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mo-mo-and-porkchop · 3 years

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42. "This isnt going to have a happy ending" (Seven)

@youbloodymadgenius

(Sorry this took so long.)

[Ala Alice in borderland on Netflix. ]

Oscar stared at the ceiling of his latest dwelling - a small, studio apartment no bigger than a hotel room. A fan whirled quietly, pushing a small breeze throughout the space. He let his eyes drift to the singular window and out to the roadways and parking lots the complex surrounded. Thin walls allowed him to hear everything his neighbors went through, day in and day out. Drab colors covered the walls making the space even more depressing.

What a shithole.

However it wasn't the worst place work had sent him over the years. Given his station in life he had been required to live in some of the shadier places on Earth. Being a hired hand for the most powerful players meant you went where they sent you. No questions. If he had known his experience in spec ops would turn him into a glorified errand boy he would never have replied to his recruitment.

They're lucky they pay so well.

He sat up with a sigh and forced himself from the futon. A female living to his right was on the phone with, whom he could only assume was a friend, complaining about her most recent bout of dieting. Her cat ate better than she did according to her.

Oscar shuffled to his small bathroom and splashed cool water across his face. He'd been there a month already and his target had yet to show up. He huffed silently to himself. He tried to warn the powers that be to move on from their obsession. After the doctor's botched experiments, they turned all of their attention to a nobody, twenty something.

A fucking kid.

As he dried his face two male voices drifted through his walls, catching his attention. They stood just down the hall and were easily heard. He listened as they discussed benign details of their day and, judging by their voices, they were 409 and 411.

Buzz. Buzz.

He glanced into his apartment at a small kitchen table that doubled as a nightstand. His phone lit up before buzzing once more indicating a text had come through. He tossed the towel onto the edge of the sink and went for his phone.

He swiped up and unlocked his phone to see a picture of Dahlia smiling brightly on the beach. Followed by the question:

[sms: jealous?]

A soft smile tugged at his lips when he saw it was his sister. And yes, he was jealous. He huffed quietly and sent a picture of his current view.

[sms: not really]

[sms: stop bragging] was her reply.

A hard, loud series of knocks at his door pulled him from his phone with a slight start. He wasn't expecting anyone. No one knew he was there, save his sister. And his 'boss' never frequent his residences. They did all their business virtually. The less connected they were physically the better.

The knocking repeated itself and he went to check his doorbell camera. Oddly no one stood there. The hall was empty. Silence began to creep in from all around. Then all power crashed.

All power.

The lights, the camera, the ac, the hall lights. Everything electronic had gone down. Not even his phone was working.

'What the hell?' he asked no one as he tapped the screen and shook it a little.

He wasn't sure what he hoped would have happened by doing it. It was like blowing on the game system when the cartridge didn't work - useless, but somehow hopeful. When nothing else worked he carefully opened his door, peeking through the hall. His unknown knocker was still at large.

Seeing that things were all clear, he went to neighbor's and knocked. Maybe they knew more about what happened. Silence followed. He waited a minute and tried again. Still nothing.

"Hello?" he called through her door.

He knew she was in there. She'd just been bitching to her cat, jealous of his superior meal plan.

"I'm from 408."

Silence.

Odd, but maybe she was cautious of unknown males. Although neighbors they knew neither beyond a simple greeting in passing. Something that happened rarely since he'd arrived.

He left her door and went to his other neighbor's. Repeating the same process, resulting in the same response.

His heart began to race as each and every door on his floor resulted in nothing more than silence. He seemed to be the only person there which was impossible. He rushed down the stairs and to the lobby, finding it eerily empty.

"Hey!" he called throughout the lobby as he searched for someone, anyone. "Hello?!"

Oscar left his complex and headed for the streets - which he found littered with abandoned cars and deserted.

What the fuck?!

"Hey!" he yelled louder, darting from car to car, his search still coming up empty.

At this point it felt as if his heart would break through his chest it was beating so hard. His mind raced. Panic was not something he was used and he handled it very poorly. The only one who was ever able to calm him on the rare occassions it did hit was his sister.

He pulled his phone out of his pocket and stared at the black screen. It still wasn't working. He glanced around to try and find his bearings and noticed something.

The marquees had gone black. the street lights were out. Even the cars wouldn't start. Everything electronic was down. Like an EMP had hit, rendering it all useless. But that didn't account for the lack of people. Oscar had no idea what could have caused that since he remained. His mind went to the only explanation he could think of.

This was hell.

But he didn't remember dying. He'd been in his apartment minding his own business. The knocking was the last sound he heard. Not a gun shot or explosion. Just loud, hard knocking.

A month had gone by. In that time he'd searched nearly every part of the city and found nothing. No one. Each building was just as empty as the last. He scavenged supplies as needed and continued searching for anything to explain away this very real feeling delusion.

Suddenly a small tv screen lit up nearby - a lone light in the darkness. He squinted to see it clearer as he neared.

'Game arena this way.'

Game arena? What the hell?

A large arrow pointed to the right and looked where it pointed. As if on cue, a spotlight shown into the sky, illuminating a building a few blocks away. A glance between his phone, which still wasn't working, and the screen was all he took before heading where directed. This was the only thing different to happen since arriving.

He came to an apartment building slightly smaller than his. It too was dark save for the spotlights and some emergency lights running on a gas powered backup generator. It was just as abandoned as the rest of the city.

Cautiously he entered the building. He'd been through a lot of shit in his day, but this was eerier than hell. The silence was nearly driving him mad. Nevertheless he made his way through the hall, arrows leading the way. He finally came to the end of the hallway. A small table with cell phones and an elevator were all that greeted him. The elevator was down and the phones were off, just like the rest of the city.

Great. More nothing.

He tried the nearby doors and found them all locked. He left to backtrack out when he finally ran into others. Instinctively he grabbed one up and held him against the wall, holding his hand out to keep the others at bay.

"What the hell is going on? Who are you?" he asked glancing between the three of them.

They remained silent, but by the looks of thing he wasn't going to get any answers from them. He could almost smell their fear. Once Oscar actually took the time to actually see them he realized he'd overreacted. They were young men. In their mid twenties at best. Kids. He was an ex military turned merc who had done a great job of staying fit. He must have looked like a monster to them. He relaxed his grip and held up both hands in apology, taking a small step backward, keeping them all in his sights.

"Sorry. You're the first people I've found since...getting here and I thought you might have been responsible for whatever is going on," he explained.

They silently shook their heads once they were able to overcome their surge of fear. "We are just as lost as you," one of them said.

He looked at the three of them, studying their body language - which told they were being truthful.

"Do you know what is going on?" a second one asked when the silence became too much for him.

Oscar simply gave him a look to convey how stupid he thought that question was considering their initial meeting.

"Right. Sorry," he said sheepishly.

"We don't know anything," the first one admitted. "We were goofing off and then everything disappeared. It wasn't until dark that we were showed the way here."

Oscar nodded slightly. Aside from the length of time they were here, it was the same as him. "I've been here a month if my count is correct and haven't found shit. Except you guys," he said glancing between them.

The one with the stupid question took a few steps, peeking around the corner. He saw the elevator and table full of phones. His demeanor seemed a bit more hopeful at the sight. "There are phones down here," he said to his friends before taking off for them.

"They don't work," Oscar called out, but the other two had already rushed to join their friend.

When they picked them up the screens woke up. Their faces were scanned and a woman's voice came through - explaining registration was closed in five minutes and the number of participants, which as of now was the three of them.

"What the fuck?" Oscar said picking up a fourth phone. It scanned his face and replayed the same message. "These weren't working when I found them," he said more to himself.

Before they could discuss the recent turn of events a woman emerged from around the corner. She was dressed in business casual attire and looked vastly out of place. She calmly walked toward them and picked up a phone, repeating the process as the rest. This time however the registration time had gone down by two minutes.

"What does that even mean?" the third guy asked when he heard her message. "Registration?"

"Its a game," the woman said, breaking her silence.

"Game? What do you mean game?"

Without a word she pulled out some kind of ID badge and threw it down the hall. They all watched as a lazer shot out and precisely hit the tiny card.

"Once you cross the barrier you have now choice but to play."

"What game?!" the first guy asked again, frustration and worry in his voice.

"We are all in this game," she began to explain. "Each one is different and if you don't complete their tasks you die."

"Their?" Oscar asked.

She shrugged her shoulders "Whoever is running it."

A second girl showed up and when she saw the groups of them she rushed forward, happy to find other humans. The trio of guys tried to stop her, but it was too late and she'd crossed the threshold. Quietly Oscar handed her a phone. After scanning her face the voice rang out that registration was closed and there were six participants. It continued stating the game's name - Dead or Alive - the difficulty - three of clubs, whatever the hell that meant - and the one and only rule:

Pick the right door and exit within the time limit.

Just then the elevator door opened with a sign on it's back wall simply stating 'Start'.

Oscar sighed and quietly told himself "This isn't going to have a happy ending" before heading inside it with the others.

#youbloodymadgenius #alice in borderland #fanfic #fan fiction #fiction #writing #fanfiction #fan fic #original character #canon character #indie #tom hardy

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empress-of-xerxes · 4 years

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Homecoming (Pt. 1)

The Immure pressed from the warp like a fist, shattering reality like glass with tendrils of cascading warp fire echoing out from the center of its re-entry. It was brutalistic, blocky and massive as any modified iconoclast destroyer could be counted to be with endless portals along its hull for modified gun platforms. It shuddered as if breathing in from a long time spent beneath the currents and thrusted forward, not waiting for the rest of the fleet fluttering in behind it. The Immure tasted prey and it's Commander would grant it a feast.

---

Braggart Hal, Arteshtaran of the Perfekt Entropy and Champion of Adrian the Beautiful, stood upon the command dias of the Immure bloated with withheld rage and venting steam from the rents in his armor that bled etheric light. His armor barely contained his soul now and he breathed out a sigh that made reality tremble as his fury became a palpable, mist of red fog billowing around his armored frame. The power field of his fists cackled and spasmed as he flexed its fingers and allowed his rage to burn bright within the weapons machine spirit. Braggart had always been a brute, even in youth. Amongst his Legion he was an outcast for foregoing the beauty and art of combat for more blunt and devastating methods. His enemies were broken not by fanciful sword play but with brutality. Break. Shatter. Ruin. The words echoed in his mind constantly like some echoed mimicry of the World Eaters mantra. He did not wish for blood. Nor skulls. Just ruination in it’s entirety.

"We... are here..." Braggart whispered but the sound came out in threat filled syllables. His chest rumbled in a throaty laugh and he breathed in deep with anticipation. "I will break... the King of Ashes."

He grinned beneath a helm he could never remove as the first alert chimes of weapons and auger lock began to sound out. "Xurok... is mine..."

---

"Confirm again." Xurok ordered but already he knew just what had burst forth from that torturous reality into Xerxian space. He had been waiting for it. For several months he and the Vanguard fleet patrolled the edges of the system and maintained key cordons around the Mandeville points in and out of Xerxes. It had been tedious work and all the while he had begun to put together the message left for him by his... lost son. That message had lead him here and it was here that he readied the first line. Twelve ships of the Xerxian Royal Navy waited for the first of the Perfekt Entropy to arrive in system and all twelve reported the same numerical and idents marking the newly arrived iconoclast as none other than the Immure.

"Confirmed Hazarbad! Every ship confirms. That is the Immure." Reported a deckhand attached to ship to ship communications.

Xurok growled, grip tightening around the haft of his axe as he witnessed the long distance renderings of the long lost Xerxian ship. "It's blighted." The Immure was long past it's original design and was bloated with weapon arrays and arcane technology. A true destroyer that even it's smaller size couldn't mask. Pylons stretched from it's prow and along it's spine and ejected jaggedly from it's back. Arcs of ethereal light danced between the harness points and the destroyer seemed to feast on the residual warp ichor that clung to it's hull from re-entry. Xurok could swear the ship was laughing as he saw that hull lurch and spasm.

"Weapons lock and engage. Now! Full spread." He announced and began the tedious work of commanding a void battle. All around the command deck the Ram personnel began their calculations as more splinters of blighted ships began to cough out of the warp tear made by the Immure. There were twenty now. All old Xerxian patterns and designations.

"Fire at will! Target the lighters first but hammer the Immure with everything else!" Xurok ordered and the Immure answered with a flare of engine discharge as it roared forward.

---

The Epigram burned silently in the void with its hull ruined and torn asunder. It was a victim to the onslaught unleashed by the warp-bloated weaponry employed by the Immure and its death marked the first of many as the iconoclast surged towards Xurok's Mayra. Lance beams, solid sabot rounds, mass accelerated tungsten, and a whole litany of other weapons were filling the void with constant flashes of void shield flares and the occasional trickle or sickly pop as a ship's voids shivered out of existence and the metal of its hull taste the sting of munitions.

Braggart flexed the fingers of his gauntlet, making a fist and squeezing hard to the groaning of servos. His attention was fading. Vision swimming red with hate. Before him was the weakness of his species laid bare. Complacency and fear, tethered to remain bound to a single system when they could have taken the stars.

"Adrian's Perfekt... we cull the weak... prepare to board..." He growled across the ship wide vox and echoing out the same transmission to the rest of the fleet. The Perfekt Entropy aboard were already awaiting this moment, weapons primed and combat stimulants awaiting the first sign of neural activation.

Three of their ships had fallen to the initial wave of attack from the Xerxian Vanguard but plenty remained and order was remade. They spiraled and danced among the first line of defense, bleeding and setting a path for the Immure to meet with the Mayra. A duel of the strongest of Xerxes' sons.

"Burn engines at... max... Cleave our path forward..." Braggart hissed as he began to retreat from the command deck. He would reach his prey. He would break Xurok. He would open the way for his brother. He had sworn this to him and if Adrian had simply asked... Braggart would have razed the galaxy in his name.

---

"You will not have to worry about finding him." Said an unusually calm and monotone voice from behind Xurok. The Immortalis commander turned about and his eyes narrowed at the turncoat named Helotes. The former apothecary wore no smug smile, no sneer of arrogance. It was strange to even consider this man once one of sons of Fulgrim when all the mirth and pride was absent and in its place neutrality and bitterness thrived. Helotes wasnt a schemer but there was no denying the man was capable of webbing ideas as fluidly as the rest of the degenerated Emperor's Children. What his true motive was... for the time being... is unclear.

Helotes' brow raised and he returned Xurok look with the tired, aged gaze of his own. The ashen grey smudges still splotted over his eyelids and the wrinkles and deep frown always set upon his face really spoke to the man's age. But there was still a deeply hidden youthfulness there, glinting in eyes undeserving of the color grey. Stolen, Xurok once pondered, but had since given up wondering on.

"What is he now?" Xurok ventured.

"Divinity." Helotes grumbled sardonically, "Or as close to reaching it as any one can be. I helped him on the path at Adri- I mean the Beautiful's request. We were to guide him and contain his being until the very end. A conduit for the range in his soul. A prison." Helotes rubbed his chin and the Mayra rumbled as its guns unleashed another salvo.

"It was cruelty to indulge him, but there was no better drug to sate the beast. Sarn devised the numerology. I carved the frame. He whispered as He always did. Soothed the beast as he soothed us all."

The edge of Xurok's lip twitched and he looked away from the apothecary. He remembered Braggart as a brute but Helotes made him sound like so much more now. A slaughterer. A pawn. A tool.

"Can we kill him?" Xurok asked with a bite to the intonation.

Helotes thought on this as if it was the first time he'd ever been asked. He rubbed the back of his shaven scalp and shrugged to the groan of armor servos. "Theoretical: Sunder and delay, break apart piece by piece. That would be the best course of action. But Practical..." He snorted, "Nothing short of tossing him into the sun would do the trick."

Theoretical? Practical? The words had been intoned and Xurok took note of their meaning. He could not remember their use prior to now but they were a familiar rhythm. Pre-Heresy... but did they remain Post? A question for another time.

"Xerxian plasma burns three times as hot as any sun." Xurok growled and Helotes almost smiled then.

"So there is a plan then?" Helotes crossed his arms and the honor guard of the Immortalis Primus shifted with agitation. Xurok nodded but remained silent for a while. He needed to see what Braggart was before he could break him. He needed to know if the path into the mountain crest he had taken and the pain he had endured there would prove enough now. There was only so much the scales of the Shahmaran could do against the degeneracy of the warp but Xurok knew in the fire of his soul that it would have to be enough. Against dev and fae, against even the Thrones themselves, his weapons and his being had proven themselves capable. It was all about balancing the cost of power permitted.

"He is coming for me, yes?" Xurok asked and Helotes need not confirm. "Then let him. We grant him a path straight to me, slow him only slightly, enough to make sure the rest of his fleet burns in the cinders of his hubris. Once he is on board we must goad him at every turn. Promise him failure."

Helotes clicked his tongue, "Making him angry isnt what I would suggest..."

"But it's what we must do. We have to let him burn himself out. Let him unleash the worst of his rage so that we get that moment to strike. If he is as you say, Divinity climbing, then that is when he is most vulnerable. At the apex of his ascension."

Helotes chuckled dryly, "You want him to ascend? That can not end the way you see it..."

"I want him to become the pawn, not for Adrian, but for the things that echo in the Windsong. That is when he loses Adrian's favor and with it his protection."

Helotes did not understand, not fully and Xurok could not blame him for such. This insight was only possible through the knowledge that mother Xerxes could provide. Through the whispers of the Scales and the burden of blood.

#super long drabble #collecting it all here #xerxian lore #homecoming #warhammer 40k #oc #drabble #writing

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detonatingunicorn · 4 years

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so while i enjoy the new pokemon sword and shield, after a while of playing i can definitively say there are a few things i wish the game had. and by this i dont mean the lack of a complete pokedex. while there are some incredible pokemon from past gens i wish I could have, like volcarona, alakazam, scolipede and salamence, i cant say i miss them enough for it to be disappointing. there are plenty of other pokemon to choose from and its allowed me to discover the potential of other pokemon i had never even considered raising before. quite frankly, the game is wonderful. the wild area is a blast, the music and sound effects are FANTASTIC and the graphics are great, i dont care how much you all smack on them, you all have to admit the lighting and shadows are awesome, the characters and customization are dope, and the rendering on all the pokemon is damn good.

But after playing this long i can definitely say there are a few features i wish they had implemented from previous games, so heres what I have to say:

First off, connecting with friends is an absolute bitch. i hate not being able to find my friends in the list when they start up a max raid half the time, and I have never been able to visit a friends camp unless we are local, which is basically never. being able to go on the same server online so you could do all these things together really needs to be added, and it sucks being unable to do so.

next, i wish there was still a GTS system. when breeding and raising pokemon, obtaining exclusive pokemon from other games or getting one with a hidden ability is tough, the GTS made this so much easier before. Now I just have to wonder- sorry, “SURPRISE” trade and hope miraculously I’ll get the one im looking for, or pound a hella ton of wishing pieces in a den till i finally get the pokemon I need. I wasted over a hundred wishing pieces just trying to get a gigalith with sand force, and let me tell you, it sucked. With a GTS this would have went a lot faster and I would have saved a lot of wasted watts.

Another feature I wish the game had was a way to multi battle with one friend. In Sun and Moon, me and my sister were addicted to the battle tree together, just as we were in black and white with the battle subway. In here I have no way to pair myself up and just kick ass with her together. While i enjoy the Link Multi-battling, you need four people to successfully battle at all with it and we have never been able to do any battling of any sort together. it kind of puts a damper on things and in my personal opinion makes the game less enjoyable. i enjoy working together with others to make killer teams to kick other peoples’ ass, and here im left just to do it all on my own. As i mentioned earlier, the friend communication is extremely weak and this is just one area that particularly enrages me.

Following off of that however, I wish there was a VS recorder. The Switches ability to record a 30 second clip of your game play just isnt enough for those battles with other trainers. I have had some incredible battles on the Link Battle system against random trainers, and some that were just the most hilarious things, and I wish I could share what went down with my friends later. Even just recording them so I could rewatch and observe how other people built and used their pokemon is a feature I wish I could do, and I have yet to learn of a way I could record the full length of these battles to share.

so, while there are probably other things i have noticed to hate, these are the primary things from sword and shield that have bothered me. Perhaps there is a way to do some of these that has already been implemented, and maybe im just missing it. Beyond these few things though i dont have much room to complain. I just really do wish there was just a better way to play with my friends, and maybe also a higher catch rate on those gigantamax pokemon.

#pokemon #pokemon sword and shield #text #rant #i really just had to get this all out there #if there is a way to do some of these things please let me know

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theinfiniterick · 7 years

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Ep 10 Shoddiness (Spoilers)

I'm procrastinating on some design homework for this but I just can't focus unless I get it out. Thus I'm going to elaborate on why I don't like this episode... and why Dan Harmon should stop writing.

Key points:

character inconsistency

rapid and unsubstantiated changes in interpersonal dynamic

underwhelming content for finale

That last one needs no further explanation except that the Ricklantis Mixup should have been the finale. I was blown away by that episode and it's definitely my favorite of all three seasons. No surprise that it's also top of the episode ranking list on IMDB.

Now, I can see why people might like the episode. The main plot was funny and we got to see Rick really unload some badassery with his gadgets and wit. I laughed a lot. It's important, however, to not overlook the misdirection and ultimately how it can invalidate character progression or principle plotlines.

Firstly, let's address character inconsistency.

I'm talking about Morty here. We ALL want Morty to progress, to grow, to go somewhere, to change a little... but we want to SEE it. We want to be there to see the growth along the way. When there are gross changes in character that haven't been substantiated by a turning point or haven't been eased into, writers invalidate the very concept of growth. We end up feeling empty while the characters feel less "real."

Morty here is incredibly confident, talks back to the president, doesn't care about his selfie, doesn't even say a single "aw, jeez" in this episode (if he did I seriously missed it)... AND... did you catch where he snaps at Rick with his body language while on the phone? I was shocked. (It also felt uncharacteristic of Rick to just take that.)

It all feels so alien and is a big change from the previous episode. --Oh wait we didn't see Morty in the previous episode. I mean the episode before that. Although, wait a minute. Summer completely reset both Rick and Morty to a state before ever going through the mind blowers, so we can't reference that. The episode before was the Ricklantis Mixup and all we saw of them was before and after entering Atlantis. Which leaves us with Ep 6: Rest and Ricklaxation. --No wait. Morty wasn't his actual self in that whole episode and seemingly returned to normal unconfident Morty afterward.

Episode before that was the Jerry episode. This is the last time we see full normal Morty go through any kind of plot that could progress his character before the finale. That was five whole episodes ago, AND unfortunately he was a sub-plot in that episode, not a main.

Why is this important? Good shows ease into character changes, not just pop them on viewers and make the excuse of "well he must have progressed off screen for the last 4 episodes."

Remember the first episode of the season and how it began with Rick seemingly explaining to his family "and that's how I broke out of prison"...? We were all pissed for a moment because we thought writers took the lazy off-screen-progression route and left us out of the whole damn escape. That's what I mean. Morty in this episode has progressed to a point that feels very out of nowhere with the excuse of "well he's been adventuring a lot with Rick off-screen."

Here's another character/inconsistency issue.

Morty didn't only talk back to the president and act like a little mini-Rick the whole episode. He also did something that should not have been used so lightly in the plot.

There are quite a lot of times in the series where something serious happens, Morty has had enough and he threatens Rick that he won't go with him, that "this is it." Each of those times so far have made sense considering what was at stake or what Rick put him through. Morty threatening to end adventures is not something used lightly and normally has substantial reasoning.

In this episode, however, Morty is completely willing to give up adventuring, abandon his grandpa and live in the woods with his family--something pretty huge--*without* a substantial reason. It's great that his parents got back together but was that really enough to warrant using that plot point? It feels like an incredible stretch and just messes with the realism and relatability that other episodes have established.

Let's talk about that interpersonal/family dynamic.

The end of the episode was the grossest part for me. We see the dynamic between Rick and the group completely turned upside down and somehow Rick ends up being treated like the black sheep of the family. It was weird. It was alien. It was frustrating to watch and I seriously wanted him to snap and just shoot all of them...... revealing they were all clones.

Why is Rick's status here such a problem? Some people say it was refreshing to finally have his family treat him like dirt instead of bowing down to him, but refreshing isnt at all what I would call it. This is yet another flip-switch that forces a rapid change without substantial reason. We didn't witness some big meaningful turning point that set them all as equals. We didn't witness any valid reason for condescending upon Rick, any feasible plot point for the power to change hands.

Secondly, the vast majority of us didn't get on this ride to see Rick treated like Doofus Rick. We fell in love with his command over life and the universe, his no fucks attitude, his disrespect for authority and being told what to do. It feels like the entire family just kinda crapped on him today for no good reason and he took it, uncharacteristicly.

Last but not least...

The last weird thing is that Rick even compromised to settle things with the president rather than put him in his place. The president didn't even learn a lesson or have any growth himself. This is really unlike Rick and unlike prior writing where antagonists realize where they went wrong (or of course just kicked the bucket.)

And are we really to believe that the president has a stalemate with the smartest man in the universe? The writing just defies everything we've come to know about Rick. He can topple an entire *galactic* federation but here they put him on a sort of "par" with the American government? Rick is a good three or four steps ahead of the elaborate scheme of Zigerian scammers, and we're expected to believe he never knew about illegal satellite spying? Rick has a device that rendered all squirrels inert for a radius probably about a block in size and we're expected to believe him and Morty would really just walk down the mine shafts shooting infestations individually with guns?

Again, it wasn't the presidential or political plot that I disliked. There was so much about this writing that just doesn't fit, is disappointing, underwhelming and defies previous character abilities/personality. It feels like it was a throwaway episode merely meant to align things the way they want it for next season: have Beth and Jerry back together without any issues, drop the idea of Beth being afraid of Rick leaving (but why drop that?), and set Rick up to be more indebted to the family, not have as much power over them. It sounds like they want to neutralize all series subplots (no more family drama, no more father daughter conflict) and get back to, as Beth mentioned, a more streamlined plot with just Rick and Morty.

While I do want them to show more of the main characters and stop going on these side escapades, having father-daughter conflict makes the show a lot more meaningful. Having Beth Summer and Morty want to stay in Rick's life because they love him makes the show more meaningful. Completely erasing that dynamic and now having the family shit on Rick and not care whether he stays or goes, having Morty be so willing to abandon adventures instead of be caught in dissonance between keeping his family happy and keeping Rick around...

Idk about you but that doesn't sound like the Rick and Morty I want to watch...

#rick and morty #rick and morty season 3 #rick sanchez #rick and morty season 3 finale #morty smith #dan harmon #bad writing

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docmurph12 · 4 years

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Ok. So two parter on CATS coming up. POSSIBLY a three parter depending on how long it takes to get through background. Here we go......

So my first request review comes from my good friend. I'm not sure how this is going to go, because I'm going whole hog on this one, again in the interest of pure objectivity.

My understanding of CATS is this. It was a Broadway musical based very loosely on T.S. Eliot's "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats". My friends in and fans of the theater community have told me there isnt really an intended overriding plot. The Wikipedia page I found begs to differ, but they insisted it really is just a collection of vignettes, told through the perspective of a cat. Simple enough? I believe so. Now, I also understand this stage musical to have been adapted a number of times, largely for Broadway and for specific actors and actresses, with the noted exception of the film CATS (2019). Yes that one. Yes I intend to watch it. On purpose. But wait there is more. The 2019 film was trashed nearly universally but everyone before they finished the trailer and after the film was released and viewed. Most people said the performances were fine but visually it was recieved as, to put it simply, fucking wierd. I saw one review that said it was released unfinished, with a CD character model floating into the middle of a scene out of context and with no animation, a mess with texture rendering (apparently Ian McKellan has a scene where his fur just doesn't show. Like the texture is flat. Like it looks like it was published on a floppy disk alongside the original Doom). Not to mention the myriad questions that seem to come up in conversation about the character design choices as a whole. Jesus, how bad is this thing??

My resources tell me a BUNCH of super important contextual things about this one, most important of them being that this is SUPER META Broadway at it's best. Like this is the most Broadway that has ever Broadway'ed. This could be a good thing (one of my favorite musical pieces is fucking everything from Les Miserables), or it could be a bad thing (anyone that knows me knows that with notable exceptions I am NOT a big fan of musicals AT ALL, which is strange for me given my proclivity for weirdness, good storytelling, and music). This is going to be fun for everyone I think so strap in folks. This is going to be a wierd ride through furry land with a guy that wants nothing to do with it, lol. (SCORE, looking like 2 parts)

First I'll be looking at CATS (2019), because I am a glutton for punishment, and my wife says that the best way to get through this is to chew through the shit sandwich first, and then to get through the good stuff, so the good stuff is what sticks. I'm not sure I am going to enjoy either part, but I am open to it so here we go. I'll try to keep my writing as live as possible, per usual.

RIGHT AWAY, as I'm completing the Amazon rental purchase, this cast is fucking loaded. Taylor Swift, Jennifer Hudson. Judi Dench, Jason Derulo (wait, he acts too? Maybe his part is the worst part in this, I hate his music worse than I dislike Taylor Swift), Idris Elba, Ian McKellan, Rebel Wilson, and more. And that doesnt even include any love for people I am not familiar with that might carry some star power over from Broadway. So this thing is loaded for bear with acting heavies. That said, I really don't understand the comic appeal of Rebel Wilson. I don't think she is funny. You already lost me with Taylor Swift and Jason Derulo. All that said, this cast roster looks expensive.

Ok I am a minute and 47 seconds in and my first thought already is what the hell am I listening to? If this was originally put together in the 80s, and its either loved (ironically I guess?)or reviled, why would you stick with the same musical choices as instrumentation is concerned? I'm guessing I am going to have more on this later.

So completely inconsequential to the actual review the word jellicle as it relates to cats is totally ruined thanks to my learning of a word not in may people's vocabularies. Farticles. Thanks to my cousins for that one.

Alright, so full disclosure. I am not a fan of Rebel Wilson. I enjoy aspects of characters she plays, and she can be funny at times, but when your whole act revolves around one aspect of you (in her case it is that she is a large woman. Seriously its like every joke in all 3 Pitch Perfect movies) it says a lot about your ability to tell a story or joke. That said, it is so nice to not hear Rebel Wilson tell fat jokes. She is genuinely talented. It's hard to watch her in this cat suit (? Cat body? Cat war crime? More later), but it's interesting to see someone explore another side of their craft.

The sound design is...off. I'm not sure how else to describe it. You can LOUDLY hear body parts hitting set pieces. Footfalls, people jumping and grabbing on things. Like seriously you can hear it over the music. It sounds like someone got lazy in the mixing room, or they were trying to make it feel more like a stage production. News Flash. It doesn't make it feel like a stage production. It makes it feel like nobody in the production staff cared as much as the actors. I am beginning to suspect that ALL the money on this movie was spent on casting. And concept art.

I am genuinely confused by the choice to have only a couple cats wear clothes, and when they remove them, their fur looks exactly like the clothes they removed. I'm finding myself looking at things they did that wasted money. Money that could have been spent anywhere else to improve this thing.

All things considered, I could watch Idris Elba play the title character in Jaws, and enjoy it.

I'm pretty impressed by the entire cast's commitment to everything they picked up from their movement coaching. It is obvious that they were trying to incorporate a lot of typical feline movement and habitual aspects, even going so far as utilizing ballet movements for some of the dancing (probably because it is more "feline", to use the word again.) Nobody has really slipped yet. It's pretty impressive.

I think the thing that has me most surprised throughout is that this thing has the ability to elevate some (Rebel Wilson, Jason Derulo, Francesca Hayward, Jennifer Hudson, the VFX artists) and drag others through the dirt, (Judi Dench, Ian McKellen, Idris Elba, the VFX artist team), most times in the same scene. It's crazy how on one hand someone truly can astound you with their performance, blow you away with a wonderful rendition of a song some people know well, and on the other hand you see wonderful, well established actors really putting their asses into a performance that has no way of doing them service because there isn't anything there. For comparison, look at Ben Kingsley in Ghandi, or Lucky Number Slevin, versus his performance in Bloodrayne. It's really hard to watch these respected thespians work their asses off for something that won't ultimately pay off for them because it doesn't have the capability to.

Ok so halfway verdict here:

This was a fucking mess. Now I didnt see the original theatrical release, so I have no idea how truly barrel bottom things got here. I CAN say, that I can see the bones of what this is supposed to be buried in the mess of cat shit (see what I did there????).

The concept of the costuming is essentially what I imagine it is for the stage show, but seeing it in it's execution is.....disturbing. The movement coaching was pretty solid and worked well with the dance choreography, but in combination with the actual character design there is an implied sexuality in the feline-ness that makes you uncomfortable, but not in the thought provoking way, just in the "forced to look at naked people covered in cat fur for an hour and a half" kind of way. Like I was even kind of into Idris Elba's performance of Macavity, until he took off the hat and trench coat and now I'm just watching a naked Idris, but with cat ears and a tail. To be honest seeing this throughout the film really took you out of the immersive aspects of it. Not to mention that while lighting was ok, the actual character models pasted on the motion capture actors moved strangely, sometimes the faces were disjointed with the heads, sometimes textures looked unfinished (not as bad as I thought it would be but I know people that could do better than that on their computers at home.) Just a jarring experience visually overall.

The score was ugly and dated too. Or maybe not the score, so much as the instrumentation. Sound design was atrocious throughout, it seemed like the intent was to make it feel more like a stage production, but if that's the case, why go the route they did in terms of set design and all that? Being able to hear hollow flooring under heavy footfall, or people loudly slamming hands into bars they need to grab to catch themselves, or the piss poor choice in instrumentation, the whole thing feels like B roll for the DVD extras. You know what actually did great in updating the music for a more immersive experience? Aladdin. Check my first review out for more on that one.

So halfway verdict? I say a rough D. I dont see myself going back for this one, but I'm not unable to see the appeal. I just am sort of anticipating the 1998 Broadway production (part 2 of this review) so I can see what this is really SUPPOSED to be. Watch for part 2, coming later!

#cats #cats 1998 #cats the musical #broadway #movie #review

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dragonlinguistics · 7 years

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The Phonology of Proto-Indo-European

Having written a fair bit on various aspects of PIE’s phonology, I think it’d be a good idea to summarise my thoughts on the matter in one place. I’ll begin with a full phonological inventory, using the traditional orthography(and in the case of unrecognised phonemes, my own notation):

Let's begin with the stop system. While it is true that most branches do require breathy-voiced stops, they are clearly not old in PIE, as they are less marked than the traditional voiced stops - exactly the opposite of what would be expected. Thus, at PIE’s more formative stages, it is highly plausible that the breathy voiced stops were phonetically plain voiced, while the plain voiced stops were actually some other, highly marked stop.

The usual choice is ejectives, and while this may have been their value once, it is unlikely that they were the precursor to the Late PIE system, following the arguments in Kümmel (2012). As suggested there, implosives are viable for Early PIE, and possibly late PIE as well, and this is what I have opted for.

There is some controversy over the number and nature of the dorsal series, namely whether there were two or three series, and whether the “palatals” really were palatal. The latter point has mostly been settled in favour of actually being plain velar, with the traditional velars (if they existed, per the first point) being something further back, such as uvulars, which is the stance taken here.

The first disagreement is still ongoing, and isn’t likely to be resolved any time soon. I strongly believe that there were in fact three series, and cite the fact that all three were actually contrastive as evidence. Moreover, PIE clearly had a restriction on having two stops at the same PoA in a root, which would rule out a root like *ḱenk- “hang” if we assumed that the two non-labial series were actually the same!

The nature of the laryngeals is something on which I greatly disagree with the general consensus, which holds that *h₃ was both voiced and rounded - an opinion based on very flimsy evidence. For the voicing, the sole example *pibeti < *pibh₃eti is given in support, and for the rounding, the colouring of *e to *o is offered.

Yet I think that we can explain *pibh₃eti by positing an original root form *beh₃-, and an initial change of *b to *p. This would not only explain *pibh₃eti, but also why there are no good examples of initial *b, but a few scattered examples of non-initial *b. And as I will explain later, I do not believe that *o was actually rounded at the time of laryngeal colouring, which renders the second argument moot.

There are other reasons to believe that *h₃ was a voiceless illabial fricative. If it were voiced, it would be the only voiced fricative in PIE - moreover, the usual reconstructions don’t even give it a voiceless counterpart! While this is not impossible, taken alongside all over considerations, it’s a strong reason not to reconstruct *h₃ as voiced. For the lack of rounding, it would be wholly implausible for *h₃ alone of the labialised dorsals to not give a labialised reflex in Anatolian. And by the quality of [ɑ] which will be given to *o, we can take *h₃ to be uvular /χ/.

The actual labialised laryngeal in Anatolian, *ḫʷ, corresponds to *h₂w elsewhere, which could be taken as the inner-PIE reflex of a fourth laryngeal, /xʷ/. Armed with this new consonant, we can also see a reflex in the structurally bizarre initial *wR- clusters. This incidentally also implies a value /x/ for *h₂, which is usually also given in mainstream literature.

As for *h₁ it’s nigh-universally agreed that this was either a glottal fricative or a glottal stop, both values having evidence towards them. Thus I consider it at least possible, if not likely, that there were two *h₁’s, no longer distinguishable directly. However, if there was only one, I believe it would be the fricative /h/ rather than a stop.

The vowel inventory of PIE has had a two-part post dedicated to it, which you can read here, so I won’t repeat the full argumentation for the vowel system I reconstruct. In short, it can be argued based on Anatolian that the traditional *e *a *o masks an older *æ *ä *ɑ, which in turn allows us to derive them all from a pre-PIE *a *ā, by laryngeal colouring and a number of other developments, which created the characteristic ablaut of PIE.

Apophonic *o also lengthens in a number of environments, while coloured *o does not, so they must be phonemicly distinct, probably long vs short (though since apophonic *o does end up short generally, half-long might be better). To that end, since coloured *o is usually just notated *h₃e, I have adopted *ɑ for it, retaining *o for apophonic *o.

We also find instances of *e and *o not subject to ablaut, but also not related to laryngeals, which is particularly important for this third kind of *o, as it shows it isnt *ɑ. These I have marked *ė and *ȯ, as they merge with *e and *o (but like *ɑ, *ȯ fails to lengthen). I believe these two vowels come from pre-PIE *i and *u, leaving PIE’s *i *u to derive from *ī *ū.

Finally, following Byrd (2010), *ə is an epenthetic ‘repair’ vowel, representing both the ‘schwa primum’ and ‘schwa indogermanicum’. It is crucial to distinguish this vowel, added already in PIE, from the vowel inserted adjacent to laryngeals independently in each branch. *ə was added solely to break up illegal clusters, where deleting consonants was either impossible, due to not repairing the cluster at all, or highly undesirable, as in the oblique of *pód- “foot”, where deleting consonants would obscure the shape of the root completely.

#historical linguistics #linguistics #proto-indo-european #original #article

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kansascityhappenings · 4 years

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Even with insurance, KC family irked that trip to China isn’t refundable after coronavirus outbreak

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – A family in the Northland is learning the hard way that travel insurance isn’t always what it appears to be.

Jill and Scott Heil’s son is a high school junior, who has been studying Chinese for three years.

He was scheduled to visit China with his class next month, but the trip was canceled after the U.S. Department of State raised the travel advisory for China to a level four due to the Wuhan coronavirus.

“He was so excited,” Jill said about her son. “It’s been over a year since he paid for the trip, but planning started earlier than that.”

The trip was booked through EF Educational Tours, Inc. and cost $3,665, most of which their son covered by saving up his money. The Heil family also purchased global travel protection through the company, which cost $165.

“We’ve bought travel insurance for cruises and other trips, and generally if flights are canceled, there’s a hurricane or massive issues in countries or weather-related, that should cover the cost of the trip,” Scott said. “I expected this to be no different. I mean it’s named travel insurance.”

When the Heils learned their son’s trip had been canceled, the reached out to EF Tours in hopes of getting their money back.

However, the couple was told that since the cancellation happened within 45 days of departure, a full refund wasn’t possible.

Instead, they said they were given three options.

“You could get a voucher equal to the price of this trip to use at a future date. That we could go at the same time of this trip to Europe or the third option was the voucher, but our teacher would redo China next year,” Jill explained.

At one point, the company offered the Heils a partial refund. The couple was willing to concede a portion of the refund, but they believed they were entitled to more than what the company was offering.

“To keep $2,000 when really you haven’t rendered really any service to us at all, I think is excessive,” Scott said.

In an email to FOX4, a spokesperson for the company said their cancellation policy is designed to “reflect the most likely personal causes for cancellation or disruption to a traveler’s experience – things like delayed flights, family illness, job loss, lost luggage, etc.”

Virus outbreaks are not covered.

“It is very rare for the U.S. Department of State to restrict travel to a certain region, which is why this very unlikely situation is not covered by the policy,” the spokesperson explained.

“It’s a really tough situation, and I sympathize with this family,” said Stan Sandberg, the co-founder of www.TravelInsurance.com

The online site allows consumers to compare travel insurance prices and coverage.

Sandberg said virus outbreaks aren’t covered by most plans.

“Travel insurance hasn’t really figured out how to contend with the virus outbreaks in the world. It does not really provide a whole lot of protection in that regard,” he said.

There is one exception. Consumers could purchase Cancel For Any Reason (CFAR) coverage.

“Cancel For Any Reason coverage tends to be only available in the more premium plans, tends to cost another 40-50% on top of the base cost of a travel insurance plan, but it gives you the most flexibilities,” Sandberg said.

However, even with CFAR, the buyer isn’t guaranteed a 100% refund. Reimbursement under CFAR is usually between 50-70%.

Sandberg suggests consumers consider shopping around for travel insurance instead of automatically going with the insurance offered by the agency booking the trip.

“You have options,” he said.

That’s not enough for the Heils, who offered a warning to consumers.

“Don’t take travel insurance for what it is,” Scott said.

Here’s the full statement from EF Educational Tours:

“The health and safety of our students, staff and travelers is always our top priority, and we are closely monitoring the outbreak of the Wuhan coronavirus. We continue to be in touch with our teams in the United States and China, as well as with the relevant authorities in both locations.

“One of the main reasons why our customers choose EF Educational Tours is our 50-year legacy of putting student safety first and the fact that we have offices in nearly every destination to which we travel.

“We are currently working with our customers who had trips planned to mainland China to determine the best solutions, so they feel safe and supported. In these specific types of situations, we always give extra flexibility to our groups. We always offer the choice to change destinations entirely, delay travel to a later date or take a refund in the form of a transferrable travel voucher. As the situation evolves, we continue to make changes for groups as needed.

“We always comply with international and federal guidance and restrictions, and we will continue to provide all relevant updates to our customers in an efficient and timely manner as the situation evolves.”

from FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports https://fox4kc.com/news/even-with-insurance-kc-family-irked-that-trip-to-china-isnt-refundable-after-coronavirus-outbreak/

from Kansas City Happenings https://kansascityhappenings.wordpress.com/2020/02/15/even-with-insurance-kc-family-irked-that-trip-to-china-isnt-refundable-after-coronavirus-outbreak/

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themoneybuff-blog · 5 years

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Questions About Car Seats, Leftovers, Medical Insurance, Budget Brands, and More!

Whats inside? Here are the questions answered in todays reader mailbag, boiled down to summaries of five or fewer words. Click on the number to jump straight down to the question. 1. Early or late retirement contributions? 2. Purchases for infrequent use 3. Used car seats? 4. Excessive leftovers 5. Friends want me to spend 6. Value of one bag living 7. Buying a house on $35K 8. How to avoid drive-thrus 9. Medical insurance difficulties 10. Budget brands? 11. Starting career advice 12. Thoughts on taekwondo One of the most enjoyable parts of writing this mailbag column is the wide variety of comments and questions I get from readers. I usually try to keep the stuff I choose for the mailbag at least somewhat within the realm of personal finance, maybe slipping in one or two questions or comments a week that arent related to the topic, but I get quite a lot of great stuff from readers that covers completely different topics that I just cant reasonably fit into the mailbag. For example, just in the last week or two, Ive received the following notes from readers: A reader wrote in to talk about the joys of playing Magic: the Gathering with her son and how they were building Commander decks together. A reader wrote in to encourage me to pick up some of the writings of the philosopher Byung-Chul Han, particularly his essays Psychopolitics and The Scent of Time (which Im currently reading). A reader has been trying to get me to debate him concerning a number of hot button political issues. A reader has been writing to me consistently for weeks asking for step-by-step help in getting a batch of homemade kombucha to work. A reader invited me to his dynasty fantasy football league. Thats just over the last several days. Honestly, I love this kind of thing, because it represents human connection. Theres a sharing of ideas and interests and a sharing of concern behind all of it that goes way past merely writing about financial issues, and it means a lot to me, even if its not fodder for the mailbag. Speaking of the mailbag, here are this weeks questions. Q1: Early or late retirement contributions? Is it better to contribute to a Roth IRA early in the year or as late as possible? I have money set aside for my 2019 Roth contribution but I dont know if I should do it now or wait. Brian Unless theres some specific reason thats unique to your situation that points to waiting, you should put those savings in there as soon as possible. The longer the money is invested, the more time you have for compound interest to work in your favor. Having said that, investment markets are unpredictable. Theres always a chance that right after you put your money in, the markets dip. Remember that this could happen no matter when you put your money in there. You could put your money in now and immediately see a dip, or you could wait until next February to put it in and immediately see a dip. The difference is that, on average, its much more likely that the investment youre putting your money into will go up in value over that period. If you wait, its very likely that youre going to miss out on growth. Put your retirement money away in retirement accounts as soon as you can. Dont sit around holding them, because youre usually doing nothing more than missing out on growth if you do that. Q2: Purchases for infrequent use Im considering purchasing a pair of bowling shoes. I only bowl once or twice a year, but it seems like its a wise investment since I could get a pair of perfectly good bowling shoes for around $25 instead of paying $3 or so each time to rent them. How do you view rarely used purchases like this that, while adding to the stuff you own, will eventually pay for themselves? Adam My philosophy on purchases like these is similar to yours. I try to look at the total cost of ownership of the item over an extended but still reasonable period of time, like five years, and I figure out which is going to cost less. I also consider how frequently Ill actually use the item, and it basically has to be annually at the very least and preferably much more frequent than that. That type of thinking requires full honesty to be valuable. So, in your situation, is it cheaper to rent shoes for $3 a pop twice a year for five years or buy a pair of shoes for $25 once? Well, the cost for rental over that period is $30, so Id probably swing toward buying a pair, assuming that Im bowling twice a year. If you assume that its actually going to be much less than twice a year, youre going to be better off renting. I usually use a five year measure for calculations like this, because I figure its pretty hard to predict accurately what my life will be like beyond that time threshold and its also probably a reasonable guess as to the wear and tear that an item can take. Usually, with a five year calculation, its obvious whether its a good move or not. Again, in this situation, those bowling shoes arent going to be worn out after ten wears, so its likely you will be able to continue wearing them at that point or theyll have some minor secondhand value. This pushes the pendulum even more toward buying them. Q3: Used car seats? I am expecting in November. My husband and I are starting to pick up baby items from FB Marketplace and Craigslist. Whenever a carseat is listed on Marketplace someone always comments that you shouldnt buy used carseats because theyre not safe. How are used carseats not safe? Amy A carseat is one of the few baby options I wouldnt buy used. The reason is simple: a big part of whats protecting that baby when theyre in the carseat is plastic, and you dont know how that plastic has been treated. Theres some chance that the plastic has become brittle and could easily crack or break in a severe impact, just when you need it the most. This can happen, for example, if a carseat has been left in the sun too much over the course of years. Its not an issue of negligence its an issue of you not knowing the history of that carseat. It may have had years of sunlight exposure, rendering the protection that it offers your child much weaker. Most baby items are fine to buy used clothes and baby monitors and things like that. Those arent things that will cause calamity if they fail and its usually obvious if theyre doing their job or not. A car seat, though, is something you should invest in. 99.9% of the time, it wont matter, but 0.1% of the time, it matters more than anything else and youll never, ever want to skimp on that situation. Q4: Excessive leftovers On any given night we will have 2-7 people at our house for dinner. By default we cook for 7 but that means that many nights we have a ton of leftovers. We eat leftovers for lunch every day but they still get tossed a lot. We cant give them to the food pantry either. Ideas? Andy My first suggestion would be to simply have a leftover buffet night for dinner twice a week or so. On, say, Wednesdays and Saturdays, just pull out all leftovers, put them on the table, and let people assemble their own plates of leftovers and heat them up (or heat up the hot items before putting them on the buffet). That way, the leftovers get consumed directly and you have a free dinner. Another suggestion is to frequently make meals and side dishes that are easy to remix into another meal if you have a low turnout. For example, if you make a bunch of spaghetti, you can save it for two nights and then mix in a few additional spices, put it in a greased 9 by 13 pan, put a couple cups of mozzarella and provolone shredded cheese on top, and bake it for 30-45 minutes, covered for the first half, to make a nice spaghetti bake. We also often have plain vegetables as a side dish and save the leftovers to make quick soups later on, for example. A final suggestion is that on nights where you have a low turnout, simply prep leftover plates for the next night and have the same thing for dinner again, or prepare a different dinner the next night for just the two who ate the night before. I dont think you need to feel obligated to have a fresh meal on the table for whoever happens to show up each night. Q5: Friends want me to spend Im 23 and got a nice job out of college paying $45K per year. Several of my friends from college are in the same area and have jobs as well so its fun to hang out with them, but it feels like they want to blow their income as fast as possible. They go out drinking and to clubs constantly, upgrade their phones all the time, ride around in Ubers when they have cars, and throw money at stupid stuff. I want to get rid of my student loan debt and start saving for a house and Im already contributing to retirement so I can get out of this as young as possible. Its not like Im avoiding fun but theres a ton of stuff to do that doesnt cost $50 or $100 for an evening. When I suggest anything else other than clubs or an expensive restaurant, I get ignored. Do you have any suggestions? Amy Find new friends? I mean, that sounds fairly cold, but it sounds like your values are diverging from the values that your friends hold, or perhaps they were always divergent and the income just exposed it. While I dont mind being acquaintances with people with drastically different lifestyles than my own, I have found its far more pleasant and easier to have close friends who have similar values and lifestyles to my own. That way, Im not pushed to overspend constantly just to spend time with my friends. I have been in situations where it felt like I had to pay some kind of admission fee (in the form of going out when I didnt want to) just to hang out with a friend and if I wasnt willing to do that, that person wouldnt hang out with me. That just isnt worth it. Id suggest digging into activities that you feel internally interested in doing. Find groups in your community that match up well with that by using things like Meetup and there youll find people who are also interested in what you happen to be internally interested in. Get involved in those groups. Youll find its not too hard to build friendships that way. Q6: Value of one bag living I found your post on one bag living to be interesting but not practical. Its not like more than maybe 0.001% of your readers will actually ever do it. What is the practical value of such an article? Ollie The practical value of it is that it really shows you how few items you actually need to have a happy and comfortable life, and when you realize that, you begin to realize how much extra unnecessary stuff you have and how much that stuff is costing you, both in terms of the stuff itself and the space youre paying for to store all of that stuff. Lets say, for example, that you decided to try it for a month. You packed a big duffel bag full of stuff and aimed to live solely out of that bag for that month. During the month, almost everything you use comes out of that bag other than maybe a few kitchen items, you really dont use anything else in your home. At the end of the month, youre left asking yourself what the point of all of that other stuff is. Why have any of it if youre able to have a great life without touching it? Why have shelves full of books and DVDs you never touch? Why have a television if you have a good life not watching it? This is likely to lead you to start downsizing your possessions, recouping some money along the way, and its also likely to lead you to question almost all of your physical purchases. If you keep going in that direction, youll find that you likely have excessive living space and can easily be satisfied with a smaller home or apartment, and if you downsize that, then youre on the way to some serious financial improvement in your life, as youre losing far less money to utilities, insurance, property taxes, and so on. Q7: Buying a house on $35K I am a single woman with a four year old child from a previous marriage; the father is not involved and avoids paying child support. We live in a small apartment in [a large city with a moderate cost of living]. I make $35K per year. My mom lives about five miles away and takes care of my son when Im working and hes not in preschool as she has a pension thats enough for her to live on because my father died in the workplace. I would like to be able to afford a small house for us and get out of this apartment building before hes too old because theres kind of a rough culture of teenage boys here. I would like to be in a house in four years. I have no debts and am saving about $200 a month for emergencies. Carrie First of all, Id contact a lawyer and do what you can to get child support. The cost of supporting your child should not be borne solely by you and hes legally obligated to provide financial help here even if hes uninvolved. Second of all, $200 a month in savings thats also used as an emergency fund isnt adequate to get to where you want to go in four years. I looked into your area and a small starter home is going to run you in the $300K range now and will probably be closer to $350K by the time you want to buy. 20% of $350K is $70K. If youre saving $200 a month, youll get to about $10K in four years if there are no emergencies. To get to $70K in four years, you need to be saving around $1,500 a month and have no emergencies that tap that money. Considering that youre making about $3,000 a month before taxes, thats an extremely difficult proposition. Thus, to make it to your target, youre going to have to do some radical things. The first thing I would do is sit down with your mother and discuss the option of cohabitation for a few years, with you splitting up the housing costs. If she could move into your apartment or you two could move into her dwelling and its a tenable situation for a few years, youll both save a mint. If youre paying $1,000 a month in rent and it suddenly drops to $500 a month, theres $500 a month toward savings, and probably more than that because youll have lower utility bills and you can more easily share food costs. You may find that after you buy that starter home, it may make sense to have your mother continue to live with you to keep costs manageable going forward, at least for a while. If you can swing something like that, use a lot of smart frugal tactics like sticking with store brand items when shopping, get on that child support issue, and keep working at your career to move toward a better salary, you can make this work. Without those kinds of big changes, this probably isnt a realistic goal. Q8: How to avoid drive-thrus How do you stop relying on the convenience of drive-thrus? I understand that its way cheaper to make meals at home but when I can just go to a drive-thru and get a quick meal and have it eaten before I even get home or eat it right when I walk in the door and theres no cleanup because I just toss the wrappers, its hard to convince myself to make a big mess making a meal at home. Leon There are a few good strategies for solving this problem that work well for different people. I suggest trying one for at least 30 days, see if it clicks with you or merely causes frustration, and either stick with it if it works or move on to another if it doesnt. First, try simply packing a meal for yourself at home before you leave in a small cooler. Make something simple that you like a sandwich and some baby carrots and a drink or whatever. Pack the individual items in reusable containers and put them in something insulated with an ice pack to keep it cool. Take that meal with you when you go out and save it at your desk or in a work fridge until youre ready to leave, then eat that on the way home. You can do the meal prep the night before while watching a television show and if you use reusable containers, cleanup is really just a matter of popping stuff in the dishwasher and wiping off the table (which youd need to do anyway). If you want, you can designate Fridays as eat out days and keep it as a treat for yourself for getting through the week. Another thing I strongly suggest is to simply get better at cooking at home. Cooking seems very difficult at first and even easy things like scrambled eggs feel like a giant mess and a big time and energy investment, but once you get more practiced, it stops feeling so challenging. Start by making really simple meals that you like grilled cheese sandwiches or scrambled eggs or spaghetti. Another strategy is to cook things in advance, make individual meals out of them in reusable containers, and keep them in the fridge. For example, you could make a huge batch of spaghetti one night and pack three or four individual meals of spaghetti with a breadstick in resealable containers in the fridge. Then, you can take them to work with you and youll also know that one is just waiting for you when you get home. Yet another strategy is to use a slow cooker. Start a simple dump meal before you leave (a dump meal means you just dump several ingredients in there and turn it on low) and youll have a hot home-cooked meal waiting for you when you get home. Slow cookers are great for stews, chili, soups, and simple casseroles; it can also make a mean pot roast. The goal of all of these things is to either put something in your hands directly so that youre not tempted to stop or have something at home waiting for you so youre not tempted to stop. Q9: Medical insurance difficulties I am covered by [a major medical insurer] through my workplace. A few months ago, I had a procedure done that my doctors office informed me would be fully covered by my insurance. They filed this with the insurance and the insurance company came back saying that the procedure wasnt medically necessary and wouldnt cover it, so my doctor is now billing me for it at the tune of $30K. I dont even know where to start. Should I contact a lawyer? Petra Without seeing the bills and documentation, I cant give you full advice on what to do. However, my first step would be to document every single detail that you can recall about this entire process, including dates and what you were told by both your doctors office and insurance. If you have any supporting documents, such as receipts and printed information about the procedure or about the costs, thats all valuable here. Then, I would go through the process of appealing this claim with your insurer, providing a copy of all of that documentation. An appeal should definitely be your first action. If you find that your appeal is denied, you should then discuss the matter with your doctor and attempt to get their bill reduced. If youre still finding that youre paying an excessive amount, then I would take all of this documentation to a lawyer and get legal help. It very much sounds like you were given inaccurate guidance from a doctors office and a lawyer can usually help here. Q10: Budget brands? Are there any budget brands you trust for making high quality stuff? Meaning brands that are cheap in price but the quality of their stuff is good? Darren The store brands at most department stores and grocery store chains fit that bill. For the vast majority of product types, the store brand is as good as most of the name brand options. They might not beat some of the really high end premium versions of those products, but the store brand is usually as good as 80% of similar items on the shelf. For things like charging cables and basic electronics like computer mice or keyboards, Ive found that Amazons generic brand, Amazon Basics, is really good for the price. For many different kinds of smaller electronic items, like external batteries for charging devices on the go or headphones or things of that nature, I strongly trust Anker. If theres an Anker option for a small electronic device, youre probably getting great bang for the buck with it. Those are the ones that immediately come to mind as brands that I strongly trust that consistently provide good bang for the buck across a wide variety of products. Q11: Starting career advice My oldest son is about to graduate from college with a degree in electrical engineering. I am collecting career advice from some people I respect to pass along to him. What advice would you give to a fresh college graduate in a technical field today? Robert First of all, treat the first decade of your career as an opportunity to build skills and relationships above chasing salary. A killer resume ten years from now will be worth a lot more than earning an extra $5K or $10K right out of the gate. If one job pays a little more but feels like a dead end, while the other job pays a little less but feels like its overflowing with opportunities and ways to build relationships, take the latter job in the first decade of your career. Second, if your workplace offers a 401(k) plan, take advantage of it immediately and contribute as much as you can stand. You will never regret this. Just do this and then start off with smaller take-home checks theyll still be a lot more than what you had in college. Pay yourself first. Third, no matter how tough a situation is, dont burn bridges, even if it would feel good. If youre moving on from a position, do it as gently as possible and be as positive and flexible as you can on your way out. Finally, eat healthy, get some exercise, get plenty of sleep, and dont work too many hours. If you dont do those things, youll be far less productive during your work time, the quality of work you produce will be lower, and youll have a harder time picking up new skills. If your workplace is obsessed with 80 hour workweeks, carve out as much of that 80 hours toward self care and rest that you can reasonably get away with. Q12: Thoughts on taekwondo I was wondering if you could share your thoughts on taekwondo from the perspective of both a parent of a student and as a participant with an eye toward cost. Is it worth it? Do your kids get value out of it? How about yourself? Brenda I attend a local taekwondo school with the rest of my family. It was an activity that my two oldest children wanted to try and the family plan isnt much more expensive than just the two of them participating, so when our family schedule lined up and our youngest was old enough, we all joined. In effect, our third family member was half price and the rest of us are effectively going for free, and the price has actually gone down as some family members have reached black belt rank (and those who havent are at a belt rank approaching black). First of all, if youre new to martial arts of any kind, its something you should shop around for. Any city of any size likely has a few martial arts schools; a larger city likely has some dedicated taekwondo schools with branches in various locations. Different schools offer different prices and different philosophies. Taekwondo is a martial art thats focused on fast, high kicking. That means that it really works hard on agility and balance. Theres also an emphasis on forms, which are sequences of kicks and other movements that are memorized and done from memory, which challenges a persons memory while physically exerting themselves. Our familys interest in martial arts lies much more in the realm of self improvement, character building, self defense, and fitness rather than training to fight. There are definitely martial arts schools that are very focused on simply training to fight, preparing people for things like mixed martial arts. Theres nothing wrong with that, but its not what Sarah or I were looking for in a school. We wanted a school where the merit wasnt in whether you defeat someone in a fight, but whether youre working hard and genuinely improving yourself so that youre better at the techniques, better in all around fitness, and better in character than you were the day before. Again, I have nothing against a school focused on fight-focused training, but its just not what Im looking for or what I would direct my children toward until theyre old enough to make those kinds of choices for themselves. Perhaps someday theyll take what theyve learned and move in that direction, and Im fine with that. When my oldest son and daughter began expressing a genuine interest in taekwondo, we shopped around for local schools that offered dedicated youth programs and were focused on a self-improvement type of martial art philosophy, and we found one that we liked that had classes near us, and over time, we all joined up. I think it has genuinely helped our children improve their ability to focus, their ability to overcome challenges, their character, and most definitely their ability to defend themselves and get out of a threatening situation. As a parent, Im thrilled with the impact taekwondo has had on them. As for myself, I joined because I agree in a deep philosophical way with the goals and direction of the school, as well as the fact that I was looking for a fitness program for myself and an opportunity to mutually encourage my family to be more fit. This hits all of those marks and with family rates, its pretty inexpensive. If you divide our session fees by five, theres absolutely no way any of us could be in a sport or a fitness program at these rates. If someone is interested in taekwondo or martial arts in general, Id start by figuring out why you want to do it. What are you hoping to get out of it, or what do you want your child to get out of it? Self-discipline? Fitness? Self-defense? Character? What are the one or two things you want most for yourself or for your child that you hope martial arts can provide? Start from there and shop around at a lot of schools in your area. Theyll all have different philosophies and centers of focus some of them will line up well with your own goals and philosophies, while others will go in a different direction (not wrong or bad, just different). Find some that match what you want, price compare them, and give one a try for a session and see if its right for you. Got any questions? The best way to ask is to follow me on Facebook and ask questions directly there. Ill attempt to answer them in a future mailbag (which, by way of full disclosure, may also get re-posted on other websites that pick up my blog). However, I do receive many, many questions per week, so I may not necessarily be able to answer yours. https://www.thesimpledollar.com/questions-about-car-seats-leftovers-medical-insurance-budget-brands-and-more/

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webart-studio · 5 years

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9 Suggestions for Designing an E mail Signature in 2019

It’s no secret that electronic mail signatures have a serious influence on this planet of electronic mail advertising and marketing. It’s additionally clear that they’re one of many best methods to re-engage together with your current prospects, with out spending any (or little or no) cash.

Profitable companies are utilizing the untapped energy of their electronic mail signatures as a result of they know that choices are all about prioritizations primarily based on invested effort vs profit.

Let’s check out how one can revamp your electronic mail signature for 2019 to offer it that “pop” issue.

1. Create Your Signature with Cellular in Thoughts

It’s superb how many individuals utterly skip over this step, with out understanding the implications. Mobiles account for 46% of all electronic mail opens, that means that testing your electronic mail signature for cellular compatibility is crucial.

A typical false impression is that your electronic mail signature will probably be appropriate throughout all electronic mail shoppers. The unhappy reality is…it received’t. Though I might like to blame Outlook for this, the reason being really that almost all electronic mail shoppers (cellular included) use totally different HTML rendering engines and which means all of them show electronic mail signatures in a different way.

As well as, cellular screens are a lot smaller than PC shows, and so they additionally use scaling. Due to this, vertical layouts work a lot better on mobiles. Utilizing a large format on cellular units may cause your signature to look squashed and the pictures to be scaled up which makes them look blurry.

2. Embrace Solely Important Particulars

The main points a school scholar contains of their signature will probably be so much totally different to the small print a lawyer contains. Solely embody the small print that are related to you. For instance, if you happen to’re a school scholar, you’ll most likely embody the college you’re attending and the topic you’re finding out. You wouldn’t embody these particulars if you happen to’re a lawyer.

Most individuals aren’t thinking about understanding your favourite band, or shade. Your electronic mail signature ought to embody the data wanted to contact you, and some other related data. When you’re not sure, ask your self “Would I give that data to a enterprise affiliate I had simply met?”.

Listed below are the most well-liked fields to incorporate in your electronic mail signature:

Full Identify

Job Place

Firm

Cellular Cellphone Quantity

Workplace Cellphone Quantity

Workplace Deal with

Profile Image and/or Emblem (or each)

Social Icons (elective, however beneficial)

Promotional Banner (elective)

Disclaimer (elective)

Particulars which aren’t wanted solely bloat the signature and make it laborious on your recipient to search out the small print they really want.

3. Contemplate Fonts

A font can utterly change the appear and feel of an electronic mail signature. The identical could be mentioned for the colours and spacing. You must by no means use a number of fonts in your electronic mail signature. The one exception is that if your emblem makes use of a unique font to your signature.

By way of font sizes, you shouldn’t have greater than 2-Three totally different sizes all through your complete signature.

4. Use Colours Which Mirror Your Model

Like fonts, preserve your choice to round 2-Three totally different colours. Any extra and also you danger creating that “rainbow electronic mail signature”.

It’s necessary that the colours match your emblem as a lot as potential. In any other case, your emblem can look misplaced, or your signature might have that “template” look which you don’t need.

5. Use Stunning Photographs

In sales-based roles (corresponding to actual property brokers) the place you’re dealing straight with the general public, utilizing a picture of your face can add a private contact to your signature. When you’re not too keen on utilizing a profile image in your signature, you possibly can simply use your organization emblem.

Solely use good high quality pictures which have been professionally taken.

Use PNG or JPEG kind pictures for max compatibility and at all times make sure you compress them utilizing a software like TinyPNG.

PNG’s work greatest for logos and while you want transparency in your pictures. JPEG’s are greatest for profile photos the place the colour high quality must be good.

Keep away from utilizing GIF animations (extra on this later).

6. Tweak the Spacing

Behind each nice trying electronic mail signature is constant spacing. When you’ve obtained 10 pixels of spacing above the contact data, then it’s best to have the identical spacing underneath the contact data too. The identical goes for all sections of the signature.

Constant spacing makes the signature look skilled and clear, even at a fast look. It additionally makes it simpler to identify data that you simply’re looking for.

7. Maintain an Eye on Measurement

With electronic mail signatures, there’s 2 sizes to test. The scale in pixels, and the scale in kilobytes (KB).

Measurement in Pixels

The scale in pixels determines visually how massive your signature is, and whether or not it’ll match cellular screens. Remember the fact that narrower signatures look higher on mobiles due to display screen sizes and scaling.

For desktops and bigger display screen sizes that don’t use scaling, the beneficial most electronic mail signature dimension is 700(w) x 300(h) pixels.

For cellphones which have smaller screens that use scaling, the beneficial most electronic mail signature dimension is 320(w) x 600(h) pixels.

Checking the scale of your signature is so simple as opening your signature in an online browser like Google Chrome, proper clicking on it and clicking examine ingredient. You must then be capable of hover over the outer most desk, and it ought to present you the peak and width of the signature.

Measurement in KB

The scale in KB is the quantity of disk house the e-mail signature will take up when it’s saved on a mail server. When you ship roughly 30 emails a day, your electronic mail signature will probably be saved 30 occasions in your server, which may take up invaluable house in the long term. And that’s solely with you sending emails. You probably have a number of workers sending emails, it will probably add up in a short time.

You must purpose to maintain your electronic mail signature underneath 50KB in dimension. There usually isn’t a have to have an electronic mail signature that’s any bigger (even if in case you have a promotional banner).

8. Check Your E mail Signature for Compatibility

Keep in mind earlier we touched with reference to electronic mail signature compatibility? To make sure your signature seems the identical in all electronic mail shoppers, you should cross check it between all the favored electronic mail shoppers. Simply because your signature seems good in Outlook, doesn’t imply it’ll look good in Gmail.

That is an instance of how cross testing ought to be finished:

Sending from Outlook 2013 to Gmail

Sending from Outlook 2016 to Gmail

Sending from Gmail to Outlook 2013

Sending from Gmail to Outlook 2016

…and so forth.

Hopefully, now you possibly can see what an infinite process cross testing could be if need your signature to be appropriate with the highest 10 electronic mail shoppers. Simply because you’ve gotten finished cross testing, it doesn’t imply that your electronic mail signature will work flawlessly in all electronic mail shoppers. For instance, Gmail inserts gaps beneath pictures, and there may be nothing you are able to do about it.

Generally you possibly can repair compatibility points, different occasions you merely can’t.

9. Issues You Shouldn’t Do

Don’t make your complete electronic mail signature a picture

When you’re contemplating making a elaborate electronic mail signature, however you possibly can’t do it utilizing HTML + CSS, then both change the design so it may be coded, or don’t do it in any respect.

No matter you do, don’t make your complete electronic mail signature a picture, as the scale (in KB) is often massive and your recipients received’t be capable of copy your cellphone quantity or different particulars out of it.

Mainly, it screams “I care extra about seems, than I do about performance”.

Additionally, you possibly can’t do cut up testing on issues like CTA buttons, and you may’t simply make modifications to the signatures.

Don’t Over Complicate the Design

A easy design goes a good distance. Don’t consider your signature as needing to cram as a lot data into it as potential. Easy designs are simpler to code, and still have a a lot larger likelihood of trying constant throughout all mail shoppers.

Don’t Insert GIF Animations

Animations are enjoyable to have a look at, however more often than not they don’t work with electronic mail signatures. Along with probably being perceived as immature, animations don’t at all times technically work with electronic mail shoppers.

Some electronic mail shoppers convert GIF animations to nonetheless pictures. So, if in case you have an animation of your head shifting round, your recipient may see a nonetheless picture of the facet of your head…not look.

Don’t Use Inspirational Quotes

There isn’t sufficient room for them, and the concept is to maintain your electronic mail signature clear and litter free. Keep away from utilizing quotes in electronic mail signatures, until it’s one thing like a CEO quote that enhances the model picture.

Conclusion

Creating an electronic mail signature is kind of straight ahead so long as you retain the following tips in thoughts. Hopefully, now try to be absolutely outfitted to make a very nice trying electronic mail signature that will probably be appropriate and on the similar time have all of the options you need.

Featured picture through DepositPhotos.

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alive-drumming · 6 years

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“Song Rhythm Tracks” – A Comparison

“Song Rhythm Tracks” is Alive Drumming's mobile Musician’s App providing production-ready rhythmic backing. It is available on the Apple iOS App Store.

Alive Drumming brings musicians production-quality rhythmic backing, in it’s most convenient form — a mobile App to select, download and play Alive Drumming’s “Song Rhythm Tracks”.

Song Rhythm Tracks

Song Rhythm Tracks are a new type of backing track composed entirely of rhythmic backing (no melody or harmony) arranged to the musical form of the song — it’s “songform”. These tracks are complete performances like one gets from a professional drummer. They have a count-in, introduction section, choruses and characteristic endings, framed by fills showing where sections start and end. Even musical bridges and middle choruses have higher intensity where appropriate to the style. All this without a typical arranger’s interface thereby keeping it simple. One can select a track in under 30 seconds — under 15 seconds once one gets the hang of it. The App’s player has tempo adjustment and a facility to sequence the tracks for your gig or jam session. It is for musicians of all abilities. New musicians use the App to provide an accompaniment to songs. They get a rhythm that is sympathetic so they learn to keep time, get into the groove and internalise the song’s musical structure - All this while enjoying engaging and inspiring rhythms. Gigging musicians catalogue their backing into setlists and use it to guide performance. Having quality rhythmic backing, with a setlist facility and a musician’s player, all in the one App is so convenient one finds oneself using this rhythmic backing more and more.

Musician’s Player

A “Musician’s Player” — what’s that? One that dims the screen, will play in the background, has good-sized buttons and allows you to change the volume with the physical buttons. Yes, that but this player also displays the musical form of the track such as

“4 choruses of 32 bars of standard AABA form (8|8/8|8) with no intro’ and a 4-Bar ending”,

and provides visual tracking against this as it plays. This is the information musicians want right before they are about to play a track. If they start to lose their place a bit while they play, a quick glance at the display will likely get them back “on track” again.

Massive Library of Rhythms

There’s a huge number of rhythms and endless musical forms for your songs. Once selected, the arranged track is downloaded from Alive Drumming’s servers and then it stays on your device for playing. Alive Drumming grants the user rights to remix the track so they may be transferred to a computer to be included in the user’s own compositions and album releases.

What sets Song Rhythm Tracks apart?

We do not often see new innovations in this area — usually, it is a refinement or reworking of a workstation product — but Song Rhythm Tracks are a totally new approach addressing that age-old need for musicians to get good rhythmic backing, easily.

No More Sequencing

The choice of selecting the song’s form by name, or by using stick notation, over providing a sequencing interface is an innovation that has not been seen before and one that gives this App its character. It means that the musician needs only to know the musical form of the song. They will know this even if, at first, they don’t realise it. A musician might not be familiar with the names being used but the App also provides a description using stick-notation, so when one selects by songform name,

“32-bar AABA”,

the track also gets displayed using stick-notation as

“32 bars of standard AABA form (8|8/8|8)”.

There’s plenty of resources on Alive Drumming’s website on songform. In fact, songform names do not have to be used at all, one can also select using stick-notation,

“8|8/8|8”,

and get the very same description displayed,

“32 bars of standard AABA form (8|8/8|8)”.

The App also provides for a musician’s own definition of a song’s form using “stick notation”, e.g.,

“8|4/8|6”,

allowing for complex, user-defined forms. Also, even more complex forms are possible with independent repeats of four parts to a song. Even drumming breaks and pushes are now available for arrangements. The App also includes a facility for sharing song arrangement, so if an arrangement for your song has already been shared you will be able to look it up and use that.

No More Drum Loops

Song Rhythm Tracks provides complete, production-ready backing tracks rather than drum loops. What’s more, Alive Drumming’s servers do not use drum loops either; they use high-quality recordings of talented drummers where a recording is more likely to be 8-bars long than a single drum hit or a single bar of playing. Alive drumming doesn’t provide a sequencing interface, so there are no drum loops to sequence. Instead, there is a simple selection interface to specify (i) an arrangement of the song’s form and (ii) the rhythm. This keeps the interface clean. The only option is a complete track from count-in through the choruses to a characteristic ending. Looping isn’t even provided in the player interface. It is clear that this App is about practising and performing with high-quality, complete, production-ready tracks. It’s for professional musicians and discerning amateurs. It is very, very far from a toy drum-machine; but it gives us the most musical enjoyment we’ve had in a long time.

A Service

Alive Drumming’s back-end servers do the sequencing and audio production, delivering the completed track to the mobile device. This is not the approach taken by other drumming apps where everything is within the app, either using bespoke loops or using iOS’ general midi sounds. This means Alive Drumming’s solution does initially have the user waiting for the download to complete, but this permits higher-quality and a greater selection of audio tracks from the server.

Musician-friendly Design

The user experience is “performance-friendly” adopting standard iOS features such as tables rather than esoteric design and sequencing interfaces. It’s been designed to be simple to use by musicians for musicians. Having a straightforward interface to specify a track is important to musicians because we are playing new tracks all the time and don’t want to be wasting playing-time sequencing drum loops — so true is this that I suspect the vast majority of musicians never do sequence drum loops — it’s too much effort and provides poor results. However, it is a totally different prospect with Song Rhythm Tracks where one takes between 15 to 30 seconds to specify a new track, which provides a great sounding backing. It is the same musician-friendly approach with the player. It’s important to musicians, whether performing or practising, that the player is easy to use — read large buttons — and it is so much more useful having the sectional structure of the track displayed instead of an album cover. Finally, musicians need setlist facilities integrated with the player. They need to be able to order their tracks, adding and removing tracks across multiple set-lists. These are core features that differentiate a musician’s needs to that of general music listeners. These aspects combined make this App dead easy for musicians to prepare, practice and perform setlists of these tracks.

The competition?

This is a very new type of App but let us consider the alternatives to Song Rhythm Tracks.

Workstation Products

Similar High-quality Audio, Total Flexibility, Higher Purchase Price, Less Convenience.

Procuring and learning sophisticated workstation tooling for professional musicians to create high-quality backing music. This has similar great audio quality with more features and flexibility but also will take considerably more time, say around 30 minutes, to create a new track using sequencing software, render it, tag it and transfer it to a mobile device. You gain in compositional features and flexibility but lose out on convenience — particularly in the setlists and player.

Other Mobile Drumming Apps

Lower Quality, Lower Price, Different Convenience

There’s quite a variety of Drumming Apps with many features and facilities. They are generally less expensive but don’t deliver in the same way. Here is one which is closer to the Song Rhythm Tracks use-case. Session Band Drums This App aims at a similar proposition — good quality drum backing with a mobile interface, but it falls short in delivering both (i) high-quality rhythmic backing music and (ii) a convenient interface. The user interface is based on visual sequencing, specific to the task. This is an improvement to having to use a workstation based sequencer and transferring to the mobile device but I suspect is still too complicated and would still be a barrier to entry for a lot of musicians. As one has to sequence tracks, it is definitely more cumbersome and slower to use than Song Rhythm Tracks. Also, there is no real setlist facility and I don’t think it delivers enough on engaging, realistic drumming. It is though less expensive that Song Rhythm Tracks with lower initial cost and no limit to the tracks one can sequence.

Mobile Midi Musician Song Apps

Lower quality drumming, self-contained, more facilities

There are other mobile apps for musicians that are song-based that have attracted dedicated followers. iRealPro and Songster are two such. iRealPro This is a deservedly popular App, although probably not ordinarily considered in terms of rhythm-only backing music. It does a great job of managing setlists, has a user-contributed library of tunes, which often means preparing a tune is very efficient (via lookup). Its strength is in getting a full multi-instrument accompaniment (rhythm and harmony) to well-known tunes complete with an on-screen chord-sheet of that tune which is tracked as the song progresses. It probably is based on midi-technology and provides good facilities to balance the mix. This mix can be adjusted to have the rhythm part only. iRealPro has good sound quality for its price but there are not many rhythms to choose from and the drumming-only audio-quality isn’t really there. It’s impressive on first encountering it but after a while hearing the same drumming loops over and over loses the lustre. This is particularly true if only playing rhythmic accompaniment rather than a full ‘combo’ as iRealPro does sounds more impressive at a complete mix than rhythm-only tracks. Why is this rhythmic audio lacking compared to Song Rhythm Tracks? iRealPro is an app with a limited collection of audio loops. I don’t hear different loops being used for different tempos of the same rhythm. I don’t hear the human variation that makes drumming come alive and I don’t hear truly great drumming as one does with Song Rhythm Tracks. This does matter with rhythm because these are the things we expect from real music. iRealPro has a big following for an inexpensive tool to assist in learning new tunes; Song Rhythm Tracks really plays in a different market. It’s more about enjoying playing to a large variety of high-quality rhythmic accompaniment while learning and performing tunes. Songster There are other mobile-based Midi Apps but nothing significantly new when considering high-quality rhythmic backing with a convenient interface. Songster is a competitor of iRealPro with a slightly different market and similar results. There are other drumming specific Apps but they all fall down in terms of supplying the realism, excitement and breadth of Song Rhythm Tracks’ audio quality achieved by being server-based. What’s served is complete high-quality tracks already optimally sequenced and audio-engineered before being delivered to the end-user. No sequencing or audio engineering occurs on the mobile App. It simply selects, requests and plays the tracks.

Conclusion

Song Rhythm Tracks is a new type of product for truly high-quality rhythmic backing that is convenient to select and play. You are not going to get tired of these backing tracks. You are not going to have to sequence anything. You will find that the player and setlist’s user-interface encourages continued use. You will get to appreciate the form of your songs more and you might include these tracks into your own single and album releases. Don’t be put off by experiences with mobile drumming Apps. Song Rhythm Tracks are something different. Whether you are learning a new tune, jamming, gigging or cutting your latest album, this Song Rhythm Tracks provides a solution. Check out samples of the audio at Alive Drumming’s Samples page Check out these articles from Alive Drumming that give further insights into the thinking behind the product - “How to practice, then how to jam" “When to work on your rhythm?” “Why songform with rhythm tracks?” Download the Song Rhythm Tracks App on the Apple App Store Try Alive Drumming’s sampler apps to sample previously arranged tracks of popular tunes. It is then easy to use the app to adjust these to your practice and performance requirements. All the sampler apps are the same Song Rhythm Tracks app but with the included sample tracks.

Jazz and Blues Sampler

Afro-Cuban Sampler

Country Music Sampler

“songform” refers to Alive Drumming’s identification of a song’s form, taken from a drummer’s perspective of the compositional structure of a song. In addition to adopting names for common forms such as 12-bar blues and 32-bar AABA, Alive Drumming introduces their stick notation to describe a song’s form. Stick notation is simply a list of section lengths in bars separated by a vertical bar, ‘|’, or a slanted bar, ‘/’ where the following section is a bridge.

#comparison #musicians #musicians' app #usability #Alive Drumming #Audio Server #iOS App - Song Rhythm Tracks #Rhythmic Styles #Song Rhythm Tracks #SongForm #SRT iOS App'#Uncategorized

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topsolarpanels · 6 years

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Al Gore: ‘The riches have subverted all reason’

With the sequel to his blockbuster documentary An Inconvenient Truth about to be released, Al Gore tells Carole Cadwalladr how his role at the forefront of the fight against climate change devours his life

In the ballroom of a seminar centre in Denver, Colorado, 972 people from 42 countries have come together to talk about climate change. It is March 2017, six weeks since Trumps inauguration; eight weeks before Trump will announce to the world that he is withdrawing America from the Paris Climate Agreement.

These are the early dark days of the new America and yet, in the conference centre, the crowd is upbeat. Theyve all paid out of their own pockets to travel to Denver. They have taken time off work. And they are here, in the presence of their master, Al Gore. Because Al Gore is to climate change well, what Donald Trump is to climate change denial.

Disaster zone: extermination in the wake of Superstorm Sandy in New Jersey. Photo: Mike Groll/ AP

Its 10 years since the reason for this, the documentary An Inconvenient Truth , was released into cinema. It was an improbable project on almost every level: a film about what was then practically a non-subject, starring the man best known for not winning the 2000 US election, its beating heart and the engine of its narrative drive a PowerPoint presentation.

When the filmmakers approached him, he explains to the room, I thought they were nuts. A movie of a slideshow, delivered by Al Gore, what doesnt scream blockbuster about it? Except it was a blockbuster. In documentary terms, anyway. The careful accretion of facts and figures genuinely shocked people. And its a measure of the impact it had, and still continues to have, that Gore delivers this vignette to a rapt crowd who, over the course of three days, are learning how to be Climate Reality Leaders.

Its the reason why we are all here his foundation, the Climate Reality Project, an initiative that grew out of the film, provides intensive trained in talking about climate change, combating climate change denial and the tone might be described as activist upbeat. This is a crisis that is solvable, were told. Trump is just another hitch, another impediment to overcome. And it will be overcome. Merely occasionally does a sliver of hopelessnes leak around the edges. You have to stay positive, a man called David Ellenberger tells the audience. Though sometimes, he acknowledges: Theres not sufficient Prozac to get through the day.

Its almost a relief to hear person acknowledge this. Because before there was FAKE NEWS !!! and the FAILING New York Times ! Trump was tweeting about GLOBAL WARMING hoaxsters! and GLOBAL WARMING bullshit! The war on the mainstream media may capture the headlines currently, but the war on climate change science has been in play for years. And its this that is one of the most fascinating aspects of Gores new film, An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power . Because if the US had a subtitle at the moment, it might be that, too, and the struggle to overcome fake facts and false narratives funded by corporate interests and politically motivated billionaires is one that Gore has been at the frontline of for more than a decade.

Breaking phase: a huge fissure in the Larsen C ice shelf in the Antarctica. Photo: Nasa/ John Sonntag/ EPA

The film runs through a host of facts that 14 of the 15 hottest years on record have resulted since 2001 is just one. And the accompanying footage is biblical, frightening: tornadoes, deluges, rainfall bombs, explosion glaciers. We consider roads falling into rivers and fish swimming through the street of Miami.

The nightly news, Gore says, has become a nature hike through the Book of Revelations. But what his work has shown and continues to show is that proof is sufficient to. The cinema opens with clips from Fox News ridiculing global warming. In recent weeks, the New York Times has started describing the Trump administration as waging a war on science, a full-on assault against evidence-based science that runs in parallel with his attacks on evidence-based reporting. And Gore is in something of a unique position to understand this. What becomes clear over the course of several dialogues is how entwined he believes it all is climate change denial, the rights and interests of big capital, dark money, billionaire political funders, the predominance of Trump and what he calls( hes written a book on it) the assault against reason. They are all pieces of the same puzzle; a puzzle that Gore has been tracking for years, because it turns out that climate change refusal was the canary in the coal mine.

In order to fix the climate crisis, we need to first fix the governmental forces crisis, he says. Big money has so much influence now. And he says a phrase that is as dramatic as it is multilayered: Our democracy has been hacked. Its something I hear him recur to the audience in the ballroom, in a room backstage, a few weeks later in London, and finally on the phone earlier this month.

Popular backlash: protesters demonstrate against the Koch brethren, funders of climate change denial. Photo: Nicholas Kamm/ AFP/ Getty Images

What do you mean by it precisely? I mean that those with access to large amounts of money and raw power, says Gore, have been able to subvert all reason and fact in collective decision making. The Koch friends are the largest funders of climate change refusal. And ExxonMobil claims it has stopped, but it really hasnt. It has given a one-quarter of a billion dollars in donations to climate denial groups. Its clear they are trying to cripple our ability to respond to this existential threat.

One of Trumps first acts after his inauguration was to remove all mentions of climate change from federal websites. More overlooked is that one of Theresa Mays first actions on becoming prime minister within 24 hours of taking office was to close the Department for Energy and Climate Change; subsequently donations from oil and gas companies to the Conservative party continued to roll in. And what is increasingly apparent is that the same think tanks that operate in the Countries are also at work in Britain, and climate change denial operating the a bridgehead: unifying the right and an entry road for other tenets of Alt-Right belief. And, its this network of power that Gore has had to try to understand, in order to find a way to combat it.

In Tennessee we have an expression: If you consider a turtle on top of a fencing post, you can be pretty sure it didnt get there by itself. And if you assure these levels of climate refusal, you can be pretty sure it didnt simply spread itself. The large carbon polluters have expended between$ 1bn and$ 2bn spreading false doubt. Do you know the book, Merchants of Doubt ? It documents how the tobacco industry discredited the consensus on cigarette smoking and cancer by creating doubt, and shows how its connected with the climate denial motion. They hired many of the same PR firms and some of the same think tanks. And, in fact, some of those who work on climate change denial actually still dispute the connection between cigarette smoking and lung cancer.

End of the road: the Gave de Pau river overflows after unseasonal cyclones in France. Photograph: Laurent Dard/ AFP/ Getty Images

The big change between our first conversation in Denver and our last, on the phone this month, is the news that Gore had been desperately hoping wouldnt happen: Trumps announcement on 1 June that he was pulling America out of the Paris Agreement. The negotiations in Paris are right at the heart of the new film, its emotional centre, and when I watch it in March, the ending still assures Gore expressing guarded optimism.

So , what happened? I was wrong, he says on the phone from Australia, where hes been promoting the movie. Based on what he told me, I definitely thought there was a better than even chance he might choose to stay in. But I was wrong. I was fearful that other countries for whom it was a close call would follow his result, but Im thrilled the reaction has been precisely the opposite. The other 19 members of the G20 have reiterated that Paris is irreversible. And governors and mayors all over the country have been saying we are all still in and, in fact, its just going to make us redouble our commitments.

The film had to be recut, the ending changed, the gloves are now off. What changed Trumps mind? I suppose Steve Bannon and his crowd put a big push on Trump and convinced him that he needed to give this to his base advocates. He had blood in his eyes. Its instructive because Bannon, Trumps chief strategist, is also the ideologue behind Trumps assault on the media. And Bannons understanding of the news and information space, and efforts to manipulate it via Breitbart News and Cambridge Analytica, both funded by another key climate change denier, Robert Mercer, are at the heart of the Trump agenda.

And what becomes clear if you Google climate change is how effective the right has been in owning the subject. YouTubes results are dominated by nothing but climate change denial videos. This isnt news for Gore. He has multiple high-level links to Silicon Valley. Hes on the board of trustees of the Apple and used to be an adviser for Google. We are fully aware of the problem, he says with what sounds like resigned understatement. Gore has had more than a decade fighting climate change refusal, and in some respects, their own problems has simply worsened and deepened.

On the other hand, two-thirds of the American people are convinced that its an extremely serious crisis and we have to take it on, he says. And there is a statute of physics that every action renders an equal and opposite reaction. And I do think there is a reaction to the Trump/ Brexit/ Alt-Right populist authoritarianism around the world. People who took liberal republic more or less for granted are now awakening to a sense that it can only be defended by the people themselves.

Man on a mission: Al Gore in An Inconvenient Truth. Photo: Paramount Pictures

And its in this, his faith in social progress against all odds, that he takes his lead from the civil right movement. The cut of the movie I watch compares the climate change movement to the other great social movements that eventually won out: the abolition of bondage, womens suffrage, civil rights. Something profound and disturbing is happening right now, though, he acknowledges. The info system is in such a chaotic transition and people are deluged with so much noise that it gives an opening for Trump and his forces to wage war against facts and reason.

Is it, as some people describe, an information war? Absolutely, he says. Theres no question about it.

What there isnt much of, in the film, is Al Gore, “the mens”. In 2010, he split from Tipper, his wife of 40 years and the mother of his two grown-up daughters, and what becomes clear is just how much of their own lives the fight takes up. When I catch up with him next, hes in London for a board session of his green-focused investment firm, Generation Investment Management, and I ask him to tell me about his recent travels.

Two weeks ago, I had three red-eyes in five days. Ive been in Sweden, the Netherlands, Sharjah, then lets assure, San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles. Where else? he asks his assistant.

Vegas, she says. We did CinemaCon.

Vegas, we did that. And then, lets consider, Nashville, on my farm.

Focus on facts: Al Gore in An Inconvenient Sequel. Photo: Courtesy of the Sundance Institute

I assume this amount of travelling is connected to the release of the cinema, but no. Ive been at this level for the past 10 years and longer. He hesitates to use the word mission, he says, and then uses it. When “youre feeling” a sense of purpose that seems to justify pouring everything you can into it, it attains it easier to get up in the morning.

He does tell me a bit about his mothers though. He describes his father, Al Gore Sr, who grew up poor then became a lawyer and a legislator, as a hero to me. And it was at the family farm in Carthage, Tennessee, that he held the first Climate Reality training, an informal get-together of 50 people that has morphed into the event I witnessed in Denver. Theres no type or demographic, I shared a table with a disparate group including a consultant for the aerospace industry, a French lawyer and an American cook. And they seemed to have almost nothing in common aside from their passion to do something about climate change. Im a gardener so Im ensure whats happening with my own eyes, the cook, Susan Kutner, told me. You cant ignore it.

In light of Trumps fixation with fake news, its fascinating to assure. Gore has been fighting disinformation for more than a decade. And, hes developed his educate program counter to the prevailing ideology. The answer is not online. Social media will not save us. We will not click climate change away. The answer hes come up with is low-tech, old-fashioned, human. He takes the time to talk to people immediately, one to one, in the hope they will speak to other people who will speak to other people.

The course is run by Gore. He is on stage nearly the entire period over three intensive days. And the heart of it is still the slideshow. One of his aides tells me how he was up until 2am the night before. Hes preoccupied with his slides, he has 30,000 of them and he switches them around all the time.

Tinder dry: changing climate has find an upturn in forest fires around the world. Photo: Jae C Hong/ AP

In the movie, you ensure him perpetually hustling, calling world leaders, rounding up solar energy entrepreneurs, training activists. Hearing information from people you know is at the heart of his strategy. You require people who will look you in the eye and say: Look, “thats what” Ive learned, this is what you need to know. It runs. Ive seen it run. It is working. And its just getting started. Weve got 12,000 trained leaders now.

How many people do you think its impacted?

Millions. Honestly, millions. And a non- trivial percentage of them have gone on to become ministers in their countries governments or take leadership roles in international organisations. Theyve had an outsized impact. Christiana Figueres[ the UN climate chief ], who operated the Paris meeting, she was in the second train conference I did in Tennessee. And, right now, people are getting actually fired up.

Al Gore shared the Nobel Prize in 2007 for his efforts in combating climate change, but in some ways it feels like hes just getting started. The remainder of the world is only now cottoning on to the enlightenment battle thats at the heart of it a battle royal to defend facts and reason against people and forces for whom its a truth too inconvenient to permit. For Gore, the US oil companies are the ultimate culprits, but its only just becoming apparent that Russia has also played a role, amplifying messages around climate change as it did around the other issues at the heart of Trumps agenda, and we segue into his visits to Russia in the early 90 s, during one of which he gratified Putin for the first time.

What did you induce of him? I would not have thought of him as the future chairman of Russia. I once did a televised town hall event to the whole of Russia and Putin was the one who was in charge of constructing sure all the cables were connected and whatnot.

Revenge is tweet: an image of Trump is projected by Greenpeace on to the US Embassy in Berlin after he declared that America was pulling out of the Paris Climate Agreement. Photograph: Michael Sohn/ AP

What does he construct of the investigations into Russian interference? I suppose its review of the Trump campaigns collusions with the Russians and the existence of financial levers of Putin over Trump is proceeding with its own rhythm beneath the news cycle, and may well strike pay dirt. Its also worth pointing out that when someone passed his campaign stolen information about George W Bushs debate research, he handed it to the FBI.

And then he astounds me by pulling out a reference to an interview I conducted with Arron Bank, the Bristol businessman who money Nigel Farages Leave campaign. Hes been reading up about the connection between Brexit and Trump, and Bankss and Farages support of Putin and Russia. He told you: Russia needs a strong man, didnt he? And you hear that in the US, and I dont think its fair to the Russians. I am a true disciple in the superiority of representative republic where there is a healthy ecosystem characterised by free speech and an informed citizenry. I genuinely resist the slur against any nation that theyre incapable of governing themselves.

Brexit, Trump, climate change, oil producers, dark money, Russian influence, a full- frontal assault on facts, proof, journalism, science, its all connected. Ask Al Gore. You may want to watch Wonder Woman this summer, but to understand the new reality were living in, you really should watch An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power . Because, scaring because this is, in some ways the times of typhoons and explosion glaciers are just the start of it.

Al Gore Live in Conversation followed by a screening of An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power , for one night merely Friday 11 August in cinemas everywhere. Book your tickets at po.st/ aninconvenientsequel An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power is in cinema everywhere from 18 August. The film also opens the Film4 Summer Screen at Somerset House, 10 -2 3 August, somersethouse.org.uk

The Observer Ethical Awards: how to enter

To vote, go to theguardian.com/ surrounding/ 2017/ jul/ 25/ vote-in-the-observer-ethical-awards-2 017 or email ethical.awards @observer. co.uk with the category title in the subject header. Then tell us in no more than 200 terms why you, or your nominee, deserves to be recognised. Feel free to attach scenes, a short movie or relevant connects. The closing date is 15 September. For more information, go to observer.co.uk/ ethical-awards