one thing that seems to prevalent in almost any lestappen fanfic is that ferrari doesn't care about charles, and that fred especially is made to be this villain, and its just... maybe people just don't know because they weren't around in 2022, or maybe they just forgot, but things were bad in ferrari in 2022 to the point where charles threatened to leave because of the bad management--and ferrari scrambled to keep him. they fired binotto (the tp) and a bunch of the staff (like head strategist) because of charles, they got fred because he and charles were on good terms, the team is literally being build around charles.

i don't immediately dislike the fanfic if ferrari is the antagonist of the story (but some reason rbr isn't lmao), i just think it's strange that ferrari is always the big bad guy

SILVERSTONE PLAN

Summary: Carlos needs to create a plan to confess before he can lose his opportunity with you. And what better place than Silverstone for it.

Pairing: carlos sainz x reader

Warnings: none

Word Count: 1621

You've always wanted to work for F1. Since you were little, it had been your dream to be able to work surrounded by the sound of engines and the bustle of the Paddock. So with a lot of effort and restless nights studying, you were able to graduate from the career you wanted. And when Tilke Architects and Engineers gave you the chance to join them, as they were looking for young and willing people to join their ranks, you didn't hesitate to accept. Before you knew it, you had been working for the company for more than two years and you swore you loved your job. Knowing the circuits in depth and being able to collaborate to create or improve them so that the drivers could run in the exciting races of each season. It was definitely your dream life.

Now, you and your team would be traveling to the 2022 Grand Prix. Due to the incorporation of the Las Vegas GP into the 2023 season, you had to collect information on how the drivers functioned in the different circuits of the world in order to build the Las Vegas circuit as comfortable as possible for them. Although the information that you would have to obtain would be provided to you in large part by the respective teams, they had allowed you to personally study the performance of some drivers from each team, chosen by the team principal itself. So now your job was to follow every moment of Carlos Sainz in track.

You knew who Carlos was, your family had been a big fan of Carlos Sainz Sr. and now you were a big fan of Scuderia Ferrari, so the name of the Spanish driver was clearly known to you. And thank God, Carlos seemed to be as charming as he was shown on the internet and on television, so working with him was quite an easy task, since he had no problem collaborating with you and offering you any information you needed to the project.

On the other hand, Carlos was obviously willing to collaborate in whatever you needed, honestly, if at any time you asked him to jump off a bridge, he would have done it just because you asked him to. Carlos had to admit that although at first he didn't like having someone watching what he did every time he got in the car, that opinion had been changing while he got to know you. The first day you'd met and introduced him, it hadn't seemed such a bad idea to have your pretty face and sweet voice following him around the Paddock. And now, a few races later, he could safely say that it was the best thing that could have happened to him that year. He had fallen so madly in love with you. Most of the drivers had also noticed how absorbed Carlos was in you, and clearly he had become one of the main taunts both during the races and in the group chat. But Carlos didn't pay attention to any of the taunts, he was too busy thinking that as soon as the season was over, he wouldn't see you walking next to him around the Ferrari facilities anymore.

Actually Carlos did not understand at what point he had fallen so hard for you, since usually when he tried to talk to you they used to be short conversations, if it wasn't because someone interrupted you because they needed you or him somewhere, it was because Carlos he was too nervous to screw up with you and didn't dare speak to you beyond a greeting. Carlos knew that he was going to need to put his cowardice aside if he wanted to continue seeing you once the season was over and your work there was done, so in desperation and as a last resort, he turned to his two best friends in the Paddock. .

"Let's see if I understand" Lando spoke. "You need us to help you confess to

y/n” he summed up after Carlos' long tirade about you and how he loved you and more things that Lando and Charles had been unaware of.

"Basically yes" Carlos looked at his friends before turning to a confused Lando. "How do you know her name is y/n?" he asked her.

“Mate, you've been talking about her since you met her at the beginning of the season. I've heard her name more times this year than my own mother's” Lando explained to Carlos in a tired tone. He loved his friend very much, but if he heard him talk one more time about how beautiful you were, he was going to punch him.

"I don't talk about her that much" Carlos complained. In return, he received an incredulous look from his two friends. “Well maybe if I talk about her too much, but that's not the point. Are you going to help me or not?" Carlos was starting to get desperate.

"You know we help you with whatever you need, but don't you think it's easier to just tell her how you feel instead of coming up with some stupid plan?" Charles spoke as the voice of reason. Lando nodded in agreement.

“Believe me, I have tried over and over again. But it's seeing her and… I don't know, I got stuck and I forgot what I was going to say and out of nowhere I chickened out” Carlos explained to them.

Lando and Charles looked at each other in silence thinking about what they could recommend to his friend, when out of nowhere Lando's face lit up with a proud smile.

"Why don't you make her a deal" Lando looked at the two Ferrari drivers and saw their confused faces, so he developed the idea. “Look, she's going to be watching the whole race this weekend. Talk to her, and I don't know, tell her that if you get points or something like that, she'll go out with you on a date"

"Lando, you really are horrible at explaining yourself" Charles was still confused, but he more or less understood what the British had meant.

Carlos seemed to have understood him too, because he was silent for a few seconds, before quickly nodding his head and looking at the boys.

"Yes. That's a decent idea. I know what to do” he got up from where they had been chatting and said goodbye to the other two drivers. "Thanks guys!" Lando and Charles looked at each other before shrugging, wishing his friend luck in whatever she was doing.

Carlos went all over the Paddock looking for you, until he finally spotted you sitting at one of the Ferrari hospitality tables with your computer in front of you. He took a deep breath and gathering strength, he approached you willing to carry out his plan. You noticed his presence when he sat across from you. You raised your head and smiled softly at him.

"Hi" you greeted him. “What are you doing here? I thought you were going to be preparing for the race tomorrow."

"Yes, I was, but I needed to talk to you about something" Carlos congratulated himself because his voice didn't shake.

"Sure, is something wrong?" now you worried if there was something wrong with the project or something was bothering him.

"No, no, nothing is wrong. I just wanted to propose something to you"

"Ehh, okay" now you seemed intrigued by what the Spanish could offer you.

“Okay, let's see…” Carlos gained confidence again. “Well, tomorrow is the Silverstone race and, I've been thinking about making you a proposal. It's only if you feel like it, you can say no without problem. But well, if I can finish in the top ten tomorrow and get points, will you go on a date with me?” You were at Silverstone and Carlos believed that this race had a feeling that something would go well there, so it was one of the things that encouraged him to form that plan. He held his breath, paying attention to your reaction.

To say that you were surprised was an understatement, but you really liked Carlos and you weren't going to waste the opportunity to go out with him. But you didn't want to make it easy for him either, because you decided to continue the game.

"The charming Carlos Sainz is proposing a date, interesting" you put your elbows on the table and leaned in to take a closer look at him. “It seems like a good offer to me, but come on, among the first ten? You can do much more than that, so I propose something else. I'll go out with you on that date, only if you end up on the podium” You had full confidence in Carlos, and you knew that he had a talent for that and more, that's why you didn't hesitate to propose that.

“A podium? You are demanding, amor”Carlos's confidence had risen with your compliment on his talent and now he felt capable of achieving anything to be able to go on that date with you.

"It's my last offer, Sainz"

"I accept" Carlos grabbed your hand and kissed it before standing up to leave. He had a race to prepare for.

Your trust in Carlos and your intuition did not fail, and you could not have been more proud when you saw him on the top step of the podium pointing at you while he raised the trophy that marked him as the winner of the Silverstone GP. And obviously you went to that date, and many more after that. And after all, you didn't leave his side when the season ended.

Oklahoma is taking the lead on addressing mass shootings at schools with a new executive order that Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt says will protect the Second Amendment rights of the state's citizens while making students safer.

In an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital, Stitt unveiled the details of the executive order, called "Mission S.O.S.," or "Secure Oklahoma Schools," and stressed the importance of addressing mental health issues leading to mass shootings, as well as ensuring law enforcement and teachers were properly trained to handle a mass shooting situation should one arise.

"First off, I don't believe that you can put our Constitution in the attic and you can ignore the Second Amendment just because of a political whim or because someone at the White House for some reason wants to delete a section of our Constitution," Stitt said when asked about President Biden's call for increased gun control measures and recent comments that the Second Amendment was "not absolute."

"That's exactly why it's there. It's the supreme law of the land," he added. "We're going to protect our constitutional rights as Oklahomans, and as governor, I represent all 4 million Oklahomans, and we overwhelmingly support gun ownership and the Second Amendment."

Stitt explained that after watching the response by law enforcement to the recent mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, that killed 19 students and two teachers, he called his team together and began drafting the executive order with the intention of preventing a similar situation from happening in Oklahoma.

The executive order addresses the training of law enforcement by requiring all state troopers within the Oklahoma Department of Public Safety (DPS), as well as Council on Law Enforcement Education and Training (CLEET) certified officers, to either successfully complete DPS-approved and CLEET-accredited law enforcement active shooter emergency response training, or be offered it by a certain date depending on position.

All CLEET-certified basic academies within the state will also be required to include the training in their programs by Jan. 23 of next year.

The executive order also requires the Oklahoma School Security Institute (OSSI) to coordinate with the DPS to provide annual risk and vulnerability assessments to "every public and private primary and secondary school," and to provide recommendations to increase school security, at no cost to the school or school district.

BIDEN'S PROPOSED ASSAULT WEAPONS BAN HAS A SERIOUS CONSTITUTIONAL PROBLEM

In addition, the order provides training opportunities for education professionals on how to preemptively identify mental health challenges with students they work with each day in order to prevent such challenges leading to situations that could place other students in danger.The Behavioral Threat Assessment and Management (BTAM) training will be offered to every education professional in the state by July 2023.

The order also implements the use of the "Rave Panic Button" by Sep. 2022, an app to be accessible on all teachers' phones that would immediately notify all surrounding law enforcement departments of an emergency to ensure a timely response.

"We want to take practical steps today in Oklahoma to make sure we protect our citizens, we make sure law enforcement is properly trained, properly funded, and that they have all the resources, the tools that they need," Stitt said. "We wanted to put technology inside the school districts to make sure that our teachers are well-prepared, and that they can identify behavioral issues."

When asked how likely the executive order would prevent any future mass shootings, Stitt stressed the importance of proper education, as well as family values in the home. He admitted there were some "societal issues" that no piece of legislation could fix, but that he would continue looking at the education system and how homes across Oklahoma were "teaching right and wrong."

Stitt expressed hope that through the order, Oklahoma would set an example for the rest of the country on how to properly keep people safe while protecting Second Amendment rights. 

Stitt's office filed the executive order with Oklahoma's Secretary of State's office on Wednesday.

INSTANT REACTIONS: Falcons fall in the Motor City.

Okay. So that was something. The Atlanta Falcons just took their first loss of 2023 in a 20-6 finish against the Detroit Lions. I watched all but maybe 2 snaps, and am here to basically recap the game. I will also tell you what has to change for the Falcons in order for them to go across the pond and take a win from the Jacksonville Jaguars. Welcome to the post game recap.

Okay, so before I rant about the game, I have some words for FOX Sports. What the hell? I was trying to stream it on the Xbox application, and it crashed about 5 times during the game. Keep in mind I was watching college football all day yesterday on ESPN, and eventually the FOX Sports app. The entire day of streaming, which started with the Georgia game at 7:30, and I did not get one delay. Come on now FOX. We’re better than this. Anyways, let’s talk about this game.

Let’s talk about the offense, because this is where the root of all of our problems come from. It is very easy to look at Desmond Ridder’s stats and put all of the blame on him. However, even though Ridder throwing for 201 yards on 55 completion percentage is not good, he very rarely had any time to do anything with the football. A Lions defense, who had 1 total sack coming into today, had 7 sacks on Ridder and 8 QB hits. Ridder also did not hit on a majority of his throws when the pocket was clean, I’m not denying that. But if the Falcons offensive line can return to the form they had last year, this offense can be dangerous. But, the Falcons bread and butter is their running game. That’s exactly what every single soul watching that game said as they watched Arthur Smith call double the amount of passing plays as rushing plays. Bijian could never get it going. Couple that with the Falcons being down early, and we can never get the play action going and that leads us to our ultimate demise.

Enough about the offensive side of the ball. How did the defense do? Despite playing against Jared Goff, who has always been regarded as a pocket passer, this defensive line registered a big goose egg in the sack column. Our defensive backs looked lost, with the exceptions of AJ Terrell and Jesse Bates. Detroit only did it with 4 total players targeted in the air, and they just torched our zone coverage. I did not entirely hate the game our defense played. I’d say the average team would win a game like this 7/10 times.

In an afternoon full of negatives, there were a couple of positives. For example, one thing the Falcons have had problems with in the past were penalties. However, with Ford Field being at 99% capacity, the Falcons only registered 4 total penalties, totaling 24 yards. Jessie Bates caught his 3rd interception is basically the same fashion as his first 2. That’s about it for the positives. I wasn’t joking when I said a couple. It was very had to watch.

But, tomorrow is a new day. How can the Falcons go into London and take a win against the 1-2 Jaguars? The offensive line has to keep Ridder’s white jersey clean. This is the same problem we had with Matt Ryan where we have the weapons to torch defenses, but never enough time in the pocket to do anything with it. We also have to get the ground game going early, while getting Lawrence on the London soil.

All in all, today will go down as an outlier in this season. Arthur Smith should not and will not let this slide. This is a one-time occurrence and we have to play better to beat Jacksonville. That’s all I got. Hopefully, I get NFL+ to make a full breakdown of this game and post it to YouTube. But only time will tell. I hope you guys enjoyed and stay tuned for more sports content. Thanks for reading, and I’ll catch you on the other side.

Oh the Advertising Woes

I don’t think it is possible for me to grow organically. I feel like you have to be lucky with the algorithm of all the sites, an overnight social media star, or know enough influential people to talk about your business in order to make it successful organically.

I have had over one thousand sales and a total of three of those were on my own website.  The rest of these were from ebay, tcgplayer, at shows, and through my wholesale account. I know the product I’m selling is good.  It moves on third party sites and at the store where my wholesale account is.  The product I sell is in a pretty saturated market online, but I am comforted by the fact that it is successful in some locations.  Naturally I want more sales going through my website where I have way fewer fees than at shows, on other websites, or at a wholesale rate. I just need some well placed advertising and I think I will be on my way. 

I have been trying to promote myself on tiktok, instagram, and facebook. Most of my followers are friends and family. I love that they support me but I’m not reaching buyers.  

I also have a fairly decent presence on Pinterest.  I can see on my analytics that people do go to my website from there.  My first sale on my website was thanks to a pin. That only happened once in 2018. It is now 2023. 

Now I am on tumblr as yet another attempt to promote myself for free.  Truth be told, I’m also on tumblr because it is nice to get all these thoughts out of my head and onto a page. I hope it will help me think clearer and maybe give me a few customers.

I use business cards to help promote myself.  They have some basic information and a QR code to make it easy for people to access my website.  I throw a business card in every sale I make on ebay, tcgplayer, or at shows. I always keep a few in my phone case in case I bump into someone who asks if I have a website. If I am at a coffee shop or someplace that has a local bulletin board where people can put business cards I will put one of mine up. When I go to physical shows I also have my business cards available for people to grab. Some of my wonderful family and friends have received a little handful to disperse if they desire.  I think there have been a few visits to my site from all of these different approaches but no sales. 

 I would love for my business to grow organically through any of my existing channels but I don’t think that is likely. At least in the last five years of me attempting organic growth it really hasn’t happened. 

The problem is I am a little bit spooked by advertising. I hate having to give a company money to force ads in front of people. I don’t particularly like ads most of the time.  Sometimes I see a product I like and look at the website but know I’m not going to get anything. I worry that will be the mindset of most people.  “Oh look!” They’d think, “That stuff is amazing! I love that! I can’t afford luxuries right now. I could make that.” I don’t want to spend money on so many maybes.  

I’ve also worked for a few online companies that have gone down the advertising path.  I’m a little bit scared by their experiences. One company did mail out fliers.  I have no idea how much they spent, but they got two customers out of the deal.  The same company also paid to have a couple page blurb in a business magazine. That, as far as I can tell, did not drum up any business.  Another company hired a professional marketing  team.  This did result in a huge bump in business.  It also resulted in way more work while only breaking even. They were never able to profit out of it and have some regrets about how much they spent.  These stories do make me worry about the validity of marketing campaigns. I know everyone has their own advertising stories, and just because the people in my life haven’t had a very good result with advertising doesn’t mean I won’t.

 I was worried for a long time that I don’t have enough merchandise available online and was embarrassed at the idea of promoting it. After my last show, in May, I realized that I do have enough merchandise posted.  I have mailed so many orders now I am confident in my systems I have in place.  I AM ready for business.  I need to put on my boss lady kick ass pants and get my first advertising campaign rolling! Let’s aim for the beginning of October. Please hold me accountable for this statement. Stay tuned for updates!

Forefront Research: Portfolios

Since the course is coming to an end, I wanted to make sure i have an up to date portfolio, so i decided to do some research about what industry professionals or people on the forefront of my field have to say about putting together a portfolio

Make a KILLER PORTFOLIO in 2023! ( Essential guide) - YouTube

In this video, Tyler Edlin, a very successful industry professional , who has worked on projects such as Kenna Bridge of Spirits, gives Concept Artists advice on how to create a successful portfolio.

The main things that I took away from this video were that:

You have to show that you can understand what your client's needs problems are and that you can solve them. Which can be done by showing lots of thumbnails and generally showing your process.

On that note it is very important to show creative process, as it allows employers to see if the way you work is compatibel with their team.

And it is important to show that you have unique ideas in order to set yourself apart from other artists

THE PORTFOLIO THAT GOT ME HIRED as a character artist (Blizzard) - YouTube

In this video, Marc Brunet shows his old concept art portfolios and gives advice on how to create a portfolio that gives you more chances to get hired.

Some of the things I took away from the video were:

The portfolio should have 15 to 20 artworks but less than 50. It is very much a case of quality over quantity.

This is why it is also important to be objective about your artwork and take out art that brings down your portfolio's value

He also advised to have a portfolio with a similar style to the o ne of the studio you are applying. (So I should curate my portfolio depending on where I am sending rather than having one catchall portfolio)

he also touched on the question of whether you should include fanart? And ended up saying that it you should only include it if you apply an unique take to it. (this one is not as relevant in my case, as I don't have any fanart that is worth including in my portfolio at the moment, but it could be a useful thing to keep in mind for the future)

He also advises artists to be objective about their art when deciding whether to keep it or take it out of their portfolio.

Level-up Your Concept Art Portfolio in 4 Weeks. Really. - YouTube

In this video, Hardy Fowler, a professional concept artist and illustrator with years of experience, introduces a challenge/ excercise for artists to include into their portfolio and make it stand out.

The challenge basically involves creating a squad of characters in a genre of your choice, and create an assembled shot of them. A big part of the project is thinking about character archetypes and applying the 80/20 rule. I didn't know about this before, but the 80/20 rule is making 80% of a character familiar/ stereotypical, and 20% completely unique. This seems Like a great way to make your characters feel recognizable and unique at the same time. I think that this challenge seems reely worth doing and it is something I would like to do after the course to enhance my portfolio.

One of the points that pretty much everyone I watched made was that it is important to show consistency and show that yu specialize in a specific area. But then later on they would say that it is good to show adaptability and flexibility. I found this a bit contradictory and was confused. However, Marc Burnet in his video explained that indie studios prefer portfolios that show different skillsets, as you may have to work on many different things when working there, while bigger studios prefer a portfolio that shows you specialize in a certain area.

To be honest I would like to work in either, so I think the best way to go is to have an artstation that showcases my adaptability more and then make separate specialized portfolios for each of my areas of interest. So, a character design portfolio, and an environment and prop design portfolio, and I could curate each of them for whatever studio and role I am applying for.

Edited at 21st August:

This is the layout of my current artstation portfolio. (I still haven't had time to create the more specilaized ones, so this is just the more general one. I would also like to edit it a bit more and take some of the works out once I am finished with the course and have more time)

Bibliography:

Level-up Your Concept Art Portfolio in 4 Weeks. Really. (2023). YouTube. 19 March. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5fPt3VW7SY&ab_channel=HardyFowler-DigitalPaintingStudio (Accessed: 23 August 2023).

THE PORTFOLIO THAT GOT ME HIRED as a character artist (Blizzard) (2023). YouTube. 17 June. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNBGDvNqVr8&ab_channel=MarcBrunet (Accessed: 23 August 2023).

Draft 2023

Ok, I’ve always felt like I wanted people to know my opinion on certain topics, but I always felt bad when people wouldn’t read it. No I’ve decided to share it with the world, even if no one will take the time to read it.

I want to take a minute to talk about the upcoming draft. I have a lot to say about a lot of things, but I want to keep it short, so nobody gets bored halfway through. As we all know, the draft is in a few hours and although it’s so soon, everything can change.

If you don’t already know, as of now, Montreal has one pick in the first round and none in the second round, since Kent Hughes traded Florida’s 31st pick in the first round and Montreal’s 37th pick in the second round, basically meaning we will only select one player if there’s no trade coming during the draft or just before the draft.

Who would I pick?

Honestly, quite frankly, I don’t really know. I personally would choose from Fantilli, Smith, Carlsson or Benson. Whoever is available. Why not Michkov, you might ask. I have a couple of reasons I would like to share with you. And before I share them, I would like to just say that I am well aware that the draft is a very controversial topic and I truly don’t intend on offending anyone.

5 Reasons I Wouldn’t Choose Michkov

(In no particular order)

1. Mentality - while talent is for sure very important, I find mentality very important too. There has been a couple of sources stating that they are worried about Michkov’s attitude and ego. A lot of people were saying that the rumors are going around only because he’s Russian, but I honestly feel like it wouldn’t do good for the team.

2. Contract - if you don’t know, Michkov signed a contract in the KHL for a couple more years and with the rules being the way they are, he has to finish playing there first. He did say he wants to play in the NHL. No one knows what will happen after he finishes in the Kontinental Hockey League.

3. Politics - while I’m very much against bringing political issues up in sports in general, as I feel like it’s not important in this field, I feel the need to mention it with Michkov. The Russian political system might be another problem for Michkov’s future in the NHL.

4. Trade - if Michkov is available for the 5th overall pick, I would trade it to a team that is truly interested. Washington Capitals or maybe Philadelphia Flyers, who knows. I leave this one for Kent to solve.

5. Talent - while there’s no doubt about Michkov being talented, I think this draft class as a whole is going to play a huge part in teams’ future rosters. I wouldn’t take the risk with Michkov when there are other very promising players available. We might even get something else if we trade the 5th pick.

All in all, I would take the other players first and leave Michkov to a team that will truly appreciate him. I know I cannot change anything about this draft and I hope that Kent Hughes will choose the right player. I hope you all enjoy the evening and I hope the draft goes the way you want it. Thank you for reading this, Nico

Pacific Rim: Chris and Daisy

I wanted to re-draw some old OCs I never finished, so here you have Chris and Daisy from Pacific Rim! It's been forever damn, 2013 seems like a lifetime ago... I'm so happy that I finally get to draw my OCs actually looking like how I always wanted them to after all these years! How far we've come!

Jesus this took me forever to write, idk why but suddenly I forgot how to word, so this is pretty bad but I just had to force this out of myself so I could work on other stuff.

I also got myself emotional about Chuck which is a whole other rabbit hole.

Anyways, here you have it!

Jaegerling Project:

Jaegerlings are built and work like Jaegers, except they’re about half the size and can be piloted by 1 Pilot alone. They weren’t made for fighting the Kaiju, instead they were individually developed for cleaning up dead Kaiju, city rubble, and help with the rebuilding works. The project was short lived as the PPDC decided it was more worth it to focus their resources on building more Jaegers, so very few Jaegerlings were actually built and much less survived.

Most notable Jaegerlings:

   -          PaciFist: Built to help move Kaiju carcasses and destroyed Jaegers

   -          Criminality: Built to clean up city rubble and help with rebuilding.

Name: Christine „Chris” Smith (Kovács Krisztina) Born: 1999. May 1st (Taurus) Age: 26 (Operation Pitfall) Gender: Female Rank: -          PPDC Ranger (Formerly) -          J-Tech Officer

Jaegers: -          PaciFist (Former Pilot) -          Pacific-R.I.M. (Former Pilot) (Pacific-Robust Integrated Mechanism) -          Striker Eureka (Head Mechanic)

History:

1999. May 1st: Chris was born in Hungary. Her Mother left when she was young and she was left with her Father. She had a natural talent for machines since she was young and essentially grew up in her Father’s mechanic shop.

2013: When the Kaiju attacked her Father was always vocally thankful it’s happening as far from them as possible, and for a time she agreed. However when the attacks didn’t stop she began to feel helpless and angry that they aren’t doing a good enough job of stopping them. She had the insatible urge to DO something.

2014: When the first Jaegers were born she immeadetly knew THAT’S where she had to be. However her father was heavily against her doing anything near the Jaeger Program, specially how it was still in baby shoes. So she decided to run away to join the Jaeger Program for the greater good. She took on a whole new persona, going as far as pretending to be a boy, to avoid her Father tracking her down and to avoid him finding out if anything happened to her. She made friends with a military doctor who helped her fake her gender all the way through the Academy. She was a promising pilot but her personality didn’t match up with anyone and they failed to find her a pilot for the longest time. She was closed off and distant with nearly everyone, mainly in fear of being found out, but otherwise got along moderalty with generally everyone. Until she met Daisy at the Academy, who got under her skin right away, she had an immediate distaste towards her and they kept butting heads and getting into bigger and bigger conflicts. It also frustrated her how easily Daisy got her flustered which she didn’t dare to think too deeply about. When they were proved to be potentially drift compatible Chris was conflicted, she didn’t want to drift with Daisy of all people, but she wanted to be a pilot more than anything, in the end she decided this is the risk she has to take.

During their test drift Daisy found out Chris is actually a girl faking her identity at the Academy and in a moment of shock she accidentally outed her. Chris outraged and out for vengence did some digging around and found out Daisy’s parent’s donation to the PPDC, and as a result they’re both looking to get kicked out from the PPDC. However thanks to their potential and great scores, they both get an offer from the PPDC, they’re dismissed from the normal Jaeger Program, but they could become the first test pilots of the Jaegerling Project. Chris immeadetly volunteers, unaware Daisy will be involved as well.

2016:  After „graduating” Chris gets assigned to the Jaegerling called PaciFist and spends the following years moving Kaiju carcasses and destroyed Jaegers after the battles. She’s content with her job, not what she had in mind but she can still prove herself useful, while still studying Jaeger ont he side.

2017: Until one day there’s a Kaiju attack that couldn’t have been intercepted by a Jaeger in time. Chris was stationed in a nearby Shatterdome with her Jaegerling, while Daisy was working out in the city helping to re-build with R.I.M. and they decided to risk their lives holding back the Kaiju now called Ryujin until the Jaeger arrives. Both R.I.M. and PaciFist were very badly damaged in the battle but the Jaeger arrived in time saving Daisy and Chris’s lives as well. The Kaiju’s body was never recovered but they assumed it died. Both Daisy and Chris gets an unspecificed time recovery leave, their Jaegerlings dismantled, waiting for further orders.

2018 : They’re summoned by Marshal Stacker Pentecost. He offers them a brand new Jaeger to co-pilot, built from the remaining parts of both PaciFist and R.I.M., called Pacific-R.I.M. Chris is relucant to accept the offer, both at the fact that they nearly died last time, and the fact that she’d have to pilot with Daisy. However after some unvoncing and apologising from Daisy she accepts and decides to give their teamwork a chance. After long hard work they becom an unstoppable team, their drift compatibility one of the best. Chris’s flusteredness towards Daisy returns as the other girl begind to flirt with her as the time passes. Soon she realises she likes the other girl as well and they begin dating.

They piloted Pacific-R.I.M. together for 3 years.

2021: They did a couple of double drops with Striker Eureka, who they proved to be a good team with. Chris had a bit of a friendly rivarly going with Chuck whenever they met in person. One day while they were stationed at the same Shatterdome, Ryujin re-emerged. Pacific-R.I.M. got deployed first and almost killed the Kaiju, but the tide turned on them and Pacific-RI.M. got badly damaged. Chris got hurt badly, and her side of the Jaeger short circuited. Daisy ejected the hurt Chris out of an escape pod and stayed to hold back Ryujin herself. Striker Eureka joined the battle soon and finished off Ryujin but Pacific-R.I.M. was beyond saving this time. They recovered Daisy, barely alive and in critical condition. She lost her left leg from the knee down and her nervous system suffered heavy damage too. Chris stayed by her side for months, but the guilt was killing her and she decided she can’t watch Daisy waste away anymore, so she left.

She went back home to her Father, who welcomed her with open arms. It turned out even if at first he was panicked and outraged she left, in the present he’s proud of her, how far she has come and how much she has done. This gave her enough will to get her fighting spirit back again. She knew she could never pilot another Jaeger again, not without Daisy, so she threw herself into J-Tech and became a mechanic. At the least she could help by fixing and upgrading the Jaegers between battles.

2023: She became the head of Striker Eureka’s mechanic team, where she met Chuck and Herc again. A few years ago she would have given anything to get to work on Striker but now she would give anything to get „a few years ago” back. Chuck became an annoying brat since last time she saw him and she was more than ready to deck him. Which she did sometimes when they decided to take out their problems in sparring sessions. They butted hands on working Striker as well since Chuck preffered to work on her as well while Chris believed it was a job for the mechanics only. Through all this they grew really close and started to help eachother out with their problems. It wasn’t a good solution to either of their issues but it was something. In the end they became basically „more than best friends with benefits”, neither of them ever admitted they „dated” but Chris loved him regardless. They drifted eactly once in a simulator and they were so in sync it was considered pairing them up for a Jaeger which Chris refused in Daisy’s memory.

2025: She got re-located to the Hong Kong Shatterdome along with Striker’s whole crew. There she was re-united with Daisy, which she didn’t take well. All the guilt that’s been the back of her mind all this time came crashing back as the old wounds re-opened. Chuck convinced to go talk with Daisy, meanwhile she convinced Chuck to talk with Raleigh. She apologised and confessed all her guilt to Daisy, who after a small fight forgave her, because she wasn’t sure what she would have done in her place either. After Chuck died she was heartbroken, they stayed with Daisy and they helped eachother heal. Soon it turned out she got accidentally pregnant, Daisy stayed by her side the whole time and after she gave birth they officially got back together.

Personality: Chris had been an emotional person all her life, she thinks with her heart first and foremost. However because of this she has a tendency to have emotional outbursts if she’s put under lots of stress as the logical side of her brain struggles against her emotions. Because of this she developed a level of anger issues she tries to get better from. She usually tries to hold back all her emotions and put up a cold and distant front. Because of this she became a grumpy and cynical person for a long time. However under all this, she craves emotional intimacy and familiarity. She’s also a rather serious person, who tries to follow the rules the best she can. As long as she agrees with them. As soon as she runs into a rule that requires her to go against her own morals she yeets out the rulebook the window.

Name: Daisy Grande Born: 1997. August 20th (Leo) Age: 28 (Operation Pitfall) Gender: Female Rank: -          PPDC Ranger (Formerly) -          K-Science Officer

Jaegers: -          Criminality (Former Pilot) -          Pacific-Rim (Former Pilot) -          K-Science (Biology Research)

History:

1997. August 20th: Daisy was born into a very rich family, in France. Her parents were big investors in science development. She had a strong natural charisma ever since she was little, popular, confident, always the center of the attention, a natural leader. Like her parents she always wanted to make a difference in the world growning up and she developed a knack for biology along the way.

2013 : When the Kaiju attacked and the PPDC was founded she immediately wanted to join the Jaeger Academy, and her parents figured where else would she be the safest in the world than with the PPDC? So they quietly donated a huge amount of money to the PPDC to accept her to the Academy BUT keep her out of any actually dangerous service.

2014: She joined the Academy amongst the first people. Like anywhere else she was popular at the Academy amongst the other cadets and with her officers, however when she met Chris, who really didn’t like her, she was amused by him, so she kept teasing him and trying to get a rise out of him whenever she could. Their constant conflicts revealed them to be promisingly drift compatible, which Daisy found even more amusing. During their test drift she found out Chris is actually a girl faking her identity at the Academy and in a moment of shock she accidentally outs her. What she didn’t expect was that in revenge Chris did some digging around and found out her parent’s donation to the PPDC, and as a result they’re both looking to get kicked out from the PPDC. Daisy was outraged by her parents going behind her back, everything she thought she achieved by herself for once had been a lie. Almost everything. They both get an offer from the PPDC, they’re dismissed from the normal Jaeger Program, but they could become the first test pilots of the Jaegerling Project. Daisy accepts the offer, more than eager to prove herself. Little does she know Chris also joined the Project until they’re forced to work side by side.

2016:  After „graduating” Daisy gets assigned to the Jaegerling Criminality. For the following year she cleans up and helps rebuild destroyed cities.

2017: Until one day there’s a Kaiju attack that couldn’t have been intercepted by a Jaeger in time. Chris was stationed in a nearby Shatterdome with her Jaegerling, while Daisy was working out in the city helping to re-build with Criminality and they decided to risk their lives holding back the Kaiju now called Ryujin until the Jaeger arrives. Both Criminality and PaciFist were very badly damaged in the battle but the Jaeger arrived in time saving Daisy and Chris’s lives as well. The Kaiju’s body was never recovered but they assumed it died. Both Daisy and Chris gets an unspecificed time recovery leave, their Jaegerlings dismantled, waiting for further orders.

2018 : They’re summoned by Marshal Stacker Pentecost. He offers them a brand new Jaeger to co-pilot, built from the remaining parts of both PaciFist and Criminality, called Pacific-R.I.M. Daisy, excatic at the chance to become official PPDC Rangers accepts, and convinces Chris to accept too. After long hard work they becom an unstoppable team, their drift compatibility one of the best. As they grew closer Daisy started to develop feelings for Chris. At first she was in mild gay panic but she quickly came around to embrace her feelings and started to playfully flirt with the other girl. Soon they began dating.

They piloted Pacific-R.I.M. together for 3 years.

2021: They did a couple of double drops with Striker Eureka, who they proved to be a good team with. One day while they were stationed at the same Shatterdome, Ryujin re-emerged. Pacific-R.I.M. got deployed first and almost killed the Kaiju, but the tide turned on them and Pacific-RI.M. got badly damaged. Daisy ejected the hurt Chris out of an escape pod and stayed to hold back Ryujin herself. Striker Eureka joined the battle soon and finished off Ryujin but Pacific-R.I.M. was beyond saving this time. They recovered Daisy, barely alive and in critical condition. She lost her left leg from the knee down and her nervous system suffered heavy damage too. She was in coma for 2 years.

2023: She woke u pin to find Chris had left the PPDC, and her, and she was told she could probably never drive a car again, let alone pilot a Jaeger. Her nervous system damage requires constant medication. She felt beyond despaired and betrayed and refused to leave her bed her weeks. Her parents visited her a couple of times but their pity „I told you so” attitude only made her angry. Her old fire of proving them wrong came back and decided to prove them wrong once again. She threw herself into K-Science, mostly to find a way to fix her nervous system, but also to understand Kaijus better. Soon enough she was trading messeges with Newton Geiszler and occasionally working together with him.

2025: She moved to the Hong Kong shatterdome with the other scientists where she was re-united with Chris. She was still bitter Chris just left her like that, but she understood, and deep down still held her old love for her. However seeing her with Chuck Hansen (she found the fact that she was dating Chuck of all people super amusing) now she decided to just stay friendly, there was no need making things more miserable before the end of the world. Chris did apologise to her and they had a long talk about their old and current relationship. After Chuck sacrificed himself in Operation Pitfall, she stayed by Chris’s side, supporting eachother as they grew close again. After Chris gave birth they got back together and raised the kid together.

Personality: Daisy has a strong reasonable and charismatic personality and a logical mind. She easily gets along with nearly everyone and understands others’ motives even if she doesn’t like them or agrees with them. She’s stubborn and tougher than most people would give her credit for. Because her parents always gave her everything she ever needed she has a strong urge to prove herself, to prove she really does worth as much as she thinks she does. She also has a sassy and kinda charming humor, that tends to annoy more serious minded people. Because despite her reasonable leader-like personality she is actually an easy going almost trouble making person. Actually she is a trouble maker. Rules were never her forte as she never really had to hear „no” in her life that often, this is both her greatest weakness and greatest advantage. She always keeps pushing on if she’s told no. This could either lead to a scientific discovery, or a harsh dressing down by her superiors. But most of all, behind all this, she’s a really kind and forgiving person, but she doesn’t give her care just to anyone.

Well that turned out to be long...

Art by @mexcraziness

Chris and Daisy belong to @mexcraziness

Pacific Rim belongs to  Guillermo del Toro

Goodreads interview with Seanan McGuire

Author Seanan McGuire is the busiest person you know, even if you don't know her yet. She's that busy. McGuire has 33 novel-length works currently listed on her bibliography page, and that's not counting her pseudonymous acquaintance, Mira Grant. Scroll down and you'll find short fiction, essays, comics, nonfiction, and poetry. The crazy part? She didn't turn to full-time writing until about three years ago. Along the way, McGuire has won several marquee book prizes, including Hugo and Nebula awards for speculative fiction. Her series of fantasy novellas Wayward Children was recently picked up by the TV network Syfy for development. McGuire's brain is clearly a restless explorer, and her ambitious new novel, Middlegame, maps out another enormous chunk of notional real estate. In the new book, a pair of separated twins named Roger and Dodger endeavor to solve a series of increasingly sinister mysteries. Why were they separated? Why are they being hunted? Why are they developing world-breaking powers? And perhaps most importantly—why did they get such ridiculous names? The brother-and-sister team find themselves squaring off against a cabal of eldritch predators who have cracked the ancient code of alchemy, the missing link between science and magic. Speaking from her home outside Seattle, McGuire talked with Goodreads contributor Glenn McDonald about the new book, the weird science of alchemy, and the curious case of the prescription typewriter… Your bibliography is really astonishing. Are you just writing all the time? Seanan McGuire: Well, I'm not writing at the moment because I'm talking to you. But yeah, I was writing right up to the point where my phone rang. That's pretty much my life, because I am a workaholic and I enjoy what I do. GR: When did you make the leap into full-time writing? SM: I made the transition around January 2016, I think. The best advice I ever received from anyone, about professional writing, was from Todd McCaffrey. He said: Don't quit your day job until you're reasonably sure you can pay your bills off of your royalties. My last job was for a nonprofit, and I was basically sick all the time because I was writing all these books and I was still working a full-time day job. My friends never saw me. Like, never. Then the ACA happened, the Affordable Care Act. I don't think people realize what a difference that made, for all of us that work in the creative fields, to be able to get affordable insurance. I kept my day job for a few years after I strictly had to, just because I was terrified of dying under a bridge. The attacks on the ACA that are happening now are terrifying. Genuinely terrifying. Especially if they take away the protection for preexisting conditions. GR: Were you into writing as a little kid? 

I was. I did not figure out that writing was an option until I was about three. I started reading before I was talking, really. Then I started getting migraines because I was trying to write, but I didn't have the physical coordination to actually write at the speed that I could think. So the doctor prescribed a typewriter. Really. My mom went to a yard sale and got me this gigantic thing. It weighed more than I did. I started writing stories. At the beginning, they were all very factual. I would write stories about going to look for my cat. A lot of my earliest work was what we would classify as fan fiction now. There were a lot of adventures with My Little Ponies. The thing about being a genius when you're a kid is that you grow out of it. I was perfectly average by the time I hit school. But there was that brief, frustrating time when I was so far ahead of where they wanted me to be that they just didn't know what to do with me. I would write until 3 a.m. on my typewriter, which sounded like gunfire. GR: There seems to be some of that experience in the new book, with the child prodigies Roger and Dodger. Their relationship is fascinating; it's a sibling thing but also this deeper connection that suggests they're resonating on the cosmic level. SM: I love that this is my best-reviewed book so far and it's about characters with intentionally terrible names. It's a delight to have people have to try to talk seriously about the relationship between Roger and Dodger. It's terrible, and it makes me so happy. Roger and Dodger really are soul mates because they are functionally the same person. They're one person split into two to embody the Ethos [the alchemy formulation sought after in the story]. I don't think that's a huge spoiler; that's basically the premise of the book. We know that, but they don't for a good part of the story. Locking down their relationship, a lot of that was looking at my own relationships with my siblings and the places where it's good or weird or awkward. GR: For readers who might not be familiar, what do we mean when we talk about alchemy? SM: Alchemy is sort of like magical chemistry. It's this idea that you can transform parts of the world into other parts of the world. You just have to figure out the right combination of elements. The classical example is lead into gold. But alchemists also believed that there were spirits and such that could be called upon to help with these processes. It has some of what we might call sorcerous ideas. They were trying to find the magical formulae for these things, like the panacea, which is the cure for everything. Or the alkahest, which is the universal destroyer, a fluid that could dissolve literally anything. Then there's the Philosopher's Stone, which was said to give eternal life. Harry Potter fans are probably familiar with alchemy, more than previous generations, because of the character Flamel, who was an actual and quite famous real-world alchemist. GR: Did you research the actual history of alchemy?

Yes, this was the first time I really jumped into it. I did a lot of research, and research makes me so happy. I hunted down every book I could find on alchemy; they're all downstairs in the library now. Alchemy was a real thing, even if it never worked, even if they never turned lead into gold with these processes. Really smart people spent a really long time trying hard to make these things happen. I wanted to make sure what I was trying to do would fit into at least one school of alchemical thought—and there were many, many schools of thought. Alchemy sounds a little ridiculous now, but there was a time when it was a commonly accepted belief. GR: In the book you have a great villainous force in the Alchemical Congress, who are modern practitioners of the ancient art. They reminded me of historical groups that purported to be keepers of secret knowledge, like the Masons. SM: Right, or like the Order of the Golden Dawn. I never found a specific historical analog to that in alchemy, but maybe that's because they never got it to work. My Alchemical Congress is a group of people who can actually say that alchemy works. They're able to do all kinds of ethically negotiable things. With that kind of power, you're absolutely going to have a group that locks it down so it stays in what these people consider the right hands. GR: The cover image of the book depicts a delightfully creepy magical item known as the Hand of Glory, which also has a historical basis. Do you recall when you first came across that? SM: I feel like I've always known. I don't remember where I first read about that. I studied folklore in college, and the Hand of Glory was very common in certain parts of Europe. It's amazing. Everyone was chopping hands off for a while there. GR: When did you actually start writing Middlegame? SM: Middlegame is kind of unique. I'd been thinking about it for ten years, but it took me a while to develop the technical skill to tell the story and have it make sense to people who don't live inside my head. My brother must have heard me explain this story 90 times before I even sat down to write it. At this point in my career, I have the enviable problem that, for the most part, I don't get to just sit down and decide that I'm going to write. Everything has been pre-sold. I'm working off contracts until 2023. So I know exactly what I'm going to be writing every day when I get out of bed. GR: Don't you ever just get burned out? SM: Well, I think I'm dealing with ten years of systemic burnout because I'm exhausted all the time. But if you mean: Do I ever get to the point that I can't write? Thankfully, no. I think everybody's wired differently that way. So much of my storage space is devoted to people who don't exist. There's a certain concern that if I leave them alone, those parts of my brain will go offline. GR: There are fictional lives at stake! SM: There are! You don't depend on me for your persistence of existence. If I forget about you, you'll still be fine. GR: Your series Wayward Children was just picked up for development with the Syfy channel. Is there anything you can disclose about that? SM: No, not really. For the most part, for myself and other creators, we can't disclose anything because they don't want to let us know what's happening. We have family members that are going to ask, and they don't want us to be the leaks and endanger the production, so we're frequently not told things. I've basically just sold them my canvas, because I'm a wee baby author from the perspective of Hollywood. I have no properties under my belt, I have no track record. There's not a lot of bargaining power on my side of the table. But I trust the people that are involved in this project. And even if I didn't, honestly, television changes everything. The worst show that absolutely butchers my concepts—which is not a thing I'm expecting with this team at all—but the worst show in the world is going to be seen by more people than have read the first book. So that bumps my book sales, almost guaranteed. That sounds very mercenary, I'm sure, but that's just the math of it. Jim Butcher, Charlaine Harris, even Neil Gaiman—they weren't household names until they got something on TV. My mother raised three daughters on welfare, and she lives with me. I'm basically her sole support. I worry fairly regularly about what would happen if I get hit by a bus and can't write anymore. But what happens with a successful TV show—or even a failed TV show—is that my mom lives off my royalties for the rest of her life. GR: This is a question we've been polling authors on: When you read for pleasure, do you read one book at a time or do you have several going at once? Some people say it's insane to read multiple books at the same time, but I usually have two or three going. SM: Well, I'm currently reading six. GR: Is there anything else you'd like to highlight or discuss about the new book? SM: Middlegame is currently a standalone, but there are two follow-ups I'd really like to write, so please buy Middlegame from your local bookstore so that my publisher will let me continue!

Tron Wallet

1. WHAT IS TRON? Inside their Words: �TRON is usually a blockchain-based decentralized standard protocol that aims to construct some sort of worldwide free subject material fun system with the blockchain and distributed storage technologies. � In Our Words and phrases: TRON are aiming in order to create an entertainment system that makes it possible for content creators full control of their articles. Think of a new decentralised mix of Netflix, YouTube and the App Store. minimal payments HOW DOES TRON WORK? Often the TRON venture is an extremely complex one, we will try to highlight its key functions but encourage you to go through their whitepaper and even complete even more research in the event you want to study the more technical details connected with the project. We will certainly first discuss the particular TRON token. The TRON Symbol There are in reality 3 different tokens included in the TRON job: TRONIX, TRON Power and even the TRON 20 Expression; we�re going to swiftly format all three and their uses below. TRONIX (TRX) � This is actually the token obtainable for purchase/trade in the exchanges; it is definitely instructed to access the TRON program and is as well used to sell and buy content material upon that. TRON Power (TP) � This is basically closed up TRONIX; end users volunteer to secure their very own TRX and obtain TP in return, as nicely as voting rights in addition to other privileges from the TRON ecosystem. TRON Electricity can be not tradable and would of course be a good long-term dedication. TRON Force is similar to Steem Power used on typically the Steemit platform. TRON 20 Expression � TRON twenty Token allows content builders to produce and issue their particular own tokens, similar for you to Waves and NEM. Often the Platform On its most simple, content makers will be able to number his or her content on the TRON platform and make the idea available; this could be music, films, graphics and many others. These transactions are going to be accomplished using the TRX token and without the participation of any fees. Often the TRON system will also offer incentives to articles creators to help encourage these people to place their particular written content on the system that help stimulate the TRON ecosystem. TronWatch Wallet are likewise able to host on the TRON platform when offering their unique tokens. Customers would be ready to help transfer these tokens in any other on typically the software using TRX because a passage currency. several. ARE TRON SOLVING NORMAL MARKET PROBLEMS? #1 Problem � Censorship & Centralization In many countriesm web censorship and restriction is usually rife; government intervention method users are on a regular basis not able to access certain web sites. In China, for example of this, individuals are unable to gain access to Facebook or maybe Snapchat, although the Iranian government include prevented access to the two Instagram and Telegram. TRON�s Remedy The decentralized dynamics from the project means that should be devoid of censorship or interference. #2 Problem � High Station Charges One problem experienced by content creators when trying to distribute their content is definitely the high fees or commission rate rates incurred by multimedia platforms just like the App Retail outlet and Google Have fun with. TRON�s Answer Content inventors may have sole control of their own product as nicely as direct access on their consumers and, without the particular effort of the middlemen, these fees are significantly reduced. four. WILL TYPICALLY THE TRON TOKEN EMBRACE VALUE? This is a further amazingly important point that folks typically overlook when making an investment in Cryptocurrencies � is the token price absolutely linked to the system utilization? Investing in Cryptos is not much like conventional investing � when you buy shares in a company, you are buying ownership. As this company makes increased earnings, the particular share price may increase and your investment value will rise also. Using the the vast majority regarding Cryptocurrencies, the tokens do not represent shares. Thus, is considered probable for the company for you to be profitable (i. at the the TOP DOG and employees get rich) and but the token costs may well actually fall if these people are not effectively linked for you to platform application. The SIMPLY factor determining expression cost is supply and need on exchanges. Obviously, source and demand are affected by many factors although the price just about all happens down to the combo of those two. Because regarding this, it is essential to ask yourself the following two questions: Demand : Will there be token demand for the exchanges? Provide � Will there be excessive increase hindering price ranges? Let�s 1st look at demand: What Are The Sources of Demand? Consumers will be required to maintain TRON as well in order to access the system and, on top of this, all transactions can also be completed using TRX. As more content is listed in the TRON program and even users convert to the system, the demand for typically the token will increase together with the price also needs to. This Result? The price connected with the TRON token is completely linked to the demand regarding the platform. TRON is long gone this test. What Will be The Probable Inflation Price? TRON designed a set supply of tokens (100 billion TRX) meaning a zero pumpiing rate although that doesn�t mean the fact that new tokens won�t enter the market even though. The total of 40% on the tokens were sold over the ICO, meaning 60% with the tokens will key in industry at some point and so how will they turn out to be distributed? 35% ~ TRON Foundation/Ecosystem � It was not too long ago announced that all regarding these tokens will come to be secured until Economy is shown very first 2020. 15% � Personal Offering � No more highlights provided 10% : Peiwo Huanle Technology Limited � No further details presented but CEO Justin Sun is also the originator involving Peiwo. A issue could potentially possibly be lifted here about just where these tokens have in simple fact gone. Coin Marketplace Hat currently lists TRON like having a circulating method of getting 65 billion; this might imply that all of this tokens that could your market have already performed so. Therefore, we can assume that no additional as well will be entering the market till from least January 2nd 2020 when the Foundation�s lock-in period of time expires. Sun likewise introduced on Twitter of which TRON have some sort of coin lose planned during Q1 regarding 2018, this will of course cure the moving supply and a rise in token price should be experienced as a result. TRON has passed this test out. 5. THE TRON CREW & ROADMAP The TRON Team TRON own exactly what looks to be a new very strong and well-rounded staff. As a venture overview, we shall delivering all of our opinions on the couple key gamers and we all recommend that visitors look at TRON website for even more information on the team. First of all up is definitely Founder plus CEO Mr. bieber Sun; formerly involved with Ripple while chief representative with regard to their Greater China Region, Sunshine was initially also the founder connected with Peiwo (A Chinese social websites platform with over 10m users). He or she has also 2 times already been listed since one of Forbes 25 under 30 (2015 plus 2017), showing typically the solid reputation they comes with within the enterprise world. Main Technology Officer Lucien Chen possesses a new large sum of experience of a number of first-tier internet corporations although Product Supervisor Deuce Yu has extensive experience in the gaming market, an issue that could be extremely beneficial to the particular TRON project when they reach the latter stages associated with their plan. A closing member we would love to highlight is Functioning Boss Charles Zhang; they is definitely the former co-founder plus COO of Elegance Space and also served like Secretary-General of their Chi town branch. Charles offers some sort of vault of business enterprise know-how away from crypto and possesses been invited to give lectures more than a person hundred times by Peking School, highlighting how very well respectable he / she is within just the company world. Often the TRON Roadmap Another standout aspect of the particular TRON project is their own extensive roadmap; a good comprehensive six-stage, ten calendar year approach. Most of us will highlight each period and their focus listed below. Exodus � August 2017 to help 12 , 2018 � Written content circulation platform Odyssey ~ The month of january 2019 in order to 06 2020 � Emphasis on monetary incentives plus content personal strength to encourage growth. Superior Voyage � July 2020 to July 2021 : �Personal ICO� implementation ~ content inventors will be able to be able to develop their own tokens and host their the ICO so that you can allow all of them to produce more content Apollo � August 2021 to March 2023 ~ Building the full decentralised forex trading platform for tokens Legend Journey � April 2023 in order to September 2025 ~ Building a decentralised gaming system intended for consumers to produce their own games Everlasting � Sept. 2010 2025 for you to September 2027 ~ Consumers will be able to be able to build their unique gaming systems 6. PROMOTING POINTS Relationships Operating in a market the fact that was worth $1. 8 trillion in 2016, TRON are also able for you to boast a number regarding remarkable partnerships already. Through these types of partnerships with businesses like Baofeng, Peiwo and even Obie, TRON are capable to provide themselves with over 200 thousand possible users already. As soon as this kind of is combined with this recently announced project with game. apresentando (TRON Dogs- Similar to Crypto Kitties), then the potential customer numbers are currently impressive for the software. The aspect note surrounding the TRON Dogs project can be that 2018 is often the Chinese year from the canine; this is rather little but may well help to drive subscriber base and can be an extra indicate think of. Chinese Endorsement Not too long ago, typically the parent company associated with Peiwo APP (The 1st software to host for the TRON platform) was recognized as one particular of Beijing�s high-tech enterprises of 2017. The Domestic High-tech Enterprise is a policy set by means of typically the Chinese government to encourage the quick advancement connected with high-tech establishments. There are strict standards intended for inclusion. �After being integrated, organizations will enjoy some sort of selection of concessions in technology explore and development, tax comfort and staff members policies so that you can help enterprises devote a lot more energy and ability in order to separate research and development and also to enhance their central competitiveness. � � Tron Foundation�s Channel Page. Considering China�s poor stance toward cryptocurrency, this particular news is normally somewhat amazing and is definitely a good sign for your long-term potential of this job. 7. BARRIERS TO BE ABLE TO ACCOMPLISHMENT Overambitious? There can be no denying this is an incredibly focused job; TRON themselves showcase nine distinct types of dangers involved in the task and while some sort of eight year roadmap will likely be congratulated by many, you likewise have to question likelihood of which reaching that goal without a few hiccups. 7. CURRENT TECHNIQUES TronWatch Wallet ? TRON not too long ago came under fire immediately after analysis involving their whitepaper identified a large proportion of that being copied, almost term for word, through the IPFS and Filecoin whitepaper. The particular diagram below shows just simply how much was alleged to have already been duplicated and even details the lack of references. TRON Conflict Sunrays responded to be able to this by saying the particular original Chinese version of these whitepaper featured a good quantity of references nonetheless since the particular alternate variations (English, Korean language etc) have been translated by simply volunteers, they had missed a number of important details as well because the references. Often the TRON Foundation also released some sort of statement saying: �The style of TRON is based upon it�s own system together with the realization associated with limitations, some codes of Ethreum were being used as reference, we didn�t take note related license, from now on i will note the copyright ownership and promise this wil happen again. � Whilst we are associated with course not around some sort of position to say anything at all with outright confidence, this can be something that would be anxious us. TRON have due to the fact removed all versions of the whitepaper from their particular website and have promised the release of a new new whitepaper some period soon. This is something we certainly look ahead to reading. Justin Direct sun light Sells 6th Billion TRX? TRON also came up under scrutiny recently every time a article on Reddit claimed the fact that CEO Sun had available 6 billion TRX, this specific was proven not to be able to as the case but performed develop some fear. Typically the blog post highlighted a wallet that they believed to belong to Sunshine due to help the high volume associated with TRX, as well like the wallet also becoming linked to a CryptoKitties accounts called �justinpets�. This budget in question got sold over 6 thousand TRX regarding ETH more than a three 1 week time. Even Litecoin head honcho Charlie Lee got required, phoning out Sun over this kind of on Twitter. Direct sun light will respond to the accusations on his personal Twitting accounts by stating that the wallet in question actually belongs to a new private investor and promote maker who buys and even sells TRX tokens in order to provide fluidity. He also mentioned that when it comes in order to any form of enrollment, he uses his Chinese language name of Yuchen, as opposed to Justin. Upon learning the reality, Charlie Lee would apologise and delete the twitter updates and messages accusing Sun. While often the assignment has certainly experienced many flaws, this show proved to be a poorly searched accusations as opposed for you to anything untowards upon TRON�s behalf. An case in point regarding what many in crypto refer to as FUD. 9. WHERE TO TronWatch Wallet as STORE TRON AS WELL Best places to Buy TRON Tokens In the opinion, the finest exchange to get TRON tokens from is Binance; the idea is also on a new number of smaller trades in our opinion Binance can provide the best price ranges and fluidity. Where To help Store TRON Tokens TRON is an Ethereum-based token which means it could be safely stored in any ERC-20 compatible pouches. Our favourite option will be the Ledger Offline Wallet. Our favourite option is usually MyEtherWallet which you can easily acquire from your link listed below: Download Budget HERE (MyEtherWallet) For recommendations on precisely how to download and install MyEtherWallet, check out often the video below (not produced by us). 10. THIS CRYPTOGURUS FINAL RESULT While right now there is no doubting the actual size of the TRON project, there are some sort of number of red red flags that contain developed during our own research. We do carry quite a few TRON in all of our portfolio yet this was acquired in the attempt to access the TRON platform. We hoped this might allow us to give an possibly more comprehensive review nevertheless i was powerless to access the program in the end; potentially another purple flag. We have been looking front to reading the new whitepaper when it is usually released in the wish that that can ease some of the anxieties people have round the job. If the project hits all of its goals it could become a person of the most significant with the market but, since it stands, there are usually currently just very a lot of questions around the task for us to look at a significant investment. On major of this, the job is already priced incredibly really in the marketplace � number 13 � so the benefit potential is relatively small if compared to the considerable associated risk.

Year in review: Go’s people-centered legislative accomplishments

#PHnews: Year in review: Go’s people-centered legislative accomplishments

MANILA – Despite the Covid-19 pandemic and other crises faced by the country this year, Senator Christopher “Bong” Go continues to deliver on his promise to serve Filipinos through his legislative work in the Senate, and through his initiatives to help those in need wherever they are inside and outside the Philippines.

“Ginagawa ng gobyerno ang lahat para maiahon ang ating mga kababayan mula sa hirap na ating dinaranas. Magtiwala po tayo dahil kapakanan ninyo ang inuuna naming (The government is doing its best to help our countrymen get out of the hardships they are experiencing. Trust us that we will prioritize your welfare),” Go said.

“Ako naman po, patuloy lang ang aking serbisyo sa bawat Pilipino. Wala na akong hihingin pang iba, ibinigay na po ng Diyos sa akin ang pagkakataon na manilbihan sa bayan. Kaya ibabalik ko sa inyo ang serbisyo na dapat niyong makuha mula sa gobyernong palaging nagmamalasakit sa inyo (I will continue serving every Filipino. I could not ask for more, God gave a chance to serve the nation. So, I will give the services you deserve to get from the government that cares for you),” he added.

As Go explained, the Covid-19 pandemic forced the government and the people to adapt to new ways in accomplishing things. But on top of these, numerous Filipinos have been adversely affected also by various calamities that hit the country this year.

“Marahil sinusubok ng taong ito ang ating pananampalataya at katatagan (Perhaps this year tests our faith and resilience). Now, more than ever, unity and cooperation are necessary for us to overcome these challenges. Kaya patuloy lang po dapat tayong magtulungan at magbayanihan (We should continue helping each other),” Go said.

Throughout the year, Go and his team continues to provide aid to Filipinos in crisis situations on top of and in support of what government agencies have been providing.

“As I have said numerous times, I will not limit myself to serving as a Senator only. Bilang public servant, magseserbisyo po ako sa inyo kahit saan man kayo sa mundo para tugunan ang inyong mga suliranin, pakinggan ang inyong mga hinaing, at mag-iwan ng ngiti sa oras ng inyong pagdadalamhati (As public servant, I will continue to serve you wherever you are to help solve your problems, listen to your needs, and give you inspiration),” Go reiterated.

“Kahit anumang problema ang inyong hinaharap — nasunugan, tinamaan ng lindol, apektado ng pagputok ng bulkan, nabahaan, lahat ng klaseng krisis — handa akong tumulong at maserbisyo sa inyo sa abot ng aking makakaya (Whatever problems we face – fire, earthquakes, volcano eruption, floods, all kind of crises, I’m ready to serve you as long as I can),” he added.

Legislative works

On the legislative side, Go highlighted the results of his continuing work which included improving the quality of and access to healthcare services, and addressing the challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic and resulting economic downturn.

He authored or sponsored nine out of 14 Senate bills which were passed into law in the present 18th Congress.

One of his biggest legislative accomplishments is the passage of Republic Act No. 11463, otherwise known as the ‘Malasakit Centers Act’ that he authored in the Senate. The law directs the mandatory establishment of a Malasakit Center, a one-stop shop for medical assistance, in the Philippine General Hospital in Manila City and every hospital managed and administered by the Department of Health throughout the country.

Go also principally authored and pushed for the passage of RA 11462 which postpones the barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections from May 2020 to December 2022. The postponement gave village officials more time to finish their programs and projects while saving valuable public funds.

Another priority measure he filed was RA 11466 or the ‘Salary Standardization Law 5’ which raises the salaries of all government employees, including public nurses and teachers, for 2020 to 2023. 

Following the emergency declaration in the wake of the pandemic, Go co-authored and co-sponsored RA 11469 or the ‘Bayanihan to Heal as One Act’. This allowed the Executive Department to respond to the threat of Covid-19 with greater flexibility, effectiveness, resources and haste.

To ensure it can undertake all necessary actions, Go helped see to the passage of RA 11494 or the ‘Bayanihan to Recover as One Act’ as one of the Senate bicameral conferees on the measure.

The law gives government the response fund needed so it can carry out stimulus packages and recovery plans for struggling sectors, such as micro, small, and medium enterprises, tourism, transport and agriculture sectors, in order to help them cope with the impacts of the pandemic.

As the chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Go sponsored the passage of 11 bills which increased the bed capacity or upgraded the services of the following local hospitals: Bicol Medical Center in Naga City; Bicol Women's and Children's Hospital in Pamplona, Camarines Sur; the Cagayan Valley Medical Center in Tuguegarao City; Caraga Regional Hospital in Surigao City; Las Piñas General Hospital and Satellite Trauma Center in Las Piñas City; Malita District Hospital in Malita, Davao Occidental; Quirino Memorial Medical Center in Quezon City; Siargao District Hospital in Dapa, Surigao del Norte; Maria L. Eleazar District Hospital in Tagkawayan, Quezon; Talisay District Hospital in Talisay City, Cebu; and Western Visayas Medical Center in Iloilo City.

Go also authored RA 11470 or the ‘National Academy of Sports (NAS) Act’, seeking the establishment of the NAS in New Clark City in Capas, Tarlac. The academy shall offer the student-athletes a quality education with an integrated special curriculum on sports.

He also co-authored RA 11476 which institutionalized Good Manners and Right Conduct and Values Education as core subjects in the K-12 curriculum in both public and private schools to improve the delivery of education in the years ahead.

In addition, Go co-authored or co-sponsored six other bills which were passed by both houses of Congress. These are Senate Bill No. 1318 or the ‘Organic Agriculture Act’ which promotes the practice of organic farming; SBN 1365 or the ‘Alternative Learning System Act’ which addresses the basic learning needs of out-of-school youth, adults and children in special extreme cases; and the SBN 1520 or ‘Doktor Para sa Bayan Act’ which institutionalizes a medical scholarship program for deserving and qualified medical students.

He also co-authored or co-sponsored SBN 1844 that gives the President the authority to expedite the processing and issuance of national and local licenses, permits, and certifications; SBN 1807 designating the month of October as ‘National Cooperative Month’; and SBN 1396 expediting the delivery of benefits to coconut farmers through the creation of a trust fund.

On top of these, Go continues to push for bills that would streamline functions and enhance the capabilities of government to respond to the needs of Filipinos especially amid the changing times.

Go filed SBN 1738 institutionalizing the transition of the government to e-governance, SBN 1949 establishing the Department of Overseas Filipinos, and SBN 205 establishing the Department of Disaster Resilience, among others.

“Sa pagpasok ng bagong taon, magkaisa po tayo para sa ikabubuti ng ating bansa at para maibigay sa bawat Pilipino ang mas komportableng buhay tulad ng naipangako ng ating mahal na Pangulo (As we enter new year, let’s unite for the good of our country and so that we can give to every Filipino a comfortable life as promised by our President),” Go said. (PR)

***

References:

* Philippine News Agency. "Year in review: Go’s people-centered legislative accomplishments." Philippine News Agency. https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1125955 (accessed December 30, 2020 at 05:27AM UTC+14).

* Philippine News Agency. "Year in review: Go’s people-centered legislative accomplishments." Archive Today. https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1125955 (archived).

KRIS COMMONS insists his former team-mate Fraser Forster would sign a permanent deal at Celtic “in a heartbeat”.

The ex-Hoops midfielder had a close-up view of the qualities of the towering keeper when both were at Parkhead before Southampton splashed £10million to lure the last line of defence back across the border in 2014.

However, Forster dropped to third in the pecking order last term and was delighted to sign a season-long loan with his old club in August.

The six-times capped England international has been in phenomenal form for Neil Lennon’s side – including a defiant display in the Betfred League Cup Final success this month – and there has been a clamour for the 31-year-old to remain at the club on a long-term deal.

Commons, now a media pundit after leaving the champions in 2017, believes both parties are keen on an agreement, although the player’s enormous wages will be an obvious problem plus the south coast club will be looking for a transfer fee for Forster who is under contract until June 2022.

The ex-Scotland playmaker, writing in his Daily Mail column yesterday, insisted: “It would send shock waves through Scottish football if Celtic could clinch a deal to sign Fraser Forster permanently. It would be a blockbuster signing and a huge statement of intent from the club. It should be a matter of urgency to get it done as soon as possible.

“The stumbling block isn’t necessarily the transfer fee. Celtic have shown with the likes of Odsonne Edouard and Christopher Jullien that they don’t mind spending a few quid on the right player.

“The issue has always been the fact that they just can’t match Forster’s basic wage at Southampton, which is in the region of £70,000 per week. But it’s my understanding that Celtic are hopeful of structuring a deal to make it happen.”

Commons admitted Forster would be happy to spend the rest of his career at Parkhead and would sign a long-term deal “in a heartbeat”.

The fans’ favourite showed his joy after his Hampden heroics following the 1-0 success over Steven Gerrard’s Ibrox side a couple of weekends ago with a performance that also included a dramatic penalty-kick save from Alfredo Morelos only three minutes after Jullien had hit the eventual matchwinner on the hour mark.

He beamed: “This is one of the reasons I came back to this club.”

Forster’s stand-by Craig Gordon, who will be 37 at the turn of the year, is out of contract in June and has hinted at moving on to get game-time.

Scott Bain, who started the campaign as the No.1 shotstopper before injuring a hand in the 4-3 Champions League exit against Cluj in August, recently signed an extension which will keep him at the Hoops until 2023.

  https://ift.tt/36IVmgI

What the Future Has in Store for World: Putin's Valdai Club Speech Highlights

https://www.vionafrica.cf/what-the-future-has-in-store-for-world-putins-valdai-club-speech-highlights/

What the Future Has in Store for World: Putin's Valdai Club Speech Highlights

"There is less security in the world. Instead of progress and democracy, we see radical elements, extremist groups that deny civilization itself, seek to plunge it into archaism and into chaos, into barbarism," Russian President Vladimir Putin told the 14th annual meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club on Thursday.

ФОТО: @PutinRF в итоговой пленарной сессии #valdaiclub «Мир будущего: через столкновение к гармонии». https://t.co/w1EBc9561a pic.twitter.com/yxM1OxTSzk

— Клуб «Валдай» (@ValdaiClubRu) 19 октября 2017 г.

"One may take a look at what happened in the Middle East, which some players have tried to reformat, imposing a borrowed model of development through an externally orchestrated coups d'état or even by the direct use of military force," he noted, adding that instead of teaming up with the international community some forces are trying maintain permanent chaos, apparently believing that they are capable of managing it.

Still, according to the Russian president there is an alternative to this opinionated and destructive policy, namely, the one demonstrated by Russia in Syria. He emphasized that Russia is working with all participants of the Syrian reconciliation process and is taking their interests into account.

"Russia is fighting against terrorists along with the legitimate Syrian government and other regional states, acting based on international law… And I would like to say that these actions and positive moves are not easy for us. There are many contradictions in the region. But we are patient and with this patience we are working with all participants of this [reconciliation] process very carefully, respecting their interests," Putin said.

© AP Photo/ In this Friday, Sept. 15, 2017 file photo, a Russian soldier guards as a military helicopter flies over Palmyra, Syria

North Korea Should Not Be Driven 'Into Corner'

Putin reiterated Russia's condemnation of nuclear tests carried out by the Democratic People's Republic of North Korea and called attention to the fact that Moscow continues to implement all the decisions adopted by the UN Security Council related to the North Korean problem.

At the same time he warned the international community against driving Pyongyang into a corner, emphasizing that whether one likes the country's government or not, North Korea remains a sovereign state.

"Any contradictions must be resolved in a civilized manner. Russia has always been in favor of this approach. We are firmly convinced that even the most complex 'knots,' whether the crises in Syria or Libya, on the Korean peninsula or, say, in Ukraine, must be untangled, not cut," Putin said.

When European Disintegration Process Actually Started

The fragility of peace and stability was vividly demonstrated by the political crisis in Catalonia following the October 1 referendum on independence, President Putin remarked.

"Russia's position here is known: everything that is happening is a domestic affair of Spain, and should be settled within the framework of Spanish law in accordance with democratic traditions," he said.

© RIA Novosti. Valdai Club Experts Convene in Sochi to Discuss Challenges in Global PoliticsPutin noted that actually the genie of European internal division was let out of the bottle much earlier, in the end of the 20th century, adding that Europe "had to think in advance" when disintegration processes only started to take shape on the continent.

"They knew, did they not? However, at one time they basically welcomed the disintegration of a number of states in Europe, without hiding their joy on this matter," the Russian leader noted referring to the dismemberment of the Warsaw Pact countries after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

"Why should the secession of Kosovo have been so thoughtlessly and unconditionally supported, based on the current political situation and the desire to please the elder brother from Washington, provoking similar processes in other regions of Europe and in the world?" the president asked, denouncing the double standards adopted by the US and EU toward Crimea, which unified with Russia in 2014 as a result of the democratically organized referendum.

© Sputnik/ Javier LuengoBarcelona residents wait for the Parliament to announce the results of the referendum on the independence of Catalonia

Anti-Russian Sanctions Violate Global Market Principles

The Russian president recalled that the proponents of globalization had repeatedly claimed that international economic ties would bring world players together, helping resolve the most burning political issues.

In reality politics is increasingly often interfering in economic affairs, with some actors openly promoting their commercial interests via political means, Putin said.

"Not so long ago it was said that it is impossible, counterproductive and should not be allowed. Now, those who said it are doing exactly that. Some are not even hiding that they are using political pretexts and reasons to promote their own, purely commercial, interests."

To illustrate his point Putin referred to the latest package of sanctions recently adopted by the US Congress and signed by US President Donald Trump into law, which are "obviously aiming to expel Russia from European energy markets."

He underscored that the attempts to disrupt the building of new energy routes from Russia to Europe are dealing a blow to European economic interests and its security.

"In the modern world, strategic gains cannot be made at the expense of others," he stressed.

'Brave New World': What are the Prospects of Technological Revolution?

Vladimir Putin emphasized the importance of the scientific and technological development, technological revolution and the role of robotization and artificial intelligence (AI).

"Previously, assessing the role and influence of a state one referred to the importance of the geopolitical factors, the size of the territory, the military power, and natural resources… However, today scientific and technological progress emerges as one of the most important and its significance will only increase," Putin said.

He emphasized that the harmonious future will be impossible without social responsibility, freedom, and justice, without the respect toward traditional ethical values, human's dignity.

"Otherwise instead of prosperity and opportunity for everyone, the 'brave new world' may lead to totalitarianism, a caste society, conflicts and growing contradictions," he warned.

October Revolution of 1917 Had 'Complex' Results

© AFP 2017/ KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEVTired of Fake News? Washington Post Publishes Fake History of Soviet Union"Today, I want to draw attention to the lessons of the events that happened a hundred years ago, to the Russian revolution of 1917. We see that its results were complex. We see how tightly knitted the negative (results) are with, one has to admit, the positive consequences of these events," the Russian president noted.

He emphasized that "revolution is always a consequence of a deficit in responsibility."

"Was it not possible to develop not through revolution, but via the road of evolution, without paying the price of destroying statehood and the ruthless breaking of millions of human lives but via the road of gradual, consistent moving forward?" Putin asked rhetorically.

What Happened to US Weapons-Grade Plutonium?

Speaking on the issue of Russo-American cooperation in the field of nuclear disarmament, the Russian president drew attention to the fact that had Washington demonstrated strange hesitancy and apparent negligence while fulfilling its obligations under nuclear and chemical weapons treaties.

He noted that despite Russia's calls for cooperation and its openness in the sphere of nuclear disarmament following the collapse of the USSR, the United States had demonstrated a "selfishness" that had seen Russia's national interests ignored.

The president expressed deep concerns over Washington's approach to the implementation of the agreement on weapons-grade plutonium under the Russo-American Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement (PMDA) signed in 2000.

He noted that Washington's decision to dispose of plutonium by dilution and geological burial does not guarantee the impossibility of getting back weapons-grade material," Putin emphasized, stressing that the Russian Federation has fulfilled its obligations under the US-Russian deal.

At the same time, the US still has to fulfill its vow to destroy its chemical weapons: "The country remains the sole and most powerful possessor of that type [of weapons] of mass destruction. Moreover, the US moved the deadline for the destruction of its chemical weapons from 2007 to 2023."

For a state proclaiming itself to be a champion in nonproliferation and arms control, it is inappropriate," he said, adding that Western media paid almost no attention to the fact that Russia has completely destroyed its chemical weapons a month earlier.

'No Alternative to the UN'

In the final part of his speech, the Russian president underlined the role of the United Nations, as an organization tasked to create and maintain international stability and order.

According to Putin, there is no alternative to the institution with its universal legitimacy. He stressed that the organization must remain in the center of the international system.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has been taking steps aimed at reforming the international organization. In September a US-sponsored meeting to discuss the reform of the institution was held at the United Nations.

Putin said that the organization needs reform, but stressed that they must be gradual.

"Reform is needed, perfecting the system of the United Nations is needed. But reform can only be gradual, evolutionary, and of course must be supported by the overwhelming majority of the actors of the international process, by a wide consensus," Putin explained.

Supersonic Flights Could Be a Thing Again If the Market Is Large Enough

Denver-based startup Boom is hoping airlines can fly its supersonic jets by 2023. A rendering of the aircraft is pictured here. Boom

Skift Take: We think there's probably demand for this airplane for transatlantic routes. Wouldn't it be great to fly between London and New York in fewer than three hours? But the airplane would have to make a fuel stop on longer routes, so it might be less useful from, say, Tokyo to Los Angeles or London.

— Brian Sumers

It has been more than a decade since travelers regularly crossed the Atlantic at supersonic speeds on Concorde, a marvel of 1960s engineering. Now, one entrepreneur is hoping to build a new plane that again will fly between New York and London in fewer than three hours.

He’s Blake Scholl, a software engineer by training and an aviation geek at heart. In 2014, he co-founded a company called Boom, based in Denver. As soon as 2023, he promises it will deliver a cost-effective supersonic plane that’ll fly more than 4,000 nautical miles without stopping. The company’s demonstrator — a scaled-down version of the real thing, called Baby Boom — should fly at some point next year.

Over the past three years, Scholl has met plenty of doubters. The naysayers know supersonic for commercial jets is technically viable because Concorde proved it years ago. But some wonder if Boom’s leadership is underestimating how difficult it will be to build and market a supersonic jet within six years. 

“I think all of us in the aerospace world really love the idea of supersonic,”said Richard Aboulafia, vice president for analysis at Teal Group Corp., an aerospace consultancy. “It’s just the practical realities are somewhere between painful and difficult.”

Two issues continue to come up. One is the size of the potential market: It’s not clear how many airlines would want supersonic planes, which go for $200 million each, considering their conventional jets perform just fine. Another concern could be the airplane’s engines.

“They do not have an engine, nor is there one available off the shelf,” Aboulafia said. “There might be people who have come to them with concept engines for the future, but in terms of of- the-shelf options, there’s nothing. Nada.”

But Scholl, a relentlessly positive leader who last worked at Groupon, said he’s not worried about the engine — or anything else. “We’re happy with the engine options in front of us,” he said. And he cites a report by the Boyd Group, a consulting firm, that suggests the company could sell 1,300 airplanes in 10 years.

We spoke to Scholl recently at the Boyd Group’s annual International Aviation Forecast Summit in Las Vegas to ask him why he’s so sure supersonic travel is both technically possible and will be embraced by airlines.

Note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

Skift: When will your first real airplane — not the demonstrator — fly?

Our goal is to have the first pre-production aircraft in air in 2020, entering into service in 2023. It’s not as close as we would love it to be, but it’s also not infinitely far in the future. The reason is that this is an engineering project, not a science project. All the key technology for the airplane already exists. It’s a matter of getting the development done, getting it through certification and into service.

Skift: Let’s be honest. Planes are often delayed. Will you make 2020 for the first flight?

Scholl: I think one thing that’s important to keep in mind here is Boeing and Airbus both have lots of things in the oven. Boom is only working on one thing — the supersonic renaissance. We are 100 percent focused on it. There is no new technology we have to develop to make this thing happen. That makes the schedule very viable. It’s certainly a challenging project but not an impossible one.

Skift: There’s nothing vexing you must solve?

Scholl: No. That’s the surprising thing about supersonic. Remember, Concorde was designed 50 years ago with slide rules. It has been half a century since we have had a speed-up in air transportation — since we went from props to jets. And while we have had no progress in speed, we have had tremendous progress in how you build airplanes. We have new materials, like carbon-fiber composites. We have turbofan engines that are more efficient, quieter, and more environmentally friendly. And we have new methods of doing aerodynamic development through simulation that make it possible for small teams to go accomplish what used to take tens of millions of dollars and huge teams.

If you take all those bits and pieces together — things that have been flying on other aircraft, that are already certified — you can build a second-generation supersonic transport that is enough more efficient compared to Concorde that the economics work. You don’t need any science projects for that. You don’t need some new kind of engine or some crazy kind of wing. This is all stuff that has been done before.

Skift: When will the demonstrator fly?

Scholl: End of next year. We are making great progress on it. We just completed our second round of wind tunnel testing. It came out with a clean bill of health. We are getting the thing built and putting it together.

Skift: What about funding? Do you have enough to see you through?

Scholl: Funding I am very happy to say is not the problem. We have publicly raised $41 million for the company. That’s not enough to go build a production-certified airliner, of course, but it is enough to get the demonstrator flying. The way you go finance a startup venture is you go raise money, you accomplish milestones, and you go raise money and you accomplish more milestones. Ultimately, this is going to be a capital-intensive project but if you look at the capital requirements, it’s all obtainable amounts of money.

Skift: Is there a launch customer?

Scholl: The global launch customer is Virgin Atlantic.

Skift: Richard Branson is a major backer of yours. But in July, he said he was selling a major part of his stake in Virgin Atlantic to Air France-KLM, though he’ll remain chairman. Does this affect your deal with the airline?

Scholl: No. We have a great relationship with Virgin at many levels. Richard has been instrumental in making that happen, but the teams at the various Virgin airlines are very excited about supersonic. Richard’s role is evolving but it’s not going to zero, and the interest is still there at every level of the organization.

Skift: You’re very well educated, but you’re not an aerospace engineer. How’d this become your business?

Scholl: I’m a software engineer by training, and an airplane guy by passion. Something I believe very deeply is if you have a good sense of what clarity feels like, and you’ve got a lot of drive, you can go off and learn things pretty quickly. I have been fortunate at Boom to surround myself with some incredible people who live and breathe airplanes. The roster of folks we have been able to assemble to tackle a challenging but possible mission is really quite exciting. It makes this thing that may sound intractable actually possible.

Skift: Is there a list price for this airplane?

Scholl: There’s a list price and an actual price and they’re the same number. This is unorthodox. But when you go build a differentiated product, you get to rewrite some of the rules. And the silliness, where it’s like ‘guess the price,’ doesn’t need to exist. The airplane costs $200 million. Full stop.

[Editor’s note: Big manufacturers like Boeing and Airbus post “list prices” for airplanes, but just about every carrier gets major discounts, often at least 50 percent or more.]

Skift: What about operating costs?

Scholl: It’s about 75 percent less expensive to operate than Concorde. Part of that is improved fuel efficiency. Part of that is getting a form factor that will work at much higher rates of utilization and therefore reduce the capital costs per flight. That’s actually really huge. That facilitates ticket prices that are profitable at just a quarter of the cost of flying Concorde.

A roundtrip ticket on a Boom flight to London will be profitable for the airline at $5,000. That’s about what you pay in business class subsonic today. That’s what makes this such a compelling proposition. From a passenger perspective, you can pay what you’re paying today and get there in half the time. Who would not want to do that?

Airlines make the lion’s share of their revenue and margin in premium class and the cost structure of this supports maintaining those margins or possibly even extending them.

Boom Supersonic CEO Blake Scholl speaks at a press conference in June at the Paris Air Show.

Skift: At the Paris Air Show in June, you said five customers have ordered 76 airplanes. You only named Virgin Atlantic. The other airlines were top secret. Can you tell us more?

Scholl: We are going to hold some separate events in the coming months to speak very specifically about who those customers are and how they see supersonic fitting into their fleets. So I can’t name them aside from Virgin.

But this is a global product. When we talk about who these customers are, you’re going to see great diversity in geography.

Skift: How far can your airplane fly?

Scholl: The maximum range of the aircraft is 4,500 nautical miles, or just over 5,000 statute. Transatlantic routes are absolutely no problem. It’s got longer legs than Concorde.

Transpacific is interesting because basically the rebirth of supersonic is going to look a lot like the birth of the jet back in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Across the Pacific, you’ll fly with a tech [or fuel] stop, and you still save half the time. The same thing happened with props to jets. In the first generation, you lost a little bit of legs but you gained so much speed that no one cared.

Skift: How long will New York to London take?

Scholl: Three hours and 15 minutes, gate-to-gate.

Skift: And in the air? 

Scholl: A little bit less than three. It’s a bit faster than Concorde. We’re cruising 10 percent faster than Concorde. It’s Mach 2.2 or 1451 mph.

Skift: For Asia to North America, are you sure everything will require a tech stop, including shorter routes like Seattle-Tokyo?

Scholl: That’s right at the limit of what you can do nonstop. Most of the routes — for example L.A. to Sydney — you actually do a tech stop. That one, for example, is 6 hours, 45 minutes, including the tech stop. If you’re doing San Francisco to Shanghai, you stop in Anchorage.

People think of stops as this miserable thing. You go to the gate. You get off the airplane. You have to change planes. You might miss your connection. That’s awful. Nobody wants that. A supersonic fuel stop is much different. You land. The fuel truck comes over. You don’t get out of your seat. You gas up the tanks, you taxi to the other end of the runway, and you’re back up in the air. It’s a very streamlined experience.

Skift: Could you do New York-L.A?

Scholl: It all comes down to the politics of it. In the early 1970s, the FAA imposed this speed limit over land in the U.S. This is the No. 1 reason why this hasn’t happened already. We took high-speed travel over the Continental U.S. off the table, basically to block Concorde. Concorde was that evil European thing and we didn’t have anything American to compete with it.

The Boom aircraft flies Mach 2.2 over water. And over land, we’ll fly high subsonic. We’ll be about 15 percent faster at Mach .95 over land than traditional jets, with that speed limit in place. And so is that useful transcon? Is 15 percent enough to generate a big market? I wouldn’t be surprised if we found a couple flights there. But it’s not going to be transformative until you can do high speed over land.

We’re working to make that happen. It’s much more about the politics than the technology or the noise. People talk about sonic booms like they are these things that kill babies. The reality is there are a whole lot of other background noises you put up with that are far louder than a sonic boom. We’re working on getting those rules changed. We are not counting on it, but it would be great.

Skift: Is there demand for speed anywhere but the world’s most dense and wealthiest cities, such as New York, London, and Tokyo?

Scholl: There’s about 500 routes on the planet that have enough traffic today to support regular supersonic service. That’s about the form factor of the aircraft and that’s about the economics. Concorde with 100 seats and ticket prices that were four times subsonic worked on one route. It could not make money anywhere but New York to London. But if you get the operating costs down by 75 percent on a per seat basis, and then even more on a per trip basis, because the vehicle is smaller, it can work on a whole bunch of routes.

It’s not just New York to London. It’s Seattle to Shanghai, and L.A. to Sydney. Tokyo to Perth. There are plenty of routes where you have enough overwater time that you get a big speed up for passengers and enough travel volume that you can get a great load factor.

Skift: For the business class passengers Boom wants to attract, even a 15-hour long-haul flight like Los Angles-Sydney isn’t so bad. You have drinks, and dinner, then watch a couple of movies and then sleep for nine hours. You arrive in the morning. Is it so much better to fly seven hours but stop in Tahiti?

Scholl: History says when the faster flights come online, nobody flies the slower ones. The faster flight is just better.

Skift: Will airlines have to charge more for flights operated by your planes?

Scholl: They’ll be at parity with business class. Your choice will be: Do you want to spend 16 hours in a flatbed seat or do you want to speed six or seven hours and truly go to sleep and wake up in the other city?

We’re not talking Concorde. The premium for flying Concorde was 4x. We’re talking no premium for speed.

Boom expects its cabin will be comfortable, if not spacious.

Skift: How do you expect airlines will configure your airplanes?

Scholl: There are two cabin options. There is business class and first class.

Business class supersonic is a nice wide seat, with a big 24-inch screen in front of you, plenty of space, and it reclines but not fully lay-flat. That’s perfect for the transatlantic flights. Think New York to London — 3 hours and 15 minutes. You don’t need the flatbed seat. By the time you put it down, it’s time to put it back up. You are able to get better operating economics with the increased density.

Across the Pacific, we see a lot of interest in a two-class cabin, or on some of the longest segments, there is interest in just doing a full first class cabin.

If you do full first class, it’s about 32 seats, and those are all lay-flat. You can do mix [of business and first] that’s in the 40s, or you do an all-business at 55.

Skift: How firm are your orders?

Scholl: The way this works is airlines place pre-orders now. There’s real cash money against that. It’s not just a [letter of intent]. After we fly the demonstrator, we are going to firm up things like performance guarantees on the aircraft. At that point, all the orders become firm.

Skift: Airline people tend to be risk averse. Is it hard to sell to them?

Scholl: The first one was a challenge, but you get momentum. The reason people get excited is just basic fundamentals. If you’re an airline person today, your life is hard. It’s a tough business because you’re flying basically the same airplanes from the same airports with basically the same cabin [as your competitors]. That’s why in economy there’s all this brutal cost competition — how low can you get the price? And in premium class, it’s like, ‘Fly my airline. I’ve got the best wine.’ It’s weak differentiation. That’s why we have all these loyalty programs.

The basic value we offer to airlines is, ‘Hey, do you want to offer something that’s really different?’ Would passengers switch airlines to get there in half the time? Would they walk away from their frequent flyer miles for that? The answer is in many cases yes. And that gives an airline a really interesting competitive weapon.

Supersonic Flights Could Be a Thing Again If the Market Is Large Enough

Denver-based startup Boom is hoping airlines can fly its supersonic jets by 2023. A rendering of the aircraft is pictured here. Boom

Skift Take: We think there's probably demand for this airplane for transatlantic routes. Wouldn't it be great to fly between London and New York in fewer than three hours? But the airplane would have to make a fuel stop on longer routes, so it might be less useful from, say, Tokyo to Los Angeles or London.

— Brian Sumers

It has been more than a decade since travelers regularly crossed the Atlantic at supersonic speeds on Concorde, a marvel of 1960s engineering. Now, one entrepreneur is hoping to build a new plane that again will fly between New York and London in fewer than three hours.

He’s Blake Scholl, a software engineer by training and an aviation geek at heart. In 2014, he co-founded a company called Boom, based in Denver. As soon as 2023, he promises it will deliver a cost-effective supersonic plane that’ll fly more than 4,000 nautical miles without stopping. The company’s demonstrator — a scaled-down version of the real thing, called Baby Boom — should fly at some point next year.

Over the past three years, Scholl has met plenty of doubters. The naysayers know supersonic for commercial jets is technically viable because Concorde proved it years ago. But some wonder if Boom’s leadership is underestimating how difficult it will be to build and market a supersonic jet within six years. 

“I think all of us in the aerospace world really love the idea of supersonic,”said Richard Aboulafia, vice president for analysis at Teal Group Corp., an aerospace consultancy. “It’s just the practical realities are somewhere between painful and difficult.”

Two issues continue to come up. One is the size of the potential market: It’s not clear how many airlines would want supersonic planes, which go for $200 million each, considering their conventional jets perform just fine. Another concern could be the airplane’s engines.

“They do not have an engine, nor is there one available off the shelf,” Aboulafia said. “There might be people who have come to them with concept engines for the future, but in terms of of- the-shelf options, there’s nothing. Nada.”

But Scholl, a relentlessly positive leader who last worked at Groupon, said he’s not worried about the engine — or anything else. “We’re happy with the engine options in front of us,” he said. And he cites a report by the Boyd Group, a consulting firm, that suggests the company could sell 1,300 airplanes in 10 years.

We spoke to Scholl recently at the Boyd Group’s annual International Aviation Forecast Summit in Las Vegas to ask him why he’s so sure supersonic travel is both technically possible and will be embraced by airlines.

Note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

Skift: When will your first real airplane — not the demonstrator — fly?

Our goal is to have the first pre-production aircraft in air in 2020, entering into service in 2023. It’s not as close as we would love it to be, but it’s also not infinitely far in the future. The reason is that this is an engineering project, not a science project. All the key technology for the airplane already exists. It’s a matter of getting the development done, getting it through certification and into service.

Skift: Let’s be honest. Planes are often delayed. Will you make 2020 for the first flight?

Scholl: I think one thing that’s important to keep in mind here is Boeing and Airbus both have lots of things in the oven. Boom is only working on one thing — the supersonic renaissance. We are 100 percent focused on it. There is no new technology we have to develop to make this thing happen. That makes the schedule very viable. It’s certainly a challenging project but not an impossible one.

Skift: There’s nothing vexing you must solve?

Scholl: No. That’s the surprising thing about supersonic. Remember, Concorde was designed 50 years ago with slide rules. It has been half a century since we have had a speed-up in air transportation — since we went from props to jets. And while we have had no progress in speed, we have had tremendous progress in how you build airplanes. We have new materials, like carbon-fiber composites. We have turbofan engines that are more efficient, quieter, and more environmentally friendly. And we have new methods of doing aerodynamic development through simulation that make it possible for small teams to go accomplish what used to take tens of millions of dollars and huge teams.

If you take all those bits and pieces together — things that have been flying on other aircraft, that are already certified — you can build a second-generation supersonic transport that is enough more efficient compared to Concorde that the economics work. You don’t need any science projects for that. You don’t need some new kind of engine or some crazy kind of wing. This is all stuff that has been done before.

Skift: When will the demonstrator fly?

Scholl: End of next year. We are making great progress on it. We just completed our second round of wind tunnel testing. It came out with a clean bill of health. We are getting the thing built and putting it together.

Skift: What about funding? Do you have enough to see you through?

Scholl: Funding I am very happy to say is not the problem. We have publicly raised $41 million for the company. That’s not enough to go build a production-certified airliner, of course, but it is enough to get the demonstrator flying. The way you go finance a startup venture is you go raise money, you accomplish milestones, and you go raise money and you accomplish more milestones. Ultimately, this is going to be a capital-intensive project but if you look at the capital requirements, it’s all obtainable amounts of money.

Skift: Is there a launch customer?

Scholl: The global launch customer is Virgin Atlantic.

Skift: Richard Branson is a major backer of yours. But in July, he said he was selling a major part of his stake in Virgin Atlantic to Air France-KLM, though he’ll remain chairman. Does this affect your deal with the airline?

Scholl: No. We have a great relationship with Virgin at many levels. Richard has been instrumental in making that happen, but the teams at the various Virgin airlines are very excited about supersonic. Richard’s role is evolving but it’s not going to zero, and the interest is still there at every level of the organization.

Skift: You’re very well educated, but you’re not an aerospace engineer. How’d this become your business?

Scholl: I’m a software engineer by training, and an airplane guy by passion. Something I believe very deeply is if you have a good sense of what clarity feels like, and you’ve got a lot of drive, you can go off and learn things pretty quickly. I have been fortunate at Boom to surround myself with some incredible people who live and breathe airplanes. The roster of folks we have been able to assemble to tackle a challenging but possible mission is really quite exciting. It makes this thing that may sound intractable actually possible.

Skift: Is there a list price for this airplane?

Scholl: There’s a list price and an actual price and they’re the same number. This is unorthodox. But when you go build a differentiated product, you get to rewrite some of the rules. And the silliness, where it’s like ‘guess the price,’ doesn’t need to exist. The airplane costs $200 million. Full stop.

[Editor’s note: Big manufacturers like Boeing and Airbus post “list prices” for airplanes, but just about every carrier gets major discounts, often at least 50 percent or more.]

Skift: What about operating costs?

Scholl: It’s about 75 percent less expensive to operate than Concorde. Part of that is improved fuel efficiency. Part of that is getting a form factor that will work at much higher rates of utilization and therefore reduce the capital costs per flight. That’s actually really huge. That facilitates ticket prices that are profitable at just a quarter of the cost of flying Concorde.

A roundtrip ticket on a Boom flight to London will be profitable for the airline at $5,000. That’s about what you pay in business class subsonic today. That’s what makes this such a compelling proposition. From a passenger perspective, you can pay what you’re paying today and get there in half the time. Who would not want to do that?

Airlines make the lion’s share of their revenue and margin in premium class and the cost structure of this supports maintaining those margins or possibly even extending them.

Boom Supersonic CEO Blake Scholl speaks at a press conference in June at the Paris Air Show.

Skift: At the Paris Air Show in June, you said five customers have ordered 76 airplanes. You only named Virgin Atlantic. The other airlines were top secret. Can you tell us more?

Scholl: We are going to hold some separate events in the coming months to speak very specifically about who those customers are and how they see supersonic fitting into their fleets. So I can’t name them aside from Virgin.

But this is a global product. When we talk about who these customers are, you’re going to see great diversity in geography.

Skift: How far can your airplane fly?

Scholl: The maximum range of the aircraft is 4,500 nautical miles, or just over 5,000 statute. Transatlantic routes are absolutely no problem. It’s got longer legs than Concorde.

Transpacific is interesting because basically the rebirth of supersonic is going to look a lot like the birth of the jet back in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Across the Pacific, you’ll fly with a tech [or fuel] stop, and you still save half the time. The same thing happened with props to jets. In the first generation, you lost a little bit of legs but you gained so much speed that no one cared.

Skift: How long will New York to London take?

Scholl: Three hours and 15 minutes, gate-to-gate.

Skift: And in the air? 

Scholl: A little bit less than three. It’s a bit faster than Concorde. We’re cruising 10 percent faster than Concorde. It’s Mach 2.2 or 1451 mph.

Skift: For Asia to North America, are you sure everything will require a tech stop, including shorter routes like Seattle-Tokyo?

Scholl: That’s right at the limit of what you can do nonstop. Most of the routes — for example L.A. to Sydney — you actually do a tech stop. That one, for example, is 6 hours, 45 minutes, including the tech stop. If you’re doing San Francisco to Shanghai, you stop in Anchorage.

People think of stops as this miserable thing. You go to the gate. You get off the airplane. You have to change planes. You might miss your connection. That’s awful. Nobody wants that. A supersonic fuel stop is much different. You land. The fuel truck comes over. You don’t get out of your seat. You gas up the tanks, you taxi to the other end of the runway, and you’re back up in the air. It’s a very streamlined experience.

Skift: Could you do New York-L.A?

Scholl: It all comes down to the politics of it. In the early 1970s, the FAA imposed this speed limit over land in the U.S. This is the No. 1 reason why this hasn’t happened already. We took high-speed travel over the Continental U.S. off the table, basically to block Concorde. Concorde was that evil European thing and we didn’t have anything American to compete with it.

The Boom aircraft flies Mach 2.2 over water. And over land, we’ll fly high subsonic. We’ll be about 15 percent faster at Mach .95 over land than traditional jets, with that speed limit in place. And so is that useful transcon? Is 15 percent enough to generate a big market? I wouldn’t be surprised if we found a couple flights there. But it’s not going to be transformative until you can do high speed over land.

We’re working to make that happen. It’s much more about the politics than the technology or the noise. People talk about sonic booms like they are these things that kill babies. The reality is there are a whole lot of other background noises you put up with that are far louder than a sonic boom. We’re working on getting those rules changed. We are not counting on it, but it would be great.

Skift: Is there demand for speed anywhere but the world’s most dense and wealthiest cities, such as New York, London, and Tokyo?

Scholl: There’s about 500 routes on the planet that have enough traffic today to support regular supersonic service. That’s about the form factor of the aircraft and that’s about the economics. Concorde with 100 seats and ticket prices that were four times subsonic worked on one route. It could not make money anywhere but New York to London. But if you get the operating costs down by 75 percent on a per seat basis, and then even more on a per trip basis, because the vehicle is smaller, it can work on a whole bunch of routes.

It’s not just New York to London. It’s Seattle to Shanghai, and L.A. to Sydney. Tokyo to Perth. There are plenty of routes where you have enough overwater time that you get a big speed up for passengers and enough travel volume that you can get a great load factor.

Skift: For the business class passengers Boom wants to attract, even a 15-hour long-haul flight like Los Angles-Sydney isn’t so bad. You have drinks, and dinner, then watch a couple of movies and then sleep for nine hours. You arrive in the morning. Is it so much better to fly seven hours but stop in Tahiti?

Scholl: History says when the faster flights come online, nobody flies the slower ones. The faster flight is just better.

Skift: Will airlines have to charge more for flights operated by your planes?

Scholl: They’ll be at parity with business class. Your choice will be: Do you want to spend 16 hours in a flatbed seat or do you want to speed six or seven hours and truly go to sleep and wake up in the other city?

We’re not talking Concorde. The premium for flying Concorde was 4x. We’re talking no premium for speed.

Boom expects its cabin will be comfortable, if not spacious.

Skift: How do you expect airlines will configure your airplanes?

Scholl: There are two cabin options. There is business class and first class.

Business class supersonic is a nice wide seat, with a big 24-inch screen in front of you, plenty of space, and it reclines but not fully lay-flat. That’s perfect for the transatlantic flights. Think New York to London — 3 hours and 15 minutes. You don’t need the flatbed seat. By the time you put it down, it’s time to put it back up. You are able to get better operating economics with the increased density.

Across the Pacific, we see a lot of interest in a two-class cabin, or on some of the longest segments, there is interest in just doing a full first class cabin.

If you do full first class, it’s about 32 seats, and those are all lay-flat. You can do mix [of business and first] that’s in the 40s, or you do an all-business at 55.

Skift: How firm are your orders?

Scholl: The way this works is airlines place pre-orders now. There’s real cash money against that. It’s not just a [letter of intent]. After we fly the demonstrator, we are going to firm up things like performance guarantees on the aircraft. At that point, all the orders become firm.

Skift: Airline people tend to be risk averse. Is it hard to sell to them?

Scholl: The first one was a challenge, but you get momentum. The reason people get excited is just basic fundamentals. If you’re an airline person today, your life is hard. It’s a tough business because you’re flying basically the same airplanes from the same airports with basically the same cabin [as your competitors]. That’s why in economy there’s all this brutal cost competition — how low can you get the price? And in premium class, it’s like, ‘Fly my airline. I’ve got the best wine.’ It’s weak differentiation. That’s why we have all these loyalty programs.

The basic value we offer to airlines is, ‘Hey, do you want to offer something that’s really different?’ Would passengers switch airlines to get there in half the time? Would they walk away from their frequent flyer miles for that? The answer is in many cases yes. And that gives an airline a really interesting competitive weapon.

What the Future Has in Store for World: Putin's Valdai Club Speech Highlights

https://www.vionafrica.cf/what-the-future-has-in-store-for-world-putins-valdai-club-speech-highlights/

What the Future Has in Store for World: Putin's Valdai Club Speech Highlights

"There is less security in the world. Instead of progress and democracy, we see radical elements, extremist groups that deny civilization itself, seek to plunge it into archaism and into chaos, into barbarism," Russian President Vladimir Putin told the 14th annual meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club on Thursday.

ФОТО: @PutinRF в итоговой пленарной сессии #valdaiclub «Мир будущего: через столкновение к гармонии». https://t.co/w1EBc9561a pic.twitter.com/yxM1OxTSzk

— Клуб «Валдай» (@ValdaiClubRu) 19 октября 2017 г.

"One may take a look at what happened in the Middle East, which some players have tried to reformat, imposing a borrowed model of development through an externally orchestrated coups d'état or even by the direct use of military force," he noted, adding that instead of teaming up with the international community some forces are trying maintain permanent chaos, apparently believing that they are capable of managing it.

Still, according to the Russian president there is an alternative to this opinionated and destructive policy, namely, the one demonstrated by Russia in Syria. He emphasized that Russia is working with all participants of the Syrian reconciliation process and is taking their interests into account.

"Russia is fighting against terrorists along with the legitimate Syrian government and other regional states, acting based on international law… And I would like to say that these actions and positive moves are not easy for us. There are many contradictions in the region. But we are patient and with this patience we are working with all participants of this [reconciliation] process very carefully, respecting their interests," Putin said.

© AP Photo/ In this Friday, Sept. 15, 2017 file photo, a Russian soldier guards as a military helicopter flies over Palmyra, Syria

North Korea Should Not Be Driven 'Into Corner'

Putin reiterated Russia's condemnation of nuclear tests carried out by the Democratic People's Republic of North Korea and called attention to the fact that Moscow continues to implement all the decisions adopted by the UN Security Council related to the North Korean problem.

At the same time he warned the international community against driving Pyongyang into a corner, emphasizing that whether one likes the country's government or not, North Korea remains a sovereign state.

"Any contradictions must be resolved in a civilized manner. Russia has always been in favor of this approach. We are firmly convinced that even the most complex 'knots,' whether the crises in Syria or Libya, on the Korean peninsula or, say, in Ukraine, must be untangled, not cut," Putin said.

When European Disintegration Process Actually Started

The fragility of peace and stability was vividly demonstrated by the political crisis in Catalonia following the October 1 referendum on independence, President Putin remarked.

"Russia's position here is known: everything that is happening is a domestic affair of Spain, and should be settled within the framework of Spanish law in accordance with democratic traditions," he said.

© RIA Novosti. Valdai Club Experts Convene in Sochi to Discuss Challenges in Global PoliticsPutin noted that actually the genie of European internal division was let out of the bottle much earlier, in the end of the 20th century, adding that Europe "had to think in advance" when disintegration processes only started to take shape on the continent.

"They knew, did they not? However, at one time they basically welcomed the disintegration of a number of states in Europe, without hiding their joy on this matter," the Russian leader noted referring to the dismemberment of the Warsaw Pact countries after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

"Why should the secession of Kosovo have been so thoughtlessly and unconditionally supported, based on the current political situation and the desire to please the elder brother from Washington, provoking similar processes in other regions of Europe and in the world?" the president asked, denouncing the double standards adopted by the US and EU toward Crimea, which unified with Russia in 2014 as a result of the democratically organized referendum.

© Sputnik/ Javier LuengoBarcelona residents wait for the Parliament to announce the results of the referendum on the independence of Catalonia

Anti-Russian Sanctions Violate Global Market Principles

The Russian president recalled that the proponents of globalization had repeatedly claimed that international economic ties would bring world players together, helping resolve the most burning political issues.

In reality politics is increasingly often interfering in economic affairs, with some actors openly promoting their commercial interests via political means, Putin said.

"Not so long ago it was said that it is impossible, counterproductive and should not be allowed. Now, those who said it are doing exactly that. Some are not even hiding that they are using political pretexts and reasons to promote their own, purely commercial, interests."

To illustrate his point Putin referred to the latest package of sanctions recently adopted by the US Congress and signed by US President Donald Trump into law, which are "obviously aiming to expel Russia from European energy markets."

He underscored that the attempts to disrupt the building of new energy routes from Russia to Europe are dealing a blow to European economic interests and its security.

"In the modern world, strategic gains cannot be made at the expense of others," he stressed.

'Brave New World': What are the Prospects of Technological Revolution?

Vladimir Putin emphasized the importance of the scientific and technological development, technological revolution and the role of robotization and artificial intelligence (AI).

"Previously, assessing the role and influence of a state one referred to the importance of the geopolitical factors, the size of the territory, the military power, and natural resources… However, today scientific and technological progress emerges as one of the most important and its significance will only increase," Putin said.

He emphasized that the harmonious future will be impossible without social responsibility, freedom, and justice, without the respect toward traditional ethical values, human's dignity.

"Otherwise instead of prosperity and opportunity for everyone, the 'brave new world' may lead to totalitarianism, a caste society, conflicts and growing contradictions," he warned.

October Revolution of 1917 Had 'Complex' Results

© AFP 2017/ KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEVTired of Fake News? Washington Post Publishes Fake History of Soviet Union"Today, I want to draw attention to the lessons of the events that happened a hundred years ago, to the Russian revolution of 1917. We see that its results were complex. We see how tightly knitted the negative (results) are with, one has to admit, the positive consequences of these events," the Russian president noted.

He emphasized that "revolution is always a consequence of a deficit in responsibility."

"Was it not possible to develop not through revolution, but via the road of evolution, without paying the price of destroying statehood and the ruthless breaking of millions of human lives but via the road of gradual, consistent moving forward?" Putin asked rhetorically.

What Happened to US Weapons-Grade Plutonium?

Speaking on the issue of Russo-American cooperation in the field of nuclear disarmament, the Russian president drew attention to the fact that had Washington demonstrated strange hesitancy and apparent negligence while fulfilling its obligations under nuclear and chemical weapons treaties.

He noted that despite Russia's calls for cooperation and its openness in the sphere of nuclear disarmament following the collapse of the USSR, the United States had demonstrated a "selfishness" that had seen Russia's national interests ignored.

The president expressed deep concerns over Washington's approach to the implementation of the agreement on weapons-grade plutonium under the Russo-American Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement (PMDA) signed in 2000.

He noted that Washington's decision to dispose of plutonium by dilution and geological burial does not guarantee the impossibility of getting back weapons-grade material," Putin emphasized, stressing that the Russian Federation has fulfilled its obligations under the US-Russian deal.

At the same time, the US still has to fulfill its vow to destroy its chemical weapons: "The country remains the sole and most powerful possessor of that type [of weapons] of mass destruction. Moreover, the US moved the deadline for the destruction of its chemical weapons from 2007 to 2023."

For a state proclaiming itself to be a champion in nonproliferation and arms control, it is inappropriate," he said, adding that Western media paid almost no attention to the fact that Russia has completely destroyed its chemical weapons a month earlier.

'No Alternative to the UN'

In the final part of his speech, the Russian president underlined the role of the United Nations, as an organization tasked to create and maintain international stability and order.

According to Putin, there is no alternative to the institution with its universal legitimacy. He stressed that the organization must remain in the center of the international system.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has been taking steps aimed at reforming the international organization. In September a US-sponsored meeting to discuss the reform of the institution was held at the United Nations.

Putin said that the organization needs reform, but stressed that they must be gradual.

"Reform is needed, perfecting the system of the United Nations is needed. But reform can only be gradual, evolutionary, and of course must be supported by the overwhelming majority of the actors of the international process, by a wide consensus," Putin explained.