#EF Marin

[pier-carlo-universe]

"La barista del Gasoline di EF Marin": Il debutto di un giallo imperdibile con protagoniste femminili uniche. Recensione di Alessandria today

Un mix di noir, mistero e introspezione che cattura e sorprende

Un mix di noir, mistero e introspezione che cattura e sorprende Una trama avvincente e carica di suspense“La barista del Gasoline” è il primo capitolo di una serie che promette di ridefinire il genere del giallo. Mara Stella, 32 anni, ex studentessa di medicina, ora barista del Gasoline, si ritrova al centro di un caso di omicidio che sconvolge le dinamiche del locale. L’arresto di Fatma,…

[howboutitryanyway]

@crismakesstuff mermaid AU design for Nolan gazing at Debbie bc it's mermay and I told them I would actually do a rendered piece at some point !

[opelman]

F-AZRP / 147 - Morane Saulnier MS-733 Alcyon by Laurent Quérité Via Flickr: Cervolix Meeting Aérien Airshow Cocardes Marine Aérodrome d'Issoire Le Broc LFHA Issoire Puy de Dôme France IMG_3930

[wingedjewels]

Wigeon by Veit Via Flickr: An American Wigeon in our local marsh

[calochortus]

Traum nach Meer / Dream of sea by Joerg Kage Via Flickr: unterwegs im Angthong National Marine Park / Travelling in Angthong National Marine Park

[kremro]

Stomping! by Veit Via Flickr: An angry male red-winged blackbird is hitting and stomping on a crow in a (successful) attempt to chase it away ✔️

[kestrelteens]

Sooo, autumn is already here, right? Right? Well, September is in a few days and summer and I are no longer on good terms ('cause of the unbearable temperatures) so autumn it is! 🦔 And our simmies need some cool outwear, right? Whether they're going trick or treatin' or simply strolling through Downtown and getting a pumpkin spice latte, their outfits should be on point. 🍂

The set consists of:

Charlotte coat (AF, top only, both morphs, 6 swatches, 6,696 polys, sorted as outwear) paired with @sforzcc's Mariner undershirt underneath and Tahliah hat (TF-EF, 9 swatches, 574 polys, both as accessory or jewellery) by @serenity-cc from their Neve set;

Vicki jacket (AF, both morphs, 3 swatches, 1,530 polys, sorted as outwear) by @madlensims;

Alyson skirt (AF, both morphs, 5 swatches, 962 polys, both as everyday and outwear) by @adrienpastel-blog paired with @ridgeport's Mynx tights and @solistair's Wolfe boots (608 polys);

Dream jeans (wide) (AF, both morphs, 8 swatches, 1,196 polys, both everyday and outwear) by @sforzcc also paired with Wolfe boots.

Verona hairstyle (on the right) by @okruee (TF-EF, 4 colors binned, animated, 11,411 polys);

Ami hairstyle (on the left) by @miikocc (PU-EF, 4 colors binned, animated, 2,916 polys);

This download is for Sims 2.

Everything's compressed, enjoy! ♥ Some additional important info under the cut!

download (sfs) // alt download (mediafire)

download charlotte coat as casual + outwear here (sfs)

The hat works pretty well with most hairstyles, especially the straight hair ones and there's almost no clipping, but unfortunately it won't work with every hairstyle!

There's some minor clipping with the coat when the sims sit down, but it didn't seem like too much of a big deal. 🐸

I have thoroughly play-tested the items and haven't noticed any major issues with clipping, but if something occurs please let me know and i will do my best to fix it! ♥

[srbachchan]

DAY 5919

StWork, Mumbai May 2, 2024 Thu 12:49 PM

Birthday - EF - Elena Iankova Friday, 3 May .. and all our wishes for a happy birthday

🌹

Yo !

here before time for a very big change .. haha ..

but at work and got a bit of time and BOOM !

got to say the travel from Juhu home to work Marine Drive in 30 mins .. amazing Coastal Road and the Tunnel emerging on Marine Drive , just before its flyover and simply amazing .. !

Super constructed roads, tunnel, neat clean construct .. no traffic jams .. and done ..

Ok just to change the topic .. here is something to know :

Know what is a "mondegreen?'

MONDEGREENS

If you’ve been listening to rock music, you know it’s often hard to make out the lyrics. They sing it their way and we hear it our way.

Jimi Hendrix famously sang the phrase “While I kiss the sky” which was heard by thousands as “While I kissed this guy.”

CCR’s popular song originally said, “There’s a bad moon on the rise.” Many heard it as “There’s a bathroom on the right.”

Deep Purple’s still-popular chorus (known for its timeless guitar riff) “Smoke on the water/Fire in the sky” was misheard as “Smoke on the water/Fire engine guy.”

Nirvana’s anthem “Smells like Teen Spirit” had the lines, “Here we are now/Entertain us.” They were misheard as, “Here we are now/In containers.”

When Elvis Presley sang, “Everybody in the whole cell block”, many heard it as” Everybody in a wholesale frock”

There’s actually a word for misheard lyrics like these.

Mondegreen.

Some mondegreens became so famous that even artistes like Hendrix and CCR sang the misheard versions in their live concerts in a spirit of fun and tease.

It’s not just in pop songs that mondegreens occur. The US national anthem begins with the lofty words, “Oh say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light.’ Some heard them as “José, can you see…”

Occasionally, mondegreens had an interesting side-effect. Joe Cocker sang of a ‘lovely planet’ which was misheard as ‘lonely planet.’ The latter became the name of a well-known travel guide series of books.

No one knows why we hear the wrong thing although there are theories. It’s akin to the game of Chinese Whispers where the original line gets progressively distorted into some hilarious garbage by the time it reaches the last guy.

Mondegreens are not restricted to English alone. South Indians, with limited knowledge of Hindi, were taught patriotic songs in Hindi by zealous teachers. A popular one had the repeating phrase, “Bara tamata.” School students sang it with great gusto. Years later, some of them realized the actual words were “Bharat Mata.”

A popular line from Qurbani song, “Aap jaisa koi meri/zindagee mein aaye/ toh baat bun jaaye” was understood as “Aap jaisa koi…toh baap bun jaaye.” The defective version made sense to many who saw Zeenat Aman gyrating on those lyrics while gaping at Feroz Khan.

Many who weren’t familiar with the hill station between Bombay and Pune heard the Gulaami song as “Haathi ka andaa la” until they realized it was “Aati kya Khandala”.

I have a friend, her name is Geeta. Her family called her Gitu. Throughout her childhood and youth, she thought Rajesh Khanna was singing for her, when he said, ”Mere sapnon ki raani kab aaye Gitu”.

'Mondegreen' sounds French but isn't. In 1954, a writer at Harper’s Magazine remembered how as a little girl she misheard an old English ballad. The actual words, saluting a dead war hero, were:

𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘴𝘭𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘌𝘢𝘳𝘭 𝘰' 𝘔𝘰𝘳𝘢𝘺 𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘭𝘢𝘪𝘥 𝘩𝘪𝘮 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘯.

She heard them as:

𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘴𝘭𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘌𝘢𝘳𝘭 𝘰' 𝘔𝘰𝘳𝘢𝘺 𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘓𝘢𝘥𝘺 𝘔𝘰𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘯.

And thus was born the word ‘mondegreen’ to signify all misheard lyrics from that moment on.

Turns out, mondegreen itself started life as a mondegreen.

sent to me by a friend .. 🤣🤣

More perhaps later .. or perhaps not ..

Amitabh Bachchan

and some more .. a very pertinent article in TOI ..

[c1qfxugcgy0]

Hey, fun fact! You know the Boeing EA-18G Growler?

huh?

You know, the EA/18G, the dedicated electronic warfare version of the Boeing F/A-18 naval combat aircraft.

wha?

Okay, you know how the United States has a really big military? Well, it's so big that we have three separate fixed wing combat aviation forces: the United States Air Force, the United States Navy, and the United States Marines. Most countries have only one, because they're stinking un-airconditioned europoors, but we have three, because we're the best country in the world.

(The Marines? Yes! If they were their own country the Marines would have the fifth largest air force in the world. They have their own F-35 variant, the F-35B, which they operate off their own mini-carriers. And, again, the United States has more of those helicopter carriers than the rest of the world, combined.)

okay

Seriously, Italians don't even put ice in their water. And that's not the worst thing--

you were talking about airplanes

Oh yeah. Well, every air force has electronic warfare aircraft, planes that jam radar and communications signals. Remember the opening salvo of the Gulf War, where the US flew airstrikes against Bagdad, the most heavily defended city in the world, but effortlessly evaded Saddam's hopelessly outdated Soviet anti-air batteries using the F-117's stealth abilities? That flight of F-117s were accompanied by three EF-111A electronic warfare aircraft! Entirely conventional 70s-era airframes, but they waltzed through radar just as well as cutting-edge stealth. Nobody knows about this!

And I think this is by design. Electronic warfare is a peculiarly ephemeral form of combat. Radar jamming only works if you know the frequencies and periods of enemy equipment. It is beneficial to the United States to announce an insurmountable lead in stealth, an intrinsic, material property of an aircraft structure, and downplay EW, which can be defeated with a turn of the dial. Maintaining effective EW capabilities requires constant surveillance of of enemy radar systems and intimate knowledge of their internal workings. I think it is no coincidence that fully half of the satellites that the NRO launches aren't visible-light telescopes at all, but ELINT signals interception birds!

thats crazy

If you think that's crazy, just wait! You see those things hanging off the wings up there?

uh huh

That's the AN/ALQ-99 EW pod. The Growler itself has some electronics, but most of the transmit power come from the the 99's. It originally entered service in 1972 with the EA-6B, a late sixties design. Early combat aircraft didn't exactly have a lot of spare electrical power, and each 99 can radiate up to 10.8 kilowatts of radio. Where does the power come from?

The propeller at the front. It's a ram air turbine.

what the fuck

The Growler can carry up to five of them at once! Wikipedia notes it "reduc[es] the Growler's top speed." Yeah, no shit! You're shoving a damn windmill through the sky!

[dr-futbol-blog]

Duet, Pt. 2

While arguing about the nature of appropriate field conversation, McKay and his party come under surprise attack by a rogue wraith dart. Lt. Cadman is the first to hear it, and she alerts Sheppard to this fact via radio. Upon learning this information, Sheppard comes to a halt in the forest. This is interesting because is Sheppard usually very quick on his feet. Usually he is ready for action at a moment's notice. This may be yet another indication that he is trying to lead with his head and not with his gut, not with his feelings.

But now, it seems like Cadman and Teyla are both much faster to react to this information than Sheppard, Teyla's team taking off at a run immediately and Cadman trying to do her job of protecting McKay and Beckett by ordering them to get a move on.

Note that once he does get moving, McKay actually seems to run pretty fast, so just like in the previous episode, he's in better physical shape than people give him credit for. Clearly he has received some physical conditioning beyond just learning how to do forward rolls in the past year. In fact, he seems to run faster than Lt. Cadman (who, granted, may be carrying heavier gear and staying behind them on purpose), as they have a whole interlude about running later in the episode where Cadman takes his body on a run without his consent.

In contrast to them, Sheppard is both slower to get a move on and to give the others an order about it. It seems as though he really actually stopped to think before acting on this information. But it is notable that even then, the order he gives is not actually formulated like an order:

Sheppard: If it's seen us, it'll blow Atlantis' cover. Anyone get a clear shot, you take it, understand?

Here, it's more like he's obliging people to take the shot, not ordering them to do it. He should have said something like, "If you get a clear shot, you take it, this is an order". But instead, he doesn't make it an order, and this (having to explain why to do things instead of just telling them to do as he says) is also costing him time. He gives an order to the two marines accompanying him, however, through a hand signal ("faster/hurry!"), the three of them taking off at a run just as soon as he has given instruction to everyone else. There's no real reason to think that the dart having detected them would blow Atlantis' cover (at least any more so than their previous mission) given that they're not wearing any insignia and half of them are wearing fatigues thus far unseen in the galaxy. But it's clear that for what ever reason, Sheppard seems to be taking his duty much more seriously than he has previously.

McKay, Beckett and Cadman are trying to make it back to the gate as the dart flies toward the same destination, trying to get out of the planet. Cadman pushes Beckett out of the way and attempts to do the same to McKay (but fails to catch up with him because McKay is faster than her), trying to do her job of protecting them, but she gets caught up by the dart's beam with McKay.

Having reached the stargate before any of the others, meaning than once he got moving he did get a move on, Sheppard places himself in the dead centre of it with his big effing gun. It seems as though he has no intention of letting the dart through, placing his own body between the gate and the dart.

While at this time, they don't yet know that McKay and Cadman were taken by the beam, everyone does as instructed by Sheppard, shooting what ever they have at the dart. Lorne even tries to take it out using a bazooka. It is only after they've taken their first round of shots at it that Beckett runs to Sheppard and informs him of the fact that McKay is inside the dart:

Teyla: It is heading towards the gate. We damaged it but it is still on its way. Beckett: Wait! McKay and Cadman have been beamed aboard that dart! Sheppard: We can't risk the dart making it back to the hive ship!

it is unclear whether Sheppard actually heard him, as Beckett seems to have been quite a way away when he tries to warn them and not necessarily even talking to his ear piece; it's possible Sheppard's response is to Teyla's report and not an answer to Beckett. But it's just as likely that his main motivation for not letting the dart return to the hive changed from maintaining Atlantis' cover to saving McKay when and if he did hear Beckett. But it certainly seems as though Beckett is the one who is concerned for McKay and Cadman, and that Sheppard is only concerned for Atlantis and its cover, even though we know that this just isn't true. He's trying to keep a cool head and think strategically, to be sure, but he is having to go against his instinct as he does this the whole time.

As the dart takes bearing toward the gate, Sheppard shoots his whole load at it, everyone else taking his cue and going off at the thing. The hail of bullets manages to take the dart down. Now, it seems as though everyone, including Beckett, understands the mechanism used by the darts in dematerializing people it captures, Teyla actually having experienced it first hand previously. So it's also unclear how much danger they thought taking the dart down posed for McKay.

But there is no way that protecting the cover of Atlantis was more important to Sheppard than McKay's life. He was never going to let that dart through the gate, this is clear from the position he took, but it's after hearing from Beckett that McKay had been taken inside it (assuming he did actually hear him) that he actually shoots at it, and he shoots at it a lot. It seems as though the knowledge that McKay was on board increased his conviction not to let the dart through. Sheppard wasn't going to do it before but now, with this new knowledge, he was going to stand his ground if it killed him. But fortunately he doesn't have to, as they manage to take it down.

Almost getting hit by the dart coming down, Beckett is the first on the site of the crash, even though Sheppard takes toward it at a run the moment it comes down, much quicker on his feet now than he was previously in the forest. And as a doctor, Beckett seems to have compassion even for the wraith. He tries to offer his help to the injured dart jockey. But Sheppard is having none of that.

Assuming that Sheppard had heard Beckett about McKay being inside the dart, not for the first time the thought of having failed to keep McKay safe makes him resort of straight up murder. Sheppard shoots the defenseless wraith. He shoots the wraith a whole lot. While he wants to make sure the thing is dead and not just incapacitated, Beckett certainly seems to think that the amount that Sheppard shoots at it is unnecessary.

Beckett: What the hell do you think you're doing? Sheppard: It was reaching for the self-destruct. Beckett: He's the only one that could get Cadman and McKay out! Sheppard: I seriously doubt he'd oblige. Beckett: Well, we'll never know now, will we?

Sheppard's strategic assessment that the wraith was going for the self-destruct was likely correct (although, while he is reaching for something, we don't actually see him reach for the self-destruct and it's not clear whether he would have one, as this is a scout and not a drone soldier--for all we know, he was just about to release the captives), but that still does not seem like the primary reason why he shot it.

Sheppard had once again failed to protect McKay, he is very much blaming himself for allowing this to happen, and not for the first time he is taking that out on the nearest wraith. Beckett is being protective of McKay, he clearly cares about his friend a great deal, but for Sheppard, McKay's safety is an existential question. Losing McKay is his worst nightmare, and we'll circle back to this by the end of the episode. The last time Sheppard shot a helpless wraith in cold blood, he had thought McKay had died. He's unsure what has happened to McKay not but he certainly seems to be taking out his McKay-related feelings on the nearest available wraith a lot.

But even so, Sheppard continues sounding callous and disinterested as Teyla and her team join them:

Teyla: Is everyone alright? Sheppard: We're fine. Hansen, radio Atlantis. We want Zelenka here ASAP. We've got a problem.

This is also interesting. When Teyla asks whether everyone is alright, he says that they all fine. Although he certainly opes this is true, clearly McKay and Cadman are neither alright nor fine. But at the same time, he acknowledges the fact that they have a problem. It's possible he's either in denial or just does not recognize the severity of the problem yet. Again, we know that he cares about McKay, and he cares about the young lieutenant under his command, too. But he is coming across as strangely callous about this.

However, notice that his immediate response is to get Zelenka, whom he basically considers McKay's understudy and believes the man to be almost as capable when it comes to science as McKay is, to figure this out. He's bringing out the big guns. And he is not nearly as unfeeling about this as he first appears. Recently promoted, he is trying really hard to fill the shoes of a Lieutenant Colonel. He is trying to be the leader he thinks everyone expects him to be. But we see a glimpse of his personal feelings here, at the end. He is deeply affected by what happened. He looks lost. He is worried. He is keeping his feelings to himself but he does have them. Losing McKay is his worst fear. Sheppard is doing all he can to keep himself together here.

Some time later Zelenka has joined them on the planet (with a whole bunch of other people) and is working on retrieving McKay and Cadman from the dart.

It does not seem as though Sheppard has moved very far from the dart during all this time. We find him kicking up some dirt near the dart because he really needs to be doing something to keep from going nuts (actually, what he really needs is for McKay to be standing next to him explaining things out to him but instead he's forced to resort to a jumpy Czech).

Again we get to compare how Sheppard is with Zelenka to how he usually is with McKay. Watching Zelenka work out on the field just makes him appreciate McKay more. McKay was never like this. Compared to Zelenka, McKay is MacGuyver and Tony Stark rolled into one. And McKay would explain things to him.

Also note how even now, Sheppard has his body turned toward McKay's presumed location, hip cocked, resting his hand on his holster and everything. Still, Zelenka is doing important work here, so Sheppard tries to make it easier for him:

Sheppard: First time off-world? Zelenka: Yes. Sheppard: Well, if there were any more wraith, they would have attacked us by now. Zelenka: Really? Sheppard: If it makes you feel better.

Sheppard is being very respectful toward Zelenka. He respects him as a scientist and he needs him to succeed in what he's doing here, besides. But at the same time, he never treated McKay like a scientist, like he wasn't capable of being more than a scientist. While Sheppard is being kind to Zelenka, he is also being condescending (although Zelenka is likewise being condescending toward Sheppard by implying that the science is too complex for him to understand). We can contrast this with McKay's first mission off-world in Suspicion (S01E05):

Sheppard: You seem nervous. McKay: No. I'm a part of this team. I'm doing this. Sheppard: Yes, you are. I just said you seemed nervous. McKay: Oh, really. I thought you said, “Rodney, you don't have to do this.” Sheppard: Yes you do.

By this time, Sheppard had seen McKay willing to sacrifice his own life to save everyone else. He knew that McKay was much braver than he let on, braver even perhaps than he realized himself. He felt no need to coddle McKay, to hold his hand through even his first off-world mission. He had chosen McKay for his own team because he had seen something in him, he had faith in his abilities. Even during Beckett's first off-world mission in Poisoning the Well (S01E07), we can see the difference between him and McKay in this regard:

Beckett: You can't go volunteering someone for something without consulting them first. That's not even volunteering, is it? It's being pressed into service. Not to mention the fact that I'm not... Sheppard: ...not military, I can't give you orders. I know. McKay: Nonononono, he just doesn't like going through the stargate. Sheppard: He's worse than Doctor McCoy. Teyla: Who? Sheppard: The TV character that Doctor Beckett plays in real life. Beckett: Converting a human body into energy and sending it millions of light years through a wormhole, bloody insanity McKay: C'mon, how often do you get to travel to an alien planet? Beckett: I was already on an alien planet!

Again, Beckett and Zelenka are what people often seems to think McKay is, when what we actually see him do and display is something altogether different. McKay is excited about exploring the galaxy, and he consistently conquers whatever fears he might have. And recently, we have even seen that his physical condition isn't half-bad, he says that he's been getting pretty good at forward rolls and he clearly has received weapons training. Yes, some of this he surely did because he wants Sheppard's approval but another part of it is that he's proud to be on the flagship team and he wants to be the best that he can be in it. And despite what Sheppard is forced to lie to Ford later on in The Lost Boys (S02E10), McKay was never just a scientist to him. But Zelenka is, and he needs him to be working faster to get McKay out:

Sheppard: Did you find what we want? Zelenka: Well, yes, but it's very complex. This interface controls the machine that dematerialises people, stores their information and then rematerialises them again when commanded to. Sheppard: Great! Command it to.

Note that while Sheppard usually (often, always) wants McKay to explain things to him, with Zelenka not so much. He's actually doing the yada-yada-yada gesture with his head as Zelenka is trying to explain to him why this is more complicated than one would initially think, and it's taking longer than the Colonel would wish. As much as he enjoys listening to McKay, and as much as he would like to pretend to care about Zelenka explaining the science to him, there's a whole lot of not getting McKay out of the machine going on here. And every moment that passes with this being the case, he's getting more antsy, more agitated. In any other circumstance he would love nothing but to oblige the scientific process but right now, he needs to see McKay like it was yesterday. But it's just not happening:

Zelenka: I can't. Beckett: From what we can tell, the materialiser is storing two life signs. Zelenka: Yes. Sheppard: Which is good! Zelenka: Yes, but there is only enough power in the dart's energy cell to successfully rematerialise one of them. Power to the rematerialiser has been completely severed and emergency back-up power is completely run down. Sheppard: OK...

Now, while he's impatient to get McKay out and is too agitated to be able to appreciate the technical explanation Zelenka is giving him at the current moment, he is trying very hard to understand what he is being told, as it seems important. It is McKay's well-being and possibly his life that they're discussing here, so he is trying to make an effort to both pay attention and to understand what he is being told. And the more he hears, the less he's liking what he's hearing.

Zelenka: You have to decide which one we're going to beam out. Beckett: That's a terrible choice to have to make. Sheppard: It's easy. You beam out McKay, he'll figure out how to get Cadman free.

While Beckett makes it seem like this is Sophie's Choice, to Sheppard, the choice is obvious. And while he gives the rationale that once McKay is out he'll be able to get Cadman out, that's just an excuse. He would have chosen McKay 100/100 times. He would have chosen McKay even if he had been stuck there with a basket full of puppies. Granted, Sheppard does not appear to have many significant people in his life and this is largely by his own choice (...guys like them, that work on ranches exploring alien worlds, are the loneliest guys in the world), but it's possible that by this time he would have chosen McKay even over his own mother. Weighing McKay's life against a lieutenant that had signed up to give her life in the line of duty, that wasn't even a question. He literally spent zero seconds thinking about this "terrible choice to make". The conviction in his voice, the faith he has in McKay's abilities. He sounds so relieved hearing that they could just beam McKay out, and everything would be alright.

Only, Zelenka was about to make his day a whole lot worse:

Zelenka: No, no, no, sorry. I was unclear. Beckett: There's no way of telling which is which. Zelenka: Yes. They just read as life signs. Sheppard: Perfect... Alright, that one. Go! Stand aside.

Now, Sheppard manages to pick the life-sign that contains McKay's information, seemingly at random. I mean, sure, we could say that he knows McKay so very very well that he's even able to pick him out of raw data but that's a stretch. And yet, it is possible he subconsciously arrived at the correct choice because the life-signs appear on the screen in the precise configuration as McKay and Cadman were when they were running away from it on the field, with McKay on the left and Cadman on the right behind him. And given that it was Cadman's duty to protect McKay, while he clearly had nor wanted to give himself any time to think about this, Sheppard may have intuitively made the correct choice. He does know McKay well.

But at the same time, it's clear that Sheppard needed to make this choice as fast as possible, not to give himself any time or space to start sowing seeds of doubt. He knew that if he started thinking about it, the choice would paralyze him, and as a fighter pilot, this is what he excels at, this is what he has been trained to do. To make difficult choices very quickly, to go with his gut and to trust his intuition to guide him right.

And it is important to note that unlike previously, he spares no time for thinking about it when he's making his decision here, going entirely by his gut and his gut, his feelings, steer him right. His intuition seems to serve him well, as McKay appears in a beam of light. For a fleeting moment, everything seems well.

Sheppard: Rodney, you OK? McKay: Mmm.

For McKay, no time has passed between getting caught up in the beam and this moment. One moment he was running for his life and the next, he sees Sheppard. He seems confused, and although he passes out almost immediately, the way he looks at Sheppard is like he's seeing a miracle. He had looked deeply unhappy the whole time he was walking with Cadman and Beckett earlier, and for a brief moment here, he looks almost hopeful.

And it may be Sheppard's tone here that is the cause of that look. The way he looks at McKay, unguarded and full of longing. Because here, finally seeing McKay after having stood on hot coals the whole time as he waited for Zelenka to do something, was waiting for some sign that would tell him what had happened or would happen to McKay, trying to keep that fear twisting his gut at bay, it's here that we finally get to see how Sheppard really feels. It's like he's completely forgotten everything that has happened in the past few months, like he's right back where they were still together, when they still loved each other without all the hurt. The way he sounds here is like he sounded at the end of The Defiant One (S01E12), when McKay had come to save his life, had come to chance danger and dying for him.

Sheppard has definitely forgotten all the people around them, keenly observing what's going on from the sidelines. For this brief moment, his world is again shrunk down to the size of McKay and there's nothing else that exists outside of him.

But his relief is short-lived, as almost as soon as McKay is materialized, he passes out (and by now, Sheppard knows never to say the other thing). Both Beckett and Sheppard quickly jump to his aid.

Beckett: His pulse is stable but I need to get him back to Atlantis. Sheppard: Teyla, Lorne, help the Doc head back to the city with McKay. We're gonna stay here with Zelenka -- try to bring as much of the Dart back as possible.

While Beckett is the first to make it to McKay, having been nearest to where he materialized and being a doctor with an instinct for handling medical emergencies besides, Sheppard is still very quick to jump down and approach McKay. He actually stops himself to let Beckett get to McKay first, both being that he's a doctor and because he's not sure he should be touching McKay. He clearly wants to get down there and do something, to touch McKay, to feel that he's real and there. Only, he doesn't allow himself to do that. He can't do that in front of all these people. He may have forgotten for a moment, but now it's all come back to him. Why they can never be. Why he can never be the one to take care of McKay when there are people around. Why he can't be seen touching him, comforting him, making sure he's okay. He wouldn't know how to do any of those things like he didn't love McKay in every way it was possible to love. He's sure that he doesn't know how to touch McKay and make it seem like he's just a man under his command. And so, he keeps himself back. He forces himself to stay back.

You can see how he removes himself from the scene almost like he's been burned. Like he has to put distance between himself and McKay's unconscious body. But at the same time, he watches them keenly. He barely removes his eyes from McKay, making sure that they're handling him well. And furthermore, he makes himself stay back on the planet so as not to drive himself mad by hovering by McKay's hospital bed where, again, he can't be seen lingering by.

He makes himself stay back but he does the next best thing, and orders both Teyla and Lorne go go with McKay, to make sure he makes it back to Atlantis. Teyla and Lorne are the most capable people he knows, and he sends both of them back with McKay, to make sure that he gets the best escort possible. But his body language here tells us everything. How much he cares, his concern for the man, his love, his fear, his longing to touch, and most of all the way he forcibly holds himself back from showing any of that because not only can he never be seen doing any of that, it's not his right any more. It's not his place. He's simply now allowed to care as much as he does for that man.

Continued in Pt. 3

[rjzimmerman]

Photo of my hand holding a baby desert tortoise at the Desert Tortoise Research Center at the Twenty-Nine Palms Marine Base in Twenty-Nine Palms, California:

Excerpt from this story from the LA Times:

A 3.5-million-acre swath of Mojave Desert between Ridgecrest and the Morongo Basin has received a new federal designation that advocates hope will help protect vulnerable wildlife like the Mojave desert tortoise.

The area has been named a sentinel landscape, a federally led effort to promote sustainable land-use practices near military installations.

“It’s built on partnerships,” said Phil Murray, encroachment manager for the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms, one of five installations that surrounds the newly designated land. “A lot of the conservation work that’s done around the Morongo Basin or Mojave Desert is coordinated through different federal agencies, NGOs and private partners.”

The goal is to encourage a more collaborative approach, and to streamline federal assistance to the various agencies, groups and people involved, he said.

The designation doesn’t change who owns or manages the land and does not come with dedicated funding, aside from money for an implementation plan and a coordinator, Murray said. But sentinel landscapes are prioritized for funding through certain grants, he said.

The coalition is expected to support conservation efforts such as erecting desert tortoise fencing to reduce vehicle strikes, creating wildlife crossings, propagating seeds and rehabilitating habitat, including areas that have burned in wildfires, Murray said.

The Mojave Desert Land Trust expects to do much work on the ground, including helping with seed collection and outreach, said Cody Hanford, deputy executive director and chief conservation officer of the nonprofit dedicated to protecting the California desert.

“It will elevate our projects, elevate our goals, which I think in the end will help them become more accomplishable,” he said.

Other partners include various federal and state agencies, conservation groups and San Bernardino County.

The expanse of desert that received the designation is ringed by the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center, National Training Center Fort Irwin, Edwards Air Force Base, Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake and Marine Corps Logistics Base Barstow.

It’s also the heart of desert tortoise habitat in California, said Ken MacDonald, board member at-large and former president of the Desert Tortoise Council conservation group, a partner in the new effort.

“There’s recreational interests, tribal interests, local community interests,” he said. “So coming together as a partnership, we thought, would make the coalition and the cooperation more effective than everybody chipping away and working independently in their own backyard.”

“And so really, it’s to manage the whole 3 million acres cooperatively and collaboratively and be more effective in conserving and recovering the desert tortoises, and that’s pretty much it,” he said. “Just team up and take care of these critters.”

The stretch of desert includes at least 40 other protected species, including the Western Joshua tree, which California has protected with a conservation plan, and the Mohave ground squirrel, which the state lists as threatened.

But perhaps none is as imperiled as the desert tortoise, which California recently listed as endangered.

The species is facing pressure from a number of fronts, MacDonald said. The slow-moving reptiles are vulnerable to being hit by cars. Development has carved up previously wide-open stretches of desert into parcels that are in some cases too small to allow for the breeding and genetic diversity needed to sustain their population health. Drought conditions meant the wildflowers they like to eat never grew some years, and invasive species outcompeted them in other years.

[opelman]

41 / 41 - Dassault Super Etendard Modernisé by Laurent Quérité Via Flickr: Meeting Aérien Airshow French Navy Flottille 17F BAN Le Palyvestre (LFTH) Hyères France IMG_9137

[lqfiles]

trying not to make a face while i soak in this chapter on the bus home from school rn …………. totally okay…….. i’m totally okay……..

no im pissed why is hyuck so stupid he genuinely doesn’t understand why she always “ghosting” him right after he says shit like that. FIX URSELFFF

—🪼

hope you had a nice day at school 😊 and well !!! imma let this chapter marinate a bit too yeah.. look at our protagonists dawggg they’re EFFED 🤦🏽‍♀️🤦🏽‍♀️ and haechan is stupid AF but at the same time we gotta cut him some slack because he got no clue that saying that could actually upset her but he needs to be more considerate me thinks, we all think actually. lets see what next chapter brings up 👀👀

[blueiscoool]

Sea Lord’s 1,000-Year-Old Tomb Uncovered in Peru

Hidden under the tan-brown dirt of Peru, a sea lord’s skeleton rested among the luxuries of the afterlife. Surrounded by sacrifices and offerings, the elite figure was forgotten — until now.

Archaeologists excavating the Macatón cemetery in Huaral uncovered the large tomb, the National Major University of San Marcos said in a May 15 news release.

The 1,000-year-old tomb was about 23 feet deep and about 23 feet wide, the release said. Inside, archaeologists found an elite figure, as well as five other people, four llamas and several pottery vessels.

The burial was left by the Chancay culture, a pre-Incan culture that developed between 1000 and 1500 A.D., the release said.

The tomb’s central elite figure was identified as a sea lord, the excavation’s lead archaeologist Pieter Van Dalen Luna told EFE. The presence of a wooden oar — the first artifact of its kind found at the Macatón cemetery — led to this identification, the outlet reported.

The sea lord was likely dedicated to fishing, shellfish hunting or another marine activity, Van Dalen said.

The burial also contained 25 pottery vessels with offerings of food for the deceased’s afterlife, EFE reported.

The Chancay culture believed deceased individuals did not cease to exist but became protective ancestors through a series of transformative stages on their path to the dead, experts said in the release.

The Chancay culture faded around 1500 A.D. at a time coinciding with the Incan empire’s territorial expansion, EFE reported.

The excavation site is about 165 feet from a neighborhood of homes, BBC reported. These houses are likely preventing archaeologists from uncovering other tombs, but the houses also deterred looters from disturbing the area, archaeologists told the outlet.

The sea lord’s tomb is the oldest and largest tomb of about 80 burials found in the Macatón cemetery so far, BBC reported.

Archaeologists will continue analyzing the remains of the deceased to further understand the burial, the release said.

Haural is about 45 miles northwest of Lima.

By Aspen Pflughoeft.

[424151998]

I am in Athens and tomorrow I am going to Tbilisi

Athens is cool at first I was scared and kept thinking I was gonna get pick pocketed but it’s actually extremely chill here. I’ve been wearing the same outfit the whole time tracksuit pants and cardigan and hoodie with the addition of fleece and long sleeve and two puffer jackets and scarf wrapped around my head today and gloves coz it was like 10 degrees lol soooo not that bad but it felt hellish to me it’s gonna get sooooo much worse and I’m scared

Ummm yeah having withdrawals too so I’ve been sleeping a lot and feeling irritable but I’m optimistic that I’ll be feeling more normal soon

I didn’t go to any of the ancient ruins coz they cost money so I just saw them from a distance

Just tonnes of walking and eating

Food:

Tis theatrou to steki twice now…first time was better..first time I was like 😍 marinated anchovies and vegetables in vinegar and garlic and bread and saganaki w lots of lemon 😍 second time we got like an omelette which was average and meatballs which were boring and such a bad choice by me hmm kinda just like eating bread with little accompaniments rather than bigger dishes, cheap place

Went to some place max’s friend recommended that had vinyl records as placemats and we had this amazing soup with ceviche but after that dish it wasn’t as yum it was like a big stir fry type thing and that’s just not really my thing but max really enjoyed it and also some coconut rice thing which again meh I don’t really care but that’s just vegetarian food I’m so meh but also again I am in a state of withdrawal so maybe I’m just pretty anhedonic. We did get a little carafe of wine which was soooooo good and also some digestif after I forget what it was called but similar to ouzo super strong and when we got home I passed out I felt so drunk

We went to Atlantikos this like tourist famous fish restaurant for lunch and it was good yeh idk max was really into it we had squid and it was fine idk I think we ordered badly coz I was jealous looking at some of the other tables

We had giros at o kavourras which was so effing yum

We’ve also had a couple falafel wraps

I keep waking up super early it’s funny coz my sleeping pattern is so fucked up in Melbourne it’s like super normal here I wake up at 7am like 🤩and then have to wait til midday for max to wake up but anyway yeah it’s crazy I’m like early bird here but for some reason I don’t wanna leave the apartment without max I could probs go walk around and get a coffee but I’ve just been chilling on my phone and reading my kindle hmmmm until like 1pm when we leave the apartment , after about 5000 steps im fucking done and Need to rest before I can keep going..

Currently in bed and gonna go back out at some point idk I have these Greek cigarettes I might have one later but only one

Step count:

Wednesday: 12,299

Thursday: 12,719

Friday: 11,367

Saturday: 21,146

Sunday: 5,785

Monday (so far, will update): 8,521

Umm what else I keep having insane nightmares which is disturbing but I’m Hoping it’s just my brain cleansing itself …nd max says I’m grinding my teeth heaps so maybe I’ll get teeth grinding Botox when we get to Istanbul but idk

Lol

Ummm ok that’s all

Oh yeah and I’m obsessed with how easy it is to get thru the metro gates like soo amazing and not scary like they just stay open if u put your hand in front of them unlike the myki gates that feel like they’re gonna fully slam my pelvis

[ifreakingloveroyals]

Through the Years → Felipe VI of Spain (2,762/∞) 18 March 2022 | King Felipe VI of Spain, the President of the Xunta, Alberto Núñez Feijoo, Queen Letizia of Spain and the Minister of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, Luis Planas attend a funeral in memory of the fishermen of "Villa De Pitanxo" in Marin, Pontevedra, Spain. The religious ceremony, officiated by Archbishop Julián Barrio, is held at the Templo Nuevo de Marín to remember the 21 deceased from the Galician fishing vessel 'Villa de Pitanxo', sunk on February 15 450 kilometers east of Newfoundland, Canada. (Photo by EFE/ Lavandeira - Pool/Getty Images)