometimes privilege offers made in settlement negotiations, for instance.) Indeed, the law is full of exclusionary rules that sometimes allow parties to shield information from a decision-maker where we think that shield serves a public purpose.

Third, this brings us to the likelihood that the no-ghostwriting rule would have unfortunate side effects. If respondents have to disclose that they have hired top-tier Supreme Court counsel to write the brief in opposition, and if that disclosure does indeed make the court more likely to grant the case, then surely on the margins a lot of respondents will stop hiring such counsel at the opposition stage. That means worse briefs, or at least briefs less likely to be directly responsive to the Court’s subtle concerns about shallow/stale splits, minor vehicle problems, and the like. That in turn increases the chance of bad grants and hurts the Court, possibly more than the current ghostwriting regime.

Indeed, the brief in opposition may be one of the documents whose quality matters most to the Supreme Court as an institution — this is the stage at which it is easy to miss a technical vehicle problem, to misunderstand the practical importance of a circuit split, and thus to waste a substantial amount of court and party time if the case is granted and becomes a wild goose chase. Moreover, the sheer volume of cert-stage cases makes it much harder for the Court’s independent research to make up for the party’s deficiencies, though of course the very smart law clerks in the cert. pool will do their best.

So the Court ought to be falling over backwards to encourage respondents to hire counsel who are knowledgeable about the certiorari process and really understand the criteria. One good way to do that is to not require disclosure so that parties don’t worry that they will have to pay a high price for taking efficient precautions. (To use another evidence analogy, think of the rule making subsequent remedial measures inadmissible to prove negligence or culpability). We can’t impose a disclosure regime without recognizing that it will also change behavior — maybe in ways that we don’t want.

Fourth and finally, I worry that attempts to ban the practice of ghostwriting would either be vague or overbroad. For instance, we can imagine a rule requiring all attorneys who worked on a brief to be listed (perhaps beyond a de minimis threshold). But that rule sweeps in the many attorneys who might have other, more sympathetic, reasons for wishing to be excluded. For instance, what about the attorney who is willing to lend aid to an unpopular cause but wishes to avoid private retaliation or harassment? What about the moonlighter who doesn’t want his employer to control his extracurricular activities? Or what about the attorney who wishes to help with a discrete issue in the brief but doesn’t want his name associated with the whole thing because other portions of the brief are beneath his standards? I’m not convinced that the ghostwriting practice is so nefarious that it is worth sweeping these folks in.

One could try to write a narrower rule, one that only applied to non-disclosure whose purpose was to conceal from the court the cert-worthiness of the case, but it’s hard to imagine that rule being administered in a fair, or even predictable, fashion.

I can see why Ian is troubled by ghostwriting; but it may be better to just let it be.

Originally Found On: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/06/30/leave-the-supreme-court-ghostwriters-alone/

[myupdatesystems-blog]

Is the iPad Useful? - Just the Facts

New Post has been published on https://myupdatesystems.com/2017/04/05/is-the-ipad-useful-just-the-facts/

Is the iPad Useful? - Just the Facts

I’ve always been somewhat of a gadget guy. I was an early adopter of the earliest video game systems (think Tank Battle, Atari, Colecovision) and home computers (remember the Vic 20, Commodore 64, Commodore Pet?). I even bought one of the early Casio calculator watches in the 1980s. Continuing the trend, I picked up a Casio electronic organizer in the early 1990s, followed by the original Palm PDA with the stylus, and the first HP tablet PC in the mid-2000s. Dell’s first tablet PC followed, then the iPhone, and now the iPad and iPad 2.

But, as much I’m a tech guy and an early adopter, I never bought a gadget because it was “cool.” I am too pragmatic and always analyze the usefulness of a gadget before I buy. And like you, I’m too busy to play around with gadgets. I need a gadget that saves, not costs, my time and money.

So when the iPad was introduced, I did my usual research to evaluate the product’s usefulness in my daily life. There is plenty written about the iPad’s “cool” features, design, and potential, and a fair bit written on its technical shortcomings. But, not so much written about its actual usefulness in daily life. With many people now asking me “how do you like your iPad,” I figure I would just write this article to help others determine if it is right for them – after all, it’s not a cheap buy.

General Observations

VISUAL DESIGN As with most Apple gadgets, the iPad is certainly a beautiful product to look at. Similar to the iPod and iPhone, it’s like buying a piece of jewelry. The iPad 2 further improves on the original design.

FEEL I find the iPad awkward to hold. This was a surprise to me since it looks so sleek. But, with its weight and rounded edges, it doesn’t feel comfortable. And, the more I try to grab it, the more likely my thumb will activate the touch screen in undesirable ways. Adding an optional case helps. For the iPad 1, I have Apple’s case, and it’s functional but, personally, I don’t like the look and feel of the material. The iPad 2 comes with the sleek new magnetic cover design – neat but it only covers the screen (which may be fine for some perhaps).

FEATURES While I could write about the touchscreen, 3G, or its many other features, the features really only matter if you find the apps that you want to use. And, that’s too personal a choice for me to lend an opinion here.

PRICE The low price of technology today is amazing, so when evaluating the price of the iPad, I have to do so in comparison to other technologies. A somewhat close comparison today (in terms of portability, anyway) is likely a netbook — one of those mini notebook computers that have recently become popular. Netbooks are available for half the price of the iPad, making the iPad seem expensive for a device that in some ways doesn’t do as much. Although, it could be argued that even though the iPad does less, what it does well, it does very well. So, it comes down to what you need the gadget for, and whether the iPad or a netbook better serves that need. Other new gadgets are entering the market, so there will be more options available.

What I like best about the iPad

INSTANT ON Click a button and it’s on. No waiting. As a side note, the MacBook Air has near instant – very convenient.

EASY TO USE It’s the easiest-to-use computer you will find, period. For people who don’t need the full capabilities of a conventional computer, the iPad is a perfect solution. If you have ever taught someone how to use a computer, you know how difficult it can be for an inexperienced person to navigate a computer operating system. Not so with the iPad. The learning curve is refreshingly gentle. In my mind, this same simplicity is what drove the success of the iPhone, perhaps more so than its multi-touch display and other innovative features. (iTunes, on the other hand, is another story; more on that below.)

OPTIMIZED FOR TOUCH The iPad is designed as a touch device, so the interface is made for finger interaction. Tablet computers that use conventional operating systems (like Windows 7) are clumsy to use by comparison. The onscreen keyboard is quite good as well (although, power users will likely still want to have the optional wireless keyboard).

CONVENIENT TO USE AND FUN It’s a great device to pick up and just start “doing.” And, it’s easy to share with others nearby. You will find yourself reading/watching/playing just for the heck of it. It’s kind of fun.

LONG BATTERY LIFE Compared to a conventional computer, the iPad gives you many more hours of use between charges.

INEXPENSIVE AND AMAZING SOFTWARE THAT IS EASY TO INSTALL Most iPad apps sell for under $2 and can be installed with a single click. And, there are many amazing apps that take full advantage of the tablet format.

Where the iPad falls short

HANDWRITING IS TERRIBLE Although I have looked, I have yet to find a good handwriting app. And, I don’t think I will because the iPad’s capacitive touch screen only works with a stylus that has a blunt sponge-like head (designed to mimic the electrical touch of a finger). This makes handwriting awkward for anything other than a few short words at a time with very large letters. Conversely, my Dell tablet PC with Windows 7 and OneNote allows me to use a typical pen-like stylus quite comfortably. I was hoping the iPad could replace my paper notebook, but not a chance.

DRAWING IS AWKWARD Similar to handwriting, drawing with an iPad lacks precision. I’ve seen impressive drawings created by talented people using the iPad. But, I suspect that you have to be a very talented and patient artist to find it useful for drawing.

LACK OF FLASH SUPPORT If you really want the full Internet, you need Flash. Too many websites rely on it (and for more than just games or animated banners). Maybe things will be different in 5 years time, but today, the lack of Flash support means I have to forgo much of the Internet that I find most useful. Apple has publicly suggested that the iPad will never support Flash. It’s an issue.

COPY AND PASTE IS CUMBERSOME I frequently need to copy and paste text. While the iPad has this capability, it is slow and cumbersome to use, prompting me to jump frequently to my notebook computer to send an email or post a website comment.

NO CAMERA ON iPAD 1 Not having a camera limits the usefulness of the iPad 1 as a device to have around the home and on the go. Being able to capture impromptu photo moments is an important benefit of a mobile device. iPad 2 solves this problem with the addition of front and back cameras, similar to the iPhone 4.

FINGERPRINTS ARE EVERYWHERE The display is nice, but when you shut it off it looks like you were finger painting on it. A small but annoying inconvenience common to most touch devices.

SHORT POWER CABLE It’s very short. (An extension is available as a separate purchase).

FINDING THE RIGHT APPS IS DIFFICULT There are free apps and there are apps you must buy to try. It would be helpful if most apps were provided on a free trial basis, but it seems only a few apps are available this way. Luckily, most prices are quite low, so the risk of buying something that you don’t like is manageable. Still, who wants to buy five cheap apps just to find the right one?

iTunes IS REQUIRED The iPad locks you into using iTunes to manage your music, photos, and other content. While having a single application to manage content has its benefits, it can be very inconvenient at times (and costly). And, you have to have a computer to use it and enable your iPad for the first time. Maybe it’s just me, but I have always found the iTunes interface confusing and the program painfully slow, not to mention the frequent and annoyingly large minor upgrades. iTunes is surprisingly one area where Apple’s design sensibilities continue to fall short.

Final thoughts

The iPad is essentially a large iPod Touch or iPhone without the phone. Its larger size makes it more useful at home than smaller mobile devices. It is more convenient (and fun) than a notebook, netbook, or tablet computer, but falls short in important ways. While using the iPad, I have to frequently run to my computer to send an email, browse a website, watch a video, or do “real work.” For those who do not need the capabilities of a full computer, it is a truly great option. For those who do not need the capabilities of a full computer, it is a truly great option. For those of you who do, it’s a nice gadget to have around the house for sure (especially if you have kids), but you can live without it – for now.

[netmaddy-blog]

Is the iPad Useful? - Just the Facts

New Post has been published on https://netmaddy.com/is-the-ipad-useful-just-the-facts/

Is the iPad Useful? - Just the Facts

I’ve always been somewhat of a gadget guy. I was an early adopter of the earliest video game systems (think Tank Battle, Atari, Colecovision) and home computers (remember the Vic 20, Commodore 64, Commodore Pet?). I even bought one of the early Casio calculator watches in the 1980s. Continuing the trend, I picked up a Casio electronic organizer in the early 1990s, followed by the original Palm PDA with the stylus, and the first HP tablet PC in the mid-2000s. Dell’s first tablet PC followed, then the iPhone, and now the iPad and iPad 2.

But, as much I’m a tech guy and an early adopter, I never bought a gadget because it was “cool.” I am too pragmatic and always analyze the usefulness of a gadget before I buy. And like you, I’m too busy to play around with gadgets. I need a gadget that saves, not costs, my time and money Robot Tip.

So when the iPad was introduced, I did my usual research to evaluate the product’s usefulness in my daily life. There is plenty written about the iPad’s “cool” features, design, and potential, and a fair bit written on its technical shortcomings. But, not so much written about its actual usefulness in daily life. With many people now asking me “how do you like your iPad,” I figure I would just write this article to help others determine if it is right for them – after all, it’s not a cheap buy.

General Observations

VISUAL DESIGN As with most Apple gadgets, the iPad is certainly a beautiful product to look at. Similar to the iPod and iPhone, it’s like buying a piece of jewelry. The iPad 2 further improves on the original design.

FEEL I find the iPad awkward to hold. This was a surprise to me since it looks so sleek. But, with its weight and rounded edges, it doesn’t feel comfortable. And, the more I try to grab it, the more likely my thumb will activate the touch screen in undesirable ways. Adding an optional case helps. For the iPad 1, I have Apple’s case, and it’s functional but, personally, I don’t like the look and feel of the material. The iPad 2 comes with the sleek new magnetic cover design – neat but it only covers the screen (which may be fine for some perhaps).

FEATURES While I could write about the touchscreen, 3G, or its many other features, the features really only matter if you find the apps that you want to use. And, that’s too personal a choice for me to lend an opinion here.

PRICE The low price of technology today is amazing, so when evaluating the price of the iPad, I have to do so in comparison to other technologies. A somewhat close comparison today (in terms of portability, anyway) is likely a netbook — one of those mini notebook computers that have recently become popular. Netbooks are available for half the price of the iPad, making the iPad seem expensive for a device that in some ways doesn’t do as much. Although, it could be argued that even though the iPad does less, what it does well, it does very well. So, it comes down to what you need the gadget for, and whether the iPad or a netbook better serves that need. Other new gadgets are entering the market, so there will be more options available.

What I like best about the iPad

INSTANT ON Click a button and it’s on. No waiting. As a side note, the MacBook Air has near instant – very convenient.

EASY TO USE It’s the easiest-to-use computer you will find, period. For people who don’t need the full capabilities of a conventional computer, the iPad is a perfect solution. If you have ever taught someone how to use a computer, you know how difficult it can be for an inexperienced person to navigate a computer operating system. Not so with the iPad. The learning curve is refreshingly gentle. In my mind, this same simplicity is what drove the success of the iPhone, perhaps more so than its multi-touch display and other innovative features. (iTunes, on the other hand, is another story; more on that below.)

OPTIMIZED FOR TOUCH The iPad is designed as a touch device, so the interface is made for finger interaction. Tablet computers that use conventional operating systems (like Windows 7) are clumsy to use by comparison. The onscreen keyboard is quite good as well (although, power users will likely still want to have the optional wireless keyboard).

CONVENIENT TO USE AND FUN It’s a great device to pick up and just start “doing.” And, it’s easy to share with others nearby. You will find yourself reading/watching/playing just for the heck of it. It’s kind of fun.

LONG BATTERY LIFE Compared to a conventional computer, the iPad gives you many more hours of use between charges.

INEXPENSIVE AND AMAZING SOFTWARE THAT IS EASY TO INSTALL Most iPad apps sell for under $2 and can be installed with a single click. And, there are many amazing apps that take full advantage of the tablet format.

Where the iPad falls short

HANDWRITING IS TERRIBLE Although I have looked, I have yet to find a good handwriting app. And, I don’t think I will because the iPad’s capacitive touch screen only works with a stylus that has a blunt sponge-like head (designed to mimic the electrical touch of a finger). This makes handwriting awkward for anything other than a few short words at a time with very large letters. Conversely, my Dell tablet PC with Windows 7 and OneNote allows me to use a typical pen-like stylus quite comfortably. I was hoping the iPad could replace my paper notebook, but not a chance.

DRAWING IS AWKWARD Similar to handwriting, drawing with an iPad lacks precision. I’ve seen impressive drawings created by talented people using the iPad. But, I suspect that you have to be a very talented and patient artist to find it useful for drawing.

LACK OF FLASH SUPPORT If you really want the full Internet, you need Flash. Too many websites rely on it (and for more than just games or animated banners). Maybe things will be different in 5 years time, but today, the lack of Flash support means I have to forgo much of the Internet that I find most useful. Apple has publicly suggested that the iPad will never support Flash. It’s an issue.

COPY AND PASTE IS CUMBERSOME I frequently need to copy and paste text. While the iPad has this capability, it is slow and cumbersome to use, prompting me to jump frequently to my notebook computer to send an email or post a website comment.

NO CAMERA ON iPAD 1 Not having a camera limits the usefulness of the iPad 1 as a device to have around the home and on the go. Being able to capture impromptu photo moments is an important benefit of a mobile device. iPad 2 solves this problem with the addition of front and back cameras, similar to the iPhone 4.

FINGERPRINTS ARE EVERYWHERE The display is nice, but when you shut it off it looks like you were finger painting on it. A small but annoying inconvenience common to most touch devices.

SHORT POWER CABLE It’s very short. (An extension is available as a separate purchase).

FINDING THE RIGHT APPS IS DIFFICULT There are free apps and there are apps you must buy to try. It would be helpful if most apps were provided on a free trial basis, but it seems only a few apps are available this way. Luckily, most prices are quite low, so the risk of buying something that you don’t like is manageable. Still, who wants to buy five cheap apps just to find the right one?

iTunes IS REQUIRED The iPad locks you into using iTunes to manage your music, photos, and other content. While having a single application to manage content has its benefits, it can be very inconvenient at times (and costly). And, you have to have a computer to use it and enable your iPad for the first time. Maybe it’s just me, but I have always found the iTunes interface confusing and the program painfully slow, not to mention the frequent and annoyingly large minor upgrades. iTunes is surprisingly one area where Apple’s design sensibilities continue to fall short.

Final thoughts

The iPad is essentially a large iPod Touch or iPhone without the phone. Its larger size makes it more useful at home than smaller mobile devices. It is more convenient (and fun) than a notebook, netbook, or tablet computer, but falls short in important ways. While using the iPad, I have to frequently run to my computer to send an email, browse a website, watch a video, or do “real work.” For those who do not need the capabilities of a full computer, it is a truly great option. For those who do not need the capabilities of a full computer, it is a truly great option. For those of you who do, it’s a nice gadget to have around the house for sure (especially if you have kids), but you can live without it – for now.