#there's not really much we know about that either like. what information goddard gives their AIs or what tests are run on them. exactly | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

nellied-reviews · 4 years

Text

Super Energy Saver Mode Re-listen

Hellooooo! My Wolf 359 re-listen has hit episode 6, and guess what that means? Yup, you got it!

Super Energy Saver Mode

In which Eiffel struggles to name his top five lanthanides, Hilbert blows things up again, and the Hephaestus might be haunted?!

I'll confess, going into this episode I could not remember very much about it. The title felt familiar, I vaguely remembered that it was one of the episodes where something on the Hephaestus stops working, but other than that? Nothing. Zip. Zilch. So that was exciting.

And you know what? I can kind of see why I didn't retain much from this episode! Plot-wise Super Energy Saver Mode just doesn't do very much. There's not a complex solve or fix for the issues that come up, or a clever work-around. Instead, Minkowski and Eiffel just... figure everything out and fix it competently?

In retrospect, there is, of course, one big, plot-relevant, spoilery thing that happens. But even that is basically left unresolved by the episode’s ending, which aims to create a creepy atmosphere than anything else.

Because that is what this episode does well. Without the additional job of being plotty, Super Energy Saver Mode can just concentrate on being atmospheric. Coming into it pretty much blind, in particular, meant that I appreciated the tension baked into the episode - even once I remembered what was going on, I really enjoyed how spooky this episode felt.

As per usual, though, we don't start with the creepiness. Instead, we start with Eiffel chatting about something mundane - namely, the fact that it's the crew's 500th day in space!

It's something that I think, on any other show, wouldn't actually be all that mundane. There are a whole bunch of spacey series where I could imagine a pretty decent episode being built around the crew trying to host some sort of anniversary celebration. But here, 500 days isn't something to be celebrated. It's not a bad thing, per se. But it's not a good thing. It's just a thing, a reminder of how worn down the crew are at this point, and how many days they have left on the clock. We get the impression that this mission is more of a long, hard slog than anything else - and thus we're reminded again of how little Goddard cares about its employees' wellbeing and morale.

Eiffel and Hera are having an unofficial party, though, with just the two of them, which is sweet. In practice, of course, this just means that they're spending time chatting while Eiffel avoids work. But it's really cute, and I find the banter about top five lists and the various criteria that Hera uses to come up with them soooooo funny. I mean, Hera judges "Stick It to the Man" songs by active political regimes at the time of composition, and complexity of choral progression, which I love for reasons I can't quite pinpoint?

The sequence also shows how differently Hera and Eiffel think. Eiffel very immediately and intuitively forms an emotional connection to things like music, but can't even fathom how Hera just knows things like the 900th digit of pi, or all of the lanthanides. Hera, meanwhile, has so much more information and raw data at her metaphorical fingertips than Eiffel, but doesn't quite connect to it in the same way, and doesn’t entirely get how Eiffel does. It's not (like with the Dear Listeners) that she can't connect to music, or fundamentally doesn't get it. But she's working on a different scale, judging by different standards. And she's not embarrassed to mess with Eiffel because of it, or to talk about it with him. Really, it's a textbook example of how to hang out and be friends with somebody while still thinking and relating to the world differently - which I think is a large part of what I like about Eiffel and Hera's friendship.

Their fun little interaction gets interrupted, sadly, by Hilbert requesting extra power for his lab, which we can already tell will end badly, because come on, it's Hilbert. But what is interesting is how irritated Hera seems afterwards. I mean, she does the whole "I am not programmed to get upset" spiel, but nobody's buying it, and when she confesses that she doesn't like Hilbert's tone, there's definitely a lot of annoyance there. It reminds us, after seeing Hera's machine side, that she's still a person and still has emotions - a balance that Wolf 359 is generally pretty good at. Hera's allowed to be an AI, with the non-human worldview that that entails. But at the end of the day, she's still a character with emotional depth and nuance.

With that in mind, then, Hera admits that she doesn't like Hilbert's tone - which is totally understandable - but also that she's mostly worried that somebody's going to get hurt as a consequence of Hilbert's recklessness - which seems to be validated when the station's power cuts out and Hera goes offline mid-sentence.

Eiffel, given the circumstances, remains remarkably calm, but this does mark the point where the episode shifts genre to become what is, in effect, a haunted house story. It's set on a space ship, sure, but all of the beats from this point onwards are pretty much the beats you might expect if Eiffel were, say, spending the night alone in his late grandfather's crumbling old mansion, long rumoured to be cursed. It's paranormal horror at its finest, complete with weird voices and jump scares and a bunch of "it's probably nothing" moments.

I noticed, as well, that there was barely any music from this point onwards. There is some (shout out to the creepy little theme with the ghost-like, theremin-sounding wail and the soft bass guitar!) but it's subtle, and very much secondary to the sound effects, which suddenly get very loud. For as long as the power is off, we get all sorts of creaking, groaning and echoing - and with it a sense of just how big and empty the Hephaestus really is. Hera's constant presence and the electronic noises around the place do a lot to mask that, normally. But now we're hearing the silence, and it is eerie.

Adorably, Eiffel's first instinct is to ask himself, "What would Commander Minkowski say if she were here right now?" This leads into a huge and surprisingly detailed fake argument, of course, which is hilarious in and of itself, but there's also just something kinda sweet about how immediately Eiffel assumes that Minkowski would have a handle on things. Eiffel still complains about her a lot, at this point in the series, so the respect that this little moment betrays feels fresh and sort of unexpected.

Eiffel's not wrong to trust Minkowski, either. Once she shows up, the episode's main problem - Hera being offline - gets solved quickly and remarkably efficiently, with Eiffel doing the legwork and Minkowski giving instructions, and honestly, it's in moments like this that I remember how technically competent Minkowski is. I think I tend to remember the more military, combative bits best, with her stalking round harpoon in hand or shooting folks, so it's nice to be reminded that the Commander can also handle things like repairs just fine.

Of course, that means that the episode's main tension is never actually about the power outage. The sudden silence and the threat of life support running out add to the episode's general atmosphere, sure. But the thing we are most anxious about, as the episode plays out, isn't the ship's newly-accessed Super Energy Saver Mode. No, instead of that, we're given a new mystery, and it's a doozy: what's up with that voice Eiffel keeps hearing?

It starts almost inaudible, but in the end Eiffel hears the words loud, clear and terrifying: "You're not the first." Which, like, terrifying much? It's vague and ominous and very chilling, especially with all the distortion that's going on.

In retrospect, of course, we know that this is our first encounter with Captain Isabelle Lovelace - indeed, it's one of the very few encounters that we have with the real, non-alien-duplicate Isabelle Lovelace, for whatever that's worth. We also know that she doesn't mean any harm - she's trying to warn the crew, in fact.

Strangely, though, knowing that doesn't actually this any less effective as a ghost story. After all, what are we hearing, but the voice of a dead woman, warning the crew about an even worse monster lurking in their midst? The Hephaestus, Lovelace's recording reminds us, is indeed haunted, if not literally then at least metaphorically, by the ghosts of its former crew and the traces that they have managed to leave behind.

With or without hindsight, then, the episode is creepy, hinging ultimately on the idea that there might be something not quite airtight in Hera's programming, that there could be something hiding - or deliberately hidden - just underneath her code. In making that the focus of the story, the episode opens up the tantalising possibility that something might fundamentally be wrong with the Hephaestus and its systems. The show's very setting is destabilised and made frightening - and that's a genie that you can't just put back in the bottle once you decide that you're done telling ghost stories. Instead, the feeling that something is not quite right persists even after Hera comes back online, and still haunts the episode as it draws to a close, since we don't actually get an explanation of who Lovelace is. Instead, it remains a mystery. A spooky, weird, always-in-the-back-of-your-mind mystery.

It's a bold move, and it feels a lot like what happened with the plant monster, which is also at large at this point. I'm beginning to suspect that this is a thing we're going to see more of, too - big, obvious plot threads that are ostentatiously waved in front of us, then dropped, apparently without comment.

It's something I think these early episodes could do more easily, since the expectation that loose ends would be followed up on wasn't quite established yet. Later on in the series, everything gets more serialized, so if something like, say, an alien duplicate of Jacobi turns up and is left dangling, we can reasonably expect that it'll get addressed at a point. Earlier on? We've not got those expectations. This might just be the sort of show where weird, scary voices are brought up and then never mentioned again. It might be the sort of show that lets a plant monster loose and forgets about it for the rest of the series.

When it turns out, then, that that isn't the case, even in these early, apparently inconsequential episodes, it feels like a bonus, and we get, in hindsight, a little thrill of recognition, as we realise that no, there was a plot there the whole time. It's a satisfying feeling, at least for me, and it's 100% what's fuelling this re-listen.

So yup. Super Energy Saver Mode. An exercise in atmospheric spookiness, an enjoyable haunted house story and just generally a pleasant surprise. Solid work, really.

Miscellaneous thoughts

Eiffel is talking about an 830 day mission, if I've done my maths right - with the possibility of Command extending it! That is one long-ass time to spend in space with three other people!

I want to know Eiffel's top five Stick It to the Man songs so badly

"Ooookay. Maybe this isn't one of those wait and see things. Maybe it's one of those... imminent death things."

Wait Hilbert had to amputate multiple of Minkowski's toes???

Bless her, Hera sounds drunk when she's coming back online ^-^

#wolf 359 #wolf359 #w359 #wolf 359 relisten #super energy saver mode #nellied reviews #creepy episode this time #featuring a very familiar voice #distorted beyond all recognition #also Eiffel and Hera being cute

24 notes · View notes

flyingaltean · 5 years

Text

Thoughts on Scythe

So. Because I am a fandom trash (is that even a thing) I try to keep up with things that have fandom (obviously) and after my encounter with The Raven Cycle, I try to branch the book fandom further (my last actual book fandom was Captive Prince, as long as I can remember, and it's been, idk, 2 years?). So I read Six of Crows, as it is suggested by TRC readers. However, oddly enough, I have a hard time to keep myself reading the book. I will try to finish the book nevertheless, but I'm not sure when. In the meantime, I read Les Misérables. I was slightly guilty because 'hey I don't even finished SoC, Les Mis is way more thicker' lmao, but surprisingly I enjoy Les Mis so much. I haven't finished it yet tho, hahahaha, and I don't know why but yesterday I picked up Scythe.

Scythe was recommended by one of my friend, who is a pop-culture trash, shout out to him, and he said, quoting his Goodreads review "Damn good! Loved it!" and shelved the book under 'Favourite'. And so, my one other friend and I try to read it. First pages impression: I don't have this weighing feeling, like when I read SoC. The terms in the book is explained gradually, and it is good, because it doesn't give us that dump of information altogether. The terms are also easy enough to guess before it's explained. Honestly anyway, after a few chapters, the story begins to interest me. What I like about the overall storyline is that it gives us a room to predict what will happen next, but as it happened, the twist is like what we predicted but not really. I mean, come on, Faraday's death is too corny for a character like him, so when Citra investigates, it is either Faraday's death reveals something important or he's not dead. Voilà, he is not dead! The excerpts of the Journal in between the chapter is a good move, because it is either giving us a precaution or an after-chapter summary. Another thing that always great is the use of dramatic irony, ha! That can never fail to make the reader cringe in mixed feelings. I wrote in my "Thoughts while reading" thread on my twitter that I root for Citra and Rowan as I am to Blue and Gansey. And yes I am! Tho I agree to someone in Goodreads reviewer that they (Citra and Rowan) don't really giving us the reason why we need to root for them, except that their fate is randomly chosen to be a scythe and they stuck together. I dunno; I feel like the amount of romance is good for me? But it can be accepted as a romance because of course, of course they have to be together at the end. And I think that the no-feelings rule is more to a failed literary device (sorry Neal) rather than foreshadowing to Faraday and Curie's history. This morning I read the reviews on Goodreads, and there's this review that says how the book is so 'black and white' and that the supposed-villain character is doing anything they wanted just because they can. Well, yes, it is, but I think the setting of the book make it possible to do so? Because the world inside that book is very stable; everything is guaranteed, and thus it /is/ black and white. The only grey is the Scythedom, and there's the story develops. And 'the villain is doing bad things because they just can', yes, they just can, because in this black and white world, they are the only greys. The villain's character flaw, however, can be developed more. The attempt to sway the reader's thought to Goddard is remarkable, but Goddard's motives are not relatable enough for us, so we can't really, actually, connect to him. But, again, he belongs to a black and white world. Character wise, in my opinion Maggie Stiefvater is still on the top, but plot wise, Scythe is good too. This first book is 4/5 for me. Let's see how Thunderhead goes.

cross posted to my goodreads!

#Scythe #neal shusterman #flyingstuff #book review #Scythe Review #rowan damisch #citra terranova #scythe faraday #scythe curie #arc of a scythe

13 notes · View notes

wardoftheedgeloaves · 6 years

Text

Of Sound Laws, Shortcuts and Sloppiness

I want to expand on Tocharian Irredentism’s last post regarding the decline of historical linguistics (as it’s short, I’ll quote it here in its entirety):

I don’t know what it’s like in the hard sciences, but my impression is that, past a certain point which we may or may not have already reached, the rate of progress in historical linguistics wouldn’t change much with the addition of more manpower because you need a lot of motivation and brainpower to do it right, and to the extent that anyone with those qualities isn’t already there it’s because academia is a raw deal nowadays. Adding more people would probably just result in more ‘work’ like Blevins’s Indo-Vasconic, where many of the proposed IE etymologies are straightforwardly wrong, or premature internal classification, or ~computer-aided statistical methods~. There are only so many people who are going to bother to learn four languages or spend years doing fieldwork on Malaria Mountain, especially since you could instead bung together some computer program and golly would you look at that, Japonic must be related to Ainu and Korean!

A lot of science is sort of fake, and if you add more people who are just going to do fake science, you’re not going to get anywhere – and it’ll be harder for the people who aren’t doing fake science to find each other, keep up with the papers, and so on, since the signal-to-noise ratio will change unfavorably.

What could increase the rate of progress is improving access to information. UPSID was useful, PHOIBLE is useful, Index Diachronica could end up being useful and that was put together by random people on a forum. There’s a lot of low-hanging fruit! But how well does academia incentivize doing the infrastructure stuff? In many fields, not so much.

...............

About a year ago I had a conversation with a guy who was doing his doctorate at one of the top grad programs in the US for linguistics. He explained solemnly to me that the reason it was Important always and everywhere to transliterate Greek into the Latin alphabet was that otherwise the literature wouldn't be accessible--accessibility being the lodestar of linguistics (and other fields more broadly) in our modern age.

Never mind that many, many, many of these articles and monographs are paywalled at exorbitant prices. It's self-evident to me that transliterating Greek into the Latin alphabet in an article that costs $29 for any non-academic to look at isn't about "accessibility" at all, and that anybody who thinks it is is either blind or willfully disingenuous.

But more broadly I think the whole "accessibility" obsession is symptomatic of a broader loss of...it's not rigor and I want to make it clear that I'm not accusing the wider linguistic community of lack of rigor. It's something else. I think there's a big difference between how historical linguistics is done and how many other forms of linguistics are done, that this difference runs very deep, and that both the obsession with "accessibility" and the decline of good historical linguistics are symptomatic of. Consider the way theoretical syntax or sociolinguistics are done. You have a broad theory (minimalism, X-Bar, sociological observations about code-switching or class differences in language use), and you fit a case study into it: A Minimalist Analysis of the Syntax of Guaraní; Gender Differences in Spoken Egyptian Arabic; Class and Language Use in Brazilian Portuguese; The Morphosyntax of the Nivkh Verb (A Generative Approach). The case study is generally fairly self-contained and, although obviously references will be made to the existing literature (if you're doing a Minimalist analysis of Burmese, you'll probably be referencing a Minimalist analysis of Yoruba or Kurdish at some point), it's a case study: fit language A into theory B.

I don't say this to imply that these approaches aren't intellectually rigorous or valuable--they absolutely are! But they break down in the face of historical linguistics, where to figure out why a particular form in Celtic appears to show a lengthened grade it helps to be able to reach into the back of your head and pull out an obscure paradigm from Luwian or Tocharian, or where to explain why a particular word almost but doesn't quite fit the known sound laws you want to be able to rack your entire mind for neighboring forms looking for a dialectal borrowing or analogical reshaping. And if you can't find the form in the back of your head, you'd better have the patience to rummage through five or six dictionaries until you have a good picture of what might have happened. It is not a field that lends itself to doing anything quickly, by halves, or with corner-cutting, and it encourages, indeed almost requires, the ingestion of hundreds of individually meaningless factoids about individual words, sound changes, or morphemes--each factoid nigh-useless on its own, but enabling the historical linguist to make incisive and wide-ranging analyses by bouncing from factoid to factoid in one's mental or physical library until a slightly less murky picture emerges.

This is the fatal flaw in the fashionable attempts at macro-comparison exemplified by Blevins' attempt at Proto-Indo-European-Euskarian (a lengthy title--Indo-Vasconic works just as well, surely?) or the Automated Similarity Judgment Program. By not putting in the tedious spade-work of individual analysis at the word level the new approaches are doomed to see connections that aren't there and miss connections that are. An example from Blevins' newly published monograph on Indo-Vasconic is a proposed reconstruction *okho:

I won't comment on the Basque lemmata--I know very little about Basque. But PIE *ko- 'together, with, by' must have had a palatovelar, as Lithuanian sù (with unexpected depalatalization, but a clear etymology) and OCS съ readily attest--but PIE *ḱ goes back to *khi- in Blevins' PIV.

How about Tocharian oko? Here's Douglas Q. Adams' Dictionary of Tocharian B on the matter:

Probably cognate to "acorn", from a form *h₂ógeh₂- or thereabouts, with reshaping here and there. But under Blevins' framework PIE *g must go back to PIV *g.

Or take this entry:

But Greek τῑμή can't be from *t- anything; *t before *i *u or their glide counterparts yields σ in Greek (compare Latin tū with Greek σύ and Sanskrit tyájati with Greek σέβομαι. (Should I be writing all my Sanskrit examples in Devanāgarī? Perhaps, but there seems to be less of a tradition to do so--and there's certainly no such tradition for Tocharian). Instead τῑμή must be from the zero-grade of *kʷeh₁y-, probably with laryngeal metathesis, in the same family as τίω 'I honor'--on this Beekes and Chantraîne are in agreement. The development of the Greek consonants is hardly an obscure matter--the palatalization of the labiovelars before front vowels and sigmatization of *t before high ones are well-known.

Now it is all very well to propose "I think I'm right about these words, and the established etymologies are wrong, and here's why." But Blevins doesn't do that. τῑμή and oko indeed look like the other forms to which they are connected, but it is well-established that they are not related at all. Well-established etymologies are of course overturned from time to time. But you cannot overturn a consensus judgment without confronting it, and the consensus judgments here are not even mentioned.

And what of the Automated Similarity Judgment Program and similar attempts to do historical linguistics by bringing in Big Data, the Delphic oracle of our time? Anything a human can do, a computer can do faster; and insofar as the goal is to draw surface-level connections between similar-looking words that will fall apart upon closer inspection, these programs may be said to be successful indeed. Consider the way the ASJP codes sounds (Appendix C): all the sounds of the world's languages have to be mapped onto 41 characters. But the groupings are not made with reference to what sound changes and correspondences are actually found. For example, <i> is used for all four of /i ɪ y ʏ/ and their lengthened versions; but /y/ corresponds to /u/ in related languages far more often than it does to /i/, because /y/ derives from /u/ much more often than from /i/ (consider French, Ancient Greek, Dhegiha Siouan, Germanic umlaut, and California English). By using a simplified toy model of phonology with little reference to what actually happens, the deck is going to be stacked in bias of certain sound shifts and correspondences before the cards are even dealt. But the broader problem is that same as that seen in Indo-Vasconic above: historical linguistics does not deal in chance resemblances but in the historical derivation of lexemes and morphemes. A computer program is doomed to ring true on English bad and Persian بد (bæd), English day and Latin diēs, PIE *h₁ed- 'eat' and Mongolian идэх; it's similarly doomed to ring false on wheel and cakrá-, day and foveō, hear and ἀκούω.

Of course, you can always give it extra information, telling it to undo Grimm's Law with Germanic data, for example. But where does that extra information come from? It comes from the tedious nuts and bolts of real historical linguistics, thumbing through dictionaries, making lists of misbehaving words, for which there is no substitute and never will be.

Real historical linguistics is hard. Real historical linguistics is tedious. Long live historical linguistics, and long live historical linguists, who can't be replaced by computers--not until the computers are really reading through dictionaries and thinking about reshapings. More broadly, I think both the Indo-Vasconics and the Big Data-driven approaches are driven by the desire to make historical linguistics work more like generative syntax, the application of a theory to a well-defined, self-contained case study.

I'll leave everybody with a quote from the inimitable Ives Goddard's 1981 article Against the Evidence Claimed for Some Algonquian Dialectical Relationships (bolding mine):

The problem with Proulx's claim is that it is made without any explicit formulation of what the historical rules are that are taken to derive the attested languages from the protolanguage. But to do comparative linguistics by making reconstructions without formulating the subsequent historical developments that convert them into the attested languages is completely invalid, since the reconstructions are not ends in themselves and are only as valid as the histories that they imply. It is a widespread misunderstanding to consider the comparative method a method for reconstructing protolanguages or proving languages to be related. It is not. It is a method for doing linguistic history.

And that is the crux of the issue. To connect Basque okho to Tocharian oko, or to propose linguistic relationships based on a computer's similarity judgments among a list of forty words picked from the Swadesh list, without reference to the real historical work on the languages involved, is like asking a computer to write a history of the United States based on a random subselection of the literature while ignoring out a vast field of very important work on the subject. It wouldn't fly in history and it shouldn't fly here.

(A final word on transliteration of Greek? It's an OK norm to adopt, I suppose, if you're really concerned about accessibility. But I remain convinced that it's not really about accessibility. Rather--and this is a very unusual attitude for an academic to have--there are a lot of linguists who for some reason just don't want to learn how to read the Greek alphabet. I agree that there's a bit of Eurocentrism and arbitrariness in that e.g. we traditionally transcribe Sanskrit and Tocharian but not Greek or Cyrillic; but it is what it is. And much more often accessibility is made more or less possible not by the format of what is being written or even by paywalls but by the literature on which the subject is founded. There simply is no doing comparative Indo-European at anything approaching an academic level without knowing the Greek alphabet or indeed being able to make your way through an article in German, with a dictionary if need be. Absent a monumental effort to translate and transliterate two hundred years of literature, that won’t change.)

#linguistics

95 notes · View notes

lovehaswonangelnumbers · 5 years

Photo

New Post has been published on https://lovehaswonangelnumbers.org/c/

FCGCT Commentary: We are moving from the mind, to the Heart… not the balancing of the two. The mind conflicts with the Heart, and is the cause for imbalance, pain, fear, suffering and more. It is the Heart and Brain which work in harmony together. The mind… the ego, blocks the Heart, as it Edges God Out. It is the Heart and Brain which work in harmony to allow Balanced Harmonics, your Divine Blueprint. Let go of the mind, and solely flow from the Heart, connected to the Unified Heart in Unity Consciousness.

Angelic Number Sequences

By Edith Boyer~Temer

Dear Friends,

in my post from April 3rd, I shared information with you about the spiritual influence of today’s New Moon in Aries, and details how we will collectively experience the impact it is making. Today we are blessed with a wonderful mix of angelic number sequences transmitted to guide us the way in our task of navigating and integrating the powers of the current moon event.

Here are the angelic number sequences most vivid right now: Angel Number 777:

The number seven in this universe is representing the energy field of the spiritual warrior, the mystics and the truth seeker. It is also a number of the spirit guide power that is centered in the sacred heart within each of us. As it is tripled in impact, it is reminding us of the fact that we are all together in a collective human awakening process. When we detect the things that make us unique, that define our personal path and spiritually evolvement, than we will also unveil what the personal power is, that we have been given.

The highly spiritual number 777 is reminding us to align all our actions with the guidance of our higher self, to direct our gaze towards the spiritual awakening and enlightenment that this magical time is providing, and to keep trusting the wisdom we gained to fulfill our life purpose. The Angelic Realms are happily congratulating us to our commitment and past achievements, abundant divine blessings are on the way!!!

One has to beckon the spiritual warrior inside oneself whenever it is deemed necessary for the task at hand. Courage is the fuel. Healing is the direction. Forgiveness is the balm. Love is the atmosphere Divine. Donna Goddard

Fight your battles through prayer, and win your battles through faith. Luffina Lourduraj

One thing: you have to walk, and create the way by your walking; you will not find a ready-made path. It is not so cheap, to reach to the ultimate realization of truth. You will have to create the path by walking yourself; the path is not ready-made, lying there and waiting for you. It is just like the sky: the birds fly, but they don’t leave any footprints. You cannot follow them; there are no footprints left behind. Osho

Angel Number 1010:

The combination of the Angel Number 1010 is an invitation to pay even closer attention to the messages of our intuition; to the information of our sensory self and the vibrations we experience from others. The influence of the number zero in this mix is telling us about a new seed that is sprouting into manifestation now. The angels let us know that we are perfectly prepared to manifest new relationships based on the blossoming paradigms for the Golden Age of Aquarius.

The number sequence 1010 resonates with the vibration of the number two, which is helping us to understand profounder and more balanced levels of co-creation with other human beings, the universal forces and between our higher heart and our mind. It’s a message that we are supported to follow our personal soul path and divine mission with all the passion of our heart, while taking the needs of our beloved ones and the whole world into consideration in our decisions. We all woke up this morning and we had with it the amazing return of our conscious mind. We recovered minds with a complete sense of self and a complete sense of our own existence — yet we hardly ever pause to consider this wonder. António R. Damásio

Jesus Christ knew he was God. So wake up and find out eventually who you really are. In our culture, of course, they’ll say you’re crazy and you’re blasphemous, and they’ll either put you in jail or in a nut house (which is pretty much the same thing). However if you wake up in India and tell your friends and relations, ‘My goodness, I’ve just discovered that I’m God,’ they’ll laugh and say, ‘Oh, congratulations, at last you found out’. Alan W. Watts

Our bodies have five senses: touch, smell, taste, sight, hearing. But not to be overlooked are the senses of our souls: intuition, peace, foresight, trust, empathy. The differences between people lie in their use of these senses; most people don’t know anything about the inner senses while a few people rely on them just as they rely on their physical senses, and in fact probably even more. C. JoyBell C.

Angel Number 2002:

Number 2002 is sending us a frequency of huge potential. With the doubled forces of the numbers 2 and 0 in the mix, there is a big chance in the air to update all our relationships in balance and harmony. It is an invitation to explore the divine blueprint for our current life on earth and align even stronger with our inner guidance, so our service to this world can be carried out in clarity and perseverance. It is also a call to put more attention on the spiritual abilities we individually have, and to develop them to higher dimensions. There is so much that has to be done for the development of the Golden Age of Aquarius, its time all of us find their soul aligned role and fulfill it with all our spiritual fire and power.

Nobody can predict the future. You just have to give your all to the relationship you’re in and do your best to take care of your partner, communicate and give them every last drop of love you have. I think one of the most important things in a relationship is caring for your significant other through good times and bad. Nick Cannon

To whatever extent your mind is aligned with love, you will receive divine compensation for any lack in your material existence. From spiritual substance will come material manifestation. This is not just a theory; it is a fact. It is a law by which the universe operates. I call it the Law of Divine Compensation.

Marianne Williamson

Dear Ones, while we are under the influence of the energy field of this Aries New Moon lets not forget, that this intense year 2019 is designed to trigger the ability for self-mastery in the human collective. So when fire filled emotions are rising in you these days, take a deep breath and keep calm my friends!! Love and New Moon Blessings!

Edith

~~~~~~~~~

LoveHasWon.org is a 501c3 Non Profit Charity, Heartfully Associated with the “World Blessing Church Trust” for the Benefit of Mother Earth

Share Our Messages with Love and Gratitude

LOVE US @ MeWe mewe.com/join/lovehaswon

Visit Our NEW Sister Site: LoveHasWon Angel Numbers

https://lovehaswonangelnumbers.org/

Commentary from The First Contact Ground Crew 5dSpiritual Healing Team:

Feel Blocked, Drained, Fatigued, Restless, Nausea, Achy, Ready to Give Up? We Can Help! We are preparing everyone for a Full Planetary Ascension, and provide you with the tools and techniques to assist you Home Into The Light. The First Contact Ground Crew Team, Will Help to Get You Ready For Ascension which is Underway. New Spiritual Sessions have now been created for an Entire Family, including the Crystal Children; Group Family Healing & Therapy. We have just began these and they are incredible. Highly recommend for any families struggling together in these times of intense changes. Email: [email protected] for more information or to schedule an emergency spiritual session. We can Assist You into Awakening into 5d Reality, where your experience is one of Constant Joy, Wholeness of Being, Whole Health, Balanced, Happy and Abundant. Lets DO THIS! Schedule Your Session Below by following the Link! Visit: http://www.lovehaswon.org/awaken-to-5d/

Introducing our New LoveHasWon Twin Flame Spiritual Intuitive Ascension Session. Visit the link below:

https://lovehaswon.org/lovehaswon-twin-flame-spiritual-intuitive-ascension-session/

Request an Astonishing Personal Ascension Assessment Report or Astrology Reading, visit the link below for more information:

https://lovehaswon.org/lovehaswon-ascension-assessment-report

https://lovehaswon.org/lovehaswon-astrology/

Experiencing DeAscension Symptoms, Energy Blockages, Disease and more? Book a Holistic Healing Session

https://lovehaswon.org/lovehaswon-holistic-healing-session/

To read our Testimonials you can follow this link: http://www.lovehaswon.org/testimonials

Connect with MotherGod~Mother of All Creation on Skype @ mothergoddess8

Visit Our Online Store for Higher Consciousness Products and Tools: LoveHasWon Essentials

http://lovehaswonessentials.org/

Request a copy of our Book: The Tree of Life ~ Light of The Immortals Book

Order a copy of Our LoveHasWon Ascension Guide: https://lovehaswon.org/lovehaswon-ascension-guide/

Donate to Love:

We are a Donation based service for the Planetary Ascension. Thank you for showing your support and keeping our website and Love Energies moving forward! Thanks for supporting your family of light in their time of need to fulfill mission. We are Eternally Grateful!

Donate to Love: http://www.lovehaswon.org/donate-to-love/

*Please Indicate the Purpose of Donation: Session or Mission

Donate to Love

~~~When donating via Paypal please select “personal payment”, as opposed to goods and services, this in turn gives more of your donation to LoveHasWon~~~

Use Cash App with Our code and we’ll each get $5! FKMPGLH

Cash App Tag: $lovehaswon1111

Cash App

Donate with Venmo

VENMO

Support Our cause in the creation of the Crystal Schools for Children. Visit our fundraising link below:

LoveHasWon Charity for Crystal Schools

Support Our Charity in Co~Creating the New Earth Together by Helping Mother of All Creation. Visit our fundraising link below:

Support Mother Earth!

Support Us on PATREON

PATREON

Support Us Through Our LoveHasWon Wish List

LoveHasWon Wish List

We also accept Western Union and Moneygram. You may send an email to [email protected] for more information.

***If you wish to send Donations by mail or other methods, email us at [email protected] or [email protected]***

**** We Do Not Refund Donations****

MeWe ~ Youtube ~ Facebook ~ Apple News ~ Linkedin ~ Twitter ~ Tumblr ~ GAB ~ Minds ~ Google+ ~ Medium ~ StumbleUpon ~ Reddit ~ Informed Planet ~ Steemit ~ SocialClub ~ BlogLovin ~ Flipboard ~ Pinterest ~ Instagram ~ Snapchat

#Angel Numbers #Ascension and Spirituality #consciousness #Numerology #Quadruple Angel Numbers #Triple Angel Numbers

2 notes · View notes

trailsofink · 6 years

Text

Inktober Day Ten: Up The Wolves

The prompt was a song that gives you hope and one, this song really does give me hope but two, I wanted to do something different from the softer prompts I’d been doing so fair warning there’s a gunfight here.

Here’s 1,438 words

Nick did his best not to freeze as Ella swung closer and closer to the truth with every pass in her rant. Acting casual when his entire insides were turned to ice was a difficult challenge, however, and it was only a matter of time before she realized.

“Like, who the fuck sold us out?” Ella asked, pacing back and forth, her hand wrapped around her wrist and squeezing. Nick knew she’d be holding the pistol on her hip if she didn’t have better trigger discipline. As it was, he was having a difficult time not touching his, though whether he could outdraw her or not was a coinflip. “No one knew about where we were hitting or with how many people, we didn’t tell anyone. I mean, the Goddard Boys didn’t do it; they know they’re the first suspects if they cross us and Julia checked them out. I trust her.”

“Me too.” Nick said, his voice squeaking. He cleared his throat. “Me too.” He said more firmly and Ella shot him a curious look that felt like a dagger.

“And anyway, the people I would put my money on are the Diaz Brothers, but Julia won’t let me question them. She keeps saying things like we’ll deal with it afterwards but look, if you let backstabbers lie they’re going to find another way to stab you.” She shook her head, clenching her fists. “God, I wish I could see the look on Tony Diaz the second I tell him I know it’s him.” She laughed. “Before I put a bullet in his-”

“Ella,” Nick said and he only realized he spoke when she turned her attention to him, annoyed to be pulled out of her rant. Panic spiked and he thought to turn her aside and say nevermind, but that would just get her deeper on the scent. But then he couldn’t find anything else to say and she beat him to it.

“Nick, are you getting soft on me?” She scoffed. “Julia is coming back within the next fifteen minutes and when she gets here, we’re going to make those politicians pay and if you don’t have the stomach for-”

“No, I do. I do.” Nick said, taking a deep breath and exhaling it. “I do, I promise. I just… We don’t even know if it’s Tony.”

“I know it is.” Ella said, gritting her teeth. “I know that bastard would sell us out and never think twice. Well he’s got another thing c-”

“I did it.” Nick said and the silence that followed was deafening. Ella turned to him, her eyes wide. Time flowed slower, as if each second had to fight to drip out. Now she was shocked, but soon she would flash to anger, would she say something? Would she ask for clarification before she drew? He couldn’t take that chance. He would be faster than her only if he relied on her shock, only if he took this chance. He drew, hoping that she would surrender. That was never her way.

She sprang to the side in a roll and Nick squeezed the trigger, a bullet from his revolver splintering wood as it hit the wall behind where Ella had been and he barely had time to register that he had pulled it before Ella was drawing and he hit the deck, upturning the table in front of him and using it as cover but not before she managed to wing him in his arm. Clutching his gun was painful now and lifting his arm was difficult. He swore, switching hands. He would be far less accurate and still he only had five more shots. How many had Ella shot? She had a seventeen bullet mag and she dropped three? Bad odds. She was always a good shot.

“Why did you do it?” She demanded and four heavy impacts hit the table, splintering wood fragments into the air that showered down over him. “You were fucking family, Nick!”

“I didn’t want to die,” Nick said, his left hand trembling. Could he shoot her? He had almost done it already, but that was reflex. Now he was piloting manually and could he do it? “Ella, they had me in a room. They would’ve killed me-”

“And either one of us would’ve made the other choice for you.” Ella spat. Another two bullets, another shower of fragments. To his horror, he saw that the table was starting to crack. Had she been shooting the same spot? When his cover was blown apart he would have to make a decision he didn’t want to make. Eight more shots. “I would have died for you, and Julia would have died for you, you fucking coward.”

“Then why are you mad that I almost let you?” Nick shot back in a strange, nervous energy.

“Excuse me?”

“What’s the difference?” Nick asked. “If you would’ve died for me, then-” Eight bullets hit the table in quick succession and it broke apart into three pieces. He had thought to pick one up like a shield, but instead he rose to his feet when he heard her eject the magazine. No matter how fast she was- She wasn’t reloading. She was aiming at him. He had time to be afraid before a bullet took him in the shoulder, his good shoulder. He rocked back and then lost his balance on the blood he had apparently shed behind his cover, falling hard to the floor. Ella was on him before he thought to reach for his gun. She had shot both of his arms; whether or not he could hold it now was a different question, but she kicked his revolver away, reloading as she stood over him.

“Good reaction. If you didn’t use that stupid revolver you might have gotten me.” She said as she pulled a loose bullet from her pocket, chambering it before she inserted the magazine. “Ella has me load an eighteenth round for moments like these.”

“One in the chamber.” Nick nodded appreciatively as she held her gun over him. “Ella, please don’t.” He said. He couldn’t find it in him to cry no matter how terrified he was, but whether it was shock or terror his whole body was trembling. On second thought, shock was more likely.

“Yeah, see I don’t enjoy this.” Ella said. “You are my brother. Not were, are. I don’t want to do this, but you almost got us killed and I just don’t trust you.”

“Then trust me.” Julia said and Ella whipped her gun around so fast her arm blurred, or maybe it was the blurry vision. Ella caught her hand and twisted, using the other to catch the gun safely.

“He sold us out!” Ella said, massaging her wrist.

“I know.” Julia said. “I always knew.” She was older than them by a decade. She looked down at Nick and he swallowed, trying to process the information. “Let’s bandage him up and get to the part where we shoot people who aren’t us.”

“But…” Ella frowned. “Julia…”

“I never asked either of you to die for me.” Julia said. “I said we might, said it could happen. But I’m not interested in making martyrs of you if I can help it. Now help me do this.” She said as she stooped down to strip Nick’s shirt so she could begin the process of bandaging him.

“How did you know?” Nick asked, groaning as she applied pressure. He had lost a lot of blood, probably too much. He hoped not; he still didn’t want to die.

“You were always a terrible liar.” She said.

“You never asked.”

“And yet you told me with every furtive look and every nervous tick. I never had to ask. Now shut up and conserve your strength. You really should’ve told me sooner.” She said.

“You should’ve told me sooner!” Ella said at last, not being nearly as gentle though not quite cruel either as she wrapped Nick’s shoulder wound before realizing. “Shit this is going to need stitches.”

“Oh fuck me.” Nick hissed. Ella shot him a furious look and he quieted down until the next time they touched him, which was a few seconds later.

“I hoped I could get the guns out of your hands first.” Julia sighed. “That’s on me.” The rest of the night proceeded without gunfire. By the time Nick was taken care of, it was an iffy thing and they lost their chance.

Maybe next time, Julia had said, though there was a look in her eye that said she wasn’t sure if that was true.

#inktober #tmginktober #my writing

1 note · View note

wichitahaulingjunkmoving · 3 years

Link

Local Trash Removal and Junk Removal Service Trash Removal Company and Cost Wichita KS | Wichita Hauling Junk & Moving More information is at: https://junkremovalhaulerwichita.org/trash-removal-company-near-me/

Looking for a trash removal & junk removal company in Wichita KS? When we say we're a full service junk removal Trash Removal company in Wichita, we really mean it. Just point at the trash OR JUNK you want gone, and we make it disappear. We specialize in trash removal furniture removal appliance removal services. Schedule a trash removal today calling Wichita Hauling Junk & Moving! How much does trash removal cost? Call us now for a free estimate or request information online. Best junk removal and trash removal service in Wichita KS. Wichita Hauling Junk & Moving . Cost Of Trash Removal? Free Estimates! Call Today Or Schedule Trash Removal Online Fast!

SCHEDULE A TRASH REMOVAL SERVICE NOW YOUR LOCAL TRASH REMOVAL SPECIALIST Wichita Hauling Junk & Moving Trash Removal

Wichita Hauling Junk & Moving Trash Removal is a leader in junk removal and trash removal in Wichita. When you book your appointment online, you save $10. If you’re in need of junk removal services for your residence or business, you’re in the right place. Wichita Hauling Junk & Moving Trash Removal Wichita is the area’s leading trash removal expert! We provide hauling services from the heart of Downtown Wichita, Central Wichita, Southwest Wichita. Whatever you call it, we do it – whether you need us to remove garbage, trash, or junk, we take it all. We’re a full-service junk removal company, which means that you can reclaim your space without so much as lifting a finger. Wichita Hauling Junk & Moving Trash Removal Wichita truly makes an unpleasant task easy. We don’t just pick up your garbage and take it to the nearest dump - we actively do our best to recycle everything we pick up, or donate useful items to local charities as much as possible. In fact, we consistently divert more than 95% of all of the garbage we pick up from the landfill. WHY USE US FOR JUNK REMOVAL TRASH REMOVAL IN WICHITA KS? When we say we’re a full service junk removal company in Wichita, we really mean it. Just point at the trash you want gone, and we make it disappear. Use us for your Chicago trash removal because: We offer same-day service We take anything non-hazardous that two people can lift We pick up your garbage/junk from wherever it is, and clean up after ourselves We don’t throw your junk away – we consistently divert 95% of everything we pick up from the landfill If you want your garbage, trash, or junk gone, all you have to do is: Tell us when to come by, either by phone or by booking an appointment online. We know your time is valuable, so we give you a 2-hour arrival window, and will call you 15-20 minutes in advance to tell you when we’re about to arrive. Show us the items you want us to take, and we’ll give you an upfront, all-inclusive junk removal price to take it away. If you like our quote, we get to work picking up your garbage, removing your trash, and hauling away your junk. Of course, we clean up your space after we’re done so that you get it back in mint condition. Average Junk Removal Specialist Cost The average cost for a Junk Removal Specialist is $90. To hire a Junk Removal Specialist to haul waste & junk, you are likely to spend between $60 and $210 total BOOK OUR TRASH REMOVAL SERVICE TRASH REMOVAL IN Wichita One of the hardest things to do is to get rid of our trash. Living in Wichita, you know that it's difficult to keep control of the junk that you have kept outside for too long. You started off by only piling up a few things, nice and neat, and promising yourself that you'd remember to get rid of it as soon as you found the time. However, time gets away from you. You add a little more junk to the pile and before you know it, you have a lot of junk. On windy days in Wichita, this isn't good. The wind starts to blow your junk around and makes a mess that you never intended on having. One day you decide "No more junk." You still don't have the time to get rid of it but you have the motivation to get a professional to do it for you. That's when you call us, Wichita Hauling Junk & Moving Trash Removal, in Wichita. We are the answer to your ever-growing junk. TRASH REMOVAL PRICING: THE COST OF WICHITA JUNK REMOVAL Here at Wichita Hauling Junk & Moving Trash Removal in Wichita, we want to be your junk removal specialists. That's why we've come up with a unique and beneficial pricing structure for our customers. Instead of adding in a bunch of different fees, hidden fees, or confusing fees, we offer you one price that is all-inclusive for your junk removal. You pay just one price for all of our services. We start with our free and no-obligation estimate. It's almost impossible to guess how much it will cost to remove your junk without seeing it. That's why we send someone out to meet with you and inspect the junk that you want us to dispose of. We will determine how much space your junk will take up in our truck and then go from there. Your one price estimate includes • Cost of truck rental Crew of two specialists to remove junk Crew to sort, separate, recycle, and donate junk Gas and travel expenses Loading, lifting, and sorting Fully insured crew Cost for all transfer station tariffs and fees WHAT WICHITA HAULING JUNK & MOVING TRASH REMOVAL WICHITA DISPOSES OF Everyone has a little something weird in their closet. Their junk closet, of course. One of the reasons you've put off getting rid of your junk for so long is that you just weren't quite sure what to do with it. It isn't as easy as it once was to get rid of some of our junk. Now it's important that it's discarded properly and legally. What was once a Saturday afternoon chore has become far more difficult. Unless you're using Wichita Hauling Junk & Moving Trash Removal Then it's easier now than it ever way. Just point and junk disappears! It really does. Things you can point at that we will get rid of for you include: • Old mattresses Wichita

• Furniture Wichita

• Old appliances Wichita

• Anything non-hazardous

• Anything two junk removal specialists can carry

• Televisions Wichita

• Hot tubs Wichita Yard waste

• Scrap metal Wichita

• Construction odds and ends

• Electronics Wichita Just show us where the junk is and we will remove it for you. We are the world's largest junk removal service and take pride in knowing that we recycled before it was cool. Our goal is to make this as easy as possible for you. WHERE DOES MY JUNK GO? Your junk is gathered up and then we have a crew that will sort through it. We will try to dispose of as little as possible. First we start off with determining if your junk is actual junk. It may seem like junk to you but it may be a treasure trove to someone else. There are many organizations that would love to have that old washing machine that you haven't used in years but still works. We will donate as much of your junk as we can. Then we recycle whatever can be recycled. We take great pains to make sure that only the absolute least amount of junk is taken to a landfill. Wichita Hauling Junk & Moving Trash Removal of Wichita is as concerned about the environment as you are! CALL US FOR: • Trash Removal Wichita • Trash Removal cost • Trash Removal price • Trash Removal companies • Trash Removal services • Trash Removal help • Trash Removal • Free Junk Removal Wichita • Appliance Removal Wichita • Furniture Removal Wichita • Free Furniture Pick Up Wichita • Mattress Removal Wichita • Wichita Hauling Junk & Moving Wichita • Hauling Wichita • Junk Removal & Donation Pickup Wichita KS

CALL WICHITA HAULING JUNK & MOVING TRASH REMOVAL LOCATED IN WICHITA KS BEST TRASH REMOVAL COMPANY IN WICHITA KS CONTACT US: Wichita Hauling Junk & Moving CALL (316) 500-7551 CLEANING CALL (316) 448-5733 JUNK REMOVAL & MOVING CALL (316) 448-3974 HANDYMAN Best Junk Removal Hauling Company in Wichita, KS Open Monday to Sunday 7 Am – 11 PM Located in Wichita, KS 67211 WEB: https://junkremovalhaulerwichita.org/

OUR SISTER COMPANIES IN WICHITA KS: WICHITA HAULING JUNK & MOVING (316) 448-5733 https://junkremovalhaulerwichita.org/

WICHITA JUNK DISPOSAL (316) 448-5146 http://wichitajunkdisposal.com

JUNK REMOVAL SERVICES OF WICHITA (316) 448-5089 http://junkremovalservicesofwichita.com

PRICE JUNK REMOVAL WICHITA (316) 448-5733 http://pricejunkremovalwichita.com

AONE JUNK REMOVAL OF WICHITA (316) 448-5146 http://ajunkremovalwichita.com

WICHITA JUNK REMOVAL COMPANY (316) 448-5733 http://wichitajunkremovalservice.com

MR JUNK REMOVAL OF WICHITA (316) 448-5733 http://mrjunkremovalofwichita.com

ACTION JUNK REMOVAL OF WICHITA (316) 448-5146 http://cheapjunkremovalwichitaks.com

JUNK REMOVAL PROS WICHITA (316) 448-5089 http://wichitajunkremovalcompany.com

AFFORDABLE JUNK REMOVAL WICHITA (316) 448-5146 http://cheaphaulerwichita.com

ECONOMY JUNK REMOVAL WICHITA (316) 448-5089 http://cheapdumpsterrentalwichita.com

0 notes

aion-rsa · 3 years

Text

Why the N64 Controller Design Was So Weird

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

There’s a lot to be said about the 25-year history of the Nintendo 64, but one question that almost always seems to come up in any conversation about the console is “Why was the N64 controller so weird?”

Mind you, that isn’t to say that the N64 controller was necessarily bad. There are certainly some who will make that argument, but others consider it to be one of their favorite video game controllers ever. Whichever side you fall on, though, you’ll probably agree that the N64 controller was simply bizarre from a design perspective. There wasn’t really a controller like it before 1996, and there really hasn’t been a controller like it since.

The N64’s trident (or “Batarang,” as some call it) shape and somewhat strange A, B, and C button layout are certainly unusual, but when most people talk about the N64 controller being “weird,” they’re typically talking about the analog stick and Z-trigger placement. For a modern generation of gamers raised on the idea of being able to easily access a D-pad, analog sticks, and buttons at the same time (or, you know, anyone who grew up with the PS1 Dual Analog/DualShock controller instead), picking up an N64 controller for the first time must feel like a prank.

In fact, you could probably pull off a “Calvin’s dad” style joke and convince some very young gamers that the N64 controller looks the way it does because most people back then had three hands. It’s almost like Nintendo took two perfectly good controllers and decided to fuse them together as part of their attempt to form a kind of Megazord controller.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

You know what’s really funny, though? That’s actually pretty much exactly what happened.

First off, you may have heard that the N64 controller was designed to play Super Mario 64. However, that’s not entirely true. Various Nintendo representatives over the years (including Shigeru Miyamoto) have stated that the design of the N64’s controller and Super Mario 64 essentially influenced each other rather than one solely informing the other. As Super Mario 64 programmer Giles Goddard once put it, “It wasn’t so much that controller dictated Mario 64, it was just that was the game [Miyamoto] was working on. Mario was the way of testing it out.”

That being said, the emergence of 3D gaming very much influenced the design of the Nintendo 64 controller and Nintendo’s decision to use an analog stick. While the N64 wasn’t the first video game controller to feature such a “joystick,” it was the first controller to emphasize the idea that joysticks were going to be the best way to move characters around a 3D space and afford players the range of motion that kind of environment requires.

So why didn’t Nintendo just put the joystick on the left side of the N64 controller (like we saw with the Dreamcast) or give players two joysticks to use in unison (like the PS1 Dual Analog controller eventually did)? Well, we don’t know if Nintendo even considered those specific designs at some point, but we do know that part of the reason they didn’t position the analog stick in a way that let you easily use it along with every other available button on the N64’s controller is that they felt that may softly force developers to use it.

See, Nintendo knew that 3D gaming was going to be a big deal, but reports suggest they ultimately felt that most upcoming games were either going to be 2D, 3D, or, in rarer cases, a combination of both concepts. As such, they wanted to make a controller that was essentially two controllers: one made more for 2D “16-bit” games and one for 3D “64-bit” games. It’s a little strange to think about, but this wonderful MS Paint demonstration from Reddit user rg44_at_the_office does an excellent job of illustrating the concept:

As you can see, the “blue” controller is a pretty standard design that Nintendo suspected you would use to play more 2D-like games. You held it like a “normal” controller and used the D-pad along with the face buttons and L and R shoulder buttons. Meanwhile, the “red” controller is the one Nintendo designed for 3D games. It’s essentially a sideways version of a more standard controller. This layout essentially replaces the D-pad with the analog stick and replaces the L shoulder button with the Z-trigger.

Interestingly, those aren’t the only controller layouts that developers eventually utilized. Some games allowed for a third configuration designed to allow you to use the D-pad and analog stick in conjunction (with the Z-trigger now replacing the R shoulder button rather than the L shoulder button). A few games (most notably Perfect Dark and GoldenEye 007) even let you use two N64 controllers in conjunction with each other for a strange take on the “dual analog” experience.

To be fair the idea of offering developers that kind of hardware flexibility at a time when the bridge between 2D and 3D gaming was still being built probably sounded like a good one. However, Nintendo’s good intentions were eventually undone by a few emerging practicalities.

First off, not many games exclusively used the “blue” controller layout. Kirby 64 is the most famous N64 game I can think of that relied exclusively on the D-pad for movement, and even then, developer HAL Laboratory initially intended to use the “red” layout for that game before they saw how awkward it was for children to hold the controller in that way. There also weren’t a lot of games that really offered you the option of using either the D-pad or the analog stick layout (or both in conjunction), and those that did usually struggled to make the whole thing work.

Most importantly, Nintendo’s design was based on the idea that gamers wouldn’t need to access all of the N64’s buttons at once. However, it soon became clear that 3D games were evolving to require (or heavily benefit from) the use of as many input options as possible. While quite a few N64 developers obviously figured out how to work around the N64 controller’s design, you only have to imagine trying to play something like Ape Escape or even a “next-gen” game like Halo on an N64 controller to appreciate how limited the N64’s controller design ultimately was.

In short, the N64 controller was so weird because Nintendo tried to use it to satisfy two wildly different styles/eras of game design equally. While you could argue that they underestimated how quickly things were evolving and may have been better off going with the dual analog set-up, it has to be said that it’s hard to play a game designed specifically for the N64 controller on any other peripheral and have it feel anywhere close to the “intended” experience.

The post Why the N64 Controller Design Was So Weird appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3ql2ECc

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

0 notes

thechasefiles · 5 years

Text

The Chase Files Daily Newscap 28/10/2019

Good Morning #realdreamchasers. Here is your daily news cap for Monday, October 28th, 2019. There is a lot to read and digest so take your time. Remember you can read full articles via Barbados Government Information Service (BGIS), Barbados Today (BT), or by purchasing a Daily Nation Newspaper (DN).

JOBS FALLOUT – The fallout from the collapse of British tour operator Thomas Cook will leave at least 70 Barbadians on the breadline come November 1. The workers losing their jobs will be employees of Seawell Air Services Ltd, which will cease all operations at Grantley Adams International Airport on that date, leaving a little under half of the staff complement without jobs. Seawell Air Services employed over 170 workers, and only a little over 100 will be retained when the new operators open for business next month.The operations are being taken over by the Goddard Catering Group (GCG), a subsidiary of Goddard Enterprises Limited, which is based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, United States. “Our business has decreased significantly because of the Thomas Cook collapse,” ground handling division manager of GCG, Bruno Barrientos, told the NATION yesterday by telephone link-up from Fort Lauderdale. “Thomas Cook was a very good customer of Seawell Air Services, and now they don’t exist anymore. There simply is no work for persons in some positions because of that. But, the majority of the staff will come on board. I cannot give an exact number because not all the offer papers have been given back to us, but we expect to bring back significantly more than half of the staff,” Barrientos said, while noting the new company was expecting a 15 to 20 per cent reduction in overall business revenue previously associated with Thomas Cook. (DN)

BLP HAS NEW CHAIRMAN – Senator Kay McConney is the Barbados Labour Party’s (BLP) new chairman. McConney, who is Minister of Innovation, Science and Smart Technology, was elected to the post during Saturday’s BLP Annual Convention at Queen’s Park. She takes over from former chairman George Payne, who served since 2016. Minister of People’s Empowerment and Elder Affairs Cynthia Forde was re-elected as first vice-president, Shanika Roberts-Odle was elected second vice-president while Kurt Haynes was elected third vice-president. (BT)

VERLA PUNCHES BACK – President of the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) Verla De Peiza is advising Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley that rather than fire potshots at her, she should concentrate on the real gunfire that was claiming the lives of Barbadians on a monthly basis. Speaking hours after the island recorded its 40th murder for the year on Saturday night, she also suggested to Mottley that burdening taxpayers with a monthly salary for crime consultant, former commissioner of police Darwin Dottin, was not a strategy that was showing any success. During the Barbados Labour Party’s (BLP) 81st Annual Conference in Queen’s Park on Saturday, Mottley described Opposition Leader Bishop Joseph Atherley, De Peiza and Solutions Barbados’ leader Grenville Phillips as “Eenie, Meenie and Miney” who were poor alternatives to the BLP Government. Mottley went on to refer to De Peiza as a “political watchman” who, according to her, was simply “waiting for the real batsman to come in and take over”; as well as a political water lily hopping around trying to find a home in elective politics. De Peiza told the NATION the Prime Minister should have instead taken the time to speak to the safety of Barbadians and let them know if they would be seeing the backs of Dottin as well as Attorney General Dale Marshall. (DN)

YOUTH LEADERSHIP NEEDED – With the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) still recovering from a 30-nil defeat at the polls last year, one of its members is suggesting that there is a need for young, fresh blood to take the lead. Additionally, St Michael North West representative for the DLP Ryan Walters said there was a need for a wider involvement of youth in the planning of the country’s future. He made the comments while addressing a party function on Saturday at the DLP’s George Street headquarters. “Even without hard evidence, I believe we have a sense that much of the youth has left the DLP, and like myself, the DLP too must again place the youth back at the forefront of the party’s agenda. The party has a massive task ahead if it is to regain its place in government, and doing this requires that we recapture the trust and aspirations of the public, and youth in particular, to chart a prosperous, fair and sustainable way forward for the party and the country as a whole,” said Walters, who said he intends to place youth affairs at the forefront of his agenda. Walters, who took over from former Minister of Finance Chris Sinckler, is seeking to unseat the reigning Barbados Labour Party (BLP) Junior Minister Neil Rowe in the next election. Walters said he believed the country was still lacking opportunities for the youth and his party was poised to create the change needed. However, he said “as a party and as a country we would be deluding ourselves into thinking that charting this path can be done without genuine, longstanding participation and the prioritization of the youth in all that we do”. “The DLP and the country need a youthful and agile approach to how it thinks and operates. Barbados’ development can’t continue to be held back by the same age-old approaches and problems that have been ongoing for a generation,” he said. “We live in an era where we must be agile, innovative, technologically savvy, aware of the new and emerging opportunities and have a modern approach to governing our society, and who better to bring these characteristics than the youth,” he added. He told party supporters that it was important for the party leaders to speak about the plans to grow the economy and properly facilitate the youth in a range of sectors including sports, renewable energy, information and communication technology, entrepreneurship, videography and the creative sector. “We can’t growth and diversify this economy and better facilitate young people without putting some thought into the culture and the way we do things. As a party we must be forward thinking and explore policies such as flexi-time, the 24-hour economy, facilitating young people to work and contribute from their personal spaces, support digital communication, a 21st approach century education. We must rethink the cost of being connected for young people, open access policies for wi-fi, how do we facilitate unlimited data plans and unshackle young people from unnecessary limitations,” said Walters. “That is why we must go to people where they are and include them in all that we do. Some young people may want to create their own niches in animal farming, husbandry, hospitality and cuisine, tourism, marketing. These individuals too, must be allowed to make a living and prosper doing so. But the fact of the matter is if this party is really and truthfully looking to the future it must focus on the future and that is the young people of this country,” he warned. Stating that the youth were being held back by age-old problems, Walters said it was the constant lip service about creating opportunities that was preventing them from propelling the country forward. “For years we been talking a big game about facilitating the youth. None have talked a bigger game than this government. But ask young people today how they feel about their current circumstances and it becomes evident that much more needs to be done, and the DLP could get this done,” he insisted. “We’ve been getting plenty lip service and ill-conceived policies from this administration, but when you investigate the substance, the youth are no better off. The government has been bringing on individuals that I have to question what is the real value that they can bring to drive a prosperous, fair and sustainable future,” he said. (BT)

NEVIS PREMIERE SINGS MOTTLEY’S PRAISES – Barbados is back! This is the verdict of the Premier of Nevis and Minister of Foreign Affairs, St Kitts & Nevis, Mark Brantley who declared that he has seen since the re-emergence of Barbados to its rightful place of prominence on the regional and international stage under the Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley. Describing Mottley as a Commander in Chief, Brantley said she has restored the regional and global relevance of Barbados. “PM Mottley has reignited the passions of the Barbadian people and created in her short time at the helm, the type of dialogue and narrative that has captured the attention of the region and the world,” Brantley said as he spoke to Barbados Labour Party’s (BLP) party faithful, at the 81st Annual Conference, Queens Park Sunday morning. “Let me tell you this morning, Mia Amor Mottley is no ordinary leader. The elements are so combined in her that all of us, even detractors, can admit that Barbados has now a leader of a special pedigree, a leader that comes along only once in our lifetime.” He told those gathered that Mottley does not offer pretty prose for policy, nor does she offer pedantry and pedagoguery for substantive practical solutions for the Barbadian people. The Premier said Mottley’s effort is not to sound like Shakespeare or Aristotle or Longfellow by quoting them, but rather to sound like herself, as she embodies the dreams and aspirations of Barbadian people and the BLP. (BT)

RELIGIOUS LEADER CALLS FOR NATIONAL VALUES – A religious leader is making a call for Barbados to have national values. As he spoke about the importance of having national values to build a stronger society, Apostle Eliseus Joseph suggested that compassion must be one of the values to ensure that nobody, regardless of their sex, colour, class or creed are marginalised. “We need a compassionate society because there is something called the politics of holiness. It creates a dualistic approach to life that you are either white or black, you are either clean or unclean; you either have a big nose or small nose. It is a dualistic device that the whole world has used to discriminate the weaker,” he said, as he delivered the sermon at the Barbados Labour Party thanksgiving service at Queen’s Park, this morning. In a fiery delivery, Joseph commended Prime Minister Mia Mottley’s leadership. He said Mottley wanted to deliver a “caring government in the absence of government and a caring economy in the absence of a downgrading economy to offer a regulated and upgraded economy”. “Oh my God I am so thankful that we are out of our domination. We are out of our oppression. Every Barbadian wants a government that cares. And I want to say honourable Prime Minister that you have brought to us a national vision and I want you to cascade that vision right to the very bottom, right to the lowest person in Barbados. “The question before us is how can we cascade this into government, into the civil service? How can we develop a caring civil service? How can we develop a caring Police Force? How can we develop a caring school that doesn’t allow people to drop through the cracks? . . . Madam you have one of the greatest visions and I want you to push this vision right through,” he said. However, Joseph said that revolution in change is not only about changing leadership, but also values. “We got to change the values because there is a particular value in Barbados that predisposed the past administration to do what they did. We got to change the values and one of the values that we have to propagate is compassion. We have to be compassionate to each other. We can no longer have whites or blacks operating in separate places.” Joseph also voiced concerns about Barbados’ aging population, which is having an effect on the economy. He said there must be conversation about increasing the population, possibly through migration. “We need people to carry some weight. Barbadians have been riding free for too long,” he said.(BT)

VETERINARY OFFICERS RECEIVE AMR TRAINING – Two veterinary services officers in the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security recently received Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) training in Argentina. After the successful launching of the Triangular Cooperation Project Argentina/PAHO/CARICOM on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) in Bridgetown, Senior Animal Health Assistant, Bryan Sanford, and Veterinary Laboratory Technologist, Kerrilyn Pilgrim, travelled to Buenos Aires, to attend training sessions at Argentine Food Safety and Quality Service Agency (SENASA), from Sunday, October 20, to Friday, October 25. This South/South collaborative initiative is in line with Argentina´s commitment to fostering stronger ties with the Caribbean, in areas such as Agriculture, Sports, Food Security, Fish Waste Silage and Honey Production. Argentine Ambassador to Barbados, Gustavo Martinez Pandiani, highlighted that “antimicrobial resistance causes death, illness, and economic challenges worldwide. Its spread undermines the efficacy and effectiveness of treatments for infections. That is why AMR is recognized today not only as a major public health problem, but also as a huge developmental challenge. This cooperation project aims to build capacity and support the region in achieving compliance with the International Health Regulations”. Ambassador Pandiani, praised PAHO and the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security for their contribution, and pointed out: “The commitment of Argentina to this ambitious initiative is reflected in the involvement of three ministries of our national government: Health, Foreign Affairs and Agriculture, and two of our most prestigious specialized agencies: SENASA and Instituto Malbrán (National Infectious Diseases Institute).” Sanford and Pilgrim, who participated in the seminar, described the training as very productive and useful, in that Barbados could utilize the information to develop and implement a national action plan against antimicrobial resistance, and protect the health of our people and animals. The week-long training in Buenos Aires also allowed the Barbadian officers the opportunity to share experiences, frameworks and guidelines with their Argentine counterparts. (BT)

FOGGING SCHEDULE – The Ministry of Health and Wellness will continue its fogging programme in four parishes this week in its effort to rid the island of the Aedes aegypti mosquito, from 4:30 to 7:30 pm each day. On Monday, October 28, the team from the Vector Control Unit will fog the following St Peter districts: Diamond Corner, Lower Castle, Upper Castle, Boscobelle, Collins, Date Tree Hill, The Risk and environs. The team will return to the north of the island on Tuesday, October 29, and visit the St Peter and St James districts of Battaleys, Risk Road, Cemetery Road, Mullins, Mullins Terrace with Avenues, Gibbs, Gibbs Glade, Piedmont Road, Lower Carlton with Avenues, and surrounding areas. On Wednesday, October 30, the fogging team will journey to St. Michael and spray Culloden Road, Dalkeith Village, Tamarind Avenue, Chapel Place, Beckles Road, Jessamine Avenue, Pipers Avenues, Curwin Avenue, Brownes Avenue, Lukes Avenue, Bay Street, Chelsea Road, and environs. St Michael will be visited again on Thursday, October 31, and the following areas will be targeted: Highgate Gardens, Collymore Rock, Burkes Land, Eversley Road, Brittons New Road, Reece Land, Valerie, Brittons Cross Road, Beckles Road, Villa Road, Laynes Road, Scotts Gap and surrounding districts. Fogging will culminate in Christ Church on Friday, November 1, at Vauxhall, Vauxhall Gardens, Vauxhall Tenantry Road, Poinsettia Avenue, Primrose Avenue, Casuarina Avenue, Hibiscus Avenue, Warners Terrace, Briar Hall and environs. Householders are reminded to open their windows and doors to allow the fog to penetrate, while persons with respiratory illnesses are urged to protect themselves from inhaling the fog. (BT)

BARBADOS MOVE UP IN FIFA RANKINGS – Buoyed BY Barbados’ move up the FIFA rankings by ten places, senior men’s national head coach Russell “The Little Magician” Latapy says he wants to see the Tridents taking on higher-ranked teams. The Barbados Tridents are now positioned at 160 along with Grenada in the latest rankings following their 4-0 away victory against the United States Virgin Islands (USVI) in St Croix earlier this month after edging St Martin 1-0 at home. “The players have to take the credit for it because they have bought into what we are trying to do. It’s fair play to the players that they have committed themselves to what we’re trying to achieve and develop,” Latapy said. (DN)

There are 65 days left in the year Shalom! Follow us on Twitter, Facebook & Instagram for your daily news. #thechasefiles #dailynewscaps #bajannewscaps #newsinanutshell

0 notes

lodelss · 5 years

Link

Soraya Roberts | Longreads | February 2019 | 10 minutes (2,500 words)

At the end of An Open Secret, the 2015 documentary by Amy J. Berg about child sex abuse in Hollywood, a card reads: “The filmmakers emphasize that this is not a gender based issue. We chose to tell these specific stories, but they are representations of a greater issue that affects both boys and girls.” It was an odd thing to read after watching a 99-minute film — one that could not secure a distributor and was self-released on Vimeo — in which no girls were mentioned. Whether or not it was intentional, the statement had the effect of equating the two genders, erasing any nuance that might exist in a male victim versus a female victim. It leaves the impression that the abuse we predominantly talk about — which, in our current climate, targets girls and women — is the standard. So the way girls and women are mistreated and how they react to this mistreatment is how all of us do. The fallout from Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby and R. Kelly is the fallout from Michael Jackson and Kevin Spacey and Bryan Singer and Gary Goddard.

Maybe it’s the numbers — according to Dr. Richard Gartner, author of Betrayed as Boys: Psychodynamic Treatment of Sexually Abused Men, twice as many girls (one in three) as boys (one in six) are sexually abused. So girls take priority. But it’s more than that. Rape culture means that when you hear the allegations against Roman Polanski, Woody Allen, Jeffrey Epstein, Larry Nassar, you are surprised at the scope of their actions, but not at the gender of their victims. When you see a Hollywood party overflowing with teen girls carted in to appease a room full of grey-haired execs, it is status quo. Casting couches have been around forever, right? But a party full of teen boys, what the hell does that mean?! Maybe my perception of these male-dominated parties is just skewed because I haven’t normalized male sexuality, so when I see it, it appears abnormal. “To me it seems like there is an overrepresentation of young boys being abused, but that can’t be right?” I hear myself waffle while interviewing Anne Henry, co-founder of BizParentz, an advocacy group for child actors. But her response is immediate. “No, it is right,” she says. “It’s not just your perception.”

* * *

The World Health Organization defines child sex abuse as “the involvement of a child in sexual activity that he or she does not fully comprehend and is unable to give informed consent to, or for which the child is not developmentally prepared, or else that violate the laws or social taboos of society.” Here “child” may as well be “girl.” A study of 40 countries from earlier this year found that only five of them — Cambodia, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, and South Korea — “collect prevalence data for boys related to child sexual exploitation.” The Economist Intelligence Unit also found that the laws and support services are predominantly directed towards girls. “Often this is bundled up into an issue of violence against women, and therefore it is catering to girls rather than boys,” a consultant for EIU told The Guardian. But the bundling makes little sense when you consider the incidence of male child sex abuse. While it is not one in two as it is with girls, the frequency of exploitation — this includes indirect abuse, such as photography — of boys under 16, according to Dr. Gartner, is still fairly high at one in four. Not to mention boys also tend to underreport.

“As a parent, you don’t think about having to protect a boy as much as you imagine that you have to protect a girl,” says BizParentz’ Anne Henry. As a society, we don’t think about it either. We tell girls not to go certain places, and if they do, not to go alone. Few places are off limits to boys and, if anything, they are asked to protect their mothers, sisters, girlfriends. Having said that, Henry, whose three kids were in showbiz, never sent any of them to parties. She’s heard about Bryan Singer’s soirees for decades (which makes you wonder how MANY boys he affected…). “Nobody would send kids there,” she says. But then Henry corrects herself, because of course somebody sent their kids there, but they were specific types of somebodies. They were somebodies from someplaces far away from Hollywood, places like the Midwest, where mom acted as chaperone while dad worked (if there was a dad) and took her kid to talent competitions — Henry calls them “meat markets” — and bought questionable acting classes and hired questionable managers because more people were around telling them that was the right thing to do than that it was the wrongest thing. Per Henry, “From that point on they’ve branded themselves as prey.”

Child actors are particularly good prey when they have less stable family lives — in The Atlantic‘s expose on Bryan Singer, one victim said his mom considered convicted sex offender Marc Collins-Rector a substitute father figure. They are also considered unreliable witnesses — not only are they kids, they lie for a living — and, as aspiring stars, they have everything to lose (three men who spoke about their abuse for the first time to The Atlantic remained anonymous because they still had a “fear of retaliation”). But the most important part of all this is location — Hollywood is a place where real world rules don’t apply. There are no offices there, really, and while sets are protected, parties are not. And parties are work. So it’s not like anything goes, but almost, and if you have enough power, definitely. “There’s a lot of blurring, but that’s why predators invade this work because there’s so much blur,” explains Henry. “They know they can take advantage of grey area, so they do.”

This is the perfect spot for an agent like Martin Weiss, who became so close to one client’s family, that when he sexually assaulted their son, the victim decided not to say anything because, as he said in An Open Secret, Weiss “was really cool, everybody liked him.” (In 2012, Weiss plead no contest to “committing lewd acts” on a child under the age of 14 and was sentenced to a year in county jail.) And for producer Gary Goddard, who was accused of abusing a number of boys on Disneyland rides. And for Kevin Spacey, who Anthony Rapp, then 14 years old, accused of laying on top of him at a party. In Hollywood, work is play is kids is adults is fear is fun is friends is lovers. And while women can be predators too — Gartner quotes one study in which 60 percent of the victims were abused by men, 29 percent by women, 11 percent by both — it’s men who make up the bulk of the predators. And these men tend to present themselves the same way.

In December, writer Mark Harris tweeted about an incident with Bryan Singer in 1997, around the time the media was questioning whether teen boys had been asked to disrobe on the set of Apt Pupil. Harris was one of the few gay editors at Entertainment Weekly in the room at the time and recalled how unusual it was to hear Singer openly admit his sexuality. The filmmaker then said, according to Harris’ paraphrase: “For anyone who wants to take down a gay director in Hollywood, what is the worst thing you can throw at them? That they go after kids. So if anything, I would be EXTRA careful about how I run a set.” In a less permissive decade, this “landed” for the young journalist, who called it, “The perfect way to use your own sexual identity and someone else’s to play them.” Singer was not the only one to use this line — Spacey would attempt it 20 years later to less success — and Harris was not the only one to toe it. Says Henry, “The predators were hiding under the banner of homosexuality.”

No one wants to be the one to accuse a gay man of being a pedophile, particularly in Hollywood, which is supposed to be progressive. So in The Atlantic, Singer is described by one victim as a boundary crosser, while Michael Jackson was recently characterized by his family, in response to Leaving Neverland, a documentary about his alleged abuse of two boys, as a “an easy target because he was unique.” Henry says a number of parents of abuse victims she has encountered have been shocked because they just thought the perpetrator was gay. Similarly, the parties full of young boys were read simply as gay events with a couple of twinks thrown in. Even then, parents weren’t sending their kids to them so much as their kids were making friends at school who had connections to the men hosting. These hosts tended to be publicists, agents, managers, and acting coaches (Henry described them as “vendors” of child actors) who insulated more famous attendees from responsibility. They were also protected by the gender of their victims.

While women are likely to think they’ve been abused because they’re women, men are likely to believe abuse makes them no longer men. “The ideal man is not a victim, is resilient, is in charge of sexual situations, enjoys sex whenever its offered, particularly by a woman,” says Dr. Gartner. The co-founder of MaleSurvivor (formerly the National Organization Against Male Sexual Victimization) explains that because of this mythical ideal, boys find it hard to identify their own abuse, particularly if they’re attracted to their abuser’s gender. “They’re more likely to see that as sexual initiation, at least initially,” he explains, “and often they’ve been told that by the predator as well.” The myths abound: if you are a boy, you should be able to stop it (especially if you are a man, even more especially if you are an ex-footballer like Terry Crews); if you are gay you asked for it; if you become gay, it’s because of it; if you were aroused, it’s because you wanted it; if you were a victim, you will be a perpetrator. None of this is true. But it is true that alleged Singer victim Victor Valdovinos impregnated a girl at 16 to prove he was a man. It is true that alleged Singer victim Cesar Sanchez-Guzman appeared to think telling his parents was equivalent to coming out. It is true that alleged MJ victim James Safechuck describes himself at 10 as having a “sexual couple relationship.” It is true that alleged MJ victim Wade Robson “couldn’t believe” for the longest time that what had happened when he was 7 was bad.

* * *

Two years before Corey Haim died, he made me feel uneasy. I chose to interview him knowing he had had a history of drug addiction, but I didn’t expect him to be that bad. He looked destroyed — sallow, unintelligible, uncomfortable. In the end, all I wanted was to get away; I’m ashamed now by that impulse then. Because that impulse is what protects men like the one that — according to Corey Feldman — raped his best friend when he was just a kid. A man like that has fun at the expense of a child, leaves the child in pieces, and the child spends the rest of their life trying to put those pieces back together as we gawk at the cracks.

“It is very common for both boys and girls to become addicted or compulsive in ways that include sex, include drugs, include alcohol,” says Gartner, “and a lot of it has to do with soothing the pain.” The more you are abused, the worse your prospects — the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services reports that boys who have more than six bad experiences have a more than 4,000 percent chance (that is not a typo) of using intravenous drugs. It’s hard not to think of the number of child actors who were undone by substance abuse — Edward Furlong, Brad Renfro, Nick Stahl, Brian Bonsall, River Phoenix — without wondering what preceded this. It’s hard not to think that the deaths of so many men were because of the men they met when they were boys. It’s hard not to think that we haven’t come very far.

Five years ago Michael Egan filed a lawsuit against Bryan Singer in which he claimed that the filmmaker had assaulted him numerous times when he was just 15. His lawyer held a Gloria Allred-style press conference, but not long after dropped Egan as a client, claiming Egan had lied about two men who were not Singer. In an unrelated incident around the same time he withdrew his suit, Egan was convicted of fraud. “The collapse of the Egan case was a huge win for Singer, creating the lasting impression that the director had been exonerated,” Alex French and Max Potter wrote in The Atlantic. People believed Egan was a liar, which fit the figure he cut — alcoholic, separated, bankrupt, fraudulent — which made him appear less credible than a clean cut success story like Crews or Rapp. But the funny thing is, all of those things that hamper Egan bolster his alleged history of abuse. According to the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being, more than half of the kids — boys and girls — who are mistreated are at risk for emotional issues, behavioral issues, substance abuse, and delinquency. And the men who spoke to The Atlantic about Singer say they were left “psychologically damaged, with substance-abuse problems, depression, and PTSD.”

It was being part of a support group, which Egan found through a producer on An Open Secret, that encouraged him to file his lawsuit. Men who end up disclosing later on tend to be precipitated by the realization that they have ruined their life with substances or that they have been unable to maintain any relationships (Gartner notes that they are “introduced to sex as something that happens in a power relationship where one exploits the other.”) Another trigger is having a kid of their own — this prompted the two men in Leaving Neverland to speak out — or that kid turning the age they were when they were abused. Media reports also help, though Gartner says it’s “early days” to tell whether anything has really changed. While Rapp was empowered by the #MeToo movement, abuse can only begin to be dismantled once we acknowledge its nuances with respect to race, sexuality, disability, and also gender. And that involves hearing out all victims, including boys and men. “What one hopes for is that a man would be able to make it less powerful,” says Gartner, “put it in the corner of his consciousness and only bring it out when it needs to be.” Once he talks, the prognosis varies, but to talk is to address — a boy can’t change his history, but it doesn’t have to define his future.

The following resources are available to provide support for boys and men who have experienced, or know someone who has experienced, child sex abuse: malesurvivor.org and 1in6.org.

* * *

Soraya Roberts is a culture columnist at Longreads.

#IFTTT #Blogger

0 notes

mrmichaelchadler · 5 years

Text

Home Entertainment Consumer Guide: December 27, 2018

10 NEW TO NETFLIX

"2 Fast 2 Furious" "Apocalypse Now" "Avengers: Infinity War" "Baby Mama" "The Fast and the Furious" "The Innocents" "Kill the Messenger" "The Little Hours" "Maps to the Stars" "The Theory of Everything"

8 NEW TO BLU-RAY/DVD

"Assassination Nation"

I'm only human and so there's a bit of an impulse to include a release in this column on which I'm quoted on the cover, even if the movie itself is something of a mixed bag. The quote "'Mean Girls' meets 'The Purge" is from my Sundance viewing of this divisive genre film, and is more descriptive than praising. What's been interesting to watch about the conversation around this abrasive, incendiary castigation of internet culture is that I have been very lonely in my middle ground opinion. I like its ideas more than its execution, but find it fascinating how many people either LOVE or HATE this movie. Honestly, we need more movies like that—movies that provoke conversation and debate. So you should see this not because I'm quoted on the cover but because you should pick a side ... or join me in the neutral zone.

Buy it here

Special Features Deleted/Extended Scenes Gag Reel Trailers

"Bad Times at the El Royale"

This is another movie that people seemed to either embrace or abhor and I finished with a shoulder shrug. Maybe that's not fair. I mostly liked Drew Goddard's single-setting bloodbath, but I'm stunned that anyone sees enough to like or hate here to include in either ten best or ten worst lists for the entirety of 2018. On the positive side, the ensemble is fantastic, especially Cynthia Erivo, Jeff Bridges, and Chris Hemsworth. It's never boring, weaving several subplots on a very bad night at the El Royale hotel into one backstabbing tapestry. It's also too long, too unfocused, and slips through your fingers once it's over. There's a tighter, smarter version of "El Royale" in this one that could have been great. But this one is still pretty good—available On Demand now and on Blu-ray on 1/1.

Buy it here

Special Features Making Bad Times at the El Royale Gallery

"Fahrenheit 11/9"

Did Michael Moore's latest provocation influence the election as he so clearly hoped it would when he dropped it in the heat of the season? Maybe. Probably not, though. The fact is that Moore doesn't have the impact he once did, but should that be the only way we judge him as a filmmaker? As an influencer? It will be interesting to see how his most overtly political films like this one stand up with a couple decades of history behind them. For me, the best pieces of "Fahrenheit 11/9" don't focus on the Trump Presidency but the various stories of the last few years that led to the voter apathy that was arguably the biggest reason he won. And, say what you will about this film's lack of focus, there's a great mini-doc buried within this film about the Flint water crisis that you really should see.

Buy it here

Special Features None

"The Predator"

After the TIFF premiere of Shane Black's latest reboot/sequel to the hit '80s sci-fi/action film, I suspected that I would be in the minority of critics who enjoyed it but didn't expect it to be quite so drastic. I stand by my 2am take in Canada that this is a fun action movie that understands what worked about the original film while also taking some of the same ideas in a new direction. No, it's not going to be anyone's favorite movie of 2018, but it's a quick, enjoyable rental on a Saturday night, and it works even better at home than in the middle of the night in Toronto.

Buy it here

Special Features Deleted Scenes A Touch of Black Predator Evolution The Takedown Team Predator Catch-Up Gallery

"Schindler's List"

Only this column could go from "The Predator" to "Schindler's List," but that's how we roll at the HECG (and the byproduct of alphabetical listings). For the 25th anniversary of one of the best films of the '90s, Universal has upgraded Steven Spielberg's Oscar winner with a 4K release that reminds viewers why this movie was so rapturously praised when it came out in 1993. Given 4 stars by Roger on its initial release, he didn't wait long to put it in the Great Movies pantheon, and it's a movie that has held up remarkably well. The 4K release is accompanied by a new documentary called "Schindler's List: 25 Years Later," adding to the sense that this is one of the essential 4K Blu-ray releases of 2018.

Buy it here

Special Features NEW 4K RESTORATION OF THE FILM SUPERVISED BY STEVEN SPIELBERG DOLBY VISION/HDR 10 PRESENTATION OF THE FILM NEW Schindler's List: 25 Years Later - Featurette NEW USC Shoah Foundation Story with Steven Spielberg (2018) Voices from the List - Featurette Let Their Testimonies Speak - Stronger Than Hate About IWitness (2018) AND MORE...

"A Simple Favor"

Paul Feig's mystery/comedy looked like a disaster before it was released. It was coming out at a time of year when studios are known for dumping movies that they don't know what to do with, and it didn't play any fests or get much in the way of critics screenings. And then it dropped and most people were pleasantly surprised. A reasonably big hit (almost $100 million worldwide), "A Simple Favor" filled a hole in storytelling for adults that Hollywood simply doesn't care about as much as they used to. In a time when the mid-budget movie is disappearing, it feels like everything is a part of a franchise or a low-budget indie. The mid-budget filmmakers went to TV. And so it's so heartening to see a solid mid-budget flick that offers a night of entertainment for grown-ups away from Netflix. I'm a little less high on the flick than everybody else (I think Blake Lively is amazing but the movie sags a bit when she's absent), but it's totally worth a rental.

Buy it here Special Features 3 Audio Commentaries with Cast and Crew 8 Featurettes Gag Reel Deleted Scenes Flash Mob

"Starman"

When the acolytes of John Carpenter talk about the horror icon, they often stick solely to, well, his horror films. How many pieces can the internet produce about the greatness of "Halloween," "The Thing," or underrated pics like "The Fog" and "Prince of Darkness"? Lost in a lot of the talk about Carpenter is what is actually his highest-grossing film outside of Mike Myers, 1984's "Starman." This has always been a film that I hold close to my heart as I was nine when it came out and, well, that's a good age for this movie. It's an underrated film with a truly great performance from Jeff Bridges. As Roger wrote 34 years ago, "Actors sometimes try to change their appearance; Bridges does something trickier, and tries to convince us that Jeff Bridges is not inhabited by himself."

Buy it here

Special Features NEW They Came from Hollywood: Re-visiting STARMAN – featuring director John Carpenter, actors Jeff Bridges, Charles Martin Smith and script supervisor Sandy King-Carpenter Audio Commentary with director John Carpenter and Jeff Bridges Vintage Featurette Teaser Trailer Theatrical Trailer TV Spots Still Gallery

"Venom"

Ah, "Venom." Is this smash hit a good movie? Noooo. It's clunky and weird. And yet there's something in here that almost brings it together and that's the totally committed lunacy from Tom Hardy. Whether he's talking to the symbiote inhabiting his body or eating a live lobster out of the tank in which he's sitting, there's something inspired in so many of his choices. Sadly, the rest of the movie totally pales in comparison, including something I didn't think was possible: flat performances from Riz Ahmed and Michelle Williams. As much as I don't want to see "Venom" again, I'll be curious about "Venom 2" just to see if Hardy's energy can be featured in a project that deserves it.

Buy it here

Special Features Venom Mode: When selecting this mode the film will engage informative pop-ups throughout the film to provide insight on the movie's relationship to the comics, and to reveal hidden references that even a seasoned Venom-fan may have missed! Deleted & Extended Scenes: These deleted and extended scenes will give fans even more of the Venom action they loved in theaters! Ride to Hospital – Eddie and Venom take a ride to the hospital. Car Alarm – Let's just say that Venom is not fond of car alarms. San Quentin – Extended post-credits scene at San Quentin. From Symbiote to Screen: A mini documentary about the history of Venom in comics and his journey to the big screen. Interviews with Avi Arad, Matt Tolmach, Ruben Fleischer, Oliver Scholl, and Director and Comic Fanboy Kevin Smith. The Lethal Protector in Action: Go behind the scenes with the production crew and learn the secrets behind the awesome Motorcycle stunts, wire stunts, and drones. Venom Vision: A look at how Ruben Fleischer came to the project, gathered his team, and made Venom a reality. Utilizes interviews from cast, crew, and producers as well as Fleischer himself. Designing Venom: Designing and creating Venom meant a huge challenge for VFX artists; follow the amazing journey. Symbiote Secrets: Blink and you may have missed it! Enjoy the hidden references throughout the film. 8 Select Scenes Pre-Vis sequences: See the progression of the visual effects, storyboards and fight chorography compared to the finished film. "Venom" by Eminem – Music Video "Sunflower" by Post Malone, Swae Lee (From Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse) Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse Sneak Peek: Meanwhile in another universe …

from All Content http://bit.ly/2EPZSPN

0 notes

lodelss · 5 years

Text

The Lost Boys of #MeToo

Soraya Roberts | Longreads | February 2019 | 10 minutes (2,500 words)

* * *

The following resources are available to provide support for boys and men who have experienced, or know someone who has experienced, child sex abuse: malesurvivor.org and 1in6.org.

* * *

Soraya Roberts is a culture columnist at Longreads.

from Blogger http://bit.ly/2D2HNLT via IFTTT

#IFTTT #Blogger

0 notes