#and i expect the migration back to a forum will bring with it some of that more spicy attitude
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Welcome to Something Eternal: A Website Forum in 2023 wtf lmao
It's 2023, and a single belligerent rich guy destroyed one of the primary focal points of uh...global communication. Tumblr is, shockingly, kinda thriving despite the abuse it gets from its owners, but that I will call the iconic refusal of Tumblr users to let Tumblr get in the way of their using Tumblr. Reddit killed its API, removing the functionality of mobile apps that made it remotely readable (rip rif.) Discord, our current primary hangout, has made countless strange choices lately that indicate it has reached the summit of its usability and functionality, and can only decline from here as changes get made to prepare for shareholders. (NOTE: WROTE THIS POST BEFORE THEIR MOBILE "REDESIGN" LMAO)
The enshittification is intense, and it's coming from every direction. Social media platforms that felt like permanent institutions are instead slowly going to let fall fallow incredible amounts of history, works of art, thought, and fandoms. It kinda sucks!
A couple years ago, I posted about a new plan with a new domain, to focus on the archiving of media content, as I saw that to be the fatal weakness of the current ways the internet and fandoms work. Much has happened since to convince me to alter the direction of those efforts, though not abandon them entirely.
Long story short? We are launching a fucking website forum. In 2023.
If you remember In the Rose Garden, much about Something Eternal will be familiar. But this has been a year in the making, and in many ways it's far more ambitious than IRG was. We have put money on this. The forum is running on the same software major IT and technology businesses use, because I don't want the software to age out of usability within five years. It has an attached gallery system for me to post content to, including the Chiho Saito art collection. It has a profile post system that everyone already on the forum has decided is kinda like mini Twitter? But it is, fundamentally, a website forum, owned and run and moderated by us. We are not web devs. But we have run a website on pure spite and headbutting code for over twenty years, and we have over a decade of experience maintaining social spaces online, both on the OG forum, and on our Discord. Better skilled people with far more time than we have can and will build incredible alternatives to what is collapsing around us. But they're not in the room right now. We are. And you know what? Maybe it's time to return to a clunkier, slower moving, more conversation focused platform.
You're not joining a social media platform with the full polish of dozens of devs and automated moderation. Things might break, and I might need time to fix them. The emojis and such are still a work in progress. Because e-mails no longer route in reasonable normal ways, the sign-up process instead happens within the software, and has to be approved by mods. Design and structure elements may change. Etc. The point being, that the forum isn't finished, but it is at a place where I feel like I can present it to people, and it's people I need to help direct what functions and things will be in this space. You all will shape its norms, its traditions, its options...choices I could try to make now, but really...they're for us to create as a group! But the important stuff? That's there. Now let's drive this baby off the damn lot already!
Come! Join us!!
PS. As always, TERFs and Nazis need not apply.
#revolutionary girl utena#shoujo kakumei utena#rgu#sku#empty movement#utena meta#fandom stuff#fandoms#expect a somewhat spicy atmosphere#empty movement has always had deep something awful roots#and i expect the migration back to a forum will bring with it some of that more spicy attitude#also lol henry kissinger is dead god that rules
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How The Demon Brothers React After Fighting With Their SO
tw: some angst with resolution at the end, mentions of past arguments, insecurity.
Lucifer:
This man is petty as hell.
He doesn’t do the silent treatment, but he acts like you aren’t dating.
If you need to work on something together, you’re a co-worker.
At RAD you’re a classmate.
Around the house you’re just a housemate.
His poker face is immaculate and it will not crack when you’re around.
If someone didn’t know what was happening, they’d probably think you two barely knew each other.
However, you won’t notice, but as soon as you look the other way his eyes are on you.
He’s used to arguing with his brothers and is no stranger to explosive fights that end with he and the other person not being on speaking terms.
But you’re different.
He tries to go on with business as usual, but he can’t think about anything other than how much he misses you.
Yet, he lets it continue because he just can’t put his pride aside and apologize.
If you decide to sleep in your old room it’ll both hurt his feelings and royally piss him off.
He thinks you’re being childish and will be pretty rude about it, but that’s because internally his blood just ran cold.
It adds a degree of seriousness to the argument that he’s uncomfortable with.
Yes he’s mad, but he can’t lose you.
If you still sleep in his bed, he makes sure to scoot over to the very edge so he doesn’t cuddle you in his sleep.
In fact, the first night after the argument he’d probably put a pillow between you just to really punctuate the fact that he’s still upset.
I’d say it could go 4 days to a week tops without you making up.
After a point though, he just can’t function until the issue is resolved. He can’t sleep, he’s falling behind on his work, and he’s just generally not doing well.
You get called to his office one night and find him at his desk surrounded by piles of paper, disheveled and exhausted.
“MC, come sit down. I’d like to talk this through. Please.”
Mammon:
He’s so dramatic.
You dare defy him? The Great Mammon can’t believe this tiny fragile human would have the audacity.
The theatrics are just a front though.
His ‘The Great Mammon’ act is a mask for his insecurity, one he hasn’t had to use with you in awhile.
Even as the words leave his mouth he regrets them.
He’s going to be very uncomfortable with everything until the argument is resolved, but most of all himself.
He’s learned not to take his brothers too seriously when they toss insults his way, but words have a way of morphing to belief over time.
Internally he is going to be super hard on himself.
Regardless of if the fight was his fault or not, he’s going to kick himself constantly for making yet another mistake.
He’s over the argument pretty fast. The anger quickly melts into anxiety.
Are you going to leave him? Do you hate him? Did he hurt your feelings?
That being said, he doesn’t know if you’re still mad and he doesn’t know how to ask.
As a defense mechanism, he defaults to how he treated you when you first arrived in the devildom.
Calls you human, disregards you, stuff like that.
If you decide to sleep in another room, before midnight expect him to be knocking on the door.
“Oi, MC. You awake? I just - I can’t - *sigh* Can we talk about this?”
If you sleep in his bed, he makes a point of sleeping with his back to you.
Less because he’s actually mad and more because he doesn’t want his image of you as he drifts to sleep to be a look of anger.
Though as soon as he passes out he’ll roll over and tuck you into his arms on instinct.
I’d say any after effects of an argument with Mammon would be resolved in a day, maybe two tops.
Leviathan:
Arguing activates his trolling the forums mode.
Goes back to calling you a normie and contradicts everything you say.
He’s less mad about the argument and more using the bitterness to cope with how upset he is.
He feels like a break up is less of an if and more of a when.
Why would someone as amazing as you settle for weird otaku like him?
Honestly doesn’t understand why you’re with him in the first place, so when there’s a serious argument he assumes its over.
Tbh don’t know how you and Levi would sleep together being that I doubt two could fit in a tub, but any deviation to your routine sends him into a panic.
It’s his reality check that the situation is serious and he needs to fix it NOW.
He’d have trouble apologizing in person. He can’t think of what to say, he stumbles over his words, and he feels like he’s on the verge of a panic attack.
Instead, expect a long ass text message.
He says how sorry he is, how much he misses and loves you, and legit begs you to forgive him.
If you sleep with him like normal, he’ll probably try to make up after laying there for awhile. His mind is going a million miles an hour and there’s no way he can sleep.
Still really has trouble verbalizing how he feels, so give the poor boy a break and take over the conversation.
He hasn’t had a serious relationship before and he doesn’t know what he should do to make it better.
So the after effects will last however long it takes him to read several mangas, watch some anime, and play a few games to see how the characters get over arguments in the story.
Satan:
Satan makes sure not to fight with you over minor issues.
He’s worked tirelessly to tame his wrath and he refuses to feed into it over a minor issue.
Thus, if you fight with Satan it’s a major argument and it’s explosive.
The aftermath isn’t much better.
He doesn’t want to risk blowing up again, so he’s frighteningly calm.
He’s an absolute master of the silent treatment.
He won’t say a word to you until he’s certain he’s calmed down enough.
For the first few days he’ll straight up leave a room if you enter.
For a good while the only way you can expect to communicate with him is through his body language and the expression in his eyes.
Satan’s biggest fear is losing control and lashing out at you.
He couldn’t live with himself if he hurt you and he can’t stand the thought of you being afraid of him.
He’s a whirlwind of emotions, so he isolates himself until he can figure out how to deal with it.
Not just from you, but from everyone else too.
Satan will not share a bed with you for at least the first night.
If he got worked up enough to actually fight, it’s gonna take him time to simmer down.
And he’d rather not risk doing or saying something he regrets in the meantime.
Once he’s ready, he’ll approach you when he’s completely calmed down and has thoroughly analyzed the situation.
He’s considered both of your sides, tried to pinpoint what caused the disagreement to turn into a fight, and made a plan of action to prevent it from happening again.
“MC? I’ve been thinking quite a bit about what happened. Would you please talk it through with me?”
He won’t apologize for the argument if he feels like he was right, but he will apologize for letting the disagreement escalate into a fight.
Satan could go weeks without making up if necessary, but he tries to resolve it within a couple of days.
Asmodeus:
Wants to give you the silent treatment, but is physically incapable.
He can’t stand to have you ignore him.
He’s the type to go back to normal then suddenly remembers you guys had a fight.
“Wait, no! I’m not talking to you! I’m mad at you!”
His biggest downfall is that he’s so stubborn.
If he thinks he was right, he will die on that hill.
There are arguments with his brothers that happened a thousand years ago and he could still tell you exactly why he was right.
But with you, he realizes that doesn’t matter too him nearly as much as it usually does.
If it means going back to normal, he’ll forget who’s right or wrong.
If you sleep in another room, he’s beyond offended.
“What?! Well fine! I don’t want you in my bed anyway!”
Laying in bed alone is a different story though.
He can’t sleep. All he can think about is you. Your face when you sleep next to him, your smell, the feeling of his arms around you.
He 100% cries.
Finally goes and knocks on your door with wet, glossy eyes.
“MC? Can we talk about this? I can’t get my beauty sleep and my tears are wiping off all of my skin care lotion!”
Will throw himself into your arms before you can answer.
If you sleep next to him still, he rolls over and watches you sleep.
It puts him at peace and he decides seeing your sweet, resting face every morning is worth more to him than the argument.
He’ll initiate the conversation the next morning.
I think Asmo could make it a few days if it was a really serious argument, but he will not function well until you make up.
Beelzebub:
Wants to make up immediately.
He doesn’t like to argue, even less so with you.
Whether he was right or wrong, he blames himself. He’ll take all the blame in the world if it makes you happy.
He’ll go make you your favorite food and bring it to you.
If he thinks you don’t want to talk to him, he’ll leave it outside your door and text you to let you know it’s there.
He’s honestly devastated if you decide to sleep in another room.
You guys migrate to your old room when you want privacy from Belphie, but you almost never sleep separately.
Seeing you grab your pillows and march out of the room nearly stops his heart.
He goes completely numb and silent as he just stares at the space you had just occupied.
Like Levi, he thinks this means the relationship is over and he genuinely does not know what to do with himself.
He can’t even bring himself to eat, he just wants to lie there, lost and trying to grapple with his emotions.
He’s another one who will absolutely cry, but unlike Asmo he will make sure no one knows it.
If you still sleep in his bed, he’s very nervous about it.
He doesn’t know if it’s okay to touch you, what he can or can’t say, stuff like that.
He just lays there stiff as a board not even able to close his eyes.
Honestly the fight would probably have to be resolved before bed. His anxiety just can’t take it.
I don’t think he’d initiate the apology. Not because he doesn’t want to make up but because his confidence is rock bottom in these situations.
He catastophizes and honestly thinks you hate him.
If you don’t initiate the apology soon, Belphie will. He can feel what his twin won’t say, and he knows Beel won’t approach you about it for fear of making it worse.
Belphie will lock you two in a room if that’s what it takes for you to make up.
Belphegor:
The embodiment of if looks could kill.
He won’t talk to you, won’t look at you, basically pretends you aren’t there.
If he must interact with you he’ll roll his eyes and sigh the whole time.
Tries to sleep through any interaction so he doesn’t have to deal with it.
He feels almost betrayed by the fight.
He thought the relationship was stronger than to have such a huge divide, so he’s really insecure about it.
After the first day, the anger has melted away to guilt.
He ‘s not guilty that you fought, but he is guilty about how he treated you after.
Guilt and self-blame have become unwelcome friends at this point. Guilt over Lilith, over his plans to destroy the human world, everything.
But more than anything else, the guilt for the fact that he attacked you weighs on him every day.
He moved past it quickly after, essentially pretending he hadn’t killed you, but that’s because he just couldn’t confront what he’d done.
He feels like the luckiest demon alive that you forgave him, let alone opened you heart enough to love him, and now it’s all in tatters.
Another thing to regret.
If you decide to sleep separately, it’ll hit him like a bag of bricks.
“You - what? Where are you going?”
It’ll take him a second to process what you were doing, but then he’ll roll over and let you leave.
“Fine. Don’t let the door hit you.”
No one will see him for awhile.
Belphie sleeps all the time anyway, but he just can’t make himself get out of bed.
If you don’t approach him to apologize, Beel will tell you that he’s been nauseous and randomly emotional which must mean his twin is coping very badly.
Will beg you to go make Belphie happy again.
If you sleep in his bed still, the argument will be resolved by morning.
He can’t keep himself from embracing you in his sleep, and it’s hard to say you’re mad at someone when you wake up in their loving arms.
It’s hard to pinpoint how long it could last with Belphie. If you don’t apologize first, he won’t let himself be conscious long enough to approach you.
This is both my first hc post as well as my first obey me post so I’m sorry if le boys are ooc. I just got this idea and couldn’t stop thinking about it so here we are. Especially Belphie, he was hard to me for some reason. Let me know if you guys agree or disagree and if you want to send a request or ask, my box is open!
#obey me#obeyme#obey me shall we date#obey me lucifer#obey me lucifer x mc#obey me mammon#obey me mammon x mc#obey me leviathan#obey me Levi#obey me levi x mc#obey me leviathan x mc#obey me satan#obey me satan x mc#obey me asmodeus#obey me asmo#obey me asmo x mc#obey me asmodeus x mc#obey me beelezebub#obey me beel#obey me beelzebub x mc#obey me beel x mc#obey me belphegor#obey me belphie#obey me belphagor x mc#obey me belphie x mc#obey me lucifer x reader#obey me mammon x reader#obey me leviathan x reader#obey me satan x reader#obey me asmo x reader
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Tuesday, April 20, 2021
Minneapolis Braces for Verdict in Floyd’s Death
(NYT) MINNEAPOLIS—Around midday last Monday, Samir Patel received a phone call from his friend, a dentist: Gunshots had rung out, his friend told him, and the contractors who were rebuilding the office he lost in last year’s unrest had fled. He was boarding up, and he told Mr. Patel he should move quickly to protect his own business, a dry cleaning shop. Elite Cleaners, Mr. Patel’s shop, is on a side street, not far from the shell of the Minneapolis Police Department’s Third Precinct station house, which burned last year in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death. The surrounding community of Lake Street, a corridor of immigrant-owned businesses—taquerias, furniture shops, liquor stores and cafes—was devastated by looting in the days of protests and the riots that followed. The city has said that the unrest led to $350 million in losses, with more than a thousand buildings either destroyed or damaged. As the trial of Derek Chauvin, the white former police officer charged with murder in the death of Mr. Floyd, a Black man, draws to a close, the city is on edge, fearing that a not-guilty verdict would bring anger, chaos and destruction once again.
New migrant facilities crop up to ease crowding, again
(AP) For the third time in seven years, U.S. officials are scrambling to handle a dramatic spike in children crossing the U.S.-Mexico border alone, leading to a massive expansion in emergency facilities to house them as more kids arrive than are being released to close relatives in the United States. More than 22,000 migrant children were in government custody as of Thursday, with 10,500 sleeping on cots at convention centers, military bases and other large venues likened to hurricane evacuation shelters with little space to play and no privacy. More than 2,500 are being held by border authorities in substandard facilities. So many children are coming that there’s little room in long-term care facilities, where capacity shrank significantly during the coronavirus pandemic. As a result, minors are packed into Border Patrol facilities not meant to hold them longer than three days or they’re staying for weeks in the mass housing sites that often lack the services they need. Lawyers say some have not seen social workers who can reunite them with family in the U.S. Both Donald Trump and Barack Obama faced similar upticks in Central American children crossing the border alone in 2019 and 2014. The numbers have now reached historic highs amid economic fallout from the pandemic, storms in Central America and the feeling among migrants that Biden is more welcoming than his predecessor.
Students’ struggles pushed Peru teacher to run for president
(AP) As schools across Peru closed due to the coronavirus pandemic, Pedro Castillo tried to find a way to keep classes going for his 20 fifth- and sixth-grade students. But in his impoverished rural community deep in the Andes, his efforts were futile. Seventeen of the students didn’t even have access to a cellphone. Tablets promised by the government never arrived. “Where is the state?” Castillo, 51, told The Associated Press after a day of planting sweet potatoes on his own land. It was the last straw for Castillo, who over 25 years had seen his students struggle in crumbling schools where teachers also cook, sweep floors and file paperwork. He’d already dabbled in activism with the local teachers’ union and helped lead a national strike in 2017. But now he went further, tossing his name into a crowd of 18 candidates in Peru’s presidential election. Defying the polls, the elementary school teacher came first in the April 11 voting, albeit with less than 20% of the overall vote. The stunning result gave him a place in June’s presidential runoff against Keiko Fujimori, one of Peru’s most established political figures and the daughter of former president Alberto Fujimori. It is her third attempt to become president. Castillo’s unlikely campaign comes at a turbulent time for the South American nation that has suffered like few others from the COVID-19 pandemic. It recently ran through three presidents in a week after one was removed by congress over corruption allegations. Every president of the past 36 years has been ensnared in corruption allegations, some imprisoned. One died by suicide before police could arrest him.
New direction needed: EU launches website for citizens to discuss its future
(Reuters) The European Union launched on Monday a website for citizens to debate the future of the 27-nation bloc as the exit of Britain, climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic and the rise of nationalism force the EU to reflect on how it wants to develop. The website, available for contributions in the EU’s 24 official languages, is part of what EU institutions call the Conference on the Future of Europe—a forum for debate to help identify issues the EU needs to address in the changing global context. “The conclusions of the conference could be the backbone for reforms in the Union in the future,” one of the leaders of the initiative, member of European Parliament and former Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt told a news conference. The website prompts debates on subjects including climate change, the environment, health, the economy, social justice and jobs, the role of the EU in the world, values and rights, the rule of law, security, digital transformation, democracy and migration. Citizens can also launch their own topics.
Cheating at Greek universities
(Foreign Policy) Greek universities are experiencing a crisis of confidence in their students as remote learning takes the place of traditional education. Professors have noted surprisingly high marks from previously poor students, raising suspicions that the students may be using underhanded tactics. “Result averages are up, and people we haven’t seen in years are showing up for exams because the system makes it easy to cheat,” Kostas Kosmatos, an assistant professor of criminology at Thrace’s Democritus University told AFP. Sofia, a psychology student, admitted to have taken two exams “on behalf of two of my friends and nobody realized.” Resourceful students have created technological workarounds to boost their chances during exams, crowdsourcing answers in live chats with students at the University of Crete even enlisting a linguistic expert to help them during exams. “But even he got a verse wrong,” Angela Kastrinaki, dean of the University of Crete’s literature department, told AFP. “So I got 50 papers with the same mistake. It was funny.”
Russia Expels 20 Czech Diplomats as Tensions Escalate
(NYT) A day after the government of the Czech Republic blamed operatives from Russia’s military intelligence agency for a series of mysterious explosions at an ammunition depot in 2014 and expelled 18 Russian diplomats, the Russian government announced on Sunday that 20 Czech diplomats would be ejected in response. The expulsions signal further escalation of tensions between the Kremlin and western governments, reaching an intensity not seen since the Cold War. The spat between the Czech Republic and Russia comes just days after the United States imposed heavy sanctions on Russian government officials and businesses in response to a large-scale hacking of American government computer systems. In a statement, the Russian Foreign Ministry called the Czech accusations “absurd” and accused the government of being an American puppet. “In an effort to please the U.S.A. following recent American sanctions against Russia, the Czech government in this instance even exceeded its overseas masters,” the Russian Foreign Ministry statement said.
Montenegro’s billion-dollar dilemma
(NYT) Few Europeans thought it was a good idea for Montenegro to take a mammoth loan from China to build a highway. Now the tiny, mountainous country is asking the European Union for help to repay the debt—and the answer, so far, has been no. The situation in Montenegro is the latest skirmish in an escalating global push for influence by China, which has made inroads in economically weak countries by offering loans that demand loyalty to Beijing but otherwise have few strings attached. Montenegro’s first debt payments are due this summer. The $1 billion loan is nearly a fifth the size of the country’s entire economy. Montenegrin leaders say they won’t miss their loan payment this summer even if no E.U. aid is forthcoming. European officials said they wanted to help Montenegro but were searching for a palatable way to do so. Linking the aid to the loan too directly could be politically difficult, since many E.U. officials do not want to be in the position of effectively paying down a Chinese loan that E.U. leaders warned against in the first place. “China has been filling any opening it felt it could,” said Vuk Vuksanovic, a researcher at the Belgrade Center for Security Policy, a Serbian think tank. “Local capitals were hungry for cash, particularly on big development issues like infrastructure. And the Chinese were willing to go places where Western institutions were not.”
Afghan Women Fear the Worst, Whether War or Peace Lies Ahead
(NYT) Farzana Ahmadi watched as a neighbor in her village in northern Afghanistan was flogged by Taliban fighters last month. The crime: Her face was uncovered. People silently watched as the beating dragged on. Fear—even more potent than in years past—is gripping Afghans now that U.S. and NATO forces will depart the country in the coming months. They will leave behind a publicly triumphant Taliban, who many expect will seize more territory and reinstitute many of the same oppressive rules they enforced under their regime in the 1990s. The New York Times spoke to many Afghan women about what comes next in their country, and they all said the same thing: Whatever happens will not bode well for them. Whether the Taliban take back power by force or through a political agreement with the Afghan government, their influence will almost inevitably grow. In a country in which an end to nearly 40 years of conflict is nowhere in sight, many Afghans talk of an approaching civil war. “All the time, women are the victims of men’s wars,” said Raihana Azad, a member of Afghanistan’s Parliament. “But they will be the victims of their peace, too.”
Hard-line Islamists take 6 Pakistani security personnel hostage amid deadly clashes
(Washington Post) A hard-line Islamist group on Sunday took six Pakistani security personnel hostage after days of deadly clashes in the northeastern city of Lahore over a French satirical newspaper’s publication of cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad and the arrest of the group’s leader by Pakistani authorities. A senior police officer and two paramilitary fighters were among those taken after protesters surrounded a police station and stormed the compound, according to Lahore police spokesman Arif Rana. A week of violence across the country has left at least four dead, according to the protesters. Police officials say thousands have been arrested. The tensions driving the protests, led by the Islamist party Tehrik-e-Labbaik Pakistan, have been simmering for months after French President Emmanuel Macron honored a teacher who was beheaded last year in France after he showed a class the cartoons depicting Muhammad. For many Muslims, depictions of the prophet are blasphemous and deeply insulting. Macron’s comments sparked protests across the Muslim world last year.
India’s capital to lock down as nation’s virus cases top 15M
(AP) New Delhi was being put under a weeklong lockdown Monday night as an explosive surge in coronavirus cases pushed the India’s capital’s health system to its limit. Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said in a news conference the national capital was facing shortages of oxygen and some medicine. “I do not say that the system has collapsed, but it has reached its limits,” Kejriwal said, adding that harsh measures were necessary to “prevent a collapse of the health system.” Similar virus curbs already have been imposed in the worst-hit state of Maharashtra, home to India’s financial capital, Mumbai. The closure of most industries, businesses and public places Wednesday night is to last 15 days.
Pacific Ocean storm intensifies into year’s first super typhoon
(Reuters) Strong winds and high waves lashed the eastern Philippines on Monday as the strongest typhoon ever recorded in April barrelled past in the Pacific Ocean, killing one man and triggering flooding in lower-lying communities, disaster officials said. More than 100,000 people were evacuated from coastal areas, according to provincial disaster agencies. The core of Surigae, or Bising as the storm is known locally, is not expected to hit land. But with a diameter of 500 km and winds reaching 195 km per hour, parts of the eastern islands of Samar experienced flooding, while several communities lost power. The first super typhoon of 2021 foreshadows a busy storm season for the region in the year ahead, experts say.
Lebanon’s crumbling capital
(AFP) Beirut’s roads are riddled with potholes, many walls are covered in anti-government graffiti and countless street lamps have long since gone dark. At night, car drivers creep cautiously past broken traffic lights and strain their eyes for missing manhole covers, stolen for the value of their metal. Many parking metres have been disabled in protest over an alleged corruption scandal, while cars are parked randomly on sidewalks. To many, the dysfunctional capital has become emblematic of a country mired in its worst crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war after decades of mismanagement and corruption. Much of Beirut’s infrastructure started falling apart long before last August’s massive portside explosion killed more than 200 people, levelled the waterfront and damaged countless buildings. Amid the crisis, the Lebanese currency has collapsed and continues its downward slide at a sickening rate that in itself is deepening the problem. As the currency has dived by more than 85 percent on the black market, wary contractors are steering clear of any municipal repairs that are paid for in Lebanese pounds.
Eleven dead, 98 injured after train derails in Egypt
(Reuters) Eleven people were killed and 98 injured on Sunday in a train accident in Egypt’s Qalioubia province north of Cairo, the health ministry said in a statement. The train was heading from Cairo to the Nile Delta city of Mansoura when four carriages derailed at 1:54 p.m. (1154 GMT), about 40 kms (25 miles) north of Cairo. More than 50 ambulances took the injured to three hospitals in the province, the health ministry said. The derailing is the latest of several recent railway crashes in Egypt. At least 20 people were killed and nearly 200 were injured in March when two trains collided near Tahta, about 440 kms (275 miles) south of Cairo.
South Africa wildfire
(Washington Post) Cape Town ordered precautionary evacuations of communities living along the edges of city landmark Table Mountain on Monday as firefighters struggled to contain a fire that gutted historical landmarks, including the oldest working windmill in South Africa and a library housing African antiquities at the University of Cape Town. The fire started Sunday morning near the memorial to colonial leader Cecil Rhodes and quickly spread uncontrolled beneath Devil’s Peak in Table Mountain National Park in an area popular with weekend hikers and cyclists. By Monday morning, strong southeasterly winds, which were expected to reach more than 30 miles per hour (50 km/h) later in the day, had pushed the fire toward densely-populated areas above Cape Town city. Well-known tourist sites, such as the Table Mountain aerial cableway, were temporarily closed. Heavy smoke engulfed the city forcing the closure of a major highway and other nearby roads. Hikers, park visitors, visitors to the nearby Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden and hundreds of students from the university campus were evacuated on Sunday.
NASA’s Ingenuity Makes First Powered Flight On Mars
(NPR) “Orville and Wilbur would be proud. NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter has made the first-ever powered flight on another planet, 117 years after the Wright Brothers’ historic flight on this planet. The flight itself was modest. The 4-pound helicopter rose 10 feet in the air, hovered briefly, and returned to the Martian surface.
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Bungie Weekly Update - 8/8/19
This week at Bungie, we’re preparing for a mass migration of Guardians.
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This fall, the launch of Shadowkeep and New Light will deliver some bold new ways for you to manage your Guardian lifestyle. Between now and launch, we’ll have plenty of time to talk about your impending freedom to control how you look and fight. Right now, let’s focus on the ways we’ll be able to decide where you'll play.
Two important updates just went live with this article:
www.bungie.net/pcmove
This is a resource for players who have been playing Destiny 2 on PC and will be moving with us to our new home on Steam. In keeping with the announcement from last week about our new launch window, Destiny 2 will arrive on Steam for the first time on October 1. Before that happens, on August 20, you’ll be invited to begin the process of linking your PC player accounts for a smooth transition of your Guardians and all your game purchases.
www.bungie.net/crosssave
This is a resource for players who know they’ll be playing Destiny 2 in more than one place this Fall. Cross Save will finally let us unify our adventures across many platforms. The launch of Cross Save is planned for August 21. Before that happens, check out the new information we’re serving up about how it will work and what you'll be able to bring with you. If you’ve been nurturing Guardians on more than one account, you’ll have some choices to make.
PAVING THE ROAD TO LAUNCH
Players of Destiny have a lot of questions about Shadowkeep. We wouldn’t have it any other way, because we have a lot to tell you between now and launch. This is more than a Moon mission. We’re kicking off a whole new year of play, with some interesting evolutions for the experience. Without assigning exact dates to each moment, here is a sequence of events (in the order they will occur) that will broaden your understanding of what you’ll be playing in October:
'Director's Cut' with Luke Smith
Armor Customization Preview livestream
More Shadowkeep details at gamescom
Cross Save launch
How Seasons will change in D2Y3
PVP reveal for Shadowkeep
An invitation to the Crucible at PAX
And the rest will be packed into the last mile, during September. Those are the big-ticket items that we plan to cover in depth, but it’s not the full list of everything we’ll talk about. We’ll hear from Luke a number of times as we tackle these topics, beginning early next week. Thanks for going on the journey with us.
Watch this space.
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MOD SQUAD
Many of you have asked us to elaborate on what we’ve referred to as “Armor 2.0.”
Next week, we’ll do just that – and we’ll do it live!
Armor Customization Preview Livestream
-or-
Building a Better Monster Killing Machine
August 14, 2019 – 10AM Pacific
www.twitch.tv/bungie
www.youtube.com/bungie
www.mixer.com/bungie
Tune in wherever you feel most at home to watch three developers from Bungie build their ideal Titan, Hunter, or Warlock. They’ll apply Mods, Artifacts, and Ornaments to build their own version of the perfect monster killing machine. Then we’ll test those builds in the new Sandbox.
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BOSS HOGG
Solstice of Heroes is live!
For a limited time, you’re all invited to visit the European Aerial Zone – think of it as a summer vacation with some fabulous loot as your souvenir. Have you tricked out your dress uniform yet? One of the mission parameters is to defeat 100 Minibosses. Some of you have expressed that this is a few too many Boss Fights. Upon further analysis, we have agreed.
The total expectation is being revised down, from 100 to 50. The change goes live next week. If you have been struggling to hit this milestone, help is on the way. If you already hit it, please go easy on your fellow Guardians who pleaded for mercy.
Now we come to the part where I pass the mic to our Player Support Team to provide a more in-depth tactical briefing on how we deploy bits to your video game machine.
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PLAYER SUPPORT REPORT
On the Bungie.net #Help forum, an intrepid band of problem solvers are devoted to bringing order out of chaos. They chase the answers to your toughest questions. They fight for a world in which everyone can play, unfettered by error codes or confusion. They are the Player Support Team and they are flanked by the Mentors sworn to reinforce them in battle.
This is their report.
Destiny 2 Hotfix 2.5.2.1
Next Tuesday, August 13, we’re deploying Destiny 2 Hotfix 2.5.2.1 to players. Please see below for the full deployment schedule:
Monday, August 12:
10:00 AM PDT (1700 UTC): Destiny 2 background maintenance will begin. No downtime is expected.
2:00 PM PDT (2100 UTC): Destiny 2 background maintenance is expected to conclude.
Tuesday, August 13:
9:00 AM PDT (1600 UTC): Destiny 2 maintenance will begin.
9:45 AM PDT (1645 UTC): Destiny 2 will be brought offline. All players will be returned to the title screen.
10:00 AM PDT (1700 UTC): Destiny 2 will be brought back online. Hotfix 2.5.2.1 will begin rolling out across all platforms and regions.
11:00 AM PDT (1800 UTC): Destiny 2 maintenance is expected to conclude.
Following the recent announcement that Destiny 2: Shadowkeep will launch on October 1, 2019, Hotfix 2.5.2.1 brings with it some changes to the game experience that will allow us to extend the content calendar for Season of Opulence. Additionally, we’re taking this opportunity to refine the grind for Solstice of Heroes, which you can read more about below.
For live updates on this hotfix as it rolls out to players, follow @BungieHelp on Twitter or monitor our support feed on help.bungie.net.
Solstice of Heroes: 100 Mini Bosses
For next week’s hotfix, we re-evaluated the objective requirements for unlocking the Majestic Solstice armor sets. Specifically among these objectives, we believe the 100 Mini Boss challenge has the most room for improvement. Here are the changes we’re making:
This objective is being scaled down from 100 Mini Bosses defeated to 50
Completing the final boss round contributes an additional 5 points of progress
If you’ve already earned points toward this objective, you’ll find your progress intact once Hotfix 2.5.2.1 is deployed. Happy hunting.
Known Issues Callout: Granted Emblems in Collections
Last week we distributed the Prismatic Inferno and Wolves Unleashed emblems to the Postmasters of eligible players in Destiny 2. Since then, we have worked to make players aware of a known issue where these emblems do not appear in the Collection.
Next week, with the deployment of Hotfix 2.5.2.1, these emblems will correctly appear in the Emblem Collection and can be reclaimed by players who own them. For the full Hotfix 2.5.2.1 patch notes as soon as they are available, players should stay tuned to our Updates page.
Retiring Refer-a-Friend
With the upcoming launch of Cross Save, we’re making significant changes to how Bungie.net identifies player licenses in Destiny 2.
As a result of these changes, Refer-a-Friend will no longer be available following the launch of Cross Save on August 21, 2019. Until then, all players who wish to participate in Refer-a-Friend should do so as soon as possible.
For veteran players looking for the right opportunity to make Guardians out of their closest friends after Refer-a-Friend goes away, Destiny 2: New Light launches later this year and is free for all players on all available platforms.
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Migration Part One:
Mother’s Scorn
The shadowed caves among the brambles are teeming with mist and an abundance of life. What look like ghostly silhouettes in the fog are the bodies of creatures adapted to live in the endless, dark expanse of Foxfire Bramble. A skydancer slinks among them, her cowl pulled closely over her face to obscure her pale green eyes. This is not where one may expect to find a wind dragon, but she has made a life for herself here along with her clan of misfits.
When the Driftwood Drag along the flowing, shadowy river were no longer large enough to accommodate her friends, they moved further inland into the heart of Shadow territory. Of course their reigning deity of darkness was well aware of the clan’s presence in her murky lands and she allowed them to stay so long as they offered her their services in return for her blessing.
But tonight? Tonight feels different. The shadows that would obscure her and bring her comfort and safety now feel strangely foreign to her. She knows she does not belong here and the creatures that dance in the mists around her seem to know it, too. Many eyes fall upon her, judging her as she continues on her pilgrimage.
A long journey reaches its completion where she crests the final hill and stares down into The Forum of the Obscured Crescent. She isn’t alone, other shadows casting looks upon her, mostly of curiosity. Some look at her with ire and contempt. What is a Wind dragon doing here? She ignores these and makes her way to the pool.
“O Goddess of Murk, hear me. I pray to thee on behalf of my descendant who falls ill. I seek guidance, Mother. My clan, we serve you eternally. I wish only that you cure my child.” Her voice is a low rasp, her antennae flat against her crests. Fumbling claws pull a small idol from her cloak to drop into the putrescent pool of ilk. It doesn’t make a sound as it’s consumed by the shadows. She waits. The others around her watch her.
After a long pause, she stands and turns away from the pool. Perhaps its connection with her beloved mother of darkness truly was lost long ago. Maybe Siizloyde was right. To continue to serve gods who have turned their backs on their people could very well be an antiquated and unnecessary undertaking. But as she has all but given up hope, a voice calls out to her from the pool.
“Toxiine” the call of the Shadowbinder answers her. The skydancer whirls around to face the pool, cloak pulled back to reveal her shocked, green eyes.
“Mother, do you hear me?” She starts back toward the filth of the pool, but is stopped when a sudden pang of fear and guilt strike her heart. Her chest tightens and she feels like she could faint under Shadowbinder’s immense presence. This is not her mother. These are not her people. She finds no comfort in the answer she receives, but instead finds herself alone and afraid.
“Your clan is not founded in your service to me, Toxiine. Your clan is founded in greed. I would applaud you for being so true to our nature as Shadows, but your care for the spirit of the game is waning. It is no longer about winning or losing.” The voice that hisses from within the pool courses through Toxiine like poison in her veins.
“Would you wish for my treasures, Goddess? Is it your will that I serve you in other ways?” She finds herself almost surprised by those words. Is this what will make this connection feel whole again? Is her service what will make the shadows start to feel like home again?
“Yes” Shadowbinder answers, “I require something very precious. For far too long your clan have taken my blessing for granted. Your pilgrimage here is proof enough that you long for change, and yet you seek more. You desire a cure for one of your own, your descendant. You cannot continue to take without first being willing to give.”
“I will give you anything you desire, Mother. All of the gold in my treasury, all of the beasts in our bestiary, all of our gems and jewels. Whatever you desire, I will make it yours.” Toxiine is pleading, dropping down low to the water’s edge and clasping her claws together.
“Give me your child.” The response is clear, but Toxiine doesn't hear it. Her heart stops, eyes wide. She can feel the gales inside her pulling her apart.
“What?” She can barely hiss the response, disbelief clear as daybreak over the Sunbeam Ruins.
“Give me your child, Toxiine. I will take her life as penance. If you are willing to sacrifice your descendant to me, then I will forgive your clan for their blatant disregard for my blessing.”
“No” she snarls, earning a gasp from the Shadows around her who watch with intrigue and envy at her chance to speak with the deity. “I refuse! Amuura has done nothing to you. I will not give her life for the continuation of my gains here! I refuse.”
A harsh silence falls over the crowd and the pool. Toxiine can feel her heart beating in her chest, her body numb and her mind clouded with the very fog that surrounds her. After what feels like an eternity of waiting, shadows begin to seep from the pool. She gasps and steps back, now on her feet once more. They encroach, ready to ensnare her in the ooze.
“Run” the voice answers her. It isn’t the voice of her mother, but the voice of a brutal force that seeks to destroy her. She obeys before she even has time to realize what she’s done. Rapid, desperate footfalls come one after another as she takes off up the steps and through the trees at the top of the hill.
She has angered The Shadowbinder. She has turned her back on her new mother. She has brought the potential for desolation and ruin for all of her clan and she takes to the sky as soon as she’s able to hurry back to them. She will protect her children if it is the last thing she ever does.
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Last week I talked about Kickstarter, which is one of the ways we’re making and getting our game worlds out to you, and so this week, let’s look at some of our other venues – because they are evolving as well!
First, there’s DriveThruRPG.com, which is still our primary sales partner when it comes to PDFs and physical books printed on demand. We also use DTRPG‘s servers for distributing Backer PDFs to our Kickstarter backers as needed.
DTRPG is an excellent fit for our business as keeping books on an eternal virtual bookshelf frees us up from paying for warehouse space for every book, plus they’re great to work with, and take care of the two types of ways you can get our projects: PDFs and PoDs.
They continue to improve their set-up, and in fact, are migrating to cloud-based servers right now. They are working on bringing regular features back on line – including PoD ordering. So, if you have a slow-down or can’t get onto the site; that’s the reason. Try again, and rest assured they’ll be done their server migration bug-fixing very soon.
Dystopia Rising: Evolution illustration by Sam Denmark
Next, and I’m basically talking about these in the order we started working with them, are our friends at Indie Press Revolution aka IPR.
We started working with IPR as a way for us to offer the various Deluxe or Prestige Kickstarted projects for sale after we shipped the KS backers their rewards. We always print more books than we have backer rewards so that we can replace damaged or lost rewards, and any extras past those we send to IPR.
Over the years, they have also started offering some of the books we’ve Kickstarted in order to get them into stores on their site, where retailers as well as individuals like yourselves can order our projects.
Here’s the Onyx Path Publishing page on IPR‘s site:
https://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Onyx-Path-Publishing/
And the list of stores that carry games via IPR:
https://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Stores.html
If someone’s local store is listed already, they just need to remind
them and maybe place an order with them. If someone’s local store is
not listed, they can have them check out the Retailer FAQ:
https://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/IPR-Prospective-Retailer-FAQ.html
So, if a local game store has not ordered from IPR before they can set
up an account and order directly from them. The above FAQ link will help
answer a few questions and they can get started here:
https://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Retailer-Information.html
So, with IPR you can make an order, or you can ask your retailer to do so, and they have info and tools to help you make that happen. Right now, as pictured with this blog, and noted below in the Blurbs!, IPR has both the Deluxe Changeling: The Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition, and the Deluxe Beckett’s Jyhad Diary just coming available!
So if you missed out on their KSs, or have heard great things about either or both books, now’s your chance to own them!
Geist 2e illustration by the legendary John Cobb.
Studio2 gets mentioned a lot lately with our shift in running Kickstarters to get our game books traditionally printed and into retail stores. Their ability to fulfill sending out KS backer rewards and strong distribution network has made working with them an excellent choice for Onyx Path.
The fact that they handle all the fixes that come out of shipping thousands of backer rewards per Kickstarter in an efficient and friendly way means that they complement James’ customer service efforts with our KSs. Which I certainly appreciate, and I hope backers do as well.
We have been building up our “best practices” with Studio2 for over a year (or is it two?) with our creator-owned books, and then Changeling: The Lost 2e, and not long now that will all pay off with our Scion 2e double feature of Scion Origin and Scion Hero.
Which will be the largest ship-out and the first time an Onyx Path owned game line is made available for distribution and retail for us by Studio2, so we’re pretty excited to see how it all works out!
Trinity Continuum: Aeon illustration by Grzegorz Pedrycz.
So those are the three sales partners we’re using to get our projects out to you. All can be contacted by retailers interested in stocking our books, with more and more of our projects being traditionally printed and available through distribution.
Then we have our efforts on Amazon, with our fiction going up there ready for your Kindle, or over at B&N and for the Nook. Now that we’re putting books out via Studio2, you’ll also see those books available on Amazon. There are also the storefronts for the online gaming venues like Fantasy Grounds where you’ll find Scarred Lands material suitable for use while online gaming.
Expect that our methods will evolve and change in those venues too, as we get more familiar with what people are looking for. That’s one of the reasons that we are experimenting with Matthew Dawkins reading the opening to the Scarred Lands novel Vigilant. (Available for free on DTRPG or on our YouTube channel). We wonder if some audio books might not fit into folks’ busy lives.
Because, at the end of the day, we want to be able to offer folks a chance to explore our worlds, in whatever method they find best for enjoying them. We’re always following those paths as they all lead to one:
Many Worlds, One Path!
BLURBS!
KICKSTARTER:
NEXT UP! We’ll be starting the Kickstarter for the Deluxe version of EX3‘s Lunars on February 12th at 2pm Eastern US time – so don your beast forms and let loose a howl (or snarl or squawk or hiss) to let everyone know it’s coming!
ONYX PATH MEDIA
Illustration by Michael Gaydos
This Friday’s Onyx Pathcast features an interview with Trinity Continuum: Aeon developer (and long-time WW and Onyx Path writer and dev) John Snead! https://onyxpathcast.podbean.com/
And Here’s More Media About Our Worlds:
If YOU have a podcast, YouTube or Twitch channel, or talk about games on a blog or other website, and want to perform actual plays or make reviews of our games, please reach out to the Gentleman Gamer on the Onyx Path forum. From there we’ll share emails and get you started, so when you do start producing content we’ll be able to promote it on our blog and YouTube channel!
First, let’s get our content out of the way! Matthew Dawkins continues to run They Came from Beneath the Sea! for the good folks of Red Moon Roleplaying. This game sees They Came From taking a more horrifying, Lovecraftian angle to the camp and farce many expect of it. Episode 2 can be found both here https://youtu.be/gV3LJbdZHPM and in audio format on redmoonroleplaying.com
Additionally, Matthew continues to run his Scion story dubbed Tokyo Noir, in which four Scions explore the dark side of Tokyo in search of a killer who appears to be cutting their victims up into kanji-shaped chunks. Matthew is running this game with direct input from the people commenting on his videos, so hop on board if you want a say on how this story goes: https://youtu.be/DUN11k5d9Ms
Bearing a special mention is the incredibly well-received Onyx Pathcast from last week, in which our hosts performed a deep dive into the nihils of Wraith: The Oblivion: http://theonyxpath.com/episode-37-a-harrowing-deep-dive-into-wraith-the-oblivion/
We’ve also dug into a few shows you may have missed, such as Polyhedron‘s actual play of Trinity Continuum: Aeon, from late last year: https://player.fm/series/polyhedron-a-rpg-discussion-podcast/polyhedron-plays-trinity-continuum-aeon-the-legion-wants-you-ep-1
But here’s a more recent offering from the excellent team at High Level Games, who have started uploading their actual play of Pugmire: https://www.highlevelgames.ca/podcastingnetwork/pugmire-actual-play-episode-1
Please check any of these out and let us know if you find or produce any actual plays of our games!
ELECTRONIC GAMING:
As we find ways to enable our community to more easily play our games, the Onyx Dice Rolling App is now live! Our dev team has been doing updates since we launched based on the excellent use-case comments by our community, and this thing is both rolling and rocking!
ON AMAZON AND BARNES & NOBLE:
You can now read our fiction from the comfort and convenience of your Kindle (from Amazon) and Nook (from Barnes & Noble).
If you enjoy these or any other of our books, please help us by writing reviews on the site of the sales venue you bought it from. Reviews really, really help us with getting folks interested in our amazing fiction!
Our selection includes these fiction books:
OUR SALES PARTNERS:
We’re working with Studio2 to get Pugmire out into stores, as well as to individuals through their online store. You can pick up the traditionally printed main book, the Screen, and the official Pugmire dice through our friends there! https://studio2publishing.com/search?q=pugmire
We’ve added Prince’s Gambit to our Studio2 catalog: https://studio2publishing.com/products/prince-s-gambit-card-game
Now, we’ve added Changeling: The Lost 2nd Edition products to Studio2‘s store! See them here: https://studio2publishing.com/collections/all-products/changeling-the-lost
Looking for our Deluxe or Prestige Edition books? Try this link! http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Onyx-Path-Publishing/
And you can now order Pugmire, Monarchies of Mau, Cavaliers of Mars, and Changeling: The Lost 2e! http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/manufacturers.php?manufacturerid=296
And available this week! Deluxe Changeling: The Dreaming and Deluxe Beckett’s Jyhad Diary! The additional books we have after the Kickstarter ship-outs are done are now at IPR!
DRIVETHRURPG.COM:
This Wednesday, we’re featuring Deluxe Changeling: The Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition and Deluxe Beckett’s Jyhad Diary going on sale at Indie Press Revolution (IPR)!
CONVENTIONS
New convention notices coming soon!
And now, the new project status updates!
DEVELOPMENT STATUS FROM FAST EDDY WEBB (projects in bold have changed status since last week):
First Draft (The first phase of a project that is about the work being done by writers, not dev prep)
M20 Victorian Mage (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)
City of the Towered Tombs (Cavaliers of Mars)
Geist2e Fiction Anthology (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2nd Edition)
Distant Worlds (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)
Dragon-Blooded Novella #1 (Exalted 3rd Edition)
Across the Eight Directions (Exalted 3rd Edition)
Exalted Essay Collection (Exalted)
Legendlore core book (Legendlore)
Chicago Folio/Dossier (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)
Let The Streets Run Red (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)
Kith and Kin (Changeling: The Lost 2e)
Scion: Demigod (Scion 2nd Edition)
TC: Aeon Ready Made Characters (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)
Trinity Continuum Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum Core)
TC: Aeon Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)
Redlines
Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition core rulebook (Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition)
M20 The Technocracy Reloaded (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)
Creatures of the World Bestiary (Scion 2nd Edition)
Second Draft
Tales of Good Dogs – Pugmire Fiction Anthology (Pugmire)
Heirs to the Shogunate (Exalted 3rd Edition)
Scion Ready Made Characters (Scion 2nd Edition)
Witch-Queen of the Shadowed Citadel (Cavaliers of Mars)
Deviant: The Renegades (Deviant: The Renegades)
Scion Companion: Mysteries of the World (Scion 2nd Edition)
Memento Mori: the GtSE 2e Companion (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2nd Edition)
Pirates of Pugmire (Realms of Pugmire)
Development
Hunter: the Vigil 2e core (Hunter: the Vigil 2nd Edition)
Lunars: Fangs at the Gate (Exalted 3rd Edition)
WoD Ghost Hunters (World of Darkness)
Oak, Ash, and Thorn: Changeling: The Lost 2nd Companion (Changeling: The Lost 2nd)
CofD Dark Eras 2 (Chronicles of Darkness)
Night Horrors: Nameless and Accursed (Mage: the Awakening Second Edition)
Manuscript Approval:
Trinity Continuum: Aberrant core (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)
CofD Contagion Chronicle (Chronicles of Darkness)
Editing:
Aeon Aexpansion (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)
Dystopia Rising: Evolution (Dystopia Rising: Evolution)
M20 Book of the Fallen (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)
Tales of Excellent Cats (Monarchies of Mau)
V5 Chicago By Night (Vampire: The Masquerade)
V5 Chicago By Night Screen (Vampire: The Masquerade)
Spilled Blood (Vampire: The Requiem 2nd Edition)
Wr20 Book of Oblivion (Wraith: The Oblivion 20th Anniversary Edition)
C20 Novel: Cup of Dreams (Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition)
Scion Jumpstart (Scion 2nd Edition)
Post-Editing Development:
Signs of Sorcery (Mage: the Awakening Second Edition)
Night Horrors: Shunned by the Moon (Werewolf: The Forsaken 2nd Edition)
In Media Res (Trinity Continuum: Core)
Indexing:
Ex3 Dragon Blooded (Exalted 3rd Edition)
ART DIRECTION FROM MIRTHFUL MIKE:
In Art Direction
Dystopia Rising: Evolution – Waiting on last few.
The Realm – More sketches in.
Ex3 Monthly Stuff –
Chicago By Night – Contacting artists to see who is open.
Aeon Aexpansion
They Came From Beneath the Sea!
EX3 Lunars – Assets getting finalized for KS page.
Signs of Sorcery – Over to layout this week.
In Media Res – Finals coming in.
Hunter: The Vigil 2 – Finals for KS coming in.
Shunned By the Moon – Need one more artist to reply.
Book of Oblivion – First sketches coming in.
Contagion Chronicle – Fulls/splats contracted for KS.
Marketing Stuff
In Layout
C20 Player’s Guide
Proofing
Scion Hero – Index in. Putting printer files together.
Scion Origin – Index in. Putting printer files together.
M20: Gods and Monsters – Waiting for WW approval.
Pugmire Roll of Good Dogs and Cats – Getting backer PDF ready to send to backers this week.
Adventures for Curious Cats – First proof corrections in.
Trinity Core – Inputting Errata.
Trinity Aeon – Inputting Errata.
Ex3 Dragon Blooded – Indexing.
Geist 2e
At Press
Wraith 20th – Prepping for backer ship-out.
Wraith 20 Screen – Prepping for backer ship-out.
Scion Dice – At Studio2.
Scion Screen – At Studio2.
Fetch Quest – Shipping to US.
CtL2e Condition Cards – Waiting for PoD proofs.
Slarecian Vault Art Pack 01 and 02 –Waiting for PoD proofs.
TODAY’S REASON TO CELEBRATE:
Today is Alice Coopers’s birthday! Welcome to My Nightmare!
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Beware: The Techno-Doom-Loop
There is actually a principle I have actually been making an effort to articulate for a long time. The problem is throughout the episodes where I wish to verbalize it, I am actually therefore stuck in disappointment and apprehension that I can't raise considerably even more than guttural chants as well as obscenities. These episodes have actually been happening a lot more frequently it seems to be. Either because I am actually growing older or even considering that alleged "cloud computing" is actually ending up being much more ubiquitous.
It happens when you're about to do some unimportant duty, something that needs to take no greater than 15 few seconds. Like the amount of time my spouse asked me to receive an audio sermon she got coming from a web site onto her apple iphone. No worry, right?
But in between shooting up iTunes, updating iTunes on her laptop pc, updating iTunes on her phone, updating iOS just before I can easily improve iTunes, recouping her code for iTunes, deauthorizing one-too-many gadgets from iTunes, a couple of various other obstructions I can't don't forget any longer and also I'm 90 mins into this odyssey.
The problem is it's certainly not merely that people time. "Hey, don't forget the amount of time I inquired you to copy that data to my iPhone as well as you found yourself tossing my brand new laptop at the pet?" ... as if it feels like that people opportunity? No. It is actually progressively each time.
Today must have been actually chill ...
It's Brand-new Year's Day. Angela asked me if I could bear in mind a newspaper article I once located regarding a relative of hers in Barbados that I had delivered her. Could I find it once again? After exploring our text I choose I'll check my email. However because I shifted notebooks, (the same the brand-new laptop migration that caused my changing from Microsoft workplace to LibreOffice), the worldwide hunt functionality in Thunderbird, the one that browses around all mailboxes as well as within message bodies have not worked. It only takes up an empty button home window when you run a search as well as it simply remains empty.
I discover there's an upgrade offered for Thunderbird (or even "ThunderTurd" as happened to be actually recognized within the upcoming hr or even so). I attacked the button, download the upgrade, restart it ... and right now every thing is blank.
I reboot my laptop computer, and also it goes right into a software program improve that takes half an hour to finish. Besides that, Thunderbird still appears hosed. Repeated reboots do nothing, as well as the "Concerning Thunderbird" dialogue is constantly adhered on "Using Update".
After attempting a handful of points, I determine to open up a ticket in the Mozilla Assistance forums ... simply as very soon as I produce an account ... which I need to have to validate via an authentication code they send ... guess where? To my email.
I operate upstairs to get my phone and also acquire the regulation coming from my email there certainly, lastly I can upload my query ... Simply as quickly as I reveal what is wrong to the ticketing system which suggests a number of various other articles that have absolutely nothing to do along with my complication before lastly placing a little hyperlink near the bottom along the collections "none of these solve my concern".
It is actually New Year's Time as I claimed, so I am actually certainly not counting on a lot of people to be losing their f-ing day dicking around on Mozilla assistance discussion forums so I choose certainly not to keep my breathing spell for any replies.
I remember I made use of to use Postbox when I experienced some various other complication along with Thunderbird. It was something to perform with every outgoing information stopping working to create a copy to sent-mail after awhile and it never ever getting addressed. I really did not mind purchasing Postbox, in reality I liked that because that (apparently) implied this is actually a qualified company that will definitely alleviate their paying out customers as something similar to customers as well as less like cattle. That concept was actually dashed when they unceremoniously encouraged me into upgrading to model 6 and also then when I obtained there realized that they went down third-party plugin assistance and also suggested GPG help was actually gone. Many thanks, pricks.
So I returned to Thunderbird (now securely ThunderTurd) considering that a minimum of that still supported Enigmail's GPG plug-in. Then, that additionally damaged in the step to OSX Catalina.
I ought to possess prefaced of the along with "I started on this hike throughout a vigorous, yet sunny Brand-new Year's Day mid-day". It is actually right now sinister out.
Where was I? Oh yes, Postbox.
After downloading and install Postbox and select the damn.dmg repeatedly once again as well as absolutely nothing happens I think about if Postbox determined to discard 64-bit support, or have not received to it yet, but I think that's extremely unlikely (despite the fact that different a lot greater companies, like Amazon.com, haven't bring out a 64-bit Kindle audience for OSX however).
They do support it I am actually simply overlooking something. Oh yes, OSX obstructs all apps coming from non-Apple Retail store designers unless you go into your security setups and also exclusively allow it.
I enter environments expecting to observe that greyed out "Postbox" being listed as shut out, all ready and also ready to click on the "allow anyway" button or whatever it is actually gotten in touch with ... other than it is actually certainly not there certainly. There's absolutely nothing. No blocked out apps. So I select the dmg a couple of more time, other than I click more difficult and also begin swearing on every click on, however even that doesn't aid.
I remembered it occurred to be actually previously. More than as soon as. And I constantly find yourself on this reddit string called "Option!! For all applications not opening up in Catalina" which appears like precisely what I need.
It advises turning off the OSX gatekeeper, such as this:
Which I carry out and afterwards I select the dmg a few more times and also the fscking factor are going to still not open up.
Flip back to the covering as well as perform it once again
Still no dice. I perform hear my notebook carrying out one thing so I look at the procedure checklist as well as DiskImageMounter is taking up many of the Central Processing Unit, so I get rid of -9 that, then click on the dmg and bingo! Postbox puts in.
(As I type this tirade, which I may or may certainly not upload, I bear in mind that very same reddit thread tells you to re-enable gatekeeper afterwards, which I haven't done however, and will definitely carry out ... now)
Incredibly, this goes off easily. I was expecting my laptop pc to reboot or even one thing. Always remember, all this is actually component of the greater image, which is I prefer to operate a search across my email notifications. Postbox is still re-downloading my whole entire inbox so I can't fairly carry out that as yet. I am actually performing this as an alternative.
Anyhoo ... it appears like there's an old model of Postbox on my brand-new laptop pc which should possess discovered when I rejuvenated coming from back-ups, and also it possesses my old email profile pages and also they are actually all certainly there, apart from ... it is actually motivating me for my expert code on my Postbox software gadget and I possess no concept what the hell it is actually because it is actually from a number of years earlier.
Some additional appearing about and I figure out how to totally reset a professional security password in Postbox
Disabling the master code indicates I need to come back the IMAP code on all my profiles, so I open my keychain to begin re-entering all of them. However as I perform the very first one, nothing at all happens. None of the e-mail is boiling down. I am re-entering the password time and time once again as well as it is actually just certainly not happening.
I don't forget that regarding a year ago our experts altered the hostname on the easyDNS IMAP swimming pool. There was actually a reason for it, I merely can not remember what it was. I remember my mom's email was down for weeks because I could not come down there to change the solitary hostname setting in her e-mail client.
I finally improve all the IMAP hosts throughout all the profiles, and obtain the passwords went into ... which's where our team are actually right now. My principal inbox is still installing, every one of my email transmitting filters run out time, I am actually able to lastly run my hunts ... and it's showing up nothing at all.
I began this around 3pm, it is actually right now 5:51 pm. When I mosted likely to apply a weed of coffee I eventually caught a phrase that illustrates this form of butterfly impact dynamic:
The Technology-Doom-Loop
Over the holidays I was actually making an effort to coarsely verbalize this concept to a handful of pals. None of our company possessed a key phrase for it, yet they all understood specifically what I was actually referring to. This seems near global recently. And also my mate is actually fairly educated about this things, think of being actually a total techno nonprofessional?
One pal described it as "Brazil minus the cylinders", after the techno-rubble dystopian society illustrated in the Terry Gilliam movie of the exact same label.
The primary guideline of the techno-doom-loop is that: when you get started on what must be an unimportant technology based duty, you are actually avoided coming from performing that duty by a plunging set of interdependencies and also breakdown states that burn with a purchase of enormity more time to handle than the authentic duty on its own.
Just how usually does it happen to you? The amount of time perform you lose in techno-doom-loops? Exactly how typically does it happen to your staff members as well as colleagues? To your whole entire team? When I deal with it, whole projects and projects obtain slowed down within this constantly. Just how much is your opportunity, their opportunity, our opportunity worth? Include all of it up, and our team'll find that this most likely has a true financial price even higher than a few of the imagined dilemmas we hear a whole lot concerning in traditional media and also social media networks.
It's one of the reasons that I tend to grunt coffee away from my nostrils when I hear experts breathlessly gushing concerning Artificial Intelligence. If our software program receives much smarter, civilization is mosting likely to grind to a standstill just before any of our devices usurp our team.
This content was originally published here.
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A Summary of Bad Things Trump Did This Week, 4/9/17-4/15/17
Ahhh! Life is crazy and busy, which I’m sure is the case for everyone reading this. We at Bad Things Trump Did Today definitely want to bring you accurate and timely news about the doings of the Trump administration and Congress in general, however we can be limited by our own personal time constraints. We absolutely appreciate everyone’s understanding, and without further ado here’s the summary of Bad Things Trump Did This Week!
This summary mainly includes the bad things Trump and Congress did this week, as well as some news that’s important to note.
Monday, April 10, 2017
Republican leaders avoid town halls after House health care vote
Source: USA Today
The migration away from public forums has been going on for months, despite complaints from constituents and local media. There have been roughly 30 recent newspaper editorials slamming lawmakers for avoiding town halls and calling on members to face their voters, not only in bluer portions of the country like New York but also in critical battlegrounds like Pennsylvania’s 6th and 7th districts[...]
Trump on track to surpass 8 years of Obama’s travel expenses in just 1 year
Source: CNN
Trump's frequent weekend travel makes it all but certain the 45th President will surpass Obama's spending in his first term, likely within months.
The spending comes as Trump asks the federal government to slash non-defense spending by $54 billion, including deep cuts to the State Department, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Environmental Protection Agency and the wholesale elimination of other federal programs. The proposed cuts, which are unlikely to be adopted in total, will correspond with $54 billion in increases to defense spending.
As CNN reports, Trump’s expenses for his Mar-a-Lago trips has already surpassed a fifth of what Obama spent on travel in his entire 8 years as presidency. Obama’s expenses included both personal and work trips.
Sessions orders an end to forensic science commission and suspension of policy review
Source: The Washington Post
The commission was a partnership started in 2013 between the Justice Department and independent scientists. It’s purpose was to evaluate and elevate the standards of forensic science in the U.S., and Session’s decision has led to criticism from members:
Several commission members who have worked in criminal courts and supported the input of independent scientists said the department risks retreating into insularity and repeating past mistakes, saying that no matter how well-intentioned, prosecutors lack scientists’ objectivity and training.
U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff of New York, the only federal judge on the commission, said, “It is unrealistic to expect that truly objective, scientifically sound standards for the use of forensic science . . . can be arrived at by entities centered solely within the Department of Justice.”
In suspending reviews of past testimony and the development of standards for future reporting, “the department has literally decided to suspend the search for the truth,” said Peter S. Neufeld, co-founder of the Innocence Project, which has reported that nearly half of 349 DNA exonerations involved misapplications of forensic science. “As a consequence innocent people will languish in prison or, God forbid, could be executed,” he said.
Tuesday, April 11, 2017
Two members of extreme anti-immigration groups hired in high-level advisory roles
Source: CNN
Jon Feere, a former legal policy analyst for the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), has been hired as an adviser to the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Meanwhile, Julie Kirchner, former executive director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), has been hired as an adviser to the acting Commissioner of Customs and Border Protection. Both CIS and FAIR are both anti-immigration groups representing the extreme far-right, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center:
"CIS has published articles that labeled immigrants 'third world gold diggers' and that blamed Central American asylum seekers for the 'burgeoning street gang problem' in the US, while Dan Stein has said that many immigrants that come to the US hate America and everything the country stands for," said Heidi Beirich, director of Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Project, which oversees the center's yearly count of anti-immigrant groups. "We take these designations very seriously, and CIS and FAIR are far-right fringe groups that regularly publish racist, xenophobic material and spread misinformation about immigrants and immigration."
Despite claims from anti-immigration groups that they are willing to enter discussions with immigration rights groups and the government, many immigration rights organizations fear what these appointments could mean:
"This isn't exactly the same situation as having Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and liberals, both in the same room," countered one pro-immigrant advocate. "The fundamental difference is that their agenda is driven by a nativist white supremacist approach to policy. So, to sit together in a room, not only does it have a chilling effect, but I think that many of the advocacy organizations, including ours, fear that we would be normalizing the nativist agenda as it gets into the halls of our government."
Spicer claims that Hitler didn’t use chemical weapons while discussing Assad’s use of such weapons in Syria
Source: The Hill
“We did not use chemical weapons in World War II. You had someone as despicable as Hitler who did not even sink to using chemical weapons,” Spicer said. “If you are Russia, ask yourself, is this a country and regime that you want to align yourself with?”
Given an opportunity to clarify his comments, Spicer misspoke again by trying once more to draw a distinction between Assad and Hitler, whom the press secretary said did not gas “his own people.”
“When it comes to sarin gas, [Hitler] was not using the gas on his own people the same way that Assad is doing,” Spicer said to audible groans from some reporters. He also referred to concentration camps as “Holocaust centers.”
Spicer’s remarks, made during Passover, have drawn criticism from numerous groups, including the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect:
“On Passover no less, Sean Spicer has engaged in Holocaust denial, the most offensive form of fake news imaginable, by denying Hitler gassed millions of Jews to death,” said Steven Goldstein, executive director of the Anne Frank Center.
Wednesday, April 12, 2017
Trump switches sides on four policies over the course of a day, backing away from some campaign promises
Source: The Hill
Trump swapped positions on the future of NATO, naming China a currency manipulator, the Federal Reserve chairwoman, and the Export-Import bank. The Hill provides a breakdown in their article above.
Thursday, April 13, 2017
Trump signs law allowing states to choose to defund Planned Parenthood
Source: NPR
This law was one of a number that was passed using the Congressional Review Act, which allows the house to overturn legislation made during the last 6 months of the previous President’s administration. The legislation overrules the regulation put in place under Obama that protects federal funds from being withheld by individual states:
Now that the rule has been repealed, states can effectively block Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers from funds associated with the Title X Family Planning program, which was established in 1970 to subsidize organizations that offer services related to contraception, pregnancy care, fertility and cancer screenings primarily for low-income people.
Breaking: US drops America’s largest non-nuclear bomb in Afghanistan
Source: CNN
The bomb drop, which targeted an ISIS cave and tunnel complex, has never before happened in combat:
The US military dropped America's most powerful non-nuclear bomb on ISIS targets in Afghanistan Thursday, the first time this type of weapon has been used in battle, according to US officials.
A GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb (MOAB), nicknamed the "mother of all bombs," was dropped at 7:32 p.m. local time, according to four US military officials with direct knowledge of the mission. A MOAB is a 30-foot-long, 21,600-pound, GPS-guided munition.President Donald Trump called it "another successful job" later Thursday.
The bomb was dropped by an MC-130 aircraft, stationed in Afghanistan and operated by Air Force Special Operations Command, Pentagon spokesman Adam Stump told CNN.
Friday, April 14, 2017
Concrete evidence of collusion between Trump and Russia has reportedly been handed to the investigation
Source: The Independent
The official investigation into relations between Donald Trump and Russia now has "specific, concrete and corroborative evidence of collusion", it has been reported.
New evidence proves discussions took place “between people in the Trump campaign and agents of [Russian] influence relating to the use of hacked material,” a source allegedly told the Guardian.
The developments come as it has emerged that Britain’s spy agencies were among the first to alert their American counterparts to contact between members of Mr Trump’s campaign team and Russian intelligence operatives.
The Secret Service has spent $35,000 on gold cart rentals since inauguration
Source: The Hill
The Secret Service has spent over $35k on gold cart rentals at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort since January 20. This information, first reported by CBS news, came as Trump settles in at the resort over the holiday weekend:
CBS' new report comes as Trump spends the full three-day Easter weekend at Mar-a-Lago. No senior staff took the Air Force One flight to Florida, according to a report.
Saturday, April 15, 2017
Trump says that he can’t be sued for inciting violence at rallies because he won election
Source: The Washington Post
Trump’s team rebuffed a suit filed by protesters claiming that Trump incited a riot against them in May of last year at a rally in Louisville. According to his team, Trump is immune to lawsuit since he is the President. The Washington Post reports more:
Trump's team challenged the accusations — negligence and incitement to riot — on many other grounds, too.
But a federal judge already rejected their attempt to have the lawsuit thrown out earlier this month.
And in another new filing in the same case, a Trump supporter accused of assaulting protesters agreed with the plaintiffs that Trump wanted a riot — while denying he actually harmed anyone.
Alvin Bamberger, who was seen in a video pushing a protester through a jeering crowd at the Louisville convention center, “would not have acted as he did without Trump and/or the Trump Campaign’s specific urging and inspiration,” Bamberger's lawyer wrote.
Bamberger denied “shoving … and striking” anyone, as the lawsuit accuses him of. But he admitted to touching plaintiff Kashiya Nwanguma, a 21-year-old college student who had gone to the rally with a protest sign.
And he accepted as true her claims that Trump's speech “was calculated to incite violence” against the protesters.
Trump continues hiring lobbyists without input from the Office on Government Ethics
Source: Propublica
Despite claims during his campaign that he would be willing to ban lobbyists from his administration, Trump has hired lobbyists from over 300 different corporations:
One striking case involves Michael Catanzaro, an appointee on the National Economic Council whose portfolio includes energy and environmental issues. Catanzaro was formerly a lobbyist for oil and coal companies that strenuously opposed the Obama administration’s clean power regulation. Three industry sources told the Times that Catanzaro is now working on that same issue in the Trump administration.
Even under Trump’s weakened ethics rules, former lobbyists like Catanzaro are not supposed to work on issues that they formerly had lobbied on.
Still, under Trump’s executive order, he can issue waivers at any time to staffers, Catanzaro included, for any reason, and never disclose it.
Even the federal government’s top ethics official, Walter Shaub, who runs the Office of Government Ethics, is being kept in the dark.
“There’s no transparency, and I have no idea how many waivers have been issued,” Shaub told the Times.
Want to learn more about how we can stop more bad sh*t from happening?
Donate to charities dedicated to fighting against the Trump agenda.
Learn from former congressional staffers on best practices for making your representative listen to you.
Register to vote in the November 6, 2018 Congressional midterm elections, save the date, and vote!
Learn how to run for office or get involved in your local political party.
Attend peaceful political protests and know your rights as a protestor.
Support organizations dedicated to investigative journalism and protecting our First Amendment rights.
Be sure to follow for more Bad Things Trump Did Today.
#politics#bad things trump did this week#bad things congress did this week#april 2017#donald trump#trump#presidential election#president trump#resist
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This is a great article!
Here’s an excerpt:
Even a schmuck like me is familiar with some of the evidence Bendell sets out to prove his point. You only needed to step outside during the record-breaking heatwave last year to acknowledge that 17 of the 18 hottest years on the planet have occurred since 2000. Scientists already believe we are soon on course for an ice-free Arctic, which will only accelerate global warming. Back in 2017, even Fox News reported scientists' warnings that the Earth's sixth mass extinction was underway.
Here’s the whole article, if the reader cares to read all the way through. There is also a link to the original academic paper:
Deep Adaptation: A Map for Navigating Climate Tragedy https://jembendell.wordpress.com/2018/07/26/the-study-on-collapse-they-thought-you-should-not-read-yet/
The author with the "Deep Adaptation" paper. Photo by VICE
What if I told you there was a paper on climate change that was so uniquely catastrophic, so perspective-altering, and so absolutely depressing that it's sent people to support groups and encouraged them to quit their jobs and move to the countryside?
Good news: there is. It's called "Deep Adaptation: A Map for Navigating Climate Tragedy." I was introduced to it via an unlikely source—a guy formerly in advertising who had left his job to become a full-time environmental campaigner. "We're fucked," he told me. "Climate change is going to fuck us over. I remember thinking, Should I just accept the deep adaptation paper and move to the Scottish countryside and wait out the apocalypse?"
"Deep Adaptation" is quite unlike any other academic paper. There's the language ("we are about to play Russian Roulette with the entire human race with already two bullets loaded"). There's the flashes of dark humor ("I was only partly joking earlier when I questioned why I was even writing this paper"). But most of all, there's the stark conclusions that it draws about the future. Chiefly, that it's too late to stop climate change from devastating our world—and that "climate-induced societal collapse is now inevitable in the near term."
How near? About a decade.
Professor Jem Bendell, a sustainability academic at the University of Cumbria, wrote the paper after taking a sabbatical at the end of 2017 to review and understand the latest climate science "properly—not sitting on the fence anymore," as he puts it on the phone to me.
What he found terrified him. "The evidence before us suggests that we are set for disruptive and uncontrollable levels of climate change, bringing starvation, destruction, migration, disease, and war," he writes in the paper. "Our norms of behavior—that we call our 'civilization'—may also degrade."
"It is time," he adds, "we consider the implications of it being too late to avert a global environmental catastrophe in the lifetimes of people alive today."
Even a schmuck like me is familiar with some of the evidence Bendell sets out to prove his point. You only needed to step outside during the record-breaking heatwave last year to acknowledge that 17 of the 18 hottest years on the planet have occurred since 2000. Scientists already believe we are soon on course for an ice-free Arctic, which will only accelerate global warming. Back in 2017, even Fox News reported scientists' warnings that the Earth's sixth mass extinction was underway.
Erik Buitenhuis, a senior researcher at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, tells me that Bendell's conclusions may sound extreme, but he agrees with the report's overall assessment. "I think societal collapse is indeed inevitable," he says, though adds that "the process is likely to take decades to centuries."
The important thing, Buitenhuis says, is to realize that the negative effects of climate change have already been with us for some time: "Further gradual deterioration looks much more likely to me than a disaster within the next ten years that will be big enough that, after that, everybody will agree the status quo is doomed."
"Jem's paper is in the main well-researched and supported by relatively mainstream climate science," says Professor Rupert Read, chair of the Green House think-tank and a philosophy academic at the University of East Anglia. "That's why I'm with him on the fundamentals. And more and more people are."
Read's key disagreement with Bendell is his belief that we still have time to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, saying, "I think it's hubris to think that we know the future." But that doesn't mean Bendell's premise is wrong: "The way I see it, deep adaptation is insurance against the possibility—or rather, the probability—of some kind of collapse," says Read. "'Deep Adaptation' is saying, 'What do we need to do if collapse is something we need to realistically plan for?'"
When I speak to Bendell, he tells me he thinks of "Deep Adaptation" as more of an ethical and philosophical framework, rather than a prophecy about the future of the planet. "The longer we refuse to talk about climate change as already here and screwing with our way of life—because we don't want to think like that because it's too frightening or will somehow demotivate people—the less time we have to reduce harm," he says with deliberation.
What does he mean by harm? "Starvation is the first one," he answers, pointing to lowering harvests of grain in Europe in 2018 due to drought that saw the EU reap 6 million tons less wheat. "In the scientific community at the moment, the appropriate thing is to say that 2018 was an anomaly. However, if you look at what's been happening over the last few years, it isn't an anomaly. There's a possibility that 2018 is the new best case scenario."
That means, in Bendell's view, that governments need to start planning emergency responses to climate change, including growing and stockpiling food.
He minces his words even less in his paper: "When I say starvation, destruction, migration, disease, and war, I mean in your own life. With the power down, soon you won't have water coming out of your tap. You will depend on your neighbors for food and some warmth. You will become malnourished. You won't know whether to stay or go. You will fear being violently killed before starving to death."
Should people start building bunkers and buying bulletproof vests? "There's no way of getting through this unless we try together," he says. "We need to help people stay fed and watered where they live already to reduce disruption and reduce civil unrest as much as we can." Of the Silicon Valley financiers prepping for the apocalypse in New Zealand, he says: "Once money doesn't matter anymore and the armed guards are trying to feed their starving children, what do you think they'll do? The billionaires doing that are just deluded."
Bendell wasn't always this gloomy about the state of the world. He once worked for WWF, one of the biggest environmental charities in the world, and in 2012 founded the Institute for Leadership and Sustainability (IFLAS) at the University of Cumbria. The World Economic Forum named him a Young Global Leader for his work. So how did he end up writing a paper that determined that civilization—and environmental sustainability as we currently understand it—is doomed?
"Since the age of 15, I've been an environmentalist," he tells me. "I've given my life professionally and personally. I'm a workaholic, and it was all about sustainability." Once he sat down with the data, however, he realized that his field was quickly becoming irrelevant in the face of oncoming climate catastrophe. "It would mean not getting super excited about the expansion of your recycling program in a major multinational," he says. "It's a completely different paradigm of what we should be looking at."
What he didn’t expect was for the paper to take off online. "It was aimed at those people in my professional community and why we're in denial," he says. "When I put it out there, I didn’t expect 15-year-olds in schools in Indonesia to be reading it with their teachers." He says that "Deep Adaptation" has been downloaded over 110,000 times since it was released by IFLAS as an occasional paper. "Someone in the alternative economics and bitcoin crowd told me, 'Oh, everyone's talking about deep adaptation in London at all the dinner parties,'" he laughs.
Researchers from the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), an established progressive think-tank, consulted Bendell's paper in the process of writing its new report, "This is a crisis: Facing up to the age of environmental breakdown." Laurie Laybourn-Langton, its lead author, told me via email: "I appreciated the frankness of the report in facing up to issues that so many in research and policy communities seem unwilling to. We don't subscribe to the view that social collapse is inevitable, however."
He explains: "This is partly because it's so hard to predict the outcomes of the complex and uncertain process of environmental shocks interacting with social and economic systems. We simply don't know. That said, they shouldn’t be disregarded as a potential outcome, and so we are calling for greater levels of preparedness to these shocks."
The effect of drought on cows in Ethiopia. Photo: TheImage/Alamy Stock Photo
Not everyone was so taken with the paper. Bendell submitted it to a well-respected academic journal for publication, with little success. Sustainability Accounting, Management and Policy Journal (SAMPJ) told me that the paper was in need of "major revisions" before it would be ready for publication. Bendell ended up publishing it through IFLAS and his blog. "The academic process is such that I took that as an effective rejection," he explains, saying that the reviewers wanted him to fundamentally alter his conclusions. "I couldn't completely rewrite the paper to say that I don't think collapse is inevitable. It was asking for a different paper."
Emerald, the scholarly publisher that owns SAMPJ, says it takes issue with how Bendell frames its reception of its paper on his blog: "the study on collapse they thought you should not read—yet." A spokesperson told me: "The decision was arrived at based on the merit of the submitted article and the double blind peer review process integral to academia and the advancement of knowledge. SAMPJ, and [editor Carol Adams] are proud members of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and adhere to the highest ethical standards in publishing. We see no evidence that the decision of Major Revision was politically motivated.
"Emerald requested the author correct their blog post to reflect the facts. This request was unfortunately ignored. The post continues to imply the paper was rejected because it was deemed too controversial. The paper was not rejected, and was given a Major Revision due to the rigorous standards of the scholarly output of the journal."
Bendell says he did reply to Emerald's request to amend his blog post—but only if they would consider telling him the decisions of those who reviewed his paper. (Under the double blind peer review, reviewers' decisions are anonymous.) "That title can be read in a number of ways," he says. "It is a paper that the reviewers didn't want you to read. They didn't want it published."
Climate gloom and doom is nothing new—doomsday preppers have been stockpiling their freeze-dried food rations for decades now. But Bendell's paper appears to have hit a unique nerve, especially given that the average scientific paper is estimated to be read by only three or so people. Rupert Read tells me that he was sent it simultaneously by three other academics when it was published. But it hasn’t trended on Twitter. It hasn't been pushed by a celebrity. It was briefly mentioned in a Bloomberg Businessweek article, but that's it.
"Deep Adaptation" is that unique social phenomenon: an academic paper that has gone viral through word of mouth.
Nathan Savelli, a 31-year-old high school life coach from Hamilton, Canada, was recommended the paper by a local environmental activist. Reading it sent him spiraling into depression. "I guess in some ways it felt like I was diagnosed with a terminal illness," he tells me. "If I'm being honest, it was a mix of heartbreaking sadness and extreme anger."
Savelli felt so low that he sought help from a climate grief support group organized by 350.org, the global grassroots climate movement. "I had attended counseling in the past for other issues, but never a group session, and thought it might be something helpful for me," he tells me. Did it help? "I'm not sure I'd say it alleviated my grief, but it was definitely comforting to be around people who understood what I was feeling."
And therein lies the problem with "Deep Adaptation:" if you accept that the paper is entirely correct in its prediction of collapse, how do you move on with your life? How do you even get out of bed in the morning?
"I'm aware of what difficult emotions it triggers," Bendell acknowledges. "I do believe that if you’ve come across this [paper], then absolutely some grief and despair is very natural. Why isn't that OK? We all die in the end. Life is about impermanence." On his blog, he lists several sources for psychological support, including several groups on Facebook and LinkedIn that discuss collapse and offer help to those struggling to come to terms with the conclusions of his paper.
But, Bendell adds, reading the paper has been "transformative" for some. "People find a new boldness about living life on their own terms—actually connecting to their heart's desire. How do they wish to live, and why don't they live that way now rather than postponing it?" In one case, it even helped prompt one high-ranking academic to quit her job and the city.
In December of 2017, Dr. Alison Green left her post as the pro vice-chancellor of Arden University. She had read the IPCC report warning that the world is nowhere near averting global temperature increases, as well as the 1,656-page National Climate Assessment on how climate change is now dramatically affecting our lives—and then she read Bendell's paper.
All three combined to put her on the road to a drastic life change. "My desire is to get out of academia and to get out of the city. I tell people I’m heading for the hills," she tells me over the phone. "My plan is to get a smallholding and live more closely to nature."
Reading the paper, she says, helped to crystallize her increasing uneasiness about the pace and scale of climate change. "What was really striking about this paper is that a social scientist was saying—not just the wacky fringe, this is a professor at an established institution, with a track record—saying that he believed that collapse was inevitable."
"That," she adds, "had a profound effect on me."
She's not the only one. Bendell himself says that he is still working out how much he can reconcile his job as an academic with his newfound conclusions about the state of the future.
"I think the reason why my framing and my paper took off is that it’s maybe the first time a social scientist was saying these things categorically," he says. "We are seemingly in denial. It's time to break that taboo and have serious conversations about what we do now."
This article originally appeared on VICE UK.
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Deep Adaptation: A Map for Navigating Climate Tragedy https://jembendell.wordpress.com/2018/07/26/the-study-on-collapse-they-thought-you-should-not-read-yet/
#environment climate change The end of the world VICE International Deep Adaptation#environment climate_change The_end_of_the_world VICE_International Deep_Adaptation
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Monday, January 11, 2021
The workers hit hardest during Covid-19’s first wave are getting pummeled again
(Yahoo Finance) Since the beginning of the pandemic, one group of workers has been hurt far more than others: those working in the service industries, specifically in leisure and hospitality jobs. And in December after some progress, that industry lost jobs once again. “The most recent surge in coronavirus cases is once again battering the US labor market,” Indeed’s economic research director Nick Bunker wrote in a note. “The economic fallout from this wave of cases is hitting the industries and workers pummeled hardest by the initial damage before they fully bounced back from that first hit.” The latest hit isn’t as bad as the spring, as vaccines are rolling out and certain measures are in place, but restaurants, bars, and other jobs that depend on people interacting still cannot do business in a pandemic environment.
Squelched by Twitter, Trump seeks new online megaphone
(AP) One Twitter wag joked about lights flickering on and off at the White House being Donald Trump signaling to his followers in Morse code after Twitter and Facebook squelched the president for inciting rebellion. Though deprived of his big online megaphones, Trump does have alternative options of much smaller reach. The far right-friendly Parler may be the leading candidate, though Google and Apple have both removed it from their app stores and Amazon decided to boot it off its web hosting service. Trump may launch his own platform. But that won’t happen overnight, and free speech experts anticipate growing pressure on all social media platforms to curb incendiary speech as Americans take stock of Wednesday’s violent takeover of the U.S. Capitol. Facebook and Instagram have suspended Trump at least until Inauguration Day. Twitch and Snapchat also have disabled Trump’s accounts, while Shopify took down online stores affiliated with the president and Reddit removed a Trump subgroup. Twitter also banned Trump loyalists including former national security advisor Michael Flynn in a sweeping purge of accounts promoting the QAnon conspiracy theory and the Capitol insurrection. Some had hundreds of thousands of followers.
Navy’s Priciest Carrier Ever Struggles to Get Jets On, Off Deck
(Bloomberg) Aircraft takeoff and landing systems on the USS Gerald R. Ford remain unreliable and break down too often more than three years after the $13.2 billion carrier was delivered, according to the Pentagon’s top tester. The latest assessment of the costliest warship ever built “remains consistent” with previous years, director of testing Robert Behler said in his new summary of the program obtained by Bloomberg News before its release in an annual report. The Ford’s new systems—which propel planes off the deck and into the sky and then snag them on landing—are crucial to justifying the expense of what’s now a four-vessel, $57 billion program intended to replace the current Nimitz class of aircraft carriers. The continuing reliability woes with the carrier systems built by General Atomics of San Diego are separate from another continuing challenge: the installation and certification of elevators needed to lift munitions from below deck. As of November, six of 11 “advanced weapons elevators” that should have been installed when the ship was delivered in May 2017 are now operational.
In Central America, tensions rise as soldiers aim to stop migrants
(Reuters) Guatemalan and Honduran soldiers will be deployed to prevent new U.S.-bound migrant caravans from advancing, military officials said, amid growing desperation among those seeking to cross and signs that some groups will depart later this month. Two devastating hurricanes late last year along with severe economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic have pushed millions of people in the already-poor region closer to hunger, leading to a steady rise in U.S.-bound migration through Mexico. In online forums, many Honduras have indicated they plan to leave next weekend in a new caravan, which has caught the attention of U.S. officials who have called on the region’s governments to stop them. Many migrants in recent years have chosen to travel by caravan because being part of a large group offers protection from criminals who might prey on them, even though traveling alone is often faster.
Johnson under fire as UK again faces onslaught of COVID-19
(AP) The crisis facing Britain this winter is depressingly familiar: Stay-at-home orders and empty streets. Hospitals overflowing. A daily toll of many hundreds of coronavirus deaths. The U.K. is the epicenter of Europe’s COVID-19 outbreak once more, and Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative government is facing questions, and anger, as people demand to know how the country has ended up here—again. Many countries are enduring new waves of the virus, but Britain’s is among the worst, and it comes after a horrendous 2020. More than 3 million people in the U.K. have tested positive for the coronavirus and 81,000 have died—30,000 in just the last 30 days. The economy has shrunk by 8%, more than 800,000 jobs have been lost and hundreds of thousands more furloughed workers are in limbo. Even with the new lockdown, London Mayor Sadiq Khan said Friday that the situation in the capital was “critical,” with one in every 30 people infected. “The stark reality is that we will run out of beds for patients in the next couple of weeks unless the spread of the virus slows down drastically,” he said.
In the Cold and Rain, India’s Farmers Press Their Stand Against Modi
(NYT) Under a rain-slick tarpaulin, half a dozen elderly women bake roti on a wood-fired griddle—flattening dough, flipping browned bread from dawn until the sun retreats into Delhi’s evening smoke. Anyone who walks in gets served rice and cooked vegetables and, to wash it down, a cumin-flavored yogurt drink. Across the road, Jagjeet Singh, a burly man with a large fanny pack and a light purple turban, churns a hefty pot of milk coffee from 5 a.m. to 5 p.m. The scenes stretching for miles around the Indian capital don’t come from a fair. They make up one of the largest sustained protests the country has seen in decades, persisting through steady rains and dozens of deaths that farmers and the Indian media have attributed to the weather, illness or suicide. For six weeks now, tens of thousands of farmers have choked the city’s four main entry points. They are challenging Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has crushed all other opposition and stands as the country’s dominant political force, over his effort to reshape how farming in India has been done for decades. “They sold everything else. Only the farmers are left,” said 18-year old Ajay Veer Singh, who has been at the protest with his 67-year-old grandfather since it began in November. “Now they want to sell the farmers to their corporate friends too.”
China sees growing outbreak south of Beijing
(AP) More than 360 people have tested positive in a growing coronavirus outbreak south of Beijing in neighboring Hebei province. The outbreak has raised particular concern because of Hebei’s proximity to the nation’s capital. Travel between the two has been restricted, with workers from Hebei having to show proof of employment in Beijing to enter the city. Almost all of the cases are in Shijuazhuang, the provincial capital, which is about 260 kilometers (160 miles) southwest of Beijing. A handful have also been found in Xingtai city, 110 kilometers (68 miles) farther south. Both cities have conducted mass testing of millions of residents, suspended public transportation and restricted residents to their communities or villages for one week.
Pompeo voids restrictions on diplomatic contacts with Taiwan
(AP) Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced Saturday that the State Department is voiding longstanding restrictions on how U.S. diplomats and others have contact with their counterparts in Taiwan, another move that is expected to upset China as the Trump administration winds to an end. The Trump administration has sought to strengthen bilateral relations with Taiwan. It announced Thursday that U.N Ambassador Kelly Craft would go to Taiwan, a move that sparked sharp criticism from Beijing and a warning that the U.S. would pay a heavy price. In August, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar became the first Cabinet member to visit Taiwan since 2014. Pompeo said that the State Department has created complex restrictions when it comes to contacts between the two parties. He said those actions were taken to appease the Communist regime in Beijing. “No more,” Pompeo declared in a statement. “Today I am announcing that I am lifting all of these self-imposed restrictions.” The Chinese government maintains that mainland China and Taiwan are parts of “one China.” China has been stepping up its threats to bring the self-governing island under its control by military force with frequent war games and aerial patrols. It has been using its diplomatic clout to stop Taiwan from joining any organizations that require statehood for membership.
Japanese pray for end to pandemic in annual ice bath ritual at Tokyo shrine
(Reuters) Men wearing traditional loin clothes and women dressed in white robes clapped and chanted before going into an ice water bath during a Shinto ritual at a Tokyo shrine on Sunday to purify the soul and pray for the end of the COVID-19 pandemic. Only a dozen people took part in the annual event at Teppou-zu Inari Shrine, scaled down this year due to the health crisis, compared to over a hundred in early 2020. After doing warming-up exercises and chanting under a clear sky with outside temperatures at 5.1 degree Celsius (41.18 Fahrenheit), the nine male and three female participants went into a bath filled with cold water and large ice blocks. Fewer participants at the Shinto ritual made the water extra cold, participant Naoaki Yamaguchi told Reuters. “Normally we have more participants and it makes the water temperature a little bit warmer. But this year, there were just twelve people, so it (the cold) was crazy,” the 47-year-old said.
Indonesian divers find parts of plane wreckage in Java Sea
(AP) Indonesian divers on Sunday located parts of the wreckage of a Boeing 737-500 at a depth of 23 meters (75 feet) in the Java Sea, a day after the aircraft with 62 people onboard crashed shortly after takeoff from Jakarta. Earlier, rescuers pulled out body parts, pieces of clothing and scraps of metal from the surface. It’s still unclear what caused the crash. There was no sign of survivors. Fishermen in the area between Lancang and Laki islands, part of an archipelago around Thousand Islands north of Jakarta’s coast, reported hearing an explosion around 2:30 p.m. Saturday.
At a Yemen hospital wracked by U.S. funding cuts, children are dying of hunger
(Washington Post) Her infant son, weakened by hunger, needed a better-equipped hospital in the capital, Sanaa, roughly 30 miles away. But Hanan Saleh could no longer afford even the $30 taxi fare. Before, she depended on a Western aid organization, Save the Children, for funds, drawn from money donated by the United States, to cover the travel costs, said employees of the organization and hospital officials. But last year, the United States slashed its funding to United Nations groups and others such as Save the Children. So Saleh had to raise money to treat her son, Mohammed, in Sanaa until those funds ran out, too. Her last option was a small hospital in this northern Yemen market town, a 15-minute walk from their home. The staff tried to build up his skeletal, malnourished 9-month-old body. “He died two months ago,” Saleh recalled in November, breaking down in tears. Aid cuts by the Trump administration and other Western countries, intended to prevent Yemen’s Houthi rebels from diverting or blocking funds, are worsening the country’s humanitarian crisis, already considered the most severe in the world. Last year’s pledges totaling $1.61 billion were less than half of 2019’s funding, and hundreds of millions of dollars committed by donors have not yet been paid, according to the U.N.’s humanitarian office for Yemen. At least 15 of the U.N.’s 41 major programs have been scaled back or closed, and additional programs could shutter in the months to come, if more funds are not received, U.N. officials say.
The Tiny Satellites That Will Connect Cows, Cars and Shipping Containers to the Internet
(WSJ) Scientists who track the health of Adélie penguins on the ice-covered wastes of Antarctica are managing their cameras from thousands of miles away—via tiny satellites orbiting above our heads. Energy companies are exploring using the same technology for monitoring hard-to-reach wind farms; logistics companies for tracking shipping containers; and agribusiness companies for minding cattle. It even helped National Geographic track a discarded plastic bottle from Bangladesh to the Indian Ocean. In the near future, it isn’t unreasonable to imagine this evolving satellite technology could put a distress beacon in every automobile, allow remote monitoring of wildlife in any environment on earth, and track your Amazon shipment—not just when it’s on a truck, but backward, all the way to the factory that produced it. And it could be done at a fraction of the cost of earlier satellite tracking systems. These novel networks of nanosats—aka cubesats—are a result of a number of factors. First, the satellites themselves are smaller, cheaper and more capable than ever. Just as important, there’s the rollout and adoption of new long-distance, low-power wireless communication standards that can work just as well in outer space as they do on the ground. In the next year, hundreds of satellites from more than a dozen companies are set to launch.
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Bungie Weekly Update - 5/25/17
This week at Bungie, our ears are ringing.
Last week was an experience in sensory overload. The aircraft hangar that our friends at Activision built for the celebration was booming. The response from the community has been thunderous. You honor us with your enthusiasm for new action.
Ever since the first reveal at the end of March, we’ve been hyping the “Destiny 2 Gameplay Premiere” on the Internet. Inside our studio, the entire operation was codenamed DRE (or Destiny Reveal Event). The games that were played in that fateful airport hangar came from the DRE Build. The presenters who took the stage ran a gauntlet of DRE Rehearsals.
We knew this moment wouldn’t be complete if we couldn’t share it with our community. If you made the trek to join us, we were humbled and awed to hear you roar as your favorite Class activated a new Super for the first time. If you piled into the stream audience to make the chat run like a raging waterfall, we thank you for helping us to break the internet.
If you missed a single moment of the premiere, here’s the full archive:
https://youtu.be/kmFGetMZi6s
With all the lights and noise and games and conversations behind us, we can safely say that DRE is something we’ll never forget.
Destiny 2 Game Director (and Master of Ceremonies) Luke Smith has his own recollections from the center of that storm.
Last Thursday was a blur. Amidst the fuzzy lines, a few moments crystallized and burned into memory.
I’ll remember the tireless effort on the part of the crew who was there all week building out the hangar, Steph the stage manager helping us prep, the team running the teleprompters (which none of us had ever used before), and a ton of other folks who made that event go.
I’ll remember the conversations with guests sharing their own stories of what Destiny meant to them, their friends, families, and communities. It’s another jolt of energy as we enter the final months of Destiny 2’s development.
I’ll remember the moment I walked out on stage for the first time for the rest of my life. And the text I received from my mother after it was over wondering if she should “get into these Destiny games when I retire.” She’s 61, and I hope to still be making them when she hangs up her scrubs.
See you soon.
-luke
Thanks for being the wind at our backs, Guardians. As Luke said, there is more work to do. With DRE fading into memory, we can return to our mission with a belly full of fire.
Code Words
As we moved through the crowd of Guardians last week, many of you asked important questions about how Destiny 2's networking model will work. The technology we use to bring players together in the world of the game touches on so many crucial topics. We know that you’re curious about everything from how your shots land to the protective measures we’ll take to keep the community ecosystem safe. These topics deserve careful statements from the people who own the code, and a noisy aircraft hangar isn’t the best place to do them justice.
Now that the dust has settled and the ringing in our ears has started to subside, I sat down with Matt Segur, Engineering Lead on Destiny 2, to get some answers for you.
Matt: We've seen a lot of people asking about how the networking model works for Destiny 2. Many are concerned by our announcement last week that Destiny 2 doesn't have dedicated servers. While that’s useful shorthand, the full answer is more complex because Destiny has a unique networking model. Rest assured that we’re doing a lot of testing right now with players all around the world, and working hard to make sure that your experience is going to be smooth on launch day.
So why no dedicated servers?
Matt: Every activity in Destiny 2 is hosted by one of our servers. That means you will never again suffer a host migration during your Raid attempt or Trials match. This differs from Destiny 1, where these hosting duties were performed by player consoles and only script and mission logic ran in the data center. To understand the foundation on which we’re building, check out this Destiny 1 presentation from GDC. Using the terms from this talk, in Destiny 2, both the Mission Host and Physics Host will run in our data centers.
Wait, so we do have dedicated servers?
Matt: We don't use that term, because in the gaming community, “dedicated servers” refers to pure client-server networking models. Destiny 2 uses a hybrid of client-server and peer-to-peer technology, just like Destiny 1. The server is authoritative over how the game progresses, and each player is authoritative over their own movement and abilities. This allows us to give players the feeling of immediacy in all their moving and shooting – no matter where they live and no matter whom they choose to play with.
Why peer-to-peer? Are we trying to save money?
Matt: Nope! We've invested heavily in new server infrastructure for Destiny 2, including using cloud servers for gameplay for the first time. We really believe this is the best model for all of Destiny 2's varied cooperative and competitive experiences. Engineering will always involve tradeoffs and cost-benefit analysis, but as a team we’ve got no regrets about the unique technology we’ve built for Destiny 2.
With Destiny 2 coming out on PC, does peer-to-peer networking put players at risk of being cheated?
Matt: The PC platform poses unique security challenges for Destiny 2, but our security Ninjas have spent several years building a plan for how to engage with this new and vibrant community. We have a variety of top-secret strategies to ensure that the life of a cheater in Destiny 2 PC will be nasty, brutish, and short. And, regardless of what platform you play on, all changes to your persistent character are communicated directly to our secure data center with no peer-to-peer interference.
Does this mean I’ll never see a player warp around the map or shoot me through a wall again?
Matt: We think those controller-throwing lag-induced moments will be reduced for Destiny 2, but we can't promise they’ll be eliminated. Fundamentally, we are trying to strike a balance between three hard problems: (1) make the game feel responsive, (2) make the game accessible to players all over the world, and (3) make the game fair for all. We’ll continue to refine that balance as players engage with the Crucible in Destiny 2.
So what can we expect at launch?
Matt: We have a Beta coming up this summer that will be the first chance for players to get their hands on Destiny 2 and kick the tires on its networking. We have spent a bunch of time working on matchmaking, latency, and responsiveness, and we feel pretty good about it. As with everything we do, we'll be monitoring the situation after launch and reacting to the community's feedback.
To Matt’s final point, the real moment of truth and understanding will come when you get to play. That’s when you’ll know what we’ve built. When you tell us what sort of experience you’ve had, we’ll know too. This is our goal for the Destiny 2 Beta.
Your next obvious question is:
“When is the Beta?”
We’re still tracking toward a summer time-frame. We’re locking down dates and prepping builds. As soon we know for sure, we’ll upgrade the Beta forecast from its current status of “Soon” with exact dates.
We hope to see you there. This is the true test. We’ll need every Guardian on hand to help us launch a game worthy of this community.
Mission Status
Supporting the Guardians is a mission that takes on many forms. Last week, the members of our Destiny Player Support team were part of the Away Team for the reveal event, inverting controllers and hooking players up with their first taste of Destiny 2. This week, they’re back to walking their beat on Bungie.net, looking for players in need of assistance.
This is their report.
Earlier this week, server maintenance was conducted to address some backend issues that were impacting Destiny servers. No changes to gameplay were made. If you are experiencing any issues connecting to Destiny since this maintenance was completed, please post a report to the #Help forum listing the error codes you’re receiving when attempting to play.
Additionally, we are investigating issues preventing various activity statistics from appearing on your Bungie.net Legend. We have confirmed that issues impacting Iron Banner Mayhem Clash stats have been addressed, but we are continuing to investigate issues preventing the appearance of stats from alternate activities. Please note the following:
Third party applications that rely on Bungie.net API for stat collection will be impacted until this issue is resolved.
Some previously-completed activity statistics have begun to appear on Bungie.net, but we are continuing to investigate the issue as it may still impact alternate stats.
Once the issue has been resolved, it may take up to 48 hours for all statistics to be processed.
Additional information and updates on this investigation will be provided through @BungieHelp when available.
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Reddit to Reintroduce and Expand Crypto Payments to Litecoin and Ethereum
The online social news forum Reddit appear to have plans to relaunch cryptocurrency payments in the future. The news comes less than two months after the platform initially stopped supporting Bitcoin as a funding method.
Reddit Dropped Bitcoin Payments in March
Speaking to technology-focused news source Cheddar, Chris Slowe, the chief technology officer at Reddit, said that the reason behind the decision to stop accepting Bitcoin in March was twofold.
Firstly, network fees had risen to the point that it was no longer practical to accept BTC for some payments. The example of a $4 transaction costing upwards of $10 in network fees was cited as justification for the decision. Secondly, Slowe stated that Reddit had been using Coinbase as a payment processor for Bitcoin payments and the well-known exchange was currently migrating to a new platform. This interrupted Reddit’s ability to accept Bitcoin for payments:
“We just didn’t have time to upgrade our current API integration, and once the redesign is finished … I think we’ll see crypto payments come back.”
When asked if it was just Bitcoin payments that the platform was considering accepting on their second venture into cryptocurrency adoption, Slowe added that the platform had been looking at other cryptocurrencies – namely fellow Coinbase staples Ethereum and Litecoin.
Coinbase’s migration to its new platform is expected to continue until May 31. However, there has been no concrete statement on Reddit’s timeline for accepting cryptocurrency again. That also presumes that Reddit intend to continue using Coinbase, although Slowe gave no indication that they wouldn’t.
You can watch the whole segment on Reddit’s potential reintegration of cryptocurrencies in the Twitter video below:
.@Reddit, which hosts communities for every single cryptocurrency in the world, is hoping to bring back crypto payments to the platform, this time with Ethereum and Litecoin in addition to Bitcoin, according to CTO @KeyserSosa. pic.twitter.com/wkUniMvhex
— Cheddar (@cheddar) May 2, 2018
The Reddit platform provided an early hub for those interested in Bitcoin. The site first began accepting Bitcoin for its premium membership back in 2013. Higher tier users would benefit from a lack of adverts, personalised avatars, and access to some private subreddits. The privilege would set them back around $30.
The decision to begin accepting cryptocurrency payments isn’t the first time Reddit has been in the digital currency news this week. Yesterday, we reported on the co-founder of the platform’s price predictions for the largest two cryptocurrencies by market cap.
Alexis Ohanian believes that Bitcoin will reach its all-time high of close to $20,000 by the end of the year. However, he stated that the real big mover in the space will be Ethereum. He reasoned that the number of applications being built on top of the platform would drive the price as high as $15,000 a unit.
Image from Shutterstock.
The post Reddit to Reintroduce and Expand Crypto Payments to Litecoin and Ethereum appeared first on NewsBTC.
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Reddit to Reintroduce and Expand Crypto Payments to Litecoin and Ethereum
The online social news forum Reddit appear to have plans to relaunch cryptocurrency payments in the future. The news comes less than two months after the platform initially stopped supporting Bitcoin as a funding method.
Reddit Dropped Bitcoin Payments in March
Speaking to technology-focused news source Cheddar, Chris Slowe, the chief technology officer at Reddit, said that the reason behind the decision to stop accepting Bitcoin in March was twofold.
Firstly, network fees had risen to the point that it was no longer practical to accept BTC for some payments. The example of a $4 transaction costing upwards of $10 in network fees was cited as justification for the decision. Secondly, Slowe stated that Reddit had been using Coinbase as a payment processor for Bitcoin payments and the well-known exchange was currently migrating to a new platform. This interrupted Reddit’s ability to accept Bitcoin for payments:
“We just didn’t have time to upgrade our current API integration, and once the redesign is finished … I think we’ll see crypto payments come back.”
When asked if it was just Bitcoin payments that the platform was considering accepting on their second venture into cryptocurrency adoption, Slowe added that the platform had been looking at other cryptocurrencies – namely fellow Coinbase staples Ethereum and Litecoin.
Coinbase’s migration to its new platform is expected to continue until May 31. However, there has been no concrete statement on Reddit’s timeline for accepting cryptocurrency again. That also presumes that Reddit intend to continue using Coinbase, although Slowe gave no indication that they wouldn’t.
You can watch the whole segment on Reddit’s potential reintegration of cryptocurrencies in the Twitter video below:
.@Reddit, which hosts communities for every single cryptocurrency in the world, is hoping to bring back crypto payments to the platform, this time with Ethereum and Litecoin in addition to Bitcoin, according to CTO @KeyserSosa. pic.twitter.com/wkUniMvhex
— Cheddar (@cheddar) May 2, 2018
The Reddit platform provided an early hub for those interested in Bitcoin. The site first began accepting Bitcoin for its premium membership back in 2013. Higher tier users would benefit from a lack of adverts, personalised avatars, and access to some private subreddits. The privilege would set them back around $30.
The decision to begin accepting cryptocurrency payments isn’t the first time Reddit has been in the digital currency news this week. Yesterday, we reported on the co-founder of the platform’s price predictions for the largest two cryptocurrencies by market cap.
Alexis Ohanian believes that Bitcoin will reach its all-time high of close to $20,000 by the end of the year. However, he stated that the real big mover in the space will be Ethereum. He reasoned that the number of applications being built on top of the platform would drive the price as high as $15,000 a unit.
Image from Shutterstock.
The post Reddit to Reintroduce and Expand Crypto Payments to Litecoin and Ethereum appeared first on NewsBTC.
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Reddit to Reintroduce and Expand Crypto Payments to Litecoin and Ethereum
The online social news forum Reddit appear to have plans to relaunch cryptocurrency payments in the future. The news comes less than two months after the platform initially stopped supporting Bitcoin as a funding method.
Reddit Dropped Bitcoin Payments in March
Speaking to technology-focused news source Cheddar, Chris Slowe, the chief technology officer at Reddit, said that the reason behind the decision to stop accepting Bitcoin in March was twofold.
Firstly, network fees had risen to the point that it was no longer practical to accept BTC for some payments. The example of a $4 transaction costing upwards of $10 in network fees was cited as justification for the decision. Secondly, Slowe stated that Reddit had been using Coinbase as a payment processor for Bitcoin payments and the well-known exchange was currently migrating to a new platform. This interrupted Reddit’s ability to accept Bitcoin for payments:
“We just didn’t have time to upgrade our current API integration, and once the redesign is finished … I think we’ll see crypto payments come back.”
When asked if it was just Bitcoin payments that the platform was considering accepting on their second venture into cryptocurrency adoption, Slowe added that the platform had been looking at other cryptocurrencies – namely fellow Coinbase staples Ethereum and Litecoin.
Coinbase’s migration to its new platform is expected to continue until May 31. However, there has been no concrete statement on Reddit’s timeline for accepting cryptocurrency again. That also presumes that Reddit intend to continue using Coinbase, although Slowe gave no indication that they wouldn’t.
You can watch the whole segment on Reddit’s potential reintegration of cryptocurrencies in the Twitter video below:
.@Reddit, which hosts communities for every single cryptocurrency in the world, is hoping to bring back crypto payments to the platform, this time with Ethereum and Litecoin in addition to Bitcoin, according to CTO @KeyserSosa. pic.twitter.com/wkUniMvhex
— Cheddar (@cheddar) May 2, 2018
The Reddit platform provided an early hub for those interested in Bitcoin. The site first began accepting Bitcoin for its premium membership back in 2013. Higher tier users would benefit from a lack of adverts, personalised avatars, and access to some private subreddits. The privilege would set them back around $30.
The decision to begin accepting cryptocurrency payments isn’t the first time Reddit has been in the digital currency news this week. Yesterday, we reported on the co-founder of the platform’s price predictions for the largest two cryptocurrencies by market cap.
Alexis Ohanian believes that Bitcoin will reach its all-time high of close to $20,000 by the end of the year. However, he stated that the real big mover in the space will be Ethereum. He reasoned that the number of applications being built on top of the platform would drive the price as high as $15,000 a unit.
Image from Shutterstock.
The post Reddit to Reintroduce and Expand Crypto Payments to Litecoin and Ethereum appeared first on NewsBTC.
from Cryptocracken Tumblr https://ift.tt/2FEubWc
via IFTTT
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Reddit to Reintroduce and Expand Crypto Payments to Litecoin and Ethereum
The online social news forum Reddit appear to have plans to relaunch cryptocurrency payments in the future. The news comes less than two months after the platform initially stopped supporting Bitcoin as a funding method.
Reddit Dropped Bitcoin Payments in March
Speaking to technology-focused news source Cheddar, Chris Slowe, the chief technology officer at Reddit, said that the reason behind the decision to stop accepting Bitcoin in March was twofold.
Firstly, network fees had risen to the point that it was no longer practical to accept BTC for some payments. The example of a $4 transaction costing upwards of $10 in network fees was cited as justification for the decision. Secondly, Slowe stated that Reddit had been using Coinbase as a payment processor for Bitcoin payments and the well-known exchange was currently migrating to a new platform. This interrupted Reddit’s ability to accept Bitcoin for payments:
“We just didn’t have time to upgrade our current API integration, and once the redesign is finished … I think we’ll see crypto payments come back.”
When asked if it was just Bitcoin payments that the platform was considering accepting on their second venture into cryptocurrency adoption, Slowe added that the platform had been looking at other cryptocurrencies – namely fellow Coinbase staples Ethereum and Litecoin.
Coinbase’s migration to its new platform is expected to continue until May 31. However, there has been no concrete statement on Reddit’s timeline for accepting cryptocurrency again. That also presumes that Reddit intend to continue using Coinbase, although Slowe gave no indication that they wouldn’t.
You can watch the whole segment on Reddit’s potential reintegration of cryptocurrencies in the Twitter video below:
.@Reddit, which hosts communities for every single cryptocurrency in the world, is hoping to bring back crypto payments to the platform, this time with Ethereum and Litecoin in addition to Bitcoin, according to CTO @KeyserSosa. pic.twitter.com/wkUniMvhex
— Cheddar (@cheddar) May 2, 2018
The Reddit platform provided an early hub for those interested in Bitcoin. The site first began accepting Bitcoin for its premium membership back in 2013. Higher tier users would benefit from a lack of adverts, personalised avatars, and access to some private subreddits. The privilege would set them back around $30.
The decision to begin accepting cryptocurrency payments isn’t the first time Reddit has been in the digital currency news this week. Yesterday, we reported on the co-founder of the platform’s price predictions for the largest two cryptocurrencies by market cap.
Alexis Ohanian believes that Bitcoin will reach its all-time high of close to $20,000 by the end of the year. However, he stated that the real big mover in the space will be Ethereum. He reasoned that the number of applications being built on top of the platform would drive the price as high as $15,000 a unit.
Image from Shutterstock.
The post Reddit to Reintroduce and Expand Crypto Payments to Litecoin and Ethereum appeared first on NewsBTC.
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Top 10 Sets To See @ Middlelands
For Texas natives, Cinco De Mayo is just as much a holiday as Christmas or Halloween and is celebrated heavily throughout the state. To most, celebrating Cinco De Mayo involves taste-bud wowing foods originating from their southern neighbor, Mexico. From Tamales, to corn tortilla tacos, and enchiladas -overflowing with molten cheese, our Mexican-American amigos really know how to throw down; they also are well known for their varieties of music, like mariachi and Tejano music, which can be heard in abundance during Cinco De Mayo celebration, or really any day in the life of a Texan.
But this year, in Todd Mission, Tx, we suspect there will be many bumping a different kind of tune. This 2017 Cinco De Mayo weekend at the Texas Renaissance Festival grounds, hosted by Insomniac and C3, we lads here at Hippie Noise Party will be attending the increasingly hyped and highly esteemed music festival Middlelands an Adventure for the Ages.
Themed after the venue’s biggest attraction, TRF, Middlelands Music Festival aims to usher in a presence of medieval entertainment and fun. Hosting musical acts on 5 different stages starting Thursday, May 4th and following through until Sunday, May 7th, we expect to have our minds warped and our faces melted as we witness such acts such as Bassnectar, Kaskade, Big Gigantic, Griz, Marshmello, Gramatik, Alison Wonderland, Phantogram, Illenium, Datsik, Space Jesus and so many more truly fantastic performers.
Of course, being the venue that it is, there will be the ability to camp, which always adds to any experience as the crowd out in camping tends to keep the party live until the following sunrise.
No matter if you camp or if you commute, though, anyone in attendance is sure to have a phenomenal time as this venue was ripe for a music fest of this capacity a long time ago.
Now without any further delays, we here at Hippie Noise Party present our compilative review of the top ten acts to see at Middlelands. Keep in mind, that we left out obvious headliners like Bassnectar, Kaskade and a Big Grizmatic performance we are hoping will secretly take place, as we all should know by now that there sets are incrediballs and anyone in their right mind should not miss their sets:
1. Crystal Castles
The brain child of Ethan Kath and Alice Glass, the duo split ways two years back after a decision from the vocalist, Alice Glass to focus primarily on a solo project. Since their schism, Crystal Castles has picked up a new vocalist, Edith Francis, and we here at HNP are very excited to see her energy on stage with Ethan Kath’s hauntingly genius melodies. Dominating the Witch House genre, almost before witch house was even respected as a genre, attendees can expect this to be one of the weirdest and most enlightening sets played this weekend.
2. Alison Wonderland
Alex Sholler, afka Alison Wonderland, has been rocking the EDM world with banger after banger for the last two years after releasing her ‘Run’ album. Based out of Sydney, Australia, we here in Texas welcome her with open arms. Having never witnessed one of her performances, but from someone who jams Wonderland on a daily basis, I can tell you this writer does not intend on missing her set. Bringing her cool, empowered feminine touch to the genre, we look forward to hearing her wow the crowd with her trance wave dub at Middlelands.
3. Phantogram
Musical duo Josh Carter and Sarah Barthel are not new to the touring rock star lifestyle. They’ve been making headlines since 2007. Hailing from Greenwich, New York they’ve dropped top hits such as “When I’m Small”, “Black Out Days”, and “Mouthful Of Diamonds” over their career and just recently dropped a third studio album, ‘Three’ last year in October. They’ve since compiled a new project called Big Grams which has been extremely successful recently. These guys have always been on a bucket list and it will be a true pleasure hearing their electro synth pop sound at Middlelands this year.
4. Marshmello
Ghost producer and icon of anonymity, Marshmello has hidden behind his signature mask and somehow still gained quite the reputation. This EDM producer has released multiple hits in relatively a short period of time winning him the Best Break Through Solo Artist award back in 2016. No telling what kind of stunts Marshmello may be up to as he is infamous for pulling publicity stunts around his shows.
5. Bonobo (Live)
British musician Simon Green, better known by his stage name ‘Bonobo’ plans to entrance the crowd while on stage at Middlelands this summer with a mind-numbing, ear-pleasing melody of piano riffs and entrancing deep sounds. Having just dropped his sixth studio album ‘Migration” back in January, we speculate we’ll hear a lot of tracks from this new album. We can’t wait to see the visuals he will implement into this live set, who will he bring on stage to play with him, what display of artistic endeavor does Bonobo intend to leave his audience with? We don’t have the answer to that but believe me, we intend to find out.
6. Big Wild
After gaining fame from touring with Odesza, Big Wild has been touring heavily since. Dropping major tracks like “Aftergold” and his remix with Zhu, “Generationwhy”, he has been moving up in ranks per se and is now working on his Invincible EP while simultaneously touring around. We saw Big Wild dropping a tropical house set at Euphoria last year in ATX, and he easily was our favorite set for the entire four-day music and camping festival.
7. Galantis
Hailing from Sweden, DJ duo Christian Karlsson and Linus Eklow move forward into Texas territory spreading good vibes after their new single last year “No Money” became pretty successful. Made famous by their hit single back in 2014 “Runaway (U & I)”, Galantis has produced a series of hit singles last year including, “Make me feel”, “Love On Me”, and recently in December, “Pillow Fight”. Their newest single came out in February titled “Rich Boy”. So we can be certain to hear most of these during this DJ duo’s set at Middlelands.
8. Getter
In recent years, getter, aka Tanner Petula, has taken the internet community over by storm. His hilarious antics and iconic catchphrase, “Suh Dude” are recognized through various social media forums and threads. Having signed to Datsik’s media label “Firepower records” back in 2012 we’re interested to see Getter pair up with Datsik who will also be featured in the sets played at Middlelands this year. We think it would be amazing to see these two play side-by-side. I can only imagine what kind of gettup Getter will don for his Middlelands performance, but we look forward to his grimy, sometimes wacky dubby sound.
9. Space Jesus
Space Jesus has been making waves in the dub fest community. Rivalling bass riffs that of the almighty Bassnectar, I’ve seen this guy play twice and let me tell you, there will be a lot of physical motion during his set. Somehow this producer out of New Jersey has made his way out to Texas again to show you guys how to hold Bass Church from Outer Space, right? Jasha Tull, afka Space Jesus sports a cross-genre field of bassfueled psychedelic style and sound. It ought to be a wicked little party.
10. Goldfish
Goldfish is an electronica and dance group hailing from Cape Town, South Africa, consisting of Dominic Peters and David Poole. They create dance music containing elements of jazz and African music. The band has released a number of albums, including ‘Perceptions of Pacha’ and ‘Get Busy Living’, and Goldfish was named "Best Pop" at the MTV Africa Music Awards 2014. They create dance music containing elements of jazz and African music, combining live instruments like double bass, saxophones, keyboards, flute, and vocals with samplers, effects and synths. We intend to sit in on their set and jam accordingly during their time spent out at Middlelands.
That’s our HNP top 10 list. We hope to catch some of ya’ll outside at this event coming up this Cinco De Mayo weekend.
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