#£20m+ raised

[chrisstoddardfundraisinguk]

Chris Stoddard: The Authority on Small Charity Fundraising with Over £20M Raised Globally

Chris Stoddard is an international speaker, author, and charity fundraising specialist with a focus on small charities. As the CEO of RaiseMore, Chris has helped raise over £20 million globally for charitable organisations. With unparalleled expertise in the sector, Chris offers insights that transform small charity fundraising strategies. Visit: https://chrisstoddardfundraising.co.uk/

[breakfastteatime]

Nearly swam the entire length of the pool (25m) underwater today. Yes, I have discovered how to use my fins to improve my dolphin kick. Brb, off to become a freediver now.

[juniper-clan]

Howlstar Lore Dump

I wanted to go into depth for Howlstar, simply because I enjoy making these lore dumps and people love to hate her.

~~

Howlstar (formerly Howlshard) is the current leader of RavenClan. She was the former deputy under the prior leader, Gossamerstar.

Born August 13th, 1698, she graduated early at 10 moons due to her speed and cunning. She was apprenticed by former deputy, Shallowroot. After mentoring her first apprentice, she moved on to take Shallowroot's role as deputy after his death during a redcough epidemic. She became leader of RavenClan in 1701 after Gossamerstar was swept away during a massive flood.

When she and Chipmunkstar ( formerly Chipmunktuft) were both young warriors, they had a brief secret relationship that ended when Howlstar became deputy and subsequently became more irritable. She is over the breakup, but is still soft on Chipmunkstar and will not raise her voice towards her.

Howlstar's current mate, Rippleshell, was one of four abandoned kits from a loner that RavenClan took in. They were apprentices together and got along well, and Howlstar was one of few that Rippleshell felt comfortable expressing her gender identity to.

She takes her job very seriously, and the responsibility that comes with her power often leaves her exhausted. The deaths in both her clan and family due to human interference, starvation, the prior redcough epidemic, etc keeps her on edge. She is only calm and vulnerable around Rippleshell or her sister, Lilacbreeze.

Howlstar received her ear scar from being mauled by a fox on a patrol.

Howlstar has had 2 litters with Rippleshell, for a total of 5 kits. 3 are still alive.

Howlstar is a varied mix of Oriental Shorthair, Siamese, and other such short-haired and skinny cats. While those breeds do not yet exist in the Americas during the JuniperClan story, I feel those best describe her.

Family Status

Immediate Family

Honeysplash (Mother)

Deceased due to old age

Locustshade (Father)

Deceased due to redcough outbreak

Siblings

Lilacbreeze (Sister, littermate)

Alive

Scorchpaw (Brother)

Deceased due to dog attack

Dustgale (Brother)

Deceased due to starvation

Whorlkit (Sister, littermate)

Deceased due to wasting disease

Cedarfang (Brother, littermate)

Deceased due to starvation

Mates

Rippleshell (Trans Female)

Current

Chipmunkstar (Female)

Former mate

Litter 1

Shallowkit (Son)

Deceased due to wasting disease

Blossompaw (Daughter)

Unknown, taken by Twolegs

Litter 2

Whistlecrest (Son)

Alive

Honeyfreckle (NB)

Alive

Warblerflight (Daughter)

Alive

TIMELINE

1698

August - Born, third kit in her mother's second litter.

1699

February - Began apprenticeship under Shallowroot (6m)

June - Graduated apprenticeship early (10m)

November - Becomes secret mates with AsterClan warrior, Chipmunktuft. (15m)

1700

April - Becomes deputy of RavenClan after death of Shallowroot, Chipmunktuft ends relationship (20m)

September - Becomes mates with Rippleshell (25m)

October - Mauled by fox, received permanent scarring on right ear. (27m)

December - Gives birth to her first litter (29m)

1701

May - Gives birth to her second litter (34m)

July - Becomes leader of RavenClan (36m)

[two-white-butterflies]

monopoly go | mv33 | part two

Description: A stranger keeps striking your monopoly go base. You search him on Facebook and decide to settle your losses.

part one |

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yourname_awesome: might need myself a london boy 🇬🇧

liked by 23,283 others

>comments

maxverstappen1: pretty

maxverstappen1: the background is so pretty - yourname_awesome: list of all the poeple that asked. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. - - maxverstappen1: talk to me when you can spell people properly - - - yourname_awesome: talk to me when you can spell noodle properly 🥱

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EMILLIAN ATTACKED YOUR LANDMARK.

EMILLIAN STOLE 20M IN A MEGAHEIST.

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yourname_awesome: decided to square up with this 🤬 after he attacked my landmark. what's thatp icture? oh, that's meant for lewis hamilton...he just wrote his name on the top.

liked by danielricciardo and 67,392 others

>comments

maxverstappen1: ??? Post my pics when you can spell properly - yourname_awesome: comment on my posts when u aren't stealing from my base anymore - - maxverstappen1: Won't be commenting for the foreseeable future - - - yourname_awesome: Simply Lovely!

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humpyfumpy: SOMETHING IS SUSPICIOUS BETWEEN MAX AND THE GIRL HE'S BEEFING WITH....I CAN FEEL SOMETHING BREWING

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Y/N ATTACKED YOUR LANDMARK.

Y/N STOLE 5M IN A HEIST.

Y/N STOLE 72M IN A HEIST.

YOU PAID Y/N RENT.

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INSTAGRAM

maxverstappen1 STOP

yourname_awesome my reaction

maxverstappen1 reacted to this message. (❤️)

yourname_awesome ???? THAT'S SUSPICIOUS

maxverstappen1 MY reaction

yourname_awesome who is that girl ur with?

maxverstappen1 Idk i found this picture in the internet

yourname_awesome nah bro go back to ur other hoes

maxverstappen1 No

yourname_awesome 🤣

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Stolen glances from crowded rooms - that's all you were. You couldn't understand your dynamic with him, in texts the chemistry was there but in real life? He's awkward, rarely even speaks to you. "Do you think that he's a little tongue tied?" your best friend asked and you tilted your head sideways.

"What?" you inquired and she shrugs. "Men are shy when it comes to girls that they like." "Are you suggesting that he has a crush on me?" you furrowed your eyebrows and she nods. You scoff, "He's not a teenager," you chuckled.

She rolls her eyes.

"It's just a suggestion," she antagonized.

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"I've never seen a picture of you two together," Daniel takes a sip of his beer. Max glances at you again - eyes filled with adoration but no words exit his mouth. "Don't expose him, Daniel." Lando winks - Max freezes and they all exchange a knowing glance.

You lean back on the chair.

"Why would we need a picture together?" you giggled, placing a piece of apricot on your tongue. "Because you're friends," Lando saved his friend. Max was shitting bricks at this point. "Acquaintances, we've only known each other for a week." Max managed to let out.

You raised an eyebrow.

"You're hurting me with your words," you joked and he replies with a smile. "My bad," he breathed and his friends push him off the chair. "You can make it up to me by letting the boys take a picture of us," you smiled - seriously into him.

Not just because he was a Formula One Driver (it was a factor) but also because of his humor. He was hilarious... and handsome. "Cheese Maxie," Daniel says while pulling out his mobile phone.

The hug was basically second-nature.

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danielricciardo: Too cute not to post? @maxverstappen1 @yourname_awesome

liked by 1,283,219 others

>comments

standingina1950sgym: THE HARDEST HARD LAUNCH OF ALL

yourname_awesome: NAWW NOT YOU EXPOSING MY TATTOO

maxxieeelover: The matching shirts?? - yourname_awesome: pure coincidence huhu 😭

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@sugarhightano @lovelylunas-world @ironmaiden1313 @duck-duck-goose-18 @itsjustkhaos @daniellarogers @darleneslane @lilbeyotch1d

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

Am I the Asshole for Buying Socks? I, (20M), bought some socks somewhat recently. They have words considered swearing on them, in addition to some smiley faces. My family does not approve of foul language on clothing, or even outloud, due to being raised incredibly, incredibly Catholic. I bought them with my own money. My sister (18F), found out I bought said socks, found out they have swearing on them, and IMMEDIATELY told my parents (80F and 80M). My mother calls me a bad child, and that under her house I follow her rules, including no clothing with bad words, and that my socks, if I was younger, would be taken away, but as of now I better not wear them anywhere but my room if I don't want to be grounded. The socks are currently in my drawer, never worn yet.

What are these acronyms?

[boxboxblog]

In Depth: Funding

This post is a response to an ask about funding needed for drivers to get to F1 and stay there. Great ask, let's go!

As we all know F1 is beyond expensive to get into. Most drivers come from either legacy racing families or rich families, and so people tend to call it an elitist sport. But what are the numbers, exactly? And how do sponsors play in all of this?

Karting

Professional karting runs between the ages of five and sixteen, and is the first real foray into spending the big bucks. A single season can cost anywhere from $50,000 to $150,000 per year so you can see why only the rich tend to venture in. The more you spend, the more successful the racer is, as more expensive karts and series yield higher results. Most karters who want to get into higher level racing will do it up to ten years, so can spend up to $1M+ in total.

Junior Single-Seaters

This is feeder series like F4, F3, and F2. Like anything, it gets progressively more expensive as series raise in level. F4 can cost between $200,000 to $500,000. F3 can be $700,000 to $1M. F2 is a pretty big jump, and can cost between $2M to $3M. This cost level tends to filter out more and more kids compared to karting. Like in karting, more money means better teams, better cars, and better series. Sponsors start playing a big part during this time.

Formula 1

By the time they hit this level, most drivers can afford the costs fine due to sponsorships, but the F1 cost is still extremely drastic. A F1 season can cost anywhere between $8M to $11M. This is even higher if a driver pays their way onto a team, which can cost $10M to $20M per season, not including other costs. To be in F1 without a sponsorship is impossible. Interestingly, once driver start to get personally successful and are maybe able to afford the season more themselves, you sometimes see them dropping sponsors. Lewis Hamilton, for example, has dropped a few of his long-time sponsors.

Sponsorships

So, how exactly do drivers afford this? Sure, many of them are rich, but not the kind of rich to drop a clean couple million a year, no problem. The answer lays with sponsorships.

In the early stages of karting, most kids are supported by their families, towns, or local small businesses. These small businesses might give the racers a loan or a stipend in exchange for having their business advertised throughout the child's karting career. Sometimes they help out of kindness and hope for a local driver to make it big, but usually it is to reap marketing benefits. Some young karters can be so impressive that they draw big name attention before they get into single seaters. Things like the Red Bull Junior Team or the Ferrari Driver Academy will support young racers in exchange for contractual promises to work with Red Bull or Ferrari once they get older. While things like these programs and small business support lower costs, it does not entirely cover it (usually only about 25%) so base capital is still necessary.

Feeder/Junior series are where big name sponsors actually start to get involved. Sponsorships are crucial at this level, as the cost has gone up significantly. Corporate sponsors will give up to hundreds of thousands of dollars to place their logos all over drivers and their cars. Academies and junior programs up financial support, but have drivers sign more serious contracts. Even governments and national sports organizations get involved. Without massive backing covering the majority of costs in junior series, it is extremely difficult, almost impossible, to continue. For extreme talents, up to 100% of costs can be covered. Most often though it doesn't get that high, and drivers still have to be supported by their families and private investors who expect financial payback. Having one big sponsor is usually the best way to go about it at this level. For example, Sergio Perez found a sponsor in Mexican millionaire Carlos Slim and his company, Telmex, during this time. He would have not been able to afford it without them.

In F1 it is even more amplified. It is point blank period impossible to be in F1 without massive sponsor support, unless you come from a family of billionaires, but even then. By this level it is large sponsors like energy drink corporations, car manufacturers, luxury fashion brands, and technology companies that are involved. They expect product placement and their logo everywhere on their drivers, and in return usually cover the full cost of a season. But they expect even more during F1, so things like attending events and being part of the companies marketing is often expected. Max Verstappen, who is sponsored by Heineken, has been in several commercials for them, for example.

To be clear, the amount of money sponsors give at all levels relies entirely on results. I don't want people looking at this post and thinking all of their favorite drivers are pay drivers. You have to be talented to attract attention and sponsors, and you have to give results to keep them and get the money needed. In order to get into F1 you must be good, period. But I won't deny that having financial backing, whether from family or elsewhere, contributes heavily to F1 success.

Before I finish please remember that the numbers I tossed out are just estimates. Season costs vary and so do sponsorship payouts. I have just provided a basic range based off the information readily available online. Who knows, maybe everyone is lying. But the thing I know for a fact is that it is extremely expensive to get into F1 and sponsors are a necessity.

I hope all of this was helpful, and answered all of the questions.

Cheers,

-B

[lbulldesigns]

r/offmychest:

My little sister assaulted me but I'm somehow the bad guy because she ran away from home rather than face the consequences of her actions.

Posted 24th of May, 2021

I (20M) was recently assaulted by my (18F) sister, and rather than face the consequences of her actions decided to run away from home. And now I'm being treated as the bad because I said that it would be better if she never returned.

For context, me and my twin brother Big C were raised by our father (40?M) after our mother gave up her parental rights after giving birth to us. I have never met my mother, and this is fine because who needs someone that flakey in their lives.

Up until we were about eight it was just my dad, brother, and me. Until one month or so after our eighth birthday, our dad decided to adopt two girls. V (23F) and Jinx (a fitting name, trust me).

At first I was confused but after learning that V was biologically my sister, I got excited. At the time I mistakingly thought that Jinx must have been my biological sister also, but it turned out she had a different father. I remember asking why we were taking her in if she wasn't actually related to us and my dad growled at me to never say anything like that again, it was the first time he ever growled at me and over an innocent question no doubt.

I knew better than to ever say something like that again, I tried to be welcoming to her and although V was engaging and friendly, Jinx would not speak to anyone. She always stayed quiet and whenever our dad would go near her she would cower away and get teary eyed.

I hated how she acted like my dad would hurt her, and fully believe that this is why her therapist thought that my dad was abusive. The poor woman ended up losing her job because of Jinx's dramatics.

The sad thing is that I seem to be the only person who truly sees Jinx for what she is. Trouble.

For a while, I thought everyone else was starting to see also but nothing was ever really done about her behavior. Except to send her off to her rich uncle (maternal) who would shower her with praises for her art and grades, and give her gifts. This only made her spoilt.

I tried to counter this by reminding her that she wasn't special so that she wouldn't get a big head and all she would do was start crying and then lock herself in her room and I would be the one getting chewed out.

well, you basically get the idea.

Coming to the true crux of this post.

A few days ago, I was at home minding my own business, and trying to enjoy my gap year. When Jinx comes in and is crying, yet again.

Maybe I let my annoyance get the better of me and called her a crybaby. She stops and just stares at me, and then her face contorts into this really ugly way and she screams loudly, before launching herself on me and starts beating me up.

I was taken completely off guard and tried to defend myself as much as possible, but she is surprisingly strong despite being a skinny ass.

And she just keeps saying "I hate you, I hate you" as she beats me.

My dad came in and pulled her off of me, whilst I cradle my bloody nose (literally bloody) and I catch dad telling her to get out and I felt elated for a minuet because I thought that he FINALLY saw sense.

But after she bolts from the house my dad drives me to the hospital to make sure nothing is broken (nothing was broken thank Janna), and as we are driving home I ask if we are going to the Enforcer station. Dad looks confused and asks why, and I say to press charges. My dad states that I will not be pressing charges because an ass whooping was long overdue.

I felt shocked and betrayed and got angry, I kept asking why he's always going so easy on her.

She wasn't his daughter, not really

She was constantly causing problems with her outbursts and "trauma"

She emasculated him by getting her uncle to pay for her studies

And, she just assualted your flesh and blood.

My dad stayed silent, and I thought this meant that I won the argument. But as soon as we got home, he kills the engine and turns to me. Looks me in the eyes and tells me in no uncertain terms.

"I have tried being patient with you OP. I have explained to you again and again that your little sister is not this monster you make her out to be. Her trauma is real, she watched her parents die in front of her, and that's enough to affect a grown man let alone a small five-year-old girl who didn't know the concept of death. She experienced some shit in the foster system before finding her way to us. And I have done everything I can to help her the way she needs, whilst raising the rest of you kids. I tried to be understanding of you when you were a kid because you didn't know better, I tried to be patient with you when you were a teenager because Gods know I was a real shithead when I was younger. But you are an adult now, my patience is extremely thin. You need to start figuring your shit out because your sister doesn't, and never did, deserve the hate you throw at her"

I won't lie, this hurts. Despite how Jinx is, I do love her I just feel like I'm the only person trying to set her straight.

I pointed at my face and stated that I wasn't the one who hated her, on the other hand she saw no problem with hating me.

Dad asks why she attacked me, I said I didn't know (I didn't want him to twist my words around on me) he just looks at me and says "You're sister wouldn't just attack you without reason".

At this point, I tried to get out of the car, but my dad grabbed my arm, held me in place, and demanded again what I did.

I finally relented and said I called her a crybaby and he groans at me, I said "see she completely blew everything out of proportion". He says that Jinx shouldn't have attacked me, but then asks why I felt the need to insult her.

I lost it and said that she's always crying.

I can't walk past her room without hearing her cry, SHE IS A CRYBABY.

Dad just looked at me, and disappointment was written all over his face. Not at Jinx, but at me.

He takes a deep breath and says to me that I had two options.

I agree to go to family and individual therapy because I am an adult now, and this "petulant child" and "victim complex" is not healthy for anyone.

I continue to act the way I am, but I need to move out and start standing on my own two feet and learn what actual struggle feels like because I've had it pretty easy with life, and hopefully gain some empathy in the process.

Either way, I was never, ever going to bully Jinx again.

I spent the rest of the night in my room stewing over everything, I ignored V when she started banging on my door demanding what I did to "her little sister" before C-Man convinced her to leave me alone. But afterward, he asked me, through the door, when I was going to grow up before leaving himself.

At some point the three of them, Dad, V, and C-Man. left the house to work at the family bar. I refused to leave my room and Dad told me to take the night off to 'lick my wounds'. I fell asleep at some point and woke up briefly because I thought I heard someone walking past my door but just chalked it up to one of the others and went back to sleep.

I didn't leave my room the next morning, out of protest, but saw Dad leaving to go over to Jinx's BBF's house no doubt to continue coddling her.

However she wasn't there, and after searching the whole day, didn't seem to be anywhere.

It's been several days now, Enforcer's can't go looking for Jinx because it was proven that she left voluntarily. Apparently, that person I heard that night was Jinx scurrying off with her belongings and paperwork.

Honestly, I'm glad she's gone. But my dad is still holding up the ultimatum, he says that when she returns I will have my shit together and that he's disappointed in how unaffected I'm acting.

So long story short. My little sister beats me up, and somehow, I get in trouble instead, she runs away from the consequences BUT DAD'S ULTIMATIUM IS STILL IN EFFECT.

It's completely unfair. I'm the victim here.

Honestly, I'm considering going no contact with everyone because I'm done with JINX getting all the support.

Thanks for listening to my rant.

This is a fan fic, please read tags

[darkmaga-returns]

For 17 days, mysterious drones operated freely over U.S. military bases, raising concerns about America's readiness in drone warfare. With drone technology leading the way in modern battlefield strategies, the lackluster U.S. response sends a worrisome signal to global adversaries.

[bleach-your-panties]

Good afternoon, members of Third Division!

This is your weekly reminder that our squad meeting is held every Thursday over at the Third Division barracks.

Come for drinks and bring all your thirsts, questions, and headcanons.

Attendance is not required but highly encouraged!

☆ICYMI Bulletin:

Announcements;

¤Writing Comissions [[5/5 spots available]]

¤Theme Help & Design

¤Taglist Forms for Posts

¤🎀1600 Follower Contest🎀

Collabs;

¤Blondes Have More Fun!🎀

¤Fantastical Myths🐦‍⬛

Events;

¤14 Arrows Blind Dating Game. 0/14 spots remaining [[posting]]

¤Valentine A-Z

¤Relationship Trope Drabbles

¤Whenever, Wherever;' We Get It Poppin'!💄- 1500+ Follower Event [[closed - posting]]

¤Upcoming: Tamaki Month of March🐙❤️

Recent Works;

¤"Raise Your Legs, Baby Girl" Izuru Kira x Chubby!Fem!Reader

¤Neighbor!Izuru headcanons

¤Keep It Juicy Like Couture - Haikyuu!! pussy-eating headcanons

¤Don't Try This At Home! Satori Tendo x Fem Reader

¤ Imagine having just broken up with your boyfriend and going to a male strip club...

¤Rosé and Bubblegum - Yuuji Itadori x Fem!Reader [[BHMF collab🎀]]

¤ Kira's Revenge - Izuru Kira x Fem Reader

Coming Soon💨

¤ AITA [20M] for fucking my best friend's girlfriend at our class reunion? I know it sounds weird, but listen..

Toge Inumaki x Fem Reader x Maki Zenin

[[Originally a part of ohkento's reddit-inspired collaboration. (disc.)]]

¤ Crybaby - Sen Kaibara x Black!Fem!Reader [[@/honeybleed's underrated characters collab]]

¤Tastes Like Candy! - Rikido Sato x Fem!Reader [[Valentine's Day and underrated collab]]

¤Battle of the Bands - Gyuutaro x Fem!Drummer!Reader (Band AU)

[[March Craze and @/nymphoheretic 's poppin' cherries collab🍒]]

dividers by @benkeibear.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

This day in history

TOMORROW (May 14), I'm on a livecast about AI AND ENSHITTIFICATION with TIM O'REILLY; on WEDNESDAY (May 15), I'm in NORTH HOLLYWOOD with HARRY SHEARER for a screening of STEPHANIE KELTON'S FINDING THE MONEY; FRIDAY (May 17), I'm at the INTERNET ARCHIVE in SAN FRANCISCO to keynote the 10th anniversary of the AUTHORS ALLIANCE.

#20yrsago Open source games from 1978 https://www.atariarchives.org/basicgames/

#15yrsago Why RIAA lawsuits matter to the Free Software Foundation https://torrentfreak.com/the-war-on-sharing-why-the-fsf-cares-about-riaa-lawsuits-090513/

#10yrsago Clapper’s ban on talking about leaks makes life difficult for crypto profs with cleared students https://twitter.com/mattblaze/status/464841668391624705

#10yrsago Ukip councillor sends cops to activist’s house, ask him to delete critical tweet https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/may/12/police-ask-blogger-remove-legitimate-tweet-ukip

#10yrsago Bletchley Park Trust erects “Berlin Wall” to cut off on-site computer history museum https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/12/bletchley-park-national-museum-computing-berlin-wall-restored-colossus-codebreaking

#5yrsago Vancouver’s housing bubble was driven by billions in laundered criminal proceeds https://www.seattletimes.com/business/billions-in-dirty-cash-helped-fuel-vancouver-b-c-s-housing-boom/

#5yrsago Supreme Court greenlights Apple customers’ lawsuit over App Store price-fixing https://www.wired.com/story/supreme-court-apple-decision-antitrust/

#5yrsago Amazon’s monopsony power: the other antitrust white meat https://www.promarket.org/2019/02/15/is-amazon-violating-the-sherman-act/

#5yrsago Trump supporters astonished to learn that the man they gave $20m to “build the wall” has nothing to show for it https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/05/11/group-raised-more-than-million-build-wall-now-some-supporters-want-answers/

#1yrsago Revenge of the Linkdumps https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/13/four-bar-linkage/#linkspittle

[windriverdelta]

Some thoughts about the physics, energetics and evolution of ASOIAF dragons

Right up-front: There is nothing unphysical about dragons being capable of flight, as the maximum size of a flying animal depends on gravity and air density. Even with Earth-like parameters for both, we did have Quetzalcoatlus northropi with a wingspan of 10-11 metres and was almost certainly capable of flight. Change gravity or air density and you can get dragons much larger than that, and while e.g Bran's fall implies that Planetos' gravity isn't much lower than Earth, we don't have many constraints for air density. If we assume that Balerion the Black Dread had a wingspan of 250m as one estimate puts it, an atmosphere 25 times denser than Earth would let him/her fly. The square-cube rule predicts that the wing loading (and thus the atmosphere density) increases roughly with the mass/wing area~volume/length squared~length cubed/length squared~length of the animal. Whether the description of ASOIAF is compatible with an atmosphere this dense is a little unclear, especially since we don't know its composition or the properties of the Planetosi star, either. Note that this estimate of 25 might be an underestimate, since Balerion might fly at higher elevations than pterosaurs where the air is thinner.

The body mass is worth noting. Weight estimates of pterosaurs are quite uncertain; for illustration I'll use one study cited by Wikipedia saying that a quetzal with a wingspan of 5m might have weighed 65kg. If you scale this up to a 250m animal you get 65*(250/5)^3=8125 tons, about 50 times larger than a blue whale. Very small dragons might only weigh as much as a person, and thus they wouldn't be able to carry a rider until they reach a wingspan of about 10-20m especially considering the weight of armour.

This naturally raises the question of their food requirements. A blue whale needs a few tons of food every day and that's a low-end estimate, Balerion might need as much as 150 tons daily by that measure, without considering the energy requirements of flight and dragonfire. Sometimes people argue about cold-blooded animals taking less power, but we don't have evidence that Martin's dragons are cold-blooded, and going by AWOIAF at least both their bodies and blood are hot.

However, it is a mistake to assume that just because dragons eat, their food is also their energy source. Even in the real world, photoheterotrophy (consuming nutrients for growth but sunlight as a power source) is a widespread mode of metabolism; while ASOIAF dragons aren't photosynthetic as far as we can tell their association with volcanoes (e.g Dany and Quentyn associated a smell of sulfur to dragons) and fire magic might imply that they tap into geothermal power via magic. This would reduce their food requirements to these needed to grow a dragon's body, while an essentially unlimited power source is available for flight and dragonfire.

One last thought is how dragons evolved. Given that they have to burn meat before eating it and the linkage to volcanoes, I think it's quite likely that the precursors of dragons evolved the use of symbiotic bacteria to digest sulfur and charcoal available in volcanoes - akin to giant tube worms in the real world. At some point they evolved to use fire magic as a power source, allowing the development of larger fire wyrms and the utilization of dragonflame to convert meat into charcoal. Eventually some of them evolved flight, perhaps by crossbreeding with quetzal-sized wyverns as Septon Barth posited. Firewyrm magically-powered bodies plus a wyvern body plan gives large flyable dragons. Apparently dragons never re-evolved the ability to digest meat without burning it first.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Edward Helmore at The Guardian:

Progressive groups reacted with disappointment and anger over Jamaal Bowman’s decisive primary loss to a moderate Democrat in New York’s 16th district, calling for the party to cut ties with pro-Israel lobbying groups they blame for the result. In a letter to the House Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries, more than a dozen progressive organizations said they had “dire concerns” over the party’s continued association with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), “the future of the Democratic Party, the future of our multiracial democracy, and the future of our planet”.

Aipac and its affiliates plan to spend $100m across the election cycle, and Bowman’s defeat marks their most significant victory to date. Looking ahead, they have already set their sights set on the Missouri congresswoman Cori Bush, who will face Wesley Bell in her August primary. United Democracy Project, a Super Pac affiliated with Aipac, has already spent nearly $1.9m promoting Bell’s candidacy. The signatories of the letter included the Center for Popular Democracy Action, Jewish Voice for Peace Action, New York Communities for Change and New York City Democratic Socialists of America. In the letter, they said that in the run-up to the vote, UDP had flooded the Westchester county–northern Bronx district with nearly $20m in mailers and ads “funded largely by Republican billionaires, to drown out Jamaal Bowman’s message of humanity, dignity, and a thriving future for all”.

[...] Protect Our Power said in a statement that Bowman’s defeat was a “loss for young people and anyone who cares about our continued movement toward justice, peace, and building a multiracial democracy”. The progressive group blamed “Aipac and the Maga billionaires who recruited and paid for George Latimer’s campaign from start to finish” for the defeat, and vowed “to tell Aipac they have no business creating division in our democracy”. In a separate letter of protest, Jewish Voice for Peace Action said it was “saddened” by the results that had unseated a congressman who “has been one of the few members of Congress committed to defending Palestinian human rights”. “Today is a sad day for American democracy,” said JVP’s political director, Beth Miller. “To protect progressive candidates moving forward it is essential that Democrats reject Aipac,” she added. Bob Herbst, a member of the group and a constituent of NY-16, called Aipac’s multimillion-dollar spend in the district “a dangerous interference in our democracy”.

AIPAC’s influence in American politics is a cancerous rot on America. #RejectAIPAC

[mariailoveyou-guerin]

me when I’m the prettiest and best BRIDGERTON yup

wait wait wait I kept replaying them hugs that I didn’t even know there was more was about to click exit from Netflix OMG the families MY family all happy with their and Colin joking with Philippa my mothers being close and Gregory with Mr finch Mr Dankwroth + Benedict is there and they are at my MOTHER lady featherington home look at hyacinth ben Greg are at pen home can one d*e of complete overwhelming excitement and joy I’ve never felt this kinda joy because why are they all so pretty and amazing and just perfect and happy if I d*e know it’s bc of last 20m! The most beautiful ending!

Yours who? Yours what? I’m actually gonna end it all right here and now! #BRIDGERTON  Penelope who? PENELOPE WHAT? LW WHO? K1LL ME PLEASE 🙏🏾

forget my fam they are my family my 4 girls happily married with kind husband who adore/love them and my mother Portia being secure seeing her girls loved and happy you see she’s beaming with love and joy it’s what they deserved more then anything/anyone what I deserved for my actual family who raised me with love

[justforbooks]

Eleanor Coppola

Chronicler of the making of her husband’s Apocalypse Now whose footage and recordings were the basis for a documentary and book

In March 1976, Eleanor Coppola arrived in the Philippines, her three young children in tow, to film behind-the-scenes footage on the set of her husband Francis Ford Coppola’s new movie Apocalypse Now, which transposed the plot of Joseph Conrad’s 1899 novella Heart of Darkness to late-1960s Vietnam.

No one could have known then that production on this war epic would stretch on for more than a year, delayed by catastrophic weather, medical emergencies, military conflict, an incomplete script and plain old creative differences, making it one of the most infamously turbulent shoots in cinema history. As it rumbled on, newspaper headlines plaintively asked: “Apocalypse When?”

Principal photography added up to a staggering 238 days in total. Eleanor, who has died aged 87, was there for every one of them. As well as documenting the chaos as it unfolded, she secretly recorded conversations with Francis for the purposes of her diary.

He can be heard confiding gravely: “The film will not be good … This film is a $20m disaster. Why won’t anyone believe me? I’m thinking of shooting myself … This is one crisis I can’t pull myself out of.” He nicknamed the project “The Idiodyssey”.

The material Eleanor gathered – amounting to 60 hours of film and 40 hours of audio – was put into storage after squabbles over the point of view that her film (originally shot for promotional purposes) should take. Fax Bahr and George Hickenlooper’s documentary Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse (1991) later drew heavily on her extraordinary footage and tape recordings. Highlights included Francis frantically typing new scenes moments before shooting; arguing with Dennis Hopper, who had not learned his lines; and conferring at length with Marlon Brando, who arrived on set hugely overweight, not having read Heart of Darkness and seemingly intent on dragging his heels in the hope of reaping multimillion-dollar overtime bonuses.

Hearts of Darkness showed belatedly that Eleanor was not merely an observer on set, but also a facilitator. It was she, for instance, who convinced Francis to watch the sacrificial culling of a carabao, a water buffalo, by the Ifugao tribespeople, a gruesome spectacle that he eventually incorporated into his film’s climax.

The documentary was also narrated by Eleanor, incorporating parts of her book Notes on the Making of Apocalypse Now (1979; updated in 1995). She is heard reflecting that “it’s scary to watch someone you love go into the centre of himself and confront his fears – fear of failure, fear of death, fear of going insane. You have to fail a little, die a little, go insane a little, to come out the other side.”

She was invested in Apocalypse Now in more ways than one: Francis had put up their home as collateral. A fortnight into production, he sacked his lead actor, Harvey Keitel, replacing him with Martin Sheen, who later suffered a near-fatal heart attack.

Actors would turn up to set with no idea what they were shooting; the phrase “scenes unknown” was a regular fixture on the daily call-sheets. Helicopters loaned to the production by Ferdinand Marcos, the country’s strongman president, were abruptly recalled for his war on communism. During a typhoon that destroyed sets and halted filming, Francis cooked pasta and played Puccini’s La Bohème at high volume.

He took what Eleanor later called “an Italian approach” to life: “Very theatrical, throwing stuff up in the air and screaming.” Through it all, she was undaunted, even sanguine, no matter how high the stakes. “What’s the worst that can happen?” she asks in Hearts of Darkness, looking back on the mounting threats to the family’s home and finances. “They take away your big house, they take away your car, so what? … I really wasn’t frightened by it.”

Born in Los Angeles, California, she was raised in Huntington Beach by her mother, Delphine (nee Lougheed); her father, Clifford Neil, a political cartoonist for the Los Angeles Examiner, died when Eleanor was 10. She was educated at Huntington Beach high school, and graduated from UCLA in 1959 with a degree in applied design, going on to do freelance work at architectural installations.

Eleanor and Francis met in Ireland in 1962 on the set of the Roger Corman-produced horror film Dementia 13, which Francis directed; Eleanor was the assistant art director. They married a year later and had three children: Gian-Carlo, who died in a speedboat accident in 1986 at the age of 22; and Roman and Sofia, who both became film-makers.

In 1971, Francis rushed from the set of The Godfather to film Eleanor giving birth to Sofia. Eleanor later used the footage as part of an art installation. She also created an artwork in response to Gian-Carlo’s death, Circle of Memory, a chamber of straw bales that she installed in several sites over the years.

Even after the children were born, it was rare for the family not to leave its Napa Valley estate (which the Coppolas had bought after the success in 1972 of The Godfather) to accompany Francis wherever he happened to be working. After the Philippines, Eleanor and the children moved to Los Angeles to be with him during production on his musical One from the Heart (1982). They then decamped to Tulsa, Oklahoma, while he directed his back-to-back teen movies The Outsiders and Rumble Fish (both 1983). On the set of The Godfather Part III (1990), Eleanor recalled how Francis claimed to “[hate] the process of making movies … he talked about his family and complained about me. I sat there while he ran it all out, not agreeing, and not yielding to the temptation to give my point of view. I just tried to be present and listen.”

Nevertheless, Eleanor confessed in her 2008 memoir Notes on a Life that she sometimes regretted not having pursued fully her own artistic ambitions. In 2023, she told the New Yorker that Francis “made it very clear that my role was to be the wife and mother”.

The Coppolas’ wine and hotel businesses occupied some of her time in later life. She also returned to textiles, one of her great passions, as well as designing costumes for the dance company ODC San Francisco.

She directed two narrative films – Paris Can Wait (2016), starring Diane Lane and Alec Baldwin, and Love is Love is Love (2020), with Rosanna Arquette and Cybill Shepherd – and filmed documentary footage on the set of some of Sofia’s movies, including the irreverent costume drama Marie Antoinette (2006). Sofia dedicated her most recent film, Priscilla (2023), to her mother.

Eleanor is survived by Francis, Roman and Sofia, six grandchildren, Gia, Romy, Cosima, Alessandro, Marcello and Pascal, and a brother, William.

🔔 Eleanor Jessie Coppola, writer and film-maker, born 4 May 1936; died 12 April 2024

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[aita-blorbos]

AITA for cheating on my wife?

I (33M at the time, I'm 35 now) abandoned my wife (41F, I'll call her A, she's 43 now) and two daughters when our son died. In this time I cheated on her multiple times, and two years ago I finished another play that I thought was amazing, but my wife (and players) disagreed. This ended up with her rewriting it and the characters coming to life and now we've adopted one of them.

I'll call him R, he's in his early 20s. He's very sweet, and we both love him a lot and treat him as if we raised him. Unfortunately, I barely raised my daughters because I was busy writing and mourning our son. But A loves him a lot, even if she really didn't at first.

(To explain, in my original play both R and his girlfriend died, but A rewrote it so that only he died. So basically, we both wanted him dead)

I promised A I wouldn't leave again and I wouldn't cheat on her, but then I did. And not just with anyone, but with R's best friend's father.

(Best friend is 20M and I'll call him F, his father is in his 50sM and I'll call him L, and his wife is in her 50sF and I'll call her Ang)

A was pissed when she found out. So was R, and F, and Ang. We started fighting and A kept saying she was planning to divorce me for some reason, and R got really mad and I told him that I never wanted him in the first place.

(R's old home was terrible and his parents would always say stuff like this, especially after he came out as trans and he's really not okay because of it)

Then his girlfriend (early 20sF, I'll call her J) came to yell at me because she really loves him a lot. Now, as I mentioned, in my original play I killed her off (she killed herself) and because I was so upset I told her that I preferred it when she stabbed herself and died. So R was even angrier and he hates me now, and my wife is very close with J and she got even more mad.

So I said 'go on, bitch, stab me' to A and. She did. She fucking stabbdd me. I was DYING.

R moved in with F and his partner (early 20sNB and I'll call them M) and now he lives in their basement.

So F showed up and was wondering where M was because he hadn't seen them and I told him that they were probably dead because I wanted attention, and this boy absolutely loves them more than anything else in the world and he had a full panic attack because of it, and now R hates me even more and when I asked L if he wanted to get back together he said he has a wife (which never stopped him before!) and A still hates me for cheating and for saying some stuff to the people she loves and R hates me for saying all that stuff and cheating on A and M hates me and F hates me and EVERYONE hates me!

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for insisting on a strict shoes-off policy in my apartment?

I (20M) was raised in a shoes-off household. I always take my shoes off the instant I get inside. My parents are a bit more flexible, and will sometimes keep their shoes on for tasks like putting groceries away or walking across the living room to grab something they forgot, but they always take their shoes off if they're going to be inside for a while.

I have OCD. I am especially obsessive about germs. So when I moved into my own apartment I decided I'm going to have a rule that shoes MUST come off past the entryway. Otherwise I get worried about the floor being dirty and have to vacuum a bunch. This rule doesn't apply to absolutely everyone - for example, I'm not going to insist that maintenance workers take their shoes off - but it does apply to my guests including my parents. My parents know that I'm obsessive, but I don't know if they know that it's to disorder levels, and I'm not in treatment.

My parents find it very frustrating that I always, always take my shoes off even if I'm just running in for a minute to grab something out of my room. Both my parents often make jokes when visiting about walking around the living room with shoes on. My parents have just generally been really dismissive of my shoe policy and seem to think I'm being ridiculous. I know that I have a disorder and my thoughts aren't all logical, but I still feel like since this is my space I should be allowed to control the shoe status. Also, my parents are the ones who taught me to take my shoes off to begin with?

I'm also a little worried because I recently had friends over and as they were leaving, we were chatting and they started walking around a bit and I yelled SHOES to make sure they'd stop and remember to stay in the doorway, but it was past 9pm so I didn't want to vacuum and disturb my neighbors after they left. I told them I'm not mad and they apologized but I think this was rude.

So AITA for my shoe policy and how I enforce it?

What are these acronyms?