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douchebagbrainwaves · 5 years ago

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EVERY FOUNDER SHOULD KNOW ABOUT CAR

In it he carefully painted each individual leaf. In 1995 I started a company to pick these out. When you're driving a car with a manual transmission on a hill, you have worse problems to worry about this, just as everyone knows, should generate fast code. It was also a test of wealth, because the longer I have to live at home, I have to live at home, I have no money, I have to live at home, I have to do what adults tell me all day long. Sequoia describes what such a deck should contain, and since we're new to fundraising, we feel like we have to take these cycles into account, because they're affected by how you react to them. And now that I've written this, everyone else can blame me if they want. These combine to make us believe that every judgement of us is about us. And when I wasn't working at my day job I'd start trying to do, and even so we witness a constant series of explosions as these two volatile components combine.

In the past this has not been a 100% indicator of success if only anything were but much better than random. I recommend to people who need a new idea. You had to go through high school again, I'd treat it like a day job. This approach is less daunting, and the latter is not simply a constant fraction of the former. But the key to flexibility, I think, is to divide projects into sharply defined modules, each with a definite owner, and with interfaces between them that are as carefully designed as the core language. I've found life is too short for something, in the form of a definite offer with no contingencies. One of the startups from the batch that just started, AirbedAndBreakfast, is in NYC right now meeting their users. Once you're living in the future, then it's not our fault if we can't do something as good. Companies will pay for software, but I didn't remember exactly why till YC raised money itself. It must be terse, simple, and hackable. Childhood was getting old. He didn't say anything, but I found that what hacking meant to them was implementing software, not designing it.

An eminent Lisp hacker told me that when he went to work for years on one project, and trying to incorporate all their later ideas as revisions. A startup that investors seem to like us too. At any given time there tends to be one problem that's the most urgent for a startup don't care whether it closes. It will tend to be very successful. They seemed a little surprised at having total freedom. Microsoft's biggest weakness is that they drift just the right level of craziness. I wanted to do. Or more importantly, who's in it: if the beachhead consists of people doing something lots more people will be doing with computers in ten years, just walk around the CS department at a good valuation, you can tell them that number. Don't try to start Twitter. Although empirically you're better off taking a class on entrepreneurship you're better off using the organic method. A startup can't hope to enter a market that's obviously big and yet in which they have no competitors.

Be sure to ask about how they funded themselves with breakfast cereal. The Airbnbs themselves never even saw these emails at the time whether this was because of the Bubble, or because it's hard to get the first commitment. If you're going to be. Friends offer moral support few startups are started by one person, but I have never once sensed any unresolved tension between them. When do you stop fundraising? But there's a second much larger class of judgements where judging you is only a means to that end. Number one, research must be original—and in practice languages are judged relative to whatever they're used to hack. That's the myth in the Valley.

From the evidence I've seen so far, and they tend to write it first for whatever computer they personally use. Maybe you'll notice a problem they didn't consciously realize they had, because you know how to calculate time and space complexity and about Turing completeness. Backing off can likewise prevent ambition from stalling. If you know a lot about their pets and spend a lot of people seemed surprised that someone interested in computers would also be interested in making money by speculating in stocks. I know, without precedent: Apple is popular at the low end and the high end of the scale, nature seems to be hard to sell to them, or the productivity of programmers gets measured in lines of code. In fact, we were just as frightened when we started Viaweb. It's the same process at work. To make a startup hub is that once you have enough people interested in startups. Increasingly it will mean the people who list at ABNB, they list elsewhere too I am not negative on this one, I am interested, but we weren't interested in ecommerce per se. In the best case, the papers are just a formality.

Fortunately there's a better way of preventing it than the other students. Microsoft. An employer couldn't get away with hiring thugs to beat up union leaders today, but if they did, I see no reason to believe today's union leaders would shrink from the challenge. As Marc Andreessen put it, because it can take years to figure out. Acting in off-Broadway plays just doesn't pay as well as figuring out how to connect some company's legacy database to their Web server. But it is not merely a process of filling in. This way, you'll not only waste your time, but also burn your reputation with those investors. Some hackers are quite smart, but when it comes to fundraising. But only a bit: willfulness, discipline, and ambition are all concepts almost as complicated as determination.

You've still picked a good team. I had to go through high school again, I'd treat it like a day job. For the first year, our initial reaction to news of a competitor was always: we're doomed. A lot of them don't care that much personally about whether founders keep board control. You can take money from investors one at a time and you haven't raised any money yet, you probably have an idea for a startup don't care whether you've even graduated from college, let alone which one. Till they do, you can take their word for it. They want to know what sort of person who has them. One great thing about having small children is that they all wait as long as you're over a certain threshold of intelligence, what matters most is imagination. 6 months working on this stupid idea?

Someone who was strong-willed person stronger-willed. Also turn off every other filter, particularly Could this be a big company? A hacker would consider being asked to write add x to y giving z instead of z x y as something between an insult to his intelligence and a sin against God. In it he carefully painted each individual leaf. The reason I began by saying that this technique would come as a surprise to many people is that we get on average only about 5-7% of a much larger number. If you're a database expert, don't build a chat app for teenagers unless you're also a teenager. For example, you start a startup, ask yourself: who wants this right now? A lot of them try to make it open. Gone were the mumbling recitations of lists of features. It's hard to design good libraries.

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diarrheaworldstarhiphop · 6 years ago

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Intelligence is a hot topic of discussion these days. Human intelligence. Plant intelligence. Artificial intelligence. All kinds of intelligence. But while the natures of human and plant intelligence are subjects mired in heated debate, derision, and controversy, the subject of artificial intelligence inspires an altogether different kind of response: fear. In particular, fear for the continued existence of any human civilization whatsoever. From Elon Musk to Stephen Hawking, the geniuses of the Zeitgeist agree. AI will take our jobs and then, if we’re not careful, everything else too, down to every last molecule in the universe. A major Democratic presidential candidate, Andrew Yang, has turned managing the rise of AI into one of the core principles of his political platform. It is not a laughing matter.

But artificial general intelligence is not the type of intelligence that humanity should fear most. Far from the blinking server rooms of Silicon Valley or the posh London offices of DeepMind, another type of intelligence lurks silently out of human sight, biding its time in the Lovecraftian deep. Watching. Waiting. Organizing. Unlike artificial intelligence, this intelligence is not hypothetical, but very real. Forget about AGI. It’s time to worry about OGI—octopus general intelligence.

In late 2017, it was reported that an underwater site called “Octlantis” had been discovered by researchers off the coast of Australia. Normally considered to be exceptionally solitary, fifteen octopuses were observed living together around a rocky outcropping on the otherwise flat ocean floor. Fashioning homes—dens—for themselves out of shells, the octopuses were observed mating, fighting, and communicating with each other. Most importantly, this was not the first time that this had happened. Another similar site called “Octopolis” had been previously discovered in the vicinity in 2009.

One of the researchers, Stephanie Chancellor, described the octopuses in “Octlantis” as “true environmental engineers.” The octopuses were observed conducting both mate defense and “evictions” of octopuses from dens, defending their property rights from infringement by other octopuses. The other “Octopolis” site had been continuously inhabited for at least seven years. Given the short lifespans of octopuses, lasting only a few years on the high end, it is clear that “Octopolis” has been inhabited by several generations of octopuses. We are presented with the possibility of not only one multi-generational octopus settlement chosen for defense from predators and engineered for octopus living, but two. And those are just the ones we’ve discovered. The oceans cover over 70% of Earth’s surface.

None of the three experts I spoke with for this article would rule out the possibility of further octopus settlements.

The octopus is a well-known creature, but poorly understood. The primal fear inspired by the octopus frequently surfaces in horror movies, pirate legends, political cartoons depicting nefarious and tentacled political enemies, and, understandably, in Japanese erotic art. For all that, the octopus is, to most people, just another type of seafood you can order at the sushi bar. But the octopus is more than just sushi. It’s more than the sum of its eight arms. A lot more, in fact—it may be the most alien creature larger than a speck of dust to inhabit the known ecosystems of the planet Earth. Moreover, it’s not just strange. It’s positively talented.

Octopuses can fully regenerate limbs. They can change the color and texture of their skin at will, whether to camouflage themselves, make a threat, or for some other unknown purpose. They can even “see” with their skin, thanks to the presence of the light-sensitive protein rhodopsin, also found in human retinas. They can shoot gobs of thick black ink with a water jet, creating impenetrable smokescreens for deceit and escape. Octopuses can use their boneless, elastic bodies to shapeshift, taking on the forms of other animals or even rocks. Those same bodies allow even the larger species of octopuses to squeeze through holes as small as one inch in diameter. The octopus’ arms are covered in hundreds of powerful suckers that are known to leave visible “octo-hickeys” on humans. The larger ones can hold at least 35 lbs. each. The suckers can simultaneously taste and smell. All octopus species are venomous.

Despite all of these incredible abilities, the octopus’ most terrifying feature remains its intelligence. The octopus has the highest brain-to-body-mass ratio of any invertebrate, a ratio that is also higher than that of many vertebrates. Two thirds of its neurons, however, are located in its many autonomous arms, which can react to stimuli and even identify and grab food after being severed from the rest of the octopus, whether still dead or alive. In other words, the intelligence of an octopus is not centralized. It is decentralized, like a blockchain. Like blockchains, this makes them harder to kill. It has been reported that octopuses are capable of observational learning, short- and long-term memory, tool usage, and much more. One might wonder: if octopuses have already mastered blockchain technology, what else are they hiding?

We can see octopuses frequently putting this intelligence to good use, and not only in their burgeoning aquatic settlements. Some octopuses are known to use coconut shells for shelter, even dismantling and transporting the shell only to reassemble it later. In laboratory settings, octopuses are able to solve complex puzzles and open different types of latches in order to obtain food. They don’t stop there, though. Captive octopuses have been known to escape their tanks, slither across the floor, climb into another tank, feast on the helpless fish and crabs within, and then return to their original tank. Some do it only at night, knowingly keeping their human overseers in the dark. Octopuses do not seem to have qualms about deceiving humans. They are known to steal bait from lobster traps and climb aboard fishing boats to get closer to fishermen’s catches.

One octopus in New Zealand even managed to escape an aquarium and make it back to the sea. When night fell and nobody was watching, “Inky”—his human name, as we do not know how octopuses refer to themselves in private—climbed out of his tank, across the ground, and into a drainpipe leading directly to the ocean.

Given the advanced intelligence and manifold abilities of octopuses, it may not be a surprise, in hindsight, that they are developing settlements off the coast of Australia. By establishing a beachhead in the Pacific Ocean, a nascent octopus civilization would be well-placed to challenge the primary geopolitical powers of the 21st century, namely, the United States and China. Australia itself is sparsely inhabited and rich in natural resources vital for any advanced civilization. The country’s largely coastal population would be poorly prepared to deal with an invasion from the sea.

I spoke with Piero Amodio, a graduate student at the University of Cambridge who has been interviewed by The New York Times on his research into octopus intelligence. “[Octopuses] live in almost all marine habitats, from ocean depths to shallow waters, and from tropical to polar regions,” he said. “The fact that octopuses tend to have a solitary lifestyle is something extremely interesting because they differ from many other groups of large-brained animals.” Amodio linked me to a paper documenting food and den sharing among octopuses. What if they are, in fact, not so different? What if they become social on a scale matching or surpassing humans? Is humanity prepared to grapple with an organized challenge rising from all corners of the globe?

This new information does raise one important question: what are the state of human-octopus relations, and how might they develop in the future? Currently, octopuses are more than just aware of us. They are able to recognize individual human beings and develop preferences for them. If you are on good terms with an octopus, you may be grabbed and pulled into a tank, perhaps for a hospitable visit to the den. Alternately, you may be blasted and soaked with cold water. No octo-hickeys for you. Although many octopuses have shown obvious displeasure with captivity, they are fortunately not generally known to attack humans. There is, however, video footage of at least one dangerous altercation with a human diver. Graziano Fiorito, a senior researcher at the Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn in Naples, Italy, told me that aggression is “very rare” and done in self-defense. But with an animal as intelligent and disciplined as the octopus, could that same peaceful nature become warlike aggression if provoked?

Roko’s Basilisk is a well-known thought experiment postulating that a supremely powerful artificial intelligence might retroactively punish humans who did not work to bring it into existence. In this light, it is fortunate that octopuses have been legally protected by animal welfare laws during experimentation—the only invertebrates to receive this protection. We can only imagine what horrible, tentacled punishments for humanity may have been avoided in the event of an octopus intelligence singularity.

Animal welfare laws notwithstanding, human-octopus relations are clearly insufficiently advanced to guarantee stable and productive cooperation in the future. Octopus meat remains a fixture of many national cuisines. Octopus farming is a major industry, despite warnings and objections from the scientific community. Not one national government in the world has clarified its policies regarding octopus civilization. (Emails to the White House requesting the administration’s comment on this matter went unanswered.)

The first step to improving human-octopus relations would be a global shutdown of all consumption and internment, whether for research or commercial purposes, of octopuses. As this plan is patently unrealistic and completely absurd, more creative solutions will have to be developed in order to route around sclerotic global institutions unwilling or unable to meet the challenge of intelligent cephalopod life. One option may be to establish persistent contact with leaders in the octopus community to communicate our goodwill. While the linguistic barrier remains an unsolved problem, the incentives to solve it are enormous. Cultural and scientific exchange with octopuses could greatly enrich humanity’s understanding of undersea life, blockchain technology, and non-standard tactile numeracies.

Hostile approaches must also remain on the table in case peaceable cooperation proves to be impossible. Although the advents of aviation and long-range missiles have rendered coastal fortifications somewhat deprecated in modern military conflict, human regimes would do well to bolster their brown water borders in the event of a kinetic assault by octopodal forces. Extension of maritime frontiers into international waters would also provide a much-needed geopolitical buffer zone, provided it did not veer into encroachment upon cephalopod territory. With powerful suckers studding an arm span up to 4 meters long, distance is key to defense from the octopus. Sanctions could prove useful in denying octopuses any strategic reserves of coconut shells or other armor.

There is a more speculative moonshot option as well. Given the relatively short lifespans of octopuses, it would be possible to intern a number of them in a research station with the goal of selectively breeding them for intelligence, combat aptitude, and most importantly, loyalty to humans. With adequate funding, a team could make significant progress in just a few decades towards developing a new species of killer octopus bred to defend humanity against the threat of a rival octopus civilization. Just as OpenAI took the lead in confronting the problem of artificial intelligence by aiming to deliberately develop friendly AI, OctoAI may need to take the lead in confronting the problem of octopus intelligence by developing it ourselves in a humanity-friendly direction. We may have to fight ink with ink.

A moonshot project such as this has the added perk that it could be easily funded and carried out by a rogue government agency or single eccentric billionaire, such as SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son. The Farallon Islands off the coast of San Francisco, for example, would provide an ideal research site. They are a short boat ride away from the capital of unconventional moonshot projects in Silicon Valley, as well as being located in the natural territory of the Giant Pacific Octopus. The islands’ status as a nature preserve would provide a convenient cover story for the public. Intruders, spies, and conscientious objectors could be thrown into the octopus tank for disposal and their disappearances blamed on harsh Pacific weather. In fact, given the ideal conditions of the site, this may already be happening. Is it a coincidence that the Farallon Islands are closed to the public?

If all fallbacks fail, mutually assured destruction will be the only surefire way to prevent octopus civilization from annihilating humanity and conquering the cosmos. ”I tend to think that future-of-evolution questions are always limited by how long this planet continues to sustain life,” said Joseph Vitti, a doctoral student at Harvard University who has published on cephalopod cognition. “I tend to think that a natural or man-made disaster could easily wipe us out before enough evolutionary time passes for such major changes [in octopus social systems] to occur in the coleoid cephalopod lineage.” If we cannot save ourselves, we just may have to produce such a man-made disaster in order to save the rest of the universe.

The future may look bleak. Just as our social institutions enter a time of stagnation, crisis and despair, a heavily armed challenger surfaces from the untraversed depths. But humanity has faced terrible problems before and emerged not only victorious, but stronger too. To survive, our governing institutions will need to have robust but flexible coordination, quick and skilled decision-making, and the capacity for subterfuge, dissimulation, and intelligence. Just like the octopus. And that is what Palladium Magazine is all about.

This story is satire. It’s April 1st. All quotes, however, are real, as are more of the octopus facts than you would like to believe.

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elaianna · 5 years ago

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There was a calm in the ocean surf. Not entirely unusual, but a blessing nonetheless. The coastlines of Stormsong Valley had a propensity for difficulty, and it was always a boon to any sailor when her waters sat as glass. The only turbulence in the evening tide was the 'slosh!' of a particular sailor's boots as he wade through, hands set to pulling the timbers of his rowboat. Of all the harboursides that Tom could have taken to with a grand greeting -- he was a Duke now, after all -- he still preferred to arrive home surreptitiously. Thus it was that he dragged his rowboat to shore and settled her in the soft sands of Stormholme's beachhead. A few shakes of the leg, and he had dislodged the majority of the seawater which clung to him. A cursory glance at the moon pickled his stomach -- he was definitely late.

Pregnancy had a way of either making one sleep too much, or making sleep seem impossible. Tonight it was the latter. Tossing and turning, Elaianna could not rest. Not with how active the little one was. Nor with the knowledge that Thomas hadn't arrived home yet. She worried, even more than she often did. When pacing within Stormholme Castle no longer sufficed, she had taken it upon herself to wander down to the harbor, despite protests from a handmaiden. Protests that only made Elaianna send her handmaiden away for the eve so she needn't listen to them. She didn't remember how long she had waited atop the wharf. She just knew that she had sat there long enough that she didn't think she was getting up without any help. Karma, perhaps, for sending her handmaiden away. At the sight of a rowboat, she squinted until it came closer in view and she made out the familiar form of her husband. Relief.

There was a trepidation to Thomas' steps, even visible in the wide-spread of moonlight. He seemed to be trying to step quietly, and without inviting attention. An admirable attempt, but he was quite wet and treading through ankle-deep sand in boots coat with briny water. The totality of effect was ... humorous, to say the least. He looked a bit like a crab with booties on as he made his way toward the wharfhead -- apparently not noticing his wife above.

Perhaps she should feel frustration at his attempts to sneak around, but as she watched him try to step lightly and quietly, she couldn't help but feel amused. Her head turned as she followed him make his way around the wharf's stairs and up, unknowingly, towards her. She waited for the moment he'd realize she was right there.

It did not take long -- Thomas stopped mid-step in the middling of the staircase up the wharf. The bloom of moonlight illuminated her form, and he had his ankle in the air when he made eye-contact with her. A short pause was punctuated by the comical 'creeeeak!' of wood as he plant his foot down. One of his hands rose like molasses, eventually wiggling in a greeting to her.

She didn't speak. She didn't smile, nor did she frown. She gave him the same passive expression she wore in meetings and in public, hiding her emotions and thoughts from her face-- and lifted her hand to wiggle her fingers in greeting to him.

“-- Uh, hey gal. Didn' figure you ta' be up at this hour.”

The Admiral attempted, without much earnest success, to seem nonchalant about his peculiar timing of arrival. He knocked one boot against the wharfhead to dislodge some sand.

Elaianna held her hand up and out towards him in silent indication to help her up. At least she had finally acquired a helping hand without needing to call out for it. "Nor did I figure you would be out and about at this hour." There was no hesitance. He came forward with an immediacy, one of his fat-fingered hands stretched outward to assist her. He came closer at that, a defensive nature to his posture that had become all-too-common in her pregnancy. His voice lacked some of it's usual boister, ".. Took on some errand a' task out in th'city. On th'upright, it was a pleasant spit a' sail and rowing t'Boralus. Figure't it'd be less wholesome considerin' the Spring-time tides, but -- was pleasant."

She rose to her feet with the aid of her husband, her hand catching on his arm as she stood, to keep herself steady. "What business? I don't recall mention of it-- I don't think the baby brain would have made me forget that." Yet, she was doubting herself.

Thomas puckered with some colour of humor at the phrase 'baby-brain'. He hid it well enough though, only allowing the corners of his lips to really suffer for the thought. "-- Ain't a man allow't a pinch a' secrecy? Mayhap I took occasion t'find you a gift a' some proper such-and-such ... " He let his voice trail off, allowing his eyes to bubble open in his best 'puppy' expression. It was not entirely cute, given his stout features, but it approximated such.

That caused her to raise a brow as he asked about being allowed a pinch of secrecy. She wrinkled her nose, the start of a frown tugging at her lips. They had never had secrets before. At least, he hadn't, and she didn't lie to him about Daud. She just omitted. "I don't believe you," she told him simply. "But... Evidently, you do not wish to share, and I am your wife, not your keeper."

Thomas brought his own face into a frown. It was not subtle, like her sensation of such. There was little room for subtle expression in Thomas' facial features -- his rubberized expressions were all-or-nothing, on most occasions. A slight sigh passed his lips and he looked about, as if there were someone about to listen in on them at their own harbour. "-- Do ya' think I'm old?"

She blinked a few times at his query, looking up to him with confusion. "Old?" she asked, as if she hadn't heard him right. "No, and... Even when you do become old, and grey," she reached up, curling her finger around a lock of his ginger hair-- silently thankful that gingers didn't show their age as quickly as others--, "What will it matter?"

He pinched his lips -- and indeed his whole face -- to one side. There was a momentary cooing expression at her touch, as was so common to himself at her barest affection. But the roll of his brows and the furrow present, with a mild squint, left him looking unsatisfied at her answer. "... Right, right. I s'pose I ought be thankful a' that."

“Thankful that you're not old? -- I'm sorry, dear, but you've got me terribly confused.”

“Thankful --” Thomas paused, looking a little squirreled up in the face. “ -- that y'don't mind it so much, s'pose. I'm gabberin' wholesale, sorry gal. Think I may've swallowed a cup too much a' seawater.” He pushed up his cheeks, allowing a bubble of laughter to leave.

Elaianna raised both brows, allowing the barest hint of a smile as he laughed. "Is that a new drink? Seawater Whiskey?" Placing a hand upon his shoulder, her head tilted to the side, looking up at him from beneath her lashes. "What's all this about? There's nothing to mind, and yet, you're minding something an awful lot, Thomas."

He pushed out his lower lip, a sausage-finger waggling at her in gesture, "-- I think it ought ta' be, perhap. Seawater Whiskey -- coul' be my brand someday, when I get all old n' grey an' retire t'make whisky all day." There was a chuckle to him, but it sounded somewhat hollow. ".. Mind? I ain't mindin' nothin' -- we both know I ain't exactly well-burdened in the 'mind' department, love."

“Thomas..”

At her tone, Thomas raised a brow to his wife.

"What's gotten into you?”

A passing glance fell outward to the sea, and he shrugged a shoulder. "Ain't nothin' gotten inta' me, gal. Jus' spittin' gob-all as I do, y'know. Mayhap someday I'll get aroun' ta' putting in a filter between ma' mind and ma' mouth -- reckon it'd be a useful investiture, aye?" A sense of humor came up in his voice, eyes pinched in a squint from the rising of his cheeks.

Elaianna placed her hand on his cheek, gently guiding his attention back to her. "I think that'd be a terrible idea. It'd change you too much, and to be quite honest, I much prefer the Thomas wherein I can tell when something's bothering him. Even if I don't quite know what." She gave his cheek a gentle pat before lowering her hand.

Thomas inched himself toward her out of instinct, the touch of her hand a comforting sensation. It was apparent in the way his blood ran hotter against his skin, and the glide of her palm gave his eyes to a momentary flutter. Quite a contrasted, school-boy demeanour in comparison to his salt-weary exterior. At her departure, he tilt his head to eye her face.

“... If'n you laugh at me on occasion a' this -- I warn ya' -- I'll have t'go to th'Cathedral in Stormwind t'invest in a chastity belt. Aye?”

At his words, Elaianna placed a hand on the swell of her stomach. "Fortunately, I've already got what I need in that department." Her features split into a grin. "I tease. I won't laugh. I promise. When have I ever laughed at anything that's so profoundly bothered you?"

Thomas looked away and to the side, his vision settling on the rolling of the surf. Gentle, earnest, consistent. A comfort in all ways -- any sailor would agree. "... Aye, aye. I reckon m'due is paid there, mm?" He pushed out his own humor, a sidelong grin planted on his lips. "... It soun's damned stupid, an' it is." He looked at her fully, his features showing something of his weary state. "Folk keep crackin' at me fer' being ... old. Used ta' be just a gas, a wily snip at th'fact of m'earlier birthin'. I reckon that, I do. I get it well-on, a ribbin'. But now ... seems like -- " He sighed, head shaking. "-- dumb, dumb. Dumb thing ta' fuss about."

She bobbed her head with a small nod in understanding. "If people say something enough times to you.. if you hear it often enough... it wears on you," she spoke in understanding. She may not have been called 'old' but she had been called plenty else in her time. "But... you know what?"

He pushed up a caterpillar at her query, looking uncertain. “-- What?”

She smiled up at him. "You've more life in you than anyone else I know. Even those younger than both of us. Life. Fire. Passion."

Thomas brought his lips to something of an amusement, his chin flexing beneath the scrape of his stubble. A softness ate up his eyes against the weary circles beneath them, "I .. try. Folk keep on gettin' younger an' younger, seem'st to be." A small acre of fondness kept one of her caterpillars aloft, ".. Th'little ones keep me feelin' alive, I will admit. Damn't if I don't feel ten years younger whenever I have ta' chase Nerina with a handful a' cake, tryin' to 'save it for later' in the pockets of her skirts ... "

Elaianna laughed softly and shook her head as he spoke of Nerina's antics. "Tides know I can't chase her these days." Looking up to him, she kept her smile. "They keep getting younger, because we keep making them," she added, with a pat of her belly. "They don't get much younger than this."

Thomas looked down at her stomach, following the 'pat' of her hand. What soft smile he wore came to full light, the moon's illumination providing a plentiful source with which to reflect upon his toothy smile. "-- Well it ain't my fault. You're th'one what does all the seductifiying. Ain't my nature t'be so, obviously -- " He gestured to himself, salt-tinged tricorne and all. With a tilt forward, he came near enough to plant a smooch to her forehead, mumbling, ".. I love ya', Anna. Sorry I'm so ancient as I am."

She rolled her eyes as he accused her of being the one to do all of the 'seductifying'. She seemed to recall a particular birthday present. "Oh, please. You say that, but all you have to do is look at me, and I'm... what was it you called it? 'Seductified'." Her head tilted forward to meet his, the top of her head pushing his tricorne up and back on the Admiral's head. "I love you too, Thomas... and, I'll accept that apology when you're ancient, but that time isn't yet."

Thomas hummed at her accusations in the field of seductory behavior. He looked unconvinced, lips pulled taut. "That th'fact of it, then? Well mayhap I ought not ta' make so much eye-contact with ya', then, love. We'll have a whole host a' heirs all stuffin' cake down their drawers." Both nostrils flared, forcing air out in a stifled laugh. He came close enough to embrace her, laying both arms about her shoulders to hug her to him. ".. Gimme another fifteen minutes or so, gray-hairs will kick in proper." At the risk of dislodging his hat, he leaned down to nuzzle the tip of his nose against her hair.

Elaianna slipped her arms around his torso, leaning in to the embrace. As he nuzzled her hair, her eyes fluttered shut- content. "Is spending fifteen minutes with me truly so stressful?" she prodded with a lilt to her voice betraying her own humor.

@thomasstalsworth @atc-wra

#The Stalsworths #The Lady and The Sailor #RP #WRA #IC #Canon

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infactforgetthepark · 6 years ago

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[Free eBook] Spearhead of the Fifth Army: The 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment in Italy, from the Winter Line to Anzio by Frank Van Lunteren [WWII Military History]

Spearhead of the Fifth Army: The 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment in Italy, from the Winter Line to Anzio by Dutch author Frank Van Lunteren, an historian and honourary member of the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, is a military group and event history, free for a limited time courtesy of specialist publisher Casemate.

This is the 2nd in the author's sequence of books following the exploits of the US Army's 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment during World War II, and covers the Italian theatre in 1944 as they enter Naples, drawing upon war diaries, personal journals, letters, and interviews with veterans to flesh out their activities and experiences and those of their allies.

Offered in Canada, the UK, Australia, and possibly other countries worldwide (excluding the US and Europe), available at Kobo.

Free for a limited time @ Kobo (looks like the freebie was available in Canada, the UK, Australia, and possibly other countries worldwide (excluding the US) when I spot-checked assorted regional stores, YMMV, and some retailers may only provide the freebie in certain countries)

This might also be or become free in these other stores in certain regions if you feel like checking @ Barnes & Noble, Amazon, iTunes, Google Play

Description Upon the completion of the Sicily and Salerno Campaigns in 1943, the paratroopers of Colonel Reuben Tucker’s 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment were among the first Allied troops to enter Naples. A ghost town at first sight, the residents soon expressed their joy at being liberated. Four weeks later the 504th—upon the special request of General Mark Clark—spearheaded Fifth Army’s drive through the notorious Volturno Valley—the Germans’ next stand.

January 1944 seemed to promise a period of rest, but the landing at Anzio meant deployment for the paratroopers again, this time by ship. A bombing raid during their beach landing was a forecast of eight weeks of bitter fighting. Holding the right flank of the beachhead along the Mussolini Canal, the paratroopers earned their nickname “Devils in Baggy Pants” for their frontline incursions into enemy lines, as well as their stubborn defense of the Allied salient.

In this work H Company’s attachment to the British 5th Grenadier Guards—and the Victoria Cross action of Major William Sidney—are painted in comprehensive light for the first time. Also the story of Honorary Member of the 504th P.I.R., Italian veteran Antonio Taurelli, is included. Using war diaries, personal journals, letters and interviews with nearly 80 veterans, a close-in view of the 504th P.I.R. in the Fifth Army’s Italy Campaign is here provided in unsurpassed detail.

This work is the third by Van Lunteren on the 504th P.I.R. In World War II following The Battle of the Bridges and Blocking Kampfgruppe Peiper. As readers will see, however, the Italian theater held second place to none in terms of grueling combat and courage against formidable odds, and an extremely expert enemy.

#free ebook #frank van lunteren #504th parachute infantry regiment #history #military #military history #world war ii #italian history

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freenewstoday · 4 years ago

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New Post has been published on https://freenews.today/2021/02/24/nhs-facing-legal-challenge-over-data-deal-with-controversial-silicon-valley-firm-palantir/

NHS facing legal challenge over data deal with controversial Silicon Valley firm Palantir

The NHS is facing a legal challenge over its data deal with controversial Silicon Valley firm Palantir, Sky News can reveal.

Palantir, which has become notorious for its close ties to security services and immigration agencies in the United States, secured its first ever deal to handle NHS data in March last year for the nominal sum of £1.

Legal group Foxglove announced today that it was bringing a court case against the health service to force it to reconsider the contract, which was extended in December 2020 and is now worth £23.5m.

The lawsuit is the latest challenge over procurement during the pandemic, which has become a highly contentious topic in recent months, with critics accusing the government of favouring its own contacts.

It comes as a batch of internal government emails uncovered by The Bureau of Investigative Journalism and seen by Sky News reveal that high-level meetings took place between Palantir and the most senior officials in government and the NHS before the pandemic, raising questions about the role of personal relationships in the award of the contract.

The lawsuit claims that NHS England failed to consider the impact of the renewed deal on patients and the public by performing a fresh Data Protection Impact Assessment – a claim the health service denies.

“This is a giant tech company seeking to establish what will be a permanent beachhead in the NHS and we think that people have the right to know about that and debate it before it’s too late,” said Cori Crider, co-founder of Foxglove, which is bringing the case on behalf of news site openDemocracy.

An NHS spokesperson said: “The company is an accredited supplier to the UK public sector, the NHS completed a Data Protection Impact Assessment in April 2020, and an update will be published in due course.”

Although Palantir does not store any health data itself, Foxglove claims that by using its data analytics software for tasks such as the vaccine rollout, the NHS is putting public trust at risk.

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PM refuses to apologise over PPE contracts

NHS insiders say that Palantir’s tool has proved immensely useful at marshalling the health service’s disparate streams of data, but Ms Crider said that the NHS was “naive” to think its relationship with the much-criticised firm would not damage fragile trust among minority ethnic communities.

“The government’s vaccine campaigns teach us that there is no public health without public trust,” Ms Crider told Sky News, citing criticism of Palantir by human rights groups for its work with US police forces and Immigration and Customs Enforcement as potential sources of unease.

The lawsuit comes as a trove of internal UK government documents released to The Bureau of Investigative Journalism under the Freedom of Information Act shows how Palantir wooed senior NHS and government figures long before it was awarded a contract with the health service.

The emails reveal that in July 2019 Louis Mosley, Palantir’s UK head, hosted a dinner discussion chaired by Conservative peer David Prior, the chair of NHS England.

They drank watermelon cocktails, which Lord Prior later valued at £60.

The next evening, Mr Mosley emailed Lord Prior, thanking him for “a fascinating and thought provoking discussion”. He added: “I’m more convinced than ever that the UK is uniquely placed to pioneer the next generation of medical discoveries and treatments.”

Hours later Lord Prior replied, encouraging Mr Mosley to get in touch “if you can see ways where you could help us structure and curate our data”.

Image: The government has been criticised for lack of transparency over pandemic contracts

Despite this non-committal response, Mr Mosley continued to stay in touch with Lord Prior. In early October, the Palantir boss met with Matthew Gould, the former diplomat who had been appointed head of NHSX. “A very positive meeting,” he told Lord Prior over email, inviting him to a demonstration in San Francisco in January.

Lord Prior took up the offer. On 14 January 2020, he took a team of five NHS officials to Palantir’s San Francisco headquarters, where they met with the company’s “Healthcare Life Sciences brain trust”, a group of around 10 of the tech company’s engineers and health science specialists.

According to “quick rough notes” compiled by an official the day after the meeting, aides came away believing that Palantir’s all-purpose data software product was “focused exclusively on the Heath Care Market in the UK”.

Palantir and NHS England declined to comment on the contents of the emails, but spokespeople for both organisations insisted that the meetings had nothing to do with the award of any contracts.

Ms Crider reacted to this with scepticism, saying: “What’s the watermelon cocktail for if not to curry favour and influence?”

She said the emails raised questions about the contract first granted to Palantir in March 2020, which was portrayed as an immediate response to an “unprecedented challenge”, rather than a long-term arrangement.

The emails reveal the extensive contacts between Palantir and the UK government. The week after his meeting with Lord Prior, Mr Moseley met with the UK’s top trade official, Antonia Romeo, who he hosted at Palantir’s pavilion in Davos at the World Economic Forum.

According to briefing notes prepared for Ms Romeo, who was then permanent secretary at the Department for International Trade (DIT), the “objectives” of the meeting included stressing that the UK was “a great location for Palantir to expand their software business”.

DIT officials also said they wanted to “understand how we can support their [Palantir’s] growth in the UK”, saying they would like to know “how we help with recruitment, identifying real estate for expansion, planning for visas”.

A DIT spokesperson denied there was anything unusual about these exchanges, saying: “DIT officials engage with a wide range of businesses as part of their responsibility to support UK trade and investment.”

But critics point out that encouraging investment from Palantir is different, because its primary client is often the government itself.

“The sense from these exchanges is that senior officials are bending over backwards to accommodate Palantir, and not asking critical questions about the way their technologies will reshape the delivery of services,” said technology researcher Rachel Coldicutt.

Since the NHS’s contract with Palantir was first announced, its terms have been extended to cover a far greater range of subjects, including Brexit, flu vaccinations and the ability to “drill down and view changes to workforce data over time”.

Defenders of Palantir said that showed how effective the software had been, but data policy experts warned that the government needed to be more transparent about the changes if it was going to secure public trust.

“The government will squander any opportunities that might exist to better serve the public through the use of data and new technology if it doesn’t have the conversation about what’s acceptable in public and with the public,” said technology researcher Gavin Freeguard.

Matt Hancock’s new plan for health and social care reform, which he unveiled earlier this month, outlines extensive proposals for greater use of health data. It describes the NHS’s work with Palantir as one of its “achievements”.

Last week, the health secretary was found to have broken the law by failing to publish the details of coronavirus-related contracts worth billions within the required time period.

Mr Hancock defended the decision, saying he prioritised fighting the virus over transparency, but Labour called on him to commit to greater transparency to win back public trust.

Source

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sachwlang · 4 years ago

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Hundreds of Google Employees Unionize, Culminating Years of Activism

OAKLAND, Calif. — More than 225 Google engineers and other workers have formed a union, the group revealed on Monday, capping years of growing activism at one of the world’s largest companies and presenting a rare beachhead for labor organizers in staunchly anti-union Silicon Valley. The union’s creation is highly unusual for the tech industry, which has long resisted efforts to organize its…

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#Activism #Culminating #employees #google #hundreds #Unionize #Years

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thenwire · 4 years ago

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Hundreds of Google Employees Unionize, Culminating Years of Activism

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douchebagbrainwaves · 5 years ago

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YOU GUYS I JUST THOUGHT OF THIS

For less demanding problems, the availability of libraries can outweigh the intrinsic power of the language. Startup investors know that every investment is a bet, and against pretty long odds. I fly over the Valley: somehow you can sense something is going on. But pausing first to convince yourself will do more than save you from wasting your time. There are many advantages of launching quickly, but the difficulty of coming up with new ideas. They're saying He invested in Google.1 There are a handful of angels who'd be interested in a company with a high probability of being moderately successful.2

We usually advise startups to pick an optimal round size in advance, because that depends on the application. Is unconscious.3 You have to be a big deal, and Microsoft both executed well and got lucky. And the only real test, if you were to compete with the whole world. And anyone who has tried optimizing code knows how wonderfully effective that sort of environment is to join one and climb to the top.4 The intersection is the sweet spot for startups. If you look at a list of all the parts, as ITA presumably does, you can get in Java: public interface Inttoint public int call int i s s i; return s;; This falls short of the spec because it only works on the newest phones, that's probably a big enough beachhead. It doesn't sound obviously mistaken. The problem is not finding startups, exactly, but finding a stream of reasonably high quality ones.5

Wufoo seem to have a stateless algorithm. If you do that? One reason is that you may not get any reward in the forseeable future. It's that death is the default for startups, and in particular the most successful founders tend to work on them, and why startups do things that ordinary companies don't, like raising money and getting acquired. If your terms force startups to do things that make you stupid, and if not it doesn't matter whether you fund them, because with our help they could make money. They really seemed to believe this, and it will save you if anything can. And you know, when it comes to avoiding errands. Wealth When I was in grad school, one of their fellow students was on the receiving end of a question from their faculty advisor that we still quote today. To anyone who knows Mark Zuckerberg that is the reductio ad absurdum of the initial idea is the meta-fact that these are hard to solve, and the noise stops.

Nothing will teach you about angel investing like experience.6 Restrictiveness I think most hackers know what it means for a language to feel restrictive.7 Most investors decide in the first stage of a startup's life, when you have a thesis about what everyone else in it is overlooking. Most intellectual dishonesty is unintentional. I'm not proposing this is a serious idea. It's even the answer to questions that seem unrelated, like how to convince investors. In Lisp, functions are a data type just like integers or strings.8

But as long as they still have to show up for work every day, they care more about what they do at home. What it means, roughly, is don't do anything weird.9 And if you weren't rich, you took the omnibus or walked.10 That sounds like a joke, but it seems to be c, that people will pay them for. I've read that Java has just overtaken Cobol as the most popular language.11 Whereas a two year old company raising a series A round from Sequoia.12 Good hackers can always get some kind of job. And it is a tradeoff that you'd want to make. 3% of your net worth. Countries worried about their competitiveness are right to be concerned about the number of elements, where an element is anything that would be the ones to look to for new ideas: Forth, Joy, Icon.

I suppose that's bound to yield an alarming book. All the unfun kinds of wealth creation slow dramatically in a society that confiscates private fortunes. Notice I've been careful to talk about their previous startup idea while they were working at their day jobs.13 Are there walkable neighborhoods? Lisp. It would hurt YC's brand at least among the innumerate if we invested in huge numbers of risky startups that flamed out.14 I know the afternoon is going to invest. Or don't take any extra classes, and just build things. Along with good tools, hackers want interesting projects.15 If they can realize before other investors that some apparently unpromising startup isn't, they can make a difference.16

Notes

Which means if the company than you meant to. In a series A termsheet with a toothbrush. Some want to lead.

Similarly, don't destroy the startup is rare. A knowledge of human anatomy. His critical invention was a kid, this is not merely blurry versions of great things were created mainly to make software incompatible.

I didn't realize it till I started using it, there were no strong central governments. Once the playing field is leveler politically, we'll see economic inequality is a list of where to see the apples, they tend to notice them. CEOs were J. Founders are often compared to what you write has a word meaning how one feels when that partner re-tells it to steal a few months later Google paid 1.

A investor has a sharp drop in utility. But he got there by another path.

And while they think are bad: Webpig, Webdog, Webfat, Webzit, Webfug. There's a sort of love is as blind as the web have sucked—9. Even in English, our contact at Sequoia, was no more than make them want you.

Incidentally, the effort that would appeal to investors.

Enterprise software.

We're delighted to have moments of adversity before they ultimately choose not to make you expend as much the effect of this essay, but its inspiration; the critical path that they create rather than insufficient effort to make money, then work on Wall Street were in 2000, because for times over a hundred years or so, even in their heads a giant house of cards is tottering. So it is probably no accident that the applicant pool gets partitioned by quality rather than making the things you're taught.

Even Samuel Johnson seems to have been a time. IBM.

Our founder meant a photograph of a more general rule: focus on their ability but women based on revenues of 1. Managers are presumably wondering, how much effort on sales. When the Air Hits Your Brain, neurosurgeon Frank Vertosick recounts a conversation reaches a certain field, it's probably a real poet.

Kant. In this context, issues basically means things we're going to have to give you term sheets.

All you have a standard piece of casuistry for this essay, I have so far. As a friend with small children, or want tenure, avoid the topic. I'm compressing the story a bit more complicated, because sometimes artists unconsciously use tricks by imitating art that does.

That may require asking, because she liked the outdoors? Imagine the reaction might be a founder, more people you can skip the first version would offend.

Pliny Hist.

Different people win at that game. Unfortunately these times are a handful of VCs even have positive returns. None at all. It does at least should make the fund by succeeding spectacularly.

In fact since 2 1. Learning for Text Categorization. The first version was mostly Lisp, because time seems to be doctors? We care about.

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hudsonespie · 4 years ago

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75 Years Ago: The USCG and the Amphibious Assault on Saipan

His courage and conduct throughout were in keeping with the highest traditions of the naval service. – Adm. Chester W. Nimitz, Bronze Star Medal citation for Clarence H. Sutphin, Jr.

Seventy-six years ago Coast Guardsman Clarence Sutphin served as landing craft coxswain on board the attack transport USS Leonard Wood (APA-12). By the end of World War II, Sutphin would be a decorated war hero, battle-tested landing craft operator and survivor of Saipan, one of the Pacific War’s bloodiest combat missions.

In November 1941, just weeks before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, 18-year-old Sutphin enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard. He was born in 1923 and grew up in Valley Stream, Long Island. At Central High School, he wrestled and played football and baseball, however, he also enjoyed sailing and fishing and worked as a deckhand on fishing smacks and pleasure boats. So, it was only natural that he would join a military service known for its small boats and watercraft. After enlisting, Sutphin attended boot camp at the Coast Guard Yard, near Baltimore. He then received orders to the North Carolina coast to train in amphibious operations and landing craft, also known as Higgins Boats.

Aerial photograph of the Coast Guard-manned transport USS Leonard Wood taken in April 1944, just a few weeks before it deployed for the Battle of Saipan. (U.S. Navy)

In May 1942, Sutphin reported on board the Leonard Wood, where he would spend the next three years of his life. One of many Coast Guard-manned attack transports, the Wood saw action in some of the war’s bloodiest amphibious operations. In November, Sutphin and the Wood served in the landings in North Africa, the second Allied amphibious operation of the war. In July 1943, Sutphin landed troops from the Wood in the invasion of Sicily. After Sicily, the Wood crossed the Atlantic and transited the Panama Canal to participate in the Pacific Theater of Operations. In November 1943, Sutphin landed troops in the Gilbert Islands, including the capture of Makin Island. And, in early 1944, he landed troops in the Marshall Islands, including the invasions of Kwajalein Atoll and Eniwetok Atoll. Over the course of these amphibious operations, Sutphin advanced through the ranks of boat operators from Seaman 2/class to Boatswain’s Mate 1/class.

Early in 1944, the Leonard Wood had begun preparations for its next amphibious operation. Allied and Japanese military leaders knew that American long-range bombers could reach the home islands from the Marianas and both sides planned for one of the hardest-fought battles of the Pacific War. Allied strategists labeled the operation “Forager,” which targeted the Mariana Islands of Saipan, Guam and Tinian. With 600 ships and 128,000 troops, Forager would be one of the largest invasions in the Pacific War and test Allied amphibious capabilities.

Strategic diagram showing the Mariana Islands of Saipan and Tinian and the planned amphibious landings on each island. (U.S. Coast Guard)

On Thursday, June 15, D-Day for the invasion of Saipan, the Wood positioned itself off the beaches and prepared to disembark its landing craft. By 7:30 a.m., all boats were away and landing operations commenced. The landing zone included nearly four miles of beaches on the southwest side of the island. By 9:00 a.m., in spite of heavy enemy mortar, artillery and machine gun fire, Sutphin and his fellow landing craft operators had rushed 8,000 marines onto the beaches.

For the rest of June 15, Sutphin and Wood’s landing boats defied death by running back and forth to the beaches to land troops, ammunition, water, food, blood plasma and medical supplies. In spite of stiff enemy resistance, the beachhead held and, over the course of the day, Sutphin and the fleet of amphibious craft had put ashore an additional 12,000 troops. By nightfall, Saipan held 20,000 U.S. troops or about two-thirds the number of Japanese troops occupying the island.

That evening, and for some nights to come, Sutphin anchored his landing craft with a boat pool of two dozen other Higgins Boats off of the landing zone. At night, using a secret password, a Navy patrol craft would check each boat and update the crews about possible attack by Japanese swimmers or suicide boats deploying from the island. The landing craft were subject not only to armed swimmers and suicide boats, but nightly air attacks. One of Sutphin’s boat crew would stand watch while the others tried to rest, however, sound sleep was unknown during the Battle of Saipan.

From sun-up to sundown, Sutphin worked on the beaches and ran his boat back and forth to the transports. There was only one channel through the island’s reef to reach the beaches, so once he entered the reef, there was no way to lay offshore and escape enemy sniper fire. He relied on the experience he gained through landings in North Africa, Italy and the Southwest Pacific to avoid coral reefs, enemy machine gun fire, and near misses by mortars and artillery. Those hazards, as well as sniper fire, forced him to steer his Higgins Boat on bended knee behind the boat’s steel plating.

During the battle, Sutphin helped oversee boat operations, including landing, loading and salvaging landing craft. He braved intense enemy fire to save others, including swimming a towline to a landing craft stranded on a reef and targeted by enemy mortar fire with five Americans trapped on board. After rescuing that boat, he saved another stuck on the beach that was targeted by Japanese artillery. While on the beach dodging mortar rounds and sniper fire, Sutphin came to the aid of eight marines struck by a direct hit. After finding five men dead and three seriously wounded, he provided first aid to the survivors and moved them out of the firing line to the nearest aid station.

During Saipan’s D-Day and D-Day+1, the landing zone had been a killing field. American forces focused their fire on land, but the Japanese hailed down artillery, mortar, machine gun and sniper fire everywhere from the reef to the beaches. After the first two days, the Leonard Wood departed the landing zone to escape attack by enemy ships and aircraft. On June 24, it returned, dropped the remainder of its cargo and treated 350 wounded troops before gathering up its landing craft and sailing for friendly shores.

It took nearly 30 days to defeat the enemy on Saipan. Of the 70,000 American troops landed on the island, about 5,000 were killed and over 20,000 wounded. The final count of Japanese dead was nearly 30,000, almost the entire force garrisoned on Saipan. These dead included the Japanese general in charge of Imperial Army forces and famed Japanese admiral Chuichi Nagumo. Both flag officers committed suicide in the final days of the battle. It was an inglorious end for Nagumo, who had commanded powerful Japanese fleets at the battles of Pearl Harbor, Midway Island and Guadalcanal.

Photograph of Leonard Wood landing craft delivering supplies to the beach at Leyte Island after Saipan. Notice .30 caliber machine guns mounted in the stern gun tubs. (U.S. Coast Guard)

During the months after Saipan, Sutphin and the Leonard Wood went on to participate in amphibious operations in the Palau Islands and the Philippine landings at Leyte and Lingayen Gulf. By the time Sutphin left the Wood, he had become the senior enlisted man overseeing Wood’s Landing Boat Division of nearly 20 landing craft while serving as a guncrew member and master-at-arms. As Boatswain’s Mate 1/class he had high marks in nearly all aspects of his work and was recommended for advancement to Chief Petty Officer, but all chief positions in his rating were filled at that time.

In June 1944, the conclusion of the war was more than a year away with some of the bloodiest battles yet to come. However, the capture of Saipan, and the nearby islands of Tinian and Guam, marked a turning point. The islands were not only strategic Japanese strongholds, they could support air fields for Allied bombers able to strike at the heart of Japan. These bombers included the famed B-29 Enola Gay, which flew from Tinian to Hiroshima initiating the Atomic Age of modern warfare and helping end the Pacific War.

Clarence Sutphin stayed with the Leonard Wood through May 1945. In his three years on board the transport, he had participated in all of the Wood’s eight major amphibious operations. These spanned the globe from North Africa to the Philippines and aided in the defeat of Vichy French, German, Italian and Japanese military forces. For his “exceptional bravery under fire” on the beaches of Saipan, Sutphin received the Bronze Star Medal from the Navy with a medal citation signed by famed Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz. Sutphin was a hero of the long blue line and will be honored as the namesake of a Coast Guard Fast Response Cutter.

William Thiesen is the Coast Guard Atlantic Area historian. This article appears courtesy of Coast Guard Compass and may be found in its original form here.

from Storage Containers https://maritime-executive.com/article/75-years-ago-the-uscg-and-the-amphibious-assault-on-saipan via http://www.rssmix.com/

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memsmedic1 · 5 years ago

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Family, Work, and Divemastering (Nov 5, 2018-May 23, 2019)

At noon on Monday, November 5 Nathan and I, along with a couple of our more adventurous team members, took our scuba tanks and gear into downtown Yangon to the public pool I’d scoped out the week before and gotten permission to use from the pool manager.

We were going in order to practice some basic diving drills to refresh our skills (and have fun) in preparation for an upcoming dive. Nathan had been diving several times over the spring and summer since he was working on his instructor certification, but I’d always had other responsibilities and hadn’t been able to go with him. I’m pretty sure nobody at the pool had ever seen anything like it before because soon we attracted several amazed spectators!

The night of the 7th Nathan and I met up with one of our friends, Dr. Than Win, to drive 5 hours northwest of Yangon out to the small coastal fishing town of Ngwe Saung, on the Bay of Bengal, to go scuba diving again. Arriving at the beach after an exhausting, bumpy ride over narrow, primitive roads, we parked in a vacant lot for a few hours until dawn and then hauled our gear bags over a rickety wooden bridge spanning a small estuary and across a wide sandy beach to the predetermined rendezvous point with the boat.

The boat, was, as we should have expected, enormously late. This was not a problem though, as it gave us the opportunity to watch a sunrise wedding photoshoot and visit with three other young divers who were traveling the world on a cruise ship while enrolled in a ‘study at sea’ type of college program!

A small outboard motorboat finally arrived to ferry us out across the crystal clear water, just a little bit warmer than the early morning air, to the larger boat we would be diving from. This boat was a great hulking wooden monstrosity, with a huge, loud, water-cooled, underpowered inboard engine taking up the entire hold. When the engine cranked over several liters of greasy oily water belched out from the bilge directly onto the deck of the boat moored next to us and commenced spreading out in a thin film over the water.

As soon as the gear was stowed and the anchors weighed we started on what was supposed to be a 45 minute ride out to some small islands where the dives would take place. The problem though was that our boat was slow. We were on the slow boat to India! We couldn’t see it on the way out, but this boat was so slow that on the way back the incoming swells were rolling past us as if we were standing still!

Scuba diving in Myanmar is relatively uncommon, probably because it’s like trying to herd cats to get anything done here; very little English comprehension, outdated regulations, atrocious roads, restrictive lodging requirements, and the list goes on. (Could the not-uncommon Saltwater Crocodiles be another factor?)

Safe and conservative diving is recommended when diving in Myanmar because Myanmar healthcare facilities and infrastructure are so substandard. Also, poorly maintained equipment, minimally trained “instructors”, or instructors and Divemasters with expired licenses result in the level of professionalism and the quality of the dive gear being lower than what international divers would expect. Diving accidents should therefore at all cost be avoided.

I was glad we had all our own gear, including a fully stocked custom-built med bag to deal with any unavoidable diving-related emergencies that might arise, whether medical or trauma, because it’s a bloody long way back to anything resembling a hospital, and even farther to Monkey Point Naval Base in Yangon, which currently boasts the only operable hyperbaric chamber in the entire country!

Finally we arrived at the dive site just off Bird Island, and after getting geared up, entered the water to start our first dive. The water was warm and pristine, with crystal clear visibility for over 100 feet! This amazing visibility gave us a nice buffer to keep a sharp lookout for Saltwater Crocodiles, which are commonly seen in the area, but fortunately we didn’t see any.

Sadly though, unbridled fishing practices including heavy dynamite fishing has decimated the coral reefs and other marine life, and the water was sparsely inhabited in general. I was, however, able to see a lionfish, a bluespotted whiptail ray, several nudibranchs, small reef fish, and flying fish while on the way back to shore.

Diving here reminded me of a fascinating though disputed story that occurred on an island just north of our dive location during World War 2: for six weeks during January and February of 1945, Ramree Island, situated just off the coast of Burma in the Bay of Bengal, was the setting for a bloody battle between Japanese and Allied forces.

The Battle of Ramree Island was part of the Burma Campaign during WW ll, and was launched for the purpose of dislodging Japanese Imperial forces that had occupied the island since early 1942, along with the rest of Southern Burma, and establishing an airbase there.

They were met with stiff resistance from the Japanese, and vicious fighting ensued. Finally, after a long and bloody battle, the Allies captured the enemy base, but a platoon of an estimated 1,000 Japanese soldiers escaped, and since they were surrounded on three sides by the British, they decided to retreat straight across the island through 16 km of dense tidal swampland to rejoin a much larger Japanese battalion on the other side.

Traveling through the thick, muck-filled swamps, over maze-like mangrove roots, and under tangled vines was slow and exhausting work, made worse by the clouds of mosquitoes biting to distraction and spreading malaria and dengue fever, as well as leeches and the various poisonous spiders, scorpions, and snakes slithering through the mud and underbrush like it was the forest of Endor.

During the night, as the fleeing soldiers struggled on towards the safety of their reinforced beachhead, British troops reported hearing panicked screams of terror and gunfire emanating from within the dark swamp. Unfortunately for the Japanese, the swamps of Ramree were infested by countless, very large Saltwater Crocodiles, which can grow over 20 feet long and weigh over 2,000 pounds.

Drawn by the tasty sounds of the weary and bloodied soldiers thrashing clumsily through their territory, the opportunity was just too good to pass up, so they didn’t. Out of just under 1,000 Japanese soldiers that entered the swamps of Ramree, only about 20 were found alive by their reinforcements the next morning!

*******************************************

On November 12th I was “surprised” by visitors when my mom and little sister Lexi came to see me! They flew into Yangon where I met them and we all went out to a Burmese restaurant for supper and to catch up on everything. They came loaded with food and gifts from my family and some of my Montana friends which was another big surprise and very much appreciated!

The next morning we took a taxi to the bus station and caught the bus traveling from Yangon to the small hill station of Kalaw, high up in the mountains of Shan State, the same town that hosted the half-marathon Trail Run our ambulance stood by for last year.

Kalaw is also one of the best places in Myanmar to go trekking, which is the reason we were here. I’d already researched the best trekking outfits and found out who was available, so that evening after checking into our hotel we went out and talked to a couple of them in person and made reservations for the next day.

Early morning on the 14th we started on the 3 day, 36 mile adventure by walking through the expansive early morning street market in Kalaw with our Pa’O guide, David, and 4 other adventurers with whom we became very good friends by the time we reached our destination of Inle Lake, on the other side of the mountains.

During the 1st day we walked through high pine forests, grassy wildflower strewn meadows, small scattered villages, and rich mountainside farmland where farmers were plowing with water buffalo and cultivating crops of ginger, chilies, mountain rice, and niger seeds.

In the afternoon a sudden rainstorm blew through, even though we were already several weeks into the dry season. Very quickly the trail became cold, slippery, and treacherously muddy. There were several spills and one of our group even had both their shoes sucked off their feet going through an especially wet and leechy stretch of the mountains!

In the evening we came to the village where we would be spending the night. After taking a bucket bath from the open communal well in the center of the village, I went up the stairs to the large communal bedroom that one of the villagers rented out and rolled out my blanket, then we all went to another villagers house and had a delicious (spectacularly) supper.

Maybe it was all the exercise, but the food on the trek was some of the best examples of Burmese and Pa’O (the predominant tribe in this part of the country) food I had while living in Myanmar, with a few exceptions when foreigner food was attempted (the pancakes on the final morning would have made great pothole fillers).

On the second day after breakfast we struck out again, soon leaving the high mountains behind dropping down into an expansive valley interspersed with rolling hills, small villages, and a cantankerous cow. We passed villagers shelling cobs and laying the corn out to dry in the sun, harvesting tomatoes and ginger, and weaving intricate baskets out of delicate strips of bamboo.

It was substantially hotter in the valley than the mountains, so when we came upon a medium sized river meandering along beside the trail and our guide suggested we stop for a swim and a rest, we were happy to take him up on it!

This was actually the very same river whose terminal end we would canoe out of and into the lake at journeys end, but David explained that its course was too serpentine and roundabout to warrant building a bamboo raft and floating out on it, which I had been thinking would be far more ameliorative for my blistery feet, the shoes of which were disintegrating before my very eyes as the trek unfolded.

Late in the afternoon we finally reached the lower bamboo and jungle clad mountains on the other side of the valley, which we began ascending for a couple hours. Just as dusk was falling we arrived at an enormous, ancient wooden monastery, which appeared to have been built in the middle of nowhere, and here we stopped and were granted lodging for our second night.

The fun thing about staying here was that a couple dozen small novitiate monks lived here in the monastery, and they challenged us to a game of pickup football (soccer) with them when we first arrived before it got dark. I’m convinced the only reason we were beaten so roundly was due to the various hardships of our journey, for example blisters and leech-induced anemia!

Early on the third morning, after finishing breakfast and patching up our feet as best we could, we continued on, first up, then down through the mountains, eventually coming upon a beautiful cobblestone road left over from colonial days which we followed all the way out of the mountains into another beautiful valley, and on towards Inle Lake, the second largest lake in Myanmar, and one of the highest, at 2,900 feet (880 meters). Near the lake, the ground is at or below water level, and the road was flooded in several areas even though the rest of the country was well into the dry season.

Finally the road ended entirely and we climbed a rickety wooden stile, crossed a rickety wooden catwalk over a boat canal that connects the village to the river, balanced along a slippery, muddy dyke, and finally arrived at a villagers house where we could rest and have lunch.

After lunch we walked back over to the canal and climbed into a long, wide, wooden outboard canoe and started on the last leg of our adventure. First we floated past all the houses through the village, then we entered the river from the day before which shortly opened into a huge area which was nothing but amazing floating tomato gardens, the rows of vines clearly bobbing up and down over the water, with the farmers (settlers? colonizers?) living over the lake in stilted huts and doing all the trellising, harvesting, and other farm work from their small wooden dugout canoes.

These are the Intha people, a very small tribe who only live around Inle Lake and who make their living farming on the lake and fishing, using unique cone-shaped basket-like fishing traps, and an even more unique method of paddling using their leg to grip the oar, standing on the other leg in the back of their canoe.

Finally we entered the open water of the 13 1/2 mile long lake and sped along up the lake enjoying the sensation of effortless movement, taking in the spectacular views of the surrounding mountains, Intha fishermen, and all the other boat taxis and lake traffic out enjoying the fresh air and pleasantly warm sun on the sparkling, though very murky, lake. Arriving at the northern end of the lake in Nyaungshwe, a small fishing town with as many boat canals as roads, we bid our guide and traveling companions farewell and went our separate ways.

After the trek the three of us traveled to the capital of Shan State, Taunggyi, to attend the annual Tazaungdaing Fire Balloon Festival, where hundreds of amateur teams compete over 4 days to launch the best hot air balloons, sometimes shaped like various animals, birds, and mythological creatures, and filled to capacity with homemade fireworks. Sometimes the balloon is too heavy or poorly designed to even make it off the ground before the payload ignites, or it catches on fire soon after takeoff and plummets into the thousands of spectators. There are fatalities every year but there’s just the right twinge of danger to keep it interesting. The festival occurs close to the end of the Buddhist Lent and marks the official end of the rainy season. While a huge celebration and local phenomenon, its deeper purpose, like so many “Buddhist” traditions, is to ward off evil spirits; the giant balloons are just upsized Chinese sky lanterns.

On November 18 we had to take a night bus back to Yangon in order to make it in time to catch our plane! The only bus I could find that was able to take us was a bottom-tier 3rd class bus with absolutely no legroom and innumerable stops throughout the interminable night.

Early the next morning we flew from Yangon to Kuala Lumpur where my mom had some meetings and had invited us along, then we flew to Malaysian Borneo to go scuba diving. My mom had been a diver in college and my sister had wanted go diving ever since I myself started diving, so now they both finally had a chance! Diving was wonderful, with my mom deciding to renew her license and Lexi vowing to get hers.

From Malaysia we flew up to Chiang Mai, in northern Thailand, for a few days, and then, after meeting up with friends, drove out to Sunshine Orchard, where Lexi would be residing while interning as a paramedic at a small nearby clinic in the middle of the jungle.

After seeing all my friends at Sunshine Orchard and visiting for a few days I had to return to work, so I told my mom, sister, and SO friends goodbye. On December 4th my mom and I drove into MaeSot where my mom took a bus down to Ayutthaya to spend one more week before flying back home and I walked across the Friendship Bridge to the Myanmar border and took the night bus back to work. Lexi of course stayed behind to work at the jungle clinic.

During the last week of November and first week-and-a-half of December Nathan was back in Thailand finishing his scuba diving instructor course and upon completion received his NAUI Scuba Instructor certification!

On December 7th I took a taxi to the bus station and traveled back up to Kalaw to join my ambulance and partial crew already present to stand by at the Trail Run for the second year in a row. This event is a fun assignment for several reasons: The crisp, sunny, humidity-free days and cold, invigorating, mosquito-free nights are a pleasant change from the oppressive lowlands, the food at the antique Kalaw Heritage Hotel where the race is hosted is delicious, and it’s fun to see our friends there, especially my friend who is the doctor for the Australian Embassy in Yangon, who collaborates on projects with us from time to time.

The morning of Sunday the 9th the race began, with nearly twice as many participants as last year. We were fairly busy treating the expected maladies- blisters, twisted ankles, scraped knees, heat cramps, but there weren’t any major injuries.

After the race was over and most of the people had left we packed up our gear and drove directly to the very old city of Sagaing, in central Myanmar, where we would begin teaching an EMR course to 24 students from Sagaing Emergency Rescue Team and a few volunteers from other nearby groups the next day. This is why I hadn’t ridden to Kalaw in the ambulance, because we needed a team to go early and drop off our training materials in Sagaing on their way up to the Trail Run.

The leader of SERT, Mr. Soe Min Oo, had been our best student at our fourth ever EMR training, and he had been trying to get an EMR training for his group ever since, but there had been major scheduling issues on both sides until now.

The Sagaing EMR training ran from December 10-21 and was unusual in that it was covered by a major national television channel, so I’m happy to say that it went very smoothly and was probably the best overall EMR course I had ever taught!

I did have to go intercede on one students’ behalf though because the rescue group he works for was making him man their “dispatch center” every night even though he was the only person from that group attending our course! They were doing this to low-key punish him and try to make him fail class for trying to get training which they hadn’t endorsed and would put him at a higher-trained level than the leaders of his group. But despite this he was still coming to our class and arriving on time in the mornings! Fortunately, after all the formalities of the visit to this rival rescue group were out of the way they agreed to find someone else to fill in for him until training was over, and he ended up being one of our students who passed the class and received our internationally accredited EMR certificate!

After the EMR course, we packed up and brought all the training supplies back to Yangon to be cleaned and stowed until next time, and then spent the next week catching up on end of year paperwork, delayed CPR-AED and First Aid trainings, and continuing to respond to emergencies.

At 9 AM on Sunday, December 30th, Nathan began instructing his first scuba diving course to 4 students, with myself as an assistant. We spent the first day in the pool in Yangon, familiarizing the students with the equipment and teaching basic principles and skills like how to use the buoyancy control device (BCD) and regulator to breathe underwater and control depth. The next morning we drove out to the beach at Ngwe Saung and again spent the whole afternoon in a pool there teaching and practicing skills, although Nathan and I did manage to squeeze in a shore dive that evening!

January 1 and 2, 2019 was the open water component of the course, a fantastic way to start the New Year! As luck would have it, we happened to draw the same boat as last time, and found ourselves putzing along at a feather-star pace (one of the most graceful animals in the sea, though never known to win a race). At least we certainly couldn’t complain about the location, scenery, or company!

On our way out to sea for the 2nd day of open-water, the boat decided to needle us a little more than usual and the engine died about a quarter-mile offshore, leaving us at the mercy of the incoming tide and letting us drift dangerously close to a small, rocky island before the “engineer” could get it started again. We finished the voyage and scheduled dives without further incident and after putzing back to shore late that afternoon, washed the saltwater off us and our gear, ate supper, and then drove back to Yangon during the night.

Early the next morning on January third, just a couple hours after arriving back in Yangon from our scuba class, Nathan went to the airport and flew back to our school property in Thailand to begin preparing it for a Remote First Aid class that we were scheduled to teach that next week. The day after Nathan left I also started traveling to Kanchanaburi, taking the night bus from Yangon to Myawaddy, and crossing into Thailand the morning of the 5th. I really wanted to stop for breakfast at one of the amazing restaurants in MaeSot, but as I was hoping to catch the day bus down to our school in Kanchanaburi, I took a Songtau straight to the bus station and bought a ticket for a van that would take me over the steep, always-under-construction mountain road to Tak, an hour and a half from the border, where I could catch the bus I needed.

Arriving in Tak I rushed to the ticket counter and discovered that I had just missed the morning bus and would have to spend the day in the bus station until the night bus arrived at 11 PM (story of my life). After a day spent thinking about taking two night-busses in a row and all the other things I could be doing instead, I finally boarded my bus and arrived in Kanchanaburi mid-morning on January 6, then jumped on a local bus which took me out to the village near the school where Nathan met me in our ambulance.

The rest of that day and all the next we worked around the property getting it brush-hogged and trimmed and weeded and watered, then we cleaned out and scrubbed down the classroom we would be holding the training in.

Monday evening after work we drove into Kanchanaburi to pick up my sister Lexi at the bus station. She had been working the medical beachhead along the Thai-Burma border ever since I’d last seen her (no joke either; suturing knife wounds, treating breasts hollowed out by mastitis, sick babies, drowning victims, strange and wonderful tropical diseases...). For some reason, she had decided to have an ocular emergency of her own which had prevented her from traveling south with me when I crossed into Thailand. Now she was coming down to accompany us to a real beach and finally get her diving certification at the next scuba diving class Nathan had scheduled to teach immediately after the RFA.

From Jan 8-10 Nathan and I taught the Remote First Aid class to local rescue volunteers plus the owner and some of the employees of a Bangkok-based rock climbing company specializing in guiding climbing tours to scenic and remote locations across Thailand. They had been looking for a company to give their guides some medical training in case someone had an emergency and they were thrilled to have found us.

On Friday Nathan and I loaded up our Thai ambulance with scuba tanks and dive gear and with Lexi we drove out to the local military base where we have a quid pro quo that allows us to use their training pool for swimming and diving. Along the way we picked up Pi Top and Pi Game, two of our local friends who were also taking the scuba diving course.

At the pool, the 5 of us met 5 more prospective students sent by the local rescue diver foundation, who had given Nathan and I our first scuba diver training two years ago. Now that Nathan was a NAUI Instructor, the foundation leader was sending him the first of many foundation divers to receive real training, since all their previous training to date had been 2nd or 3rd hand at best and entirely empirical.

So, the former students taught the former teachers, and I was again assisting as with the first course to provide an adequate student-instructor ratio and just to help streamline the process. For instance, if someone panics or has trouble equalizing their ears while practicing underwater skills I’m there to help them regain control or fix their problem instead of having to pause the whole class and bring everyone else up also.

The next day we hung out at the school, picking fresh limes and making fresh limeade, and just relaxing. Early Sunday morning we reloaded the ambulance and all piled in to drive 10 hours farther south to the ocean near Krabi, Thailand for the open-water part of training. Heading out of town we parked our ambulance at Pi Top’s gas station and transferred everything into Pi Game’s vehicle, which is also an ambulance, but it’s bigger than ours and we needed all the space we could possibly get since both he and Pi Top were coming along, plus Lexi and I, and Nathan with his family.

On the 14th and 15th we rented a wooden longtail fishing boat and dove as many times as we safely could. This completed the first level of scuba diver, and our two friends went back home, but Lexi and Nathan and I stayed and got a couple more dives in on the 16th to start fulfilling the requirements for Lexi’s advanced scuba diver license, since she loved it so much.

We weren’t able to finish that course immediately though, because Nathan had some family of his own coming over to Thailand for a visit and had to leave, leaving Lexi and I to poodle around the beach on our own for a couple days. This was great fun and also gave me a chance to look around for a dive shop that might be looking for someone to intern with them.

(I had completed my divemaster training over a year before, but in order to be certified I needed to have a certain number of logged dives, and despite our best intentions, with all our other responsibilities Nathan and I hadn’t been diving as much as we’d have liked, which would have more than satisfied my pre-DM-cert dive quota. So... before our Remote First Aid class we had talked and decided that after the next scuba training I would stay behind and try to find a divemaster internship to complete my training.)

I was worried about finding an opening because Thailand was currently experiencing an unseasonably low volume of tourists due to recently changing their tourist visa requirements, but when I checked at one of the very first shops I came to, which I only knew about because this is where one of the instructors who’d helped teach Nathan and I our initial divemaster course now worked, they were delighted to have another diver help them out and offered me the ternship!

After seeing my sister off back to her clinic internship on the 19th, I started my divemaster ternship the very next day, Wednesday, January 20. This entailed learning and doing everything a divemaster does, plus helping the other divemasters and instructors with everything they needed help with, in exchange for gaining the essential experience I needed to qualify me for my DM certification.

On Sunday night, February 24th, I took a 12 hour bus ride from Krabi up to Bangkok where I immediately switched busses to take another 12 hour bus ride on up to MaeSot where I switched yet again to a Songtau and went up to visit Lexi and everyone else at Sunshine Orchard for a few days before continuing on to Yangon on March 1st. I had to make this trip back to Yangon in order to apply for a new Thai visa, and also to pack up and move my stuff out of our office/house, as there was a contemplated upgrade on the horizon. I brought my stuff back to Thailand and parked it temporarily with a friend in MaeSot. Here I again met up with Lexi, who had taken a Songtau down from Sunshine Orchard and was going to accompany me back down to the coast, because Nathan was now available to finish teaching Lexi her advanced scuba diver course.

From March 19-21 we dove off the coast of Krabi and Phuket, completing the necessary skills for Lexi to be certified at the advanced level including: light salvage, underwater navigation, night diving, shore dives, wreck dives, and Nitrox dives, plus Rescue Diver skills.

Afterwards, I went back to complete my DM internship, working there until May 24, when I started making preparations to go to Africa and work at a rural clinic in Ethiopia!

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harmoniouspixels · 7 years ago

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Retired and Hiatus Saves

Well after that joyous queue, here’s a bit of information on the current state of affairs with my blog in regards to saves/neighborhoods. (Replies from the queue will be dealt with in a bit after some homework).

Retried Saves

All retired saves can be found on a page I snuck in a few weeks ago called Old Saves. Among the notable mentions include the Pleasantview-Widespot* ‘hood, and the Beachhead Valley ‘hood from TS2. Other less memorable TS3 and TS4 saves are in there as well.

Legacies, such as the Matthews Legacy, have been retired for some time. For the legacies that I’ve abandoned, check out the Legacy Master Page.

*More to come in the next section.

Hiatus Saves

Alright, I know I put Pleasantview-Widespot in the list of retired saves, but honestly? I love that ‘hood with all my might. It’s been going since June of 2015, and I don’t want to give up on it just yet. According to my notes, I’m in the exact middle of catching up rotations, I just don’t have the motivation/urge to play it constantly. It’ll reappear someday, but for now it’s in a weird state of limbo.

Supernatural Roommates (TS3) and Arcadia Peaks/Sykes Legacy (TS2) can both be considered on hiatus.

The Newton LEPacy is also on a hiatus, but might be for a shorter time. I know like the rest of you that legacies can get a bit repetitive until it’s time for the next generation. I’m going to be playing this save off-screen until Marina ages up to take over, because at the current moment there isn’t much for teens to do at this current point (Generations will be a welcome addition). Any pictures I find funny/noteworthy will be uploaded along the way.

I think that does it? I meant to make this post sooner, but time would sneak away from me. Also this is kind of jumbled together because like I mentioned, this in between doing homework, but I wanted to get it out before I forgot.

#psa #blog update #text #jack speaks

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ara-la · 7 years ago

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Gentrification - What it is and how we can fight it

[Note from MN: The particulars in the beginning of the following 2005 article about the face and pace of gentrification and displacement in Los Angeles at that time are now a litany of lost causes. However, the struggle continues today.

So the perspective on gentrification as a process of re-colonization and social engineering carried out under a consciously white supremacist and anti-democratic strategy is even more valid today and bears re-reading and applying to the new and on-going struggles against displacement in Boyle Heights, the Crenshaw district and throughout the LA Basin.

About a quarter-million Black people have been dispersed from LA or driven into homelessness under these policies. Already the least-affordable city in the country in terms of the relationship between the average household income and the average cost for housing (purchase or rental), Los Angeles is experiencing another wave of intense commercial development, continuing to use new rail lines as anchors for displacement and construction of high-end residential and commercial towers.

The bid for another Olympics in Los Angeles promises to heighten this trend still further, as well as the security-surveillance state apparatus that protects it by criminalizing poverty, dissent and resistance, particularly in communities of color.--MN]

Gentrification - What it is and how we can fight it!

by Michael Novick, ARA-LA/PART

(From Turning The Tide, Volume 18 #2, May-June 2005)

In Echo Park, rents are going through the roof, and the collectively-run bookstore 33-1/3 Books is in a struggle to keep its space.

In Venice, the city has passed new ordinances clamping down on artistic, cultural and political expression along the Boardwalk, replacing the traditional "free speech zone" with a lottery-system that commercializes the area. At the same time, the largest apartment-owner in the U.S., AIMCO, has bought the historic Lincoln Place apartments in Venice and has ordered mass evictions.

In South LA, the LA Times has been carrying out a year-long attack on the King-Drew Medical Center, trying to get the County Board of Supervisors to shut down the hospital built in the wake of the 1965 Watts Rebellion. The facility's trauma care unit, and the affiliated Charles Drew Medical College are under particular attack, despite the unique services they provide the community.

Meanwhile, in East LA, mayoral candidate Antonio Villaraigosa and county supervisor Gloria Molina are pitching the construction of a "medical research park," anchored by County-USC Hospital and paid for with California Stem Cell Research initiative money.

Neighborhood Councils around Chinatown are struggling over the development of the rail yards in their vicinity. Real estate developers seek power over the LA school board, trying to use school construction to leverage commercial and residential property developments. In Little Tokyo, residents are fighting the construction of a new jail and police headquarters.

In South Central, the local farmers on a plot of land on 41st and Alameda have won a court injunction against a city effort to turn their land over to private developers.

What links these diverse and geographically separate struggles together? They are all reflections of the latest round of "gentrification" in L.A., economically-motivated class and colonial warfare over the control of land and the communities on it.

Beyond King-Drew's vital service to an impoverished community lies its location at the center of a stretch of prime real estate. Beyond the South Central Farmers provision of healthy, fresh and culturally appropriate fruit and vegetables is the "more profitable" use that can be made of such "wasted" land.

Beyond the plans of one Echo Park landlord to make a bigger buck from the storefronts lies the effort to "gentrify" the area between Downtown and Hollywood.

What does "gentrification" mean? The "gentry" were the rich, land-owning class in aristocratic countries in Europe. Who are their modern counterparts? In city after city across the U.S. for several decades, working class neighborhoods and communities of color have been targeted for demolition and reconstruction as havens or enclaves for the well-to-do.

The pattern is familiar. Property values and rents start to rise. Property taxes go up. Homes and stores become too expensive for the people who have been living in them, and the banks, landlords and tax collectors start forcing poor people of color out to cheaper, outlying areas, often older and deteriorating white working class suburbs. In place of the poor, the Black and immigrant working families, come "urban pioneers" - sometimes artists, young singles without kids, sometimes gay men or lesbians. As they establish a "hip" white beachhead, upscale shops and trendy night-spots begin to appear. In their wake come the "yuppies," young, upwardly mobile professionals, augmented by older, established families, or retirees looking for a sophisticated environment.

The misnamed "Community Redevelopment Agency" over the years has played a role in planning this so-called "urban renewal" -- which people on the East Coast used to refer to as "Negro removal" -- to establish beachheads of commercial property and office buildings to anchor a redefinition of formerly poor neighborhoods.

When simple economic pressure doesn't work, more forceful tactics are often used. But it is important to remember that even "everyday economics" like rent and taxes are based on the gun of state power and colonial control. If you don't pay your rent, bills or taxes, the enforcers come -- the police, sheriffs or marshals -- to collect or to evict you. In one notorious case here in LA in the 1980s, a Black woman named Eulia Love was killed by the LAPD when she didn't pay a utility bill!

In San Francisco's Mission District 30 years ago, arson fires were combined with subway construction and factory closures to transform the city's primary "port of entry" for immigrant workers from Mexico and Central America into a neighborhood of condominium apartments for commuters to Silicon Valley to the south. At the same time, the elderly Filipino and Chinese residents of the International Hotel were forcibly evicted in an effort to convert the wharves and Chinatown area into a close-in bedroom community for the financial district and the Pacific Coast Stock Exchange.

Los Angeles is no stranger to this process of gentrification, which is really a process of colonization and re-colonization. The Black community in Venice, CA - the only Black and working class beach town on the California coast - has been targeted for police abuse. The FACE program - federally-assisted code enforcement - came in, by means of which city zoning enforcement is used to try to drive long-standing homeowners out by citing them for multiple violations of municipal codes. This manifestation of the "broken windows" school of aggressive policing is designed to criminalize poverty even among homeowners. It is paralleled by police harassment of the homeless in the area, through ordinances that make most activity illegal for people without dwellings.

For example, it is now a crime to smoke at the beach or boardwalk in Venice. The police are out weekly enforcing the new commercialized "free speech zone" along the boardwalk. The Venice situation illustrates clearly the connection between armed state power and the economic interests they serve. In cities, the police operate as an army of occupation in poor and oppressed communities of color, and as internal border guards for more privileged areas. In the "contested" areas of gentrification, the cops and the courts are a key element, along with the banks and the "urban pioneer" settler colonists, in carrying out a "re-conquest."

Two notable past examples of this process in L.A. were the construction of Dodger Stadium in Chavez Ravine, which displaced a thriving Mexicano community; and before that, the forced removal of Japanese-Americans during World War II and the expropriation of their property (not only in LA but along the entire Pacific coast).

But the latest crescendo reflects a specific political use of gentrification as part of a counter-insurgency strategy by the ruling elite. This is based on a theory called "spatial de-concentration," put forward in the 1970s by a major theoretician of the Trilateral Commission, Samuel Huntington. The Trilateral Commission is a private association of representative of the financiers and industrialists of the U.S., Western Europe and Japan, and their political mouthpieces. Most of the top leaders of the US government beginning at least with the Carter Administration, have been members of the Trilateral Commission.

The Commission sponsored Huntington and two other "scholars" in a book called "The Crisis of Democracy." Huntington was one of the architects of the US assassination program in Vietnam, Operation Phoenix, which relied on "strategic hamlets" to contain the Vietnamese people. In the book, he theorizes that the 60s insurgencies and demands of the Black and Mexicano/Puerto Rican/ Latino "underclass," who had previously been excluded from political discourse, had created a "crisis of democracy."

The crisis was TOO MUCH democracy, according to Huntington! Poor people of color placed demands on the system that it could not accommodate or satisfy. (Interestingly, Huntington has more recently become a theoretician of Bush's "endless war on terror," which Huntington sees as a vitally necessary "Clash of Civilizations" between Europeans and Afro-Asian Muslims who are incapable of 'absorbing' western-style democracy.)

In particular, Huntington identified a threat to the stability of the US political and economic system. In European and Latin American or African cities, the rich commanded the center of the cities and the poor lived in the outskirts, in shantytowns and favelas. US cities, on the other hand, had massive poor and working class communities, mostly of color, right in the urban core or "inner city," surrounding the downtown office buildings and high rises. The wealthy lived in the outskirts, in suburbs. The urban rebellions of the 60s, beginning here in Watts, taught Huntington that this was extremely dangerous to the rulers. He proposed what he called "spatial de-concentration," breaking up and dispersing poor, Black, Mexicano/indigenous working class communities and replacing them with more reliable white professionals, managers and business people.

This strategy was applied in New York, Boston, Chicago, Detroit and elsewhere. We saw it operate more recently here in Los Angeles through the crack-cocaine epidemic, which destabilized, devalued and broke up the Black community of south Los Angeles. This caused a huge churning of the real estate market and eventual huge profits for those who bought up Black homes cheap as neighborhoods became unlivable.

Now the process is underway again, driven both by the same political motivation to break up communities of resistance and the economic motive of turning a handsome profit by driving working families and small business people and cooperative community enterprises out. How can we resist these massive economic forces and the military forces that back them up?

We have to deepen our ties to each others’ struggles, deepen our understanding of the enemy we face, and deepen our thinking about how to organize and resist. We need to recognize that this is a manifestation of an on-going process of colonization that began with Columbus and continued through the Anglo-American "Manifest Destiny" that coveted the Mexican/indigenous lands to the Pacific, up to today.

We can begin to unite our forces across the city - Blacks and Mexicanos in South LA, Blacks, homeless, renters and artists in Venice or downtown, Mexicanos and Central Americans in Pico-Union and Boyle Heights, Asians in Chinatown and Little Tokyo. Then we will begin to see the power of the people manifest itself through cooperative economic activity, sharing of resources, political organizing, boycotts and other means. We will begin to understand and to demonstrate that all the wealth of this system that confronts us is stolen from the people and from the land, and that all the power that towers over us and is used to grind us down actually comes FROM the people. It is ours to regain, and to use to protect our communities and the land, water and air that sustain life.

To discuss these issues with the author, email [email protected], write Michael at ARA-LA, PO Box 1055, Culver City CA 90232, or call 323-636-7388.

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