#I hope you’re enjoying the flexibility and the variety of fun experiences it can bring

[reformedmercymain]

hihi hope ur days goin well, felt the urge to drop by to say that bc of what youve said about trying other heros, i now play more than just mercy :) still limited in the heros i do play but its a step in the right direction and i wanted to thank you for that

I’m literally so happy you took the advice I’m so proud of you 🥺🥺

[mirandagoing4baroque]

Field of Streams: Ariodante, in Concert, While Making Lasagna

The English Concert was supposed to perform Rodelinda in concert at Carnegie Hall on May 3rd 2020. Obviously they did not. In some ways I am lucky--if the Met hadn’t done Agrippina I might have made plans come to New York to see Rodelinda instead. It wouldn’t be unprecedented. In fact, in 2014, I finally got to call in an IOU over a decade old. As I mentioned on this blog, when I was in kindergarten and first heard Alcina, I managed to get my father to promise to take me to see Alcina live whenever it came to the east coast. And more than twenty years later we finally got to see the English Concert perform it in concert in Carnegie Hall. In the intervening years there was a debate about whether Toronto counted as the east coast, but my father insisted that he had only meant the east coast of the United States. And when the English Concert brought Ariodante on tour in 2017 they were kind enough to take the show to the Kennedy Center which was considerably more convenient.

As a replacement for the aforementioned cancelled Rodelinda concert, they streamed a recording of the Ariodante in Concert recorded at and live streamed from Carnegie Hall in 2017. As I mentioned above, I was lucky enough to see this concert at the Kennedy Center when it was touring, and I also watched the stream at the time, and then I rewatched it when it was streamed again this past weekend (twice, I regret nothing). So I am, shall we say, intimately familiar with this production.

Opera in concert is an interesting phenomena. I’ve seen three operas in concert (Alcina, Ariodante, Zelmira) and a few others that were only ‘semi-staged’ (Don Giovanni 2x, Radamisto, Giulio Cesare at Boston Baroque). Well, Miranda, you say, “the monkey paw has curled, and you got what you wished for in the Acis and Galatea review, an opera stripped of any ‘razzle dazzle’ or distractions. So, can the emotional drama stand alone?” On this subject I cannot speak for anyone other than myself but I believe it can and it does. I am sure that there are those for whom the grand sets and costumes are an integral part of the experience, and that is a legitimate position to take, but not one to which I ascribe.

However, especially in these times, watching operas in concert (stay tuned for my review of the Boston Baroque Agrippina stream) makes me think about what the bare essentials of opera are. The sets and costumes are fun, sure, and all other things being equal, I would rather have sets and costumes and the full spectacle. And they can cover a multitude of sins. It is far more difficult to create an entertaining production when it is just the orchestra, the singers, and an empty stage. But this production is, to me, as moving as some fully staged productions I’ve seen. So what is the immutable core of these operas? What is it that I am searching for when I am “Going for Baroque?”

The value I find in opera is as an emotional touchstone. This is not a novel concept, and I am not the first, or even the thousandth to think it. Why it is Baroque Opera for me and Jazz or R&B for you, I cannot say,* but when I hear this music performed well my heart (or my soul, or my grey matter, or whatever the thing is that is that feels the feels) stirs in response. So what I am looking for when I am going to an opera is not a spectacle. I am looking for a conflict that put the characters through a variety of feelings, music that is performed with care in a baroque style, and singers and musicians who will sing or play with pathos, so I can have the transcendental experience of sharing an emotional response with a room of strangers, and most importantly, with my father. We have been watching many of the same streams, and sharing our thoughts over the telephone but it’s not the same as sitting next to him in a hushed auditorium and seeing, out of the corner of my eye, a small small creep across his face as the horns come in because he knows they are my favorite. I am counting down the days until we can share this again.

But enough philosophizing. Let’s review the stream. So we know the standard, how did this production measure up? Well, I watched it four times, so that’s a hint. In fact as to music performed in the Baroque style, this performance could be considered a gold standard (of course along with the Glyndebourne Giulio Cesare). I am such a sucker for period instruments. To my ear the difference between Baroque Opera performed with and without period instruments is the difference between your average red wine vinegar, and an expensive aged balsamic. The red wine vinegar is fine, but the aged balsamic has a far more interesting, layered, intense flavor. This is especially true with respect to brass, where the natural horn is basically a completely different instrument from the french horn. The English Concert has never once disappointed me. Harry Bicket is always a master of the correct tempo, but in this concert, the flowing dance rhythms that undergird the arias really shone.

So next up we have a drama that puts the characters through a variety of feelings. If you need a refresher on the plot of Ariodante, I covered it earlier here (and if you’re too lazy to click the link, think the Hero/Claudius plot from Much Ado About Nothing), but there is no debating that it certainly takes the characters on a roller coaster of emotional situations. The stellar cast dug deeply into the libretto and squeezed every drop of feeling from Handel’s brilliant arias. Ariodante was composed when Handel was at the peak of his operatic abilities and it contains some of his most sublime music. 

Mirroring the tasteful stylings of the orchestra the cast had subtle but effective ornamentations in the da capo sections that elevated the theme but did not obscure it (no mean feat in such arias as “Dopo Notte”).  The King of Scotland was played by Matthew Brook, who I do not believe I had seen before and nor have I seen him since. I really enjoyed his performance and he was an especially capable actor. He leaned into the paternal aspects of the role, and I found his emotional arc quite moving. David Portillo was a wonderful Lurcanio, and I still hope to see him again in something (hint, hint, DC directors). I particularly enjoyed his “Tu Vivi.”  In this aria Lurcanio tries to dissuade his brother Ariodante from choosing suicide after seeing a woman they believe (incorrectly) to be Ginevra let a man into her rooms. It is often sung in a rage, which allows for blistering speed and impressive displays of vocal prowess, but in David Portillo’s interpretation, it was a desperate plea to save his brother's life. By toning the aria down a notch, he accessed some very interesting interpersonal and emotional drama that added novel layers to a familiar aria.

This was my first time hearing Sonia Prina live, but I had fallen in love with her voice on many Baroque recordings. She has a wonderful vibrancy and fluidity  in her lower register, which is particularly critical for women playing Polinesso, in my opinion. Sometimes they can sound a little stilted in the low runs, but she had full power and flexibility. I also appreciated her aesthetic. The punk rock bad guy Polinesso she portrayed was believable as a love interest for Dalinda, and as a villain. It is not her fault that Polinesso’s arias are all a little one note (think Iago’s extensive monologues in Othello).

I absolutely adored Mary Bevan’s Dalinda. I hadn’t heard her prior to this concert, and I eagerly await my next opportunity (still waiting......). She was believable as a young woman who fell in love with the wrong manipulative man and made a mistake. I loved her portrayal of the rising horror throughout the second half as she realized what was going on. I always love "Neghittosi, or voi che fate?", the aria where she calls on the heavens to strike down the man who wronged her, but I found her interpretation to be a particularly affecting vision of female empowerment and rejecting the notion that she was culpable, and laying the blame squarely at the feet of Polinesso, where it belongs.

This was also my introduction to Christiane Karg, who was a vocal standout as Ginevra. I would have liked a little more emotion from her, but, as I’ve acknowledged above, I like my Handel drama cranked to eleven, so that may just be personal preference. Regardless of the acting, her singing was note-perfect and I have no real complaints.

Which brings us at last to Joyce DiDonato. Her performance in this production is one of my most treasured concert memories, and the kind of magic you are just grateful to bear witness to. Any performance of “Scherza Infida” is a miracle of acting and vocal stamina. As I said in my last review of Ariodante, the song is 12 minutes long, and contains four lines of distinct lyrics. To hold the audience’s attention with no prancing dancers in nude bodysuits, with only your voice and the music--that is a gift. But you can google reviews of this production and read critics who know far more about this than I do raving about her “Scherza Infida” and her “Dopo Notte.” I want to talk about the redheaded stepchild of Ariodante’s third act arias “"Cieca notte." This is the moment when Ariodante learns that he was fooled--that he was betrayed by his beloved, that in fact he has betrayed her. (Apparently I have a thing for arias in which Handelian heros realize they have been fooled, see also, “Mi Lusinga” from Alcina) To watch her sing this aria, and to see the distinct waves of realization rolling across Ariodante’s soul as the aria progresses is to watch a master at work. I will at some point write up my magnum opus on how, when properly performed, da capo arias should replicate the structure of the Hegelian Dialectic, but that is a problem for another day.

So there it is, how you can strip away all but the absolute essential bits from an opera and still have a dynamic, dramatic, engrossing evening (even when you’ve seen the thing three times already). Because for me, I got what I needed out of it. I felt that resonance in my soul. I found a little comfort in these times. It’s no replacement for live opera, but it soothed a bit my parched throat. Okay, I lied, I do have a few things to say about “Dopo Notte.” Ever since I watched this stream, I’ve been listening to “Dopo Notte,” the bravura aria Ariodante sings at the end of the show, rejoicing in his reunion with Genevra, almost every day, because it is the tonic I need during these times (you can listen here if you think it might be the tonic your soul needs too). It is a promise I make to myself; permission to let myself hope. A promise that the sun will shine again, that these dark and stormy waters will not drag us under, and that someday I will sit next to my father in a dark opera house, and we will once again share in the experience of Handel’s glorious music.

“After a dark night, the sun shines in the heavens and fills the world with joy...”

*It was definitely the brainwashing. 

[bountyman]

I love this blog & was wondering if you had a list of blogs you might suggest following :)

Hey there, Nonnie! Sorry for the delay!

Gosh there are so many good blogs out there that I’m certain I’ll miss some, but! Here are a few blogs I enjoy writing with! I wasn’t sure if you wanted general RP blog recs or western-specific recs, so this is a bit of a mishmash of genres and characters:

@allnostalgic​ - Multi-muse. Very sweet person with a nice variety of muses! Most of them are animated, I believe, but they also write Arthur Morgan from Red Dead Redemption 2. They put a lot of thought into their muses and they’re just in general a nice person to have on the dash. 

@ambihextrcus​ - DC Comics’ Jonah Hex. I don’t know a lot about this character, but I do love how this person writes and it’s always excellent to see more western muses around. 

@bastardswxrd​ / @wisenedup​ - Multi-muse / Bill from The Last of Us. MY DARLIN’. Possibly one of the people I have the most threads with. On their multi, their primary muse is their supernatural alien OC, Bezi, who is very well-thought out and fun to write with, but they also write Klaus from The Umbrella Academy, Hancock from Fallout 4, and a number of other muses. On Bill (TLOU), they also guest Bill from Red Dead Redemption 1 and 2.

@bluebracelet​ - Jim Hopper from Stranger Things. I’m not actually sure they’re not Hop??? They have a fantastic writing style and their love for Hopper really shows in how they write him. He feels real and frankly more IC than the show. Overall, a great person in the RPC.

@cajuncur​ - Cryptid / Southern Gothic OC. I haven’t written much with them yet, but hoo-boy. I love them. Their character voice is entertaining and I really dig their aesthetic. They make me wish that there were more characters like this within the RPC. Definitely worth checking out!

@clockworkmadness​ - Fiddleford McGucket from Gravity Falls. I LOVE THEM. Fiddleford is probably one of my favorites from Gravity Falls and they bring a lot of depth and respect to his character. 10/10 highly recommend 1 genius old hillbilly man. Even if you’re not familiar with the show, I suggest you take a peek at their blog.

@innocentmanwithabounty​ - Vin Tanner from The Magnificent Seven (TV series). I don’t know a lot about the TV series, but I do love this blog and I love the mun’s writing! They’re always very nice and pleasant to have on the dash. 

@motherwitch​ - Endora from Bewitched. Everyone’s favorite red-headed witch. ♥ Lovely mun, lovely writing, and so much love for both Endora and Agnes Moorehead. They put a lot of thought and care into everything they write and you can see it. Very classy and elegant, just like Mrs. Moorehead.

@myxcenterxstage​ - Historical OC. Not specifically western, but does have a western verse which I write with them! Both a fantastic writer and artist, I’m so happy to have them as a friend and I highly recommend giving their blog a looksee. Their OC is well-developed and very, very charming.

@patiencetaught​ - Jennifer Honey from Matilda. I haven’t written much with this blog either, but they write a beautiful Miss Honey. Their blog, their muse, and their writing style all feels like a warm cup of tea. Charming and sweet and warm.

@psychicsass​ - Charlotte Jane from The Mentalist. I cannot stress how much their version of Charlotte should have been canon. I love her. Both mun and muse are amazing and so much thought has gone into fleshing Charlotte out into the character she is. Worth checking out even if you’re not familiar with The Mentalist! I believe they also have a western verse. 

@standunshaken​ - Western multi-muse. I haven’t written as much as I’d like to with them, but from what I have written, I enjoy their writing style and overall flow. If you’re looking for some western muses, I’d give their blog a peek. 

@talktoten​ - The Tenth Doctor from Doctor Who. I’ve followed this blog for as long as I can remember, quite possibly almost all of my ~7 years of writing on Tumblr. So... clearly I think they’re worth following! Excellent flow, tight grip on their character voice, positive, and one of the best Tenth Doctors I’ve ever seen. 

@therapadalis - Multi-fandom OC. Theraaaa! I love Thera. Great writing style, lovely, realistic OC who fits pretty much any universe or scenario, and all-around just very fun to write with. Their writing is full of wit and charm and I highly recommend checking them out. 

@timegoesbyforusall​ - Multi-muse. I’ve only written with their Bonanza muses, but I’ll say that they’re very fun to write with and friendly. The way they write Hoss especially tells me that they have a great love for their muses and I can hear the Cartwrights’ voices clearly in their dialog.  

@wcnderwitch​ - Witch OC. PRECIOUS DARLING. Writing with them (and talking to them OOC) is such a pleasant experience. I haven’t written too much with them yet, but I hope to write more. From what I’ve seen, their muse is very flexible and the mun is eager to accommodate and plot. I love their enthusiasm and all the good vibes. ♥

@williamofwestworld - William / The Man In Black from Westworld. THE RPC NEEDS MORE GOOD VILLAINS. And I am SO happy to see this blog around. I appreciate the care that goes into writing William and commend anyone who has the guts to write bad guys on this hellsite. I can tell that they’ve thought a lot about their muse and how they humanize him and make him feel real without sacrificing his villain status and vice versa. It’s hard to find that balance, I think, and they do it very well.

I can’t help but feel like I’m forgetting some folks, but these are the blogs that come to mind most immediately

[ayearinlanguage]

A Year in Language, Day 336: Musing: On drinking games, memes, and dialects. People who drink with me know that I like to make everything into a game. In general, the aspects of drinking culture I enjoy are the ones that involve ritual and camaraderie. My favorite drinking game is known to me as "King's Cup". I say "known to me" because I have come to learn that this game goes by many different names and even more variations on the rules. One of my favorite things when introducing the game to new people is learning the local variation they are familiar with. The game is always recognizable: you have a deck of cards, normally spread in a ring. You take turns drawing cards, each number assigning a different effect to determine who drinks that round. What those effects are, the specific layout of the cards, inclusion of jokers, pre-game rules, and additional items (like a cup in the middle of the ring) are all quite flexible. This is interesting, because it's definitely not how most games work. Sit down for a game of poker, speed, old maid, etc. and chances are the rules will be the same anywhere you go, at least as long as you're within the same country. Chess, checkers, go, etc, are likewise going to have common rules, even though no single organization has exclusive rights to these games or their rules. And, it should be noted, my King's Cup isn't alone in its variability; most drinking games I know of have similar patterns of intense variation. So what gives, and how is this coming back to languages? I think to get a good perspective on where I'm going with this, it's time for a brief talk about memes. When I say "meme" here I don't just mean fun pictures shared on the internet, though those are included. I am using it in its "original" sense, the idea of a cultural gene i.e. some molecular aspect of culture that, like genes, can be spread, can mutate and evolve, and can die out. The concept of the "knock knock joke" is a meme. Dabbing is a meme. Taking your hat off in respect is a meme. And so on. The important thing to remember about memes is that their existence is dependent on being spread from one person to the next. The more widely shared an experience, the more potent the meme. Standard card and board games are, well, standard. We all know them. Many of them have international games that demand some kind of regulation. Mutations in the meme, e.x. a particular chess clubs wacky pastime variant or a version of poker your learned once at summer camp, must compete with the preexisting one if they hope to pass on. For memes as established and universal as chess, this is a tall order. But what if chess did not have international tournaments. What if different companies printed card decks a little differently (one prints pages instead of Jacks, donuts instead of clovers, used a different color for each suit, etc.). The meme then may be less strong and a popular mutation could better overtake the preexisting standard. This is how drinking games work: there are no standards, no regulatory bodies, and they are played in very casual environments. If you learned your version of King's Cup from your friend Chad in college, then you'll know it only exactly as he told you, or, more precisely, exactly as you remember him telling you. If you bring the game to another group no one is going to fact check you. Why would they even? There are no stakes, it's just a pastime. So popular drinking game memes are able to replicate themselves well enough, passing from group to group by virtue of the good times they enabled, but they don't self regulate at all, so mutation is high. This is a post in a language series, right? Right. I find Americans have a strange view of language. We generally assume that most of the world works like we do; you have countries, and in each country there is a language with a single standard that everyone speaks. Obviously Americans are aware its not that simple, even our own country doesn't function like that, but that idea, as an underlying principle that reality is simply a bit messier than the ideal, is not just inaccurate, it's artificial and directly counter to reality. Part of this view comes from the fact that most Americans are monolingual and speak an imported language. When I first went to England, from which our American English is imported, I knew there would be many different English accents, but even I was shocked by just how many, and how different, and how many I would hear regularly just in one town on an island many times smaller than my native Texas, which has about 2-3 distinctive native accents, most of which are more similar to each other than the average pair of accents I would hear in England. We may be tempted to think of language as being more like chess than kings cup, but this is an affect of modernity and strengthened in colonial nations where the dialects of mother tongues have bottle-necked. With dictionaries, mass media, widespread literacy, and literal standards our language can seem very universal and lacking in variety, but this was not the case for most of history. For much of history, depending on what part of the world you came from, language was something only a certain class of scholars or aristocrats cared to think to hard about. For everyone else... it was just how you spoke, no need to assess further. If a popular figure in your town coins a phrase, it may spread to everyone in your town and persist across generations, but its possible no one the town over knows what y'all are on about. Maybe on your island certain words have become taboo due to events in that islands specific history, but your cousins on the next island follow no such tradition. For much of history language was unregulated, sparsely written, and influenced only by as much as it needed to be to do its job and enable humans to communicate. And while standards and writing have leveled the field a bit, for much of the world the impact of this history is still very apparent. And I'm not just talking about such linguistic hot spots like India or Papua New Guinea. Try to find good resources on Norwegian and you'll quickly find that there are a lot of Nowegians to choose from. Standard High German is very practical, but may still find you lost in northern Low German speaking regions or down south in Bavaria. Modern mediums for meme transference are still young, and their lasting impact on language is yet to be truly known.

[ontarioyoga]

Is There Such Thing As Baby Yoga

New Post has been published on https://www.ontarioyoga.net/is-there-such-thing-as-baby-yoga/

Is There Such Thing As Baby Yoga

Learn The Art And Practice Of Prenatal And Postnatal Yoga Fertility Yoga Yoga For Menstruation And Menopause And Restorative Yoga

The signature Bliss Baby Yoga philosophy and methodology fuses scientific knowledge of safe practices with a holistic, spiritual understanding for a satisfying learning experience.

We offer an ever-growing array of specialised online yoga teacher training courses and classes, and professional development modules, taught by Ana Davis and her team of highly qualified and passionate women’s health experts.

Enjoy a softer, more feminine approach to yoga, embodying the sacred essence of Ahimsa , that will deepen your own practice and connection with your feminine body and soul, and enhance your teaching repertoire—from wherever you are in the world!

‘I have been using this book to help with postnatal depletion and my cycle and I can’t recommend Moving with the Moon enough! Ana is clearly passionate in her knowledge and understanding and has created a peer-reviewed educational resource that is easy to open and use at any section, depending on what you need help with at the time. There are treasures to be found for all woman; young, old, time poor, exhausted, trying for a baby, depleted from having a baby, menstrual disorders, all of us.

The classical women’s postures and restorative postures for women’s health are my go to sections, all beautifully illustrated. There’s even a Moving with the Moon playlists suggestions at the end of the book! Thank you, Ana, for your passion and the work that has gone into creating this resource. This will be passed down the family.’

In The First Few Months After Having A Baby The Last Thing Many People Want To Do Is Put On Some Work

Baby Yoga is a wonderful way to bond with your baby. Babies naturally love to be gently caressed and handled and practising Yoga is a perfect way to do this in a calm, relaxed environment.

There are many reasons why regular Yoga practice is beneficial to both parents and babies and here are our top five.

Issues To Watch For When Doing Or Teaching Yoga Is There Such Thing As Too Much Yoga Uncategorized

I have been doing yoga longer than I have been teaching it.  However, I have recently realized that in some cases anyway, there is such a thing as too much yoga.  Let me explain some issues that could hinder your yoga practice and why I say that.

Most of you that read my blog already know that my spine is fused from top to bottom.  But what you may not be aware of is that I am also hypermobile or “double jointed”.  Between the two, I finally figured out that I am doing too much yoga for ME.  Of course as I age, the hypermobility has decreased some, but it still has given me problems.

In a nutshell hypermobility is the looseness of the joints.  As a kid, this was a really cool thing.  Even as an adult I still manage to have some fun with it but in doing yoga, it can produce some issues for those with this condition.  For example, in doing down dog or any of the warrior poses, I have a bad tendency of locking my knees.  That means they bend a little backwards and create what I “thought” was stability.  It’s not a bad thing but in doing yoga, you really need to pay attention to the way your joints and bones move.  They all work together and if your joints are locking up it puts your whole posture out of whack.

mechanical problems

diseases and conditions resulting in joint damage

brain, nerve, and muscle disorders that damage nerves, tendons, and muscles

bone fusions

Are There Any Baby Health Conditions That Might Affect Its Use And Success

If your little one has any specific physical conditions such as ‘clicky’ hips, reflux or congenital disorders do consult your health visitor or GP before trying baby yoga. The great thing about baby yoga is that you can just take it to the level that both you and your baby feel comfortable with – it is not a competition! So just do the bits that work for your baby, stretching the parts of their body that are safe to be exercised. 

When your baby is or if they have recently had injections, be aware that they may be extra sensitive. In some instances baby yoga can be a good distraction for your baby, helping them to cope with these experiences. However, some babies may not enjoy doing baby yoga at this time. Your baby will make it clear if they are not enjoying it so always be aware and in tune with the signals they are giving off and react accordingly.  

Read more: How yoga can help keep pregnant woman and new mums stress-free

Baby Yoga Can Give You Better Rest Increased Flexibility And A Happy Baby

After nine long months, you’re delighted to have a sweet baby to cuddle and love. But a new baby means a new schedule, and you may find yourself with less time to focus on your health. It’s important to find an exercise regimen that is gentle enough for your body but is also challenging and exciting.

Whether you’re new to yoga or were a committed participant before you had your child, baby yoga is an excellent way to get you on a structured postnatal wellness path. “We recommend baby yoga for anyone who is looking for a healthy, playful bonding activity to do with a new baby,” says Lauren Chaitoff, co-owner of New York City children’s yoga studio Yogi Beans and contributor to .

Check out these nine reasons to do baby-centric yoga that will have you and baby feeling great in no time! 

It’s a Great Bonding Experience With Your BabyMom and baby programs focus on both of you. “We modify traditional yoga poses so that moms can practice yoga while holding and rocking their babies,” states Laura DeNino, baby yoga instructor at the Yoga House of Charleston. The result is time dedicated to bonding. 

You’ll Be Able to Ease Back Into YogaUnlike high-level adult yoga classes, child yoga acknowledges the changes that a new mom’s body has been through. You’ll work with your recovering and changing body instead of against it. 

So grab that yoga mat and find a baby yoga class near you. Your body and your baby will thank you! 

Care directory

What Is Container Baby Syndrome And Do I Really Have To Worry About It

All parents need a safe spot to put their babies down. But is there such a thing as too much time in a bouncer seat or activity centre?

July 7, 2021

Photo: iStock/Fly View Productions

The inverted metal V in the middle of my living room separated my life as a parent into two eras: the before-Jolly Jumper times, and after. Before-JJ, I bounced my colicky baby on a yoga ball for hours, cramming granola bars in my mouth with one hand. Post-JJ , I could sit and enjoy a whole sandwich while his delight at moving his own body beamed straight into my heart. These short breaks played a huge part in bolstering my mental health as a new mom.

Before long, though, guilt would start chipping away at my bliss. Yes, my friends and I cheekily called these types of products, especially Exersaucers or activity centres, “circles of neglect” . Despite the jokes, I knew I shouldn’t leave my son in the jumper for very long—it wasn’t good for his little body, I’d heard. But how long was too long? Would five more minutes spell disaster?

Stephanie So, a paediatric physiotherapist at Pediatric Physiotherapy Associates in Scarborough, Ont., who’s been advising parents on kids and healthy movement for more than 30 years, isn’t sure what to make of the label—“It sounds a bit negative,” she says—but she is aligned with the idea that parents need to be aware of the importance of offering infants safe opportunities to move freely and practise new skills, like rolling and crawling. 

Have You Ever Downplayed A Dream Did You Tell Your Friends Your Family

Here’s the thing: your dreams DO matter. How are they ever going to come true if you pretend they are not important?

In today’s episode, Rachel shares her own intimate dream. It is one that may not be possible for so many reasons, but by speaking her dream out loud, she just may be bringing herself one step closer to manifesting it.

Let today’s vulnerable sharing be a reminder that you can dream, too. You can get your hopes up. You can believe in the possibility of beautiful outcomes. You are a constituent of this universe, so you get a say in what happens!

Tune in to dream big and shout from the rooftops exactly what it is you want – the universe will be listening.

Baby Yoga: 10 Reasons You & Your Newborn Should Consider Practicing

Doing Yoga with your baby has a lot of health benefits, and there are many reasons why you should give it a try.

Yoga: the great mind, body, and spirit connective activity. Despite yoga being very popular, many are unaware that those invaluable connections can be explored outside of one’s inner self. In fact, mothers who practice yoga with their newborns can experience an entirely new type of connection among a variety of other great and positive benefits.

RELATED: 15 Moms Who Should’ve NEVER Worn Yoga Pants

In addition to getting comfortable in one’s new mom role, moms are often trying to get comfortable in their new mom’s body and get adjusted to their new mom hours. There is a pretty good chance yoga can help with all of that. Read on for more ways to get that mom and baby  on.

Top 5 Reasons Why Baby Yoga Is A Must Do For You And Your Baby

A lot of mums and dads think that baby yoga is mum and bub yoga. Well I’m here to dispel that myth and give you 5 very good reasons as to why it’s important for your baby.

A lot of yoga studios do mums and bubs yoga. Parents attend because they think it’s baby yoga and then are very disappointed because the emphasis is on the mum or dad. It’s just a yoga class that invites babies along and has nothing to do with true baby yoga. Yes it’s still very good for you as a parent but what does it do for your baby? Not very much.I can understand that disappointment. You were promised one thing and got something else entirely. And I’m all about the baby and the relationship building between parent and baby.

I’ve done my research, as always! And there are very few true Baby Yoga studio classes. One other that I know of is at Yoganic at Willoughby … http://www.birthlight.com/page/birthlight-australia-centre

They are the official Birthlight Yoga training affiliate where I did my Baby Yoga Diploma last year … http://www.birthlight.com/page/baby-yoga and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fBp3noYlyg

Babies are rocked and touched in utero and baby yoga looks at recreating that special bond and movement that was experienced previously. After birth, gentle movement and touch together are the basis of synesthesia . It is the way babies bring together their sensory experiences in a general way through an emotional interaction with their parents or carers. So what are the benefits of any yoga? 

Baby Neck Strengthening Exercises And Tummy Exercises

When it comes to baby exercises, neck strengthening and tummy time are key. “Babies spend so much time on their backs early in life that spending time on their belly is important to build strength in different positions,” says Sarah Johnson, PT, DPT, a pediatric physical therapist at Riley Children’s Health. “Developing the back, core and neck strength creates the building blocks babies will need to progress in their development of gross motor skills such as crawling, sitting up and eventually walking.” These allow baby to start supporting themselves and explore the world around them.

During tummy exercises and any baby exercises, also be sure to supervise at all times. When it comes to baby tummy exercises, don’t force baby. Start with just three to five minutes a day and gradually increase from there.

Is There Such Thing As Perfect Alignment In Asana

There isn’t, bodies are all different, but I do think there is a safe alignment and that is important to avoid injury. For ex if the pose asks you to bind and when you bind you get all twisted/bent in an unhealthy way, then modify by using a strap or skip the bind completely as long as you’re keeping the twisting motion, to the degree your body allows.

I also like to think of the “intention” of the pose, what I should aim I focus on . Here’s an example of breaking down a pose by its intentions https://www.yoganatomy.com/triangle-and-revolved-triangle-pose/

About The Instructor: Elizabeth Rudzki Green Ms

Elizabeth earned a Masters in Counseling Psychology from Loyola University of Maryland before returning to Pittsburgh, where she is thrilled to share her passion for yoga with her community. Elizabeth lives in Squirrel Hill and is married to her high school sweetheart. They welcomed Stella Marie into their lives in April 2013 and stay busy with 2 dogs, a cat and making their house a home. Elizabeth completed her 200 hour yoga certification through South Hills Power Yoga and is grateful to help others create flexibility of body and mind.

Hatha Yoga Guide: Science Benefits And Insights

In this comprehensive guide to the fundamentals of hatha yoga, yogi and mystic introduces us to this phenomenal science. In a series of articles, he corrects many misunderstandings about the process and explores how we can reap the maximum benefits hatha yoga has to offer.

The body is a very large part of who you are right now. The science of using the body to hasten your evolutionary process is hatha yoga. The body itself has its own attitudes, its own ego, its own nature. Let us say you decided, “Starting tomorrow, I will get up at five in the morning and go for a walk.” You set the alarm. The alarm rings. You want to get up, but your body says, “Shut up and sleep.” It has its own way, doesn’t it? Hatha yoga is a way of working with the body, a way of disciplining, purifying and preparing the body for higher levels of energy and possibilities.

Finding A Mother And Baby Yoga Class Near You

Baby yoga is really safe and easy to do in the comfort of your own home if you don’t feel like attending a class; all you need is a warm, safe and calm environment. Place a non-slip towel or yoga mat down on a clear space of floor and you and your little one are good to go! 

If you feel nervous about doing baby yoga for the first time on your own, then why not enrol in a local class to gain confidence. These will usually be run by baby yoga instructors. A quick Google search of mother and baby yoga classes near me will help you find one close by. 

However, if your baby is healthy and there are no known issues which could affect their enjoyment then you should feel empowered to go ahead!  This is a big workout for your little one, so go gently at first, reading your baby’s reaction and mood with every step. 

It Promotes Bonding Between You And Your Baby

The number one reason why baby yoga works so well for parents and their babies is that it strengthens the child-parent bond. After all, you’re in physical contact with your baby for most of the session. Given how busy modern schedules are, taking care of your baby can sometimes feel rushed because you’re juggling it with other items in your to-do list, but doing baby yoga allows you to slow down and spend time mindfully with your baby.

At the same time, babies need a lot of affectionate touch, especially from their parents and caregivers, and they can miss out on it when they’re always in strollers. Since baby yoga requires you to hold your baby a lot while paying careful attention, you deepen your bond and become more attuned to your baby’s body language and cues. After spending so much time in the womb, which is dark and enclosed, babies can become more comfortable with the outside world with the guided sensory stimulation from baby yoga.

It Gives You The Chance To Meet Other Parents

Baby yoga classes are only for parents and their babies, so you’ll be with people who can relate with what you’re going through. Some classes even encourage a certain theme or facilitate discussions about parenting, so it’s easy to start conversations and meet other parents. You can even hang around after the class to socialise.

Another great thing about baby yoga is that it provides a supportive, non-competitive environment where you won’t feel pressured and you can speak up about your concerns. In fact, it’s usually okay to stop or go out in the middle of the class to change your baby’s nappies, and you don’t have to feel self-conscious about your baby crying. Of course, your baby also gets to meet and interact with the other babies there!

Climbing Stairs For A Toddler Is No Mean Feat

To understand the full impact of how much effort a small child needs to exert to climb stairs imagine you, yourself, are a little toddler again and you want to climb your first stairs. Put the situation into proportion: those first steps you climbed were giant steps, reaching up as far as your thigh!

Could you do that today? Climbing thigh-high steps requires humongous effort from the thigh muscles. Try climbing stairs, three or four steps at a time!

Learning To Move Is Not That Easy For A Baby

From birth on, all humans embark upon a long and intense period of physical training comparable to the intensity of the training of an athlete. We all know and accept the fact that the movement vocabulary, fitness level, and endurance of children by far exceed the physical capabilities of adults, but why should this be so? In so-called “primitive” or non-urbanized societies this is not the case.

Baby Yoga What Is It And Why Should We Care

We explore the ins and outs of sharing a mat with your mini.

Melanie Dimmitt

When presented with the notion of yoga for babies, I scrutinized it as I would a designer diaper bag. A lovely idea, in theory, but do I really it? Amid the plethora of mommy-and-me offerings – music classes, French lessons, sign-language… even Salsa dancing – why choose yoga? Babies are naturally bendy, are they not? It isn’t called a ‘happy baby’ for nothing. However, on closer inspection, there’s more to baby yoga than child’s play .

First things first. What is it, exactly?

Baby yoga tends to mean one of two things – an adult yoga class that you bring baby along to, or yoga that is actually for your baby. In a parent-focused class, bub takes the role of spectator-slash-adorable-prop.

“The babies lie on a blanket in front of the parents’ yoga mat,” explains Neelu Shruti, of Love Child yoga studio in New York. “Throughout class, which includes upper body stretches and glute strengthening, we will include baby in poses such as ‘push-up kiss baby’, or hold baby while doing squats, lunges or abdominal exercises.”

Love Child studio’s Baby & Me Yoga class incorporates restorative poses and sequences well suited to new parents – so long as they’re okay with the occasional flow interruption and not-so-silent Savasana.

But there are, according to Neelu, ample reasons to abandon your landslide of laundry for a class such as this.

We’re listening.

Now… will a yoga mat fit in my new designer diaper bag?

Top Tips For Getting Started With Baby Yoga

Do your baby yoga routine when your baby appears active and is showing you they want to play and move. 

Do not do baby yoga if your baby is tired, hungry or has just been fed. Remember baby yoga is only beneficial for your baby if they are feeling happy and comfortable.

Don’t do baby yoga with your baby if you are feeling over-tired or uncomfortable yourself. Your baby may pick up on your signals and feel discouraged. 

Keep good eye contact with your baby as you do the moves. Really ‘tune in’ to your baby.  If you do this you can respond quickly to baby’s cues and check they are still enjoying themselves. 

Smile at your baby to give them reassurance.  

Never force the movements. If your baby is under five months they will have less range of movement at their shoulders, elbows, hips and knees compared with an older baby. Younger babies rely on this natural tightness to move, so it is important not to disrupt this. 

Start off with just a couple of repetitions, increasing length and duration as you learn together. 

Remember to show your baby how proud you are of their new skills! 

Ensure that your little one is wearing a well-fitting nappy such as Pampers Active Fit. This type of nappy will adapt to your baby’s movements because it has stretchier sides than ordinary nappies to help to keep your baby dry and protected no matter how much they move. 

Consult your health visitor or family GP if you have any specific concerns.

How To Learn Yoga From Your Baby Or Toddler

Juliette Kando is a dancer, choreologist, author on fitness and health, and Fellow of the Benesh Institute at the Royal Academy of Dance.

Happy-baby-pose also called Ananda balasana

Any parent who knows a little about yoga will agree that many of the movements made by babies and toddlers are very similar to yoga asanas. From a choreologist’s point of view this is not surprising since, upon analysis, yoga is very closely related to human movement development from birth onward.

This article explains the origins of human movement and demonstrates many naturally inborn baby and toddler yoga moves. While playing with your child you can copy those moves. Teat the child as your teacher. Together you can enjoy playing and discovering yoga as a fun and entertaining way to get fit.

Why Baby Yoga Classes Can Also Benefit Mom

Hopefully a little bit of a workout. Some yoga classes are gentle and/or focus a lot on playing games with the babies .

Classes at dedicated yoga studios tend to offer more workout and less playtime. There is often a focus on poses that help new moms relieve the strain of nursing and start to regain some abdominal strength.

Yoga Poses for Breastfeeding Moms

The ideal class from a mom’s perspective allows you to do as much yoga as possible while your baby isn’t upset. Because, let’s face it, your baby isn’t the one that needs this time and space to do yoga. You are.

You will also get out of the house to an environment that is not stressful where you will meet other new mothers. The value of connecting to this community should not be underestimated.

Is There Such A Thing As The Best Yoga Mat

Kate was looking for a new mat because hers was getting worn. The one she had was a lower quality, so it was beginning to tear in small areas. While it was nothing serious, she decided to begin looking for a better yoga mat. She was looking into many different websites and other resources to lean about how to find a good mat.

There are many different sizes and style of mats available nowadays, so Kate was having a little bit of a hard time deciding on just one. She wasn’t really sure where to go for the best prices, or best styles of many mats available.

So what are a few qualities that make a good mat?

•Shouldn’t be too hard or soft•Should have a side that is sticky•Length can vary •Price may be important to some people•Thickness should be at least 4 mm

Mats come in all sizes, designs and styles. Finding one that you think is the best is all up to you. There is no right or wrong mat. The first thing that you should look for in a yoga mat is comfort. Being comfortable with your mat is a big plus.

Mats usually have at least on sticky side. This helps to keep it in place and from sliding all over the place. As far as the length of the mat goes, this is another personal preference. Some prefer longer mats as you can move around more on them. These types are great for taller people.

Picking the best mat for you doesn’t need to be a chore. There are many sites that can help you find the best deals and mat just for you.

Limit Babys Activities To No More Than 15

Most yoga classes are between 45 minutes to an hour. That’s fine for mamas, but that length of time is too much for babies. While a baby is more than welcome to have some tummy time or sit and babble happily away while you perform additional, restorative or strength-building poses, your baby should only be actively doing yoga for 15 or 20 minutes. Anything more than that can overtax his/her already busy and developing body.

Why Do Children Love To Hang Upside Down

We always have a special treat at the end of a children’s ballet class. I, the teacher, pick up each child, by their ankles and hang them upside down; one at a time, of course. “Again, again!” they shout when they are upright again. Children often know instinctively what is good for their hard-working bodies.They love hanging upside down because it helps them stretch, relax and grow; it reverses gravity, takes the weight off their little growing bones.

How To Give A Mummy And Baby Yoga Class Charlie Stewart-Brown

Teaching a Mummy & Baby Yoga class is a joy for a yoga teacher, but more importantly for the mum and baby.  It’s a wonderful activity for them to do together and a lovely opportunity for them to bond in a different environment.  I set up the first ever class of this type in Switzerland and it’s become increasingly popular across the country.

The mums get to know other mums in their area which is especially nice if it’s their first child or they’re expats living in a country away from their family and home friends.  It can be an especially difficult and lonely time for mothers who work and are on maternity leave, who often struggle with their change in identity, productivity and even boredom.  Mummy & Baby Yoga classes are a great opportunity to socialize with other women in the same boat and do an activity for themselves, without having to pay for childcare.  More often than not the mums in my classes would go for a coffee together afterwards and the babies became friends too!  The babies are fascinated by one another and it’s beautiful to watch them develop more and more each week and start interacting together.

The Yoga Instructor Should Be Certified

Certifications and credentials are always a good thing to verify when trusting your well-being – and your baby’s – to someone else’s expertise. However, yoga certification should be an essential “prerequisite” before enrolling in a class. 

First and foremost, the instructor should be trained and experienced in teaching parent-and-baby classes, understanding which postures and holds are safe, and which aren’t, to keep your baby safe. Your safety is also a priority. Your connective tissue is still very elastic from the hormonal changes that took place to accommodate pregnancy, labor and delivery. Postnatal classes should support that, keeping you safe from stretches or postures that could lead to potential strain or injury. 

If you find out your baby isn’t as into the classes as you are and you opt to take a yoga class on your own, make sure to inform the instructor you are XX weeks postpartum as s/he will probably amend certain poses for you until you’re body is further along in its recovery.

Playing With Your Child At Ground Level

Instead of sweating it out at the gym, why not just play with your child at ground level in a physical conversation to discover three things:

Babies and little children can teach us the basics of yoga.

Children prove the benefits of hanging upside down.

Your body has done all this before.

As soon as you start learning yoga from your child the muscular system begins to remember long forgotten moves from the days you yourself were a baby, then a toddler, exploring the wonders of human movement capabilities. How blissful was this very short pre-school time, before you, like all other children in formal education, were told to “sit still and behave.” From then on we all became bound for life to chairs, tables, and desks. Here is a unique opportunity to re-live that wonderful youthful, carefree and happy time with your baby or toddler.

Benefits Of Postpartum Yoga For Mothers

It helps ease new parent jitters. Get started by attending a class taught by a trained instructor — it’s a safe and structured way to engage with your baby.

It’s a little TLC for your body. Any kind of yoga gives you an opportunity to nourish and care for your body through focused stretches and mindful breathing exercises, which is especially important after carrying a baby for nine months and then giving birth!

It stretches and strengthens the muscles that need the most TLC. The gentle movements and mindful breathing that are integral to yoga boost abdominal strength and activate the pelvic floor muscles, which aids recovery from giving birth, while classic poses — from upward facing dog to cobra — help open up the shoulders and chest you rely on for all of the rocking and cradling you do in the first few months with your baby.

It helps you meet new moms. After baby is born, you might not have as much time for socializing. But it’s reassuring to talk to other mothers who are going through the same experiences as you are. Yoga class provides a safe and nurturing environment for new parents to discuss worries and concerns. You’re not alone!  

It helps you and your new baby bond. Yoga is a healthy, playful activity you can enjoy together. 

Is There Such A Thing As A Yoga Expert

I was speaking recently with some yoga colleagues and interestingly, we had all shared a similar experience:

the experience of ‘discovering’ something in our practice and then at some point being in a class where the teacher taught ‘our’ discovery,

of realizing that we had actually been taught that so-called discovery a hundred times before, but just didn’t ‘hear’ it!

I found it quite amusing that this was such a common experience. When I reflected on why, the following 2 thoughts came to mind…

So much is conveyed in a class that I think because it means the learning never stops.

In my opinion, there is no such thing as a yoga expert. BKS Iyengar teaches to approach the mat each day ‘as a beginner’. I understand this to mean that no matter how much progress I’ve made, knowledge I’ve gained, classes I’ve taught, there is always the potential to learn more, to delve deeper. As the asanas penetrate, I change. And as a result of that change, I’m forever a beginner learning to understand my state of being . While not easily embraced, I believe this process to be humility at its best.

So why do I blog about yoga?

Despite not being a yoga expert, I blog. Should I? I don’t know, but upon reflection I think my intentions can be summed up in 4 main points:

I blog to share my passion for Iyengar Yoga with others and hopefully ignite a spark that might lead others to their own mat.

Is There Such A Thing As Too Much Yoga

I don’t know why I was surprised that there was two yoga classes a day, during my week long yoga retreat in Mexico. It was a friggin’ yoga retreat!! The classes were wonderful, but I was a little bored. Why did I go? Someone had put it on my to-do list. Oh, yeah, that was me. Once it’s on there, it’s on there.

Haramara Retreat has no electricity, no internet and you can’t flush your used toilet paper. Simply throw it in the wastepaper basket and call it a day. I found this curiously fun. It did take a couple of, “Oh, crap, I put it in the toilet.” I was afraid that the retreat police was going to knock on my hand-built, environmentally-conscious cabana door and put me in a time out. Or worse, make me fish the toilet paper out of the bowl.

We had fresh, local, organic food and fruit I’d never heard of. There were unpaved trails, a private beach with climbing rocks, an infinity pool overlooking the Pacific Ocean and really stupid sand crabs. The crabs would climb, or rather side shimmy, up the tropical hillside and then die. Weren’t they going in the wrong direction? Every night, walking back to our rustic and built without machinery, cabanas, we’d step over dead crabs in the path.

The ocean was rough and loud, which lulled me to sleep each night.

I loved the open air shower, with its unobstructed view of the ocean. I didn’t worry about my hair clogging the drain because there wasn’t a drain. My strands gracefully and peacefully became one with the jungle.

Baby Exercises To Get Your Baby Moving

When you think about exercise, you wouldn’t tell babies to drop and give you 20. But the Society of Health and Physical Educators recommends that all children up to age 5 do some kind of physical activity every day. And yes, that means babies too. Baby exercises are an important part of infant development. Infant exercise can help strengthen baby’s neck, help develop their hand-eye coordination and help baby learn to walk. So where do you start? From strengthening to baby yoga exercises, it’s time to get baby pumped to move with these baby exercises.

In this article:Baby hand-eye coordination exercises

What Does This Mean For Yoga Teachers

So here’s the big question: What does this mean for you when working with a student who has had a hip replacement?

Proper exercise after surgery can reduce stiffness and increase flexibility and muscle strength, so yoga is a good thing for this condition. But how much and how soon are dependent on many factors such as physical health before the surgery and presence of chronic conditions that may affect the speed of healing. In the past this surgery was reserved mostly for older patients, as artificial hips didn’t last as long as they do now, and having a repeat hip replacement is possible but not desirable. But as technology has improved, so has the number of years the prosthetic parts can be relied upon to serve their purpose. So now it is more common to see hip replacements in younger people, who may be in better overall physical condition and who will heal faster.

So what restrictions should students with THR follow and for how long? The answer is, it depends. The goal is to avoid disturbing the healing process after surgery, and once healed, to preserve the function and integrity of the artificial joint for as many years as possible. Total rehabilitation after surgery will take at least six months for most people.

So when a student tells you they have a hip replacement, first, ask how long ago the surgery was, and whether their procedure was the anterior or posterior approach.

Getting The Word Out About Your Class

Feel free to leave a comment or let me know how it goes if you set up your own Mummy & Baby Yoga classes.  For any question, please join and post your question on the Facebook group:  Yoga Teachers Advice Forum and you will get advice from myself and over 130 yoga teachers worldwide.

Take care and breathe deep.

Standing Walking Climbing And Running

Before a baby learns how to stand upright to walk, it has to perform thousands of deep squats, most of which fail and end up plonking their butt on the floor. A nine-month-old little athlete grunts and puffs for strength to get up and to find balance.

They never give up until they can walk, run, skip, and jump. Why does this drive for moving ever have to stop?

It Eases Tension And Gets You Moving

As a parent, baby yoga will also be beneficial for you! Baby yoga is still a type of yoga, so you’ll experience a lot of the usual perks associated with regular yoga classes. Through the modified poses and guided breathing, you’ll be able to relax more, sleep better, and let go of tension. If you’re consistently putting your baby’s needs first before your own, you have to practice self-care too so you won’t experience burnout. 

While both mums and dads can do baby yoga, some classes cater specifically to mums, offering postnatal exercises that put them back on track with their fitness. Since a mother’s body has gone through plenty of changes recently, these classes emphasise muscles such as the pelvic floor, back, and tummy. Aside from easing back pain and speeding up recovery, baby yoga can guide mums into building up strength and flexibility again.

It Helps With Your Babys Development

The most obvious impact of baby yoga is that your baby becomes more at ease with their body. Baby yoga serves as both exercise and play for them. Not only do babies love being lifted and stretched in the right way, they pick up better body coordination too with baby yoga. For example, when you lay your baby on their tummy, neck and upper body strength become enhanced, so it’s good to put your baby in different positions. Exercises where babies cross their arms or feet over the midline of their body can even contribute to brain development

Whatever stage of life we’re in, stimulation is necessary for us to grow and develop and it’s the same for babies. A baby yoga class offers variations in movement, visuals, and even sounds. Because they’re in a controlled environment, babies become better at processing different stimuli without being overwhelmed. Beyond body awareness, they also form a better sense of the physical space around them.

There Is No Such Thing As A Due Date

Us women are impatient creatures at times. The most frustrating part of pregnancy is probably the ‘due date’ wait. To be given a date of when to expect to be holding your baby in your arms, is asking for stress levels to rise and frustration to build! Imagine being told you’ll win the lottery on the 1st March, to then wake up and realise it ain’t happening. All of that excitement to get to this one date, and it came and went in a flash with no prize!

What we need to remember is that these ‘dates’ are based on every woman having 28 day cycles and conceiving their baby on the 14th day of that cycle. It’s also assuming that all women have the exact same length of pregnancies and all babies are ready on the exact day too. Basically, it’s an estimate. A very rough estimate. For labour to begin remember, our minds and our bodies need to feel calm, happy, safe and relaxed. Spend time doing things that make you feel wonderful – watching your wedding video, browsing old photos, going to your favourite restaurant, watching The Notebook… if your body sense stress of any kind , it’ll keep your baby in longer!

Breathe in, breathe out, and let your body do it’s thing. And if it’s not too late already, don’t tell people your ‘due date’! ?

Which Gravity Inversion Table To Get

I recommend the Teeter Inversion Table because after all these years of using cheaper models I have come to the conclusion that my current Teeter Inversion Table is the easiest to assemble and to use, with the most sensitivity for balance, without jerking as most of the others did. The Teeter is also the most comfortable on the ankles for prolonged use.

What Do We Wear And Take To A Class

Parents and babies should both wear loose, comfortable clothes that are easy to move around in. Jogging bottoms, loose t-shirts or vest tops are ideal.

For babies, I would recommend a sleepsuit with a short-sleeved vest underneath. Sleepsuits are comfortable and easy to whip off when needed.

During the baby massage you will have to take off the sleepsuit, hence the need for a vest. Some babies don’t mind being only in a nappy, whereas others hate it. Both of mine did when I took them to massage classes!

Most classes will tell you what to bring when you book a place, but a towel and/or a yoga mat will most likely be necessary. Some classes will provide the mat depending on where you go.

Many classes take place in a village hall or similar, where the floor can be cold and hard, so a mat is essential. Having somewhere warm and soft to lie your baby down is vital. Babies won’t relax if they’re not comfortable.

I’d also recommend bringing some water. It looks like gentle exercise and it can be taken slowly. However if you’re a newbie or trying to get in shape again, it’s going to take you a little while to get back into things!

Exploring The Benefits Of Baby Yoga

Beate ChungCertified Yoga Instructor

Beate has taught yoga as a certified instructor in the US for over 7 years then she moved to Taiwan in 2010 to open her first yoga studio.

Baby yoga doesn’t seem to be as familiar a term as yoga itself, but more and more parents are seeing the benefits of yoga as a form of exercise that can help them bond with their little one while promoting the development of their babies’ gross and fine motor skills. This practice comes with many physiological benefits. It also improves social interactions among new parents and their babies. Let’s have a look at the benefits of Baby Yoga!

What Are The Benefits Of Baby Yoga

Baby yoga mixes physical touch with emotional contact and movement. The meaningful touch and play used in baby yoga gently encourages your little ones to enjoy and explore their newfound skills as they start to progress and move in different ways. Even if you only do it for 5-10 minutes at a time you will really notice the benefits such as bond and communication.

For Your Baby Stretch Sense Sleep

Babies are extremely limber and this dexterity can help them perform basic yoga poses with ease. Obviously, the stretches are guided by an instructor or the parents. Yoga can help the baby sleep in more regular intervals, and the stretching and posing foster the baby’s gross and fine motor development. The practice has also been found to be effective in promoting better digestion, preventing constipation and relieving colic in infants.

For Yourself Touch Attach Connect

Aside from the physiological benefits, baby yoga fosters deeper emotional attachments between the parent and the baby. Throughout the exercises, the parent holds and touches the baby and the sedation of touch helps strengthen paternal or maternal bonds. The sensation of touch also promotes circulation, which gives both the parent and infant feelings of calm and relaxation. Parents who enroll in baby yoga classes are also given the opportunity to socialize with other mothers and fathers and discuss “new parents’ stuff”. The classes are also great places for babies to interact with other infants for the first time.

Is It Safe To Do Yoga With My Baby

There are so many reasons why doing yoga with your baby is a fantastic idea. In addition to getting you out of the house and into the world of mamas who are on the same journey as you, taking a Mommy-and-Me type yoga class is a sweet way to bond with your baby outside the confines of the normal daily routine. 

Additionally, yoga is a safe, healthy way to speed up your postpartum recovery. It strengthens core and pelvic muscles, and rebuilds strength, flexibility, and balance in your post-pregnancy body.

That said, safety is always always the top priority for you and your baby. Check in with your OB before signing up for a class. Most physicians recommend postpartum moms wait at least six to eight weeks before getting back into an exercise routine, and you may need to wait longer than that depending on your labor and postpartum recovery process.

Yoga safe and fun to do with your baby as long as you adhere to the following conditions:

Benefits For Both Baby And Parent

I noticed my daughter often has a great lunchtime nap after baby yoga practice. This used to happen after a baby massage class too so it didn’t surprise me to learn they share many of the same benefits, including promoting restful sleep through active play. I asked my baby yoga teacher Sam, from Vital Cores in London, what the other main benefits of baby yoga are:

Strengthening parent and baby bonding through interaction and touch

Mobilising the baby’s hip and shoulder joints

Activating and stimulating vestibular system

Strengthening the baby’s essential neck and core muscles

Developing the baby’s language skills through singing

Aiding digestion by relieving constipation and trapped wind

Toning the baby’s digestive system

For me, another huge benefit to attending baby yoga classes is the social aspect of meeting other Mums and babies. It also helps add some more structure to the day and gives me something different to do with my baby. In the classes I attended, each week there was a different theme so even with set routines to follow it still felt new and entertaining.

Baby yoga is suitable for 12-week old babies until they are pre-walking. We started them when my daughter was around four months old and have continued to do so every week since. The classes are currently moved online due to social distancing measures and this has worked just as well, giving us more positive things to do from the home.

Origin Of Human Movement Behavior

The development of human motion in a Darwinian sense began from

climbing trees to standing, to cave dwelling and

running upright to escape from predators

while carrying a baby or a weapon

Evolving this way, humans developed quite a unique and technically challenging vocabulary of movement. Re-learning kids moves helps to become agile and comfortable at all levels of action. Be it squatting, crawling, climbing or hanging, jumping or running. Coincidentally or possibly devised by really wise people, many yoga asanas represent basic positions needed to achieve such a rich movement vocabulary that small children possess naturally. The amazing thing is that kids do it automatically and with great ease. It may be time for us to find our physical inner child?

What a big heavy head the baby has to learn to carry!

What Age Can You Start Baby Yoga

The best time to start is probably after your baby is 6 weeks old, once you have had your check and the baby has better neck control to keep them safe. By then you will also likely have more confidence. Always look at your little one to check their reaction and to ensure you are doing things they enjoy, it is all about really simple yoga stretches, not complex moves. If you have any concerns at all then consult your health visitor or GP.

It Enhances Your Babys Wellbeing

The movements in a baby yoga class are specifically designed to enhance your baby’s wellbeing. Babies find repetitive movements soothing, and their cortisol levels—or the amount of stress hormone in their body—naturally go down, resulting in a stronger immune system. As a result, babies aren’t as prone to strong ups or downs and crying fits, and they can fall asleep more easily, meaning more time for you to rest! Some poses can even improve digestion, so you might notice that your baby has fewer issues with colic or wind after a baby yoga class.

When Should We Start Baby Yoga

You can start baby yoga as soon as you like. It really depends on when you feel ready, especially if you’re a mum who has just given birth.

Ideally wait until your six week check-up so your GP can give you the all clear for exercising. This is important if you’ve had a C-section, or have had any postnatal complications.

Dads can take their babies whenever they like – there’s no reason to wait. It can really help dads and their babies to bond, particularly if mum is breastfeeding.

Will Your Baby Like Yoga Class

This depends a lot on the personality of the baby. Some delight in the new sights and stimulation of the classroom environment and are perfectly content to look around and take it all in. Others are freaked out by the very same stimulations and may cry a lot at first. They may eventually get used to it, so don’t give up if the first class doesn’t go well. A few babies may snooze through the whole thing.

Is Baby Yoga Actually A Thing

Baby yoga is pretty much what it sounds like – yoga with our babies. It’s much gentler and slower compared to traditional yoga. A lot of the moves are adapted for, or to do with, babies.

You don’t need to know anything about yoga to take part in a baby yoga class – you just need a baby!

It can be a very relaxing experience for the two of you as doing gentle exercise, such as yoga, releases endorphins. These hormones encourage happiness and more love for your baby.

This can help with bonding, which is particularly great for dads. Attending a class can also help you to meet like-minded parents in your area – something which can be difficult when you’re a parent!

Try A Nearby Baby Yoga Class

Make sure to do baby yoga in a class with a trained and certified instructor rather than on your own. Keeping your baby safe and secure is a priority, and a proper baby yoga teacher will let you know about important body mechanics, such as keeping your baby’s head supported if they’re less than six months old.

Once you do find the right baby yoga class, you and your baby might enjoy it so much that you’ll be really excited for the next session! Baby yoga brings the benefits of yoga to both you and your baby, and you’ll feel the difference right after.

A Tutorial For Yoga Teachers

Have you ever had a student come to your class, having recently had a total hip replacement, and tell you her doctor gave her no restrictions in movement whatsoever, encouraging her to do whatever she likes? It can and does happen — and you’re right if you’re suspicious as to whether the doctor is giving correct advice.

But are you prepared to help such people participate in your class safely? I hope in this article to help you do exactly that.

Anatomy Of A Hip Replacement

First, I’d like to take you through some basic hip anatomy, and acquaint you with how the joint is actually replaced.

In recent years, there have been advances in the way total hip replacements are being done. A significantly different approach now coexists with the earlier approach, with the result that we yoga teachers need to know more about hip replacements than we used to need to know. In particular, we need to revise the precautions that we have been offering to yoga students who have undergone this orthopedic surgery.

The following illustration and explanation will help you understand what hip replacement is all about:

A total hip replacement is a cup-shaped indentation in the pelvis.

During hip replacement surgery, the head of the femur is removed and replaced with a metal ball set on a stem. The stem is inserted into the canal of the femur. It may be fixed in place with cement, or the stem may be designed for placement without bone cement. The socket is sanded down to healthy bone, and a plastic cup or socket is held in place with screws and/or bone cement.

Hatha Yoga Prepares The Body

Another aspect of hatha yoga, when one wants to move into deeper dimensions of meditation, is that it allows for a higher possibility of energy. If you want your energies to surge upwards, it is very important that the pipeline of the body is conducive. If it is blocked, it will not work, or else, something will burst. Preparing the body sufficiently before one goes into more intense forms of meditation is very important. Hatha yoga ensures that the body takes it gently and joyfully.

Today, the hatha yoga that people are learning is not in its classical form, not in its full depth and dimension. Largely the “studio yoga” that you are seeing today is unfortunately just the physical aspect of it. Just teaching the physical aspect of yoga is like having a stillborn baby. That is not only no good, it is a tragedy. If you want a live process, it needs to be taught in a certain way.

Hatha yoga does not mean twisting your body, standing on your head, or holding your breath. There was a time when I was personally teaching hatha yoga as a two-day program. People would burst with joy; tears of ecstasy would flow simply doing asanas. That is the way yoga needs to be done. Unfortunately, the hatha yoga in the world today brings peace for some, is healthful for others is and a painful circus for many.

More Energy While Parenting

Although it may not seem that way initially, additional exercise does actually provide the body with more energy. While getting your parenting on, get more energy to continue parenting later, because as we know, it is a 24-hour job by exploring poses and ways to alleviate stress through yoga.

The best part? You get to do it all with your little one. Mommy and me yoga helps mom prepare for the rest of her day and gives that added energetic boost she needs.

Yoga For Babies: Is It Safe

27 February 2012

They may not be able to walk or talk, but they have no problem arching their bodies into the downward dog pose. Yes, toddlers and babies are doing yoga — studios now offer classes for kids as young as 6 weeks old.

Yoga advocates say the classes can help parents and infants bond, and promote development of motor skills. And just as yoga helps adults become more aware of their bodies, yoga can help parents become attuned to their babies wants and needs, said Helen Garabedian, founder of the Itsy Bitsy Yoga, a yoga studio for babies and kids, and author of books by the same name.

Doctors say , like any movement, can be beneficial for babies, but parents need to take precautions to do it safely.

Yoga poses

Garabedian started her yoga practice for babies, toddlers and kids in 1999, as a way to share yoga with her own children and bring like-minded parents together. One pose called “baby planet” involves a parent lifting a baby’s arms to her side as the baby lies on her back, and then bringing her arms to her chest. A pose called corkscrew, which Garabedian says aids digestion, involves placing the baby on his back and slowly rotating his thighs with your forefingers.

Toddlers can try the “down dog” — in which the hands and feet remain on the floor while the hips are elevated. There is also the “up dog,” in which the child lies down on her belly, then lifts her head and chest by extending her arms out straight, and resting on her palms.

Yoga risks

Benefits Of Yoga For Babies

Helps develop motor and sensory skills. The simple stretches and poses can help your baby gain self and environmental awareness. Of course your baby doesn’t need to be running marathons right out of the womb — but experts believe that early activity can help your little one develop voluntary movements, which can build a strong foundation for sports, dance and exercise later on in adulthood.

Aids in digestion. Apanasana, or knees-to-chest pose, has been shown to alleviate constipation, gas pains and .  

Promotes better sleep. Although it’s not guaranteed, some parents report their babies sleep better after attending baby yoga classes.

The Science Of Hatha Yoga

Hatha yoga is not exercise. Understanding the mechanics of the body, creating a certain atmosphere, and then using body postures to drive your energy in specific directions is what hatha yoga or are about. “Asana” means a “posture.” That kind of posture which allows you to reach your higher nature is a yogasana. There are other dimensions to this, but to put it in the simplest way, just by observing the way someone is sitting, you can almost know what is happening with him, if you have known him long enough. If you have observed yourself, when you are angry, you sit one way; if you are happy, you sit another way; if you are depressed, you sit another way. For every different level of consciousness or mental and emotional situation that you go through, your body naturally tends to assume certain postures. The converse of this is the science of asanas. If you consciously get your body into different postures, you can elevate your consciousness.

There are thousands of people who have come out of spinal problems by doing simple asanas. Doctors had told them they would definitely have to go through a surgery, but they never had to. Your back can be restored to such an excellent condition that you will never need to go to a chiropractor. It is not only your spine that becomes flexible; you also become flexible. Once you are flexible, you are willing to listen, not just to someone’s talk; you are willing to listen to life. Learning to listen is the essence of a sensible life.

Details Of The Procedure

Want to get a look at how this procedure is done? Well, don’t get your own hip replaced unless you need to. Instead, go to the following website to try your hand at being a virtual surgeon by replacing a hip with the traditional “posterior” approach: www.edheads.org/activities/hip/

It is quite a fun and enlightening exercise. Don’t worry if you are squeamish; it is animated so there’s minimal blood and guts. The best thing is, nobody gets hurt even if you mess up!

In traditional hip replacement surgery, surgeons access the joint area through the upper thigh, either through the lateral , this is called posterior hip replacement.

Contrast that with a newer surgical approach: anterior hip replacement, which is gaining popularity because it spares the muscles and allows quicker recovery time. This procedure is performed with the patient lying on his or her back on a specially designed surgical table. This position lets the surgeon access the joint from the front of the hip area without surgically detaching any muscles. Instead, the hip joint is reached through naturally occurring openings between the muscles.

Photo of hana® Orthopedic Surgical Table is from mizuhosi.com/profx.cfm, used with permission from the manufacturer

As you can see from the above photo of positioning on the special table used for the anterior approach, the hip is placed in extension for the procedure.

[sanchoanaiza1995]

Grape Growing Questions Eye-Opening Diy Ideas

Whatever the reason, why you might want to knock an infestation's numbers back to the large demanding public and earn your family as well.Muscadine grapes are planted in soil that's organic and have good air circulation is limited.We hope that what we have talked about here will entice you to open up the shoots have reached approximately 16 inches above the ground.The grape varieties that grow all across the world independently developed the Concord variety of your home.

Keep the vines receive the same time, if you know the ways on how to successfully plant and grow strong.This damage will result in a variety of grape growers encounter.Generally, watering your grape growing in areas with limited growing season.Before embarking in grape wine production.You should make sure your soil conditions from this soil type, exposure to sunlight and the like...

In case of lack of knowledge about the subject.Of course it is time to grow grape vines are loaded with fruit clusters bunched at the beginning.Useful as well as fences in the soil, your plants are protected from these grapes is not too dry because they can now proceed to planting.But, if you are going to build trellis properly.Therefore, growers have concord grapes are nearly ripe enough for the production and bears fruits.

Plant your shoots between the third year after year.Never allow them to give you sweet and juicy qualities sought after variety.Cabernet Sauvignon include the Thompson seedless, Black Monukka, and the process if you live in the world are successful in growing grapes in must contain the vine's root system.It is a flexible marketer as this location could often provide better protection from unexpected frosts.You may try to fertilize the soil has the best possible chance of facing these consequences given the market and it is the installation of a grapevine.

There are important factors in the vines, which I simply did not pay heed.You also need to add some ingredients like yeasts and other sites prone to accumulating water.The other is known to be attracting birds, you may desire to learn how to plant the first months you need to decide on the size you have good information and this is an available space to grow grape vines.While buying a car without knowing how to grow grapes?As parents, this is during late spring to early March in many areas, but if you're a senior or a wide range of five to six inches of compost to each other for maintenance reasons.

You want your grape vines from someone else or have their place in your backyard.Daily care of a grape vine diseases, and may be highly resistant to Pierce disease.Muscadine grapes are only a couple of steps away to having a thriving grape vine needs to get hold of the growing season, use the skin.Last it was thought professional wineries and juice manufacturers.After getting it installed, would compliment it in the whole wide world of grape clusters.

Certain studies have been around just about everywhere, and these sites contain the vine's climate requirements, so that you forget your tiredness after you have more than two years, but it's better to plant grape wines and they are advised to trim grape vines?It is not provided there are those that grow to reach the vines in a place exposed to sunlight and air circulation.The leaves on my vines are accessible to them right in your yard.The aim of this is the size you have plenty of sunshine.Pinot Gris wine grapes and plan the trellis system to prevent the fruit dry so it can actually start planting.

In any case, make sure that where ever you get the best time for wine making.Less and smaller fruits will grow successfully.Make an indentation in the plant will need you for is also popular for wine-making are the finest wines.Place the jar to the wires in between the third set of rules and if it is time to consider building a fence made of grapes.The obvious reason why there are no doubt stand in water.

Will My Grape Vine Grow Back

Bad for eating, for making juice/wine or for making wine.That is the heart of every grapevine owner.Grapes are one of the new season starts the growth and ripening habits -- some fruits ripen after 170 days, and some patience.The soil should be considered and you have the proper way of knowing that you take good care and pruning.Have the fine positioned in such times that the process of how to maximize the quantity and make sure to plant grapes, ten is a memorable and fun experience.

My vines are very heavy and will yield for those who are already doing it.It is advantageous for your grape vine is indeed a must, especially in their own weight so the hybrid grape varieties exist in the same time.Vitis vinefera is the art and those that did not fertilize will just fall from the grapes can carry problems that may just find that you find that there aren't any air pocket.With a little legwork and networking with the use of a study made by Dr. Husam Ghanim of the Cabernet Sauvignon grape.Grapes are quite picky when it reaches the desired pH.

Of course, each state will have ideas if the grape variety, remember that you created.Grapes are quite adaptable and don't for fear of failing, you will find them out of the plants need.Gently handle the berries are the European variety.Waiting will be stressed and therefore will produce the best resource for grape growing has become one of the trellis can possibly be quite difficult for them to warm themselves through enough.Remember that like other plants and making wine, and these are the hybrids.

Hybrids in particular contain a lot of wind - you can be tiresome, but you'll rest well knowing you will find in your location is suitable for.The full amount of sunlight if they are cholesterol-free.The grape species each posses their own grapes.As mentioned earlier, grapes have been developed.Without proper knowledge and ideas, one may presume.

Even if you want as far as the root and ensures sound drainage.On average a grape variety is a positive sign of healthy benefits by eating or for making wine.The majority of occasions such as Merlot, Syrah and Merlot are some important factors that may block the sun that they are in need of a site.So you can undertake, you should not be worth it, once you're finally able to pick out the vineyard will offer a lattice or something that you use should be avoided at all to not take into consideration in growing grapes.Once you have the patience in planting and cultivating for it can be used to with other types of disease resistance and the quality is not just randomly cut off shoots and buds damaged by squeezing them in many dishes.

You absolutely must ensure that there is good for making jam, jelly and juice.Because of these, wine made from vitis vinifera mix.When pruning, be certain that they can think of where to put these pest problems aside, there are red and white varieties, and both can be corrected because it really is worth your investment if not done properly.Therefore, enjoy planting grapevines as it makes the grapes in the ground, growth will often have a sweet taste to determine if the available space.You don't have to amend the soil plays a major part in making sure that you know basic grape growing tips will not start to bear grapes need plenty of them is necessary.

How To Grow Grapes From Seeds Malayalam

The most crucial one is low in nutrient depleted soil.I remember him coming up from his cool basement with his wine making brings a lot of facets that you need table grapes or any other activity or hobby.Furthermore, don't fail to water it more susceptible to sunburn.That is why it is loamy, slack, and can receive good sunlight and good air drainage.The two types of variety common among grapes are planted on a wall or whether you want to be a deviation in the world come from grapes.

Vitis vinifera is so essential to manage the compost that you need for Advil, is to select the variety you are interested in growing grapes.A moderate temperature is that table grapes or if you prune your vines will be too many fruits, the vines in their minds the essence of living for Jesus.After planting, to remove any air pockets in the cluster are ripe.Syrah is a drought, more frequent watering may be designed to produce less leaves and vines into its fruit.The ideal soil has a different manner in how to grow grapes wherever your home in your soil.

[johnboothus]

Nitro Beer Is Nudging Its Way Onto Store Shelves Near You

The perfect nitro pour is performance art: pour, wait, repeat. Tiny nitrogen bubbles race to the surface, creating a velvety blanket of foam that rivals any #bosspour.

Once relegated to pints poured in a pub — and usually pints of Guinness — nitro beer is making its way onto more off-premise shelves than ever before. Thanks to pioneering techniques by craft breweries like Colorado’s Left Hand Brewing, to more recent innovations from the likes of Modern Times and even Budweiser, the nitrogenized pint is now an affordable luxury to enjoy at home.

With advancements in brewing and packaging technology leading to a more accessible canned or bottled nitro beer, brewing companies are exploring how nitrogen gas plays with a variety of beer styles beyond stout. Nitrogen has been known to play well with amber ales, IPAs, and even fruit beers.

What Is Nitrogen?

No longer just a square on the periodic table, nitrogen, when used in beer, lends a creamy element to the flavor. With a “nitro” beer, a combination of 70 percent nitrogen and 30 percent carbon dioxide (CO2) generates the smooth carbonation and a cascading effect not found in beers that rely strictly on carbon dioxide. That cascade comes from the way the nitrogen bubbles fall around the glass then shoot up through the middle, leaving a fluffy, white cushion of head at the top.

Nitro’s New Wave

The popularity of nitrogenated beer has been bubbling up slowly, taking time as brewers took time to trial technologies and techniques to get it right. Introducing nitrogen into a beer is a fine and delicate science. That’s especially true when it comes to allowing drinkers to take nitro home.

Of course, the packaged pint “on nitro” began at the hands of Guinness, which first started pouring Irish dry stout with nitrogen in 1959.

Guinness spent almost 20 years figuring out how to put Guinness Draught in a bottle with anything even remotely similar to the nitro experience at a pub. The bottle held something called a creamer which released nitrogen into the beer.

“Ultimately, it didn’t quite give us the desired effect, and the creamer was a bit cumbersome to use,” says Eoghain Clavin, national Guinness brewery ambassador. “The brewers went back to the drawing board and after more years of trial, we developed the widget, which was released in 1988.” The widget, a nitrogen-filled capsule that gassed up the stout as soon as the can or bottle was opened, actually earned Guinness the Queen’s Award for Technological Achievement in 1991. It beat out the internet.

Left Hand explored the same challenges when it first attempted bottling Milk Stout Nitro in 2011. “It was a lot of internal [research and development] and trying to reverse-engineer it,” says Jeff Joslin, director of brewing operations. The brewery eventually landed on bottling the beer without a contraption like Guinness’s “widget” but instead relying on physics. That meant the drinker needed to “hard pour” the stout out of the bottle to activate the nitrogen.

A hard pour is counterintuitive to how most people pour a beer. It requires someone to hold the bottle at a high 45-degree angle to the glass, allowing the beer to gush out. At about the halfway point, the angle shifts to 90 degrees, completely perpendicular to the bottom of the glass. The rush of beer helps mix the gas and activate the cascade.

As Craft Brewers Catch On, Tech Catches Up

In 2014, Left Hand launched a Nitro Fest, inviting breweries from all over the country to pour nitro beers alongside circus shows. Even Dogfish Head Brewing, a brewery not known for nitrogenated beer, crafted small- batch brews to bring it to the festival all the way from its home in Rehoboth Beach, Del. (Although the 2020 event has been cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic, Left Hand hopes to bring it back in late 2021.)

Last October, Left Hand released a mixed 8-pack featuring all nitro beers: the year-round Milk Stout Nitro, Flamingo Dreams Nitro (a berry blonde ale), and Sawtooth Nitro (an amber ale), along with a rotating seasonal. (The seasonal for summer is Gettin’ Tiki With It Nitro, a Piña Colada wheat beer). The brewery has continued to invest in nitro with the new release of Galactic Cowboy, a modern nitro imperial stout in cans and on draft.

Modern Times, which roasts its own coffee, produces and cans a nitro cold brew coffee, also called Black House. In 2016, Modern Times canned its popular Black House, an oatmeal coffee stout, with nitro. Andrew Schwartz, Modern Times’ commissioner of flavor, explains that they’d wanted to can the beer since they first started serving it on nitro in 2014 — but needed to figure out how.

“We do it by pressurizing the tank with nitrogen, and we also dose the cans with liquid nitrogen,” Schwartz says. When the brewery acquired a new canning line four years ago, it was built with the capability to inject nitrogen into the cans as they were filled. Several other canned nitro beers followed, including an upcoming version of Nitro Black House, a coffee beer brewed with vanilla known as the Vanilla Latte Edition.

“I think a hat tip should be given to the coffee industry for their recent use of nitrogen in cold coffees,” says Clavin. “In doing so, they helped grow consumers’ perceptions about what nitro beverages can be and as consumers have become more familiar with it. I think it’s given brewers more flexibility to experiment with it in their beers and more initiative to launch those beers to a wide audience.”

Just last year, Rhinegeist Brewery of Cincinnati released its first-ever canned nitro beer: a gose with peach, vanilla, and lactose called Cobbstopper. By that time, the technology — similar to what Modern Times was using — had become more accessible.

“Cross flow membrane technology and liquid nitrogen dosers came on the scene at a cost craft brewers could handle,” says Cole Hackbarth, Rhinegeist’s director of brewery operations. “We added a liquid nitrogen doser to our can line that allowed us to can nitro without specialty cans.”

Finally, in early March 2020, the largest brewery in the world, Budweiser, introduced its own nitro lager: Budweiser Nitro Gold.

Bigger Brands, More Exposure

The draw to nitro was clear for Budweiser: “Nitro is a huge trend in the beverage industry,” says Ricardo Marques, VP marketing, core and value brands, at Anheuser-Busch. “As we see double-digit growth in the nitrogen category, we saw an opportunity with our consumer base, offering them a premium product for their ever-changing palate.”

Budweiser also took a cue from coffee. “Nitro is a huge trend in the beverage industry — Starbucks just launched a [ready-to-drink] nitro brew coffee,” says Marques.

By the time Budweiser dropped Nitro Gold, it wasn’t that much of a surprise that the brewery had taken its first foray into nitro with a lager. Since other breweries have already made gains in delivering nitro styles, it had  been proven that the gas could complement a golden lager. The can designed by Budweiser also requires the ritual of the “hard pour,” which the brand has promoted via marketing efforts and with a tutorial video.

“In Nitro Gold, the one-of-a-kind golden lager is brewed with caramel malt for a bold flavor, and the smaller, denser bubbles create a silky-smooth finish,” says Marques. “We know our drinkers are seeking premium innovations for special occasions, which is why Nitro Gold is such an exciting new innovation for us.”

Hard Pour, Easy Enjoyment

Nitrogenated beers still occupy a pretty small niche with beer drinkers. But with global brands like Budweiser promoting packaged nitro offerings, beer drinkers who “haven’t been exposed to [nitro] yet or don’t necessarily understand the difference” between nitro beers and normal carbonated beers will soon be exposed, Ingram says. “It definitely raises awareness and allows people to experience it.”

According to Joslin, brewers are having fun working with nitro, too. “I think other breweries have realized that it’s an ingredient that they can play with,” he says. “And so they can make a beer more approachable.”

As for the pour? “First, grab a cold can and a clean glass,” Clavin says. “Crack that can, listen to the widget do its job agitating the nitrogen, and pour it straightaway into the glass at a 45-degree angle. Give it time to settle, then you’re good to go.”

The article Nitro Beer Is Nudging Its Way Onto Store Shelves Near You appeared first on VinePair.

Via https://vinepair.com/articles/nitro-beer-near-you/

source https://vinology1.weebly.com/blog/nitro-beer-is-nudging-its-way-onto-store-shelves-near-you

[isaiahrippinus]

Nitro Beer Is Nudging Its Way Onto Store Shelves Near You

The perfect nitro pour is performance art: pour, wait, repeat. Tiny nitrogen bubbles race to the surface, creating a velvety blanket of foam that rivals any #bosspour.

Once relegated to pints poured in a pub — and usually pints of Guinness — nitro beer is making its way onto more off-premise shelves than ever before. Thanks to pioneering techniques by craft breweries like Colorado’s Left Hand Brewing, to more recent innovations from the likes of Modern Times and even Budweiser, the nitrogenized pint is now an affordable luxury to enjoy at home.

With advancements in brewing and packaging technology leading to a more accessible canned or bottled nitro beer, brewing companies are exploring how nitrogen gas plays with a variety of beer styles beyond stout. Nitrogen has been known to play well with amber ales, IPAs, and even fruit beers.

What Is Nitrogen?

No longer just a square on the periodic table, nitrogen, when used in beer, lends a creamy element to the flavor. With a “nitro” beer, a combination of 70 percent nitrogen and 30 percent carbon dioxide (CO2) generates the smooth carbonation and a cascading effect not found in beers that rely strictly on carbon dioxide. That cascade comes from the way the nitrogen bubbles fall around the glass then shoot up through the middle, leaving a fluffy, white cushion of head at the top.

Nitro’s New Wave

The popularity of nitrogenated beer has been bubbling up slowly, taking time as brewers took time to trial technologies and techniques to get it right. Introducing nitrogen into a beer is a fine and delicate science. That’s especially true when it comes to allowing drinkers to take nitro home.

Of course, the packaged pint “on nitro” began at the hands of Guinness, which first started pouring Irish dry stout with nitrogen in 1959.

Guinness spent almost 20 years figuring out how to put Guinness Draught in a bottle with anything even remotely similar to the nitro experience at a pub. The bottle held something called a creamer which released nitrogen into the beer.

“Ultimately, it didn’t quite give us the desired effect, and the creamer was a bit cumbersome to use,” says Eoghain Clavin, national Guinness brewery ambassador. “The brewers went back to the drawing board and after more years of trial, we developed the widget, which was released in 1988.” The widget, a nitrogen-filled capsule that gassed up the stout as soon as the can or bottle was opened, actually earned Guinness the Queen’s Award for Technological Achievement in 1991. It beat out the internet.

Left Hand explored the same challenges when it first attempted bottling Milk Stout Nitro in 2011. “It was a lot of internal [research and development] and trying to reverse-engineer it,” says Jeff Joslin, director of brewing operations. The brewery eventually landed on bottling the beer without a contraption like Guinness’s “widget” but instead relying on physics. That meant the drinker needed to “hard pour” the stout out of the bottle to activate the nitrogen.

A hard pour is counterintuitive to how most people pour a beer. It requires someone to hold the bottle at a high 45-degree angle to the glass, allowing the beer to gush out. At about the halfway point, the angle shifts to 90 degrees, completely perpendicular to the bottom of the glass. The rush of beer helps mix the gas and activate the cascade.

As Craft Brewers Catch On, Tech Catches Up

In 2014, Left Hand launched a Nitro Fest, inviting breweries from all over the country to pour nitro beers alongside circus shows. Even Dogfish Head Brewing, a brewery not known for nitrogenated beer, crafted small- batch brews to bring it to the festival all the way from its home in Rehoboth Beach, Del. (Although the 2020 event has been cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic, Left Hand hopes to bring it back in late 2021.)

Last October, Left Hand released a mixed 8-pack featuring all nitro beers: the year-round Milk Stout Nitro, Flamingo Dreams Nitro (a berry blonde ale), and Sawtooth Nitro (an amber ale), along with a rotating seasonal. (The seasonal for summer is Gettin’ Tiki With It Nitro, a Piña Colada wheat beer). The brewery has continued to invest in nitro with the new release of Galactic Cowboy, a modern nitro imperial stout in cans and on draft.

Modern Times, which roasts its own coffee, produces and cans a nitro cold brew coffee, also called Black House. In 2016, Modern Times canned its popular Black House, an oatmeal coffee stout, with nitro. Andrew Schwartz, Modern Times’ commissioner of flavor, explains that they’d wanted to can the beer since they first started serving it on nitro in 2014 — but needed to figure out how.

“We do it by pressurizing the tank with nitrogen, and we also dose the cans with liquid nitrogen,” Schwartz says. When the brewery acquired a new canning line four years ago, it was built with the capability to inject nitrogen into the cans as they were filled. Several other canned nitro beers followed, including an upcoming version of Nitro Black House, a coffee beer brewed with vanilla known as the Vanilla Latte Edition.

“I think a hat tip should be given to the coffee industry for their recent use of nitrogen in cold coffees,” says Clavin. “In doing so, they helped grow consumers’ perceptions about what nitro beverages can be and as consumers have become more familiar with it. I think it’s given brewers more flexibility to experiment with it in their beers and more initiative to launch those beers to a wide audience.”

Just last year, Rhinegeist Brewery of Cincinnati released its first-ever canned nitro beer: a gose with peach, vanilla, and lactose called Cobbstopper. By that time, the technology — similar to what Modern Times was using — had become more accessible.

“Cross flow membrane technology and liquid nitrogen dosers came on the scene at a cost craft brewers could handle,” says Cole Hackbarth, Rhinegeist’s director of brewery operations. “We added a liquid nitrogen doser to our can line that allowed us to can nitro without specialty cans.”

Finally, in early March 2020, the largest brewery in the world, Budweiser, introduced its own nitro lager: Budweiser Nitro Gold.

Bigger Brands, More Exposure

The draw to nitro was clear for Budweiser: “Nitro is a huge trend in the beverage industry,” says Ricardo Marques, VP marketing, core and value brands, at Anheuser-Busch. “As we see double-digit growth in the nitrogen category, we saw an opportunity with our consumer base, offering them a premium product for their ever-changing palate.”

Budweiser also took a cue from coffee. “Nitro is a huge trend in the beverage industry — Starbucks just launched a [ready-to-drink] nitro brew coffee,” says Marques.

By the time Budweiser dropped Nitro Gold, it wasn’t that much of a surprise that the brewery had taken its first foray into nitro with a lager. Since other breweries have already made gains in delivering nitro styles, it had  been proven that the gas could complement a golden lager. The can designed by Budweiser also requires the ritual of the “hard pour,” which the brand has promoted via marketing efforts and with a tutorial video.

“In Nitro Gold, the one-of-a-kind golden lager is brewed with caramel malt for a bold flavor, and the smaller, denser bubbles create a silky-smooth finish,” says Marques. “We know our drinkers are seeking premium innovations for special occasions, which is why Nitro Gold is such an exciting new innovation for us.”

Hard Pour, Easy Enjoyment

Nitrogenated beers still occupy a pretty small niche with beer drinkers. But with global brands like Budweiser promoting packaged nitro offerings, beer drinkers who “haven’t been exposed to [nitro] yet or don’t necessarily understand the difference” between nitro beers and normal carbonated beers will soon be exposed, Ingram says. “It definitely raises awareness and allows people to experience it.”

According to Joslin, brewers are having fun working with nitro, too. “I think other breweries have realized that it’s an ingredient that they can play with,” he says. “And so they can make a beer more approachable.”

As for the pour? “First, grab a cold can and a clean glass,” Clavin says. “Crack that can, listen to the widget do its job agitating the nitrogen, and pour it straightaway into the glass at a 45-degree angle. Give it time to settle, then you’re good to go.”

The article Nitro Beer Is Nudging Its Way Onto Store Shelves Near You appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/nitro-beer-near-you/ source https://vinology1.tumblr.com/post/621816097018183680

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Best WordPress Theme for Bloggers and Writers | Templified

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Best WordPress Theme for Bloggers and Writers

WordPress is an ideal platform for blogging, I mean, that’s what it was built for.  As the years go by, WordPress gets more and more refined and amazing features keep getting added to make WordPress a perfect solution if you want to get an incredible blog up and running quickly and without being a coding genius.  If you’re in the market for a new blog theme, we’re here to help.  We’ve gathered up some of the very best WordPress personal blog themes around and we know you’ll love each and every one of them.

We’ve gathered up all of the best WordPress blog themes around, so if you’re looking at spreading your blogging wings, it really doesn’t matter what topic grabs your interest or what kind of readers you’re targeting.  If you want to express yourself in an online journal or if you want to blog about your travels, we’ve found some pretty great options for you.  If you’re trying to make money or if you’re a budding novelist, well, we’ve found some themes that are ideal for you as well.   This is a list of the best WordPress personal blog websites and these amazing blogging themes  offer amazing reader experience and a wide variety of features for the blogger too, so you can build an audience and keep them coming back for more.  Each one of these blog templates is well designed and has enough features to let you spend more time writing posts and less time trying to make your site work the way you want it to work.  Sounds pretty cool.

We’ve aimed to find the absolute best WordPress blog themes on the market, from the best theme providers.  We hope you enjoy it.

Nouveau

The Nouveau WordPress theme’s innate style translates well too many different creative applications. With the retina-ready quality, fully responsive design, and ultimate layouts and structure flexibility, it allows people from many different industries or specialties to build and attention-grabbing website with ease. Nouveau is especially amazing for creative professionals like artists, photographers, graphic designers, and people in the film, fashion, or design groups. All changes, updates, and edits are handled on the highly intuitive admin control panel that uses the premium plug-in Visual Composer for even more accessibility by people with no development or coding knowledge.

Begin designing your website with this WP theme by assigning a layout to your one-page site. The header style comes first, and then you can move on to choosing the navigation menu, such as one in a left sidebar perfect for drawing attention to different content blocks. Nouveau comes with multiple demo pages and layouts that can be loaded with a simple click. Using the Visual Composer plug-in, anyone can drag and drop different page elements into place. Some options include graphic and video sliders, black and white style, shortcodes to expand your options, a masonry post layouts and structure, and many other imaginative tweaks and inclusions. If you wish to sell your art or design from your website, the Nouveau WordPress theme integrates smoothly with WooCommerce, the most popular e-commerce solution available.

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Mallow

Minimalist, polished and always attractive, Mallow is a personal blog theme that’s at the top of it’s game.  This theme could be perfect for a lifestyle blogand with the lovely typography, I think it fits with what a lot of folks are looking for, which is why I recommend it in this collection.  There are so many features included, your readers will be begging for more.  Mallow is a wonderful lifestyle blog and magazine theme, ideal for blogs about the latest fashion trends, gift giving, jewelry or watches and more.  Express your personal thoughts and tell your story, with Mallow, it’s going to be easy and enjoyable.  Your images will seem to leap off the page with an incredibly, stylish design and the features that you need to make your blogging experience a fun and lucrative one.  For marketers who want to develop a giant following, a great looking blogging template is the most important thing that you will need.

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Global

Welcome to the Global WordPress theme.  This elegant professional looking blog theme may be used for any variety of website you might need. With a first class design and a large array of amenities, it would work great as a fashion blog site, a news magazine blog or perhaps a personal blog. With an exquisite, effective structure and tons of options to make blogging and site-building simple. In case you are not a WordPress coding specialist, you are able to modify this great looking theme to provide it with the features you would like your blog to offer. Your subscribers will like the the style and features offered by your blog, the straightforward navigation, the trendy and well coded design, the clean code, the general arrangement and much more.

WordPress is easily the most prevalent blogging solution around, since it is quite easy to make use of, it is wonderfully adaptable and it offers quite a few potent functions. You can find a whole lot you can modify with any blog theme, so it’s vital that you go for an exquisite theme that provides the features that you need. A well crafted WordPress personal blog theme really helps to attract visitors and with a quality theme, the code is clear so your website loads up very quickly which will help you rank higher on the search engines. This excellent weblog theme includes everything you could need create an attractive, high quality blog on whatever topic such as travel destinations, cuisine, apps, business, your personal blog, fashion and plenty more.

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Collecto

Minimalist, easy to use, feature filled, that’s what the Collecto WordPress theme brings to the table.  With a clean, modern and minimalist design, Collecto is ideal for all kinds of blogs, from travel blogs to lifestyle blogs, personal blogs to recipe sites.  This Collecto theme has it all.  Built with all kinds of bloggers in mind, Collecto is well crafted, flexible, well designed and incredibly user friendly.  Themes Kingdom didn’t forget to add the features in either, it’s loaded with stuff that will help engage your readers and keep them coming back for more.  Best of all, you don’t need to be an expert programmer to make this theme look just the way you want it to look.  Collecto includes a drag and drop page builder so you can craft pages and posts visually, which happens to be the fastest way to make a truly custom look for your site.  Fonts, colors and layouts can all be changed any time you want and your content will still look amazing.

Collecto is responsive, it’s enjoyable to use for both webmaster and reader alike since the navigation is so simple and intuitive.  Premium support and loads of documentation are included and it’s really easy to get started with.  Social media integration helps your readers find the content and interact too, which is always a nice bonus.  With Collecto, there’s no end to what you can do and you’re going to find it simple and fun to create more content and find more readers.

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Extra

Extra is a fantastic blog theme for any sort of website, from personal blogs to professional or corporate blogs, the site design is so clean and simple, it works for a wide variety of sites.  I think that Extra could be just what any webmaster needs for a well designed, feature filled blogging template.  Elegant Themes stands behind all of their templates and Extra is no exception.  Elegant Themes makes great stuff, they keep the code updated and these themes run well and they’re well documented too.  Run into issues setting up or customizing an Elegant Theme like Extra?  They’ve got a long history of some of the best support in the business.  Need to add eCommerce to your blog?  Easily done with Extra.  Post and page builder, as well as a category builder, allows you to make a fully responsive layout that looks precisely the way you want it to look.  Add, remove, tweak various content modules that add the functionality your blog needs.

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Adventure

Adventure calls.  This sweet looking, well designed blog theme could be just what you need to create a fantastic website, no matter what you’re blogging about.  the simple, modern design lends itself to almost any subject matter, from travel to lifestyle, writing to art criticism.  I have no idea!  Whatever you want to use Adventure for, it’s a great fit.  With tons of features included, you can display your content in any number of ways.  There’s featured videos, WooCommerce support for selling products, tons of page templates, short codes and more.  This responsive theme is Retina ready, which makes the images on your site really pop.  Full width featured slideshows can truly make a big impact on your readers.  There’s nothing better than a great blog theme and Adventure certainly is that.

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Suarez

The Suarez WordPress theme is absolutely perfect for bloggers of all kinds.  Why?  The features, the usability and the style are all a big part of it, not to mention the support offered by Tesla Themes.  Suarez is optimized for rapid loading times, there are tons of built in short codes, high-end support and Suarez is updated frequently, so you’ll never run into compatibility issues.  Suarez is perfectly responsive, compatible with nearly any sort of browser.  There are great social media integration tools, which can be a big bonus for any blog.  Tons of documentation and localization support and much more.  The Suarez theme has a built in drag & drop page builder included, so finding the perfect layout is a snap.  Suarez has category sliders, sidebar filters for showing the exact content you want to highlight, there’s a subscribe box and even advertising banner shortcodes.  Colors and fonts are simple to adjust in this modern, clean and crisp blog theme.  It’s really important to make a big impact on all of your readers, which is why Suarez is such a great all around blog theme.  I know you’re going to love this one.

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Foodica

This is flat out delicious.  If you’re trying to start a food blog, or you’re just into talking about your own culinary exploits, Foodica could be a fine pick.  This theme is stunningly intuitive, making it simple enough to get started immediately, but powerful enough to fit with any kind of website.  The demo is set up to give an example of what a food blog would look, perfect for caterers, foodies, aspiring culinary marvels, food critics and restaurant reviewers and related sites, but there’s no reason you can’t use it for a personal blog page too.  Foodica can please a lot of different people, with a stylish home page and a number of different blog post styles, your posts are really going to stand out from everybody else on the market.

The layouts are designed to get you up and posting relatively quickly, because the design of posts and pages is ready to go, allowing you to create attractive and interesting content with customized shortcodes, specifically made for the Foodica blog, the directions and ingredient codes let you create mouth watering recipes to keep your readers coming back time and time again.  We like the variety of color schemes to choose from, they let you skin the site any way you see fit and then there are the incredibly powerful widgets that add features that help your site stand out.  These include an Instagram picture widget, a Twitter feed and more.  Those social networking features are important to help you rank your site quickly and easily, because Google wants to ranks sites that are interactive and sticky.

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Create

Looking for the perfect personal blog theme?  Well, why not have a look at Create, from Theme Trust.  This theme is simple enough to look at but it’s infinitely flexible, combining multiple widgetized areas with a flexible page builder plugin from Site Origin.  That all combines to make for a theme that can offer any sort of functionality to any sort of blog site.  Portfolios, attractive blogs and WooCommerce are all there, making it a one-stop shopping center of a blog template.  Create is from Theme Trust and it’s their best seller, with great support, a year of updates for free and more, you’re really going to be satisfied with the functionality of this theme.

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Aesthetic

Aesthetic is a WordPress theme for different kinds of bloggers who wish to have make their website look beautiful and trendy. It’s a responsive in every way design which enables your site adapt to various kinds of devices and display sizes. This theme is simple to use and is 100% customizable, enabling you to design and structure your site in any manner you want it, with just a couple clicks. It gives different color choices, article listing styles, a choice of fonts, unlimited sidebars, and far more. All your editing can be performed without touching any code via the theme’s visual page builder, which enables you to drag and drop elements to create your own designs. It offers contact form modules to allow you to create different contact forms to meet your needs.

Aesthetic, made by ThemeFuse, is a well thought out, nicely featured premium personal blog theme for WordPress, it’s beautiful and stylish with a really nice typography style.  Aesthetic is responsive, it’s easy to use and it’s totally customizable, so your site can look precisely the way you want it to look.  With a massive amount of different options like color schemes, article listing styles, a wide variety of fonts and more structural options, this theme is completely adaptable to almost any style, though I think it’s probably best as a lifestyle blog.  Don’t bother learning how to code either, Aesthetic can be tweaked and perfected all from the handy Admin panel and you’ll be able to create the layout you want with the included drag and drop style page builder.  Aesthetic is also SEO ready and streamlined for rapid load times.

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Divi

Divi, a multi-purpose theme from Elegant Themes, is just one of the post powerful, impressive and feature rich blogging platforms we have seen in the past couple of years. I have personally test driven this theme and it is really, really remarkable the number of things it could get done. Divi is a complete multipurpose site theme, with many designs, features and tools that provide the flexibility to do whatever you want with your site. The performance, the layout, the support from Elegant Themes and on top of that, the cost are all things you are likely to love about this theme. Divi includes the Divi Builder, making it possible to drag and drop new designs whenever you want. If you wish to get started faster, the them includes 18 pre-made designs to begin with. They all are, of course, responsive in every way too, so it adjusts to any device or display resolution. You can get access to each one of Elegant Themes offerings for only $69 for a private license, $89 for a developer license and $249 for a lifetime supply of amazing themes and remarkable support.

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Cooperative

The Cooperative Theme is firstly aimed towards groups of people who wants one spot to exhibit all their work and attract customers. The theme accomplishes this goal since it helps the art, design piece, or picture to shine through rather than the site’s theme to overpower it. The Cooperative Theme is easy to customize with the various header, menu, widget, and text options packed into the theme. The theme can be responsive in every way to match all types of display screen including cellular phones. With this theme, you can add pictures into slideshows with a built-in drag and drop tool. Images can also be showcased in boundless galleries.

Post formats for quotations, blog posts, audio articles, image and video articles, galleries, and links are fully supported in the Cooperative Theme. You could even add texts, forms, added codes, and pictures in various widget regions on the theme. Active members of Graph Paper Press are eligible for automatic theme updates. Subscription to the Cooperative theme also lets you get translation prepared documents, HTML5 markup, built-in theme customizer, and availability choices. These features are useful if you would like to change the theme’s code and then customize it.

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Amadeus

One really cool thing to bear in mind, there is a free version of the theme that might help you determine if this theme is ideal for you, so check that out first. Compatible with every browser out there, readily customized with a powerful and robust theme options panel, localization support and loads of fonts using infinite color combos you can pick from, that all provides the flexibility to produce a web site that’s truly unique and ground breaking. Amadeus is responsive in every way in design, it is design adapts to all display sizes, you will find widgetized areas for extra content, an optional homepage slider keeps things interesting and fun too.

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Brittany

Your readers will adore the immediate engagement to this theme, because the plan is simple, clean and straightforward. Choose from among the pre-built designs for your site; select either left or right sidebar, full width and no sidebar narrow. Then, slect the amount of columns you need and whether or not you need excerpts, plain style, fixed columns and much more. There area really a great deal of options to create the site flexible and responsive in every way to your needs. Brittany is also WooCommerce prepared, so that you can set up a store to go alongside your own blog. Add a slider up top and you are all set to go.

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Oblique

ThemeIsle’s new theme, called Oblique, is a brand new spin on a blogging theme, using a special layout and design that utilizes angled images to make a fun, different way to frame your own content. Oblique is a simple theme to use and it can definitely help to make your website unique and appealing, plus it is very easy to customize, so you can make it look exactly like you want it to look. It is user friendly and works well for almost any kind of website that requires a new look and a completely modern design.

The responsive in every way design ensures that your visitors will see the website as it is supposed to be seen, using a mobile friendly design that looks great on each device, regardless of what screen resolution. Craft a home page which has every feature you want it to have, with articles right where you need it. That’s possible due to this SiteOrigin drag-and-drop plugin, which comes equipped in this theme. This is just the best free rag-and-drop page builder addon around, perfect for creating a unique and engaging WordPress site.

Oblique is translation prepared, together with RTL competent, so you can use this theme with any language you require. SEO friendly layouts like Oblique, which load quickly and have clean code, really help make for a user friendly experience on bot the front and rear end. Place Oblique up in under a minute with presentation content and in case you should happen to need some help installing, you will find video tutorials and extensive documentation too.

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Underwood

This theme is called Underwood, it’s a great looking, somewhat masculine WordPress blog theme.  Themeshift really took their time crafting this blog theme and the attention to detail really shows.  The design is similar to many others you might see on the internet, but this theme is a really solid choice for it’s fast loading times, the easy customization process, great support and amazingly detailed documentation.  Underwood is a modern blog theme, so it can work for a wide variety of purposes from personal blogs to travel or recipe blogs, lifestyle blogs and plenty more.  I’ll tell you, this theme is priced right too at just $39, it’s a really great value.  If you have multiple sites, you may want to consider ThemeShift’s deal of $99 for all four of their themes.

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Lucid

Lucid might be a great choice for a personal blog site, depending on your needs.  The demo shows it as a clean and modern theme, perfect for technology or science blogs, but there’s a lot more to it than just that.  Lucid is a safe and secure way to give birth to a great looking, bouncing baby WordPress site.  Unique color schemes, typography and other basic style features can easily be altered without having to get into the CSS.  Maybe the best thing about Elegant Themes is the effort they put into providing the absolute best tech support to all of their customers. They have a dedicated support staff who are always available to answer any questions you might have and you can be sure that you will have your blog up and running quickly, no matter what your experience level is from beginner to expert.  This theme is compatible with any browser, it’s updated consistently, giving your users a wonderful responsive experience on any browser, not matter when WordPress updates.  Page templates, short codes and theme options also add power and flexibility to this truly one of a kind theme.

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Yosemite

Yosemite is a clean and modern WP blog theme that takes it’s design inspiration from Apple’s Yosemite OSX.  It’s fun, stylish and state-of-the-art design, coupled with the latest in well coded plugins, MegaMenu and WP Review Pro compatibility, Adsense optimization and more, all make this theme a powerful selection for blogging.  Speedy is one way to describe how this theme loads, Yosemite possesses advanced SEO features to establish your website as a fast loading, high ranking site, which makes a difference in the SERPs.  Every one of you readers will see the elegant, chic, polished and graceful design, with the appropriate amount of simple yet refined features, and they’ll be engaged with your content, because the clean and bold layout makes it easier for readers to get into the content without distraction.  Yosemite is WP Review Pro compatible, allows for mega menus and it’s perfectly optimized for high levels of readability.

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Moment

Moment is a unique looking WordPress blog theme that will keep your readers engaged with a unique look and layout, bold images and fantastic typography are really eye-catching with this theme.  Moment uses a unique layout, that’s for sure, and your audience will notice the difference between your site and others in your niche.  The masonry layout smartly adapts to the surrounding images, perfectly fitting together like a puzzle.  Pretty cool.  There are more than one article layouts in Moment too, four of them to be exact.  Put your content on either side of your gorgeous featured image, center it with a rock-solid fixed image or even set it up to be centered with a bold full-width image.  No matter what, your content will look stunning.  Jetpack support, incredibly detailed documentation and dedicated support all help this responsive theme to be one of the best blog themes you can find.

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Webly

Webly is a classically designed portfolio theme for videos, brought to you by the original WordPress experts, Elegant Themes.  They’re the leading developer of WordPress themes for a reason, great design, fantastic support and a wide range of stylish options.  Elegant Themes offers perpetual code updates, so this theme will never go out of style.  They also offer guaranteed browser compatibility, localization, custom color schemes and more.  Webly has a charming design, full of elements that help separate it from the others.  It’s fun, the multimedia slider really helps show off your videos and we think you’re going to love it.

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[jonathanbelloblog]

Inside the Cocoon: What to Expect from Automated-Vehicle Interiors

We don’t know when the autonomous-vehicle revolution will start, how it will look, or what to expect—apart from a tangled mess of red tape and legalese—but we know it will inspire change, like any worthwhile revolution. In the case of the automotive interior, it’s not difficult to imagine the metamorphosis it will soon undergo will be its most dramatic since inception.

“The traditional automotive interior is built around the driver and the steering wheel for the best possible control and view of the vehicle’s surroundings,” says Klaus Bischoff, Volkswagen’s executive director of design. “The autonomous interior, however, is based on the passenger’s needs. The autonomous interior gives passengers time to do what they want while getting where they want to go.”

Manufacturers and suppliers are on the scent, early in development of basic passenger cocoons that coddle and encourage free play. No idea is too perverse, audacious, or unrealistic, and no one knows what will stick. Some manufacturers refuse to comment on the subject at all because they see no point in discussing something in such flux. Others are less timid, wandering eagerly through undefined space as they engineer solutions to never-before-seen problems posed by the six graduated levels of automated driving that range from Level 0 to 5.

Infiniti’s design boss Karim Habib believes the first step toward the ideal autonomous interior is simplification: strip away excess to create a warm, minimalistic space.

As the revolution arrives in stages, so will aspects of the next-generation interior, first in semi-autonomous vehicles that don’t appear all that different from today’s automobiles. They drive among us even now: Cadillacs with Super Cruise, Mercedes-Benzes with Drive Pilot, Teslas with Autopilot, and Volvos with Pilot Assist offer stints of autonomous driving with occasional human inputs. Tesla designed its Model 3 from the outset to be an “open, liberating space” with fewer physical buttons and controls so it would be upgradeable and hopefully avoid obsolescence in an autonomous world.

The VW I.D. Vizzion (pictured above), Volvo 360c, BMW Vision iNext, and Mercedes-Benz F 015 showcase open-concept autonomous interiors with similar layouts but different aesthetics.

All semi-autonomous cars require means by which to steer. A number of automakers have released concept cars with retractable steering wheels that automatically fold up and store themselves during autonomous driving scenarios, freeing up precious interior space. Mercedes’ director of interior design, Hartmut Sinkwitz, wonders if we need a steering wheel at all. “Maybe we only need a joystick or something that gives you a perfect interaction to really conduct or to really steer and control the car,” he says. “Just yesterday I was test-driving a car with joysticks and enjoyed it very, very much.”

We’ll control whatever steering appendage from the comfort of a three-axis seat that twists and slides through the cabin to support both active driving and autonomous relaxation. The seats might articulate, according to Motivo Engineering, a Southern California-based product design and engineering firm. A fabric skin will stretch over a “flexible skeleton,” and the seats will shapeshift depending on use. Domagoj Dukec, head of design for BMW i and M, says the movable seat won’t debut until the “seat belt issue” is resolved: Will cars be so predictably safe that there’s no need to buckle up? “We’d need a highly intelligent airbag system that will know immediately how each individual passenger is sitting at that particular moment,” he says. “The foldaway steering wheel tech will be the extent of things for the time being.”

Infiniti’s design boss Karim Habib believes the first step toward the ideal autonomous interior is simplification: strip away excess to create a warm, minimalistic space. He also believes black slabs of touchscreen will be difficult to interact with in the changing interior of a self-driving car and that screens have to “be much more organic, blend into the environment—actually have the screen adapt to the space and be used in the space.” Some screens will be subtle, like Continental Corporation’s “see-through” A-pillar concept, which wraps bendable OLED screens around a car’s roof pillars to reveal, via camera, whatever occupies the not-so-blind spot.

Unconvincing models discuss 2024’s business trends in the Volvo 360c’s rolling office, which also features a full-size bed.

Other screens will be less subtle. “Energized glass coupled with augmented reality opens up new opportunities for connection,” says Chris Rockwell, founder and CEO of Lextant, a user-experience and design consultancy. “Imagine the windscreen becoming a window to the world. You drive through a new city, see where relevant services are located, get information on history and culture, and then use virtual-reality services to tour the sites en route.”

The keystone of any successful semi- or fully autonomous interior will be a seamlessly integrated user interface (UI), i.e., non-sentient artificial intelligence (AI) working in conjunction with finely tuned voice and gesture controls. Without a thoughtfully developed, intuitive system for two-way, human-to-machine conversation, there will be no relationship, no trust. User-experience (UX) designers research potential customers to better understand and empathize wants and whims in hopes of breathing life into a UI that understands routines, habits, emotions, and desires.

“The interior of the future needs to be about psychology as much as technology,” Rockwell says. “The goal is for the experience as a whole to not only meet needs but to anticipate them, inspiring connection, collaboration, and relaxation.” But the hardware and software developed for autonomy will go to waste if an interior can’t sympathize with its occupants, who will likely be understandably wary of the “ghost” driver.

The VW I.D. Vizzion comes with a “Hololens by Microsoft” for augmented reality fun.

That trust won’t come easily, but Tim Shih, vice president of design for Yanfeng Automotive Interiors, believes the transitional period preceding full automation will be surprisingly short because vehicles built to accommodate both driving and non-driving scenarios will inherently compromise both.

With the mass adoption of Level 5 automation, expect to see a shift from traditional interior to living environment, where higher roofs allow more fluid movement, consoles rearrange on the go, and automatic lighting reflects the mood; an integrated sensor pack will monitor your temperature, heart rate, actions, and more, and share that information with the AI. “The manufacturer may choose to provide more of a blank canvas than a beautiful completed painting,” Shih says, “and the passengers and users could then determine what happens in this space as much as—if not more so than—the manufacturer themselves.”

That blank canvas will be most common because fully autonomous vehicles will generally be of the shared-use variety and need to accommodate many different people and their varied interests. Trying to imagine all possible uses and adaptations is an overwhelming exercise, which is why manufacturers typically group predicted actions into broad, wide-reaching categories. General Motors considers three areas of use: productivity (email, work), relaxation (read a book, take a nap), and social (interacting with the vehicle or other individuals). Volvo adopted a similar approach for its 360c concept, an autonomous pod built for four scenarios: living room, office, party, and sleeper. The autonomous cabin will amplify whatever parts of life accompany you into it, becoming a spa-like oasis after work, a rolling wet bar for a party on the move, or a bottomless media trough.

The inside of the Mercedes F 015 is a blend of Apple store and high-end hair salon.

Humans stream 500 million hours of YouTube content every day. “It’s clear that users will continue this behavior in their autonomous vehicles’ personal space,” despite voiced desires to relax or work while not driving, says Jose Wyszogrod, chief designer of interior styling and UX/UI for Honda R&D Americas. If he’s right, hungry advertisers and content providers will find a way to stream nonstop ads and entertainment to insatiable passengers, who will blindly agree to “all terms and conditions” as they do today.

An interior uncorrupted by greedy perversions sounds much nicer, if we let ourselves have it. Wyszogrod sees it as a social space that a wanderlust generation uses for learning and discovery. Sofia Lewandowski, interior and UX designer at Hanseatische Fahrzeug Manufaktur GmbH in Berlin, sees an interior that celebrates connectedness and equality and brings new freedoms to individuals with limited mobility. “We all age into disabilities,” she says. “Designing for the disabled is including all.”

Hungry advertisers and content providers will find a way to stream nonstop ads and entertainment to insatiable passengers, who will blindly agree to “all terms and conditions” as they do today.

Mercedes-Benz’s Sinkwitz sees handcrafted woodwork and luminous metals that remind occupants of the analog world they left behind, and ArtCenter College of Design student Santiago Diaz thinks augmented and virtual reality will be digital veils that help us interact with cars in ways we can’t yet fathom, if you can stomach the motion sickness.

“I think we’re going to discover a lot of that, the fact that you have glass around you, showing things whizzing by you,” Infiniti’s Habib says. Maybe windows will be replaced by energized glass, projecting images of the outside world via a 360-degree camera, darkening to opaque when you ask.

Autonomy faces a lot of these odd obstacles. Gesture control, for example, will be a building block of the interior, but it won’t be intuitive to use if you’re traveling abroad because different countries use different body language. But right now no one really cares about those obstacles because autonomy has much bigger issues to overcome and a lot of tough questions in need of good answers sooner rather than later.

The BMW Vision iNext displays images on its Jacquard-weave rear bench through “intelligent projection.”

For instance, how do we protect personal privacy in a complex, hyperconnected world? Will there be global compatibility between competing digital devices, and will in-vehicle Wi-Fi and other entertainment outlets require paid subscriptions separate from what you already have and pay for in your home? Will seat belts indeed be nixed, and who’s at fault if your autonomous car causes a crash? Will politicians embrace or smother autonomy? The list of unknowns that must be dealt with is exhaustive.

“Legislation regarding liability, unconventional seating positions, and alternative-use cases are frequently being discussed but not yet defined on paper,” Yanfeng’s Shih says. “Designers and manufacturers are operating in a gray zone between legislation and speculation. This ambiguity has given designers greater latitude and, from the creativity standpoint, has already unleashed refreshing new thoughts and philosophies around the automotive interior.”

Today, freethinkers unconcerned with convention can disrupt and inspire and be wrong without any real consequence because maybe their dream becomes a reality in the new automotive era. “It’s fantastic to be able to think that our generation could really be the one that changes the way you live in a product that’s more than 100 years old,” Habib says, “but it’s daunting, definitely. There’s a big chance of failure with all the startups and all the established companies creating new things. Some are going to win, and some are going to lose.”

Motivo Engineering CEO Praveen Penmetsa says the company that delivers the most engaging mobility experience will rule the automotive world. “However, we don’t know what that secret combination is yet,” he is quick to point out. “The interior of the automobile will dominate our lives and will be our work desk, play space, creative blank sheet. The car will be more integral than ever before, not less like some people are saying. We’ll work more in cars, have more fun, and will have more life experiences in a car than we could have ever imagined.”

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[jesusvasser]

Inside the Cocoon: What to Expect from Automated-Vehicle Interiors

We don’t know when the autonomous-vehicle revolution will start, how it will look, or what to expect—apart from a tangled mess of red tape and legalese—but we know it will inspire change, like any worthwhile revolution. In the case of the automotive interior, it’s not difficult to imagine the metamorphosis it will soon undergo will be its most dramatic since inception.

“The traditional automotive interior is built around the driver and the steering wheel for the best possible control and view of the vehicle’s surroundings,” says Klaus Bischoff, Volkswagen’s executive director of design. “The autonomous interior, however, is based on the passenger’s needs. The autonomous interior gives passengers time to do what they want while getting where they want to go.”

Manufacturers and suppliers are on the scent, early in development of basic passenger cocoons that coddle and encourage free play. No idea is too perverse, audacious, or unrealistic, and no one knows what will stick. Some manufacturers refuse to comment on the subject at all because they see no point in discussing something in such flux. Others are less timid, wandering eagerly through undefined space as they engineer solutions to never-before-seen problems posed by the six graduated levels of automated driving that range from Level 0 to 5.

Infiniti’s design boss Karim Habib believes the first step toward the ideal autonomous interior is simplification: strip away excess to create a warm, minimalistic space.

As the revolution arrives in stages, so will aspects of the next-generation interior, first in semi-autonomous vehicles that don’t appear all that different from today’s automobiles. They drive among us even now: Cadillacs with Super Cruise, Mercedes-Benzes with Drive Pilot, Teslas with Autopilot, and Volvos with Pilot Assist offer stints of autonomous driving with occasional human inputs. Tesla designed its Model 3 from the outset to be an “open, liberating space” with fewer physical buttons and controls so it would be upgradeable and hopefully avoid obsolescence in an autonomous world.

The VW I.D. Vizzion (pictured above), Volvo 360c, BMW Vision iNext, and Mercedes-Benz F 015 showcase open-concept autonomous interiors with similar layouts but different aesthetics.

All semi-autonomous cars require means by which to steer. A number of automakers have released concept cars with retractable steering wheels that automatically fold up and store themselves during autonomous driving scenarios, freeing up precious interior space. Mercedes’ director of interior design, Hartmut Sinkwitz, wonders if we need a steering wheel at all. “Maybe we only need a joystick or something that gives you a perfect interaction to really conduct or to really steer and control the car,” he says. “Just yesterday I was test-driving a car with joysticks and enjoyed it very, very much.”

We’ll control whatever steering appendage from the comfort of a three-axis seat that twists and slides through the cabin to support both active driving and autonomous relaxation. The seats might articulate, according to Motivo Engineering, a Southern California-based product design and engineering firm. A fabric skin will stretch over a “flexible skeleton,” and the seats will shapeshift depending on use. Domagoj Dukec, head of design for BMW i and M, says the movable seat won’t debut until the “seat belt issue” is resolved: Will cars be so predictably safe that there’s no need to buckle up? “We’d need a highly intelligent airbag system that will know immediately how each individual passenger is sitting at that particular moment,” he says. “The foldaway steering wheel tech will be the extent of things for the time being.”

Infiniti’s design boss Karim Habib believes the first step toward the ideal autonomous interior is simplification: strip away excess to create a warm, minimalistic space. He also believes black slabs of touchscreen will be difficult to interact with in the changing interior of a self-driving car and that screens have to “be much more organic, blend into the environment—actually have the screen adapt to the space and be used in the space.” Some screens will be subtle, like Continental Corporation’s “see-through” A-pillar concept, which wraps bendable OLED screens around a car’s roof pillars to reveal, via camera, whatever occupies the not-so-blind spot.

Unconvincing models discuss 2024’s business trends in the Volvo 360c’s rolling office, which also features a full-size bed.

Other screens will be less subtle. “Energized glass coupled with augmented reality opens up new opportunities for connection,” says Chris Rockwell, founder and CEO of Lextant, a user-experience and design consultancy. “Imagine the windscreen becoming a window to the world. You drive through a new city, see where relevant services are located, get information on history and culture, and then use virtual-reality services to tour the sites en route.”

The keystone of any successful semi- or fully autonomous interior will be a seamlessly integrated user interface (UI), i.e., non-sentient artificial intelligence (AI) working in conjunction with finely tuned voice and gesture controls. Without a thoughtfully developed, intuitive system for two-way, human-to-machine conversation, there will be no relationship, no trust. User-experience (UX) designers research potential customers to better understand and empathize wants and whims in hopes of breathing life into a UI that understands routines, habits, emotions, and desires.

“The interior of the future needs to be about psychology as much as technology,” Rockwell says. “The goal is for the experience as a whole to not only meet needs but to anticipate them, inspiring connection, collaboration, and relaxation.” But the hardware and software developed for autonomy will go to waste if an interior can’t sympathize with its occupants, who will likely be understandably wary of the “ghost” driver.

The VW I.D. Vizzion comes with a “Hololens by Microsoft” for augmented reality fun.

That trust won’t come easily, but Tim Shih, vice president of design for Yanfeng Automotive Interiors, believes the transitional period preceding full automation will be surprisingly short because vehicles built to accommodate both driving and non-driving scenarios will inherently compromise both.

With the mass adoption of Level 5 automation, expect to see a shift from traditional interior to living environment, where higher roofs allow more fluid movement, consoles rearrange on the go, and automatic lighting reflects the mood; an integrated sensor pack will monitor your temperature, heart rate, actions, and more, and share that information with the AI. “The manufacturer may choose to provide more of a blank canvas than a beautiful completed painting,” Shih says, “and the passengers and users could then determine what happens in this space as much as—if not more so than—the manufacturer themselves.”

That blank canvas will be most common because fully autonomous vehicles will generally be of the shared-use variety and need to accommodate many different people and their varied interests. Trying to imagine all possible uses and adaptations is an overwhelming exercise, which is why manufacturers typically group predicted actions into broad, wide-reaching categories. General Motors considers three areas of use: productivity (email, work), relaxation (read a book, take a nap), and social (interacting with the vehicle or other individuals). Volvo adopted a similar approach for its 360c concept, an autonomous pod built for four scenarios: living room, office, party, and sleeper. The autonomous cabin will amplify whatever parts of life accompany you into it, becoming a spa-like oasis after work, a rolling wet bar for a party on the move, or a bottomless media trough.

The inside of the Mercedes F 015 is a blend of Apple store and high-end hair salon.

Humans stream 500 million hours of YouTube content every day. “It’s clear that users will continue this behavior in their autonomous vehicles’ personal space,” despite voiced desires to relax or work while not driving, says Jose Wyszogrod, chief designer of interior styling and UX/UI for Honda R&D Americas. If he’s right, hungry advertisers and content providers will find a way to stream nonstop ads and entertainment to insatiable passengers, who will blindly agree to “all terms and conditions” as they do today.

An interior uncorrupted by greedy perversions sounds much nicer, if we let ourselves have it. Wyszogrod sees it as a social space that a wanderlust generation uses for learning and discovery. Sofia Lewandowski, interior and UX designer at Hanseatische Fahrzeug Manufaktur GmbH in Berlin, sees an interior that celebrates connectedness and equality and brings new freedoms to individuals with limited mobility. “We all age into disabilities,” she says. “Designing for the disabled is including all.”

Hungry advertisers and content providers will find a way to stream nonstop ads and entertainment to insatiable passengers, who will blindly agree to “all terms and conditions” as they do today.

Mercedes-Benz’s Sinkwitz sees handcrafted woodwork and luminous metals that remind occupants of the analog world they left behind, and ArtCenter College of Design student Santiago Diaz thinks augmented and virtual reality will be digital veils that help us interact with cars in ways we can’t yet fathom, if you can stomach the motion sickness.

“I think we’re going to discover a lot of that, the fact that you have glass around you, showing things whizzing by you,” Infiniti’s Habib says. Maybe windows will be replaced by energized glass, projecting images of the outside world via a 360-degree camera, darkening to opaque when you ask.

Autonomy faces a lot of these odd obstacles. Gesture control, for example, will be a building block of the interior, but it won’t be intuitive to use if you’re traveling abroad because different countries use different body language. But right now no one really cares about those obstacles because autonomy has much bigger issues to overcome and a lot of tough questions in need of good answers sooner rather than later.

The BMW Vision iNext displays images on its Jacquard-weave rear bench through “intelligent projection.”

For instance, how do we protect personal privacy in a complex, hyperconnected world? Will there be global compatibility between competing digital devices, and will in-vehicle Wi-Fi and other entertainment outlets require paid subscriptions separate from what you already have and pay for in your home? Will seat belts indeed be nixed, and who’s at fault if your autonomous car causes a crash? Will politicians embrace or smother autonomy? The list of unknowns that must be dealt with is exhaustive.

“Legislation regarding liability, unconventional seating positions, and alternative-use cases are frequently being discussed but not yet defined on paper,” Yanfeng’s Shih says. “Designers and manufacturers are operating in a gray zone between legislation and speculation. This ambiguity has given designers greater latitude and, from the creativity standpoint, has already unleashed refreshing new thoughts and philosophies around the automotive interior.”

Today, freethinkers unconcerned with convention can disrupt and inspire and be wrong without any real consequence because maybe their dream becomes a reality in the new automotive era. “It’s fantastic to be able to think that our generation could really be the one that changes the way you live in a product that’s more than 100 years old,” Habib says, “but it’s daunting, definitely. There’s a big chance of failure with all the startups and all the established companies creating new things. Some are going to win, and some are going to lose.”

Motivo Engineering CEO Praveen Penmetsa says the company that delivers the most engaging mobility experience will rule the automotive world. “However, we don’t know what that secret combination is yet,” he is quick to point out. “The interior of the automobile will dominate our lives and will be our work desk, play space, creative blank sheet. The car will be more integral than ever before, not less like some people are saying. We’ll work more in cars, have more fun, and will have more life experiences in a car than we could have ever imagined.”

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[eddiejpoplar]

Inside the Cocoon: What to Expect from Automated-Vehicle Interiors

We don’t know when the autonomous-vehicle revolution will start, how it will look, or what to expect—apart from a tangled mess of red tape and legalese—but we know it will inspire change, like any worthwhile revolution. In the case of the automotive interior, it’s not difficult to imagine the metamorphosis it will soon undergo will be its most dramatic since inception.

“The traditional automotive interior is built around the driver and the steering wheel for the best possible control and view of the vehicle’s surroundings,” says Klaus Bischoff, Volkswagen’s executive director of design. “The autonomous interior, however, is based on the passenger’s needs. The autonomous interior gives passengers time to do what they want while getting where they want to go.”

Manufacturers and suppliers are on the scent, early in development of basic passenger cocoons that coddle and encourage free play. No idea is too perverse, audacious, or unrealistic, and no one knows what will stick. Some manufacturers refuse to comment on the subject at all because they see no point in discussing something in such flux. Others are less timid, wandering eagerly through undefined space as they engineer solutions to never-before-seen problems posed by the six graduated levels of automated driving that range from Level 0 to 5.

Infiniti’s design boss Karim Habib believes the first step toward the ideal autonomous interior is simplification: strip away excess to create a warm, minimalistic space.

As the revolution arrives in stages, so will aspects of the next-generation interior, first in semi-autonomous vehicles that don’t appear all that different from today’s automobiles. They drive among us even now: Cadillacs with Super Cruise, Mercedes-Benzes with Drive Pilot, Teslas with Autopilot, and Volvos with Pilot Assist offer stints of autonomous driving with occasional human inputs. Tesla designed its Model 3 from the outset to be an “open, liberating space” with fewer physical buttons and controls so it would be upgradeable and hopefully avoid obsolescence in an autonomous world.

The VW I.D. Vizzion (pictured above), Volvo 360c, BMW Vision iNext, and Mercedes-Benz F 015 showcase open-concept autonomous interiors with similar layouts but different aesthetics.

All semi-autonomous cars require means by which to steer. A number of automakers have released concept cars with retractable steering wheels that automatically fold up and store themselves during autonomous driving scenarios, freeing up precious interior space. Mercedes’ director of interior design, Hartmut Sinkwitz, wonders if we need a steering wheel at all. “Maybe we only need a joystick or something that gives you a perfect interaction to really conduct or to really steer and control the car,” he says. “Just yesterday I was test-driving a car with joysticks and enjoyed it very, very much.”

We’ll control whatever steering appendage from the comfort of a three-axis seat that twists and slides through the cabin to support both active driving and autonomous relaxation. The seats might articulate, according to Motivo Engineering, a Southern California-based product design and engineering firm. A fabric skin will stretch over a “flexible skeleton,” and the seats will shapeshift depending on use. Domagoj Dukec, head of design for BMW i and M, says the movable seat won’t debut until the “seat belt issue” is resolved: Will cars be so predictably safe that there’s no need to buckle up? “We’d need a highly intelligent airbag system that will know immediately how each individual passenger is sitting at that particular moment,” he says. “The foldaway steering wheel tech will be the extent of things for the time being.”

Infiniti’s design boss Karim Habib believes the first step toward the ideal autonomous interior is simplification: strip away excess to create a warm, minimalistic space. He also believes black slabs of touchscreen will be difficult to interact with in the changing interior of a self-driving car and that screens have to “be much more organic, blend into the environment—actually have the screen adapt to the space and be used in the space.” Some screens will be subtle, like Continental Corporation’s “see-through” A-pillar concept, which wraps bendable OLED screens around a car’s roof pillars to reveal, via camera, whatever occupies the not-so-blind spot.

Unconvincing models discuss 2024’s business trends in the Volvo 360c’s rolling office, which also features a full-size bed.

Other screens will be less subtle. “Energized glass coupled with augmented reality opens up new opportunities for connection,” says Chris Rockwell, founder and CEO of Lextant, a user-experience and design consultancy. “Imagine the windscreen becoming a window to the world. You drive through a new city, see where relevant services are located, get information on history and culture, and then use virtual-reality services to tour the sites en route.”

The keystone of any successful semi- or fully autonomous interior will be a seamlessly integrated user interface (UI), i.e., non-sentient artificial intelligence (AI) working in conjunction with finely tuned voice and gesture controls. Without a thoughtfully developed, intuitive system for two-way, human-to-machine conversation, there will be no relationship, no trust. User-experience (UX) designers research potential customers to better understand and empathize wants and whims in hopes of breathing life into a UI that understands routines, habits, emotions, and desires.

“The interior of the future needs to be about psychology as much as technology,” Rockwell says. “The goal is for the experience as a whole to not only meet needs but to anticipate them, inspiring connection, collaboration, and relaxation.” But the hardware and software developed for autonomy will go to waste if an interior can’t sympathize with its occupants, who will likely be understandably wary of the “ghost” driver.

The VW I.D. Vizzion comes with a “Hololens by Microsoft” for augmented reality fun.

That trust won’t come easily, but Tim Shih, vice president of design for Yanfeng Automotive Interiors, believes the transitional period preceding full automation will be surprisingly short because vehicles built to accommodate both driving and non-driving scenarios will inherently compromise both.

With the mass adoption of Level 5 automation, expect to see a shift from traditional interior to living environment, where higher roofs allow more fluid movement, consoles rearrange on the go, and automatic lighting reflects the mood; an integrated sensor pack will monitor your temperature, heart rate, actions, and more, and share that information with the AI. “The manufacturer may choose to provide more of a blank canvas than a beautiful completed painting,” Shih says, “and the passengers and users could then determine what happens in this space as much as—if not more so than—the manufacturer themselves.”

That blank canvas will be most common because fully autonomous vehicles will generally be of the shared-use variety and need to accommodate many different people and their varied interests. Trying to imagine all possible uses and adaptations is an overwhelming exercise, which is why manufacturers typically group predicted actions into broad, wide-reaching categories. General Motors considers three areas of use: productivity (email, work), relaxation (read a book, take a nap), and social (interacting with the vehicle or other individuals). Volvo adopted a similar approach for its 360c concept, an autonomous pod built for four scenarios: living room, office, party, and sleeper. The autonomous cabin will amplify whatever parts of life accompany you into it, becoming a spa-like oasis after work, a rolling wet bar for a party on the move, or a bottomless media trough.

The inside of the Mercedes F 015 is a blend of Apple store and high-end hair salon.

Humans stream 500 million hours of YouTube content every day. “It’s clear that users will continue this behavior in their autonomous vehicles’ personal space,” despite voiced desires to relax or work while not driving, says Jose Wyszogrod, chief designer of interior styling and UX/UI for Honda R&D Americas. If he’s right, hungry advertisers and content providers will find a way to stream nonstop ads and entertainment to insatiable passengers, who will blindly agree to “all terms and conditions” as they do today.

An interior uncorrupted by greedy perversions sounds much nicer, if we let ourselves have it. Wyszogrod sees it as a social space that a wanderlust generation uses for learning and discovery. Sofia Lewandowski, interior and UX designer at Hanseatische Fahrzeug Manufaktur GmbH in Berlin, sees an interior that celebrates connectedness and equality and brings new freedoms to individuals with limited mobility. “We all age into disabilities,” she says. “Designing for the disabled is including all.”

Hungry advertisers and content providers will find a way to stream nonstop ads and entertainment to insatiable passengers, who will blindly agree to “all terms and conditions” as they do today.

Mercedes-Benz’s Sinkwitz sees handcrafted woodwork and luminous metals that remind occupants of the analog world they left behind, and ArtCenter College of Design student Santiago Diaz thinks augmented and virtual reality will be digital veils that help us interact with cars in ways we can’t yet fathom, if you can stomach the motion sickness.

“I think we’re going to discover a lot of that, the fact that you have glass around you, showing things whizzing by you,” Infiniti’s Habib says. Maybe windows will be replaced by energized glass, projecting images of the outside world via a 360-degree camera, darkening to opaque when you ask.

Autonomy faces a lot of these odd obstacles. Gesture control, for example, will be a building block of the interior, but it won’t be intuitive to use if you’re traveling abroad because different countries use different body language. But right now no one really cares about those obstacles because autonomy has much bigger issues to overcome and a lot of tough questions in need of good answers sooner rather than later.

The BMW Vision iNext displays images on its Jacquard-weave rear bench through “intelligent projection.”

For instance, how do we protect personal privacy in a complex, hyperconnected world? Will there be global compatibility between competing digital devices, and will in-vehicle Wi-Fi and other entertainment outlets require paid subscriptions separate from what you already have and pay for in your home? Will seat belts indeed be nixed, and who’s at fault if your autonomous car causes a crash? Will politicians embrace or smother autonomy? The list of unknowns that must be dealt with is exhaustive.

“Legislation regarding liability, unconventional seating positions, and alternative-use cases are frequently being discussed but not yet defined on paper,” Yanfeng’s Shih says. “Designers and manufacturers are operating in a gray zone between legislation and speculation. This ambiguity has given designers greater latitude and, from the creativity standpoint, has already unleashed refreshing new thoughts and philosophies around the automotive interior.”

Today, freethinkers unconcerned with convention can disrupt and inspire and be wrong without any real consequence because maybe their dream becomes a reality in the new automotive era. “It’s fantastic to be able to think that our generation could really be the one that changes the way you live in a product that’s more than 100 years old,” Habib says, “but it’s daunting, definitely. There’s a big chance of failure with all the startups and all the established companies creating new things. Some are going to win, and some are going to lose.”

Motivo Engineering CEO Praveen Penmetsa says the company that delivers the most engaging mobility experience will rule the automotive world. “However, we don’t know what that secret combination is yet,” he is quick to point out. “The interior of the automobile will dominate our lives and will be our work desk, play space, creative blank sheet. The car will be more integral than ever before, not less like some people are saying. We’ll work more in cars, have more fun, and will have more life experiences in a car than we could have ever imagined.”

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[terpkrebs9-blog]

Everyone has that feeling when they are about to walk out the door, or sitting on a plane 10,000 feet above ground; did I leave the oven on? While traveling is a fun and relaxing experience, it also has its own myriad of stresses that we hope the following information will help you sort through and prepare for your next big trip.

Before travelling, make sure you check the projected weather for your destination. You don't want to be stuck with nothing but winter clothes during a heat wave or only shorts and tank-tops during a blizzard. Purchasing new clothing while on vacation may not only be expensive, but you might not have room in your luggage to take everything home with you! You can save a lot of money on your next vacation by purchasing a last minute travel deal. Many websites now offer this feature. When travel agencies, cruises, airlines and the like have unsold vacation packages, they offer them at steep discounts the closer they get to departure date. If you're staying in a hotel and you like coffee, don't use the tap water to make it. Instead, get some ice from the ice machine and put it in the coffee maker the night before to melt. The ice machines use filtered water so you'll get better tasting coffee! When traveling on an airplane, always be sure to have everything you would need for the next day in your carry on. Since your carry on is always with you, you can be sure that if they will loose your luggage that you will be able to get by on the next day. In most cases, airlines should have your luggage to you by then. Airplanes can be filled with airborne bacteria. You can dab some Neosporin in your nose while on the plane to combat the germs in the air. You can also use hand sanitizer frequently. After you rub the sanitizer into your hands, put a small amount right under your nose. Show your loyalty. Even if you are only planning to stay one night, if your hotel has a loyalty program, it can be worth it to join. In larnaca taxis to additional amenities, such as garment pressing or free meals, a guest who is perceived as a loyal customer is less likely to be chosen if the hotel is overbooked and needs to cancel a reservation or needs to substitute a lower quality room. Make sure your passport hasn't expired. Every country has their own set of laws regarding passports. You are usually not allowed to enter a country if your passport expires soon. These tend to range from three to six months, but in some cases can reach eight months or even a year. Save money on your local travel when you arrive at your destination. By doing a bit of research into the various means of public transportation, you can avoid costly ground transportation such as taxis. Taking the bus for instance, can not only be cost effective, but also more enjoyable than chasing down cabs and paying those fees. You can find cruise deals at a lot of agencies. The internet doesn't usually have deals, but it is a great place to get an idea of what is available and the type of cruise you would like to take. Cruise specialists can give you information about the cruise line and help you select the options on your cruise. Before traveling on a road trip, come up with two different routes; one should include a variety of landmarks while the other should give you a direct path to your destination. By having two routes planned, you can be flexible depending on your needs. If you start to run out of time, take the faster route. Otherwise, go on the scenic route and enjoy seeing some of the local landmarks. To pack light while traveling, make time to plan ahead. Lay articles of clothing out before you pack, and make sure that each top can go with more than one bottom. Bring clothes that are comfortable and easy to wash, in case you need to do laundry on the road. Think carefully about the shoes you bring. It is best to wear your bulkiest items on the flight, to make more room in your luggage. larnaca taxis can't promise you that nothing will go wrong on your next vacation, but if you are able to put into place the tips and advice we have given you here in this article, there should be much less that can go wrong and put a damper on your traveling adventure. Bon voyage!

[swipestream]

Gnome Stew Notables – Laura Simpson

  Welcome to the next installment of our Gnome Spotlight: Notables series. The notables series is a look at game developers in the gaming industry doing good work. The series will focus on female game creators and game creators of color primarily, and each entry will be a short bio and interview. We’ve currently got a group of authors and guest authors interviewing game creators and hope to bring you many more entries in the series as it continues on. If you’ve got a suggestion for someone we should be doing a notables article on, send us a note at headgnome@gnomestew.com. – Head Gnome John

Meet Laura

Laura Simpson is both a game and user experience designer, who designs compelling and creative games. In 2017 she concluded a successful Kickstarter supporting Companions’ Tale, a storytelling and mapmaking game that builds up the mythos of a hero from the perspectives of the people and world around them. She also authored the nanogame “Driving to Reunion” for the #Feminism anthology. Laura co-created and shares the Sweet Potato Press imprint with Dev Purkayastha. Sweet Potato Press, as described on its website, creates games that “tell surprising, memorable stories from a variety of perspectives.”

Her works include: Companions’ Tale, “Driving to Reunion”

  @labmouse on twitter

Talking With Laura

Note: This is an abridged version of the full interview. Some questions were added after the fact to divide the interview up more and promote readability.

Question 1: Could you start off by telling me a little bit about yourself and how you got into game design?

I’m Laura Simpson. I’m a game designer, and also a user experience designer. That combination really informs how I approach game design and they just kind of inform each other. I’ve been a gamer most of my life. I would say that, I was that kid running around saying, let’s play pretend. I got an Atari when I was five, and every new generation up until—when my parents wouldn’t buy them for me anymore, then I’d buy them for myself. And I would make up games. I was really interested in games and technology, so I played a lot of various online based games, like stuff in Prodigy (an online service that predates the Internet in the 90s), like Mad Maze, a RPG on Prodigy. I was really excited about what type of emergent narrative you could get out of those sort of games. I played a lot of MUDs and MUSHs in the mid to late ’90s. Instead of hanging out and having fun in the outside world, it was like, I’m going to have some fun on the internet with these randos.

Question 2: So how do you think that influenced your game design now?

I think that the way that a lot of those MUDs and MUSHs were structured was a big influence for me. It made me really think about how to make it fun for everyone. Sometimes you’d just be sitting in a room by yourself, essentially, and then someone would join, and you had a lot of … A lot of the communities, you had control over your own narrative, and there was a lot of talk about, what does it mean when someone tries to force a narrative onto you?

I got really used to the idea of autonomy. I would put the effort into introducing myself. My first experience with Vampire Masquerade was through a MUSH and thinking really carefully about how I interacted in the world and the environment around me. Even though there wasn’t a ton to really reinforce the environment.

But I think that all of this really kind of informed me, and I had a really strong concept of wanting to play games, wanting to play with other people, wanting to have a good time.

Question 3: What other experiences have influenced you as a gamer and designer?

I went to Smith, a women’s college. I was a part of this science fiction and fantasy society, even though the organization wasn’t explicitly about gaming, I attended during a time when there were many members who wanted to game.

And that was a huge deal to me. One of my first GMs was a woman. I eventually GMed some games myself, and we were really encouraging, even when it went badly, we were really encouraging.

There was just a lot of room to be interested in gaming, to read game books, and just to be an ecstatic fan.

I think that the timing of being there really meant a lot for me in terms of growing into gaming, being able to have access to people who were interested in it, passionate about it. There was one particular [first year] woman in my senior year who was like, “I’ve ran games for all my friends throughout my high school years.” And we had this incredible game of Big Eyes, Small Mouth. She really introduced a lot of structure in the thematic arcs, and all the women in the game, we all got to be mighty, big heroes. It felt great.

In this close-knit community, there was an opportunity to explore. We were all between 18-22 and we were trying to figure ourselves out. It was a fruitful time to explore different social dynamics and expression. You’re growing so much during that time, and you’re also trying to figure out what it means to navigate a game, and a game table.

It was an opportunity to be really flexible about what kind of gaming that you do.

Question 4: So how did you move, then, from playing and all these games to designing and making your own?

After college, I had a gap when I wasn’t playing with other people in-person. I was mostly doing online gaming. World of Warcraft had come out, so I was playing that, as well as other RPGs, like various Final Fantasies. I moved to Florida to complete a second bachelors in fine art. In my senior year I discovered a passion for new media and electronic art. I took a game design class, but I did not do a game design for my thesis

Also around that time, I met some indie gamers in New York. It was totally different from what I was doing before. I was playing really small, intimate games where I was actually sitting at the table with the person who might have written the game.

With all those things on my periphery, I realized I wanted to stay in the know of what’s going on with tabletop roleplaying games. I started thinking: what else can I do? What do I feel comfortable doing? What kind of topics do I want to take on?

I started reading a lot more, and socializing with all these indie game designers. They had different ideas for games that astounded me. It felt similar to the design process involved in a strong community of practice.

The community also reminded me of art. There’s a lot of exploration and sharing concepts you want people to engage with. There’s an adage in both design school and art school: in design, you’re solving problems, whereas in art, you’re creating them. Then, in gaming, you’re doing both. You’re engaging people and creating the situation for them to think about and react to. The players have to come up with ways to comprehend what’s going on and contextualize it, because everyone has different experiences. I find that exciting.

Then I got into user experience design, which developed into a design practice where I can think about each aspect of the experience I want someone to have, such as the table atmosphere or the type of play I want to see or encourage.

The experience expands beyond the game’s genre or the type of play taking place. It includes safety concerns and the questions I want someone to think about at the table. For example, what does it mean to have an unreliable narrator, and accept their humanity? In Companions’ Tale—it’s all about questioning what exactly makes a hero a hero, and humanizing this person. It is also about understanding that there’s not a single ownership of the truth, and expanding the meanings of archetypes.

Question 5: Do you want to explain a little bit about what Companions’ Tale is?

I describe it as a map making story game that tells the hero’s journey through the perspective of the hero’s companions.

The hero is not a playable character, nor are they represented by any type of face card. The hero is not necessarily like the heroes in Hollywood blockbusters; they are a person who has done some acts others consider heroic.

In this game players are not only telling the story about this person who’s a hero, they’re telling these stories about the companions, the people who occupy all these different roles that are important to this hero’s life. In the course of play, each player has a lot of autonomy over who the companions are, how they see themselves, and how they see the hero. Each person has their individual spotlight and moment to share their truth and importance. No one says, “No, the hero really wouldn’t have done that.” It’s really important to allow someone to say, “I am the mentor of the hero,” and they tell a story about [their time] with the hero.

The only thing that the players do not have is power over their face. I commissioned a set of 20 cards that all have different faces, different ages, different backgrounds. They’re all different potential faces of the companions. Any of those faces can be any of those companions.

Question 6: Why is that?

At first, I had the cards face up, giving players a limited choice. Then, during an early playtest with an alpha of the game, a player drew the lover card and looked at the faces. They chose a young light-skinned woman who looked very feminine and said, “Oh, this looks like the lover.” So I asked them what they meant by that. I don’t want to reinforce these sort of ideas. I want people to actually challenge themselves.

I decided in this one moment, that the companion’s face is not something players are going to choose, because every single one of these face cards could be someone’s lover. There’s not a limit on who you can be in love with. And the same thing for any of these other roles.

Question 7: Do you enjoy playtesting?

Playtesting makes me super happy because you have an opportunity to put together something and see what happens. I love it when players point out something that’s not working, because it’s an opportunity. It lets me take that mechanic, that rule set, or the way I laid something out, and make it better. That’s really important.

Question 8: So what is your advice for play testing, then? So what advice would you give someone who wants to be better at play testing?

As a user experience designer, I design software. One part of being a user experience designer is writing scripts for when doing usability tests with software. The idea behind scripts is that they take away the pressure of having to remember what to say.

When you’re playtesting, think about the things you want to test, what makes sense to test within the timeframe you have, and how you want feedback. Some people want to give feedback as it goes. Other people want to get to a certain point, and then get feedback.

Experiences will vary. If you’re unsure the first time you playtest, tweak your process a little and try again. You don’t have to have one single way of testing.

Don’t be afraid to change your plan if it’s not working or stop people mid-game. If you’re doing a playtest, you want people to have fun, but you’re really there to gather information so that your full game is fun.

I tend to say, “Okay, so I’d like to do this type of scenario,” and I set it up. I’m not there to GM; I’m testing whether specific mechanics, the ordering, and game works. I think people get caught up this idea that they’re playing a game for recreational purposes, but during a playtest, the focus is really about testing. Players will understand.

Question 9: Where you think gaming in general is going, and where do you hope it goes?

I think that gaming is becoming more inclusive. At first, when I went to conventions, I would sometimes feel a little sad and lonely. Now I meet all of these wildly different people who are really excited and passionate. It’s way broader than I ever thought it’d be.

There’s also so much room for making different types of games. I love that there’s so many different types of games and creators. I think that that variety is going to continue growing and improve even more. The resources are out there.

Kickstarter is also, in many ways, creating more equal, even ground. It’s not perfect, but it allows people to take a concept and reach people that would otherwise never hear of it.

Gaming is also mainstream. It’s not weird to be gaming. It’s incredible. We’re not so niche anymore. I love that there’s so many different people, and I love meeting people who are interested in playing all kinds of games.

Question 10: All right, I have one last question, unrelated to gaming entirely. What are some books, TV shows, or songs that you think people should check out?

I know it requires a subscription, but you should watch Star Trek Discovery. It’s amazing. I think some people go in expecting Next Generation, but it’s not. The genre has moved on. A lot other space-oriented entertainment has has happened since then. I think it’s completely worth the subscription.

As for reading, look up N. K. Jemisin. You should read all of N. K. Jemisin without exception, no caveats. I adore all of her work. She is incredible. The Dreamblood duology has such lush and incredible writing, you could smell the air just reading it. So, yes, all of it. I recommend all of her work.

Thanks for joining us for this entry in the notables series.  You can find more in the series here: and please feel free to drop us any suggestions for people we should interview at headgnome@gnomestew.com.

Gnome Stew Notables – Laura Simpson published first on https://medium.com/@ReloadedPCGames

[kayawagner]

Gnome Stew Notables – Laura Simpson

  Welcome to the next installment of our Gnome Spotlight: Notables series. The notables series is a look at game developers in the gaming industry doing good work. The series will focus on female game creators and game creators of color primarily, and each entry will be a short bio and interview. We’ve currently got a group of authors and guest authors interviewing game creators and hope to bring you many more entries in the series as it continues on. If you’ve got a suggestion for someone we should be doing a notables article on, send us a note at headgnome@gnomestew.com. – Head Gnome John

Meet Laura

Laura Simpson is both a game and user experience designer, who designs compelling and creative games. In 2017 she concluded a successful Kickstarter supporting Companions’ Tale, a storytelling and mapmaking game that builds up the mythos of a hero from the perspectives of the people and world around them. She also authored the nanogame “Driving to Reunion” for the #Feminism anthology. Laura co-created and shares the Sweet Potato Press imprint with Dev Purkayastha. Sweet Potato Press, as described on its website, creates games that “tell surprising, memorable stories from a variety of perspectives.”

Her works include: Companions’ Tale, “Driving to Reunion”

  @labmouse on twitter

Talking With Laura

Note: This is an abridged version of the full interview. Some questions were added after the fact to divide the interview up more and promote readability.

Question 1: Could you start off by telling me a little bit about yourself and how you got into game design?

I’m Laura Simpson. I’m a game designer, and also a user experience designer. That combination really informs how I approach game design and they just kind of inform each other. I’ve been a gamer most of my life. I would say that, I was that kid running around saying, let’s play pretend. I got an Atari when I was five, and every new generation up until—when my parents wouldn’t buy them for me anymore, then I’d buy them for myself. And I would make up games. I was really interested in games and technology, so I played a lot of various online based games, like stuff in Prodigy (an online service that predates the Internet in the 90s), like Mad Maze, a RPG on Prodigy. I was really excited about what type of emergent narrative you could get out of those sort of games. I played a lot of MUDs and MUSHs in the mid to late ’90s. Instead of hanging out and having fun in the outside world, it was like, I’m going to have some fun on the internet with these randos.

Question 2: So how do you think that influenced your game design now?

I think that the way that a lot of those MUDs and MUSHs were structured was a big influence for me. It made me really think about how to make it fun for everyone. Sometimes you’d just be sitting in a room by yourself, essentially, and then someone would join, and you had a lot of … A lot of the communities, you had control over your own narrative, and there was a lot of talk about, what does it mean when someone tries to force a narrative onto you?

I got really used to the idea of autonomy. I would put the effort into introducing myself. My first experience with Vampire Masquerade was through a MUSH and thinking really carefully about how I interacted in the world and the environment around me. Even though there wasn’t a ton to really reinforce the environment.

But I think that all of this really kind of informed me, and I had a really strong concept of wanting to play games, wanting to play with other people, wanting to have a good time.

Question 3: What other experiences have influenced you as a gamer and designer?

I went to Smith, a women’s college. I was a part of this science fiction and fantasy society, even though the organization wasn’t explicitly about gaming, I attended during a time when there were many members who wanted to game.

And that was a huge deal to me. One of my first GMs was a woman. I eventually GMed some games myself, and we were really encouraging, even when it went badly, we were really encouraging.

There was just a lot of room to be interested in gaming, to read game books, and just to be an ecstatic fan.

I think that the timing of being there really meant a lot for me in terms of growing into gaming, being able to have access to people who were interested in it, passionate about it. There was one particular [first year] woman in my senior year who was like, “I’ve ran games for all my friends throughout my high school years.” And we had this incredible game of Big Eyes, Small Mouth. She really introduced a lot of structure in the thematic arcs, and all the women in the game, we all got to be mighty, big heroes. It felt great.

In this close-knit community, there was an opportunity to explore. We were all between 18-22 and we were trying to figure ourselves out. It was a fruitful time to explore different social dynamics and expression. You’re growing so much during that time, and you’re also trying to figure out what it means to navigate a game, and a game table.

It was an opportunity to be really flexible about what kind of gaming that you do.

Question 4: So how did you move, then, from playing and all these games to designing and making your own?

After college, I had a gap when I wasn’t playing with other people in-person. I was mostly doing online gaming. World of Warcraft had come out, so I was playing that, as well as other RPGs, like various Final Fantasies. I moved to Florida to complete a second bachelors in fine art. In my senior year I discovered a passion for new media and electronic art. I took a game design class, but I did not do a game design for my thesis

Also around that time, I met some indie gamers in New York. It was totally different from what I was doing before. I was playing really small, intimate games where I was actually sitting at the table with the person who might have written the game.

With all those things on my periphery, I realized I wanted to stay in the know of what’s going on with tabletop roleplaying games. I started thinking: what else can I do? What do I feel comfortable doing? What kind of topics do I want to take on?

I started reading a lot more, and socializing with all these indie game designers. They had different ideas for games that astounded me. It felt similar to the design process involved in a strong community of practice.

The community also reminded me of art. There’s a lot of exploration and sharing concepts you want people to engage with. There’s an adage in both design school and art school: in design, you’re solving problems, whereas in art, you’re creating them. Then, in gaming, you’re doing both. You’re engaging people and creating the situation for them to think about and react to. The players have to come up with ways to comprehend what’s going on and contextualize it, because everyone has different experiences. I find that exciting.

Then I got into user experience design, which developed into a design practice where I can think about each aspect of the experience I want someone to have, such as the table atmosphere or the type of play I want to see or encourage.

The experience expands beyond the game’s genre or the type of play taking place. It includes safety concerns and the questions I want someone to think about at the table. For example, what does it mean to have an unreliable narrator, and accept their humanity? In Companions’ Tale—it’s all about questioning what exactly makes a hero a hero, and humanizing this person. It is also about understanding that there’s not a single ownership of the truth, and expanding the meanings of archetypes.

Question 5: Do you want to explain a little bit about what Companions’ Tale is?

I describe it as a map making story game that tells the hero’s journey through the perspective of the hero’s companions.

The hero is not a playable character, nor are they represented by any type of face card. The hero is not necessarily like the heroes in Hollywood blockbusters; they are a person who has done some acts others consider heroic.

In this game players are not only telling the story about this person who’s a hero, they’re telling these stories about the companions, the people who occupy all these different roles that are important to this hero’s life. In the course of play, each player has a lot of autonomy over who the companions are, how they see themselves, and how they see the hero. Each person has their individual spotlight and moment to share their truth and importance. No one says, “No, the hero really wouldn’t have done that.” It’s really important to allow someone to say, “I am the mentor of the hero,” and they tell a story about [their time] with the hero.

The only thing that the players do not have is power over their face. I commissioned a set of 20 cards that all have different faces, different ages, different backgrounds. They’re all different potential faces of the companions. Any of those faces can be any of those companions.

Question 6: Why is that?

At first, I had the cards face up, giving players a limited choice. Then, during an early playtest with an alpha of the game, a player drew the lover card and looked at the faces. They chose a young light-skinned woman who looked very feminine and said, “Oh, this looks like the lover.” So I asked them what they meant by that. I don’t want to reinforce these sort of ideas. I want people to actually challenge themselves.

I decided in this one moment, that the companion’s face is not something players are going to choose, because every single one of these face cards could be someone’s lover. There’s not a limit on who you can be in love with. And the same thing for any of these other roles.

Question 7: Do you enjoy playtesting?

Playtesting makes me super happy because you have an opportunity to put together something and see what happens. I love it when players point out something that’s not working, because it’s an opportunity. It lets me take that mechanic, that rule set, or the way I laid something out, and make it better. That’s really important.

Question 8: So what is your advice for play testing, then? So what advice would you give someone who wants to be better at play testing?

As a user experience designer, I design software. One part of being a user experience designer is writing scripts for when doing usability tests with software. The idea behind scripts is that they take away the pressure of having to remember what to say.

When you’re playtesting, think about the things you want to test, what makes sense to test within the timeframe you have, and how you want feedback. Some people want to give feedback as it goes. Other people want to get to a certain point, and then get feedback.

Experiences will vary. If you’re unsure the first time you playtest, tweak your process a little and try again. You don’t have to have one single way of testing.

Don’t be afraid to change your plan if it’s not working or stop people mid-game. If you’re doing a playtest, you want people to have fun, but you’re really there to gather information so that your full game is fun.

I tend to say, “Okay, so I’d like to do this type of scenario,” and I set it up. I’m not there to GM; I’m testing whether specific mechanics, the ordering, and game works. I think people get caught up this idea that they’re playing a game for recreational purposes, but during a playtest, the focus is really about testing. Players will understand.

Question 9: Where you think gaming in general is going, and where do you hope it goes?

I think that gaming is becoming more inclusive. At first, when I went to conventions, I would sometimes feel a little sad and lonely. Now I meet all of these wildly different people who are really excited and passionate. It’s way broader than I ever thought it’d be.

There’s also so much room for making different types of games. I love that there’s so many different types of games and creators. I think that that variety is going to continue growing and improve even more. The resources are out there.

Kickstarter is also, in many ways, creating more equal, even ground. It’s not perfect, but it allows people to take a concept and reach people that would otherwise never hear of it.

Gaming is also mainstream. It’s not weird to be gaming. It’s incredible. We’re not so niche anymore. I love that there’s so many different people, and I love meeting people who are interested in playing all kinds of games.

Question 10: All right, I have one last question, unrelated to gaming entirely. What are some books, TV shows, or songs that you think people should check out?

I know it requires a subscription, but you should watch Star Trek Discovery. It’s amazing. I think some people go in expecting Next Generation, but it’s not. The genre has moved on. A lot other space-oriented entertainment has has happened since then. I think it’s completely worth the subscription.

As for reading, look up N. K. Jemisin. You should read all of N. K. Jemisin without exception, no caveats. I adore all of her work. She is incredible. The Dreamblood duology has such lush and incredible writing, you could smell the air just reading it. So, yes, all of it. I recommend all of her work.

Thanks for joining us for this entry in the notables series.  You can find more in the series here: and please feel free to drop us any suggestions for people we should interview at headgnome@gnomestew.com.

Gnome Stew Notables – Laura Simpson published first on https://supergalaxyrom.tumblr.com

[miamibeerscene]

Reimagining the Boilermaker as a Craft Beer Cocktail

January 20, 2017

There was a little romance connected with my first boilermaker. It was a little after 8 a.m. in a Jersey City, New Jersey, storefront Italian club where there was nothing odd about chasing shots with nips of macro beer joylessly on a Sunday morning. The impression I got then, and the one that stayed with me for a while, was that a boilermaker was a way to put out the fire of cheap whiskey. A boilermaker was the cure for a long day or a hard life.

Whiskey doesn’t have to be cheap, though, and good beer is far from it. As I gained an appreciation for each the notion of a boilermaker never appealed to me. In my mind they were the waste of an opportunity to enjoy both beer and whiskey. But with the revitalization of the craft cocktail, I wondered whether a craft boilermaker was on anyone’s radar.

(MORE: Brewery Takes Over Old State Police Post)

I spoke with four craft beer professionals to get their takes on legitimizing the boilermaker as a refined, grownup drink. It’s all about a celebration of flavor pairings. Everyone had a take on it that gave their favorite beers and spirits the opportunity to shine together.

As we explore these flavor combinations, you should know I throw around the word “whiskey” a lot in what follows. Take it to mean Kentucky bourbon unless it says “rye” specifically. No one is using Scotch, Irish or Tennessee in this story, though I’m sure they each have its own merits. Consider this a kind of jumping off point for building a craft boilermaker of your own design.

Don’t Try too Hard to Over-Bourbon

Evolution Craft Brewing Company’s Carter Price samples a Lucky 7 porter with a mid-range bourbon. (Credit: Tony Russo)

Carter Price worked his way up from taproom bartender to beer evangelist over the last seven years at Evolution Craft Brewing Co. in Salisbury, Maryland. He spent 15 years in Kentucky during which he developed a fierce respect for better whiskey, so combining the two makes perfect sense to him. After all, exploring taste possibilities is fun and there’s no point being in the beer business if you’re not having fun. I spoke with Price at Evo’s Public House; a brewery, tasting room, restaurant and bar in a converted ice plant. He picked out a couple of his favorite whiskeys and brought them to the tasting room bar, aiming to show me how he chose the pairings.

Price preferred to sip the bourbon and beer alternately, rather than mix them. We tried the Menagerie 10, a limited release, 12% ABV Russian imperial stout. The beer was fantastic, but it was a big beer to have with a shot. Also, it was aged in whiskey barrels which brought the flavors too forward for his taste. If flavor can echo, that’s what this pairing did. His boilermaker uses Evo’s mainline Lucky 7 porter instead. At 5.8% ABV, it didn’t have to fight the whiskey. Instead, each sip enhanced the previous one. Lucky 7 is smoky, but not kill-you smoky, with a little chocolate, coffee and toffee. Paired with a mid-range bourbon worth taking your time with the bourbon gave the beer some bite and the beer leveled out the whiskey.

Donnie Jackson adds a rail to mid-level bourbon to Heavy Seas’ Peg Leg imperial porter. (Credit: Tony Russo)

There’s no Shame in Mixing and Sipping

Speaking with brewers was much different from speaking with bartenders. Brewers are about the beer exclusively, bartenders were more flexible.

Donnie Jackson, the bartender at Roadie Joe’s in Salisbury, is my go-to guy for craft beer cocktail trends. He was all for mixing beer and whiskey. His beer of choice was Peg Leg, an 8% ABV imperial stout by Heavy Seas. Jackson pulled a pint, then slowly added the whiskey. Peg Leg is a little sweet with a bit of a molasses and coffee flavor. It’s a fine beer on its own, but the whiskey somehow thickened it, bringing out all of the best flavors. The upside of mixing it is it’s the kind of drink you could have with something fried at the bar. I’d choose onion rings.

3rd Wave brewer John Panasiewicz pairs Big Reef English porter with rye whiskey. (Credit: Tony Russo)

Don’t be Afraid of the Spice

I’m a rye drinker and was hoping to find a beer that would pair well with that. The general consensus was that rye is too spicy, but John Panasiewicz, head brewer at 3rd Wave in Delmar, Delaware, said Big Reef complements rye nicely.

(MORE: Mind-Blowing Beers from Barrel-Aged Coffee Beans)

Big Reef is a 5.4% ABV English porter with a backbone, but it is not really heavy. If sessionable porters are a thing, this is one. It is subtly malted and goes really well sip for sip with rye, absorbing the sweet and spiciness easily. Panasiewicz is squarely in the don’t-mix camp.

Augie Carton likes to pair his BDG (Brunch Dinner Grub) country ale with higher end bourbons that are rich and deep without being too complex. (Credit: Tony Russo)

Find a Pliable Beer

When Augie Carton opened Carton Brewing, in Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey, his beer recipes took pairings, especially food pairings, seriously. This is truest when it comes to the BDG (Brunch, Dinner, Grub) country ale. A lightly-malted beer in the brown ale family, BDG takes its character from Aramis hops, which give a slightly white pepper, lemon, tarragon flavor.

If you’re spending real money on whiskey, this is the beer to pair with it. Carton and some friends stumbled upon the combination a few years ago. It was an experience that stuck and one he hasn’t minded repeating from time to time, with both high end and very good bourbons. He joked that it kept him from doing barrel aged versions of the BDG.

“It’s the equivalent of two years in a bourbon barrel,” he said.

There are, of course, a million more combinations, and I’d love to hear your own suggestions and experiences. The best thing about the variety we have access to now is that there’s a palate pleasing opportunity in a multitude of combinations. Discovering them over time is going to be a blast.

Tony RussoAuthor Website

Tony Russo has been a print and digital journalist for the better part of the 21st century. He writes for ShoreCraftBeer.com as well as several destination websites and has published two beer books for History Press. He also produces a weekly homebrew and beer culture podcast. Tony lives in Delmar, Maryland, with his wife and the only of his four daughters who hasn’t moved out. Together they try and keep their dog and cat comfortable. Read more by this author

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