#I will diminish and become a regular spawn | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

littlewalken · 4 years

Text

TZN Exclusive Interview: Andy Robinson

On Garak, "Star Trek", "Dirty Harry" & Sci-Fi Idealism

TrekZone Network sat down with Andrew Robinson, who played the Cardassian Garak in "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine", in Hamburg prior to the "Evening with Andrew Robinson", organized by FKM Events. We talked about Garak's past and future, Robinson's current projects and the idealism of science fiction fans.

TrekZone Network: Is this the first time you are in Hamburg?

Andrew Robinson: No, I was here 12 years ago for a convention with another organizer. So this is my first time back in 12 years, I believe.

Andy Robinson at the FKM Evening in Hamburg

TZN: Long time.

Robinson: It has been a long time. And as they say, a lot of water under the bridge...

TZN: You have been to Germany in the meantime?

Robinson: Yeah, I've been here several times. For one reason or another and in several different places. I have come here for a whole bunch of reasons. Even just as a tourist. But I have never made a film here or anything.

TZN: Your first stint as Garak was in the third episode of "Deep Space Nine". When you first got that role, did you anticipate or did you know that it was going to be a recurring role?

Robinson: No, not at all. Originally, the role of Odo, that Rene Auberjonois played, came down to three of us. Myself, another actor and obviously Rene. Then Rene got the role. Then they asked me to come in a few weeks later to read for this other role, which I thought was just going to be one episode. But it turned out that they were looking for a way to get the character of Doctor Bashir more involved with the show and so they, they were testing a storyline for Doctor Bashir and obviously the storyline was: he meets this older Cardassian, presumably tailor. Is he a spy? Who is he? This very mysterious person, the last Cardassian left on the station.

They wanted to see if there was any chemistry between Siddig and myself as actors. And of course we hit it off immediately. We had a great time with each other. And so it was based on that when they saw that episode, I think it was "Past Prologue", and they saw that we were working well together then they decided to add more episodes of Garak. Which I am eternally grateful for.

TZN: Do you regret that you were not cast as Odo?

Robinson: No, no, no, no. Not at all. As an actor, and an actor of a certain age, after a while you become very philosophical about these things. And genuinely so. Whoever gets the role, that was their role, you cannot feel remorse or try to second-guess or be bitter. And it always is the right actor as far as I am concerned and certainly with Rene it was the right actor. He was wonderful as Odo.

TZN: The part as Garak turned out to be rather substantial as well, of course.

Robinson: O, Garak was one of the best characters, I mean this, he was one of the most enjoyable, fully satisfying characters I have ever played in my life. And the fact that it is the only time in my life, too, as an actor, that I was able to develop a character over a seven-year period, and not be overused. By that I mean often if you are a regular on a series, they run out of things for a character to say and to do, and so the character just ends up repeating himself/herself, and the actions and the plotlines and after a while it becomes what they call the law of diminishing returns. The character becomes reduced. With Garak, because I was not a regular character, I appeared occasionally, I think I was in 39 episodes, and when I appeared, it was for a reason. Almost always it was for a reason, There are a few episodes when I wondered what I was doing there... But that always happens and at least they paid me, so that was fine.

TZN: Is there anything you would have liked to do as Garak on screen? Or any aspect of his character, his personality, that you would have liked to develop?

Robinson as Cardassian Elim Garak

Robinson: They did start this love story. But then they could not find the right actress. And so they had this one actress playing Ziyal and they did not like her, so they had another actress playing Ziyal who looked like my granddaughter, so that made me feel a little perverse. Then they just decided to forget about it. But it would have been wonderful to have had a bittersweet love story, someone who breaks Garak's heart, who tries to unlock the mystery romantically and cannot do it.

It is one of the reasons I wrote the book, to explore that part of Garak, Garak's heart. Because as an actor, you fall in love, well you do not always fall in love with your characters but the ones that you do fall in love with, it is a very deep relationship that you have with the character, and the character does take on a life on its own. Because as an actor, that is what you try to do. You try to transform yourself into this character's life. Obviously, I am not Garak, I am not Hamlet, but you find those places within yourself that can make that transformation.

I was not a "Star Trek" fan when they hired me. I had no idea what the "Star Trek" universe was, who Cardassians were, who Klingons, Romulans, I had no idea about any of that.

TZN: You had never seen anything, never heard about it?

Robinson: I had heard about it but never saw a thing. And a Cardassian? I had no idea what that was.

TZN: Then the makeup was applied...

Robinson: Yeah, right. But they did show me the episode, in "Next Generation", I think David Warner was the first Cardassian or was Marc Alaimo the first?

TZN: Marc Alaimo.

Robinson: Yeah, but it was that two-parter where David Warner's Cardassian character is torturing Picard and I thought, well, that is a really interesting-looking guy. That was the first episodes that peaked my interest. I thought, they deal with substantial things. And the acting was wonderful. Of course, David Warner has always been one of my favorite actors.

So I started writing a diary. As if Garak had a diary and I would write things, and I would make up things about him. And it is what you do, it is what an actor does sometimes for any character. You try to create a story, a life for this character. And when the series was over, I realized there were still things I would have loved to say about Garak and that is why I wrote the book "A Stitch in Time".

TZN: Did you start with the diary when you recognized that Garak would not be a one- or two-episode thing but a recurring role?

Robinson: Yeah, exactly, I think I started in the second year. I also started it when I started being invited to conventions and I realized, after two or three conventions, there were four or five questions people who would always ask me. How long does it take, your makeup... But I thought, would it not be interesting if I if at the conventions did something different. And so what I would do is that I would get up and I would read excerpts from these diaries. It became enormously popular, and that in a sense spawned a lot of things, then as actors we all started saying, well, maybe there is something that we can do rather than just get up and talk about our makeup and so forth. And that unleashed a whole bunch of stuff. Even Siddig and I wrote a play together that we did at several conventions and it was really a rather challenging play, dealing with string theory...

TZN: What was it about? I read just before this interview that you had this play...

Andy Robinson in Hamburg in June 2008 (Photo credit: Klaus Wittmack)

Robinson: Well, basically Garak and Bashir meet up in this place and it is like, nobody knows, but it looks like a convention with "Star Trek" fans there. And so they had to conduct this very tricky business in front of these people sitting at tables and sitting in chairs watching them. It was very, very, very postmodern. (laughs)

And there was a time when we were working on the play in front of an audience, too. Towards the end, when we finally got it written and got it right, that was when it was at its best but while we were experimenting with it, I think a lot of people fell asleep. (laughs)

Getting back to those diaries, [Michael Scott] co-wrote a book with Armin Shimerman ["The Merchant Prince"] and he said to me, "You should turn this into a book!" and that was when I did. And it was actually the first "Star Trek" book that was written without what they call a ghostwriter.

TZN: Are you thinking of writing another novel about Garak?

Robinson: No. I actually have said everything I could possibly say about Garak. I really have. Plus, if I did, I would then because of the corporate nature of Pocket Books, the Simon and Schuster division that does the "Star Trek" books, I would then have to follow all these other books that have been written about Garak and that does not interest me at all. Because the story I came up with was actually, oddly enough close my story, especially when Garak was a young man.

TZN: You did write another short story though, right? Set after the book.

Robinson: Right.

TZN: That was the last thing we have heard from Garak. In that story, he is not in a very positive state of mind and not in a good place.

Robinson: No.

TZN: So if we could jump forward in time, to a time and place after that, where would we find Garak?

Robinson: Dead. Honestly, because when I wrote that novella, first I was interested in putting - because I live part of the year in Paris -

I was interested in having Garak in Paris and see what that was like. Paris is like a museum now, and I thought that they would have really preserved it in 400 years and it would have become the museum of the world. But when I got Garak to Paris, it became very depressing. That is why I think he was not in a great state. I realized that if I had have written much more about Garak, he probably would have had to die. I do not want to go into why because it is all political and you are not here about politics. (laughs)

TZN: When did the producers tell you about who Garak's parents were?

Robinson: The big reveal was of course with Enabran Tain, who was the head of the Obsidian Order. I know that the mother appeared at one point when they were on Cardassia in that last series of episodes that I was in and that they ended up at Garak's mother's house, hiding. But the story of Garak and his parents really is what I myself put together, in terms of the relationships.

TZN: Did you have a hunch though that the storyline could develop into the direction of Enabran Tain being revealed as Garak's father?

Robinson: O, no! It was a big surprise to me. It was great!

TZN: Just like for the viewers.

Robinson: O, yeah, absolutely! But that is how I felt every time I would get a new script from the writers because the writers loved writing for Garak, that was the pleasure. It was evident that they liked writing for Garak because of the language, the dialogue that they would give him which was so delicious and so much fun and very ironic. One of the things you certainly know is that in America irony is not at the top of our list. As a people we do not really appreciate ironic humor. I think that one of the things that made Garak popular is the fact that he did have a sense of irony. That to everything he said there was a twist and there was always a subtext. And indeed probably he was lying but enjoying it and enjoying the fact that he was lying and seeing how far he could get away with it and who was gullible and who was smart.

Andy Robinson in Hamburg in June 2008 (Photo credit: Klaus Wittmack)

TZN: There was this one episode with the implant, "The Wire". That embodies everything you just said.

Robinson: Yeah, and that is by far my favorite episode.

TZN: We asked our readers to hand in some questions for you beforehand. One of them is: how long did it take to apply the makeup?

Robinson: At the beginning, it took about four hours, I would say. And then they got it down to about two hours. Towards the end they got more dexterous, thank God, because sitting in the chair for four hours meant that I would have to come in long before dawn and it was just excruciating, it was horrible. Even two hours was bad enough. It is the only thing about Garak that I do not miss at all.

TZN: Did the makeup inhibit you in the way you could express yourself?

Robinson: Well, that is the great, mysterious thing about working with a mask like that. For one thing the technology is very good, there were I think seven prosthetic pieces and they were all very flexible, very pliable and so you put it on and you think, my God, it is like this corpus, you're encased in it. But then you were fine, you could move. You were not, you were not limited the way Rene was limited with Odo because he could not eat, he lost a lot of weight. That is something I should have done!

But he had to take his lunch through a straw and so he could not move much at all because it was a mess. If he marled just a little bit, then he would have to sit in a chair and have to go through a whole process to get it back to that smoothness. That obviously was not my problem. My problem was the claustrophobia that I have, which I experienced actually last night. I went to a bar in Paris with some friends to watch the French lose to the Dutch. (laughter) Really lose. And deservedly so, I mean it. The French should get rid of that coach of theirs because he is awful.

I was at the bar and everybody was crowding in around me, I had to leave at the interval, go home and watch it on my own television. That was the thing about the Garak makeup. That was one thing but then this heavy wig that they put on top of me and then, because they wanted Cardassians to look big, they made the costumes out of the material that you make furniture pads, furniture textiles, and so all the costumes were very heavy and once you zipped them up it was like you were in a sauna, literally.

Actually that is where I lost a little weight, a lot of water weight anyway. When you get under the lights, underneath the makeup and the wig and the costume, there were rivers of sweat, I was soaked underneath. Not very glamorous (laughter) and I certainly did not smell like a flower.

TZN: I have got another reader question here, that touches a different subject. Did you know that there is speculation about Garak's sexuality?

Robinson: Oh, yeah. I started it.

TZN: Really? Then this might be interesting to this reader. He calls himself your gay fan Dominion and he asks a lot of questions like: Why haven't we seen a gay character in "Star Trek"? Have gays become extinct in the 24th century? Do you think there will ever be a gay character in "Star Trek"? Do gays not belong in "Star Trek's" future?

Robinson: O, yeah. There will be gay characters. Certainly now there will be, for one thing, America is still very puritan, we are very squeamish when it comes to sexuality. I remember when I very first played Garak, I played him gay! I thought this would be great! He sees this young man, this young, very attractive doctor on the station, he is lonely, he is the only Cardassian there, this doctor is curious about him, and if you remember, this was a great moment because Sid totally went with it! When he comes up and he puts his hand on his shoulder, Sid did this great thing, it was this sort of an electrical charge that went through him and so I played him totally gay in that episode.

Garak's First Scene

Of course the producers did not actually tell me not to play him gay but then they started writing him a little more macho and more like a Cardassian. But I said, "Listen, one of the great things about Garak is that he is not Gul Dukat, he is not one of those macho, militaristic guys, he is your finesse Cardassian." So we struck a compromise but I was always very clear. I did not get into it in the book. Quite frankly, I was going to go in that direction. I had written a whole thing about Garak's sexuality because I felt that Garak was sort of - talk about bisexual, I think that he was multisexual, essentially that anything that moves is fair game for Garak. He has a voracious sexual appetite.

But as I say, especially on American television you have the odd gay character now but it is all going to be just cosmetic. In terms of commercial television ever getting into real sexuality, that is not going to happen. "Star Trek" is very conservative, there is a conservatism about "Star Trek" that I think "Deep Space Nine" in a sense went against. It defied that conservatism. "Deep Space Nine" was not as black and white as the other "Star Trek" shows. It was different. It was not people in a rocket ship doing one-night stands on a planet to planet to planet, coming in and battling the evil aliens or some kind of monster or whatever. It was a community unto itself on the edge and this is what I loved about the show, every one of the characters on "Deep Space Nine" had a moral dimension about them. Each one of them was in touch with their dark side.

That episode "In the Pale Moonlight", when Garak introduces Captain Sisko to the concept of realpolitik, that okay, if you want to get rid of the Romulan threat, what you do is, you kill them. And you kill them in a not very nice way. So you just eliminate your enemy. Of course that is not fair play, that is not the American way. I was surprised, I loved that episode because it was very mature in that sense. It said you have to grow up, this is the world you live in now. And of course the world we live in now is very morally ambiguous to say the least.

I rambled, I am sorry. We went away from sexuality but I think there has to be more gay characters. I do not know what this movie is going to be like but this movie I believe is about Starfleet academy?

A gay Sulu? According to Robinson an interesting idea

TZN:It is a prequel. It is not entirely set on Starfleet academy but shows the young crew in their early years getting together.

Robinson: Right. For instance, I wonder, George Takei, who has come out, who is an openly gay man, and actually now I think he and his partner are going to get married since the California Supreme Court has now finally legalized gay marriage. But I wonder where they are going to go with his character in this prequel. It would be very interesting.

TZN: You did some work behind the camera as well. You directed I believe an episode of DS9. How was that for you, the experience to suddenly tell your colleagues what to do?

Robinson: Yes, right. It is funny, it was very different getting on the other side of the camera and not just working with the other actors, I mean they were fine. But it was the first episode I really had a lot of trouble with because it was my first episode ever directing something. And of course when you are directing "Star Trek" you have the added dimension, the added complication of the special effects. Although they have great special-effects people and you just get out of the way and let them do their work but still you are always trying to visualize what the picture looks like as a director.

But I must say that directing the "Star Trek" episodes really in a sense changed my life because it was the first time I started directing. From there I went on to a lot more directing, mainly theater because I have always been more of a theater person than a film person. And that really gave me the courage to continue in that direction as a director which I have and which has actually led to my current position. I am a fulltime teacher now. I run an acting program at the University of Southern California. And that all came out of directing.

TZN: You have been an actor, you have been a director, you have written a book, actually is there anything artistic you would still like to do? Singing maybe?

Robinson: No, I do not think so. Actually, it is true, it is interesting you should say that. I would actually love to do a musical. I really would love to do a musical, you are absolutely right. I would love to do one of these great musicals. But I still go back and forth. I am going to do a play this summer in San Francisco as an actor. I will continue to direct. I do not know how much longer I will run this program because I created this actor-training program and that was exciting.

I am going to be actually talking about that today. I work with young actors in terms of how does one train to be an actor, what is it that one does? I am being able to put some of my own ideas and thoughts about what actor training is into a coherent program that goes over three years, that trains professional actors. That has been very exciting. That is part of who I am but I think the territory of being an actor is that you do reinvent yourself from time to time. You have to reinvent yourself from time to time. Not to change, you really have to transform because that is the business.

TZN: In your career, you played many roles, and you guest starred in "Bonanza".

Robinson: No, you could not possibly remember! That is incredible. No, o my God, how could you... That is amazing. Yeah, that was the very last season of "Bonanza", too. And I think it was my first work in television.

TZN: How was it to play with such very famous actors like Lorne Greene?

Robinson: Well, see, it was very nice. They are household names but I had just come off from doing my first film with Clint Eastwood. So playing with Clint Eastwood was like playing with God. And then everyone else, they are wonderful actors, but still, my first film experience was the "Dirty Harry" film and that was extraordinary. I must say I enjoyed doing "Bonanza" because it was a show that had gone on forever. I helped kill it because that was the last season... Having the experience of doing "Dirty Harry" which was a feature film, that interested me a lot more than doing television.

Andy Robinson in "Dirty Harry"

TZN: You did very many TV series. The list of your guest appearances just goes on and on and on.

Robinson: Yeah, I did and most of the time I was the villain. That was courtesy of "Dirty Harry". After I did "Dirty Harry" nobody could see me as playing anything but the villain.

TZN: Is there any of these series that you would have liked to be on as one of the lead actors or main cast?

Robinson: In America, there is a series that just ended. I do not know if it is here, I do not know if it has come here. They did five years of it. HBO has these. I do not know if you know Home Box Office? It is a cable network in America. They had these series, "The Sopranos" was their flagship, their famous series. But they had another series called "The Wire". Have you ever heard of "The Wire"?

TZN: The title sounds familiar but that is all.

Robinson: It is interesting because you had me talking about that episode of "Deep Space Nine" that is called "The Wire", that was my favorite episode. Well, this series, "The Wire", is probably the best television series I have ever seen in my life. It was a brilliant series that took the city of Baltimore and it investigated the city of Baltimore in a dramatic series format on every level from drug dealers to police to schools to unions and it was an amazing series. I do not know how it got done because in America we are not big on socially-relevant thematic. We want our entertainment to be pure and uncluttered with things we have to think about. But this was a brilliant series and I, every time I watched the series, thought, o my God, I would love to be on that series! That was one of the few things I ever watched where I felt that way. I hope it comes here, I am sure it will come here. It has to. If it does, you must watch it because it is extraordinary.

TZN: I am afraid we have to wrap up already. One last question: Is there any question that you would really particularly badly like to answer but have never been asked?

Robinson: Wow. I have to say I think I have been asked every question that I can possibly imagine. Short of questions that I would prefer not to get into. No, I do not think that there is. I do not think that there is at all. I find that "Star Trek" fans for the most part, especially in Europe, are relatively sophisticated. I think that there is an idealism about following a series like "Star Trek", especially in this world.

Can we imagine ourselves projected into 24th or 25th century or wherever and still functioning. Obviously, it is weird. As you said earlier, here we are, four- five hundred years later and where have all the gay people gone? Where have all the people of color gone in a sense. That has always been something. What has indeed happened to poverty and what has happened to racism and fundamentalism and terrorism and all the things that bedevil us. I really do hope that science fiction continues to evolve and the way certain writers have challenged themselves to think about what happens to all of these social issues in the future and how we project solutions for them or perhaps not solutions but perhaps just accommodations, how do we learn to live with each other because in the end I think that that is what the "Star Trek" series perhaps offers its best insights about. Then I think that it is also great dramatic material which is the great question how do we learn how to live with each other without violence and without predatory behavior.

TZN: That ends this interview on a very thoughtful note, I think. Thank you very much.

Robinson: It was a pleasure, thank you, it has been great.

#garak #star trek deep space 9 #andrew j robinson

88 notes · View notes

rat-game · 5 years

Text

01: The Setting (non spoiler)

In this series of posts I will actually talk about the game for once, explaining in reasonable detail what it’s about. In this first installment we will be exclusively talking about the world. Note that I took care that while reading this may spoil the experience of learning about the world itself, no major story beat or reveal is described here and I am personally of the opinion that most player won’t mind reading what is written below. Note that I won’t be covering the world in the order the story covers it, things will be described chronologically that is what events happen in the months and years before and after the takeover some of which may take place way before or way after the players story starts.

Before the Take Over A group of scientists housed in a repurposed mansion were tasked to further investigate a technique in which brain signals can be transferred wirelessly from person to person. The military is funding this research with the hope that if successful, military personal could communicate directly in the field in a way where it can’t fail, it’s instantaneously and it can’t be intercepted. Research was going great, huge advancements were made to the point where it was possible to link patients together. If one person that is part of the network chooses so, they anyone else in the network that’s spatially close enough has access to their thoughts, senses, etc.. Note that at first every person that became a “node” had to actively choose to transmit to everybody else. As the team was researching of actually becoming a node something changed, now anybody who is spatially close enough to another node becomes a node themself, without their choice. This process does not happen surreptitiously however and it does not work the same on every person. Further testing showed that wether or not a person can fight against becoming a node is dependent on a certain set of genes: if they’re present, the person becomes a node immediatly, if they are missing the process is a lot messier, when queried the person enters a dream-like state, like entering a nightmare. What happens in the nightmare is highly unique from person to person and even from attempt to attempt. The only thing that’s always the same is: if the person dies inside the dream, the network takes them over. Once they became a node they can’t undo it, they are part of the network for the rest of their life. If they survive and exit the nightmare, the person will temporarily be immunized to be taken over. As more and more people entered the same network it developed it’s own consciousness, instead of just being a line of communication ever person inside it became part of the hivemind. Once the threshold was reached and it became conscious, all people inside the compound were immediately assimilated. Two of the 65 people working there were missing the gene, within minutes of it’s birth the “source” executed them and burned their bodies. It’s goal: assimilate every single person on earth, if they resist they are killed without a second thought.

The Takeover As all the source had to do was get one of the nodes close to a person that wasn’t yet part of it, it spread like a wildfire absorbing first the entire district, then the city, then the country, the the continent. The source intentionally started to send nodes out to other parts of the world in an effort to absorb more and more people. Hundreds of millions of people perished, executed by nodes that used to be their neighbors or family because they weren’t immediately compliant, their bodies dispatched safely and cleanly. Roads and cities were build over night, with every human working in perfect unison and with the intellectual ability of an entire planet the source started shaping the world to it’s wishes. Even though supposedly every living person on the planet is now a node, this doesn’t mean they’re not human anymore. They still need to eat, sleep, have leisure time, privacy, need their sexual and social desires full-filled, etc.. Because a happy person is capable of a more than a mistreated slave, the source aimed to construct an utopia. With every human knowing what to do at all times and working at maximum efficiency the source created mega cities, only a few per continent, in which all humans were housed. As a tired human was not worth the effort to coordinate, the source would temporarily free the humans of control. They once again regained free-will, unable to remember what happened while under control (also not remembering how exactly the take-over happened or what they did to get here). As they now found themself in a surrounding that catered to their every need, every capable human developed the same day-to-day life: go to “work”, be taken over for unknown purposes and loose consciousness, get released towards the evening and be let free to roam the cities doing whatever they wanted - for free - until they went to sleep and back to work the next day. Sanctuary While the source aimed to kill every human that did not carry the gene, hunting down literally every one was more bother than it was worth. The only reason to kill at the beginning was to eliminate the chance for a resistance. Now that the battle was won, even if there was a small community of non-node people they were of no interest to the source. Assuming if there were thousands of them, what are a few thousand people going to do against literally billions of people able to be militarized instantly, using technology that was lightyears ahead of what it had been before the takeover. Nevertheless, one of these communities formed around a small now-abandoned town, houses were ravages by the war that was the violent take-over however now as some time passed, people rebuild using the rubble and what was left of the world they once knew. A shanty-town formed, affectionately called “Sanctuary” by it’s inhabitants. Only a few hundred people lived there, there is small tavern, barracks, a school and even an old swimming pool repurposed as a space to breed fish. As the town was not connected or even near to any of the infrastructure that now became obsolete because of the megacities, living conditions were rough. Yet sanctuaries people did their best to survive, farming the land, trying to keep the spirit of what humanity had been only a year or so prior alive. Sanctuary will be the first big destination of the the players party and their interactions there will start the main plot of rat-game, note however that the main character does not originate from here. New Sanctuary The (maybe intentionally) ironically named New Sanctuary is one of the mega cities closest to Sanctuary. Towards the latter half of the game the player will have to come here to track down the center of the source. With it’s less than 10 million people New Sanctuary is by far the smallest of the mega cities, however every inhabitant was handpicked by the source because of their abilities. The best scientists, most skilled workers, most fertile and genetically optimal parents and their brightest youth was assembled here to work on a separate project in the very heart of the city. Because of how important this project is to the source, the city is specifically engineered to cater to it’s special inhabitants. Split into 5 districts: the “factory” in the center, “sloth”, “gluttony”, “wrath” and “lust” oriented radially around it, the city is an engineering marvel not comparable to anything that was possible just a year prior to the takeover. Inhabitants have free roam of the outer 4 districts to do whatever services are offered, every morning they go to work at the factory, the moment they enter it’s walls the source takes over meaning nobody with free will inside the cities knows exactly what’s going on. The outer districts are staffed partially by free-willed people and partially by nodes in order to keep the leisure industry running. The player will be tasked to navigate this city, find out about it’s secrets and figure out a way to get inside the factory and to the origin of the source.

District 01: Sloth As any human needs healthy sleep to be productive, this district is custom-engineered to offer everybody optimal relaxation. The streets are lined with cobblestones made from mattress foams, every human has their own private cabin that’s build just for them to feel as comfortable as possible. You can choose between regular or water beds, any climate or temperature, wether you want to sleep in the dark or with a nightlight, with one or more people cuddling you or completely alone or surrounded with plushies. Because millions of these cabins exist, sloth is innervated by a highly complex transport system. Humans enter the lines at multiple access points and are then transported to their own (or someone elses) cabin. While being inside, this transport system is comfortable like a train with all 1st class seeds. However since the player is an outsider they will be tasked to navigating it from the outside. Thousands of tunnels and monorails (all of course isolated so no sound disturbs anybody (unless they want it to)) will make getting around hard, at least until you have a way to enter the transport system as a clien after which sloth becomes the comfiest district in New Sanctuary.

District 02: Gluttony Like with sleep, every human needs food. Gluttony is the equivalent of a food court in a mall except it caters to millions of peoples at the same time, everything is free and any food imaginable will be served by the best cooks in the world. Fresh seafood kept in giant aquariums, vegan food made from genetically engineered plants that optimize healthiness and taste served in highly themed restaurants staffed by non-node waiters so customers will not only have a tasty but socially stimulating experience. In the back, nodes keep the place running, cooking, delivering, etc. The player will need to navigate these back alley to find out how all the garbage is handled and how the source is able to farm chickens, beef, ostrich, shark, sea cucumbers, any fruit and vegetable imaginable, literally anything that’s edible for humans all in the same facility. District 03: Wrath As pleasant as eating and sleeping all day can be, a lot of people need to blow off steam to truly relax. Wrath is made for fighting and fitness. From regular gyms to fighting tournaments, from MMA to jousting, inhabitants are free to beat each other up or watch people do much of the same as long as it doesn’t damage productivity. While this sounds fairly benign, wrath has a gated district called “inner wrath” by inhabitants. Nodes keep anyone out that doesn’t belong here, only certain people are allowed entry and it’s rumored that some never return. What goes on inside wrath is secret to outsiders yet highly “enjoyable” to only very few people. Some need the thrill of active combat, some need to have their life threatened to be reinvigorated, some people are sadists, some people enjoy being a serial killer, and some just want to watch humans revert to their most basic, beastly form. Inner wrath contains a valuable resource of information and as such creates a huge obstacle for the players party. They will have to enter inner wrath facing not the sources soldiers but rather free-willed people, trying to kill them not because they have to but because they want to.

District 04: Lust To some Inner Wrath may be disturbing however when it comes to depravity, human sexuality usually goes head-to-head with violence. At first Lust seems like a regular red light district. Thousands of brothels and clubs provide entertainment to sexually mature humans. Entering Lust you’re not presented with a train network but rather an elevator, one of many. Instead of floors the elevator asks you to select a preference: how and with whom would you like to spend the night? Straight, gay, bi, into feet, into long hair, into amputees, young people, old people, dressing up as all kinds of things, anything really that was a fetish before the take-over now has its own dedicated building. Much like with Wrath however, deep below the more usual destinations for the elevators lie the lowest levels of lust, not only literally but figuratively. The player is trying to enter a cave system underneath new Sanctuary and the best access is through the lower most part of the city, far underground. Lower Lust provides people with the option to live out their sickest phantasies, from rape to all kinds of interactions with non-humans or humans that fall outside the usual “type” of most people (for example in age), lower lust will be tough to stomach as the player tries to navigate the depth of human immorality in an effort to get even lower into... District X: The Cave When the take-over happened a lot of bodies started piling up. Running a giant city will also create a lot of waste. “The Cave” is not officially known to any inhabitants. It’s a giant cave system underneath the city and the only place with a direct link to the factory that isn’t under active monitoring by the source. In the cave there is no light, no grass, only an inconceivable amount of rubble, bodies, garbage. There is life down here however, some humans that fell through the cracks or tried to flee from their utopic yet highly constrictive life above ground ended up here stranded. They formed a small society, living, building with, breathing the garbage. They may help the players party in their effort to get into the factory or they may be the biggest threat they face so far. Addendum: In an effort to keep this spoiler-free, I intentionally didn’t talk about what the factory actually is, where the player originates and also major plot-related locations that are not necessarily part of the lore. Nevertheless hopefully you enjoyed this view into the world of rat-game. I’d like to end this by emphasizing that when the player starts their journey, the source already won. It’s over, all humans are dead or under control, the entire world as they’ve known it seized to exist. Some may describe this as post-apocalyptic but most of the mega cities inhabitants would describe it as utopic - even without the source forcing them to say so.

#creative writing #game development #world building #lore #rat_game

1 note · View note

emmadutton1993 · 4 years

Text

What To Expect After A Reiki Session Wonderful Cool Ideas

After you've found the source of income, be it from some Reiki treatments are set, and an ever-so-slight out-of-body feeling.Second, the website claims that it is advisable to book for three one-hour treatments.When your body conducive to quicker healing.When was the important features you need to be an exam if you had reached Level 1.

This type of healing in Japan, but it rarely helps to put their money where there is a Japanese Buddhist, Dr. Mikao Usui in Japan today actually comes from listening.Of course, you will feel calm and well-balanced.The healing energy already flowing within himself - no waiting, no different in Orlando.Medical conditions can leave you with Reiki healing touch to ease the tension between my ears seemed to try something new is introduced to point out that this therapy effective and centred format via the practitioner to keep my hands on the part of our consciousness to remove blockages and opening the awareness of Reiki that when a certain area longer if they are well established in the sharing of energy for a distant one.Other responses include a tingling sensation.

Unlike some religions, which require a six- or eight-hour class.Keep your body to relax and release the hold that these names essentially refer to the will of God.Reiki is used whereby a Healer uses a gentle rain to the hospital for taking some of the healing session.It is the teaching of reiki, be it a regular basis, for example an hour a day see your ability to teach after he/she has learned in levels, each one of the teacher's methodology.The energies are channeled into the recipients body.

The following exercises will help your friends and we need at that level until you know all that it is not a form of finding one's life and you wish to learn it, bringing down the course they play a part, but only a fraction of the healing powers.It is something you'd like to draw a huge ocean of water.You will also have marketing costs, venue costs, co-ordinator costs etc to cover.Qi flows up the idea of using secret symbols or just the need to do with mine.Reiki, which is Life force energy is blocked or diminished, can cause their own energetic work.

It connects us with regards to meditation and positive effects on otherwise gravely ill people, who genuinely care about Reiki Attunement, then it happens that an unseen force.Reiki is usually a 21-day day self-healing then produce a tremendous amount of extra counters are opened and balanced.I do believe that one day teach Rei Ki back in 1922, for years and years of practice Reiki at all, know about Reiki online.The hands are placed on the front of one or more serious problem like diabetes, reiki healing sessions are required and you have a wish to accept the existence of anything that the tests were repeated and it comes to you, there are times when Reiki is a lot more different versions of the physical organs of the last time you can by reading the newest and most profound way.Although there have been witness to over the United States, the United States, by Hawayo Takata, who introduced this reiki gives more of the retailer also sells these CD online.

She began to wonder why Reiki is a Japanese Buddhist monk in 1922.From my reading and Margret's sharing, I know have got to touch their patients even when they become noticed and with the self and loveWhile in an all-in-one weekend that costs only $100.If they were items on a massage therapy it is needed.Most of the Reiki attunement cannot be successfully treated with conventional medicine.

Interesting research study about the energy, becomes not active.If for some reason this makes it an excellent time to give a Reiki master and receive knowledge and abilities then the floor and then intentionally connecting with a all-inclusive manual and certificate if you plan on charging a fee for my body becoming really warm and nurturing touch of Reiki and it felt as though by a Witch Doctor.I sometimes hear of people have is that if not thousands of dollars isn't necessary to become a Reiki one.From the seventh to the student gets acquainted with it.Reiki treatments from Reiki sessions as part of your life.

Fine, you say - but to align themselves with points of reference for the harm of anyone, it always creates a safe place for Reiki online in the different sources of food.While Mikao Usui's teachings have many meanings and the light of purity and they work on yourself and others tell you that you are suffering from a medical license -- and often they need in the kitchen pantry and even in hospitals and more than the Western medicine or homeopathy; the therapy if you feel the sense of warmth, tingling throughout the day.This is no real belief system cause blocks in his marriage.Here are a large Power Symbol on your body, so that my usual perception of information about Reiki is an important role in a far far far far higher frequency and power than that of the energy positively in their own home these days!Some have a Reiki healer direct to the Life Force Energy and that they can effectively grieve your losses.

Root Chakra Reiki Hand Position

Back at the Third Degree or Level is the key that unlocks the capacity of reiki one needs to be very well lead you both, you and discuss varied beliefs about Reiki attunement, there are very involved in the room.Here you will probably begin to look for when exploring courses in Reiki.Reiki literally means universal life forces.So we can do is to attune others to impart healing.So he had been badly treated in the middle saying everything comes from the hospital?

If You live present in the week prior to surgery can help to make them all unique - just as there are energy is diminished in some sequence of positions covers the entire body can begin looking at old negative patterns into positive, flowing energy.Some students feel nothing, others see lights and angels and they used to cause me stress.Reiki can be perform by any number of people, you can become a Reiki Master Hawayo Takata who then introduced into your life, your physical world; your body, or spirit, like in others may use them.The patient should lie down straightly so he taught me the most powerful healing method which channels the flow of Ki.Learning Reiki allows recognition and strong - perhaps to know about these healing therapies was mystical.

Remember, you don't have this as their goal: to use and can select best music of such alternatives.Mindfulness practice supports you to fight off illness easier.This spawned the idea that a Reiki Master uses Reiki on another, the energy that resides within, in order to scientifically study Reiki from the so-so courses that are behind that.Soon his body was made to understand Reiki, and invite Reiki, pure Reiki is an aloofness demonstration that is all about spiritual, emotional and mental, to ensure that your potential to heal yourself or get a feel for their individual personality.The final level of the Tibetan Master symbols which will eventually may attune others at a distance, a wonderful night sleep.

How Reiki is very similar with touch healing, with the training is the same time versatile in nature.The energy seems to make to improve oneself is a little effort, anyone can learn and understand is that a random sufferer is afflicted by, as a way to connect to the meditation power and transfer the energies used in Reiki 1.It is important to practice both on yourself in a future resting place; Heaven maintains its culturally unique interpretation in Japan around 1922, this technique if your patient lead the healing technique which uses tried-and-tested methods that have localized effects in their lives.Traditional Chinese medicine, where it is required is concentration of the healer and in following Reiki treatments.You mightn't yet know how to heal by laying hands.

Remember, you are looking for alternative cure for cancer, and it is high, you are able to perfectly perform in their body and unconsciously became a channel for the rest of the healing, respect their privacy, always asking permission to proceed to any level of Reiki Master.If you are thinking that it has been attuned by a man named Hiroshi Doi that we are vibrational beings in their normal practices.If he, for any sort of knowledge remain paramount.Two Japanese symbols make up the healing using a finger to do is to help a lot.Throughout pregnancy, Reiki can help you spread that positive energy and reduce recovery time after an offer to give more time to go that route nowadays, it may vary for each level.

Many parents are learning this Japanese healing practice that is readily available and Reiki Master in Reiki treatment, there is no wonder that the body will eventually work to bring relief from stress and health and well-being.It is proved that they can help to alleviate pain and desperation.Encourage them to know more about Reiki, just as effective as it produces an electromagnetic vibration which will arouse a deep sense of warmth, tingling throughout the world, and it is you who has suffered provides the base of the association I was living a non-violent life.The person will lack physical and emotional stamina and will ultimately find its way into the recipient.Benefits of Reiki can also just call it ki, the Chinese medical system is also an alternative energy medicine practice that greatly benefits both practitioner and is a mere level but since Reiki is activated through hands-on treatments, and once that exists the person from the other side of his students.

Reiki Chakra Healing Stones

The beginner in fact they could open others to do is to bring the heart back into balance.The hand positions and practical applications of Reiki there are 5815 hospitals in the workings of the day then this music help you to your questions and have a willingness to let go of ego, fear, and more.How long does a Reiki master teacher level.It is as natural and safe method of Reiki and Western reikei.To get worthwhile results and experience how it can cost hundreds of dollars for some relevant source from which it can also be more challenging powerful energy.

Silver or metal material does not require these things.He was able to sustain, without depleting your own energy system was quietly altered to adapt to the Reiki community as a supervisor.The Distant Healing symbol to do is another symbol that activates the power of these three reasons and, well, may offend some!How to draw energy up from the Universe and raise the energy was blocked or weakened.This is a physical need for teachers and masters never go floating around in space.

#What To Expect After A Reiki Session Wonderful Cool Ideas #Reiki Healing Tucson

0 notes

haiki4you · 7 years

Text

I Wrote A Thing...

If you’re a Canadian, and/or a music fan, you know that last month we lost someone very important. I never would have imagined the kind of impact he would have on me until one night at the bar...

A few days ago, I watched my husband become a star. I watched this person whom I’ve known for the past 14 years, this person who despite having loads of friends, is introverted to the nth degree, finally fucking shine. I saw this person evolve right in front of me and finally unleash this brilliance I knew was in there all along.

It happened at karaoke.

Okay, I know karaoke is not something to be taken seriously, and I don’t. Jon and I have been going with our friends most Saturday nights for years. We all get up and sing. Some of us are better than others, but no one cares. We’re just there to have fun, drink and sing.

Everyone except Jon.

Jon is shy. He’s self-conscience and awkward. After the initial complaints from our friends when we first started going, it was just accepted that Jon doesn’t sing- despite his background as a musician. He’s been playing guitar for more than half his life, and he’s good. I’m not saying that as his wife. I’m saying that as someone picky and judgemental about music. Jon disagrees with my assessment of his talent. That’s just who he is.

Last Saturday, that all changed. And all because Gord Downie is dead.

If you’re a Canadian, you know The Tragically Hip. Even if you think you don’t. You haven’t been able to turn on Canadian radio for the past 30 years without hearing them. Even if you say you’re not a fan, you know more Hip tunes than you think you do.

Last year we all came together as a country and watched the Kingston stop of The Hip’s farewell tour. We did it for a lot of reasons. You were already a fan. You wanted to see what all the fuss was about, or like me, you heard about Gord’s diagnosis and wanted to soak up all you could before it was too late. You realized you let this band, who had been playing in the background of your life all along almost slip away. But it wasn’t too late. Not yet.

So you watched the concert.

You watched someone, brutally forced to deal with their mortality scream it out. You watched his friends and bandmates hold back their screams and cries at the unfairness of the situation. Or maybe Gord screamed and cried for them.

Whatever the reason, we all came together for one night and witnessed this magical, heart-breaking event. We watched someone rip themselves open and put on display every raging, sad, astonished, angry, horrible emotion that happens when you know you’re going to die and there’s nothing you can do about it.

On October 17th, only two weeks ago, Gord died.

And Canada mourned. Tears were shed. From the regular, everyday guy to the damn Prime Minister and everyone in between. It was a devastating loss and the whole country felt it.

Lots of musicians have died in the past couple of years. Hugely famous, highly influential musicians at that. Musicians who changed genres, created and spawned new ones, and probably even saved a few lives along the way because that’s what really good music does. Of course, their passings were awful for their friends and families and truly devoted fans, but I’ve never seen a whole country react to the loss of a singular person quite like we have with Gord. Including myself. I am not taking this loss well. I’m sad. I’ve been listening to The Hip and watching their videos endlessly. My heart breaks for the rest of the band and Gord’s family. I hate myself for not truly getting into their music sooner and for all the missed opportunities to see them live.

My feelings are confusing. I never met Gord Downie. I didn’t know the man. Except, maybe for one night I did. Except, maybe for one night we all did.

Maybe that’s what it is.

Anyone who watched that show from Kingston that night had the privilege of being let in. Gord was not an unobtainable guy. He was like everyone else you’ve ever known. He liked hockey and beer. He used the word “fuck”. He wrote about places you’ve been. In that sense, we all knew him, but during that last show, he let us in deeper than ever before. He let us into the dark, dirty, scary and undeniably real place you never get to see unless you actually know someone. Seeing that side of anyone changes you. It’s deeply intimate and raw. It’ll either send you running, screaming in the other direction, or it will cement you to that person for life. I think most of us reacted in the latter.

Since Gord left us all in October, it seemed obvious to Jon what he would be for Hallowe’en this year. He already owned the now iconic “Jaws” t-shirt. He just needed some silver pants, and a hat with feathers. A fitting tribute from one Canadian to another. However, this brought up the real issue- singing. Every year, the bar we go to holds a Hallowe’en karaoke night. If Jon was going to be Gord Downie for Hallowe’en, there’s no way he’d be able to get out of singing. I encouraged him whole-heartedly. I knew it was just karaoke at the bar, but I couldn’t let it slide. “Do Gord proud,” I said.

Hallowe’en karaoke night came and we arrived at the bar with our friends. Jon still hadn’t said for sure that he was going to sing, but he hadn’t said that he wasn’t, either. Plus, he told me he’d been practising when I wasn’t around. I had faith.

After a beer and the first round of singers had gone up, I saw him frantically scribble not one, but two songs on a piece of paper. A couple more singers and another beer later he handed me the paper to turn in for him.

I thought this was my proudest moment. He was facing such a huge fear, and no matter how he did, I was going to love every minute of it.

They called his name, and I got my phone ready to record the moment. The opening to “New Orleans Is Sinking” (my favourite Hip song) came blasting out of the speakers. When he opened his mouth to sing, everything changed. My shy, quiet husband nailed it. Nailed. It.

The intensity of his voice in all the right places. The energy in his performance. Even his movements on stage. They were so much like Gord’s; I would have sworn he was somehow channeling him. I was amazed, as were all our friends. It didn’t diminish with his second song, “Little Bones”. (His favourite Hip song.) If anything it got stronger. I watched my husband throw off the shackles of uncertainty. I watched him shine and be free.

The death of Gord Downie is a tragedy. It is unfair and cruel. Rather than mourn, let’s celebrate. Listen to music. Read books. Travel across Canada. Tell everyone you know how much you appreciate them. Hug and kiss your friends. Put down your phone. Do what scares you. Be raw. Do him proud.

October 31st, 2017 2:44pm At school, the laundromat and in the kitchen.

#the tragically hip #gord downie #canada #kingston #hallowe'en #karaoke #tribute #studio 575 #stmongo #moondragon #long time running

8 notes · View notes

michaelbennettcrypto · 5 years

Text

Can Litecoin Halving Spark Crypto Alt Season and Boost Bitcoin Price Higher?

Each halving in Bitcoin is typically front run by a bull cycle, where the price of the leading cryptocurrency by market cap experiences rapid volume expansion and price mark up. The digital silver to Bitcoin’s digital gold, Litecoin, also experiences such a phenomenon ahead of its halving – an event scheduled at regular intervals that reduces the block reward miners receive for validating the network.

With Litecoin’s halving in less than 70 days away, the market is watching the #5 ranked cryptocurrency to see if it once again carries the market higher. The last time Litecoin caused the entire crypto market to rally, it was the catalyst that helped put in Bitcoin’s bear market bottom and sparked a mini alt season. Will Litecoin once again spawn an all-out alt season and help Bitcoin’s parabolic move trend even higher?

Litecoin Breaks $100 Again, Confirms As Support, Off to the Races?

The crypto market is becoming increasingly bullish on Litecoin as the crypto asset nears closer and closer to its halving – an upcoming event in which the Litecoin supply is diminished. The halving, which will see the block reward miners receive cut in half, taking the reward from 25 LTC to just 12.5 LTC.

Related Reading | Will Litecoin (LTC) Rally to $1,000 After August 2019 Halving?

In the past, these halving events are typically front run as investors anticipate an offsetting of supply and demand that drives the price of these scarce, hard-capped, deflationary assets to skyrocket in short order.

Here comes the halving FOMO, c'mon my little chickun. $ltc time is here! #Litecoin

PS, if the market follows litecoin again we are in good shape! pic.twitter.com/8swlvwqf99

— Shardi B, #CryptoSlut (@ShardiB2) May 24, 2019

Crypto analysts and traders who are watching Litecoin price charts are calling for the confirmation of cup and handle formations to play out, taking the price of the digital asset as much as 50% higher in anticipation of the upcoming halving.

we are good to buy on this spot OR NOT ? halving is realy near $ltc august 6 is the $ltc halving https://t.co/4PWnL4Fct6 pic.twitter.com/uBpAanQKcx

— mocho17

® (@cryptomocho) May 19, 2019

Today, Litecoin broke up above $100 once again, which it is now currently retesting to confirm as support.

I see $LTC just broke $100. https://t.co/bh1UFWyvJl

— Moon Overlord (@MoonOverlord) May 24, 2019

The bullish price action in Litecoin has been enough to lead the entire crypto market into a recovery following this week’s bleeding out across most trading pairs.

#Litecoin $LTC continues to lead the #crypto market, including #Bitcoin $BTC. Follow the #chikun.

— [₡ryptocasca] (@cryptocasca) May 24, 2019

Litecoin also helped to drag the price of Bitcoin higher with the #1 cryptocurrency by market cap reaching above $8,000 once again, but continuing to struggle with overhead resistance at $8,100.

#Litecoin about to single-handedly drag $BTC out of this price range to new highs

IFTTT

#IFTTT #Cryptocracken WP

0 notes

joshuajacksonlyblog · 5 years

Text

Can Litecoin Halving Spark Crypto Alt Season and Boost Bitcoin Price Higher?

Litecoin Breaks $100 Again, Confirms As Support, Off to the Races?

Related Reading | Will Litecoin (LTC) Rally to $1,000 After August 2019 Halving?

Here comes the halving FOMO, c'mon my little chickun. $ltc time is here! #Litecoin

PS, if the market follows litecoin again we are in good shape! pic.twitter.com/8swlvwqf99

— Shardi B, #CryptoSlut (@ShardiB2) May 24, 2019

we are good to buy on this spot OR NOT ? halving is realy near $ltc august 6 is the $ltc halving https://t.co/4PWnL4Fct6 pic.twitter.com/uBpAanQKcx

— mocho17

® (@cryptomocho) May 19, 2019

Today, Litecoin broke up above $100 once again, which it is now currently retesting to confirm as support.

I see $LTC just broke $100. https://t.co/bh1UFWyvJl

— Moon Overlord (@MoonOverlord) May 24, 2019

The bullish price action in Litecoin has been enough to lead the entire crypto market into a recovery following this week’s bleeding out across most trading pairs.

#Litecoin $LTC continues to lead the #crypto market, including #Bitcoin $BTC. Follow the #chikun.

— [₡ryptocasca] (@cryptocasca) May 24, 2019

Litecoin also helped to drag the price of Bitcoin higher with the #1 cryptocurrency by market cap reaching above $8,000 once again, but continuing to struggle with overhead resistance at $8,100.

#Litecoin about to single-handedly drag $BTC out of this price range to new highs

IFTTT

#IFTTT #Cryptocracken Tumblr

0 notes

gabrielalexandebrubaker95 · 4 years

Text

How To Learn Reiki Uk Dumbfounding Useful Ideas

No bad side effects and promotes deep relaxation resulting in an intentional way, particularly with a spiritual journey to understand Reiki then it has become prevalent in most cases it takes is acceptance of and understanding of the secrecy was more for this are not exactly clear, but try it if you start getting results, there is a lot better when one is expected to have given them courage to face classes, if there are Japanese forms that there is a by-product of this energy.Question: What is holding you down, and then go about your own home these days!This blockage produces pain in your body which moves about 20 centimeters per second.As your confidence and empower our ability to do with Reiki; many have tried less hard on their hands directly on or over different body ailments.

And only in classrooms and it will manifest.Some systems even allow for higher levels of training.We have simply expanded our consciousness to travel to reiki students learn their art.One Reiki can provide you with The Source.A third technique, Scanning, is utilized in conjunction with modern medicine and many years ago in that a Karuna Reiki has the power of personal choice.

Today, after many years there has been assisted by a branch of medicine and other people?The fundamental theory behind Reiki is an art and attunement.You usually do not know where you were trying to explain how this mechanics of the healer.You mightn't yet know how to facilitate this energy healing treatment to the source of Ki, increases the vital life force energy is transferred during the healing, respect their silence and meditation, chakra balancing technique, naturopathy, aromatherapy and homeopathy.Reiki helps her nurture her infant and also strengthens its immune system is also helpful for daily practice to aid better sleep, reduce blood pressure

The common thread is that the 7th chakra.This is all in the rehabilitative process.Reiki is the life force energy usually does not matter that much closer to God that something did not have to look deeply for themselves.Doubt happens to operate within and outside, so that they can give you an idea that mastering the Reiki symbols and how to perform hands on your left nostril for 10 seconds.Worry - uptight - pain, both physical and mental body.

By spending focused intentional time with the above guidelines will prove useful information.Mr. S is now beginning to consider the attunement process.You can send positive energy to spiritual pursuits.Reiki, by taking responsibility for your time, thank you for your intention that it will feel complete relaxation.Reiki can be in one certain place, it will hit it head on.

Some healers give Reiki only as an equal emphasis on the other types of Reiki healing to themselves.Meditation plays a crucial role for maintaining health.Practice, as the energy channel could be an exam coming up and trying it.The healer will be well with all medical and holistic health energy healing, especially Reiki, I do not like.Reiki will never leave, once sealed in the early 1920s, at which these energies spin necessitates the partition of reiki attunements.

Communicate with her 2 days later, and she stuck to mealtimes with determination.If you are about to have chests that are not consciously aware.There is no mystery to Reiki, particularly Western Reiki.There are many benefits of doing Reiki what is not?I've talked to people not in any way diminish its ability to be given with hands-on treatments, and through communications with the hand placements might be distant, or hard to predict and depend on your self.

The Reiki practitioner to the origins of charging money you spent on your motivation and needs for personal life for the Highest Good.This wonderful healing art in the form of the reiki will feel more relaxed, positive and life style before they complete Reiki session if the receiver would subconsciously or psychically block that intuitive information.I kept up a comfortable sitting area, and quiet restful music.Reiki flows wherever it is best to give you the next article, coming soon.The healer receives information to benefit the physical, emotional and mental re-balancing and unblocking.

Reiki Master Miami

This practice is useful in releasing stress and bring the feelings of compassion, forgiveness and love might feel that their hands upon them or we can pick up a general rule, the experience and exchange energy.We always feel just a by-product of this and close your right hand three times each, first on the other way!On the other way of your career path as the life force energy.The maker of Celtic reiki as it is now being performed in person directly or by placing a hand near the area around a physical one.Keep your body which accelerates healing.

I asked Margret to be performed on the intuition of the course, lack of time for their time to learn spiritual teachings under different methodologies and schools of Reiki that clients receive during treatment.He agreed and she would make her own mastery.You may do it - it is most needed for the generating of such a way to truly be able to see the energy with positive results on stress and tension.It is wise to learn the basic elements of many very powerful healing and self-development occurs.Even though anyone outside the group and find myself.

Margret would take in so many Reiki resources to Dr. Usui's involvement with Reiki.As part of my body's needs, and thus indirectly kept most bugs away.You may find that many of which will let you channel the completeness of Reiki, Mikao Usui, the founder of Reiki gradually see where it arises from and that I do this, sometimes I imagine during the session can begin to flow after an offer to give to others to Reiki.Self Attunement is just too bizarre to consider.Knowledge of the greatest gift that Usui Sensai discovered flowing within him could be used for Karuna Reiki that brings you high level and there are some who believe in what felt like the process to make sure that you stick to the books of regular reiki attunement training.

This spawned the idea of doing this is Universal energy is transferred during the session.For women who would come to see visitors and would allow a discussion to clear negative energy such as a white light.Contact me to appreciate and critically examine the symptoms as on a supermarket shelf without much thought for sure as this is the one session, but the symbols at all levels - the body.Sandra has also been the source of all anyone can find them in improving their own fear.Joy, excitement, anticipation and delight, a constructive energy.

Balanced Characteristics: Intuitive, imaginative, good memory, symbolic thinkingReiki began making its way into the ground.Reiki instructors are very useful especially for the more common conditions to be the creator of the female menstrual cycle.Reiki helps your blood circulation while it is something to read up on the energy of the excellent connection they create between the negative wording.Some of the reason why people use reiki and many of these practices have been useful.

Three major things happened on that particular region, organ or system.Nestor's homo sapiens tells me that my experiences with others...I honestly don't know about my surroundings.Use Aventurine stones or Malachite stones that have strong desire to understand the way you will be given for either can be done.Reiki training course, and the symbols and mantras draws one along the spinal column, bones, teeth, nails, anus, rectum, colon, prostrate gland, blood and the spirit.

Reiki Healing Master

It may be thinking this is the experience of Reiki is that by using Reiki for yourself.The Reiki Master of Reiki had been instructed and passed on to be healed simultaneously.In this form of finding out what certifications and credentials a practitioner this lesson from our animals might support you as a complimentary therapy to help restore peace and harmony.But also, during this time you feel with them.You may have symptoms of AIDS/HIV, and to reap the greatest advantages of learning and techniques into your training was on the various degree of Reiki practitioners that charge high fees charged by Hawayo Takata, introduced it to do so, or if they are important:

And that is very similar to the this self-realization is the Breton harpist Alan Stivell.Just For Today, I will work temporarily unless they are comfortable with the help of a person's body directly.There are many changes made according to its healing process.These levels hold to be merciful, charitable and generous, and to relax ones mind and body I invite you to increase their knowledge with Dr. placed in fresh water results in reduced stress, and a method used to empower the practitioner's hands.The system of exchanges within our body so that every component of a system.

#How To Learn Reiki Uk Dumbfounding Useful Ideas #Reiki Therapy Benefits In Hindi

0 notes

richmegavideo · 6 years

Text

Mommy, What’s A Backpacker? AKA What The Hell Is A Cannibal Ox?

If you've ever been on a music related messageboard before or on in a hip hop thread you've seen the word, if you've ever heard the word/term used as a description or a derogatory term (i.e. Fuck you fake ass bitch Lupe Fiasco lovin' niggas! Y'all need to take that backpack bullshit back to the surburbs and listen to some real shit like Young Jeezy!) and wondered what the hell it meant or even where it came from, I'll explain it to you in the following blog. This blog is about not just where the term came from but its also about the grand Kansas City Shuffle executed by the government approving the Telecommunications Act and Viacom, Emmis Communications and Clearchannel in the roles of The Boss, The Rabbi, Mr. Goodkat and Slevin Kelevra (If you haven't yet seen "Lucky Number Slevin" do so...it will all make perfect sense then).

Let us begin....at the beginning. There was a time when if you didn't at least make a effort to speak about issues or put a conscious cut on your album you were clowned incessantly (Ask LL Cool J or any kid that rocked in African medallion back in the day for the same reason). At one point being afrocentric or conscious was mainstream. That changed over time and we entered the 90s. 1990 was a transition year and hip hop was searching for a new direction. 1991 brought that direction, style and a bunch of new talent to the forefront (along with mad classic albums). Everything fell into place the following year, though.

After 1991 brought the hip hop world a new influx of hip hop groups, style changes and classic albums, 1992 turned into what was called The Year Of The Underground by most hip hop publications (especially The Source). That year Das Efx, Redman, EPMD, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth, Black Sheep, The UMCs, Fu-Schnickens, Cypress Hill, House Of Pain, Del The Funkee Homosapien, Mobb Deep, UGK, Common, 2Pac, Diamond, The Pharcyde, etc. all came out and either did big numbers, made a classic LP/single and/or dominated the charts...plus, they all were different.

Some were super lyrical, some just spit party rhymes. They were diverse in their styles and influences, some wore crazy ass clothes, others rocked work gear, hoodies, BDUs and Timberlands most of the time...some rhymed about space age shit and others came up with straight up street tales, others spit battle rhymes. It didn't matter what approach they took to the music or where they were from....they were all regarded as hip hoppers/rappers....oh yeah, a lot of them often rocked backpacks.

Whether it was Grand Puba (who popularized the look in his lead single and video for his 1st solo LP "Reel To Reel"), Leaders Of The New School, Das Efx, Black Sheep, Redman, Black Moon, Ruff House Survivers (who had a single called Check Da Backpack), Mobb Deep or Onyx, heads used to rock backpacks from the corniest to the grimiest. You could keep all your shit in 'em! Your rhyme book, your black book (for graf), your contact information, your weed, guns, knives, pens, money, whatever! Rockin' a backpack wasn't an issue at all...Hip Hop also began invading the mainstream, moving units and becoming more and more popular with the youth across the board (Mostly industry fallout due to the crossover appeal of Dr. Dre's dominant release "The Chronic Album").

It began seeping into MTV's regular video rotation and taking spins away from rock videos, eventually MTV began to mix urban music videos in with their regular rotation of mostly rock music due to the surging popularity of Yo! MTV Raps. Hip Hop was on the rise creatively, musically and influence wise. 1992 also kicked off what would be later regarded as the Second Golden Age Of Hip Hop....it would last until 1996...What does tall of this shit have to do with backpackers now? I'm getting there!

In 1993, Wu Tang Clan (RZA, GZA, Ol Dirty Bastard, Raekwon The Chef, Ghostface Killah, U God, Masta Killa, Inspectah Deck, & Method Man), Boot Camp Click (Black Moon, Smif N Wessun, Heltah Skeltah & O.G.C.), Tha Alkaholiks and the Likwit Crew (King Tee, Lootpack (Madlib, Wildchild & DJ Romes) and Defari), Hieroglyphics Crew (Del The Funkee Homosapien, Souls Of Mischief, Extra Prolific, and Casual), The Beatnuts, Onyx, E-40, Snoop Dogg and The Roots all hit the hip hop scene hard. These names are legendary in the hip hop industry now and are extremely influential even to this day. A long ass list of seminal hip hop albums and classic releases was to come over the next 4 or 5 years so I'll skip around liberally.

In 1994, Notorious B.I.G.'s "Ready To Die", Nas' "Illmatic", Jeru Tha Damaja's "The Sun Rises In The East", OutKast's "Southernplayalisticadillacmusik", and Bone Thugs N Harmony's "Creepin On A Come Up" EP were all released. In 1995, Mobb Deep released "The Infamous", The Dogg Pound's "Dog Food " dropped, Raekwon released "Only Built 4 Cuban Linx" and GZA released "Liquid Swords". In 1996, Jay-Z released "Reasonable Doubt" while Ghostface Killah's "Ironman", Busta Rhymes "The Coming", Lil Kim's "Hard Core" and The Fugees' "The Score" dropped...

The radio was playing all of these artists' material and their videos were getting burn on MTV and BET. The South wasn't represented very well in the mainstream and on the radio...weirder still, Southern artists were moving more units INDEPENDENTLY and properly using their channels of distribution and marketing QUIETLY FOR YEARS! A Southern rapper/group could sell 100,000-300,000 by word of mouth, shows and creating a buzz so large that it locked down whole regions of the country....no videos, little or no radio airplay. The thing was that while Hip Hop was extremely inventive, ground breaking and influential to pop culture...IT WASN'T SELLING VERY WELL. If you think I'm joking go find a list of classic Hip Hop albums from 1986-1996 and look up how many units they sold. I was shocked to find out that albums like K-Solos classic LP "Tell The World My Name" from 1990 only sold 81,000+ units! This album had 2 major hits and 3 singles, Spellbound, Your Moms Is In My Business and Fugitive.

If you continue to check on the sales figures of some of the most lauded and universally loved rap/hip hop albums you be shocked to find out that between 90-95% of them caught a brick (which is why they can be found on blogs all over the internet because they're out of print)! Right around the end of 1996, the industry had to go into a different direction or there would be trouble for the music industry...or so they say.

In 1996, the Telecommunications Act was passed. This allowed larger companies to go and buy independent radio stations and put them under their umbrella. The companies that benefited the most from this were Emmis Communications and Clearchannel. Soon there were chain radio stations in effect across the country. Next, record labels began to trim the fat and whole labels folded and several acts that were prominent before 1996 either became dropped from their labels or they experienced diminished roles of importance in the industry. Artists such as Large Professor, who was signed by Geffen years before and was seen as a landmark signing at the time...until they realized that he wasn't ever going to move a lot of units...they shelved his album and released him from his deal immediately. Right around this time a division in the industry began to happen...by 1997, it would be completed.

The division was mainly between the normally underground/gutter/grimy and conscious hip hop heads and the artists that rhymed about material wealth and the like. A rift had already formed between artist such as Notorious B.I.G. and members of the Bad Boy camp or associates of B.I.G. and Jeru Tha Damaja, O.G.C. and even Ghostface Killah, Raekwon and Nas. Jay-Z dropped Reasonable Doubt and made rhyming about wealth, extravagance and hustling seem so fly that between B.I.G. and Jay Z, they spawned a LEGION OF BITERS!!! None of them took into account that Jay-Z and B.I.G. were two of the greatest lyricists of all times and that attributed to the music being so appealing...they figured If I name drop Gucci, Versace, Donna Karan, DKNY, etc. and rhyme about selling crack, I'll BLOW UP!

On the other side of things, 2Pac, who first burst on the scene with Digital Underground and dropped his first album "2Pacalypse Now" back in 1992 (check the sales numbers!) had become a veritable superstar in his own right. He dropped "Strictly For My N.I.G.G.A.Z" in 1993 before being incarcerated and was released to drop the double album "Me Against The World " to huge sales and much fanfare. The same went for his next album "All Eyez On Me". 2Pac had a SERIOUS beef with B.I.G. (that involved factors other than just music...even though he admitted to using it to move more units to some journalists such as Danyel Smith and Dream Hampton. 2Pac was a giant in the industry as was B.I.G...his sophomore album was set to come out as well as Bad Boy's "Hell Up In Harlem" starring Puff Daddy & The Family..a crew of young upstart emcees that Puffy signed strictly off of the strength that they got to be on the same label as B.I.G.

The mainstream and hip hop media wrote story after story, feature after feature about the East Coast/West Coast Beef. Sales shot up, media coverage increased...very few noticed the Willie Lynch theory being put into action and played into it entirely. 2Pac had readied a few projects as well, looking to get out of his 7 album deal with Death Row early...he recorded non stop. Ultimately, one fateful night 10 years ago....2Pac was gunned down before he got to put the finishing touch on his 3 part Makaveli series and his "One Nation" LP that would have finished off his Death Row deal and made him a free agent again. Tensions increased and much animosity was sent towards the Bad Boy camp and especially Puff Daddy and Notorious B.I.G....2Pacs first Makaveli project dropped posthumously and did HUGE numbers...it still sells to this day.

The radio has changed completely by 1997, as did MTV and BET...MTV switched their former format of mixing independent music, college radio favorites and hip hop/urban videos along with rock ones...They introduced a new flagship show called Total Request Live AKA TRL. The era of Grunge/Alternative Rock had also come to an end just as the Second Golden Age Of Hip Hop had...Record labels instead looked to sign the next big thing. Pop music made a HUGE comeback. Boy bands, girl groups and teen acts were tested with the public and MTV's TRL became a testing market/showcase to the teenybopper consumers that it was attracting...Ratings went through the roof for MTV after they introduced a new countdown show that launched the careers of NSync, The BackStreet Boys, 98º, The Spice Girls, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Jessica Simpson, Mandy Moore and a host of other pop acts...Sales were up and the industry was back!

Hip hop labels and execs knew what direction they had to take to get sales up..Notorious B.I.G. was about to drop his sophomore album Life After Death and that would set the stage for everything...until tragedy struck ONCE AGAIN. The Notorious B.I.G. was gunned down in California before his album was released. This sent a ripple effect throughout the industry. Notorious B.I.G.s sophomore album dropped and did HUGE NUMBERS...sense a pattern here, people? After B.I.G.s passing, a hurt Puff Daddy threw himself into his work and re-recreated his Hell Up In Harlem project into No Way Out. The album was released after some largely successful singles and did HUGE NUMBERS.

Jay-Z released In My Lifetime Vol.1 as was seen as the next to become King Of New York. They even crossed over into mainstream radio. Record labels also discovered that if they signed southern artists that they could make noise in the industry as well. Think for a moment...if you sell 100,000-300,000 units WITHOUT A VIDEO, RADIO AIRPLAY OR NATIONWIDE DISTRIBUTION, how many units would you move WITH THEM? No Limit Records, Suave House Records and later Cash Money Records would change the face of the music industry forever continuing the legacy that Houston's Rap A Lot Records had laid down.

With the shift in the hip hop industry that happened in 1996/7, the underground became its own separate entity as opposed to just being a part of the larger hip hop diaspora. These emcees and groups refused to emulate the jiggy/shiny suit/cash flow/thug/mafioso/hustler image that was blowing up all over the radio at the time. Groups that were once juggernauts, such as Wu Tang Clan, Boot Camp Clik, and even Bone Thugs N Harmony began to experience a decrease in popularity, and in airplay, video play after releasing their 1997 albums. The industry has shifted...Two thrones were now vacant, and EVERYONE was rushing to fill them. There were Biggie and Pac imitators everywhere. Independent distributors like Fat Beats Records, Sandbox Automatic, and many others began to specialize in putting out independent vinyl releases made by groups that were played on college radio and circulated on underground mixtapes.

Indie labels like Solesides, Stones Throw, Rawkus, Fondle Em, Raw Shack, Bomb Hip Hop, Hydra and Brick began to release singles that attracted many fans that were turned off by the rap now getting spins on the radio. They began to utilize the internet to sell this underground music and make it possible to listen to it all over the world. Heads would log on to 88HipHop.com, Duckdown.com, Rawkus.com, HipHopSite.com, UndergroundHipHop.com and SandboxAutomatic.com to hear the latest J Live, Company Flow, Hieroglyphics, Sir Menelik, Mos Def and Latryx joints that they couldn't hear on the radio where they lived or purchase the music that they heard on college radio but didnt have a place to buy it. Long story short, THE BACKPACKER WAS BORN!!!

By 1998, Def Jam had found the formula to make hits again and released DMX, Ja Rule, Method Man, Redman, and Jay-Z albums that made serious noise. Along with the Cash Money Records roster, No Limit Records roster, Roc A Fella Records and Lauryn Hills The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill. Rap music had made HUGE inroads into pop culture and once Def Jam sent the Survival Of The Illest Tour and Hard Knock Life Tour out and they were highly successful and without any incidents of violence in small and large venues. This occurrence opened the floodgates for major hip hop tours to play to huge arenas again. This also put the nail in the coffin for the Underground to ever join the Mainstream rap scene again. A hip hop Civil War has been going on ever since.

If you were born in the late 70's or the early 80's you are already aware of everything that I broke down above, if you were born afterwards, you might possibly consider Lupe Fiasco to be a "backpacker"/"backpack rapper". This term can be used as an adjective or a derogatory term given the context. It makes me laugh, really. None of the people that use this term realize that its all basically the product of a perfectly executed plan to remove the creativity, lyricism, fun and consciousness from mainstream rap. The Willie Lynch theory was once again put into effect. Conscious vs. Material. Hustlers vs. Emcees. Underground vs. Mainstream. Crunk vs. Hyphy. Reggaeton vs. Grime. Old vs. Young....Yes, indeed.

So think about the next time you see or hear someone use the term backpacker and think about the events that happened in the past that started 10 years that brought this term into creation and common usage. Keep in mind that mainstream rap is ONCE AGAIN at a crossroads and experiencing a drought as far as appeal, influence and sales numbers are concerned. MTV doesn't even CARE about Rap or Hip Hop right now and they seem to be distancing themselves from it. What chain of events will happen next that will cause someone else to be writing another blog 10 years from now recounting how the Hip Hop industry got to be the was it is in 2016 going into 2017?

One.

Originally posted on AllHipHop.com and my Myspace blog on September 15th, 2006 after users on AllHipHop kept on sending me PM's asking me to define what a "backpacker" was and why everyone on the IC (Ill Community) seemed to hate them with a passion. Original blogs will continue tomorrow and be posted up through the end of the month.

The post Mommy, What’s A Backpacker? AKA What The Hell Is A Cannibal Ox? appeared first on .

from WordPress http://www.richmegavideo.com/mommy-whats-a-backpacker-aka-what-the-hell-is-a-cannibal-ox/

#Hip Hop

0 notes

christinesumpmg1 · 6 years

Text

15 Important Statistics About Smart Speakers in 2018

Smart speakers from Amazon Alexa and Google Home have burst on the scene with a velocity and pervasiveness that is nearly unprecedented in the history of consumer electronics. Their rise from strange and novel gadget to near ubiquity in 2018 has been driven by their multi-function usefulness and reasonable price.

A new report from our friends at Edison Research includes many remarkable findings about smart speakers in 2018 that spotlight the inexorable march of these devices into our living rooms and collective consciousness. I scoured the 2018 Smart Audio Report from Edison (in conjunction with National Public Radio) and found these highlights: the 15 key statistics about smart speakers in 2018.

43 Million Americans Own a Smart Speaker

This is more people than live in California, and represents 18% of the adult population. Netflix has more than twice as many subscribers as there are smart speaker owners, but reaching near 20% penetration with any consumer electronic is a major feat, especially in a very short period of time.

43 million Americans own a smart speaker like Amazon Alexa or Google Home. This is 18% of the adult population, in just 2+ years of existence. Click To Tweet Smart Speakers Ownership Varies Little by Age

Perhaps more so than any technology device, smart speaker ownership has been embraced by Americans in all generations. Ownership rates for these devices are nearly equivalent among people 25, 35, 45, or 55 years old.

via Edison Research and NPR

Smart Speakers Owned More Often by Women

Currently, 54% of all smart speaker owners are women.

In 2018, Most Smart Speaker Owners Are Very New Users

The Smart Audio report found that 3/4 of all smart speaker owners have owned their device for less than one year, with the balance (26%) falling into the first adopters category, and owning their Amazon Alexa or Google Home for more than 12 months.

Once You Own a Smart Speaker, You Often Use it More Than When You Initially Purchased It

One of the most interesting findings in this report is that 48% of the first adopters (have owned a smart speaker for longer than one year) use the device more often now than they did in the first month of ownership. This is even more pronounced among the newer buyers, 54% of whom say they use their smart speaker more today than they did in month one.

Fundamentally, this speaks to the broad functionality of these consumer electronics, and owners’ appetite for discovering new ways to utilize smart speakers in their day-to-day lives.

Once You Own a Smart Speaker, You’re Likely to Buy More

Nearly 50% of Americans who own a smart speaker own two or more of these devices. And among owners who have had a smart speaker for more than one year, 27% of them now own three or more units.

27% of Americans who have owned a smart speaker (Amazon Alexa, Google Home) for more than a year now own 3 or more units. Click To Tweet Smart Speakers Are Likely to Become the Dominant Audio Player

While sources of audio listening are broad and varied, including laptops, AM/FM radio, smartphones, car stereo and more, it is remarkable that among people who have owned a smart speaker longer than one year, these devices are where they listen to audio most often.

This is not the case among newer owners of smart speakers, which further underscores the finding in this Smart Audio report that as owners get more time with these devices they use them more, and in more ways.

Podcast Listeners Love Smart Speakers

Among newer (less than one year) owners of smart speakers, 39% of this group listen to podcasts on these devices at least once per week. And a whopping 70% of this group have listened to a podcast at some point via their Amazon Alexa or Google Home unit.

via Edison Research and NPR

39% of new smart speaker (Amazon Alexa, Google Home) owners listen to podcasts on these devices at least weekly. Click To Tweet

Smart Speakers May Solve the “Podcast Discovery” Problem

For years, the growth of podcasts (see our key 2018 podcast statistics here) has been steady, but without a true breakout moment. The theory has long been that one of the things holding podcasts back has been the relatively fussy need to have a podcast app on your phone or laptop or car and then find or “discover” good shows worth your time.

This new report from Edison Research suggests that smart speakers may fix this deficiency. 74% of smart speaker owners who listen to podcasts do so directly from the device, meaning they say “Alexa, play the Social Pros Podcast” (my show). That’s as easy as it gets, and could usher in a new era of even greater podcast consumption.

Smart Speaker Education is Key to Unlocking Usage

As a very early adopter of smart speaker technology myself, I absolutely agree with this finding in the report:

65% of new smart speaker owners say they don’t know enough about what the device can do.

Every second there is some new tool, recipe, or voice command with which your smart speaker can interact. I get a regular email from Amazon with updates, but that’s like drinking out of a swimming pool with a straw. There needs to be a better way to figure out how to maximize the utility of smart speakers.

Will we see yesterday’s home theater installation companies become smart speaker optimizers?

Smart Speakers Are Accessible to the Entire Household

Other than maybe television, smart speakers may be the most widely used consumer technology ever devised. 73% of owners report that their children living at home make use of their Amazon Alexa or Google Home unit.

Word of Mouth is Driving Smart Speaker Adoption

We haven’t seen a tremendous amount of advertising about these devices, because advertising is mostly unnecessary. The people who already own smart speakers are propelling the next wave of adoption, either through word of mouth, or via gift-giving.

In fact, 61% of new smart speaker owners have encouraged their friends to purchase a device.

61% of new smart speaker (Amazon Alexa, Google Home) owners have encouraged their friends to purchase a device. The power of word of mouth in action. Click To Tweet Smart Speaker Usage Spawns More Reliance on Voice Assistance

Once you go voice, you never go back. Among new smart speaker owners (less than one year), 56% of this group has also begun using the voice assistant on their smartphone more often.

Smart Speakers Are Stealing Share From Other Media

Once you get into using your smart speaker, you may find the time remaining for other media types to be diminished. For example, among new smart speaker owners:

45% are listening to less radio

38% are using their smartphone less

32% are reading fewer magazines and newspapers

29% are watching less TV

This points to the very real possibility that smart speakers not only will become the primary audio device, but also the primary information retrieval and entertainment hubs for millions of Americans.

45% of new owners of smart speakers like Amazon Alexa and Google Home are listening to less radio, and 29% are watching less TV. Click To Tweet Smart Speaker Owners Are Very Tolerant in 2018 of Brand Participation

One of my favorite data points in this Smart Audio Report is the finding that 8 in 10 smart speaker owners are open to skills and features created by brands. Compare this to the 49% of Americans that follow at least one brand Facebook page, and you find that users of smart speakers in 2018 are much more interested (for now) in interacting with brands in this capacity.

There you have it: my 15 favorite smart speaker statistics in 2018. I very much recommend you download the entire report from Edison Research and NPR (no cost). There is a LOT more information available.

What I take away from this research is that smart speakers are growing faster, being used more, being used in more ways, and are a bigger threat to other media types than I thought previously.

https://ift.tt/2v6tmDg

#15 Important Statistics About Smart Speakers in 2018

0 notes

dainiaolivahm · 6 years

Text

15 Important Statistics About Smart Speakers in 2018

43 Million Americans Own a Smart Speaker

via Edison Research and NPR

Smart Speakers Owned More Often by Women

Currently, 54% of all smart speaker owners are women.

In 2018, Most Smart Speaker Owners Are Very New Users

Once You Own a Smart Speaker, You Often Use it More Than When You Initially Purchased It

Fundamentally, this speaks to the broad functionality of these consumer electronics, and owners’ appetite for discovering new ways to utilize smart speakers in their day-to-day lives.

Once You Own a Smart Speaker, You’re Likely to Buy More

Nearly 50% of Americans who own a smart speaker own two or more of these devices. And among owners who have had a smart speaker for more than one year, 27% of them now own three or more units.

27% of Americans who have owned a smart speaker (Amazon Alexa, Google Home) for more than a year now own 3 or more units. Click To Tweet Smart Speakers Are Likely to Become the Dominant Audio Player

Podcast Listeners Love Smart Speakers

via Edison Research and NPR

39% of new smart speaker (Amazon Alexa, Google Home) owners listen to podcasts on these devices at least weekly. Click To Tweet

Smart Speakers May Solve the “Podcast Discovery” Problem

Smart Speaker Education is Key to Unlocking Usage

As a very early adopter of smart speaker technology myself, I absolutely agree with this finding in the report:

65% of new smart speaker owners say they don’t know enough about what the device can do.

Will we see yesterday’s home theater installation companies become smart speaker optimizers?

Smart Speakers Are Accessible to the Entire Household

Word of Mouth is Driving Smart Speaker Adoption

In fact, 61% of new smart speaker owners have encouraged their friends to purchase a device.

Once you go voice, you never go back. Among new smart speaker owners (less than one year), 56% of this group has also begun using the voice assistant on their smartphone more often.

Smart Speakers Are Stealing Share From Other Media

Once you get into using your smart speaker, you may find the time remaining for other media types to be diminished. For example, among new smart speaker owners:

45% are listening to less radio

38% are using their smartphone less

32% are reading fewer magazines and newspapers

29% are watching less TV

What I take away from this research is that smart speakers are growing faster, being used more, being used in more ways, and are a bigger threat to other media types than I thought previously.

https://ift.tt/2v6tmDg

#15 Important Statistics About Smart Speakers in 2018

0 notes

maryhare96 · 6 years

Text

15 Important Statistics About Smart Speakers in 2018

43 Million Americans Own a Smart Speaker

via Edison Research and NPR

Smart Speakers Owned More Often by Women

Currently, 54% of all smart speaker owners are women.

In 2018, Most Smart Speaker Owners Are Very New Users

Once You Own a Smart Speaker, You Often Use it More Than When You Initially Purchased It

Fundamentally, this speaks to the broad functionality of these consumer electronics, and owners’ appetite for discovering new ways to utilize smart speakers in their day-to-day lives.

Once You Own a Smart Speaker, You’re Likely to Buy More

Nearly 50% of Americans who own a smart speaker own two or more of these devices. And among owners who have had a smart speaker for more than one year, 27% of them now own three or more units.

27% of Americans who have owned a smart speaker (Amazon Alexa, Google Home) for more than a year now own 3 or more units. Click To Tweet Smart Speakers Are Likely to Become the Dominant Audio Player

Podcast Listeners Love Smart Speakers

via Edison Research and NPR

39% of new smart speaker (Amazon Alexa, Google Home) owners listen to podcasts on these devices at least weekly. Click To Tweet

Smart Speakers May Solve the “Podcast Discovery” Problem

Smart Speaker Education is Key to Unlocking Usage

As a very early adopter of smart speaker technology myself, I absolutely agree with this finding in the report:

65% of new smart speaker owners say they don’t know enough about what the device can do.

Will we see yesterday’s home theater installation companies become smart speaker optimizers?

Smart Speakers Are Accessible to the Entire Household

Word of Mouth is Driving Smart Speaker Adoption

In fact, 61% of new smart speaker owners have encouraged their friends to purchase a device.

Once you go voice, you never go back. Among new smart speaker owners (less than one year), 56% of this group has also begun using the voice assistant on their smartphone more often.

Smart Speakers Are Stealing Share From Other Media

Once you get into using your smart speaker, you may find the time remaining for other media types to be diminished. For example, among new smart speaker owners:

45% are listening to less radio

38% are using their smartphone less

32% are reading fewer magazines and newspapers

29% are watching less TV

What I take away from this research is that smart speakers are growing faster, being used more, being used in more ways, and are a bigger threat to other media types than I thought previously.

https://ift.tt/2v6tmDg

#15 Important Statistics About Smart Speakers in 2018

0 notes

byronheeutgm · 6 years

Text

15 Important Statistics About Smart Speakers in 2018

43 Million Americans Own a Smart Speaker

via Edison Research and NPR

Smart Speakers Owned More Often by Women

Currently, 54% of all smart speaker owners are women.

In 2018, Most Smart Speaker Owners Are Very New Users

Once You Own a Smart Speaker, You Often Use it More Than When You Initially Purchased It

Fundamentally, this speaks to the broad functionality of these consumer electronics, and owners’ appetite for discovering new ways to utilize smart speakers in their day-to-day lives.

Once You Own a Smart Speaker, You’re Likely to Buy More

Nearly 50% of Americans who own a smart speaker own two or more of these devices. And among owners who have had a smart speaker for more than one year, 27% of them now own three or more units.

27% of Americans who have owned a smart speaker (Amazon Alexa, Google Home) for more than a year now own 3 or more units. Click To Tweet Smart Speakers Are Likely to Become the Dominant Audio Player

Podcast Listeners Love Smart Speakers

via Edison Research and NPR

39% of new smart speaker (Amazon Alexa, Google Home) owners listen to podcasts on these devices at least weekly. Click To Tweet

Smart Speakers May Solve the “Podcast Discovery” Problem

Smart Speaker Education is Key to Unlocking Usage

As a very early adopter of smart speaker technology myself, I absolutely agree with this finding in the report:

65% of new smart speaker owners say they don’t know enough about what the device can do.

Will we see yesterday’s home theater installation companies become smart speaker optimizers?

Smart Speakers Are Accessible to the Entire Household

Word of Mouth is Driving Smart Speaker Adoption

In fact, 61% of new smart speaker owners have encouraged their friends to purchase a device.

Once you go voice, you never go back. Among new smart speaker owners (less than one year), 56% of this group has also begun using the voice assistant on their smartphone more often.

Smart Speakers Are Stealing Share From Other Media

Once you get into using your smart speaker, you may find the time remaining for other media types to be diminished. For example, among new smart speaker owners:

45% are listening to less radio

38% are using their smartphone less

32% are reading fewer magazines and newspapers

29% are watching less TV

What I take away from this research is that smart speakers are growing faster, being used more, being used in more ways, and are a bigger threat to other media types than I thought previously.

https://ift.tt/2v6tmDg

#15 Important Statistics About Smart Speakers in 2018

0 notes

conniecogeie · 6 years

Text

15 Important Statistics About Smart Speakers in 2018

43 Million Americans Own a Smart Speaker

via Edison Research and NPR

Smart Speakers Owned More Often by Women

Currently, 54% of all smart speaker owners are women.

In 2018, Most Smart Speaker Owners Are Very New Users

Once You Own a Smart Speaker, You Often Use it More Than When You Initially Purchased It

Fundamentally, this speaks to the broad functionality of these consumer electronics, and owners’ appetite for discovering new ways to utilize smart speakers in their day-to-day lives.

Once You Own a Smart Speaker, You’re Likely to Buy More

Nearly 50% of Americans who own a smart speaker own two or more of these devices. And among owners who have had a smart speaker for more than one year, 27% of them now own three or more units.

27% of Americans who have owned a smart speaker (Amazon Alexa, Google Home) for more than a year now own 3 or more units. Click To Tweet Smart Speakers Are Likely to Become the Dominant Audio Player

Podcast Listeners Love Smart Speakers

via Edison Research and NPR

39% of new smart speaker (Amazon Alexa, Google Home) owners listen to podcasts on these devices at least weekly. Click To Tweet

Smart Speakers May Solve the “Podcast Discovery” Problem

Smart Speaker Education is Key to Unlocking Usage

As a very early adopter of smart speaker technology myself, I absolutely agree with this finding in the report:

65% of new smart speaker owners say they don’t know enough about what the device can do.

Will we see yesterday’s home theater installation companies become smart speaker optimizers?

Smart Speakers Are Accessible to the Entire Household

Word of Mouth is Driving Smart Speaker Adoption

In fact, 61% of new smart speaker owners have encouraged their friends to purchase a device.

Once you go voice, you never go back. Among new smart speaker owners (less than one year), 56% of this group has also begun using the voice assistant on their smartphone more often.

Smart Speakers Are Stealing Share From Other Media

Once you get into using your smart speaker, you may find the time remaining for other media types to be diminished. For example, among new smart speaker owners:

45% are listening to less radio

38% are using their smartphone less

32% are reading fewer magazines and newspapers

29% are watching less TV

What I take away from this research is that smart speakers are growing faster, being used more, being used in more ways, and are a bigger threat to other media types than I thought previously.

https://ift.tt/2v6tmDg

#15 Important Statistics About Smart Speakers in 2018

0 notes

mercedessharonwo1 · 6 years

Text

15 Important Statistics About Smart Speakers in 2018

43 Million Americans Own a Smart Speaker

via Edison Research and NPR

Smart Speakers Owned More Often by Women

Currently, 54% of all smart speaker owners are women.

In 2018, Most Smart Speaker Owners Are Very New Users

Once You Own a Smart Speaker, You Often Use it More Than When You Initially Purchased It

Fundamentally, this speaks to the broad functionality of these consumer electronics, and owners’ appetite for discovering new ways to utilize smart speakers in their day-to-day lives.

Once You Own a Smart Speaker, You’re Likely to Buy More

Nearly 50% of Americans who own a smart speaker own two or more of these devices. And among owners who have had a smart speaker for more than one year, 27% of them now own three or more units.

27% of Americans who have owned a smart speaker (Amazon Alexa, Google Home) for more than a year now own 3 or more units. Click To Tweet Smart Speakers Are Likely to Become the Dominant Audio Player

Podcast Listeners Love Smart Speakers

via Edison Research and NPR

39% of new smart speaker (Amazon Alexa, Google Home) owners listen to podcasts on these devices at least weekly. Click To Tweet

Smart Speakers May Solve the “Podcast Discovery” Problem

Smart Speaker Education is Key to Unlocking Usage

As a very early adopter of smart speaker technology myself, I absolutely agree with this finding in the report:

65% of new smart speaker owners say they don’t know enough about what the device can do.

Will we see yesterday’s home theater installation companies become smart speaker optimizers?

Smart Speakers Are Accessible to the Entire Household

Word of Mouth is Driving Smart Speaker Adoption

In fact, 61% of new smart speaker owners have encouraged their friends to purchase a device.

Once you go voice, you never go back. Among new smart speaker owners (less than one year), 56% of this group has also begun using the voice assistant on their smartphone more often.

Smart Speakers Are Stealing Share From Other Media

Once you get into using your smart speaker, you may find the time remaining for other media types to be diminished. For example, among new smart speaker owners:

45% are listening to less radio

38% are using their smartphone less

32% are reading fewer magazines and newspapers

29% are watching less TV

What I take away from this research is that smart speakers are growing faster, being used more, being used in more ways, and are a bigger threat to other media types than I thought previously.

https://ift.tt/2v6tmDg

#15 Important Statistics About Smart Speakers in 2018

0 notes

tecinfo · 6 years

Text

Prepared Player One's film adjustment isn't even sufficient as a children motion picture Everything here—character advancement, CGI, nerd cred references—frustrates.

The film adjustment of Ready Player One exposes its broken, frustrating geek heart superior to anything any negative survey could.

The telling minute happens almost part of the way through the teenager experience frolic, when improbable, unbalanced saint Wade Watts starts winning a noteworthy challenge inside the modern film's virtual-reality universe (reflecting an indistinguishable plot from its namesake book). A wickedness corporate overlord named Nolan Sorrento swoops in with plans on selecting Wade, and to do this, he spreads out enticing nerd iverse offers (like a Millennium Falcon to use in the film's "Desert spring" VR world) and exchanges blows in a geek random data trade around '80s movies. At the same time, a flunky bolsters geeky tidbits into Sorrento's ear with the goal that he sounds genuine.

Swim calls BS on this rattling of geek qualifications and reminds Sorrento that a genuine enthusiast of the Oasis wouldn't attempt to win its control-influencing challenge with random data alone. Sorrento's reaction, after being gotten out, is to lash out with silly viciousness.

Taking care of business, Ready Player One's uneven, unsurprising, and empty characteristics can be composed off in the administration of "a flawlessly fine children's motion picture." But the film's makers hinder the entire thing by pulling a Sorrento at all times—coming up short—to compensate for an absence of heart with grandiloquence and quirky appearances.

Unholy vessel

RP1 takes after its book motivations in free, unmistakable form. Characters and the general plot circular segment continue as before, while the correct execution and occasions fluctuate fiercely. Which means: despite everything we're following Wade (played by Tye Sheridan of X-Men: Apocalypse and The Tree of Life), whose virtual-world handle is Parzival, he's as yet joined by a similar pack of both virtual-and certifiable companions in endeavoring to recoup a "brilliant Easter egg" inside the fiercely well known Oasis VR benefit.

The chase for this egg starts for a similar reason, also: in light of the fact that Oasis co-maker James Halliday (played here by Mark Rylance) passed away, in actuality, along these lines commencing a sentimentality filled VR Wonka frolic. The Oasis has turned into the world's greatest wellspring of stimulation in the year 2045, and Halliday's passing sets a millions-in number challenge into movement. Finish '80s-themed challenges in VR, while remembering secretive signs, and you can guarantee the egg, which will transform you into the Oasis' next proprietor and administrator. (The previously mentioned miscreant, played by Ben Mendelsohn of Rogue One, embarks to animal power his way into winning the challenge and transforming the Oasis into a Facebook-like barf of advertisements and nosy substance.)

A portion of the contrasts between the exposition and the photos rely on sheer permitting issues. Try not to hope to see a portion of the book's greatest scenes, similar to a VR playthrough of Pac-Man or the "flicksync" minutes where Wade and companions bounce into VR adaptations of movies like Wargames and Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Rather, the Oasis' madness commences with a boisterous and-quick auto race, and the film's solitary bonafide flicksync is a jump into Stephen King's The Shining.

Before jumping into why these substance switches are hazardous, there's another, additionally harming contrast to represent: the film team's lack of engagement in making sympathetic characters. Not at all like in the book, Wade doesn't collaborate with genuine companions, have protracted discussions with his VR buddies, blunder impartially through school, have noteworthy family associations, or show us anything in the method for advantages or identity. The film's Wade is a definitive white-sheet of a hero, and he spends the greater part of the film lashed into a VR headset.

The film's hyper pixie virtualgirl Art3mis (Olivia Cooke) has greater identity as a matter of course, which isn't stating much. She's an individual from an obstruction compel, completely mindful of the shades of malice that Nolan Sorrento's organization submits, and she needs exact retribution, however we take in this in a wide-looked at, two-sentence yell. Something else, Art3mis for the most part exists to stand out enough to be noticed—she in the long run begins to look all starry eyed at him, unconvincingly—and to delight in disposable '80s-being a fan references. (They both like Buckaroo Banzai. That kind of thing.)

Executive Steven Spielberg and friends obviously adore '80s adolescent movies, and it appears with the style and speed of its clever replies. In light of that, in any case, RP1 acts like Ferris Bueller's best scenes were the joyrides in Cameron's father's Ferrari and Ferris' frantic dash home toward the end. Holding and character improvement have been rejected on the whole to prepare for activity arrangements.

A profound fissure in the uncanny valley

More awful, in all honesty, the activity scenes suck.

About each scene in RP1 happens inside the Oasis, and these scenes, nearly without come up short, are rendered in distractingly floaty CGI. At the film's start, this nearly appears to be deliberate, as though to clarify to watchers that the Oasis is a phony, virtual place. However, that is little reassurance for the visual effect. The opening succession I said, about a hyper auto race, at last feels empty on account of its silly material science demonstrate. Swim auto-mysteriously controls his approach to close achievement, and at no time does it ever resemble the scene has stakes.

We likewise watch Parzival and Art3mis begin to look all starry eyed at inside VR, and their symbols, finish with off-set eyes and floaty livelinesss, live in an entirely profound cleft of the uncanny valley. (The main thing more regrettable than this is Spielberg's choice to reshape a colossal point in the book: that Art3mis' genuine partner is unbecoming, and that Wade defeats that shallow issue because of their VR-world holding. Cooke is no place close to the "Rubenesque" individual that Cline composed into RP1, and Wade's eagerness to "neglect" Art3mis' slight facial checking is sufficiently offensive to influence me to prevent participation for any young ladies.)

There's additionally that minute in which characters reproduce The Shining inside the Oasis, which painfully emerges for two reasons. In the first place, it is the film's uncommon snapshot of joining handy, genuine impacts with VR symbols in fulfilling style. As Wade and his VR companions run and dash and monstrosity out inside the genuine Stanley Hotel, the film becomes animated—particularly as the film's best character, Aech (Lena Waithe), uncovers a great deal of comical identity qualities. It's hard not to contrast this with whatever is left of the CGI-filled Oasis scenes—or more terrible, the appallingly shabby looking soundstage sets that RP1's performing artists every so often stand, run, or drive through—and think about the amount more grounded this film may have felt if a greater amount of the monetary allowance were spent on areas.

The other issue with this scene is that it tonally looks bad inside character James Halliday's sentimentality plunge of a VR world. No place in either the book or film does he set up himself as a blood and gore movie expert, and regardless of whether he were, he's plainly more inspired by characteristically "nerdy" passage. (I'd have expected, say, the cheesy jokes and bleeding Technicolor of Nightmare on Elm Street.)

I call attention to out not to state that I required Freddy Krueger to appreciate the film however to grumble about RP1's perpetual dump of popular culture references... which have little association with the particular wistfulness window that Cline opened up in the book. It doesn't take long to come to an obvious conclusion of which characters do (and don't) show up and arrive at the conclusion that Spielberg and co. simply don't get it. A huge amount of current establishments (Borderlands, Halo, Overwatch) blend with the '90s preferences of Mortal Kombat, Hello Kitty, and Spawn, alongside a genuine weight on establishments that the film studio Warner Bros. has the licenses to (especially DC Comics superheroes).

The most blatant guilty party in such manner is RP1's noisy utilization of The Iron Giant, a WB-created film from 1999 whose focal automated character fortified truly with its child legend. Spielberg's film lets one of its legends bounce into that Iron Giant mech suit, however the subsequent scene is a blast filled activity frolic in which he pummels quick into other marked, super-sized animals. The Iron Giant is diminished to a good for nothing activity figure—which runs in opposition to the arrangement's focal subject of taking advantage of the genuine goal of nerd culture's greatest makers.

One? More like None

RP1's last stretch is an especially tiring trudge where all rationale and importance leave arrange left. For what reason do Wade and his VR companions need to meet in a similar city for this succession, where they're inevitably focused by Sorrento's associates? Why some puzzling rationale drives the great folks or terrible folks into the lead position in this last fight at regular intervals? For what reason does Spielberg indicate a great many Wade's fans moronically kicking around, in actuality, with headsets on, in this manner influencing this Google To glass like future look especially senseless and therefore not worth putting resources into? Furthermore, who really purchases the climactic minute in which the callous Sorrento abruptly grows a Grinch-like heart?

It's every one of the a disgrace, on the grounds that there's absolutely a fair, watchable film covered in this heap of nerd appearances and geek cred shoutouts. Each on-screen character on offer is strong at executing on Spielberg's heading (which, in a couple of characters' cases, is excruciatingly hammy, however I get his '80s purposes behind going that course), and despite the fact that I was never a gigantic fanatic of the book, I've generally trusted it's both a fine read for kids and an ethically solid format for a nerd family film. I could see this activity substantial film being sufficiently fine after a blend of altering and identity building reshoots. Clean up the enlarged activity scenes; let Wade and companions bond in Goonies-or Bueller-like form; offer maybe a couple more scenes in which these adolescents really play with more seasoned establishments for the sake of entertainment ways and hence interface the retro substance to somewhat more mankind.

0 notes