#Google ads Oslo

[dotline-norway]

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[wagonlitcommunitytheatregroup]

Translating "Viking" Fra Norge til Amerika

So long story short, my grandmother (Not related but close enough to be called my grandmother) gave me some of her family's old books as a gift. The book I listed in the title was written in 1894 and brought over from her grandfather, Thor, to Odin, Minnesota from Oslo. It tells the story of the "Viking" which was a replica longship that was sailed to the Chicago World's Fair in 1893 from Bergen. I have been doing my best to translate it with the intention of giving it to her, at least in part.

I don't know Norwegian, so I've been doing my best to type what I'm finding into Google Translate and edit from there, while learning to read the language along the way. I have only gotten through a page so far and I think I'm running into syntax issues and some words that the translator simply isn't understanding. I was wondering if anyone could read this and let me know if this feels like it's going down the right track and maybe give some clarification. I'm assuming some of my issues are due to the fact that this is written in a style that's over 100 years old and thus uses obsolete spellings or words. I'm vaguely aware of the language split that happened around this time and think that's what's causing my issues.

I'm attaching an image of the page from the book as well in case anyone notices that I identified a letter incorrectly.

This is what I have input into the translator based on my reading

Saavel på denne jom på hin Side Atlanterhavet blir jeg ofte møtt med spørsmålet: Hva fikk deg til å ta del i dette eventyret?

Som Svar på disje spørsmålet jfal Jeg tillater meg følgende forklaringer:

"Bergens Havnemisjion" beghndte jin Birfjomhed 21de januar 1890. Denne Misjions Formaal er at være hiemmeværende sømænd til støtte og hælp jaavel i legemlig jom aandelig henfeede. On jådan misjionsgren er her jædeles nødvendig. I en jom Bergen med jå livlig søjart er her til enjver Tid aj Uaret en hel del søjolf. Under jit dels fortere, dels længere Ophold er her mange aj dem, fom de timelig og aandelig trænger, at der ræffes dem en hiælpende Hånd. Dette jar "Bergens Havnemisjion" jorjøgt. Og det er mit haab og min Tro, at Gjerningen her gud vedfjendt jig, jå den er blevet iffe jå jå til Beljigndlje.

Men den har navt meget at, fjælig hvad bed øfonomijfe angår, jå det aj Mangel på Midler ojte har jaldt nofjå hårdt at holde Gjerningen gående.

______________________________________________________________________________________---

This is what the translator gave back with some notes I've added.

As well (I think this must mean "Even on this side of the Atlantic" but I'm not sure) on this side of the Atlantic I am often met with the question: What made you take part in this adventure? As an answer to this question, I allow myself the following explanations:

"Bergens Havnemisjion" (Bergen's Harbor Mission ?) began in Birfjomhed on 21st January 1890. The purpose of this mission is to be a support and help for sailors staying at home, both physically and spiritually. Yes, a missionary branch is absolutely necessary here. In Bergen, with its lively sea life, there are quite a few sea elves (Possible slang for sailors? It gave me similar results in Danish and Norwegian) here at any time of the year. During jit partly faster, partly longer stay, there are many of them here, for they are temporally and spiritually in need, that a helping hand is given to them. (This sentence seems to be saying that some are in Bergen for a long time, some for a short time and they require assistance or work) This year "Bergens Havnemisjion" was founded. And it is my hope and my faith that the deed here, God forbid, yes it has become iffe yes yes to Beljigndlje. (No idea what is going on with this sentence. I think something structural like word order is messing me up.) But it has known a lot that, as far as the economy is concerned, the lack of funds has made it hard enough to keep the work going.

[actual-lich-queen]

Ghost History: Openers for final Samhain show for Watain on the Reaping Death Tour

On September 14th of 2010, two final dates were added to the Watain Reaping Death tour.

“Having just returned from a wild hunt through Sweden, WATAIN can now announce two new Scandinavian dates added to the Reaping Death Tour! On October 30th, WATAIN will return to Oslo, Norway to perform at Betong. On 31th of October, also known as Samhain, WATAIN will end the tour in Stockholm.

Because of this night being important in both black magical contexts and also being the last one of the Reaping Death tour, we have decided to invite two special guests on this night of hunger. We are very proud to present the following lineup” -via Earsplit Public Relations[1]

Already touring with Australian extreme metal band[2] Deströyer 666, the two guests added were Sweden natives, Repugnant and, of course (or this entry would not have made this list) the devil worshiping ministry themselves, Ghost.

The October 31st show at Klubben would go on to sell out, and amongst the audience the congregation of Ghost would grow:

“Only good/interesting bands tonight! First on stage Überhäipde GHOST. Cool as hell, just have to listen to them some more. (Opus Eponymous release October 18. Like a couple of weeks ago.) Lots of secrets with this band...among other things nobody (or not many, rather) knows which people are actually part of the band.” -Soile Sirrtola (via Google Translate)[3]

“The nameless singer sounded really good live. Actually just as good as on the album, which is rare. The music was a bit more raw than on "Opus Eponymous", it sounded more like the demo recordings, I think. Nothing wrong with this though, but I like the clean sound on the album a bit more. The concert ended the only way a Ghost sermon could end; with the pope clad vocalist giving out Holy communion to the audience.

I'm counting the days to next years Roadburn festival when I will get to see Ghost live once again.” -Mattias Anderson[4]

[1]WATAIN: More Scandinavian Tour Dates Announced - Earsplit Compound

[2]Deströyer 666 - Wikipedia

[3]GHOST – Klubben 31/10 2010 (extremmetal.se)[4]Top Five Records - The Zine: GHOST Live at Klubben, Stockholm, Sweden, Oct 31 2010 (topfiverecs.blogspot.com)

More resources as well as video and spotify playlists from this show on my fansite here:

[giancarlonicoli]

28 lug 2023 15:47

COSA ACCOMUNA I PAESI DELL'UE? UNA CLASSE POLITICA PIENA DI LADRI E CIALTRONI – L'ULTIMO CASO È QUELLO DEL PARLAMENTARE NORVEGESE SORPRESO A RUBARE UN PAIO DI OCCHIALI DA SOLE. PRIMA C'ERA STATO IL DEPUTATO SLOVENO BECCATO CON UN PANINO IN TASCA, LA GOVERNATRICE DI MADRID CHE SI È FREGATA UNA CREMA PER IL VISO – E L’EX MINISTRO DEL BILANCIO FRANCESE CON LA SOCIETÀ ALLE SEYCHELLES, L'EURODEPUTATO UNGHERESE FERMATO CON LA DROGA MENTRE FUGGIVA DA UN FESTINO GAY... – CATALOGO DEGLI SCANDALI PIÙ IMBARAZZANTI DEI POLITICI EUROPEI -

Estratto dell'articolo di Samuele Finetti per www.corriere.it

Galeotti sono stati un paio di occhiali da sole di una nota griffe. Che il parlamentare norvegese Bjørnar Moxnes, leader del partito di sinistra Rodt da un decennio, si è infilato in valigia nel duty free dell’aeroporto di Oslo dopo aver strappato l’etichetta col codice a barre. Il tutto sotto gli occhi di una telecamera di sicurezza: presto fatto […]

Moxnes ha provato a giustificarsi con un inverosimile «è stato un incidente». Poi ha dovuto ammettere la verità in un post su Facebook: «Molte persone mi hanno chiesto come ho potuto fare una cosa così stupida. Me lo sono chiesto molte volte nelle ultime settimane. Non ho una spiegazione adeguata». Oltre alla faccia, Moxnes ha perso anche il posto: il 24 luglio ha annunciato le sue dimissioni dall’incarico nel partito. […]

L’inglese e i video hard

Il parlamentare conservatore inglese Neil Parish meriterebbe un posto sul podio delle scuse più assurde. Lo scorso anno, in aprile, fu pizzicato mentre guardava un video hard sul telefonino nel bel mezzo di una seduta della Camera dei Comuni. Prima lo giudicò «un momento di pazzia», poi s’inventò di essere finito su quella pagina mentre stava cercando informazioni sui trattori su Google. Alla fine cedette e ammise che l’agricoltura non c’entrava nulla e che aveva davvero cercato quel video. E addio al seggio a Westminster.

Francesi, jet e sigari

Spendere 116mila euro per affittare un jet privato che ti porti in un Paese appena devastato da un terremoto? Ad Alain Joyandet, allora ministro della Cooperazione francese, non sembrò una cattiva idea quando fu invitato per una conferenza ad Haiti poche settimane dopo il catastrofico sisma del gennaio 2010.

Joyandet (che oggi è senatore) fu costretto a dimettersi, come anche il sottosegretario Christan Blanc, quando si scoprì che aveva speso 12mila euro (pubblici) in sigari cubani. […]

L’antievasori con la società alle Seychelles

Fare i paladini della lotta all’evasione fiscale e finire condannato per frode. Il destino è cinico e baro e l’ex ministro del Bilancio francese Jérôme Cahuzac ne sa qualcosa. Dopo essersi fatto una reputazione come uno dei più fermi critici di evasori e paradisi fiscali, nel 2012 finì nello scandalo quando si scoprì che aveva da venti anni un conto in banca in Svizzera. Come se non fosse abbastanza, nel 2016 i Panama Papers rivelarono che gli era pure intestata una società alle Seychelles. Dal governo finì in cella, condannato a due anni per frode fiscale e riciclaggio.

Il candidato fedifrago

Abbiamo citato il caso di Neil Parish. Quello di Benjamin Griveaux, stretto collaboratore di Emmanuel Macron nonché candidato di La République En Marche alla carica di sindaco di Parigi nel 2020, appartiene allo stesso filone.

Al voto Griveaux non è neppure arrivato. Ad affossarlo sono stati i messaggi e le foto esplicite che aveva inviato a una donna (un dettaglio: Griveaux era sposato e ha tre figli) e che nel febbraio di quell’anno diventarono virali sul web dopo che il blogger russo Piotr Pavlenski le aveva condivise. Nel 2021, Griveaux lasciò anche il seggio al parlamento e da allora si è rifatto una carriera nel settore privato.

L’austriaco e la nipote dell’oligarca

Diede la colpa all’alcol Heinz-Christian Strache, vicecancelliere austriaco al tempo dello scandalo poi passato alla storia come «Ibiza-Gate». La questione era piuttosto seria: nel 2017, nel pieno della campagna elettorale, Strache volò ad Ibiza per una vacanza.

Una sera incontrò una giovane donna russa che si presentò come la nipote di un’oligarca e promise di investire in un quotidiano per poi spostarlo su una linea vicina a quella di destra del partito del suo interlocutore. Che, in cambio, le assicurò che l’avrebbe favorita nell’assegnazione di appalti pubblici. Solo che la donna era in realtà una giornalista, ma Strache non se ne accorse perché era annebbiato dai drink (così sostenne poi).

Il caso saltò fuori nel 2019: Strache fu costretto a dimettersi e a ritirarsi dalla politica, il cancelliere Sebastian Kurz a sciogliere il governo e convocare elezioni anticipate.

L’ungherese e la festa gay

In questa lista di episodi assurdi, quello che ha come protagonista József Szájer merita un posto d’onore. Europarlamentare, membro di lunga data del partito ungherese Fidesz — guidato da Viktor Orbán —, noto per le sue posizioni conservatrici specie sul tema Lgbtq, la sua carriera finì per colpa di una festa piuttosto insolita. La sera del 27 novembre 2020, in pieno lockdown, la polizia di Bruxelles trovò 25 uomini che si intrattenevano in un incontro sessuale di gruppo.

Si scoprì che Szájer era fuggito calandosi da una grondaia e quando fu fermato per strada gli agenti trovarono della droga nel suo zaino. Orbán lo silurò in un nulla: «Inaccettabile e indifendibile».

La spagnola ladra «involontaria»

Fatale per Cristina Cifuentes fu una crema per il viso da 40 euro. Nel 2018 l’allora presidente della Comunità di Madrid fu costretta a lasciare il suo ruolo dopo la pubblicazione di un video del 2011 nel quale era ripresa mentre rubava il prodotto cosmetico in un supermercato. «Un errore involontario» sostenne lei, che poi pagò il dovuto. […]

Lo sloveno tradito da un panino

Di furto non si sono macchiati solo Cifuentes e Moxnes, ma pure il parlamentare sloveno Darij Krajcic, reo di aver rubato un panino nel 2019. In realtà, spiegò lui, stava conducendo un esperimento sociale: seccato dal fatto che i commessi lo ignoravano, sentì l’impulso di testare in prima persona quanto fosse efficace la sicurezza del supermercato. Il furto non venne scoperto sul posto, ma i colleghi lo spinsero a dimettersi (e a pagare il tramezzino trafugato).

[...]

Il maltese e il lobbista

Sessanta milioni di euro: tanto si era fatto promettere da un’azienda svedese del tabacco un collaboratore di John Dalli, allora (era il 2012) commissario europeo per la Salute, in cambio dell’impegno a far abrogare una legge che vietava la vendita e l’uso dello snus, tabacco umido in polvere che si consuma non fumandolo ma per via orale.

Dalli sostenne di essere stato costretto alle dimissioni dal presidente della Commissione José Manuel Barroso e lo citò in giudizio. Nel 2019, il Tribunale dell’Unione europea ha respinto l’istanza e con questa la richiesta di risarcimento danni. […]

[therealvinelle]

Ok I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I'm just now copying your Norwegian Bella AU into a text translator, and if you don't already have 50 people in your inbox demanding a translation then shame on ALL OF US because this is glorious! And while Google Translate does have a certain charm (it translated "piper hun ut" as "she beeps") I'm curious to see how you'd put it in English.

Troquantary is referring to this post. In which Bella doesn't speak English.

Fun fact, you're the only one who's gone into my inbox to request this. I was so sad, had the translation half-written and everything, but I was too proud to beg. So thank you, Troquantary, for popping this ask.

As for the dictionary fuckups, sounds about right. I made a few typos, too, that made Google Translate suffer even more. (Such as managing to mix up "henne" (her) and "hendene" (hands), resulting in Aro patting Bella instead of clapping his hands. Poor Google.)

Also, there are a few cultural references and language things that would be lost in the translation, in an attempt to keep them I included notes clarifying things.

Some things, like Aro and Carlisle's very old man way of speaking, are easier said than done to translate, you'll have to bear with me there.

Additional notes are that I added a few things to this version, many of them because translating is hard, but a few because while translating I thought "oh you know what would be much funnier-" and then wrote that.

Alright, without further ado:

When Renée left Charlie she did not go to Florida, she went to Oslo. And she went all in to make her daughter a true Norwegian, hiring Norwegian nannies and making sure never to speak English around the child. Since transatlantic flights are expensive, little Bella Swan rarely got to visit her father, and as such she never did learn what should have been her native language.

She quickly forgot what English she did have in favor of Norwegian, with the exception of words like “Yes”, “No”, and “I’m Bella”.

The few trips she took to visit her father were all the more awkward than in canon since she couldn’t play with the Black kids. Let not the blame fall upon Charlie: he took Norwegian classes and speaks conversational Norwegian. He can’t speak to Renée, because her Norwenglish is incomprehensible even to Norwegians, but he can communicate with Bella.

Not that he’s had a lot of chances to do so.

Bella makes it to seventeen years old, she’s in second grade at Handels* and is a major outsider among the preps there, and then Renée marries a handsome skier**. Together they shall travel the continent all winter to participate in as many skiing races as they can, and in the summer they’ll take gigs at Hurtigruta to see the coast.

*“Handels” is the nickname for an Oslo high school infamous for its pupils being rich and beautiful blonds who are going to be CEOs when they grow up.

**Skiing as a sport is huge in Norway

***Hurtigruta is a famous ferry that travels across the Norwegian West coast

Bella, who sucks at skiing and is too young to work at Hurtigruten, takes the hint.

With dread in her stomach and dictionary in hand she goes to her father in America.

Where she doesn’t speak the language.

Faen.

Charlie gives her a car, and I wish this meta was set in the present because I could have joked about electric cars and the automat only driver’s license*, but Twilight is set in 2005 so I can’t. The car part proceeds without drama.

*An increasing number of Norwegian youth take the driver’s license for automatic cars only, and we’re the country in the world with the highest percentage of electric car purchases.

School is worse than in canon, because she is now a thousand times more sensational than if she was merely the new student. She is from another country! All of Forks keels over with excitement.

To make matters even worse, our girl doesn’t understand a word of what people are saying.

She is too awkward to let them know she doesn’t know English. It’d become a thing, and they might think she’s dumb. To be fair, it’s not good that she’s been through primary, secondary, and now a year and a half of high school and still sucks at English.

So she nods, smiles, mumbles “Hi, I’m Bella” to the new faces, and blushes heavily when anybody says anything.

People assume she’s shy. That’s a bit boring, but oh well.

She has her biology class with the redhead hottie she noticed during lunch. She watched him and his family, they were fascinatingly pretty, but she doesn’t know anything more about them. Sure would have been great if she could have asked the tiny girl (was it Jess?) about them.

Biology proceeds as in canon - Edward badly wants to eat the delicious girl, but fortunately doesn’t.

She runs into him in the office when he tries to switch to another biology lesson, but she has no idea what he’s saying so she only has the suspicion that this somehow concerns her. Which is still uncomfortable, but Bella is probably the problem here. The hottie surely can’t be.

He’s missing from school for a week, Bella finds that weird.

He returns, and to her great horror he starts talking to her.

“Hello”, he says.

Bella dies inside. He’s too handsome!

"I'm Edward Cullen," he continues, and ok, she got that. The hottie is called Edward, that’s good to know. She’s not sure she caught that last name, though, Köln?

He says something else, it’s gibberish to Bella even though she’s concentrating, and at the end there he says “Bella Swan”.

She gulps.

"I'm Bella Swan," she confirms and nods. That should be correct. God, she hopes it’s correct.

He smiles a crooked, boyish smile. She’s awed. She didn’t think it was possible to be so beautiful.

He says something else.

Bella didn’t catch it.

She blushes even harder, she hasn’t been more embarrassed in her life. Here he is, the most handsome guy in all the world, and she has nothing to say to him. Literally, they don’t speak the same language.

She should tell him.

It’s one thing to chicken out of telling the town she doesn’t speak English, but there’s something different about Edward Cullen. He deserves the truth.

But...

He’s the most beautiful person she has seen in her life. He is American, too, so the odds of him knowing Norwegian are microscopical. If he finds out she doesn’t understand a word he says he’ll stop talking to her, and selfish as she is she doesn’t want that.

So with a slightly guilty conscience (but not enough to fess up) she contributes to the conversation with enough words and smiles to pull through. "Yes", "No", "Thank you", and "That's nice".

He is surprised by several of these answers, but instead of giving her odd looks and losing interest he grows more invested in the conversation.

Class ends.

The next day the near accident happens, and he saves her. She is stunned - dear god, did he just pick up a whole car? After teleporting across the parking lot..?

Soon she’s in the ER, and more than a little bit stressed about that fact since she knows the Americans have a terrible healthcare system.

She hopes Charlie has an insurance.

An insanely beautiful man walks into the ER, and Bella is shocked. He is just as handsome as Edward and Edward’s lunch friends!

He introduces himself as Carlisle Cullen, and Bella can only assume this is someone’s older brother. Possibly related to the blonde girl.

He smiles at her, says something, and she answers, "I'm Bella Swan."

He frowns.

That must have been the wrong answer, then.

His hands return to investigating her scalp, and to her great surprise he switches to perfect Norwegian, "kjenner De* noe ubehag når jeg holder her?" Do you feel any discomfort when I touch here?

*De is the Norwegian polite pronoun for “you”. Du = thou = the French tu, and De = you = the French vous. These polite pronouns went out of use in the 1980’s, save for when addressing royal persons, and would be considered antiquated in 2005.

He hurries to add, "Norsk lærte jeg i... fjor sommer. Det var et nettkurs." I learned Norwegian… last year. Online class.

"Hvilket da?" Which one? Bella asks, because Charlie needs to hear about this. The doctor has beautiful, if slightly outdated, pronunciation.

The doctor’s smile turns uncertain. She gets the feeling there’s something he doesn’t want to say. "Husker ikke," I don’t remember, sier han etter en litt vel lang pause.

That’s a shame. And weird.

"De hadde hellet med Dem i dag, som ikke ble truffet av den bilen." You were lucky today, not getting hit by that car. he then says, noticeably changing the subject.

"Det var ikke hell, det var Edward," It wasn’t luck, it was Edward, she replies sharply.

The doctor definitely looks uncomfortable.

She continues, "Han krysset skolegården på et blunk, og plukket opp hele bilen. Jeg så det," He crossed the schoolyard in a moment, and picked up the whole car. I saw it,

The doctor laughs. "Om han kunne det hadde nok gymkarakteren hans vært meget bedre. Nei, frøken Swan*, jeg beklager å si at det høres ut som at De er litt omtåket. Det er helt normalt ved hjernerystelse." If he could do that, his PE grade would be a lot better. No, Miss Swan, I’m sorry to say you seem confused. That’s normal with concussions.

*Addressing a young woman as “frøken” is even more outdated than using polite pronouns.

Why does Bella get the feeling he’s lying?

She’s discharged.

We’ll jump ahead to her trip to La Push - that trip uneventful, since Jacob knows she doesn’t speak English. They stick their hands in their pockets and stare at the sea.

The next day she’s shanghaied to Port Angeles, because apparently she said “Yes” at the wrong time when talking to Jessica (Turns out Jess’s name was Jessica!) and accidentally said yes to a day trip to Port Angeles.

Like in canon she wanders away from the others, and as in canon she is nearly gang raped. And again as in canon she is saved at the last moment by Edward.

He buys her dinner, and she can’t believe her own luck- and misfortune. A date with the most handsome guy on the planet (hence the luck) and she can’t say a word to him (hence the misfortune)!

He says things to her, lends her his jacket, and really this is it for Bella, she’s peaked, life can’t get better than this.

(That’s a lie, it would be better if she spoke English.)

He’s so amazing.

She’s gotten pretty good at navigating conversations with him, so she nods and aha’s her way through.

In his car on the way home the tone takes a more serious turn.

He asks her about something, and it’s a serious question, that much she’s gathered. She answers in the confirmative.

He is silent.

Did she say anything wrong?

(Edward, on his end, just asked if she knows what he is. She said yes, so calmly, not even a trace of fear in her.)

A few days later he takes her out on a walk in the woods.

He shows her a meadow in the woods, and when he steps into it he lights up in the sunlight.

Bella is in shock.

She knew there was something different about him, but- holy cow. This guy isn’t human.

Is she dating a god?

She stumbles into the clearing after him, and they spend a day together where he says things, and she can barely hear any of it (nevermind understand it) because she’s so distracted by how pretty he is.

The next day he takes her to a house in the middle of nowhere. She doesn’t want to guess that this can be where he lives. Surely gods don’t live in houses?

He shows her inside the house, and introduces her for Dr. Cullen and a lady with a name she doesn’t catch.

Bit weird that these two are acting like a couple of parents, they’re far too young and divine for that.

Edward shows her around in an old-fashioned office, and she doesn’t know what to make of i when she sees a painting of Carlisle. Edward launches into a long story when he sees her watching it, unfortunately she doesn’t catch any dates or artist names. At one point she heard the word “suicide”, though, and that’s not good.

She doesn’t get much out of the story.

The baseball game doesn’t happen because Bella didn’t pick up on what Edward wanted and didn’t realize she was being invited to a thing. They spend the afternoon watching a movie instead.

The relationship continues, impeded slightly by communication problems, but she’s mostly able to cover those up.

Until her birthday comes around.

She gets a papercut.

Jasper lunges at her. Edward throws her into a glass table, and then everyone is leaving.

Carlisle is kind enough to switch to Norwegian when he’s stitching up her arm, perhaps remembering the last time she was his patient. "Jasper har ikke vært på dietten vår så veldig lenge." Jasper hasn’t been on our diet for very long.

"Diett?"she asks. She’s never seen Edward eat anything. She wasn’t clear on what the Cullens ate, honestly she thought they were above such things. She was thinking maybe photosynthesis. The knowledge that they apparently eat food astounds her, but diets?

"Dyreblod istedenfor menneskeblod," Animal blood in stead of human blood, Carlisle clarifies.

Whachasay?

Carlisle gives a slight smile. “Jaspers liv som vampyr fikk en brutal start." Jasper’s life as a vampire got off to a brutal start.

...

Vampire?!

Bella’s missed something here.

Oh dear lord, oh fy faen, she has missed something.

“Åja”, uh huh, is all she can say, and suddenly she’s very aware of the fact that she’s sitting there with a bleeding arm.

And Carlisle.

Who is a vampire.

Over the course of the following conversation Bella makes a host of discoveries.

Edward has been a vampire this whole time, and he’s a telepathic vampire. Whether Bella should be a vampire too or not has been a matter of hot debate, but due to religious reasons Edward doesn’t want that.

Carlisle also brings up how Edward died of the Spanish flu.

"Jeg var under den oppfatning at Edward fortalte deg bakhistorien min?" I was under the impression Edward told you my back story? Carlisle asks at one point, and Bella just has to ask very nicely if he’d be so kind as to repeat it.

Turns out the guy is nearly four hundred years old.

Jaha.

Jahahaha jaa ha.

That’s… a lot.

She wanders out of the house in shock, and hardly notices Edward’s strange behavior over the next couple of days.

One day he picks her up at school, and takes her behind the house.

That works out.

He’s a vampire, but he never hurt her. He is endlessly beautiful, perhaps easier to love now that she knows he’s not a god. He’s her Edward, and that’s suddenly easier now that she knows.

They can still be together.

But now that she knows this about him, it’s about time he knows something about her as well.

It’s time to finally be honest with him.

So when he opens his mouth, she opens her mouth as well, but she doesn’t get any further than to “Edward-” before he launches into a monologue.

She’ll have to wait until he’s done before saying her piece. It’s a bit embarrassing, but it doesn’t seem like he intends to stop talking anyway.

And what he’s saying seems to be serious, so it’s probably best to let him finish.

Edward concludes his monologue by kissing her forehead. Then he disappears.

Where did he go?

A big unsure, Bella goes back to the house. She’ll just have to wait until he gets back.

She doesn’t know what to think when Charlie returns from work and tells her the Cullens have all left.

Oh, god.

Edward must have found out she doesn’t speak English.

She made a mockery of him.

He has every right to leave.

Knowing this doesn’t make it any easier to live with.

Bella sinks into a depression.

The hallucinations begin, as in canon, though Hallusinward speaks Norwegian. Thank god for small mercies.

The friendship with Jacob (dictionary in hand) blooms, as someone has to help her see those hallucinations.

The cliff diving happens, and Alice shows up. Bella’s not sure what this is about, but she has gotten good enough at English to know that something bad happened, and Alice wants them to do something.

She’s a bit surprised to find herself on a plane to Italy, though.

Alice tells her to “Run to Edward” and ok, she got that, actually.

So she saves Edward.

After that she’s taken into the sewer, which turns out to house dozens of vampires.

Bella, Edward, and Alice are received in some kind of hall, where an unusual vampire has quite a bit to say. She understands some of what he’s saying, at least the part about “la tua cantante”. She knows a bit about Italian, see, so she knows that he’s talking about a song now.

She wishes she knew the context.

At one point he takes her hand, and appears fascinated by it. She wonders if he’s a palmreader. Not very vampirey, but what does she know.

He asks her a question.

"Yes," she says.

Saying yes has gotten her this far, after all.

But when he lights up and claps his hands together, and Edward and Alice stare at her in shock and betrayal, she knows she must have said the wrong thing.

The two are dismissed from the room before Bella can do or say anything, she’s just listening to Edward make a racket outside in the hallway.

Not good.

The unusual vampire brings her further down in his sewer palace to a basement, and she is given comfortable clothes to wear.

This is getting terrifying.

The vampire leans towards her - and she chickens out.

"Jeg snakker ikke engelsk!" she squeaks. "Non habla ingles!" I don’t speak English.

Han stanser, og ser forvirret ut. "Que- Hva behager*?" I beg your pardon? spør han etter et øyeblikk.

*A very formal, and slightly outdated (you can use it, but people will think you’re putting on airs. And they will be right) way of saying “excuse me?”

Sobbing, Bella tells him the whole story, from how she didn’t want to be the weird kid in school to how she’s now somehow in Italy without knowing why nor what she just agreed to.

When she’s done the vampire starts laughing.

"Dette forklarer jo en hel del," This explains quite a bit, ler han. "Men, kjære Bella, jeg er redd det ikke endrer noe." But, my dear Bella, I’m afraid it changes nothing.

He tells her that she has agreed to serve him and his army of undead warriors into eternity.

Well fuck.

"Du skal få slippe det, når du ikke visste hva du samtykket til - men skjebnen din forblir den samme. Loven er loven." You’re released from that promise, as you didn’t know what you agreed to - but your fate remains the same. The law is the law.

After a moment of silence, during which she looks terrified, he hurries to add, "Vi har en lov. Du må bli en av oss." We have a law. You must become one of us.

A law that Bella Swan has to become a vampire?

People are finally speaking Norwegian, and Bella is still lost. And it’s too embarrassing to keep pestering this poor, polite man with questions.

So she nods.

He gives her a glittering smile, and bites her.

When she wakes, Aro offers her an English course. A language course that, naturally, leads to her staying in Volterra. Why not learn a few more languages while we’re at it, dearest Bella?

Some time later Edward breaks into Volterra to save his Rapunzel, only to barely recognize her now that she’s a vampire who says things. Lots of things, she talks all the time now. WHAT DID ARO DO TO HER.

Too mortified to admit that she never spoke English, Bella claims she’s been brainwashed.

Aro is having too much fun to correct her, and the whole sad affair sets off a regrettable flood of rumors.

[whenyouknowyouknow]

Harry the Womanizer

 This thing started because I find the whole womanizer image of Harry absolutely disgusting and wanted people to see how utterly bad and wrong it was.

Please be aware that the following does not reflect Harry’s personality but it shows us the image their label wanted him to be seen as.

Some disclaimer about where the data comes from

written, digital coverage (no print,  1-2 videos, no radio)

google search “Harry Styles”, I looked through the first 20 hits each month but didn’t read all of them ( headlines usually are a dead giveaway if an article contains a new “conquest”)

I did not list every woman that was mentioned in the same article as Harry. Also not those that showed interest in him. But most of those that were said he showed interest in (I might have skipped a few in the worst years just bc it was so freaking disgusting)

Often articles contained offhand comments about his pulling power or unrelatedly recounting his latest conquests in any given article to enforce the womanizer image. These did not make it into the list.

Deleted articles are of course not included (as of Aug 2020)

Some of the women turn up again for a round 2 (or 3 or 4), I only mention them once a year tho

I put the women into the list on the date the news coverage happened/started because many articles date back things by saying  “pics have circulated since…” “They have been reportedly seen together since…” or simply tell a story that supposedly happened a few years prior

Some dates overlap. Thats either bc they pushed several woman at once (very effective to drive the whole womanizer image home) or its bc one woman was seeded in while the other was happening.

Because this is a freaking long post, I’ll put it under the “read more”

About the list

split by years

each year has Harrys age for that given year in brackets

each data set has in brackets the age, occupation and date of news coverage for the woman (if available)

winter gf get their own category as they sometimes overlap with other woman

Some of the woman get brought back up (not just mentioned in passing), those are listed at the end of each year with the dates when they where brought back up

“again” is for those who dated him again

Women linked to Harry

2010 (16)

5(?) girls from bootcamp

Cher Loyd (17, txf fellow contestant, Oct)

unnamed girl fan (13.11.)

2011 (17)

Adele (23, singer, 27.09.)

Sarita Borge (record executive, 29.11.)

2011-2012

Caroline Flack (31, txf, 23.10.-27.01.)

2012 (18)

Pixie Geldoff (21, 09.02.)

Alexa Chung (28, model, 16.02)

Alexandra Burke (23, txf, 20.02.)

Jo Wood (56, ex of Ronny Wood 21.02.)

Denise Welch (54, actress, 21.02.)

Georgia May Jagger (20, Mick Jagger daughter, 21.02.)

Sarah-Louise Colivet (24, photographer, 11.04.)

Lily Halpern (19, singer, 11.04.)

Jillian Harris (32, reality TV star, 13.04.)

Emma Ostilly (18, actor for Gotta be You MV -  22.04.) 

Ellis Calcutt (18(?), friend, deniedm, 30.04.)

Emily Atack (22, TV star, 20.05.)

unnamed girl (Article about her one night stand with H, 06.06.)

Lucy Horobin (32, radio presenter, 24.06., dated back to Aug-Oct 2011)

Caggie Dunlop (23, TV star, 12.07.)

Allyssa Reid (19, singer, 23.07.)

Blond girl with pink bag (from a night out, 26.07.)

Cara Delevingne (19, Model, 05.08.)

Natalie Imbruglia (37, singer actress 28.09.)

 2012-13

Taylor Swift (22 singer 19.10.-07.01. (fling dated back to April 2012 then getting back together)

2013 (19)

Hermione Way (27, reality star, 08.01.)

Millie Brady (18, actress, 24.02.)

Shaniece Nesbitt (fan, 11.03.)

Yvette Fielding (44, TV presenter, 11.03.)

Fia Litton (niece of Preston Mahon (security), 14.03)

Chelsea Ferguson (25, stripper, 14.04)

Kimberly Stewart (33, confirmed by Rod, 27.04.)

Camilla Foss (18, fan in oslo, 09.05.)

Kara Rose Marshall (22, model, 03.07.)

Alexis Allen (19, fan, 21.07.)

Cara Delevingne (20, model, 11.09.)

Paige Reifler (17, model, 30.09.)

Sjana Earp (18, model, 25.10.)

Samantha Armytage (36, TV presenter, 27.10.)

Daisy Lowe (24, model, 01.12.)

Caroline Flack (brought back up, 01.02./11.09.)

2013-14

Kendall Jenner (17, model, 21.10. - 23.02)

2014 (20)

mystery brunette (20.01.)

Alison Mosshart (35, singer, 07.03.)

Daisy Lowe (25, model, 11.04.)

Larissa de Macedo Machado (21, brazilian popstar, 08.05.)

Lou Teasdale (30, hairdresser, 26.05.)

Sinitta (45, Smons ex, 22.07.)

Paige Reifler (18, again, model, 25.07.)

Meghan Trainor (20, singer, 27.08.)

blond woman (at Coldplay concert, 18.09.)

Katy Perry (29, singer, 01.10.)

Erin Foster (31, 08.10.)

Kate Moss (40, model, 03.11.)

two blond woman (leaving a club in LA with H, 30.11.)

Taylor Swift (brought back up, 12.02./02.03./20.08./14.10./04.12.)

Emily Atack (brought back up, 23.03.)

Caroline Flack (brought back up, 26.03.)

2014-15

Nadine Leopold (20, model, 20.12.- 12.03.)

2015 (21)

Emma Watson (24, actress, 14.01. dated back to 26.12.14)

Suki Waterhouse (23, actress, 05.04.)

Joy Muggli (23, talent agent, 12.05.)

Sara Sampaio (23, model, 15.06.)

Georgia Fowler (22, model, inspiration for Kiwi, 15.10.)

Nicole Scherzinger (34, singer, 17.10., dated back to 2013)

Taylor Swift (brought back up, 15.01./13.02./10.03./08.05./13.10./28.10.)

Caroline Flack (brought back up, 24.05./11.10.)

2015-16

Kendall Jenner (again, 30.12.- 31.01.)

2016 (22)

Pandora Lennard (28, model 31.01.)

Lindsay Lohan (30, actress, 10.03., dated back unspecified)

Kendall Jenner (again, 05.09.)

Kara Rose Marshall (brought back up, 07.10.)

Suki Waterhouse (again + dated back to 2013, 11.11.)

Taylor Swift (brought back up, 01.02.)

2017 (23)

Tess Ward (26, food blogger, 09.05.)

Townes Adair Jones (20s, 17.05., dated back to 2014)

Camille Rowe (31, model, 31.07.)

Sjana Earp (22, again, 05.12.)

Taylor Swift (brought back up, 18.04./12.05./03.09./09.11.)

Kendall Jenner (brought back up, 31.01.)

2018 (24)

Delta Goodrem (33, voice coach, 27.04.) 

Camille Rowe (ends 31.07.)

Kendall Jenner (brought back up, 15.07./12.12.)

Taylor Swift (brought back up, 21.03./)

2019 (25)

Kiko Mizuhara (28, denied by K, 12.01.)

Camille Rowe (brought back up, 22.11.)

Kendall Jenner (brought back up, 11.12.)

Taylor Swift (brought back up, 23.08./04.11./13.12.)

2020 (26)

Daisy Lowe (brought back up, 20.06.)

Taylor Swift (brought back up, 02.03./24.07.)

data from here on is not included in the graphs, I will keep adding when things happen

Tracee Ellis Ross (48, actress, 28.10.)

The age differences

The graph shows clearly how

the age gaps are very big in the beginning, likely to attract an older audience in addition to the usual target audience of teenage girls

the amount of woman linked to Harry gets smaller each year because in later years, articles could just reference his history with woman

the amount of woman linked and mentioned in regards to Harry gets significantly lower after hiatus started

A rough timeline of women that where connected to Harry over the years

Why give Harry the womanizer image?

Would the image of a womanizer not damage the image of 1D?

If they’d portrait him as a sleeze it would have surely damaged the overal image of 1D. But Harrys image portrait him as charming, a bit quirky and overall an airhead that likes people and doesn’t want to be tied down. Thus giving the illusion of being potentially available to every woman and showing them a good, no strings attached, time. Which is a massive selling point for boybands to increase the age range of their fans.

In addition, all his conquests would be used to stir up drama or simply generate attention at crucial times to get 1D in the press without mentioning their current promo focus in every headline.

The winter girlfriends had a special role as they were the only ones actively worked as continuous dating. To build some attachment, have a continuous storyline that could be tied to the just released album and bridge the holiday pause, and when the relationship ended generate more drama to be used for promo.

Harry did keep on using his womanizer image to promote both his solo albums but in a very controlled manner. The numbers of new woman linked to him declined to 1 in 2019, for now we are at 0 (1) in 2020

HS promo used 3 woman as inspirations for songs (Towns, Fowler, Swift) and a tour gf (Rowe)

FL promo only uses the previous tour gf as now ex to push the storyline of a breakup album

He is very visibly changing his image while still maintaining a level of connection to his old image. Whether that's due to contractual restrictions or a strategy to not alienate to many fans is unclear

Jeff Azoff

For what I’ve seen Jeff and Harry seem close (the Azoff family having him on family pictures, posted by Jeff’s brother)

Looking at the timeline of Jeff and Harry

2014-03-25 first mention of Harry at Azoff family home in an article about Irvin

2014-04-23 first pics of Harry and Jeff at a sports event (Jeff named as a friend, no name or position yet)

2014-12-22 Jeff not named yet but identified as his agent

2015-01-10 first time Jeff being named and being the link between Harry and a woman

2016-03-07 Jeff leaves CAA as a music agent and launches his own company Full Stop Management

2016-03-11 Harry confirmed to have joined Full Stop Management

Jeff likely took over as Harry’s agent in early 2014. In 2015 Harry’s image change starts to become aparent and changed drastically after hiatus.

Harry choosing Jeffs management firm as soon as he left Modest is a clear indication that he feels Jeff will represent him how he wants

The Timeline - Women connected to Harry and Promo

I started the visual timeline in end 2011 when his womanizer image started to take off

The instances before where likely used as seeding for this image (first instance was a segment in txf where he was linked to 5 of the girl contestants and funny enough one older guy)

purple - women from the entertainment industry

pink - fans/no-names

lilac - winter gf

dark burgundy - thos who date him again

dusky pink - brought back up

light blue - single release

royal blue - album release

mid blue - other releases

dark turquoise - tour legs

Adendum: a few numbers analyzed,

[lettersiarrange]

Tip for sci-fi writers:

Dont be afraid to give your characters cool technology, but make the technology fallible

If you had told someone a hundred years ago that we'd have instant communication devices that could be used to contact anyone at any moment and knew our location at all times and these devices could fit in our pockets or be worn on our wrists, they would have told you no one would ever again be able to write a story dependent on someone getting murdered in an alley.

But that's not true. I could run out of phone battery bc I just came from a boring social event and spent the whole time scrolling thru Twitter. I could be in part of the city where my phone network has shitty service. I could try to call a friend who lives nearby for help but I've just gotten a new phone and haven't transferred my contacts and I dont remember their number. I could be traveling in a new country and not know the emergency number. Someone could take my phone. I could have turned my phone off bc it was glitching and the "do not disturb" function wasnt working, and then it takes like 15 seconds for the thing to boot up and even more time for me to dial 911. There are a million ways you could still realistically write abt someone getting murdered in an alley.

If you had told someone 400 years ago that we'd have flying machines that can take us across the world in a few hours, they would have told you no one would ever again be able to write a story dependent on long journeys or getting lost.

But that's not true. I can't fly straight from my house to my friend's place in Norway. I'd have to drive to the airport, then catch a flight to an international hub city like NYC or DC, then have a layover in London, then another flight to Oslo, then drive potentially hours from that airport to her house. And maybe she lives in the middle of nowhere and google maps doesn't have any info about it. Maybe I get a flat tire. Maybe she REALLY lives in the middle of nowhere and I have to take an ATV for part of the journey. Maybe I lose my passport somewhere and have to retrace 100 miles of my journey. Maybe I forget my passport at home and can't even get out of the country so now I'm stranded in New York. Maybe one of my flights is delayed and I miss a connection. Maybe halfway between her house and the airport my phone dies and I dont have an adaptor and I have to ask a local for directions but the language barrier means I completely misunderstand. Maybe I can't afford a flight at all bc they're too expensive and I have to take a cheap cruise ship and I get left at one of the ports.

So don't worry that introducing teleportation into your world will make it too easy for the characters to accomplish their goals. Don't avoid adding in universal translators because the plot is reliant on a communication error.

Think about what technology the characters might use to get what they want. And then think of interesting ways for that technology to fail. And there's part of your plot.

[lizpelly]

For the Fall issue of No Depression, I wrote about the unprecedented environmental impacts of digital music and streaming. There’s a myth that because listening to music digitally involves no vinyl records made of plastic or cardboard sleeves, that it somehow must emit less carbon. The opposite is true: the current era of music streaming has led to the highest levels of carbon emissions ever produced by recorded music.

The piece largely centers on an interview with University of Oslo professor and researcher Kyle Devine, the author of Decomposed: The Political Ecology of Music. We talked about the harsh material realities that power current listening habits (“Because to store and transmit data over the internet requires electricity, it’s often the case that when you’re streaming music online, you’re probably burning coal, uranium, or natural gas”) as well as the broader impact of the on-demand instant-gratification culture that streaming is part of.

The carbon footprint of data centers, fiber optic cable networks, and consumer electronics combined with the massively higher rate at which on-demand consumption is happening are all factors, Devine explained. Here’s something else he said that stuck with me: “We now have so many more people doing so much more listening so much more of the time. Once you add up the aggregate energy effect of billions of people streaming billions of songs and albums all of the time, and the fact that all of that takes electricity…that is what contributes to this overall picture that the streaming culture of music that exists today is a greater contributor of carbon emissions than any other previous format…. Streaming a file off the internet is much more efficient than producing an LP. That efficiency gain is actually outstripped by the increase in amount of listening that is going on today.”

I also spoke with author and University of Glasgow professor Matt Brennan, who co-authored a study with Devine last year titled “The Cost of Music,” covering the economic and environmental realities of streaming. He succinctly explained why the environmental impacts of music streaming can be hard to grasp: “We know that flying is environmentally bad. The message has got out there on that. But part of the reason that people understand that is that in order to travel on your holiday, you have to go to an airport. You have to physically put yourself in this massive building and see the infrastructure that makes that possible. You don’t do that when you listen to music on your phone. You don’t have to go to the server farm and see all of the energy that’s being consumed to make [that] possible. So people don’t tend to think of music as having an environmental impact.”

The piece contextualizes digital listening within the broader material impacts of internet infrastructure, and argues that since streaming relies so heavily on data centers owned by Google (where Spotify data is stored), Amazon and Apple, music communities might consider seeing themselves in solidarity with actions taken groups like Google Workers for Action on Climate or Amazon Employees for Climate Justice.

Devine had illuminating things to say about the desire for “solutions” in the music industry: “People want to know, ‘What do we do?’ They want a utopian pep talk or a Hollywood ending... I’m not especially hopeful. It’s a bit grim.” As a political ecologist, his primary interest is not providing a consumer guide to the most environmentally friendly options for music consumption. “Each of these formats, in the history of recording, comes with upsides and downsides…The purpose of this research I’m doing is more to call attention to these bigger systems of problems and inequalities, so that people may demand more of those systems in terms of genuine responsibility and transparency.”

The full piece can currently only be read in print in No Depression, an ad-free, non-profit, reader-supported magazine operating since 1995. I’d also highly encourage those interested in the topic to seek out writings by the authors and researchers interviewed for this piece.

[uncivilengineering]

What Kind of Two Years Has it Been

At the end of an experience, and therefore a blog, I usually write a reflection on the experience. The Master's programme ended six years ago and due to life and procrastination and other excuses, I'm finishing this blog only now. But this delay has its advantages, because I know how the story ends and I can tell you what happened to the characters. So maybe, for the first time, this is truly an epilogue.

The journey to this program started in 2012. I was living in Germany and working as a consultant. I always knew I wanted to work first before continuing with any kind of education, because toward the end of undergrad, I had classes with grad students and the ones who had work experience before going back to school seemed to bring more to the experience from applying what they learned from the real world. As I researched Master's programmes, I focused my search in Europe because I was still paying off the loans for my Bachelor's degree. I Googled another program when the MIND programme turned up in the results. After a process of applying, obtaining references, phone interviews and traveling to Munich from Stuttgart to take the GRE in Germany (really), even though this is Europe, the choice came down to Humboldt University in Berlin, with a scholarship from the DAAD, and the MIND programme, with a scholarship from the European Commission. (Lappeenranta University of Technology in Finland takes a close third because I had a really, really pleasant scholarship interview with a very pleasant young man and sometimes I think about how my life might be different if I went there and studied Innovation Management instead.)

I'm sure there was a long decision process and I'm sure I spent a lot of time thinking about it, like most decisions. This all took place eight years ago and I cannot remember the salient details. But I can imagine that I felt like it was time to leave Germany, even though I love (LOVE) Berlin, and the appeal of having an adventure in two countries (I didn't yet know that Asia was on the table) was great. So I gave notice at the consulting firm, said goodbye to my friends in Stuttgart, (wrapped up my last performances as a roller skating Greek muse in the local military base's production of Xanadu - that's real) and moved to Sweden.

In the two years that ensued, I met the best people, took wild risks, had the best time, made my dreams come true and had the adventure I sought. I lived.

I lived in Sweden for a year and was inspired by their example of how to treat guests in your country. I had a job interview in a sauna in the winter and learned what gender equality in society might actually look like. After an application process, I had the opportunity to spend a semester in Thailand. In Thailand I learned how to get from the university to town (Bangkok) and back again. I hosted a cultural show that lasted for eight (or more?) hours. I felt closer to my mom than I had ever understood before. C pointed out that after the midterm exams, I have sat for exams on three continents. I celebrated my birthday at a German brewery in Bangkok. I saw Angkor Wat after the semester ended. I went to all the Disneylands in the world (at the time...back then, there were only 11 parks). I didn't stay long in Austria, but I was there long enough to experience a Buschenschank and run into visa problems. I also saw Carousel and Cabaret in German, and puzzled as to why it was an hour longer than Cabaret in English, which I saw soon after on Broadway. In Glendale I lived in a conference room turned into an ad hoc intern bullpen for four and a half months writing my thesis. I saw things I had been nearby my entire life but never dreamed of seeing in reality.

Blogs are cheesy and navel-gazey but I am glad I did it. I am glad that this and the Germany Part I blogs exist. Sometimes I will look at an old post because someone asked for a travel recommendation (for example), and I will discover something that I forgot. I didn't remember that I was contacted by Swedish public radio to talk about the 2012 United States election. I forgot I had this conversation at NASA JPL about living in Germany. So what's the moral of this paragraph? If you can't blog, at least journal. You think you will remember the exciting things that happen in your day to day life but the truth is, you won't. I am proof!

What happened to everyone? Some stayed in Europe. Some went home. Some went home in Europe. Some got married. Some had babies. Some moved to Amsterdam. Many stayed in Sweden. When I left C, she wanted to stay in Italy. She has since worked her way up to an awesome job at a major company and had a baby! A has moved and is engaged to be married! I was happy to attend C's wedding in Ankara in 2015. I was happy to attend Z's wedding in Czechia last year, and to see my friends again at both.

What happened to me? I accepted an internship in Florida where I spent about five years (and made a bunch of new friends and had a bunch of good times) before moving back to the country where I left when this all started. To be honest, I never expected to be back. Not in this country. In 2017, I was fortunate to attend my class reunion in Leiden; it was also the celebration of the closing of the program. They invited all alumni back to watch the last class graudate. I met the newest generations of the program and saw a lot of old friends. It was just like old times. I came to the first afternoon of the organized program. I thought we would observe the new kids doing their work. No. We kicked off with a case exercise and divided into groups to discuss and then present our results. Our groups consisted of current students, alumni, professors and mentors. In Europe, we are all equal. It was just like old times.

The rest of the program consisted of lectures, discussions and watching the final presentations of the graduating class. Before I left for this trip, I joked that my master programme was ending because it lost funding (truth) from the European Commission because of Brexit (also true but I didn't realize it until I got there and they confirmed that Brexit was one of the factors that cut funding to the programme). There was a party the final evening. In the way that we do. I remember telling all my friends that it would be a very long time before I will see them again. I couldn't foresee an immediate excuse to get to Europe and hang out with them. The day I returned to work in Florida from the trip, I received an email about joining a project that is based in Germany. If I chose to accept this mission, I would have to move to Germany for a period of time. What.

I learned later that, basically, someone found out that I know German. (I promise that I have other skills.) When I was in high school, if you told me I was going to move to Germany, I would have said that you're crazy. I was just this nerd who went to Space Camp and really liked The West Wing and Saturday Night Live. If you told me I was going to move to Germany twice, I would have said, "Then why did I spend all this time learning Spanish?" (among other questions) I know that's true, because I did ask myself that in the first two months of intensive language school in 2010. But the truth is, Germany made things happen for me. When I talk to young people who (for some reason) ask for my advice, in addition to telling them to "follow your dreams," I also tell them the story of how moving to Germany (the first time) changed my life. (And then I tell them why so they know I'm not exaggerating.)

I couldn't refuse. I'm back in Germany. I'm working on getting better at German.

I should have seen this coming. The fall I moved to Sweden in 2012, I came back to Germany to celebrate Thanksgiving. During my Swedish spring, the squad from Germany came to visit Sweden and I put in my tea and hairspray requests (from dm, of course). After my thesis defense in 2014, my first destination was Nuremberg to see E, then on to Quakenbrück to wait with C who was finishing her defense. I attended S's wedding in Leipzig in 2015. I went to Oktoberfest in Munich in 2016. The point is, I cannot stay away from Germany. This is evident and not a surprise.

So far, I have been fortunate that this opportunity has allowed me to meet up with so many friends. A and M are in Amsterdam and have introduced me to Y and T, who are also in the MIND network. S is back in Oslo from Thailand. A is in London. S has moved from Stuttgart to Berlin. A and P and B and K and E are in New York. I still cite the meal in Haarlem (note that's Haarlem in the Netherlands, not Harlem, but I can see why you might be confused because I just mentioned New York) as the best I've ever had and J told me that the restaurant has received a Michelin star since 2014 when we were there so now it's overpriced and overrated. So funny! At Z's wedding in Czechia last year I was happy to reconnect with A, B and M. Everyone else, I'm coming for you! (And I mean that in the creepy way!)

What's going to happen next? Let's find out! Thank you for reading and joining the adventure.

Good night, have a pleasant tomorrow and see you in the future!

Lauren

[nievefergie]

Bill Gates predicted that the internet would be the downfall of television, saying, “I’m stunned how people aren’t seeing that with TV, in five years from now, people will laugh at what we had” (Clarke 1). Many people agree with Gates, such as Television Week and Wired, stating that the media landscape of US network television is dying. The invasion of the internet also brings major changes in marketing for television, which is historically what fuels network television. With the loss of marketing viewers to advertisers, marketing has had to find new ways of advertising products in new mediums (Clarke). Digitalization is one of the most active parts of marketing in todays society. With the global market revolving online due to its easy access and cost efficiency, social media has also helped develop the relationship between brands and consumers. This allows digital media to use multi-platform strategies and social media presence to enhance their show. This is called transmedia storytelling (Bjursten). Many new cable, network, and online television shows have used social media to further enhance the realism of their characters and plots to entice viewers, and with the upcoming success of the national branding of the show, SKAM, the marketing formula of adding extra online tie-in content seems to be working. Many television shows have released texts between characters. Shows like Andi Mack (2017) on Disney Channel have texts between Andi and her friends after certain episodes, usually reflecting on what happened. A Canadian television show on Teennick called Open Heart (2015) also tried a similar approach. The Teennick show debuted with an app for the iPhone where viewers could read texts from characters and further investigate evidence found in the episode to unlock more clues about the mystery the story revolved around. It also had found footage of what would be on Dylan Blake’s phone, such as videos of her and her friend, Teddy (Open Heart: Unlocked). However, Open Heart’s app had many glitches, as does the Disney Channel app, making it hard to scroll and find anything. SKAM’s messages were posted on the same website that the show was aired on, so viewers did not have to go out of their way to find extra immersion — it was already a major component of the format (Machell). SKAM, translated as ‘Shame’, is a Norwegian television show produced by NRK (Norwegian State Broadcasting), a government-owned broadcaster known for its radio stations and television channels (McDermott 31). The show was produced by NRK P3, the youth based radio station of the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation as a web-based series (Pearce 156). NRK is the biggest media company in Norway, with a large following (McDermott 31). In 2015, NRK set up a website for SKAM episodes to be broadcast in real time throughout all hours of the day. This kept a sense of longing as well as the audience truly feeling a part of the action with watching, as it was happening in ‘real time’. Thirty-four year old Julie Andem created SKAM by traveling around Norway and interviewing teenagers about their own lives. She auditioned over a thousand people and created the characters based on the actors and their own lives. Each episode is written almost within the week that it is shot, as well as only being shot three days a week. As Andem writes, she uses feedback from actors and viewers to keep the storyline believable and enjoyable for teens (Donadio). SKAM is newly renowned as, “one of the best TV shows about high school ever made” (McDermott 31). Each season revolves around a different student in revolving friend groups attending Hartvig Nissen, an actual public school in Oslo. The first season follows Eva, who lost all her friends the summer before starting high school. The second season follows Noora, who begins a romance with a boy who played with her friend’s heart. The third season, which gained the most popularity, is about Isak, a teen boy coming to terms with sexuality and his budding romance with Even. The fourth and last season follows Sana, a muslim teen who is falling for her brother’s best friend and coming to terms with her religion and what it means to be a woman of color in a white society like Norway. When American fans discovered the show around season three in 2016, NRK, due to copyright, stopped making the episodes accessible to those outside of Norway; but this didn’t stop fans. Norwegians would download the episodes, translate them, and put them on Google Drive and share it around Tumblr and Twitter for their English speaking friends to experience. Although English speaking fans didn’t quite get to experience the show in real-time like fans in Oslo, they were still able to watch the clip the day it was released to keep their interest.   NRK used social media to promote SKAM with the exception of one television interview with actors from the show once it gained popularity. Hakon Moslet, the show’s executive producer said, “The idea was for teenagers to find it themselves, not from their parents” (Donadio). Social media was used to promote the show through actual teenager’s word of mouth, rather than promoting it through the eyes of adults. By bestowing the characters with social media accounts, SKAM promoted the show and enhanced blurring the line between fictional characters and real people. This further creates more authenticity rather than selling the show (Bjursten 3). SKAM used social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook to further blur the lines between the show and reality. Each character had their own instagram page. Season four revolved heavily around Sana’s instagram, @saranors2, where she took screenshots of hate that Sara, the bus leader, had been sending her boyfriend as revenge to start a civil war on the bus. Sana tagged the girls actual accounts and then deleted it once she felt guilty ("Vi må stå sammen"). The account was then deleted off of Instagram in real time when Sana deleted it. Then, a new account called @ellevillevillde2 was created and deleted in real time with the show as well. The show even ended using real quotes from social media about the show when addressing hate and love, expressing gratitude and showing disservice that the fans spread online about the show (“Takk for alt”). Mari Magnus, the web producer for SKAM, writes the instagram accounts and text messages posted between episodes. The texts from characters are posted to the website from different characters to each other and create excitement for the next episode. Magnus’s goal, “is combining reality and fiction and the line between them isn't so clear” (Donadio). The immersive online world for the characters in SKAM add drama to the already dramatic show. By reading texts and Facebook messages, the characters feel even more real to the audience. They get a little peek at what the characters do when they’re not watching. It adds to the cult following and truthfulness to the story (Machell). SKAM provides a good example of how social media enhances storytelling. In the previous television market, viewers were listeners rather than participants. With the new digital age of media, the audience is allowed to help co-create the story and participate in the creation (Bjursten 4). SKAM was written in real time, as well as shot in real time. Viewers had a direct say on what happened in the story, as shown in the last episode where online comments were featured in a montage during Jonas’s ending monologue (“Takk for alt”, Donadio). By using the transmedia storytelling, SKAM and other television shows are able to tell better stories due to the strengthened relationships between the audience and show, or product and brand (Bjursten 4).

Bibliography

Connor, Pearce. 2017. "Reality and Fiction in Contemporary Television: The Case of Skam." no. 4: 156. ProjectMUSE, EBSCOhost (accessed March 15, 2018).

DONADIO, RACHEL. 2016. "Will a Norwegian Hit Translate?." New York Times, December 13. C4. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed March 15, 2018).

2017. "'SKAM''s universal appeal." UWIRE Text, 2017. Academic OneFile, EBSCOhost (accessed March 15, 2018).

2017. "How Real-Time Marketing Affects Social Media Engagement." BASE, EBSCOhost (accessed March 15, 2018).

McDermott, Patrick D. "The Planet's Realest Drama." FADER, 2017, 31-35.

Andem, Julie. “Vi Må Stå Sammen.” SKAM, season 4, episode 7, NRK, 2 June 2017.

Andem, Julie. “Takk for Alt.” SKAM, season 4, episode 10, NRK, 24 June 2017.

Open Heart: Unlocked. Computer Software. Apple App Store. Vers 1.2. Epitome Pictures Inc, 2015.

Clarke, M. J. Transmedia Television: New Trends in Network Serial Production. Bloomsbury, 2013. Bjursten, Amanda, and Felicia Norman Sylvendahl. “How Real-Time Marketing Affects Social Media Engagement: A Study of the TV Series SKAM.” Lund University Library, Lund University, LUP Student Papers, 2017, lup.lub.lu.se/luur/download? func=downloadFile&recordOId=8926717&fileOId=8926718.

Machell, Ben. “Why Teens Love Skam; Ben Machell on Norway's Cult TV Hit.” The Times (London), 16 May 2017.

[rocktonki]

Review opera touch

REVIEW OPERA TOUCH FULL

REVIEW OPERA TOUCH FREE

This is the exact opposite of privacy - but in the context of an advertising business, it makes sense. No privacy-oriented service should be collecting usage data. The big red flag here is usage data and how this is connected to your unique ID. This is rather misleading given the new ownership and Singapore jurisdiction the business actually operates under. The Opera contact page maintains the facade of a European business with a Norwegian flag and an Oslo address for the company’s “Headquarters”. We cover this topic more in the TunnelBear review. McAfee, the US cybersecurity company, purchased TunnelBear in March 2018 for an undisclosed amount. Then, in 2021, Kape purchased ExpressVPN. Later in 2019, Kape also purchased Private Internet Access. CyberGhost VPN was purchased by an ad-tech company, Kape Technologies, in 2016 for about $10 million. This is also a trend we’ve seen in the VPN industry. Ltd., which is a Singapore-based company. Opera’s Terms of Service list the owner as Opera Unite Pte. In July 2016, Opera was sold to a Chinese consortium led by Qihoo 360 and the Chinese billionaire Zhou Yahui. Opera began as a Norwegian company that offered a Presto-based web browser for most operating systems, until switching to Chromium in 2013. This issue becomes even more interesting when you examine who (now) owns Opera… Who owns Opera VPN? We’ll examine Oper’s privacy policy in detail further below (spoiler: it’s not good). As the saying goes: If you are not paying for the product, chances are that YOU are the product. In summary: Not only is Opera’s “Free VPN” no VPN at all, but you also potentially compromise your privacy when using it. Additionally, SurfEasy logs Usage and Bandwidth data. According to their privacy statement Opera reserves the right to pass on data to third parties for advertising and marketing purposes. This becomes worrisome when you look at Opera’s business model. This device_id is sent to the proxy for every browsing request and will remain permanently tied to the browser. When setting up the proxy, the browser requests a “device_id” which contains a unique user ID. Perfect Privacy wrote an interesting blog post where they explain some of the dangers of the Opera browser VPN: According to many experts, the answer is no, Opera VPN is not safe or secure.

REVIEW OPERA TOUCH FREE

Lots of people are wondering if Opera’s free VPN is safe and secure. Firefox recently launched a “Firefox Private Network” that many are falsely calling “ Firefox VPN” – despite it also not being a VPN. Technically, Opera should not be marketing this as a VPN at all, but that’s what they are doing. While Opera may have done this little tweak of definitions with the best intentions, end users should understand that this free service by Opera is nowhere near the security provided by a real VPN solution,” Per Thorsheim, founder of PasswordsCon, commented. Other tools you use, including for example email clients like Outlook, won’t use this ‘VPN’,” Špaček told Help Net Security.

REVIEW OPERA TOUCH FULL

You still need a full VPN if privacy is what you care about (and you should care about your privacy). Michal Špaček, a web developer and security engineer based in Prague, researched the way Opera’s VPN works and discovered there’s more marketing than security behind Opera’s claims. HelpNetSecurity had this to say about Opera’s claims: In other words, Opera’s “free VPN” is not a VPN at all, but rather just a browser proxy. Unlike a true VPN, Opera’s “VPN” only works within the browser, rather than encrypting all traffic on your operating system. Opera VPN is a browser proxy that encrypts traffic between the Opera browser and a proxy server.

Your data will be used for targeted ads and promotions.

Vague privacy policy allows for international data transfers.

Opera is partnering with third parties for data collection (including Google and Facebook).

[dotline-norway]

Dotline Norway provides digital marketing services for businesses in Oslo. We specialize in SEO, content marketing, website design, and more. Our team of experienced professionals will help you maximize your online presence to gain more visibility and sales. Get in touch today to learn more about our services and how we can help you grow your business. We create and implement strategies for web development, digital marketing, social media campaigns, SEO, e-commerce and more. Our team of experienced professionals are experts in creating stunning websites and applications that are designed to showcase your business and help you reach your goals. We use the latest technology and techniques to create custom solutions that are tailored to your needs. We also offer a wide range of services including web hosting, domain registration, website maintenance and more.

[weddinggreys]

Opera neon broswer

Opera neon broswer update#

Opera neon broswer pro#

Opera neon broswer download#

Opera neon broswer mac#

And for a browser that Opera itself calls as experimental, we aren’t entirely sure if you should invest your time and energy in switching to Neon for the moment. You will need to get used to the way tabs are handled, for example. Secondly, the entire experience, though smooth, does pose a learning curve beyond a point. Presently, it doesn’t support extensions, the kind we are used to in the likes of the Google Chrome web browser. While this may be an isolated issue with this set of hardware, power users will miss certain other features. We really couldn’t pinpoint the reason, but the battery usage returned to its normal frugal self the moment we closed Neon and switched back to Safari.

Opera neon broswer pro#

The primary reason, at least on the MacBook Pro 2016 (Intel Core i5, 8GB RAM, 256GB storage, OS X Sierra 10.12.2), is the battery life-15 minutes of using Neon saw a battery drain of as high as 20%. However, it is far too early in the Neon’s development cycle, if we are to assume that Opera will persist with this, for you to switch to this as a default web browser for home or office use. It is quite fast, the minimalism stands out and there is no doubt that this does have the basics in place which a lot of other web browser could do well to follow. There is a media control panel as well, which lets you manage playback of media content that may be embedded in web pages.Īll in all, Neon seems quite refreshing and fun to use for a while. If you wish to keep multiple browser windows open at the same time, they can be made to share screen space as well. Instead of the tab bar, you get bubbles on the right side of the window. It can be downloaded here.The stuff that you may be accustomed to seeing in a web browser, such as the bookmarks bar, the tab bar and add-ons, are not there.

Opera neon broswer download#

Opera Neon has been released as a freeload for both Windows and Mac. However, “we do plan to incorporate some of its best new features into Opera for computers as early as spring 2017,” he said. There is also another feature that lets users quickly crop any part of a Web page to take a snapshot they can save to the browser’s gallery for later viewing or sharing.įor now, Neon remains experimental, “a vision of what browsers could become,” Kolondra added. The features of its main browser have been reimagined for this concept browser that offers.

Opera neon broswer update#

Opera Neon isn’t an update or replacement of the mainline Opera browser.

Opera neon broswer mac#

To enter into the split-screen mode, one should drag visual tabs to either side of the display panel for simultaneous browsing. Opera Software, an Oslo-based company, has developed Opera Neon, an experimental desktop browser for Windows and Mac that tries to reimagine what a modern browser should look like. However, the highlighting feature of Opera Neon is its split-screen mode that displays two browser tabs side-by-side, which is the perfect feature for computers with very large screens. There’s no discrete address bar either there’s just a line above all the floating balls asking you to either search or enter an address. You can also quickly access your recent downloads from the sidebar.Įven though it includes shortcuts to bookmarks and top websites, they are displayed as floating bubbles that are overlaid on your desktop wallpaper. On the left side of the screen is a sidebar that contains tools like an easy screenshot taker and audio and video playback controls. It automatically grabs your desktop’s background image and uses that as the background image of your new tabs page. Further, it places your active tabs in bubbles on the right of your screen, instead of the top. It has no taskbar or bookmarks bars that are found on average browsers. The moment you open Neon, you will notice its homepage looks far different than any other browsers’.

[newstfionline]

Saturday, December 11, 2021

Coronavirus tests can cost more than a flight (Washington Post) Thinking of traveling internationally? On top of uncertainty over waves linked to the delta variant and the emergence of the omicron variant, there’s the matter of those coronavirus tests needed to travel: Per person, they can cost hundreds of dollars depending on the place of departure, the destination, the type of test and the company providing them. PCR test prices for travel can vary widely—and for many individuals and families, prohibitively—from under $10 in Mumbai to about $80 in Kenya to nearly $400 in Kansai, Japan. Less sensitive rapid antigen tests, required within 24 hours of flying to the United States as of Dec. 3, can cost about $50 in Britain—and $134 at the airport in Oslo. Just within Europe, PCR tests for travel can be several times the cost of a one-way flight between countries. In West Africa, where airfare between neighbors was already notoriously costly, PCR testing requirements for arrivals can add on hundreds of dollars.

Companies rethink return-to-office plans amid omicron cases (AP) Companies of all sizes are rethinking their plans to send workers back to the office as the new omicron variant adds another layer of uncertainty. Alphabet’s Google and the nation’s second largest automaker Ford Co. are among those once again delaying their return-to-office plans, while other businesses whose employees have already returned are considering adding extra precautions like requiring masks. Officials in the United Kingdom, Denmark, Norway and Sweden also have asked people in recent days to work from home if they can because of concerns about the variant. The moves are the latest indication of how difficult it is for companies to set firm plans for their employees’ mandatory return as worries about a spike in new cases or new variants keep shifting deadlines.

54 die in crash of truck smuggling migrants in Mexico (AP) Rescue workers rushing to a highway accident found a horrific scene of death and injury after a freight truck jammed with as many as 200 migrants tipped over and crashed into the base of a steel pedestrian bridge in southern Mexico. By late Thursday, the death toll stood at 54, and authorities said at least 55 people had been injured. It was one of the worst single-day death tolls for migrants in Mexico since the 2010 massacre of 72 migrants by the Zetas drug cartel in the northern state of Tamaulipas.

Party furore deepens for Britain’s Johnson (Reuters) British Prime Minister Boris Johnson faced mounting pressure on Friday after his Conservatives lost their poll lead over Labour and it was revealed that his chief spokesman attended a festive gathering in Downing Street during a lockdown last year. Johnson, 57, has faced criticism in recent months over his handling of a sleaze scandal, the awarding of lucrative COVID contracts, the refurbishment of his Downing Street flat and a claim he intervened to ensure pets were evacuated from Kabul during the chaotic Western withdrawal in August. Opposition parties have accused him of lying and being unfit for office, and some have called on him to resign. As he grappled with the furore, his Conservative Party lost its poll lead over the opposition Labour Party and dozens of his own lawmakers prepared to rebel over new COVID rules.

India’s farmers call off protests, for now (Washington Post) Thousands of farmers who had been occupying the outskirts of India’s capital called off their protest Thursday. It marked the end—for now—of a bitter, year long mass movement opposing Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s effort to liberalize India’s agricultural sector. The protesters claimed victory after reaching a deal with the government that would see the formation of a committee to consider guaranteed prices for crops and criminal charges against protesters dropped.

Evergrande’s grand default (Bloomberg) Too big to fail? A Lehman moment? We’ll see. China Evergrande Group has officially been labeled a defaulter for the first time, the latest chapter in a drama likely to end in massive restructuring for the world’s most indebted developer. Fitch cut Evergrande to “restricted default” over its failure to make coupon payments this week, a move that may trigger cross-defaults on the developer’s $19.2 billion of dollar debt. While Evergrande bondholders face grim prospects, so far there are few signs of financial contagion. That’s partly due to the default having been widely expected—but also because China’s government has been scrambling to cushion the blow. Still, Beijing has made it clear it has no intention of bailing out the property empire, which is $300 billion in debt.

Vasectomy clampdown (Washington Post) For more than three decades, Chinese authorities forced men and women to undergo sterilization to control population growth. Now, as the government tries to reverse a plummeting birthrate that it fears could threaten social stability and the economy, hospitals are turning away men seeking vasectomies. The director of one hospital said, “The fundamental policy is that China needs more childbirths.” With one of the world’s lowest fertility rates—at 1.3 children per woman, it is below Japan’s—demographers predict China’s population could begin to fall within a few years.

Hong Kong Activists Convicted (BBC) More than two dozen politicians and activists were arrested in June when tens of thousands of demonstrators in Hong Kong defied a ban against holding a vigil for the victims of Beijing’s 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown. Among them were Hong Kong media mogul and founder of the now-defunct Apple Daily newspaper Jimmy Lai, former journalist turned opposition politician Gwyneth Ho, and former lawyer and part of the group that had organized the vigil for decades Chow Hang Tung. The activists had chosen to contest their charges. During trial the three argued they had lit candles during the vigil in a personal capacity, and hadn’t “incited” others to join the unauthorized rally. Regardless, they were found guilty of inciting and taking part in an unlawful assembly. A district court dismissed the trio’s arguments. They will be sentenced December 13, and face up to five years in prison.

Lebanese join Mideast migrants to Europe (AP) Ziad Hilweh knew his family might die on the way. But the risk was worth it, he said, to reach the shores of Europe for a new start with his wife and three kids, away from the daily humiliation of life in Lebanon. The country’s economic meltdown had destroyed him. The currency crash meant that the value of his salary from working at a private security company fell from $650 a month to about $50 after the Lebanese pound lost more than 90% of its value in less than two years. It reached the point the 22-year-old could no longer afford milk and diapers for his children. But the young father’s hopes of a better future were shattered last month, when the boat they were on board headed to Italy broke down in the Mediterranean Sea, hours after they set off from the outskirts of Lebanon’s port city of Tripoli. Along with dozens of other would-be migrants on the boat, they were towed back to shore by the navy. For years, Lebanon has been a host for refugees, mainly from Syria, but now it is a departure point. Hundreds of Lebanese have tried to reach Europe this year on boats from their country’s shores, spurred by a devastating economic crisis that has thrown two thirds of the population into poverty since October 2019.

The journey from bed to the home office (Foreign Policy) The journey from one’s bed to a home office counts as a commute, a German court ruled on Wednesday in a case that could have larger implications for the country’s employers. The unnamed plaintiff brought the case after his employer refused to pay out workplace accident insurance when he suffered a back injury while walking down a staircase to his home office. The court has provided some wiggle room for future cases, however, clarifying that if the plaintiff had already been in his office before the accident he would not be protected as the insurance should only cover the “first morning journey from bed to the home office.”

[madstars-festival]

NATALIE LAM: “HOPEFULLY IT BROUGHT REAL SOCIAL CHANGE”

We asked Executive Judge Natalie Lam to reflect on her favourite Interactive, Integrated, Innovation, Mobile, Data Insights and Social & Influencer winners.

Natalie Lam joined Publicis Groupe as the network’s first Chief Creative Officer for Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa earlier this year, and it was a huge honour to welcome her to this year’s AD STARS jury. She is known for creating work that achieves a unique balance of strategic brand thinking, storytelling and technology, and made her mark working on Nike at R/GA, later joining Ogilvy One Shanghai followed by McCann, Razorfish and Google in the United States.

Can you comment on the Data Insights Gold winners: Dentsu Craft Tokyo: ‘Yakushima Treasure – Another Live from Yakushima’ for Yakushima Treasure; and Deloitte Australia’s ‘Carbon Thumbprint’ for Belong. Why are these such clever uses of data?

Yakushima Treasure isn’t a clever but a beautiful use of data. It’s just so weird and wonderful, it showed the tenacious dedication to craft during such a tough time.  

‘Carbon Thumbprint’ for Belong is an alarming use of data: concrete evidence of our impacts on the environment. We all know we should limit social media and mobile usage for our mental health, and now there’s another good/important reason to do so. Let’s hope this concept takes on a much bigger impact.

What were your favourite Social & Influencer Gold winners?

I loved POL Oslo, Norway’s ‘Don’t hate. Imitate - The Super Bowl Clapback’ for Audi. We all need something light-hearted during such a heavy time. It’s amazing to see the Scandinivians keep their signature sense of humor plus pull this off in such a short time. We always preach to our clients the idea of real-time responses but few actually pull it off in such a well-crafted way.

With Rothco’s ‘Sleeping Flags’ for O.N.E: this is a very striking piece of work. Simple concept, clear message, flawlessly executed. Again, hopefully it brought real social change.

Don’t miss AD STARS’ showcase of Interactive, Integrated, Innovation, Mobile, Data Insights and Social & Influencer winners via the free AD STARS Online Gallery: www.adstars.org  

[imjustthemechanic]

The French Mistake

Part 1/? - A Visitor Part 2/? - The Kulturhistorisk Museum Heist Part 3/? - Cutscene Part 4/? - The Marvel Cinematic Universe

Now that our heroes have figured out what’s going on, the next question is what they’re going to do about it.

“Well done,” Steve said as they headed for the trailers, amused in spite of himself.

Nat smiled.  “I don’t get to do full-tilt diva very often,” she replied.

“You just enjoy watching people who hate you have to put up with you anyway,” Steve said.  He’d done some of that during the war, with the generals and politicians who hated that this musclebound fool in a costume was showing them up.  It did make him feel powerful.

“Everybody enjoys that,” Nat said.  “It’s the evil queen in all of us.”  She chose one of the RVs at apparent random, and grabbed the door handle.  “This one’s yours.”

“No, it’s not ,” said Steve.  The sign on the door had the same name as had been highlighted on the front of the script: Chris Evans.  It was a very nondescript name, Steve thought, like John Smith.  Or, for that matter, Steve Rogers.

“Considering that Mr. Evans is probably picking himself out of the remains of the Museum of Cultural History in Oslo right now, I think he’s got other things to worry about than who’s in his trailer,” said Nat. “You can tell him we borrowed it, if that makes you feel better.”

“I’ll do that,” Steve promised.

Nat opened the door.

The first thing Steve saw was the dog, which had stood up on its hind legs to rest its paws against the inner screen.  When Nat opened that second door to climb the steps and go inside, the dog bounced out past her to greet Steve.  It was a floppy-eared, brown and white animal of indeterminate breed, and like most of its kind it seemed to have recognized Steve immediately as a dog lover.  He knelt down to rub its head and neck, and the dog wagged its tail and lolled its tongue out happily.

“Hi, there, boy,” said Steve.  “Or girl.”  He held out a hand for the dog to sniff.  It licked his fingers, and with his other hand, Steve found its collar rand tag.  “Dodger,” he read.  “Nice to meet you, Dodger.  Did somebody leave you here all alone?”

“Steve!” Natasha called from inside.  “Come and take a look at this.”

“Coming,” said Steve.  He straightened up and gave Dodger’s head a few more pats.  If this were Chris Evans’ dog, he thought, somebody was going to have to take care of it until its owner returned.  Evans might be badly injured, or even under arrest – if he looked so much like Steve that nobody had noticed the two switching places, right now he was probably telling a SWAT team that he wasn’t Captain America. They probably didn’t believe him.

With Dodger right behind him hoping for more affection, Steve climbed the steps into the trailer.  The first room was a kitchen that was practically the size of Steve’s entire apartment in 1940s Brooklyn, and it was a mess, with dishes in the sink and half a bowl of cereal uneaten on the table.  Script pages were scattered around, and books and magazines on the American space program – but the first thing to draw Steve’s eye were the photographs taped to the cupboards.  Some of these were of strangers, but many appeared to have Steve himself in them. If that were Chris Evans, then yes, the resemblance was absolutely uncanny.

Some of the pictures were probably of Evans’ family and friends.  Others were perhaps from his movies.  There was a photo of Evans standing next to an astonishingly tall black man, both of them smiling.  A picture in which Evans was bundled up against winter cold and looked like he’d just been beaten black and blue, but beaming as he posed with a younger man and a very schoolmarm-ish looking woman.  There was, of all things, one of those ridiculous Doritos bags Stark had found so funny, framed on the wall as if it were a work of art.

Then Steve’s stomach seemed to drop out and hit the floor with a splat, as he moved further along the cupboards and started finding people he knew.

There was a picture of himself, Natasha, and Sam in street clothes, grinning and laughing.  Worse, there was one of Steve, Bucky, and Peggy in uniform, leaning on the counter of that café in northern Italy in 1944… where had some actor gotten that?  Another was of Peggy making a face and pointing at a smiling Steve, both of them with twenty-first century clothing and hair and looking directly into the camera.  Yet another was of Steve, Stark, and T’Challa with their arms around each other’s shoulders like they were all best buddies, standing against a background of advertising images.  Steve didn’t remember any of those pictures being taken. Some of them could not possibly have been taken, because the people in them were dead!

“Steve!” Natasha repeated.

“Nat, have you seen this?” Steve asked. Whatever she was calling him for, it couldn’t possibly be as distressing as what he’d just found.

“Steve,” she insisted, “have you seen this?”

When Steve tore his eyes away from the impossible photographs, he found that Nat was in the living room, at the front of the trailer.  This was built around a fake fireplace that was really just a television screen playing video of burning logs.  Steve had never understood the point of such a thing, since it didn’t keep anybody warm and couldn’t be cooked on in an emergency, but there it was – and hanging above it were three framed movie posters.

These were done in what Steve recognized as an old-fashioned style by the standards of the twenty-first century.  Modern posters tended to go in for teal and orange and a lot of photoshop filters.  These were in watercolours, and were for separate but related films: Captain America: the First Avengers, Captain America: the Winter Soldier, and Captain America: Civil War.  Each bore a list of actors’ names, but the portraits were of people Steve knew.  There was himself, Peggy, Bucky, Natasha, Sam, Stark… even Pearce and the Red Skull.

There had been Captain America films, of course. There were the ones Steve himself had been in, and then there’d been a couple more made by Howard’s Stark Pictures in the late forties and early fifties, starring Burt Lancaster, Ronald Reagan, and Angie Martinelli.  There’d also been the two terrible made-for-TV movies from the early eighties, in which Steve had been played by a guy who looked like his name ought to be Bolt Vanderhuge or something, and who was, if possible, a worse actor than Steve himself.

The last few years had produced more recent Avengers-themed movies, too.  There’d been that one with Eric Bana as Dr. Banner, and the Battle of New York movie The Tower, which everybody seemed to have hated except for Dr. Foster’s friend Darcy.  The team had watched those, and had a good laugh at them.  These were different.  The faces were too perfect, and the titles suggested events uncomfortably close to the last several years of Steve’s life.  Anybody making movies about that was doing so without his permission.

“Those… aren’t real movies, are they?” asked Steve, taking in the lists of names on each.  He recognized none of them.  If these were actors they were none he’d ever heard of… or most of them weren’t.  He did see the one from the trailer door.  Chris Evans.  His own apparent doppelgänger.

“They’re not real movies in Kansas,” said Natasha thoughtfully.

Steve turned his head to look at her, and found her in her ‘thinking’ pose, head cocked and brow creased.  After a moment, she caught his eye, and took a deep breath.

“This is going to sound weird,” she warned him.

“Weird?”  He snorted. “What’s weird?  We were just in Oslo fighting an alien who thinks he’s a god, and now we’re making a movie.  I don’t know what weird is anymore.  Tell me.”

She didn’t, though.  Instead, she stood there thinking a moment longer, then looked around the room.  “Find me a computer or a cell phone,” she said.  “I want to try something.”

They searched the living room, which was neater than the kitchen but only slightly, with Dodger doing his best to help and mostly getting in the way.  Underneath a pile of magazines Steve found a laptop.  When he turned it on a password screen popped up, but Nat got them past that easily, and Steve sat down on the ottoman and brought up google.

“All right, what am I looking for?” he asked.

“Museum of cultural history explosion,” Nat said, leaning on his shoulder to watch.

Steve typed in the terms, slowly – SHIELD had gotten him lessons in touch-typing, but right now his fingers, like everything else, were clumsier than normal.  The search engine thought for a moment, then presented a list of results.

To Steve’s surprise, none of them were about what had just happened in Oslo.  Never mind that it had been less than an hour ago, in this age of instant communication and constant media presence, an event like that ought to be all over the news. Instead, the first page of links was mostly articles about an exhibit at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax, Nova Scotia, which was being taken to task for neglecting black history.

“Try Avengers in Oslo,” Nat suggested.

Steve tried it, and read off the first result that came up.  “Oslo – Marvel Cinematic Universe Wiki,” he said, and clicked on the link.

The article that came up was in white text on a black background surrounded by ads, and it was very brief.  The first paragraph discussed the paganist riots, which were something Steve vaguely remembered hearing about, although he’d been busy elsewhere at the time.  The second part of the article was about Stark’s visit to the NEXUS, and it quoted a conversation Steve remembered having with Stark, Banner, and Fury about Ultron’s attempts to launch nuclear weapons.  The men’s names were all highlighted in blue – they were links to other pages.  Steve licked his lips, then clicked on his own.

Nat leaned a little further forward, and this time it was she who started reading aloud.  “Captain America is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics,” she said.

“What?” Steve asked.  “Fictional?”

“Scroll down,” said Nat, and when he didn’t, she put a finger on the touchpad and did so herself.  “Here we are!  In Other Media.  Actor Chris Evans portrays Steve Rogers in the Marvel Cinematic Universe Films Captain America: the First Avenger, The Avengers… yadda yadda yadda.”  She kept scrolling through a list rather longer than the three movies whose posters were on the wall.

“What?” Steve repeated.  When he’d first awakened, back in 2012, he’d learned that a lot of people did assume Captain America was a fictional character – somebody invented for comics and old films as an embodiment of the optimistic allied war effort.  Five years later, after Steve had been on the news, the Ellen Degeneres show, and that stupid Doritos bag, they ought to know better.

“I was right,” Nat said, sounding uncharacteristically surprised by it.  “Huh.”

“What were you right about?” Steve asked.  “What’s going on?  Whatever it is, it can’t possibly be any weirder than this already is, so just tell me.”

Nat reached over his shoulder and clicked on one of the movie titles, apparently just out of curiosity.  “Are you familiar with the idea of parallel universes?” she asked.

Steve had heard the phrase.  It was something Stark and Banner occasionally talked about, but he had only a very vague understanding of the concept garnered mostly from movies and television.  “That’s where there’s an alternate world where things happened differently, and it somehow exists at the same time and place as our world, but we can’t get there.”

“Right,” said Natasha.  “Supposedly there’s an infinite number of them, where all possibilities happen.  There’s a world where we lost in New York and Loki now rules the planet, there’s a world where Ultron destroyed the earth…”

“If you’re trying to make me feel better, it’s not working,�� Steve pointed out.  “We’re in another universe?”  Could the tesseract do that?  Well, if this were actually happening, then yes, evidently it could.

“Loki said he would find another planet to rule,” said Nat.  She found the cast section of the article on The Avengers, and grabbed a piece of paper and a pen to write down the names.  “I figured he was talking about a different planet.”

“I didn’t stop to think about it,” said Steve. Though if he had, he would probably have come to the same conclusion.  “He went to a universe where we’re fictional, so we can’t stop him from taking over.”  That made a certain amount of sense, although in that case… wouldn’t Loki himself be fictional, too?  How did the people of this world know what to put in their movies, if those events had never happened here?

“Maybe – maybe we all ended up here by accident when Thor broke the rune stone,” said Nat.  “So if you and I are the actors who played Captain America and the Black Widow in these movies… although I don’t know why they’d name the movies after you when I’m the one who does all the hard stuff…” she added with a smirk.

“Thanks, Nat.  That means a lot,” said Steve.  He could guess where she’d been going with the first part of that statement, though. “If we’re here, we can assume that Thor and Loki must be, also, while the Steve and Natasha from this world… I mean…” he looked up at the central poster. “I mean Chris Evans and Scarlett Johansson…”

“They must be in our world,” Nat agreed.

Steve had already assumed that, but now he started seriously contemplating what it meant. “Getting arrested for breaking into the Museum of Cultural History in Oslo,” he said.

“And then handed over to the World Security Council for taking on a supervillain without the permission of the Norwegian government, in non-compliance with the Sokovia Accords,” Nat agreed, with a grimace of concern.

“All while they insist that they’re not Captain America and the Black Widow, they just play them in movies!”  Steve groaned.  That was a very bad situation indeed.  “All right, how do we fix it?”

“That,” Natasha said, “is a very good question.”