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boleynns · 2 years ago

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Do u have fic recommendations?

I'm gonna assume this is for Daemon/Rhaenyra since that has been all I've talked about for months haha. And definitely have plenty of recs! In general I love reading really long fic (like, in really popular pairings I will set my parameters to see 50k+ or 100k+ fics only...), so due to the relative newness of this ship's popularity, most of my recs are incomplete. I also have way more that I am subscribed to that absolutely could be faves eventually, but that are just a little too early in the story to guarantee.

Canon/Canon!AU

To Ashes (Series) by Emerald_Aphelion (~30k, series incomplete but has 3 complete works so far) -- AU from Daemon's return from the Stepstones, basically where Daemon and Rhaenyra are just a little more thoughtful and forward-thinking within their relationship and with the political situation they're in. Established Relationship Vibes but also slow burn romance at the same time, they make each other smarter and better by working together, Rhaenyra bonds with baby!Aegon AND Rhea, Daemon picks Rhaenyra up and puts her on a table and calls her his queen at one point (hot), and this is the ideal Dance fix-it.

my eyes are aching to see you--126AC by SeveDeChampagne (~2.5k, complete) -- set between Episode 7 and 8, a very spicy First Time Post-Birth one-shot that contains multiple sentences that are some of the most intensely romantic things I've ever read. Considering my love of long fics, it takes a special kind of short fic for me to be so moved and attached.

How to Win Thrones and Ensnare Dragons by Writer_in_the__Dark (~15k, incomplete) -- Time Travel AU (my kink) where Rhaenyra is reborn into her baby-self. Only a few chapters in but I am HOOKED by the writing style and characterization of The Early Years dynamic, and am so looking forward to seeing how this evolves as time moves forward -- but based on the writing so far, I know it will be wonderful.

put down that gravestone by darkgods (~35k, incomplete) -- Post-Episode 4 AU, where Daemon went back to the Vale and Rhea didn't die, and then Rhaenyra gave birth to very Daemon-looking twins (wonder how that happened!), and then 10 years later Rhea has dead and Viserys invites Daemon back to be Hand. This story is so well-written and rich with character detail, I honestly just want to re-read it over and over! It has so beautifully dove into Rhaenyra's psyche, Daemon's personality (from his own perspective and from others), built a very sad and realistic portrait of Jace and Luke's lives as outcasts in court, set up some deliciously hurtful and complicated strings to unravel between Daemon and Rhaenyra due to this inciting situation, and has already indulged my pathological need for some Outside POV content by adding in Luke's (very well-written) perspective on a dinner scene. The fact that the chapter count is currently at 4/36 and we already have 35k words has me so hyped, you guys don't understand how badly I need piles and piles of giant fics.

Significance by AmazingAngie (~21k, incomplete) -- AmazingAngie is amazing because of how quickly she writes such amazing material! This is a Soulmate!AU, and this one in particular is just so insanely lovely so far! I'm a sucker for a "meant to be" setup so I will always love those from the get go, but I especially love the nuance in this story, and the ways that knowing that they are the endgame changes the trajectory of all of these characters lives.

you came/you called by scarlettscribbles (~10k, incomplete) -- basically an Episode 10 AU, kind of, but beyond that I just suggest reading it and going with the flow, because once I was like 80% into this first chapter I finally realized what was happening and it was so exciting. Needless to say I am pumped for the rest of the story.

Modern!AU

No joke I have literally NEVER liked Modern!AU's before, except for with 'Merlin' (because even if it wasn't explicitly stated, I could pretend that it was Reincarnation). It has just never appealed to me, until now with Daemon and Rhaenyra -- because they are just that powerful. Also none of my Modern!AU faves are any of that "Oh, actually, Daemon is adopted, or they're third cousins twice removed, or Daemon is only a ~symbolic uncle", like, we all know what we're doing here 😂

Lets Ignite Under the Ember Skies by grandlovescheme (26k, complete) -- So freaking good! The uncertainty, the jealousy, the tension, the ~vibes, the ~sexy ~vibes, it is a tightly-written and very well-characterized modern version of these characters and I love it.

Petrichor by sweetestsorrows (katschako) (~23k, incomplete) -- one of the chapters made me cry for real. Very intense "we are way too close to be appropriate, and it is causing angst, but i wanna be closer..." vibes, and I am so here for it. It really is wonderfully translating their bond to a modern lens, and all the problems and tensions that would come along with that dynamic. It made me go "omg that is so intensely romantic", it made me literally cry, it made me go "ooh ~spicy", its got it all.

the beauty queen in tears by writingwhatidream (~30k, incomplete) -- AHHH I am obsessed with this story (almost as obsessed as Crispin is with Rhaenyra in it...). To try and sum it up, it is a Modern!AU A/B/O Royal Family fic...but that all sounds so much more reductive than it actually reads. For me, it is: delicious Daemon/Rhaenyra "Us Against the World" vibes, where even if they're not physically together they are 100% together, with a healthy (or rather unhealthy, in-context) dose of creepy Outsider POV, and the promise of Alpha/Omega-induced drama, love, possessiveness, and danger to come. It is juicy and beautifully written, and is giving me so many things I want all in one place.

#thank the gods for writers writing the best stuff for free #hotd #daemon x rhaenyra #there is so much good fic happening i am truly personally blessed to read it

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scintillating-galaxias · 5 years ago

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fellas is it gay to accidentally make out with your lab partner

(read it here on ao3!)

They’re stuck.

Impossibly, hopelessly, stuck.

It does not often happen that with their collective processing power, Perceptor and Brainstorm find themselves unable to continue in their work simply because they have no idea what the problem is. Perceptor is too calculated and particular about his methods to lose himself so thoroughly and though Brainstorm is not nearly as careful, his tenaciousness makes him absolutely ruthless when it comes to any blockade they run into.

But when they do run into one, they run into it hard.

Both of them are currently sitting on the floor. The pieces of the prototype of Brainstorm’s newest idea, a temporal displacement blaster, lay scattered between them. Brainstorm himself has been tossing his faceplate (which he’s been wearing less and less lately, much to Perceptor’s enjoyment) up and down for the last two hours. But now, the motion has been stifled by a terrible dullness slowly glazing over his optics. It’s a decidedly haunting look on him. He is all movement, all forward motion. He brings life, energy, to their lab just by existing in its space. To see him stagnant instills Perceptor with a profoundly unsettling sense of wrong.

Something must be done.

Perceptor cycles his scope. “One more time,” he sighs, breaking the silence, “you are—”

“We are,” Brainstorm cuts in listlessly, “we’ve been sitting together on the floor long enough that I think I can constitute this as a co-project.”

“We,” continues Perceptor, “are attempting to make a weapon that creates user-controlled temporal pockets which temporarily freeze the matter contained within it in a particular moment of time.”

“Time bubbles, yep.”

“And the issue…”

“The issue,” Brainstorm says dully, “is that everything that’s in motion when we put it in the time bubbles comes out all screwy.”

“‘Screwy’ is hardly the appropriate terminology, but… yes.”

Brainstorm groans and hurls his mask across the room. It skitters away with a clatter and vanishes beneath a shelf. “I don’t get it!” he laments. “I could make time-travel happen, so why can’t I make a fraggin’ pause button? It’s basically the same thing!”

Perceptor frowns and gingerly lays a servo on Brainstorm’s pauldron. When he doesn’t react, he says, “Time travel, until you, was an unexplored science. You’re the first, and the first ones never have it easy. We’re bound to run into troubles.”

Brainstorm smiles, but his wings sag dejectedly. “We’re unstoppable together, Percy. When you’re with me, I can invent, and make, and do literally anything. Anything,” he says quietly, “except this, I guess.”

Perceptor’s mouth opens, but no response comes out. He should be flattered—and he is—but it’s difficult to accept when Brainstorm’s field practically writhes with frustration and bitterness that’s clearly directed at himself.

“We’ll figure it out,” he says, “I’m helping you see this endeavor through until the end.”

Brainstorm’s gaze burns when he meets it for a second too long, so he shutters his optics and focuses them down on the pieces of the prototype on the floor. Data. Review the data. Doing it again can’t hurt.

Trial #07, recorded at 15:01:29. Matter (1.0 x 1.0 x 1.0 mechanometer cube of aluminum) placed on pedestal. Upon firing, temporal displacement gun disappeared. Suspect a fault within the barrel caused gun to misfire and hit itself with a temporal pocket. Unable to locate and retrieve it. Trial discontinued.

Trial #22, recorded at 18:44:17. Matter (1.0 x 1.0 x 1.0 mechanometer cube of aluminum) placed on pedestal. Fired upon by temporal displacement gun. Temporal pocket successfully created around matter. Pocket was then terminated because Brainstorm disliked the color.

Note: This decision was not made with unanimous agreement.

Trial #58, recorded at 23:14:18. Matter (1.0 x 1.0 x 1.0 mechanometer cube of aluminum) launched 15 meters into air at 70-degree angle. Fired upon by temporal displacement gun. Matter successfully placed inside temporal pocket. Matter is ‘frozen’ in position. When released from temporal pocket, matter becomes intangible. Appearance ‘glitches’ between prediction position from calculated trajectory and original position. ‘Glitch’ flickers rapidly and seemingly randomly. Unable to reverse effect.

Trial #59… {in progress}

Uncharacteristically, his mind begins to wander. Maybe the hours of relentlessly hacking away at this project have dulled the sharp focus he typically has. A conversation he hadn’t meant to overhear between Tailgate and Swerve on one night at the bar begins to play.

“You’d think we’d have figured out how to get better interstellar WiFi by now,” Tailgate was complaining. “I’ve lost so many games because I keep lagging!”

“What I’m hearing,” Swerve said as he expertly swiped a rag around a cube, “is the sonorous anthem of a bad player.”

“No! You need to come over tonight, I’ll show you how bad it is in my hab suite…”

“You’ve got a thinking face on.”

“I do not have a thinking face.”

“Everyone has a thinking face. Yours is like—you go mm”—Brainstorm frowns a little bit—“and your scope kinda points down more.”

“Does it?” Brainstorm’s been paying that kind of attention to him?

“Yep. What’re you thinking?”

Perceptor chews on his glossa. “This is,” he begins warningly, “frankly, a whim—”

“Hey, I’d take Swerve’s ideas at this point. Pit, I’d take Whirl’s, and he suggested a gun that fired guns the other cycle.” Brainstorm twists around so that he’s facing Perceptor and plants his chin on his servos. “Hit me.”

“Alright… Forgive me for the crude phrasing, but the way these objects are behaving reminds me of Tailgate’s video games.”

Brainstorm links his digits together and nods thoughtfully. “...Yeah, you’re gonna have to give me more here.”

“Do you recall what issue he used to complain about until you’d fixed it?” he tries.

“His game was being slow? What’s this got to do with anything?”

“Bear with me. Tailgate described it as ‘lagging’, yes?” Brainstorm nods with one brow ridge raised. “In that context, it essentially meant that his game fell behind what was actually happening.”

“I’m familiar with the term,” Brainstorm says wryly. “He only whined about it to me three times a cycle for eighty-five cycles straight.”

Perceptor cracks a smile. “Then you could tell me why it happened and how you fixed it.”

“Are you serious?”

“When am I not?”

Brainstorm chuckles. “Fair enough. It was an easy fix. I could have done it with my optics turned off. His suite happened to be just on the edge of the range of the router, so it kept cutting in and out. I just gave him his own extension… based off the ship’s… Oh. Ohh. ”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but the lag occurred when the connection was too poor. Everything in Tailgate’s game—from his perspective—stopped at the moment the connection dropped.” Perceptor looks to Brainstorm, who nods. “Anything else within the game continued to react with the environment unaffected because it wasn’t having the same issue. When the connection stabilized, everything in Tailgate’s game rapidly sped back up to what was actually happening.”

“Right…”

Perceptor sets his shoulders. “I suspect something similar is happening with these temporal pockets. When the pocket is activated, it creates its own timeline for everything inside that moves asynchronously with this one.”

Brainstorm’s optics begin to glimmer. “Keep going,” he says as he drags the pieces of the prototype towards him and begins to swiftly reassemble them.

Invigorated, Perceptor straightens and leans towards Brainstorm. “Once the matter is placed inside the bubble,” he explains, “it enters its own timeline. It splits off from this one”—he gestures broadly to their lab—“for the lifespan that the pocket exists. Like this.” He flashes a crude diagram onto the floor from his scope featuring a thick, straight line. “Here is the alpha timeline, using ourselves as a reference frame. It’s also the one the matter is in before the creation of the temporal distortion pocket.” He begins to draw a thinner line that branches off from the first. “This moment,” he continues, pointing at where the thick and the thin one connect, “is where the bubble is created. This new line is the new beta timeline the matter is in. But the issue is that when we create the pocket”—he erases the point of connection—“instead of staying tethered to the alpha timeline, the matter becomes more or less stranded in the beta one.”

Brainstorm shivers. “You’re the smartest fragging mech on this ship, you know that? I barely know what you’re talking about. It’s amazing. Keep going.”

Perceptor forces down the pleased swelling of his spark. Brainstorm practically invented all of the concepts he was talking about, and he calls Perceptor the smart one? “My theory for our problem is this: when we attempt to free the material inside of the bubble, it continues to behave as though it is within the beta timeline. Interactions with it become difficult because to us, it’s in a new position—at least, it should be—but to the matter inside the pocket, it has not moved.”

Brainstorm nods, slowly at first, then faster and faster. “Yeah… yeah! Yeah, okay, okay, and then, then…” He snaps his digits together frantically. “So we give it some sort of—some sort of anchor to this timeline. So it’ll still move with it, but like, in tandem, and not as a part of this timeline.” As he speaks, he drags his digit along the thin line, runs it parallel to the thicker line, and then drags it back down. “We just gotta establish a remote connection from this timeline to the bubble.”

“Precisely. If we can manage that, then maybe…” Perceptor trails off with a tilt of his head. Brainstorm stares owlishly for a long moment. His optics blaze to life.

“I have an idea,” he mutters, scrambling to his pedes, “If this works, I swear I’m gonna—Oh my God, hold on—”

He drags Perceptor up, then flies over to his workspace, wings visibly quivering with anticipation. Perceptor can only watch in stunned awe as Brainstorm’s servos fly across the console, twisting, complex equations he’s almost certainly just now invented springing to life across the screen. “I mean,” Brainstorm rambles as he types, “hypothetically, it’s easy. I’ve done it before with my timecase. Of course, that was attached to my body, and this is firing over a distance, and that’s obviously different, but—”

“Sigma, not delta.”

“Thanks, and I played around with some long-distance options with the timecase, you know—”

“Did you?”

“Yeah, but they never were what I really needed. I mean,” Brainstorm scoffs, throwing up one hand while the other continues to work as a blur across the keyboard, “why try to calculate something that would find my exact position in an exact moment in time in the past? That’s like trying to shoot a bullet out of the air five minutes after you fire it. It’s asinine.”

“Yes, it would have been a pain. Your solution was clever, however.”

“So then—this might work? No guarantees. You thought it was clever?”

“Unbelievably so.”

Brainstorm bites his lip and mutters something like, “ You’re unbelievable,” but Perceptor can’t be sure. He doesn’t have the time to question it because Brainstorm pushes off from the console then, and snatches up the blaster. Perceptor finally shakes himself to quit his gawking (though he can’t quite get rid of the fond smile) and strides off to place yet another cube of aluminum onto the launcher they’d been using. When he returns to the firing line, Brainstorm is watching the recalibration bar load with a slightly frantic gleam to his optics.

“Come on,” he mutters, “come on, come on, come on, come on—”

The second the console flashes its confirmation of completion, he practically rips the cable out of the blaster that connected it to the console. It’s bent at an uncomfortably sharp angle at the end, but Brainstorm either does not notice or does not care as he takes aim.

“Ready?”

“Yes.” Perceptor’s spark chamber feels tight. “I’ll be firing on three. One, two, three.” He flicks a switch. Up goes the cube, sailing in a flinty silver arch—

Brainstorms fires. The blast hits the cube dead-on. It freezes at the peak of its arch inside of a cherry red bubble.

Trial #59, recorded at 24:01:47…

“You getting this?”

“Of course.”

“How much time has passed?”

Perceptor tilts his head. “When I finish speaking, it will be approximately ten point eight five two seven seconds since the material has entered the temporal distortion pocket.”

Brainstorm vents harshly. His right pede is tapping anxiously, but his aim is remarkably steady. “Right. I’m gonna release it now.”

A moment passes. Nothing happens.

Perceptor glances at him. “Brainstorm?”

A loud crash of metal reverberates through their lab as the cube hits the ground with a bang! and bounces gracelessly to a stop. The ringing of metal continues on into the shocked silence for a few fragile seconds.

“It worked,” Brainstorm says, dumbfounded. Then he laughs, shortly at first, and then bright and clear. The the radiance of his smile is the most exquisite thing Perceptor’s ever seen. “It worked!”

Perceptor finally releases the vent he’d been holding, only to sputter on his next cycle when Brainstorm drags him into a crushing hug. It’s despairingly brief, but when Brainstorm pushes him away, it isn’t far—just millimeters from his face, from his pretty mouth, Oh Primus—and it’s to place his servos firmly on either side of Perceptor’s helm.

“What—?”

“You’re fragging incredible,” Brainstorm whispers, and he kisses Perceptor full on the mouth.

As far as kisses go, the technique is slightly lacking. Their denta clack, their noses smash together, but he can feel Brainstorm’s victorious grin across his mouth and the giddy rush of he’s-kissing-me! drowns out every other line of code detailing cohesive thought in Perceptor’s processor.

But the moment he comes back to himself enough to reciprocate, cool air ghosts across his damp lips. The space in front of him is empty.

Perceptor resets his optics. Then he does it again. Brainstorm has not vanished into thin air. He’s actually across the lab, face buried in his servos.

“—fragging idiot, what the Pit was that, why, why, did I do that? Couldn’t keep yourself under control, and you do that? What the hell?”

A twinge of hurt plucks at Perceptor’s spark. Had he… not meant to kiss him? Why had he, then? Perceptor sighs. “Brainstorm.”

“Never gonna take my faceplate off again, oh my God —”

“Please just look at me.”

Brainstorm freezes. Slowly, he turns around, shame drawing his shoulders close to his audials. “I can—I can go, if you want,” he blurts.

Perceptor jerks his head back. “What?”

“There’s a bunch of empty labs on this ship. Plus, there’s plenty of other mechs dying to be your lab partner—”

“What?”

“Yeah, seriously, First Aid’s aft-deep in Ratchet’s old work, but he’s a seriously clever mech, I bet you guys would—”

“No, I mean—I don’t want you to change labs, and I don’t want a new lab partner.” Brainstorm stares. Perceptor turns his palms outward placatingly. “All I want is an explanation.”

Brainstorm’s wings droop miserably. He scrubs his forehead with a servo hard enough to leave behind faint orange paint transfers and exvents heavily. “I’m sorry. Really, really sorry. I got excited and sometimes I just—I’m affectionate. That’s, ugh, not an excuse, it’s stupid. I shouldn’t have done it, and I’m sorry.”

But he looks so defeated and upset, and his field is such a horribly tight, dark knot of despair-regret-disappointment, Perceptor cannot help but feel there is something he has purposely left out.

We’re unstoppable together.

Smartest mech on the ship.

You’re unbelievable.

You’re fragging incredible.

…Or Perceptor merely has not been looking into the data deeply enough.

His silence is obviously mistaken by Brainstorm, who laughs lifelessly and says, “I really screwed us up, huh.”

“No,” Perceptor says quickly. He takes a step towards Brainstorm. Then another, and another, until he’s close enough to reach out and hold his servos if he felt so inclined. “You didn’t screw anything up. I forgive you,” he says clearly. Then he politely resets his vocalizer, and quietly adds, “But a little warning next time would be appreciated.”

“Of course, Perc, I—” Brainstorm’s helm snaps up so quickly, Perceptor’s worries if he’s pulled some struts. “Next time?”

“Yes. Next time.”

“You… You?”

“Yes.”

“For real?”

“Yes.”

“...Seriously?”

“For Primus’—” Perceptor curls one digit beneath Brainstorm’s chin. Before he can lose his nerve, he presses his lips to Brainstorm’s. This kiss is not nearly as bruising as their first one, but it’s deeper, and Perceptor still makes damn sure he pours every ounce of yes and want this and real he has in him until he feels Brainstorm begin to literally sink a little under it all. He breaks away then, unable to suppress his smile when he asks, “Is that a sufficient answer?”

Brainstorm makes a noise that sounds like his entire processor deciding to reboot by throwing itself into a body of water. “I dunno,” he says, dazed. “Might need a few more test runs to really be sure it works.”

Perceptor smiles and lifts his arms to loop them around Brainstorm’s shoulders. “I believe,” he says, leaning in, “that can be arranged.”

#simpatico #maccadam #my writing #fluff #accidentally on purpose kisses #this is silly . i have no regrets

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themattress · 4 years ago

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Holy Shit!

https://imgur.com/gallery/WKkli

https://imgur.com/gallery/j9OQylb

Beyond the proof that the guy who uploaded this is involved with Bad Robot that he provided at the end of his second post, these definitely seem legit because the first post was in 2018, before The Rise of Skywalker came out, yet the treatment contains some blatant concepts that ended up finding there way into that movie that I have a hard time believing anyone but J.J himself could have come up with (plus, the rest of the plot is very J.J-like, as I’ll get into.)

So these definitely seem to be the discarded Episode VIII and IX treatments. Thoughts?

- Luke’s reasons for coming to Ahch-To definitely seem more in line with TFA than in TLJ, seeing as if he wanted to just “go there to die” he wouldn’t have left a freaking map to the place behind, plus it seemed off that someone disillusioned with the Jedi ways would go to the site of the first Jedi Temple to begin with. His portrayal also matches what we saw at the end of TFA (seeming to be in mourning for Han), and fits the “kind but sad” description from the script. And far from cutting himself off from the Force, Luke has been influencing it from afar as part of his grand plan, explaining Rey’s vision when she touched his lightsaber.

- Luke has a wife and kids! Sadly for EU fans, the wife is not Mara Jade.

- It was Luke’s influence via the Force that explained the things Rey could do that fans deemed her a Mary Sue for, plus some other things that weren’t so routinely noted such as the remarkable coincidence that she and Finn just happened to run into Han and Chewie right after obtaining the Millennium Falcon. Not sure how well this would have gone down...

- Saccrum, Snoke’s home planet, is literally Exogol. Secret ancient Sith planet that is nigh impenetrable to all non-Sith, site of the final battle and (as we’ll soon learn) where Snoke is repeatedly cloned and where Palpatine is resurrected by Sith alchemists...it’s fucking Exogol.

- I recall concept art for Kylo Ren’s partly metallic face floating around.

- Dathan Naut seems cool, but she never really amounts to much.

- So it seems J.J Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan’s vision for the Sequel Trilogy always seemed to boil down to “All the generations of Jedi vs. all the generations of Sith reaching a climactic battle, with Skywalker vs. Palpatine at the heart of it, and the Palpatine who becomes a Skywalker as the key to victory.” That idea was always where they were going.

- Jedi/Sith Holocrons were always gonna be a thing, which is why Rebels worked them in.

- Live-action Ahsoka was also always an objective, it seems, and I bet the way they wrote her out in Rebels’ “Twilight of the Apprentice” was to potentially serve as a lead-in for her appearance in the Sequel Trilogy. But because that never came to pass, they brought her back toward the end of the series and set her on the new trajectory that she’s currently on. Honestly, I think that’s for the better, Ahsoka wouldn’t have really fit in the main film series.

- Not big on this Cfi-Xi character, she mainly seems to be here to “no homo” C-3PO. And her main role relating to the Sith Planet ended up played just fine by C-3PO in TROS anyway.

- BB-8 had the kind of fake-out death they ended up giving to Chewie.

- Wow, so Hux was supposed to die in Episode VIII and Phasma in Episode IX originally. Funny how that got totally flipped backward in the versions we actually ended up getting.

- OK, this “family time” that Rey’s getting is precious. It’s sad we didn’t get to see this.

- Hoo boy, “this is the bad ass Luke Skywalker we’ve been waiting for!” Really? Et tu, J.J and Kasdan? In light of the recent showing by Luke in The Mandalorian, I again question why this portrayal of the character is so widely beloved by fans when it has little to no basis in the OT.

- Rey vs. Kylo Ren in a raging ocean backdrop; here in Episode VIII rather than IX. Similarly, it’s a duel that Kylo clearly has in the bag, but a fluke in the Force allows Rey to survive, although I much prefer the fluke we got to the one this treatment proposes because....

- Goddamn it, J.J. You’re doing the time travel / time paradox shit again? Were Lost, Fringe and Star Trek not enough for you to explore that concept in? This is the biggest part of these treatment drafts that rubs me the wrong way, it’s just so needlessly convoluted and cliche.

- Also, yet another Mystery Box in Luke’s severed hand on Saccrum.

- No Jedi Leia in that flashback? Yeah, I can see why Kathleen Kennedy rejected this.

- Btw, Rian Johnson wasn’t the only one who was going to turn Luke into an asshole failure, it seems. Making this highly risky plan with Ben and not letting his parents know about it? Dick!

- Snoke is the one who destroys Luke’s academy, not Kylo Ren. And he does so as he is dying; another clue-in that there’s more to Snoke than it seems given that he’s still around.

- Lando would have been in Episode IX anyway, albeit still running Cloud City.

- The idea for this Episode IX is that the Skywalkers are a Jedi dynasty that long predated Anakin (Shmi being a descendant of it), and the Palpatines were their Sith enemies. Sheev Palpatine also would have died his first death generations ago and was being constantly resurrected via clone bodies made on Saccrum ever since, so the one that Anakin killed wasn’t the original; Palpatine can’t be stopped unless Saccrum is destroyed. While not as convoluted as the time paradox shit, I appreciate the simpler route they ended up taking.

- J.J and Kasdan always wanted Rey’s father to be a defective Palpatine clone.

- There was never a planned origin for Snoke in these treatments; wherever he came from the bottom line was that Palpatine brought him onto his side by promising to share his key to immortality (constant cloned bodies made on Sacccrum) with him. Again, this ended up being simplified into Snoke just being a whole-sale creation of Palpatine’s from the very beginning.

- Since these are treatments, the “love” part of the dynamic between Rey and Kylo Ren is highly underdeveloped and would likely have been fleshed out in screenwriting. The end result, with the deprogramming vision of Rey and Darth Vader, sounds pretty effective though, but I think I much prefer the Leia death / vision of Han version that we ended up with.

- LOL, the “droid way of making love”. I want to see this idea repurposed someday.

- That’s an interesting twist on Alderaan, although it really doesn’t amount to anything given that the planet Leia grew up on and called home still got destroyed by the Death Star.

- “Magic blood”, another J.J-ism. Again, I much prefer the simpler version TROS gave us.

- The climax’s structure is basically the same as in TROS, with Rey (and others) heading to the Sith planet from Ahch-To and then Leia’s Resistance forces going there from their base, with Rey and Ben facing Palpatine. The biggest differences is that we also have Luke vs. Snoke and Finn vs. Phasma battles going on, in addition to a Jedi vs. Sith ground battle.

- Yeah, I don’t really care for how Phasma’s death is handled: making her hideously scarred and treating her sympathetically don’t sit right with me. Rian Johnson did it better, IMO.

- No red stormtroopers here, but there are red Tie Fighters.

- Ben still gives his life to save Rey, albeit in a less literal manner.

- Palpatine still wants Rey to ascend to the Sith throne and rule by his side. Also: “he loves the smell of burning hair, it reminds him of home”!? Wow, that’s dark in what it’s implying...

- OK, so while not a Jedi, Leia is the Big Damn Hero in the end. That makes sense.

- WTF? Rey straight-up kills Palpatine with Sith lightning!? Yeah, that definitely wasn’t ever gong to fly with Lucasfilm, since it totally contradicts ROTJ’s message! It was inevitable that we’d end up with the more correct “Rey deflects Palpatine’s own Sith lightning back at him”.

- “Rey Skywalker” is the end point for the story here as well, but it ending on Tatooine is so much more emotional than ending it on Alderaan Prime, a place that only just now exists.

My final impression is that we probably could have had the best version of the Sequel Trilogy possible IF the right corrections were made when adapting these treatments into real screenplays, such as axing the more convoluted and pointlessly fanservice-y elements and making different choices for a few of the characters (Rey, Kylo Ren, C-3PO, Phasma, etc...also something more substantial for Poe since they clearly had no idea what to do with him). However, it was also an impossibility for it to ever happen due to many different factors, the biggest of which being Carrie Fisher’s passing in 2016. So as it stands, I am still satisfied with the version we got and am especially happy that J.J returned for TROS to provide the end of the Skywalker Saga with some of his original (mercifully fine-tuned and simplified) ideas.

#Star Wars #J.J Abrams #What Could Have Been #Opinion #Analysis

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sassy-pelican · 5 years ago

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Soulmate AU: Bucky Barnes

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x F!Reader Premise: Everyone is born with the soundwaves of the first words their soulmate says on the inside of their dominant hands’ wrist. When those words are said, the birthmark/tattoo turns scar-like. Yours just so happens to turn into a scar when you run into – literally – the former Winter Soldier. Warning: Fluff, language A/N: I am hoping to make this into a multi-part mini-series, but no promises. After seeing the initial and continual response to my Sebastian Stan Soulmate AU, I decided I would try my hand at a different soulmate trope for Bucky.

Your morning was peachy; absolutely marvelous. Nothing beats spilled coffee all over your front, a broken heel, an alarm that did go off – courtesy of your power going out briefly during the night – and realizing that you are going to have to go to work late with a coffee covered shirt. You hurry down the sidewalk, not paying any mind to speed or trajectory. Your only focus is on the destination at hand, the hell that is your job.

It doesn’t even register as you slam into a solid human, build much like a brick wall. You hardly notice as you start falling backwards, almost hitting the ground. Thankfully, the nice human brick wall catches you, saving you from any further embarrassment.

“You okay?” The man says, still holding you upright. You nod. Already trying to brush yourself off, mind still focused on rushing to work. You glance down, catching the sight of your wrist. Your eyes go wide.

“Fucking shit. Today of all days?” You mutter, knowing that his own birthmark tattoo will turn scar-like. You can feel his hand tense on your upper arms. “Sorry. I am already having a shitty day and it isn’t even nine.” Your eyes unconsciously travel up and down the person opposite you. What the hell is he wearing?

“Um …” He trails off before looking down at his own attire. Tactical gear. It is then that you notice one of his hands is gloved. Puzzling, but not exactly enough to set off red flags, even if it should. Sighing, you step away from the strange man that is obviously your soulmate.

“I really have to go. I work at the large building around the corner, you really can’t miss it. It has the big sign that says Stark.” You tell him, clearly ignoring the look of pure shock and horror on his face. “Come by later and ask for [Y/F/N] [Y/L/N]. We can talk then.” Without much more, you begin to hurry back to the Stark building.

Not even five minutes late – a miracle if you had any say in it – you are greeted by your boss, and she looks pissed. “Miss [Y/L/N]! You are late. As the assistant to the head of HR you are expected to be on time and –” She eyes your shirt, nose wrinkling in disgust. “What are you wearing!”

“On the way here, I had a small incident with coffee. And as you pointed out, I am late, therefore I had no time to go back home and change. I have an extra blouse in my desk that I will gladly change into.” You state, far more calmly than you feel.

She nods. “In my office. Ten minutes.” Turning on her heal, she walks off. Everyone who witnessed the small display of false dominance all breathe a sigh of relief once she is out of earshot.

Your closest coworker, Jane, looks at you. “I don’t how you do it [Y/N]. You are the only person I know who can stand up to her.”

“I’m her assistant, I have to be able to tell her what to do. Even if it is under the false guise of submissiveness. Plus, I am not easily intimidated.” You fumble through your desk, pulling out the clean blouse from the bottom drawer. You can still hear Jane muttering to herself and anyone who will listen as you make your way into the bathroom to change.

Fully clothed and in clean clothes, you stride into your boss’s office. She looks up from her computer, her eyes disapproving of your new outfit almost as much as the previous coffee stained shirt. “Sit.” You do so.

“Miss [Y/L/N], would you care to tell me why I have found concept drawing for Mr. Stark’s new residence in your desk?” She asks, her tone far too condescending. You are seething.

While she might be your boss, your desk is considered yours. “The entire under-office was approached, as were all departments, to enter into a contest to design the new Avengers base. I decided to enter. You may check email logs to make sure I am telling the truth, but you will find nothing incriminating.” You say, the calmness in your voice fake.

“I will do so. However, as your superior, I am to be informed of any and all assignments you take, even if it is for personal reasons.” She mocks. You see red, knowing she has no right to treat to you like a piece of meat.

“This is my notice. I will be gone within the week.” You tell her. Standing up, you remove yourself from her office. Returning to your desk, you check your email one last time before beginning to pack your things. One in particular catches your eye. It is the results of the contest.

You won. A time and place are outlined in the email, detailing all the important things. Rushing once more you haul ass to the upper floors. Stark’s floors. Your breathing heavy, you try to calm yourself as you ride the elevator. Still reeling from the shock and awe of actually winning you tentatively knock of the conference room stated in the email.

“Come in.” you recognize the voice as Mr. Stark.

“You must be [Y/F/N] [Y/L/N]. Please sit.” He gestures at a chair next to him at the table.

“I am.” You reply as you sit.

“After seeing your designs and reviewing your degree and background in architecture and engineering, I found that you were the best possible candidate to do what I wanted.”

“Thank you.”

“You are welcome. Now, walk with me.” He stands before you can utter a protest, not that you would.

“I, of course, need a private wing for Pepper and I, a gym area large enough to house all the current Avengers comfortably and with room to grow. A large common area to lounge in with everyone, a kitchen in both my personal wing and the communal areas, a bar area, a pool area, a game room, a private cinema, guest suites for everyone – preferably split into a few wings opposite my own, a lab, a garage.” He stops.

“May I ask you to write that down?” You ask him, knowing you won’t be able to remember a bit of it.

“Of course. I forget sometimes that most people don’t retain information like I do.” He laughs. You find it hard to choose between taking that as an insult or just a straight fact.

“Mr. Stark. The team has returned. Should I set up a briefing?” The AI. F.R.I.D.A.Y., asks.

“Yes please. Tell everyone to meet me in conference room C. Inform them that I will have a guest.” He says, his tone final. “I suppose I will be introducing you to the team sooner than I planned.”

You nod, a little overwhelmed at the prospect of meeting with the Avengers, or more of them. “That is perfectly fine Mr. Stark.”

“Not yet, you don’t know me well enough, but eventually we will have to get you to phase out of calling me Mr. Stark and start calling me Tony.” He mutters, you don’t think he meant for you to hear that.

You two don’t make to the meeting room before everyone else. You walk in, greeted with dirty and a few bloody people. Eyes scanning the room, you notice familiar gear, a hand holding a glove, a metal gleam. Looking up, you lock eyes with him, instant recognition hitting you. Mr. Stark looks between the two of you, shock and confusion on his face.

“Do you and Tin Man know each other?” He asks.

“We’ve met.” You mutter, still holding his gaze.

Mr. Stark continues to look at the two us, questioning; as does Steve Rogers. “Is there anything you two want to share with the class?” Mr. Stark, you suppose you should call him Tony now, asks.

“Um …” Both you and Bucky mutter, looking at the ground. Neither on of you sure how to broach the subject. You look up, holding out your wrist. “This happened this morning when I quite literally ran into, um, him this morning.” He glances at your wrist, eyes widening at the understanding.

“I see.” He nods, continuing to look between the two of you. “Will it be a problem?” You shake your head.

“No. I can work on the designs without it being an issue. I wanted to get to know everyone anyway to learn likes and dislikes so that I can design the new base more effectively and comfortably for everyone.”

Mr. Stark, Tony, smiles. “I like you. Please, call me Tony. I have a feeling that we are going to be on a first name basis from now on.” He eyes everyone. “Everyone, excluding Bucky, this is [Y/F/N] [Y/L/N], she is going to be designing the new base I talked to you about a few weeks ago. And as she said, she will want to get to know you and as Barnes’ soulmate, you will most likely be seeing a lot of her.”

No one says anything. “Well, get on with it. I don’t want you standing here dirty and bloody any longer than you have to. Get showered and changed.” Tony barks at everyone, sounding much like an indignant chihuahua.

Everyone, including you, hurry out. However, with nowhere to go, you just stand there in the hall. Bucky sheepishly comes up to you. “Hello.”

You smile. “Hey. So … this is what you do.”

He laughs. “Yeah. I take it you work here too?” Your smile drops.

“Um … not exactly.” He lifts his eyebrow. “I may have quit this morning. My boss was a bitch and basically called me out on not being a piece of meat.” His eyes widen.

Tony comes out, surprise on his face. “Who was you boss?” You look at him, not realizing that he could hear you.

“The head of HR.” You mumble, hoping you won’t get in trouble.

“I was going to ask you to transfer over to my private sector anyway, so that just makes this easier, but I now plan on talking to her.” He mutters heading in the direction of my former office.

“So doll, care to take a walk with me?”

#bucky barnes #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes fanfiction #other stories #bucky barnes x you

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lailelizabeth · 5 years ago

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Not too long after we shot actress Elizabeth Lail for a fashion story and on location in very very cold New York City, we got cozy at our HQ to record this podcast.

Eloquent + fully present...talented, beautiful, and smart Elizabeth embodies all the qualities of a big star. She’s an actors actor, and, well, just a wonderful person. She’s rapidly built a loyal fan base, due to the cult following of Netflix series You and her character on the series, Beck.

And so we decided on this podcast to include some truly terrific questions from those very fans. We discuss her reverence for her craft, what to expect from You Season 2, her character, Leah, in beautiful indie film Unintended, and what it’s like to work on the set of a horror film. We talk her commitment to sustainability, her footwear of choice, her favorite books on acting, recommendations for what to catch on broadway, how she preps her skin before shooting, her idea of a perfect date night, and more. Listen in to hear the answers to all of your fan questions!

Podcast link

Tamara Rappa: So you studied acting in North Carolina. What's it like being in school for acting, and were there ever plans to come to New York for school?

Elizabeth Lail: I went to University of North Carolina School of the Arts for high school my senior year, and that molded my whole trajectory because, all of a sudden, I was surrounded by fellow artists. I was surrounded by my people. I didn't really know what the possibilities were in my small town. There aren't very many actors coming out of it. I fell in love with the school, so I wanted to go to college there. I drank all the Kool-Aid. I think I applied to maybe one school in New York, but the dream was to continue at the School of the Arts, and then move to New York or LA---I wasn't sure which.

TR: What do your friends do? Are they other actors? Other creatives?

EL: I would say it's split down the middle. You know, some people are really anti-actor…

TR: They are? Like friends from home, from a long time ago?

EL: I know people who are like, "Oh, I try to be around normal people."

TR: You're very normal.

EL: Oh, thank you. I love actors and I love artists. And then I love dentists and business people....

TR: You have a mixed group of friends.

EL: Totally.

TR: How does acting feed your soul?

EL: It's probably my number one source of food. It demands the truth from me, and so it's this really intense bullshit meter for me as a person, and as an instrument. It provides intense catharsis, I'm always questioning and challenging myself. It also demands that I be fully present.

TR: That's beautiful. Have you always wanted to act? I mean, were you a small child dreaming of this? What's your first memory of "I want to be a performer?"

EL: I didn't, again, know what the possibilities were at such a young age, but my sister and I were making home movies, and I would play every character in the movie. We had the board game Clue, and we loved that movie. So I played every character in Clue along with the board game. I'd be the Professor, and then Miss Scarlet. I wore a big sheet. So I guess I've been doing it forever, and I didn't realize until maybe I was 14 that that it could be a career path.

TR: What other things do you do to exercise your creativity, or is all your focus on acting these days? You've got a lot going on.

EL: Well I do take acting class, and I love it. It depends on the class, but if you find a teacher that you really love, it feels like going to church for your artistic spirit. But I feel like everything feeds my acting. Even just riding the subway. The more present I am in my real life, the more inspiration I'm taking in. I like to see theater. I like to be inspired by watching other things. I journal a lot, and also any kind of emotional response or anything I'm inspired by---I write down. I find later that it will tend to tie in with something I need for a character, or you just never know. So the world is so inspirational to me. Travel…everything feeds the actor's spirit, I think.

TR: How do you journal? Do you literally write things down? It's not in a Notes app on your phone? It's a book that you keep by your bedside?

EL: It's a book. I've got one in my bag. I have a light one for walking around, but I have a big, big, heavy one at home. Usually I journal first thing in the morning. It's usually stream of consciousness.

TR: Morning pages?

EL:Yeah. It's a little bit like The Artist's Way, morning pages, but I don't necessarily follow any strict kind of order. And sometimes, it's gratitude. Sometimes it's stream of consciousness, and then sometimes I feel like something is trying to speak to me.

TR: Ideas.

EL: Ideas, yeah. That's why it's always kind of worth going back to the page because you never really know what's going to reveal itself to you. And even sometimes if I'm working on a scene in the morning during that writing time, it just comes.

TR: Wow. That's powerful.

EL: It's what is wanting to be worked on, in my unconscious brain.

TR: A powerful tool. What does the book look like? Where do you get this book? This big, beautiful, heavy book?

EL: You know what's interesting about that one, it was a gift from Ferragamo, so it actually is really beautiful. But normally, journals find you. They're given to you or you buy one and you forget to use it, and then you're like, ‘oh, I have this great journal.’ They are untapped potential.

TR: Describe how your fame came on. What was it like hitting a million followers and acquiring a fan base? What is it like? Do you detach from it in some way?

EL: Oh boy, you know. I'm a little detached from it.

TR: You have to just keep being you, and doing the work.

EL: Yes. I think I was more excited when I got like 500,000 followers. That was a big milestone. And then after that you're like, ‘I'm still figuring this out, how am I going to use Instagram? What does it mean to me? How is this going to be a part of my work?’ I’m a little conflicted, because there's a school of thought where the more people know about you, the more exposure you have, the less believable you are as a character. All of a sudden your mystique goes away.

TR: Right. There are some actors that could never do certain roles, because they're so known for ...

EL: ...for something. And they certainly can do those roles. But it might take the audience a minute to readjust their brains.

EL: But obviously I have Instagram, and mostly I'm just really grateful. I think kind of hitting the million mark, in a way, could be really wonderful for my career. But I don't know that yet. You know, the hope is that people cast you based off of your work. And if you can serve the project with any kind of like following ...

TR: 100%. And, visibility.

EL: Visibility. Yes. Then it’s a great thing. That's always a great thing. Especially if you're making something smaller that really means something to you, that maybe needs a platform to get the word out. So it's exciting.

TR: Well, I will say, you have some lovely fans. And they've got some wonderful questions for you that we’re going to get to.

EL: I do. Oh, exciting!

TR: How are we seeing Beck in season two of You? And how is the series different this season?

EL: I mean, she’s back-ish. Right? Beck is back-ish. What was really cool about shooting season two though, is that we were in LA, which is very different than New York. And I would be in full Beck gear.

TR: Let’s talk about that. What is full Beck gear? What is Beck's look?

EL: Excellent question. Beck has curled hair that's meant to be kind of like undone, yet done. It's a little shorter than mine at the moment, and she always wears lots of jewelry. She has a staple necklace that's beautiful.

TR: What is the staple necklace exactly?

EL: It is a half moon with a diamond in it. It's made by Melissa Joy Manning.

TR: I love Melissa Joy Manning. She's a friend of mine. I love her jewelry.

EL: She's amazing. No way. I’ve become such a fan.

TR: We should go meet her. I could use a new piece from her!

EL: Yes we should go to her shop in Brooklyn. I've never been and I've been wanting to go, and I have really beautiful pieces from her. And obviously Beck would not be able to have a Melissa Joy Manning necklace, but in the world of television, she does! Beck is very much jeans. She likes a French tuck, and some kind of jacket. She's a little bit more small-town-dresser, I think, for someone who lives in New York. Keeping it pretty simple and as affordable as possible is Beck's look. And then boots, she's a boot girl. I would be in LA in the Beck getup, and people would recognize me as her and they would get so excited. That's something that's really different. Obviously when we were shooting season one, people were, you know, ‘what are you making? What's happening here?’

TR: In which parts of LA would you shoot?

EL: We were in Los Feliz, when we would go out in the world. And then in the Atwater village area.

TR: So that's a main difference between season one and season two, location.

EL: Yeah. And those are pretty defining. New York and LA are very defining cities, experience-wise. Have you spent a lot of time in LA? I have. I feel like I've lived there.

TR: I'm a native New Yorker and I lived in LA for years.

EL: My thoughts are that in LA, they have great food. Because I'm a vegan, and it's lovely to eat there.

TR: You can find fantastic food in LA.

EL: Healthy food everywhere. But I prefer New York. I'm much more inspired by New York.

TR: Everyone can watch you in the wonderful indie film, Unintended. It's currently on cable, Direct TV, Prime Video, iTunes, Google play.[Everyone] should see this film. It's terrific. Was it draining playing someone so mentally tormented and well, drug addicted? She was sort of addicted to her medication.

EL: Yes. It is draining, but I think acting is draining in general because you are giving so much of yourself. And that aspect, yes, because she is kind of always in this state of distress.

TR: That's what it is. It's more than being mentally tortured. Your character Leah is in a state of distress.

EL: She’s kind of figuring out her life. I would really have to go home and just do absolutely nothing every day.

TR: Is that right?

EL: That's the key. You just go home, you shower, you eat a little dinner and then you read, you do something else. Something nice for yourself.

TR: The production itself is beautiful, and I love how it contrasts with some of the difficult subject matter like physical abuse, alcoholism, painful divorce. Where did you shoot? It was beautiful.

EL: We were in Kingston, in and around Kingston, in upstate New York, in Minnewaska State Park. I love it up there. Since we've shot there, I go visit that area twice a year.

TR: It's a magical location.

EL: It's beautiful and all those little towns, you know, Woodstock, and Kingston---they all have cute restaurants. And then there's nature. I think when you live in New York you forget that.

TR: All of it is...

EL: ...so close by.

TR: In Unintended, Leah travels upstate with her father at one point in the film, but ends up spending her days there with longtime friend, Sam. How did she explain that to her father? We see her traveling upstate with her father, and he's going off to do a conference of some sort, and then she ends up spending a few days with Sam. Does she just decide that that's how she's going to spend her time upstate, because she needs some questions answered?

EL: Exactly. I think that her relationship with Sam is maybe closer to an actual father than her relationship with her dad. Sam was a little bit older. He was always kind of around, almost like a babysitter at times for her when she was young.

TR: And he was nurturing to her in some ways. He would feed her.

EL: He nurtured that wild and uninhibited spirit. And not that her parents weren't there. I just think that once the divorce happened, that was her breaking point, and she kind of shut down. That's the beginning of the shut-down, as early as their divorce when she's 11, or I guess she's 13. She's young. I think her relationship with her dad is strained. With her mom there's not a whole lot of communication going on, especially from her side, reasoning-wise.

TR: Did Leah shoot Bill? I wasn't sure.

EL: She didn’t. She did shoot the gun. I think it's meant to be unclear, but my understanding is that she didn't actually shoot him. It was just the fall that was so harsh for him, and so was being stuck down there. He basically was scared by the sound of the gun, and fell back into this cavern.

TR: What became of Leah's mother? Do we know?

EL: No she doesn't come up.

TR: I found that to be intriguing.

EL: I think it speaks to her current state. Her mother is somewhat villainized in the beginning, because she's the one having the affair. So she is essentially the one who breaks the family. And so I think that from Leah's perspective, her mom is not someone she wants to be close with. It’s such a painful break, especially if you felt like things were so stable for most of your life. So, yeah. We don't really know.

TR: What happens to Leah, do you think, after she finally understands this devastating time in her past and makes peace with Bill, what does she become? What does she go off and do in life?

EL: My hope is that she becomes an author of a novel. My hope is that she goes to therapy and moves back to nature, moves out of New York, becomes an author, and writes this story.

TR: Do she and Bill become a couple?

EL: I don't know. That's wishful movie magic thinking. Because he's got some issues. If they do become a couple, there are some struggles coming their way.

TR: And does she reconcile with her father?

EL: I hope so, I hope so. Sometimes I feel like the people we love the most are the last ones to get our grace and forgiveness and patience, so who knows?

TR: You also star in Countdown, recently in theaters. The horror film genre is hugely popular with people. What's the set of a horror film like?

EL: It's so fun. This one was so fun. It was exciting for me, because horror isn't necessarily my genre---I get really easily scared. And so if I'm going to watch a horror movie, it's got to be at home, where I can turn the sound off and block my eyes. But making one is really exciting because you get to do a lot of stunts, and there's all this incredible hair and makeup. Everyone was just so happy and grateful to be there. That's always the best set to be on, in any genre. To be with people who just love making movies.

TR: You were also a series regular on Video Syncrasy from David Fincher, based on the music industry and music videos in the eighties. Your character is a stylist’s assistant.

EL: But my character wanted to be a singer. She wanted to be Stevie Nicks.

TR: How did that project with David Fincher, a genius, come about?

EL: The show never saw the light of day. Sorry guys! You can't watch this.

TR: I watched a scene where you were unpacking garment bags and there's a garment rack behind you. I was like, ‘look at Elizabeth, living the story of my life’.

EL: I was so sore that day.

TR: The schlep of the fashion editor and the stylist...

EL: My shoulders were in pain. I think I got a massage therapist on that show, because it was so painful, carrying all the garment bags. And now when I see that in New York, I have a newfound respect.

TR: How did you first get interested in sustainability, and what do you do in your day to day life to create change?

EL: I became a vegan first and foremost almost four years ago, and that was really when I realized the environmental impact of animal agriculture. I was already vegetarian, because I love animals, and I thought, ‘I can do this, this can be my contribution’.

TR: Is there something specific that made you go from vegetarian to vegan?

EL: I saw Cowspiracy. It's a documentary.

TR: That's on my list. I haven't seen it yet.

EL: And of course everyone who watches says, ‘I'm going to become vegan.’ And maybe they do it for a week. It can be very difficult to do. And everyone I watched it with were like, ‘we're all going to do it’. I think I'm still the only one doing it. That was my beginning of living a more mindful life. It immediately requires you to be more mindful about what you're eating, which before, was a pretty mindless practice for me.

TR: For a lot of people I think.

EL: All of a sudden you become a little more mindful about, ‘What am I buying? How much waste am I creating? What am I only using once? What am I doing with my clothes?’ The whole world opens up, and all these questions come at you.

EL: On my Obsixed list, is the Package Free store. It opened in my neighborhood and I walked in, I was like, ‘this is amazing’. You start picking things up and you're like, ‘I didn't realize there was another option for cotton swabs, for taking off my makeup’. I didn't realize how much waste I was creating in my beauty routine. That's a huge thing. I'm definitely a victim of the skincare obsession. The good news is, like anything, you just do little things at a time. I think the first thing I got was a reusable mug and I love it. I have a KeepCup. Aesthetically, it's very pretty. And I have a S’well water bottle. Those are the easiest changes to make because, especially in New York, you just put them in your tote bag and the coffee shop remembers you. They know your order, they're like, ‘here's the girl with her own cup’. You'd be surprised, everyone is very down to make those kinds of changes. You just start saying no to moments of single use plastic or straws. I'm at the beginning of that journey and that's why I'm obsessed with it right now, because I'm exploring. I'm becoming very aware, and hoping to do so much more.

TR: We have your Obsixed list of current obsessions [listed below], but let’s also do a lighting round of favorites. Favorite food?

EL: Enchiladas.

TR: Favorite way to spend date night?

EL: Reading on the couch by a fireplace.

TR: Favorite way to prepare for a first day of shooting on set?

EL: Eye masks. I use a lot of Skyn Iceland

TR: Favorite movie? Can you even pick?

EL: In Bruges or The Road to El Dorado.

TR: Favorite skincare item?

EL: I love Dr. Hauschka's Rose Day Cream. I love the way that it smells. It makes me happy. You have to press it into your skin, so you have to go slow, and you're like, 'oh, this is a moment for me'.

TR: Favorite type of shoe to wear?

EL: Flat. My initial instinct is flat, but really comfortable. Comfort boots probably, that you can just slide on.

TR: Go-to dress up look?

EL: High waisted pants and some black pretty shirt and boots.

EL: Favorite holiday tradition?

EL: I make cookies with my grandmother. We make sugar cookies with decorative icing. It's actually really hard, because we make hundreds of cookies.

TR: Now we're onto some fan questions. From @kpaoletti19: “What's something you're proud of, that's happened this past year?”

EL:Those questions are so hard for me. Someone recently asked me what I was proud of and I didn't have an answer, but I realized they were asking me specifically about work, and it's because I can be my worst critic. But I will say, what I'm realizing is there are moments in every job where I have real moments of truth; where lightning strikes. I'm always proudest of those, because I think ‘you were there, and you were available to be worked through’.

TR: Also from @kpaoletti19, “Do you have advice when it comes to relationships? “

EL: I would say the best thing you can do is be super true to yourself and advocate for yourself really early on, so they know what they're working with. As opposed to, you know, when we first start dating someone, we want to be really pleasing and the perfect girlfriend. We just want to be easy. Maybe you are easy, but you're not always going to be easy.

TR: Be who you are.

EL: Have your opinions, have your likes, have your dislikes, and have them without shame.

TR: @elizabethlailfans asks: “Which of the characters that you've played, do you think most closely relates to you, and why?” I mean you've played some pretty intense characters. Maybe the answer is, none of them? Are there any who have a personality trait that you feel is like one of your own?

EL: They're all pretty different from me. I want to say Beck from You is the closest, but she's not really. Her choices are not really my choices. The things we have in common are age, that we’re artists, New York--- the really basic things. But when my mom was watching it, she was like, this isn't the woman I raised. She was like, ‘get some self esteem!’

TR: Another one, “What's your favorite memory from any set you've worked on?”

EL: Oh, I have so many. It's always the people. I create such joyful moments with all these incredible people and then they become your close friends. So I don't know if I can name a single one. There was a moment on Countdown where we came onto the set, this is kind of funny and gross, and it smelled like fish and we were like, what is going on here? Why does it smell like fish? Someone had used a set toilet, a fake toilet.

TR: That’s a really funny story. @elizabethlailfans also says “take care of yourself. We love you, and are proud of you always”.

EL: Aw right back at you, right back.

TR: @elizabethlailbr had a ton of great questions for you, including "Any new projects you can hint at?”

EL: Yeah, she's great. I don't know if I'm allowed to hint at them yet. But yes, don't worry, they're coming.

TR: One from me now: why did you change your Instagram handle?

EL: Everyone's upset! So my team was afraid that people weren't able to find me, because I had a random handle. [@elizaboon] And I will say, sometimes when someone contacts me on Instagram, they end up calling me Eliza, which is totally fine. That's like a nickname. They’d assume my name is Eliza, which was kind of fun. That's fine, I'm open. As long as it's not Beth, I'll respond to it.

TR: Do you have any nicknames?

EL: Some people call me Lizzy, Liz. Most people call me Lail, especially on a set; they go to sporting last name vibes. And then my best friend calls me Bell. It started out as Liz Bell and now it's just Bell. And then E Lib is the new one that's catching on.

TR: @elizabethlailbr asks: “How was it shooting with Story + Rain?”

EL: So fun.

TR: Fun and cold.

EL: Very cold, but it's much colder today, so I'm grateful for the day we had. It was cold but it was sunny.

TR: "Can you recommend theater to see or books on acting?” Also from @elizabethlailbr.

EL: Yes. Books on acting. I would read Uta Hagen's Respect for Acting. I would read Larry Moss, The Intent to Live, those are two incredible ones. They’re kind of old school and new school. Theater to see: I would see Jagged Little Pill on Broadway if you can. And then The Sound Inside, with Mary Louise Parker and Will Hochman. That's a wonderful play. And Sing Street, at New York Theater Workshop. I haven't seen it yet, but I really want to see it, and a friend of mine is in it. So that's on my list.

TR: One more: “Are you working with any new organizations within sustainability, or otherwise?”

EL: I’m working with the New York City Department of Sanitation. It’s cool because these are the real deal people. They want to make sure everyone knows how to get rid of waste, how to dispose of compost and garbage correctly, what is actually recyclable--- and all those sorts of things. And they're doing a Refashion week in February. They do upcycling fashion shows and have designers create sustainable looks.

TR: How do you feel about fashion in general?

EL: I am a fashion appreciator. I’m not necessarily that knowledgeable about the inside of the world of fashion, but every time I go to a fashion show I'm always blown away.

TR: Which shows have you seen?

EL: Self-Portrait. That one was so good. And then last year I got to go to Vogue CFDA. That was incredible. I just love being at the shows. I like the performance. It’s not surprising that, of course what I respond to is the performance of fashion.

TR: How do you feel about your costumes, how important are they?

EL: Very important.

TR: When you put on a costume as a character, even as Beck, in jeans and a sweater, or like Leah, do you transform instantly?

EL: 100% yeah. What your character decides to wear is, I think, very informative. So I think fashion in that sense is extremely important.

TR: Last question, still from @eilzabethlailbr: “What do you still feel like you need to accomplish in your career?” You have a huge career ahead of you, but is there something on your immediate list that you're thinking about these days?

EL: I've been thinking about these things because it's almost the new year, and it's time to write out a manifestation list.

TR: Do you put it in that big notebook, or is there a separate manifestation bible?

EL: I used to just rip it out of the notebook and put it away in my little box. And this year, I read that you should burn it. You should trust that your desires have been heard and are being met in the best way. So that's my plan this year. We'll see how it goes. There are a thousand things that I still want to do in my career, so I'm hoping this is just the beginning. I want to be an actor until I'm 89.

TR: How do you feel about film versus television? Things have changed so much in terms of TV.

EL: I really love both of them. I will say there's nothing like being in a movie theater; it changes the experience. It demands a little bit more of your attention, for better or for worse.

TR: There's ceremony attached to it, ritual.

EL: I like ritual, so I like that. But I love being a part of all of it: film, television, and theater. They're all worthwhile.

#elizabeth lail #elizabeth dean lail #article #interview #podcast #you netflix #unintended #mp

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jeremystrele · 4 years ago

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Singer-Songwriter-Survivor Ngaiire On Motherhood, Music + Building From The Rubble

Family

Ashe Davenport

Singer-songwriter Ngaiire her three-year-old son, Dovey. Photo – Alisha Gore for The Design Files.

Ngaiire really embraced the concept of self-care during the pandemic. ‘I pretty much live and breathe my work. But then COVID hit, and I started to see the value of creating little nooks around the house, to read in and be still,’ she says. This corner is one of them. Photo – Alisha Gore for The Design Files.

Ngaiire’s mum (who lives with them in their house on the Central Coast!) made Ngaiire and Dovey’s INCREDIBLE matching outfits from Spotlight fabrics. Photo – Alisha Gore for The Design Files.

During a period of intense trauma and turbulence in Ngaiire’s adolescence, she found solace in her mum’s CD collection, which featured Mariah Carey, Bob Marley and Alicia Keys. Photo – Alisha Gore for The Design Files.

‘Every day I worry, “Am I doing too much work and (giving) too much energy for my music and not enough with him?” The balancing can be agonising!’ says Ngaiire. Photo – Alisha Gore for The Design Files.

Ngaiire is a design and architecture obsessive! Photo – Alisha Gore for The Design Files.

‘I never imagined that, despite how traumatic my birthing story was, the miracle of becoming a mother literally plugged me into a creative life source I never knew I could access. (It) felt like a tap had been turned on, and the parameters of my creativity broadened. The irony of having your motivation to create triple (while) having your energy levels completely diminished at the same time can feel like a cruel joke!’ Photo – Alisha Gore for The Design Files.

Photo – Alisha Gore for The Design Files.

Up until recently, Dovey’s favourite song was the Harry Styles banger ‘Adore You’. Now, it’s ‘Boogie Wonderland’ by Earth, Wind & Fire. Photo – Alisha Gore for The Design Files.

Ummmmm, how beautiful is the fam’s Central Coast pad?! Photo – Alisha Gore for The Design Files.

‘The times Dovey has seen me sing he gets very still, which is great, because he’s never that still unless he’s asleep! It’s like he understands something special is happening,’ says Ngaiire. Photo – Alisha Gore for The Design Files.

Ngaiire and Dovey’s lockdown activity was planting seedlings. Dovey’s now seen a full year of crops grow! Photo – Alisha Gore for The Design Files.

Like mother, like son! Photo – Alisha Gore for The Design Files.

Life has tried to pull Ngaiire under on multiple occasions. At three-years-old she was diagnosed with cancer of her adrenal glands. She’s spoken about the friends she made on the oncology ward, and sung for the ones she lost. At age 12, in her homeland of Papua New Guinea, Ngaiire survived a volcanic eruption that covered her house in ash and separated her from her mother for several months.

‘Aren’t you supposed to be dead?’

The question was asked by her nephew in a dream that would become the basis for her song ‘Once’ (track two on her hit 2016 album Blastoma). In the music video, Ngaiire travels through the carriages of a moving train, each one representing a chapter of her life. In some she’s being pulled at, stripped, hospital-gowned. In others she is fluid, in charge and perfectly synchronised.

She’s risen from the ashes again and again, caped in fuchsia and gold.

This is an edited and condensed version of our conversation, which wasn’t so much about where she’s been, but where she is now, safe in the home she built from the rubble.

Can you please tell me everything about this outfit?

When I found out Nadav and I would be doing this shoot, I died. I’m a lowkey hard out nerd for design and architecture. I’ll sadly admit that Design Files is probably one of my top 3 most visited IGs daily. I’m OBSESSED.

When I got the news, I immediately sketched up two outfits for Nadav and I, went to Spotlight to get some fabric, then commissioned my mother (who is currently living with us) to sew them. Mum’s been [making my clothes] for decades, so it wasn’t our first rodeo. It helped that she’d already set up a mini sewing factory downstairs for our little toddler clothing label, Dovey Nero, which we’ve been slowly building and taking our time testing the market with. What Dovey is wearing is a little taste of what we’re currently working on.

What’s it like sharing so much of your story in your music?

Being a singer, my whole instrument is very much connected to how I’m feeling and what might’ve happened to me that morning or that week. When you’re working in an office, you’re expected to leave your personal issues at the door. But when it comes to music, it’s about finding that balance, and utilising your emotional backlog to tell a story. The wonder of songwriting is that your story becomes someone else’s anchor, or road map, to joy, relief or even salvation.

How do you manage all of that emotional expense? Are you drained AF?

I don’t know how I manage it. It can be really taxing, especially being a mama. I have a three-year-old, which can be a lot, both physically and emotionally. Every day I worry, am I doing too much work and (giving) too much energy for my music and not enough with him? The balancing can be agonising!

How do you get out of the working parent guilt loop? Is there something you do that’s just yours?

I pretty much live and breathe my work. But then COVID hit, and I started to see the value of creating little nooks around the house, to read in and be still. It takes me forever to get through a book these days, but if I can just steal 5-10 minutes, read some literature, even just look out the window at the bush we live behind. The concept of self-care is something I’ve definitely come to understand more during the pandemic.

How does the parenting load get divided in your house?

My husband’s carrying a lot of the load right now. He’s a designer by trade and his workload varies. It’s amazing that it’s worked out the way it has, with me having such a big work year ahead. He’s doing most of the parenting while I release this album.

In terms of what daycare days look like, I mean, we always swear to wake up earlier to drop Nadav and start our work days, but it’s really hard sometimes. Especially if he wakes up a few times at night and you just want to doze that little bit longer!

How does motherhood compare to your expectations of it?

It met ZERO of my expectations! In fact it surpassed any idea I possibly had of how hard, but also how rewarding and life-altering it would be. It elevated the respect I had for myself as someone who was (able) to bring life into the world.

Being a sickly child, my chances of getting pregnant were considered low. I never imagined that despite how traumatic my birthing story was, the miracle of becoming a mother literally plugged me into a creative life source I never knew I could access. (It) felt like a tap had been turned on, and the parameters of my creativity broadened.

The irony of having your motivation to create triple (while) having your energy levels completely diminished at the same time can feel like a cruel joke!

How does Nadav respond to your music?

Singing is a deeply spiritual thing for me. It connects me to something that not a lot of people have access to, and we as artists kind of become the conduits for that for our audience.

The times Dovey has seen me sing he gets very still, which is great, because he’s never that still unless he’s asleep! It’s like he understands something special is happening. I have no idea what he’s taking in, but based on what I get from music, I can only assume he’s taking on a multitude of information. Maybe on some level he’s understanding how the world works. How to relate to people, and how deep that connection can be.

What messages do you hope a grown up Nadav will take from your songs?

I want him to grow up feeling like he can do anything he wants to do in this life, whether it’s music or something else completely opposite. I hope he always stays in touch with that reverence for music and that he knows that he is very privileged to be able to ingest it in a way that not a lot of kids are afforded. I hope he also still feels like I’m around for him through my songs even when I’ve passed on. And that I did the best I could despite my challenges so he (could) too.

Did you find that deeper level through music or did you already know about it and that’s what led you to music?

Before I’d hit 12 or 13, I’d been through so many huge life traumas. I had cancer, and my family lost their property and all their belongings to a major volcanic eruption. We were living in the bush, separated from my Mum for a fair while. She was looking for us frantically, but couldn’t contact us because everything was down, the phone lines, everything. She reached us through emergency announcements over AM radio, which a relative luckily caught (wind) of. The organisation she’d been working for chartered a plane, which landed in a nearby clearing and zipped us out of there to the mainland. Shortly after that, my mother found herself in an abusive second marriage, which was pretty traumatising for us, but 100% more so for her.

At that point in my life, I found solace in Mum’s CD collection. I’d listen to Mariah Carey on repeat, memorising every word from inside the cassette cover, and anything else (from) Bob Marley to Deep Forest (laughs). When we moved to Australia, I took up music at school. I sang ‘Fallin’ by Alicia Keys in front of the school assembly, (which) was a big moment. From that point, I understood I had something that affected people a certain way, beyond the noises that came out of my mouth. I knew I had to continue chasing music.

What can we expect from your upcoming album? What does it represent for you?

It’s an actual journey, not in a cliché way, but in that every song on it serves as an integral part of the sonic trajectory. You appreciate each song more if you hear them in context of the whole body of work, and I think that’s the beauty of what Jack Grace (my co-producer) and I are good at doing as a team – making music that breathes as a complete organism as it does individually.

The album represents a whole life cycle for me. I started the album off the back of touring the last one (Blastoma) – before I got hitched and before I got knocked up (laughs). It was an attempt to present my Papua New Guinean heritage in a new light, so that I could feel more understood within my industry – something I never fully felt. Little did I know that the whole process, 4 years on, would propel me through a maze of re-discovery of who I really am and who I want to be. I care less about what people think a Papua New Guinean woman should be within an western context now then when I first started this project, because that’s everyone else’s problem. This record has become a celebratory affair of my love for PNG, people and myself. And at the end of the day, that’s what motivates people to make the decisions (throughout) their lives.

FAMILY FAVOURITES

Favourite cafe?

Like Minds in Avoca

Weekend away?

It hadn’t really been a thing for us. We used to have accidental getaways through my work. So before COVID hit, we’d all get to hang out interstate if I had shows. Now we bush walk in places like Maitland Bay or the Pink Caves up the coast.

Rainy day activity?

We raised a lot of seedlings during lockdown to plant in the garden. Dovey got really good at planting seeds inside, where it’s prime seedling growing heat. He’s seen a full year of crops already, which is pretty cool.

Most played song?

Until recently it was Harry Styles, ‘Adore You’. Dovey requested it ALL. THE. TIME. But now it’s moved to ‘Boogie Wonderland’ by Earth, Wind & Fire.

Sunday morning ritual?

Not so much Sundays. Fridays are really our thing, when we do Shabbat. It’s the moment we get to bookend the week together, unplug, drink some wine, eat. Dovey helps to bake the challah. He’s getting pretty good at plaiting it!

New music by Ngaiire is coming in May. Her current tour dates are: May 28th at Corner Hotel in Melbourne; June 5th at The Zo in Brisbane; and June 12th at Factory Theatre in Sydney. Tickets can be booked here.

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twisttech · 4 years ago

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How to Make More Money From Home in 2021

In this expensive world, have you ever thought about making money in your spare time? If we inform you that you can earn money from home easily and quickly without problems, how does it sound? Fresh! Turn right. Earning money has become an elementary aspect of a person’s life. It is difficult to survive without enough money to live a healthy and satisfying life. That is why making money has become the top priority in almost everyone’s life.

It's because you didn't know what to look at and where to start, or you wanted a shortcut to making a lot of money. Let me tell you that there are no shortcuts to making money. You have to work hard.

While many people start a business from home to create or replace full-time income, some people just want to generate some extra cash to pay off debt, save for a rainy day, or use crazy money for small expenses, emergencies, or impulse purchases.

In the past, those who wanted to earn extra money had to find a second job. Fortunately, times have changed. You can use whatever resources you have, whether it's skills, knowledge, or unused items around the house, to earn money from home, often without leaving home.

We spend a lot of time on useless things. What if we use our time effectively and convert the number of minutes into money?

Earning some extra money doesn’t have to be that complicated. As someone who has been in the online monetization business for almost two decades, I can tell you that it takes some work. However, there are several clear paths to follow. At the end of the day, it all comes down to what your goals are and how much you want to automate your income.

Can you earn an extra $ 200 a month? Of course. How about an extra $ 1000 per month? How would that change your life? For most, it would make a big difference. But what if we were talking about thousands more per month or even tens of thousands more? How would that change the trajectory of your life? Obviously, you can make money online. You just have to decide how much your time is worth.

Although we all have some extra time, it often doesn’t make sense. But it doesn’t take too much effort to make a little extra batter. We are not talking about millions and millions here; Usually we are talking about running small and small projects to generate money quickly. And depending on your skills, you can easily earn a few hundred dollars or even a few thousand dollars a month.

But you don’t have to work for a forward-thinking employer to take advantage of the home work trend. Whether your goal is to create a sustainable passive income stream or simply earn a few extra dollars to supplement your part-time or full-time income, all you need to work from home is a computer, a quiet space, a strong ethic. work, and a willingness to follow these clear guidelines for more efficient work from home.

The best online ideas to earn money at home Don’t be too quick to read just the headlines. Take at least 15 minutes of your time to understand these online tasks. These 15 minutes can even change your life. You can then choose the most suitable online tasks based on your skills.

1. Create an Online Store

This is one of the best ways to earn money online. There are several ways to create a store: through social media accounts, personal websites, or links associated with your PayPal account. If you can make things at home, you can display them online and start your own business. This is one of the best ways to become an entrepreneur. If you have a collection of artwork, postcards, homemade soaps, display pieces, clothing, etc. that you make and sell, this is it. Create your own page and show all your talent. You can even make a pastry online if you are interested in baking. People can give you orders and you can create custom items just for them! It’s a great job that allows you to monetize your hobby / talent.

You can even sign up for Amazon to become a seller through their website. Your articles will be published on your portal and all orders will be shipped to you. Online stores are chosen by many to earn money online in India. If you choose to create a store on Instagram / Facebook, it will be a zero investment!

You can earn between Rs 5,000 – Rs 20,000 per month based on the demand for your items.

2. Transcriber

This job does not require a lot of training or experience. Anyone with good listening skills and fast typing can do it. A transcriber essentially converts speech (live or recorded) into text. Transcription services are required by medical professionals, businessmen or legal areas. To work in the medical or legal field, you will need a certain degree / certificate to be eligible for the position. But to be a transcriber for a researcher or a journalist, a title as such is not required. You have to be a very fast typist and have a good command of the language in question so you don’t end up listening to the same audio for hours and hours. Remember, you gain on audio by the hour, so don’t waste an entire day on just one audio.

Most companies allow you to take a test to qualify, so try some free online training first:

There are several transcriber jobs available online that can be done from home. You can even sign up for websites like Trancriber, Rev, GMR transcription, etc. To become self-employed.

The salary of a transcriber is between 8,000 and 20,000 rupees per month, depending on the field and the speed at which you do it.

3. Make Real Money With SmartPhone Applications

After testing different apps, we can officially state that yes, money making apps really work and can help you get a regular inflow of money. Working with these applications can be called a side job or a part-time earner. Any app that makes money in India is worth it.

Most of the revenue generating apps in India rely on the user loyalty system, which motivates all users to use the app regularly. There is also a recurring theme in all money making apps that allows you to proactively earn money by visiting these apps and performing their functions.

1. Khatriji

These applications consist of referral rewards programs and cash rewards schemes. Khatriji Deals easy mobile recharge, bill pay, landline recharge, DTH recharge, data card recharge, broadband recharge, landline recharge. The user receives a refund on each mobile recharge with Khatriji.

Khatriji also provides referral income, tree income by becoming a skyomie user using Khatriji. According to Khatriji’s service, a user who purchases a product through registration is called Skyomie.

2. Empire ReEarn

EmpireReEarn.com is the latest and exclusive website to earn more income in your spare time at home. You can withdraw your income through a bank account. We are starting a free entry for all activities you do on this platform and a refund for every mobile and DTH recharge online at EmpireReEarn.com.

By using this website, you can now earn more income for your other daily or mini expenses. With full 24-hour support monitoring, you can earn money at any time of the day, regardless of location and time.

4. Do some GiGs on Fiverr

If you want to do just about anything to earn $ 5 each time you provide a service, consider Fiverr, which is believed to be one of the largest marketplaces in the world for making money selling small services.

These services, called gigs, can be literally anything someone wants you to do for a small fee, like making a post on social media or lashing out at someone. While the fee for each performance may seem quite small, there are actually quite a number of people who manage to earn a reasonable income from the site.

Another angle worth considering with Fiverr is advertising work elsewhere and sites and then outsourcing the work to someone who advertises on the site with the required skills, like a logo designer or whatever you want to do. This way, you can quickly turn a $ 5 fee into profit by charging your customer a higher fee.

5. Become a Mechanical Turk

If you don’t mind being what amounts to a small cog in a big wheel, you can apply to become the so-called Mechanical Turk for internet giant Amazon.

Building on the concept of internet crowdsourcing, businesses advertise via Amazon for help with scalable tasks that require a team of people and quick response time. You will likely be required to complete some mundane tasks, such as entering data or filling out forms, but your reward will be cash instead of coupons.

It seems that currently only people who live in the US are eligible to apply, but you are likely to find something similar on a site like Clickworker.

6. Accommodation on Airbnb

Airbnb is an online platform where you can receive and receive payments for travelers at home for a short period of time. If you have a spare room at home, you can take advantage of it by hosting travelers from all over the world.

If you don’t have free space at home, you can still earn money by hosting a traveler experience. You can take people on a walking tour of your city, give them a taste of local food and culture, teach them to cook some of your local dishes, take them for a walk, or let them experience what your city’s nightlife is like. Today’s travelers are willing to spend any amount for an unforgettable experience. Airbnb experiences are a creative way to earn money, and they don’t require a lot of experience to get started.

Source : How Can I Earn Money Online From Home ?

#airbnb #earnmoneyonline #empirereearn #gigsonfiverr #khatriji #mechanicalturk #moneyearningapps #onlinestore #skyomie #transcriber

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spookyshake · 7 years ago

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Neovember Day 16: FREE SPACE Just dumping a bunch of designs/customizations + gijinkas for potential pets, plus a couple other design stuff that’s been lying around

Character blurbs For the wall of potential pets/gijinka designs. -The ones with YES I'm pretty set on creating as pets, but if any of the others sound interesting it'd be awesome if you could send me up to 5 numbers (via reply or ask or whatever) of the ones that sound cool/want to see more of/etc, to help me narrow down my options BECAUSE I ONLY HAVE....SO MANY PET SLOTS..... -Also if any of the non-numbered customizations inspire you feel free to just run with it, it's all open game! :U They were the leftovers from my attempt to make customizations for pet species that I don’t already own, and are largely NP and cross-painting based. If you’d like the DTI link to take a closer look, I can send that to you too.

----

[1] Christmas/Desert Pteri (YES) A quiet but friendly desert nomad who makes a living guiding travelers across the Lost Desert and peddling odd wares. Although generally not much for scintillating conversation, he does express great interest in FOOD, particularly foreign cuisine.

[2] Candy Poogle (maybe?) A very timid and sweet poogle, but surprisingly stubborn once she commits to a promise. A botanist? Baker? Student in Brightvale??

[3] Woodland Wocky (YES) An agent from a secret taskforce committed to quelling anomalies in Neopia; carries around a lot of nifty gadgets. Claims to be from the FUTURE but she's kind of a loony so who knows man Her catch phrase is "Everything is under control!" ...It usually isn't. (Is maybe related somehow to Time Machine Wocky from that ooooold Time Machine event?)

[4] Checkered Quiggle (maybe?) A smug, self-styled bohemian on a quest for enlightenment. He always seems to be chasing the newest lifestyle fads, and waxes poetic about philosophy and spiritualism. Recently, he joined a cult.

[5] Woodland/Halloween Eyrie (probably...or maybe just NPC) A skeletal druid who literally fused with a tree in death Although rather unsettling to behold, she's basically just a hippie who went to the extremes with her love of nature. While not inherently malicious, she's not above trapping unwary trespassers as fodder for her plants. Witch friend of Clariote.

[6] Plushie Nimmo (maybe?) A jolly negg farmer with a noggin full of stuffin' Nothing makes them happier than tending to their crops and sharing Neopia's #1 staple, the Negg!!

[7] Halloween Draik (YES) A sleazy Meridell mercenary who'll hunt anything for the right price. Although his skills as a marksman are top-notch, his nature is wholly unpleasant and volatile to whim. Has something of a vendetta against those that consume draik eggs as a delicacy.

[8] Zombie Blumaroo (maybe more NPC) An undead blumaroo clad in old soldier's garb. Attracts flying projectiles with a peculiar frequency; flung objects in the near vicinity will find its way towards this poor dead fellow, no matter how impossible the trajectory. Otherwise mild mannered and friendly for a shambling corpse, he likes to listen to other people's problems and gives oddly inspirational pep-talks.

[9A and 9B] Island/Desert Yurble OR Camouflage/Robot Yurble (maybe?) A star athlete and local hot-shot, he was training to become a professional Yooyuball player for the Mystery Island team. But for one reason or another, he was transformed into a monstrous, abyssal creature. (is it permanent? reversible? conditional? WHO KNOWS...I just liked the #aesthetic of the monstrous design)

[10] Island Jubjub (maybe, but don't have much of a character idea for) A young shaman who communicates with the cosmos. Wise beyond her years, but easily distracted and likes to fall asleep at inopportune times.

[11] Pirate/Desert Zafara (maybe?) A crafty thief with a rough demeanor. Resourceful and self-serving, she's quick to capitalize on an opportunity when she spots one.

[12] White Cybunny (more NPC material but maybe) A Shenkuu local that works at the Inn. Kind-hearted but quite naive, she recently joined the cult with completely pure intentions of helping those in need. Greatly admires Hissi Innkeeper and views her as a role model.

[13] Christmas Vandagyre (maybe?) A precocious young heiress with a guarded, icy demeanor. Adamant in protecting her inheritance, she dabbles with the magical research left behind by her late father in order to keep outsiders out of her mansion.

[14] Faerie/Fire(?) Tuskaninny (more NPC material) A scholar tasked with recovering magical artifacts lost from Faerieland's fall. While generally good-natured, can come across as a bit pushy and lacking in tact. Likes to crack corny jokes to lighten the mood, but they can be a bit hit-and-miss.

[15] Faerie Tonu (more NPC material) A scholar tasked with recovering magical artifacts lost from Faerieland's fall. A deep and observant thinker, they prefer to ruminate carefully on the matter at hand, and dislikes being rushed. Has a gentle demeanor but can be passive aggressive when irked.

#neovember2017 #neovember #neotag #◆Concepts #◆Art #[!]Gijinka #[!]Body horror

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sagebodisattva · 6 years ago

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Meta Awareness Itself

Henceforth, meta awareness.

So, humanity, as we call it, has only just recently been transitioning into the next phase of the evolution of consciousness, and is now beginning to become acquainted with meta awareness, a process that will unfold slowly and steadily; as, such developments always start out small, and escalate with existential utilization. One small rolling stone can create a giant landslide; as, with most things in illusion, inceptions can often be imperceptible, with subsequent developing changes occurring very gradually thereafter.

So meta awareness, as an upgraded operating system of sentience, in the context of this current dream story landscape, which we like to think of as some kind of external localized planetary solar system event, is a fairly new consideration for the experiential agency. And looking back on the so called “history” of the evolution of consciousness in this realm, we can see that we have already gone through two discernible phases in this development thus far. The phases of instinctual consciousness, and then self consciousness; in the evolution of consciousness

“Whoa Sage! Before you go any further, I gotta object to the way you using the word “evolution” here. Evolution of ‘consciousness’ you say? Everyone knows that it’s physicality that undergoes the evolution, and that consciousness, of the mind of the material creature, is just a byproduct of the physiological process.”

And understandable objection... from, a disconnected externalist; who so desperately wants sensory illusions to be the source of it’s agency; so that it doesn’t have to assume any responsibility for reality. I can appreciate your hangup, but I really think your effort to attempt to overcome this preoccupation is long overdue.

Please try to wake up, and break your obsessive fixation with the false description of reality; as defined as an objective medium independent of mind.

At the risk of sounding cliche... ah, I’m gonna go ahead and say it anyway: you are stuck in Plato’s cave; mesmerized by shadows on the cave wall. Point blank: the idea that objective aspects of physicality are the primary stimulus to evolutionary development, whether that be selection, mutation, migration, or random drift, is an externalization; for, it overlooks and bypasses the primary agency that gives context to such things as selection, mutation, migration, and random drift.

Overlooking the primary agency is the crucial error, always. Hence, since the theory of evolution gets the basic premise wrong, it, therefor, has the underlying explanation of the process, also wrong. Objective non-sentient materials, or chemicals, or however it is that you wanna classify these illusory aspects, that supposedly randomly combine to compose ‘forms’, that then materialize life essence, of which, is the only factor in all this that would constitute the criteria for a manifested life form, that which distinguishes turtle from a rock; do not produce the life essence.

See, this is why science is so far behind where it could be. This is why there are gaps and misconceptions in our understanding of evolution. And also why science is seemingly stymied, and reached it’s max capacity, within the old physical model.

Quantum physics has certainly opened the doorway to many new staggering possibilities, but even these fertile grounds won’t produce any worthwhile fruit, if they are continually approached with the same old externalization mindset. This is the tendency to deal with sensory information assuming the imagined premise of objectivity, taken on with faith, which asserts that some kind of naturalistic outside factor produced all appearances in our perceptions, that we call ‘’materials’, while casting our own agency, the only sure thing, and the center, from which, any and all ideas of existence find their context, as a mere minor inconsequential byproduct of whatever it is that is responsible for it’s origins.

This stubborn insistence on clinging to a false hypothesis, is what prevents many giant steps forward in our scientific aspirations. There won’t be any time travel, teleportation, advanced space travel, or the unraveling and harnessing of secrets to electromagnetism, if we remain anchored to an incorrect premise, and an outdated scientific model.

If you can’t recognize the proper configuration; that identity and reality have their true origins in a meta mental context, of which the workings of the physical are but a functional tool, representing only the most gross densest aspect of reality, you won’t get very far as a scientist.

Now this doesn’t mean that I’m saying physicality is completely irrelevant, but only that, physicality is more of a primitive byproduct of an agency that is predominately ethereal. As I’ve referred to this in the past: physicality, the denser mental state.

This is a truth that unveils a universe that doesn’t have an actual external location in time and dimensional space. Sound crazy?

Well, an objectively existing universe is an idea that more begs the question. Which do you think is more cost effective and has less overhead?: constructing an actual entire universe, or merely provide the illusory experience of one.

It’s a no brainer.

The universe is a mental construct. Total awareness imagines this context; which eventually gives rise to the basic seeds of consciousness, which can come together spontaneously within a spark of imagination. The imagination can do this because it derives it’s potent abilities from pure potentiality, which has no laws or rules to govern it.

These basic principles, which are not an endorsement of an intelligent design by a supreme being, by the way, but are, rather, the result of a great impersonal scientific natural force, which I often like to refer to as pure potentiality, are even upheld and represented in the theory of the Big Bang itself; the prevailing cosmological model for the universe; which implies that an expanding universe can be traced back in time to an originating single point. Before this single point, we have to concede nothingness, the static unified field, the superposition, pure potentiality, that has no qualitative state, yet produces all possible states of quality.

This single point manifests outwards from within; a process that mimics, on a seemingly large scale, the fundamental truth of an awareness based inner source.

If all of reality came from a single point from within, and everything that’s expanding outwards from this center, was at one time whole and unified, wherein can any external origin be? It’s not even logically possible. If you subscribe to Big Bang, the origins of existence come from an internal source, not an external one. Your physical form is the outward expression of an internal source; so if there is anything external going on out here, relative to this inner source, it’s the manifestation of all physics; which are of a metaphysical origin.

So understand: you are in a realm of imagination, not in an actual solid fixed location called a universe. When you can finally appreciate this, through satori, or via your own firsthand insights into the fundamental nature of reality, you will then come to realize that, when it comes to the development of form within illusion, the only aspects that evolves is consciousness, and everything else follows suit.

Now you know what the driving force behind what’s called ‘evolution’ really is. Consciousness; which has it’s roots in total awareness.

This is the driving force that inspires selection, mutation, migration, and random drift.

This is the driving force that brings about the circumstances that allow for gene splicing and interspecies sex.

This is the driving force that, in response to the many different experiences, trials and tribulations of consciousness, inspires awareness to imagine and conjure up new innovations of existential embodiment, into being, from, nothing.

Now I know you feel automatically inclined to reject this; because it defies the conventions of your logic, reason and common sense; but this is only because you have accepted a false premise as a default, and therefor have no idea how pure potentiality operates.

Yes, pure potential can literally POP things into existence from thin air.

Something CAN come from nothing.

“No! That can’t be!”

Then what, pray tell, is your theory of the Big Bang? Is “something from nothing”, not the main underlying principle and subsequent conduit of manifestation to the materialization of the entire universe?

So now that we’ve cleared that up; coming back around to the main point, from which we sidetracked down a tangential alleyway, we come back to meta awareness.

Looking at the history of sentience, we can see that consciousness has already gone through two major stages of progression in it's evolutionary trajectory: instinct consciousness and then self consciousness.

Instinct consciousness is an operating system that involves innate behaviors performed without being based upon prior experiences, and the succeeding modifications of these behaviors, and the possibility of adapting new behaviors, based on very rudimentary learning experiences interacting with stimuli and other patterns in nature.

And then self consciousness, which is a considerably more complex operating system, involving advanced processes of varying cognitive applications and the development of self recognition. This distinction of consciousness is generally the dividing line used to distinguish animals from humans; and self consciousness has been the primary operating system for humans ever since the emergence of the humans, and remains so till this very day... until now. Enter meta awareness.

Meta awareness is when the source of attention moves beyond the confines of a self and gains a perspective of consciousness from the outside, revealing a no self. This is similar to what we call lucidity, which is elevated awareness during which the dreamer is aware of the dreaming. In a dream, this is akin to meta awareness, because the vantage point of elevated awareness is seen to not be situated in the dream character, the former assumed identity of the self. Therefor, the dream itself, which includes the character, is considered as a framework, while that which is doing the considering of the framework, is the true empty self, or the no self.

This is why it is often said in wisdom that, life is a dream, life is an illusion; a matrix of the mind. And also why we often hear grasshoppers say in response:

“Yeah. well, whether it's illusion or not, it doesn't matter. It won't change the way I receive my experience, or the fact that I am a creature with mundane needs. So whether it's real or not doesn't make a difference existentially.”

An understandable assertion. Unto which, I say: you are overthinking it, and you could stand to benefit from getting some space between your true self and the thinking mind; which is really just a spoiled immature overdemanding brat that, if allowed, will vacuum all the energy and power away from the true self, with it's constant excessive need for attention, high maintenance and pampering upkeep. That's why it seems to the thinking mind like there would be no difference existentially whether you approached life with the truth, or in delusion. It's all the, same same, no?

Actually, you wouldn't know that. This belief is the result of approaching the prospect of meta awareness with an externalization mindset. It still lacks the first hand understanding that we are NOT the ego. This is like a dream character saying that it knows lucidity because it understands the concept of it intellectually. It would also be like saying there's no difference between the operating systems of instinct and self consciousness. Of course there is a difference, but that difference is not gonna be fully appreciated from the myopic perspective.

So much of the ego's difficulty in realizing the truth is due to the attention's stubborn attachment to the identity as an ego. This is why the ego can't understand how delusion and the truth are any different existentially. Most of everything will change contextually, which will ultimately mean a shift in the whole basic approach. So shrugging off enlightenment due to an intellectual idea that it won't matter existentially, is not only erroneous, but a serious dereliction of responsibility. This is something one should approach again, that is, if they are truly interested in enlightenment, and are not just looking to play little games with the intellect.

Ultimately, meta awareness can be said to be the state of consciousness, post enlightenment. Does that mean divinity? No. Does this mean reaching a heavenly dimension? No. Enlightenment isn't a place, or an ideal embodiment. Enlightenment isn't about transforming your ego, or coming to be the right kind of ego. Enlightenment is the liberation from identifications with places and embodiments; when one has realized they are neither a place nor an embodiment. Enlightenment doesn't happen to a person, enlightenment is always from the person; so it's not about attaining anything that is lacking from your person. It's about coming to understand that you are not a person.

Understanding this, it becomes clear that the aim isn't to change illusion, but only to put the illusion in its proper context, and not to become deluded by it. Kind of like what the old zen proverb alludes:

Before enlightenment: chop wood, carry water.

After enlightenment: chop wood, carry water.

In other words, after enlightenment, all will be the same; except, you will no longer be in ignorance.

#meta awareness #metaphysics #metaphysical

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neptunecreek · 5 years ago

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FAQ about the Tech Projects Director Role

We're hiring a new Director of Technology Projects. That's the team at EFF that develops and maintains Privacy Badger, HTTPS Everywhere, the Certbot client for Let's Encrypt, and Panopticlick, as well as housing our Threat Lab research group. On top of building and coding, the team also includes EFF's public interest technologists, who use their deep understanding of technology to weigh in on policy, law, and regulatory fights in defense of users.

Since we published the job description, we have had many people reach out with questions about the role. We decided to publish our answers publicly, so that everyone who is potentially interested could have access to this information.

Please note that we are still accepting applications for the Director of Technology Projects role. However, we are starting resumé review this week and we strongly urge interested applicants to submit an application soon!

I am not sure I have all of the experience and qualifications. Should I still apply?

Yes, we think you should.

We get it—lots of people have imposter syndrome, or worry that they may have some of the skills but not every listed qualification. And many people have career trajectories that are complex and don’t line up with traditional paths. So we want to be very explicit: we want to have a chance to connect with you even if you don’t think it’s a perfect fit for some reason.

There are a few reasons for that. First of all, you might be the best candidate for the job even if your qualifications don't seem "perfect," because we also prioritize characteristics like good judgement, strategic thinking, a collaborative approach, and commitment to our mission—which are characteristics that aren’t based on any particular skills or work experience. And even more importantly, once you submit an application, we can start a conversation. It’ll give us a chance to know you, and you a chance to learn more about the job. Often, just getting into a dialogue can help us recognize where we can be flexible and make adjustments so that we can find a way forward that works for everyone.

And finally, it’s useful to submit an application even if you don't think you're a perfect fit because we never know what future roles at EFF might become available. It’s possible this particular role won’t be the right one, but maybe there’s another one at EFF that would be.

If you’re still really on the fence, you can drop a note to [email protected] and she or someone else on the team will be happy to talk more about your questions or concerns.

Is this position based in San Francisco?

This role is based in San Francisco, and that's for two reasons. First, the team doing the work is almost entirely based in San Francisco, and so we want a team leader who can nurture that team's community by being in the office where they all work. And second, the EFF's leadership team (which this role is part of) is based in San Francisco, and we value having conversations in-person, from brainstorming and dreaming up big plans to making critical strategic and policy decisions for the organization. All of this means that our office is a fun, intellectual interesting place where we like to think through problems together as a team, and we want this role to be a part of that.

For folks moving to San Francisco, we recognize it can be a big leap. That's why EFF is committed to supporting the staff members who relocate to the Bay Area for the job: we sort out a timeline that works for your schedule, we offer moving costs benefits to get you here, and we offer innovative benefits like rental assistance and home buying assistance to make Bay Area living affordable. We also try to be really flexible with our employees who have family in other places or enjoy traveling, so it’s not unusual for EFF staffers to take a week working remotely so they can spend time with family or explore the world.

Many people move to San Francisco sight-unseen for the EFF job, and end up falling in love with the city. San Francisco encompasses so many different communities that you’re likely to find a niche that works for you. For starters, the city has an incredible arts community, bike-friendly streets, and is surrounded by natural playgrounds for hiking, skiing, and more. Plus, the coffee is great.

Many, many EFF staffers took the leap of faith to move to San Francisco to work for EFF. Here is a bit of what they have to say about it:

“I moved to San Francisco 5 years ago, and I never want to leave. I’ve lived in New York City, Washington DC, and Seattle, but San Francisco is home. The city is alive, diverse, international, cosmopolitan, adventurous, and new. I think it is one of the most beautiful cities in America, surrounded by gorgeous California at the center of a world-changing industry. You never run out of places to explore, and you never feel like you’re missing something by not living somewhere else. It even has decent bagels and pizza.” -Daniel from EFF, moved here in 2014

“Since moving to San Francisco, it's been amazing to see how vibrant and active the art and music communities are throughout the bay area. The creative community is everywhere you look, it's literally spilling out onto the walls and into the streets. It feels like every weekend there's a festival, a group making zines for an important cause, and an endless amount of workshops being offered if you're looking to try something new. As someone who's been here for less than a year, I wasn't sure where to jump in, but I shouldn't have worried. Everyone has been incredibly welcoming and I've already gone to several casual art meetups to just sketch with other artists; this weekend, there's a picnic planned for sketching at the nearby regional park!” - Hannah from EFF, moved here in 2019

“I moved to San Francisco to work at EFF after eight years in Boston and NYC, and I couldn’t be happier with that decision. With rental assistance from EFF, my apartment here is three times the size of my apartment in NYC. I walk to work past flowers that bloom all winter long. My produce comes from the year-round farmer’s market near the EFF office and the lemon tree in my backyard. And I go hiking every weekend even without owning a car. As a lover of natural beauty and the outdoors, it’s hard for me to imagine a better place to live than the Bay Area." - Naomi from EFF, moved here in 2019

If moving to San Francisco is your biggest hesitation about this role, we encourage you to reach out and we can talk about it.

I’m not currently authorized to work in the U.S., should I still apply?

Due to the complexity, cost, and time involved with getting a working visa or permit, EFF can’t help bring in candidates from overseas who are not permitted to work in the U.S.

How many direct reports will this role have?

The role starts with two direct reports, both of whom are managers for the 16-person Tech Projects team, helping with goal-setting, personnel issues, and day-to-day tasks keeping projects on track. The main management task of the Tech Projects Director role is providing support, mentorship, and guidance to those managers. While there are two now, the number of direct reports for this role could grow to four over time.

If I take this position, what kind of support will I have?

In addition to support from the managers reporting to you on your team, you’ll also have a great deal of direct support from the Chief Program Officer (to whom this role reports) and the Executive Director. They are committed to making sure you and your team are successful.

Nobody expects you to walk in on the first day with everything sorted out. We expect there to be lots of learning and exploring—not just for the first few weeks of the role, but really for the first year. EFF provides extra help to new employees through teach-ins, chat channels geared toward new folks at EFF, and internal events.

How long will the interview process take and what is the process?

We see the interview process as a chance for you to get to know the team and ask questions as much as it is a chance for us to get to know you. You can expect there will be a phone screen, and then potentially a small interview with a few people from the hiring committee. The final interview takes place in San Francisco over the course of most of the day, and we’ll fly out final candidates who are coming from far away. This is a chance to meet directly with your future team, see the office, and do several small-group interviews with the hiring committee. You’ll get to meet and interact with folks from the Tech Projects team, learn about our benefits, and get to know the community at EFF.

In addition, there may be other skills-based assessments, if certain skills weren’t ascertained during the interviews. We end with reference checks.

What kind of things might come up during the interview process?

Our goal is to make the interview process as low-stress as possible. We don’t expect any applicant to have an encyclopedic knowledge of esoteric security concepts. Instead, we talk through the many different types of topics this role will eventually cover. Various topics related to our digital rights work—such as basic Internet infrastructure, web tracking, and encryption—might come up. We’ll also ask about your experience managing people and how you might handle various situations. There are also questions to help us learn more about your preferences in the workplace, like what kind of a working environment you enjoy and what you look for in a manager. We don’t think there’s any one right answer to any of our questions. We also don’t think that not having knowledge in a specific topic means you’re necessarily a bad fit for the role. Rather, we just try to get to know you and get a good understanding of where you happen to be right now, where you’d need to grow to fulfill the role, and how excited and ready you are for that growth. We encourage applicants to just be themselves and, if it’s possible, have fun with the process. You’ll have a lot of chances to ask us questions, so feel free to ask about anything you’re wondering.

Can I bring my dog to work at EFF?

Absolutely. In fact, we’re going to be sad if you don’t.

What are the greatest challenges of this role?

There are lots of challenges, but here are a few of the big ones we can anticipate:

Managing managers: How can the Tech Projects Director be supportive of two managers who are often dealing with complex decisions? Managing managers doesn’t mean jumping in with the quick and easy solution, but being willing to sift through complexity and create space and support for difficult choices.

Not getting distracted by shiny things: Responding to current events is part of our job, but constantly chasing the newest topic can lead to burn-out and ineffectiveness. This role needs to balance responsiveness with moving ahead on long-term goals.

Cultivating a diverse, inclusive, and resilient team: Hiring and maintaining a diverse technical team in the Bay Area has a lot of challenges, especially at a nonprofit where we can’t offer the salaries that big tech companies offer. We’ve made a lot of progress in diversity and inclusion, and we want a director who is deeply committed to that vision and can keep that progress going forward.

Helping EFF think strategically when faced with technical challenges: The new tech director needs to be scanning the horizon and helping us answer hard questions about how we can best use EFF’s resources to create long-term change for users.

Mentoring our public interest technologists: EFF pioneered the idea of the public interest technologist: someone with deep technical knowledge who specializes in weighing in on policy, law, and regulatory fights in defense of users. These technologists spend most of their time thinking, writing, and educating, rather than coding and building. We want to help ensure that concept continues to thrive within EFF, and acting as a mentor and support for our public interest technologists is a high priority.

Ensuring good communication among teams: This role is the glue between our Tech Projects and our other programmatic teams like EFF's legal team and activism team, so we’re looking for someone who can build bridges, systems, and relationships that are rooted in good communication.

Keeping an eye on many different projects: The docket of things Tech Projects works on is very broad, and this role is key to being able to connect them to our big picture-strategy.

What is it like to work on the Tech Projects team?

The Tech Projects team is a diverse group of engineers and technologists who are knowledgeable about many different aspects of EFF’s issue space, and who offer that knowledge freely to their colleagues. Not everyone has expertise in every area, and that’s fine; we see new challenges as a chance to learn and explore. It’s a supportive and curious team, where folks respect the expertise of their colleagues and where it is always safe to ask questions. That trust is really important, and something we want to make sure the next Director can continue to foster. We try to help each other on work projects and with research, and it’s also a very caring environment. Folks are genuinely invested in the well-being of their colleagues. While there is a lot of expertise on the team, there is also a lot of humility; most folks are well aware that we have so much still to learn, and that any new challenge will likely involve doing some research. That’s a big part of the fun for us.

There’s a deep sense of camaraderie on the team, and a sense that everyone genuinely wants their colleagues to succeed.

Interested in learning more? You can send in an application or read more.

from Deeplinks https://ift.tt/2W3luAS

#Deeplinks

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dorcasrempel · 5 years ago

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Study: Commercial air travel is safer than ever

It has never been safer to fly on commercial airlines, according to a new study by an MIT professor that tracks the continued decrease in passenger fatalities around the globe.

The study finds that between 2008 and 2017, airline passenger fatalities fell significantly compared to the previous decade, as measured per individual passenger boardings — essentially the aggregate number of passengers. Globally, that rate is now one death per 7.9 million passenger boardings, compared to one death per 2.7 million boardings during the period 1998-2007, and one death per 1.3 million boardings during 1988-1997.

Going back further, the commercial airline fatality risk was one death per 750,000 boardings during 1978-1987, and one death per 350,000 boardings during 1968-1977.

“The worldwide risk of being killed had been dropping by a factor of two every decade,” says Arnold Barnett, an MIT scholar who has published a new paper summarizing the study’s results. “Not only has that continued in the last decade, the [latest] improvement is closer to a factor of three. The pace of improvement has not slackened at all even as flying has gotten ever safer and further gains become harder to achieve. That is really quite impressive and is important for people to bear in mind.”

The paper, “Aviation Safety: A Whole New World?” was published online this month in Transportation Science. Barnett is the sole author.

The new research also reveals that there is discernible regional variation in airline safety around the world. The study finds that the nations housing the lowest-risk airlines are the U.S., the members of the European Union, China, Japan, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Israel. The aggregate fatality risk among those nations was one death per 33.1 million passenger boardings during 2008-2017.

For airlines in a second set of countries, which Barnett terms the “advancing” set with an intermediate risk level, the rate is one death per 7.4 million boardings during 2008-2017. This group — comprising countries that are generally rapidly industrializing and have recently achieved high overall life expectancy and GDP per capita — includes many countries in Asia as well as some countries in South America and the Middle East.

For a third and higher-risk set of developing countries, including some in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, the death risk during 2008-2017 was one per 1.2 million passenger boardings — an improvement from one death per 400,000 passenger boardings during 1998-2007.

“The two most conspicuous changes compared to previous decades were sharp improvements in China and in Eastern Europe,” says Barnett, who is the George Eastman Professor of Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management. In those places, he notes, had safety achievements in the last decade that were strong even within the lowest-risk group of countries.

Overall, Barnett suggests, the rate of fatalities has declined far faster than public fears about flying.

“Flying has gotten safer and safer,” Barnett says. “It’s a factor of 10 safer than it was 40 years ago, although I bet anxiety levels have not gone down that much. I think it’s good to have the facts.”

Barnett is a long-established expert in the field of aviation safety and risk, whose work has helped contextualize accident and safety statistics. Whatever the absolute numbers of air crashes and fatalities may be — and they fluctuate from year to year — Barnett has sought to measure those numbers against the growth of air travel.

To conduct the current study, Barnett used data from a number of sources, including the Flight Safety Foundation’s Aviation Safety Network Accident Database. He mostly used data from the World Bank, based on information from the International Civil Aviation Organization, to measure the number of passengers carried, which is now roughly 4 billion per year.

In the paper, Barnett discusses the pros and cons of some alternative metrics that could be used to evaluate commercial air safety, including deaths per flight and deaths per passenger miles traveled. He prefers to use deaths per boarding because, as he writes in the paper, “it literally reflects the fraction of passengers who perished during air journeys.”

The new paper also includes historical data showing that even in today’s higher-risk areas for commerical aviation, the fatality rate is better, on aggregate, than it was in the leading air-travel countries just a few decades in the past.

“The risk now in the higher-risk countries is basically the risk we used to have 40-50 years ago” in the safest air-travel countries, Barnett notes.

Barnett readily acknowledges that the paper is evaluating the overall numbers, and not providing a causal account of the air-safety trend; he says he welcomes further research attempting to explain the reasons for the continued gains in air safety.

In the paper, Barnett also notes that year-to-year air fatality numbers have notable variation. In 2017, for instance, just 12 people died in the process of air travel, compared to 473 in 2018.

“Even if the overall trendline is [steady], the numbers will bounce up and down,” Barnett says. For that reason, he thinks looking at trends a decade at a time is a better way of grasping the full trajectory of commercial airline safety.

On a personal level, Barnett says he understands the kinds of concerns people have about airline travel. He began studying the subject partly because of his own worries about flying, and quips that he was trying to “sublimate my fears in a way that might be publishable.”

Those kinds of instinctive fears may well be natural, but Barnett says he hopes that his work can at least build public knowledge about the facts and put them into perspective for people who are afraid of airplane accidents.

“The risk is so low that being afraid to fly is a little like being afraid to go into the supermarket because the ceiling might collapse,” Barnett says.

Study: Commercial air travel is safer than ever syndicated from https://osmowaterfilters.blogspot.com/

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embodiments-of-progress · 5 years ago

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Dear Summer

Shadow Channel, a temporary masters programme from 2017-2019 focussed primarily on imagining and creating alternative realities for society through experimental forms of moving image, is continued by the transformed Temporary Programme Resolution after summer. “It’s like a perennial plant,” says Juha van t’ Zelfde, the director of both programmes, “a plant that keeps on returning every year and grows stronger. Shadow Channel and Resolution are the same plant, it has just evolved – it’s stronger, has more roots and more flowers, takes up more space and shares more joy.” The Temporary Programmes at Sandberg Instituut vary each year, seeking ways to align the institute with the dynamics of current society. Their curricula are reworked along the way, in close collaboration with the students attending the programme. Bey introduced the idea to have two-year Temporary Programmes, each developed according to specific urgencies of their times. Maria Barnas & Ilse van Rijn, programme directors for the second new Temporary Programme Approaching Language (2019-2021), mostly refer to stretching boundaries together with their students. “We often found ourselves having to cross boundaries between the literary world and the art world,” the directors duo says. “In order for writing to be taken seriously as an art form, we experienced having to move to too many different spaces. In between those spaces, a lot of knowledge about the practice gets lost and energy scatters.” In the Approaching Language programme, Maria and Ilse are aiming to bundle this energy. “Together with the students, we build on a substantial platform, a place to define the field for questioning, publishing and showing an approach to language in the art landscape. It is a living experiment we are dealing with.”The Main Departments counterbalance the two-year Temporary Programmes; they develop methods and history within their communities over a longer timespan. “In the end, we are a learning institute,” Bey continues. “When a school is developed under this idea, it means everyone (students, tutors, directors, staff and collaborators) involved will arrive with a learning mode and will reflect on what they would want to learn and in which time frame.”

School can be a playground. School can be a factory. School can be a garden. School can be a family. School can be a society. Often master departments and other abstract educational systems are described in spatial terms. These metaphors are used to form an idea of what this complex organization actually is, how it is developed or what it could become. Jurgen Bey, director of Sandberg Instituut, refers to education in the institution as a design in itself. A design made out of time amongst others, as can be seen most clearly in the first changes he made after he became the director in 2011. He extended the summer holidays and with this condensed the school year in order to create more space and time away from the institution for both students and employees. Furthermore, the idea of school as a design studio comes up often in how Bey describes the being-together in an educational environment. “In a design studio you share each others’ heads and question what to expect from each other, how to work when you work with a bigger group and what you would want a certain space to be like,” he says. Another spatial reference that arises in the conversation with Bey is the literal location of the institution. The design of a school building can state something about existing education in a physical form, but most of all, has the ability to enable the students, teachers and directors thoughts about possibilities in that same education. “The development of art school buildings runs parallel with the development of art education,” is how the architects of the new communal building for the Sandberg and Rietveld, state this in their design proposal. But is a school building informed by what happens inside of it or the other way around? The new-build ��FedLev’ building and the renovated environments of the Benthem & Crouwel buildings, that Sandberg moved back in to this year, will be used, tested and improved on the go.“The temporary building Sandberg used (an old office block resembling a squat) placed the students literally in a different location than the actual institution, which created a real Shadow Channel vibe within the department,” Elif Özbay, current coordinator of the new Temporary Programme Resolution (2019 – 2021) and alumna of its sister programme Shadow Channel (2017 – 2019) explains. “The building placed us students in a little hub, it supported a bubble in which we could brew in what we wanted to become as a department. The building allowed the Shadow Channel department to transform and now as Resolution, we can reach out, as this new building will confront the students with a lot of possibilities and visibility to the public.”

Julian Schubert and Ludwig Engel, who will be co-directors of the main department Studio for Immediate Spaces, refer to the aim of their department as a laboratory. “It’s not that we want to impose this idea on the students, but we were discussing the department as a laboratory that does open up to urban actors and tests spatial ideas that have relevance for how we live today,” Ludwig explains. “This is how a lab works, right? You have a kind of secure environment to test things, where you can screw up without having real-world consequences but still, you are tackling those real-world problems. And later on, you can translate what seems promising into environments outside the lab.” Anja Groten, who will be heading the Main Department Design from September onwards, sees the master programmes of Sandberg very much like a network. “Connecting, sending out signals, establishing protocols and challenging you to think about relationships and in-between spaces. It’s not really about isolated departments but about how they relate.” This network is familiar to her, in a way, since she has been part of the Design departments’ fabric as both student and teacher. “Networks are temporal, they are constantly changing but still they are an infrastructure for travelling stories.”

“The fact that Sandberg students, and Rietveld students, are all under the same roof now, facilitates a constant flow of communication across departments.” Flavia Dzodan states. She expects the renovated school environment will introduce new types of interactions between the departments in both Rietveld and Sandberg. Dzodan will be guiding the research-fellowships and the research in Artificial Intelligence. Now still very much in progress, the initial idea is that from next year onwards the research fellowships and its trajectories will start to linger as a cross-departmental network over Sandberg – allowing for both external fellows and student-led research to become apparent and pollinate. Relocating and transitioning in education means relating to a new playground, factory, family, society and garden. “It resembles cleaning your pond, you take all the weeds, excessive mud and different species out and place them on the side of the pond. Part of this content will go back into the pond and the other part is used elsewhere in the landscape. If you would instead take all the content away at once and start over, similar to a tabula rasa, then you disturb the ecosystem and you will not allow for those taught in a different system to settle in. Which is not the right way to approach it,” concludes Bey. “However, for now - it is summer, so let’s leave the pond as it is and focus on all the other things we were not able to notice before because of it, the landscape around it!” Which metaphors and languages used to explain education at Sandberg will evolve and which will be stored for after summer? Which parts are opened up for knowledge to become public and developed with the city of Amsterdam and beyond? The world outside of the curriculum does not only have to function as a metaphor for education, but can become an active part in the development of new meaning. Greetings, Spring.Dear Summer is the first letter in a series of editorials by PS (Public Sandberg) writer in residence Delany Boutkan. The editorial is based on conversations with various members of the Sandberg community mentioned in the text. Full articles on the new department directors and research innovator are released in fall 2019 on the sandberg.nl Library.Sandberg Instituut thanks departing tutor Rob Schröder, Main Department directors Leopold Banchini and Annelys de Vet. After summer Anja Groten and Julian Schubert are welcomed as new Main Department directors and Flavia Dzodan as research innovator. https://sandberg.nl/dear-summer

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youngandnursey · 6 years ago

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Becoming Nursey: an abridged reflection on my undergraduate education

Nursing school, while feeling like a huge feat to tackle, has not been the only thing that’s brought me here--in a position ready to enter the world as a nurse and as a confident woman. Various aspects of my education have played a vital role in fostering my genuine feeling of readiness to enter the profession of nursing. My experiences in university have been unexpected and, at times, trying to my sense of self and my relationships. Being a spiritual ministry coordinator, working in a homeless shelter, traveling abroad, engaging in theology courses, participating in the honors program, working random jobs here and there, and finally experiencing the rigor of nursing school have all contributed to my becoming a new nurse. My faith has been stretched as I wondered about the restlessness of my soul in this seemingly chaotic world. It is this final thought which inspires me to say that I do not attribute my readiness and success to myself, but to God’s guidance and the immeasurable blessings which I have received to get here. For I have noticed that God resides in the disorder which can be found in the world and in nursing, so I am willing to stay, despite the discomfort of doing so.

General Education

In my first quarter of university, I took a “Literature and Faith” course wherein we read novels written by great stewards of the gospel message through literature. Our professor was a vivacious Catholic woman with a British accent and wonderfully crude word choice who brought the novel’s embedded messages of grace and love to life. While learning about the themes of grace in literature, the professor did not ask us questions in soft tones and wait for our responses. Rather, she yelled about the “fucking” grace of God while stomping around in black Doc Martens boots and preaching at us to see the world through the lens of the wildly honest Flannery O’Connor, or the guilt-ridden Whiskey Priest in Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory. This professor helped us to see the meeting of the profane and the sacred—or showed us that they might even be one in the same. I’ve found this same truth in nursing.

Later, I took a theatre course on Christianity and Comedy with little prior knowledge about the concept of humor as a way of communicating the grace of God. I learned that theatric comedy and humor demonstrate the power of the gospel in that humor requires the trajectory of grace—redemption occurs in the act of laughter which is a display of humility when one chooses not to take oneself too seriously. Being an honors student, I was required to study Greek and Latin classics, read philosophers of Modernity, learn about the globalization of the world, among other topics. Each of my courses entranced me, made me wonder if I was choosing the right path by pursuing a major in nursing. Continuing to do so became especially difficult when a professor for one of my Honors’ courses graded me the highest in the class on a paper analyzing Kantian philosophy—I mean I know you’re doing this nursing thing, Claire, but you seriously have a knack for this.

Yet while engaging in all this course content, I was motivated not just by the academics, nor the romantic notion of studying literature and writing about the world abstractly. I equally wanted to engage with the challenges I faced internally, on my campus, in the city, and even in the world. I loved learning through reading and writing but, admittedly, it felt disconnected, abstract, even airy with privilege and comfort. Attempting to learn about the state of our current world and the ideas which brought us to this point in history prompted me to approach nursing with the truth in mind that the world is a place riddled with nuances, perplexities and contradictions. Thus, these courses helped me meet The Baccalaureate Essential IX (2008) stating that graduates should “demonstrate tolerance for the ambiguity and unpredictability of the world and its effect on the healthcare system as related to nursing practice” (p. 32). The learning which I did in the first two years at University taught me about the unpredictability of the world with regard to evolving ideas, the pain of history, and my privileged position in this world. These courses compelled me to think deeply about the human condition and my place in engaging with it. I loved the liberal arts portion of my education, but it was just the transition I needed into nursing school—to embrace the reality of human suffering and the role of science in caring, to manifest the reality of the human condition which was taught to me through lectures and books.

Vocational Development

I became a nurse because I needed a vocation which combined art and science. Nursing has always been considered “an art and a science” and both of these terms hold special significance in nursing practice (Peplau, 1987). As mentioned above, my decision to pursue nursing did not come without turning down other interests and passions in the realm of humanities, which I’d consider an art. Still, I have also always had a love of science, especially in asking questions about the world and learning the way things work. I appreciate the opportunities in nursing to engage art as well as the scientific process. From longing to understand humanity and care for people, I began to consider nursing as a creative act of being in which the nurse chooses to engage with another with heartfelt curiosity and compassion. The nurse must notice, appreciate, and stay curious with her patients. To care, especially for those in vulnerable places of illness, requires a willingness to stay present in the fatigue, even while there exists a threat of recoiling from suffering or even just becoming indifferent. I wanted to enter this profession that had a striking impact on people. Hildegard Peplau (1987) aptly describes this impact on people in that “they are touched (literally and figuratively) and sometimes changed at a very personal level by the art nurses practice” (p. 9). I feel that it is an honor to begin practicing this art.

I’ve realized during my short journey that the utter curiosity which I have about the world—and which compelled me to ask questions, be an Honors student, and enthusiastically jump into new experiences—aided me in discovering a vocation of nursing. My inherent curiosity makes me eager to engage in the scientific aspect of the discipline, while my compassion aids in the art. Despite the challenge of learning a large sum in nursing school, I have always appreciated adding new things to my knowledge base. When studying courses like medical/surgical nursing became especially difficult, the prospect of using this information to care for people was quite motivating. My fellow nursing students around me also helped in this journey, which contributed to my developing understanding of the importance of community in learning, creating new ideas, and becoming competent in nursing as a science.

Character Development

My journey of faith has been riddled with nuances, doubt, misunderstandings, and minuscule revelations. Paralleling this journey was my developing sense of self, forever vacillating between assuredness and utter uncertainty. My experience in university has revealed to me both the steadfastness of God along with the simultaneous uncertainty of religion and spirituality. Flannery O’Connor (1979) wrote the following prayer that has always resonated with me: “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief… is the most natural and most human and most agonizing prayer in the gospels, and I think it is the foundation prayer of faith” (p. 476). As I was confronted with contradictions of Christianity in various courses and in my own experiences, I’ve prayed this prayer as if simply speaking into the void, hoping for truth and clarity. God has been with me all the while.

God has been my source of strength in moments of fear in the context of nursing. Finding meaning and purpose prove essential in this profession to maintain hope and joy. Similarly, looking to God for comfort and strength felt wildly important when I worked at a homeless shelter for young adults in Seattle. It was difficult to cling to hope when confronting such difficult and discouraging situations experienced by the guests at the shelter. The seemingly insurmountable issues in the world are immediately present in my own city. Dr. Paul Farmer, Co-founder of Partners in Health, holds the belief that to give in to despair is to give up on those who are suffering… for they have no option out (2013), and this has inspired me to strive to maintain hope and stave off despair for the sake of those who require care. I feel that my journey of learning about other religions, questioning my own faith, and still trusting God’s work in my life has also prepared me to “demonstrate tolerance for the ambiguity and unpredictability of the world and its effect on the healthcare system as related to nursing practice” (Baccalaureate essential IX).

My University education has been rich with experiences, which have prepared me to begin a vocation in nursing. I’ve learned that nursing as an art and science could not have been a better fit for me as I desire to care for people and continue learning. I look forward to understanding how best to care for people, and how to do so while fulfilling my own heart, which longs to connect with people and see God’s hand at work in the world. I appreciate that this is not an easy task, but there are brilliant nurses who have come before me and others around me to build me up. Simply to look in a patient’s eyes and transmit hope and joy despite their suffering has made this journey worthwhile.

References

American Association of Colleges of Nursing (2008). The Essentials of Baccalaureate Education for Professional Nursing Practice. Retrieved from http://www.aacnnursing.org/Portals/42/Publications/BaccEssentials08.pdf

Farmer, P. (2013). Dr. Paul Farmer on hope. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PINxZQwde54

O’Connor, F. (1979). The habit of being: Letters of Flannery O’Connor. Retrieved from https://books.google.com/books?id=zU9liqlCzmsC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

Peplau, H.E. (1987). The art and science of nursing: Similarities, differences, and relations. Nursing Science Quarterly. doi: 10.1177/089431848800100105

#my story #story #nursing school #SPU #nrsblr #nrsgblr #words #writing #journal

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stephaniefchase · 7 years ago

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Bajan Newscap 11/23/2017

Good Morning #realdreamchasers. Here is your daily news cap for Thursday 23rd November, 2017. There is a lot to read and digest so take your time. Remember you can read full articles via Barbados Today (BT), or by purchasing Daily Nation Newspaper (DN).

MOTTLEY: NEVER AGAIN – Barbados Labour Party leader Mia Mottley says she will not be appearing before the Barbados Chamber of Commerce & Industry’s (BCCI) annual discussion as Opposition Leader again. She made this veiled announcement about her future yesterday after the BCCI event at Hilton Barbados, as she thanked the private sector entity for having her in attendance. “I’ve been here in 2010, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017; all as Leader of the Opposition. Whatever happens, I will not be here as the Leader of the Opposition again,” she added. During her speech, Mottley, who was Opposition Leader from 2008 to 2010 and since 2013, made the case for the Barbados Labour Party (BLP) to be elected to office in the next election. She assured the business community that, if given a chance, the Bees would be able to remedy the country’s problems. Mottley said despite a plethora of challenges facing Barbados, the problems could be fixed. “What you need is a government that is fit for purpose in this country. There is nothing so wrong with Barbados that cannot be fixed with a strong dose of leadership,” she said to rapturous applause. She also said it was time for the people and businesses to stop being guinea pigs for Government. Mottley reminded the business community that Barbados was now ranked 175th out of 197 countries in economic growth, and had fallen another 15 places in the Ease of Doing Business Report. She also said the island had dropped in ranking from five to 72 in the 2016 Global Competitiveness Report. She said no data was submitted for the report in 2017. Additionally, she reminded the gathering of the taxes instituted by the current administration such as a 2008 cellphone tax and a gaming machine tax. “We don’t only have to tax and spend to trigger growth. How we legislate, how we facilitate, how we regulate, all of these things trigger growth.” Mottley said the fix would not be easy once elected to office. However, she offered a number of solutions, such as reverse mortgages, the repealing of the National Social Responsibility Levy and the restructuring of the taxation system. (DN)

IMF: CUT SPENDING – An International Monetary Fund (IMF) team has left Barbados convinced that Government is not doing enough to fix its fiscal problems. Judith Gold, head of the IMF delegation that conducted the annual Article IV consultation between November 7 and Tuesday, is therefore urging the Freundel Stuart administration to cut its spending further. Failing this, the island’s debt problems would continue, she warned. The IMF is also offering its help to Government. It “stands ready to assist the Government of Barbados, including through continued policy dialogue and technical assistance”, Gold said. During its visit to the island, the team from Washington met with Minister of Finance Chris Sinckler, Acting Central Bank Governor Cleviston Haynes, Minister of Industry Donville Inniss, Leader of the Opposition Mia Mottley, senior Government officials, and representatives of the private sector, labour organisations and academia. In a statement released after departing the island, Gold said while continued strong growth in long-stay tourism supported Barbados’ economic growth, fiscal consolidation was contributing to a slowdown. The economist said “substantial further fiscal effort is needed to decisively place the debt on a downward trajectory”. Gold said Government’s adjustment strategy should focus on addressing the high transfers, containing other current expenditures and maintaining a strong revenue effort. The IMF also wants Government to focus on structural reforms “to support growth and improve the business climate for domestic and foreign investment are also urgent. The IMF representative also suggested that Government’s “ambitious” May 30 Budget was likely to miss its targets due to National Social Responsibility Levy exemptions, lower than expected non-oil imports, shortfalls in some other revenues, and high transfers. (DN)

HIGH HOPES – Government is projecting savings of over $3 billion over the next two decades under the new Barbados National Energy Policy 2017–2037. The use of consumption fuel by vehicles is also to be slashed by about half from 11,000 barrels per day to 5,400 barrels per day, with the country scheduled to realize a 75 per cent reduction in the use of fossil fuel-based energy over the next 20 years, and an equal percentage increase in renewable energy usage. Earlier this week, energy officials outlined the key objectives of the new policy, which is scheduled to go before Parliament soon for approval. Last year Government spent just over US$300 million or about seven per cent of the country’s gross domestic product on the importation of fuel, down from the US$450 million in 2015. Acting Chief Project Analyst in the Division of Energy Bryan Haynes said the policy should result in stability of local energy prices, stronger regulation and greater reliability, and energy security and affordability. Based on the policy, by 2037 Barbados should be generating 20 per cent of its energy from natural gas; 30 per cent from biomass; 20 per cent from wind; 15 per cent from solar and 15 per cent from bio-fuels. Haynes said the new framework should result in at least a 22 per cent saving in terms of electricity consumption. (BT)

TAX AMNESTY DRAWING TO A CLOSE – Taxpayers have less than a week to participate in the Tax Amnesty programme which draws to a close on November 30, 2017. The amnesty was announced in May during Minister of Finance Chris Sinckler’s Budgetary Proposal as an additional period for taxpayers to benefit from the waiver of penalties and interest on taxes owed to the Authority.Manager of communications and public relations at the Authority, Carolyn Williams-Gayle, indicated that there were currently no plans to extend the six-month amnesty beyond the November deadline. The taxes eligible for the waiver of penalty and interest in this Tax Amnesty programme are Value Added Tax (VAT), Land Tax, Income Tax, PAYE and Corporation Tax. Williams-Gayle urged taxpayers to use these last few days to make the necessary arrangements to bring their tax arrears up to date. Application forms for the Tax Amnesty Programme may be collected from the Authority’s offices the Treasury Building, Weymouth Corporate Centre, Warrens Tower II, Holetown and Southern Plaza Oistins or downloaded from the Authority’s website at www.bra.gov.bb. (DN)

ANTI CORRUPTION BILL NEEDS FIXING – The Barbados Labour Party’s (BLP) Integrity Commission Bill has a number of grey areas and shortcomings which need to be examined. Alicia Archer, a member of Integrity Group Barbados, said they were supportive of anyone who would take “a direct challenge to corruption” which they believed was becoming entrenched in society. Speaking to Starcom Network’s David Ellis yesterday, Archer said they would also like to have dialogue on the proposal. She gave the thumbs up to the investigative powers of the commission and its ability to summon people in the same fashion as a judge of the Supreme Court. However, one concern was the subsequent turning over of prosecution to the Director of Public Prosecutions. “If you have a director with a certain level of fortitude, fine. However, if you have somebody who is politically affiliated, or who literally does not have the testicular fortitude to carry the prosecution through, then the work of the commission is stymied,” she said. “Perhaps it would be better if the commission itself were able to prosecute the criminal acts that are discovered or come up duringthe course of its investigation without having to pass it off to another entity.” The BLP proposal also precluded investigation into matters that fell under the purview of another public official. She cited the example of the Auditor General and asked if those would be excluded. Additionally, the protection for whistle-blowers also needed to be made clearer, as well as term limits for members of the commission, who also needed the assurance that they would not be victimised for decisions taken while on the commission. Last Saturday, shadow attorney general Dale Marshall announced that a BLP administration would lay an Integrity Commission Bill during the first sitting of the House of Assembly if it formed the next Government of Barbados. It comes as Barbados fell 16 places in Transparency International’s ranking of the least corrupt countries in the world, landing at 31 out of 176. The ruling Democratic Labour Party piloted anti-corruption legislation in 2012, but it has never been proclaimed. (DN)

LABOUR DEPARTMENT WARNS OF ‘MODERN DAY SLAVERY’ – The Labour Department will not tolerate any practices that do not conform to this island’s labour laws, Acting Chief Labour Officer Victor Felix has warned. Addressing the opening of a one-day labour management relations seminar at the department’s Warrens Office Complex on Wednesday, Felix encouraged labour officials to report any suspected cases of forced labour, pointing out that this was one of the areas the department was keen on stamping out. “Sometimes we think that in Barbados there is not that particular challenge with forced labour, but we know, and are aware, of the emergence of what they call ‘modern day slavery’, where persons are misled into believing they are travelling to Barbados for a legitimate job offering and when they turn up they realize they are working in something else, other than they have been extended. “So we will want to do all in our power to move away and ensure that those kinds of things do not happen in our jurisdiction. And where we have any sense that they might be occurring, that we draw it to the attention of the authorities,” he told the gathering of private and public sector labour officials. During today’s seminar, which forms part of the labour department’s education and sensitization efforts on labour standards and practices, participants will, among other things, examine various aspects of the labour laws as they discuss some challenges and potential solutions. (BT)

FIRE OFFICERS CALL IN SICK AT GAIA – Firefighters had to be called in from stations around the country to man the station at Grantley Adams International Airport (GAIA) this morning, after fire officers posted there reportedly called in sick. The last-ditch effort prevented any disruptions and ensured the smooth flow of air traffic throughout the day, official sources said. According to the sources, eight officers were scheduled to be on duty for this morning’s shift, but most of the drivers failed to show up. A representative of the Barbados Fire Service Association would only confirm that a number of officers had indeed reported sick. However, one person with intimate knowledge of the officers’ grievances complained that conditions at the Paragon facility were far from adequate, and that the firefighters had reached the tipping point because their repeated appeals for improvements had fallen on deaf ears. The source further stated that not even a visit by Attorney General Adriel Brathwaite last year had spurred the airport authorities to repair the “rundown” facility. “The officers are constantly complaining and the Attorney General even visited last year and they still have not looked at the building. This is ridiculous. Here you have the fire department telling businesses that they must have an emergency escape, yet officers are expected to function at a station that does not have one.” Barbados TODAY visited the airport fire station today and confirmed that the buzzer was indeed not working, as the team was unable to attract the attention of anyone inside. (BT)

PUBLIC NOTICE – The public is being asked to note that the Police PABX system at the Operations Control is temporarily out of order. The public is therefore being advised to contact the nearest police station in the event of an emergency, or telephone numbers 43007254, 4307255, 4307240. (PR) (BT)

UPDATE: LUTHER THORNE MEMORIAL CLOSED – Twenty-eight students and staff members at the Luther Thorne Memorial Primary School were today treated for respiratory ailments as a result of smoke inhalation. A statement issued by the Queen Elizabeth Hospital said it received an emergency call from the school around 11:45 a.m. and an emergency response team comprising of three ambulances, six emergency medical technicians and two ambulance officers, led by consultant in the Accident and Emergency Department Dr David Byer, were dispatched to the scene. Seventeen people were treated at the scene and discharged, two patients were transported to the Sir Winston Scott Polyclinic, two were taken to the Edgar Cochrane Polyclinic, and the other seven were transported to the hospital’s Accident and Emergency Department. (BT)

CANTEEN ATTACK – Parents of students attending Ellerslie are fed up with the state of affairs at that school. Emotions came to a boil yesterday morning at the Black Rock, St Michael secondary school, following an incident where a schoolboy was chopped across his hand by a cutlass-wielding student during a vicious lunchtime attack in the canteen. According to reports, the fourth former lost several fingers on the right hand and also received a deep wound just above the elbow. Investigations by the DAILY NATION revealed the violent attack stemmed from a fight two weeks ago. Police public relations officer, Acting Inspector Roland Cobbler, said a 17-year-old student suffered several lacerations to the right hand, with one of the fingers being severed while another was partially severed. (DN)

TEACHERS WANT ACTION AFTER ATTACK – The two teachers’ unions are calling for urgent action from the Ministry of Education and related agencies in the wake of yesterday’s cutlass attack on a student of Ellerslie Secondary School. President of the Barbados Union of Teachers (BUT), Pedro Shepherd, recalled the union being taken to task a few years ago when it expressed concern about the violence in schools and described school compounds as “war zones”. Last night he told the DAILY NATION he had a “serious problem” with the level of violence being displayed, especially since yesterday’s was the second incident involving a cutlass in recent weeks. “The Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Defence and Security, and maybe the Attorney General’s Office, are going to have to look at this matter seriously, in terms of when these offences are committed, what are the repercussions for these persons who are involved in these situations. We cannot continue to treat children who want to behave like adults as children. “I think the law has to be changed to accommodate these types of incidents – to treat them as adults. And if the child, certainly, cannot be incarcerated, I believe that parents are going to have to take some responsibility,” he said, adding that the victim could just as easily have been a teacher. (DN)

IT WAS SELF-DEFENCE – A 57-year-old man was granted $3,000 bail today after appearing in the District ‘A’ Magistrates’ Court on an assault charge. Hal Fernando Boyce, of Blanch Gap, Westbury New Road, St Michael, pleaded not guilty to assaulting Adrian Fields on November 21, occasioning him actual bodily harm. “It was in self defence,” Boyce told Magistrate Kristie Cuffy-Sargeant in the District ‘A’ Magistrates’ Court this morning. With no objection raised to his bail, Boyce was released after his surety was accepted. He returns to court on March 3. (BT)

ST MICHAEL MAN CHARGED WITH THE DEATH OF JUNE KNIGHT – Twenty-seven-year-old Daniel Haynes will appear in the Holetown Magistrates Court tomorrow in connection with the death of accident victim June Knight. Haynes of Jackmans, St Michael was charged with causing death by dangerous driving, driving without due care and attention and driving without reasonable consideration for others using the road. Knight, was struck by a car driven by Haynes while jogging along the Arch Hall section of the Ronald Mapp Highway on Saturday, October 21. (BT)

CHELTENHAM HELD – A 33-year-old labourer, who allegedly escaped police custody, has been remanded to Dodds. Romel Rico Cheltenham, of Stadium Road, Bush Hall, St Michael, was not required to plead to the indictable offence that having been arrested for burglary on November 16, he escaped District ‘A’ Police Station with the use of force. He is further accused of damaging a drink machine belonging to Vending Plus Inc, without lawful or reasonable excuse, on that same day. While pleading not guilty to that charge, Cheltenham admitted before Magistrate Kristie Cuffy-Sargeant to entering the home of Otis Bovell as a trespasser on November 9 and stealing a $2,800 television, a $500 cellular phone, a $600 PlayStation and $2,400 in cash. He also owned up to burglarizing the home of Gracie Newsam-Cadogan while she was sleeping and stealing a $350 tablet and a $600 cellular phone. The labourer further admitted to entering Skeete, Best and Company, a local chartered accountancy firm, and stealing two laptops worth $2,980 and two bottles of wine worth $20. He will be sentenced on those three charges when he returns to the No.2 District ‘A’ Magistrates’ Court on December 18. (BT)

STRAKER GRANTED BAIL – Twenty-two-year-old Nayib Straker was today granted $8000 bail with one surety after being charged with the death of Bentley DeCoursey Belgrave. Straker, of Doughlin Village, St Andrew appeared before Magistrate Wanda Blair in the Holetown Magistrates’ Court. He was charged with causing death by dangerous driving, driving without due care and attention and driving without reasonable consideration for others using the road. Belgrave, who visiting Barbados at the time of his death died on November 4 at Pleasant Hall, St Peter after the vehicle in which he was a passenger collided with a car being driven by Straker. Straker will re-appear in court on May 15, 2018. (BT)

RICHARDS PLEADS GUILTY TO DRUG CHARGE – A 30-year-old man has one month to pay the court a $750 fine if he wants to avoid spending time at Dodds prison. When Andre Isiah Richards, of Jordans Land, St George, appeared before Chief Magistrate Christopher Birch he pleaded guilty to having 14 grammes of cannabis in his possession on November 20. The illegal substance was found in his bedroom when police executed a search warrant at his home just before 8 a.m. on that day. “That is mine officer. That is just a lil shake off I had there,” he reportedly told the officers at the time. In the docks of the District ‘C’ Magistrates’ Court he told Birch that the police did not come to the house for him but “when they came I was smoking . . . so I owned up to what was there”. If Richards fails to pay the fine he will have to spend three months at the St Philip penal institution. (BT)

PARRIS OUT ON $9000 BAIL – A 25-year-old farmer was released on $9,000 bail after appearing before Magistrate Kristie Cuffy-Sargeant in the District ‘A’ Magistrates’ Court on a drug related charge. Tramaine Javon Parris, of Parks Road, St Joseph, pleaded guilty to possessing one gramme of cocaine, which was found in his possession on November 20. However, he pleaded not guilty to assaulting Special Constable Larry Babb in the execution of his duty on the same day, and was not required to plead to the indictable charge of escaping custody at Central Police Station with the use of force. Prosecutor Sergeant Cameron Gibbons did not object to bail, but requested that conditions be attached if Parris were to be released. The accused man must report to the District ‘F’ Police Station every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday before noon with valid identification. He was also ordered to stay away from Brownes Beach and its environs. Parris returns to court on March 1 when he is expected to know his fate on the cocaine charge, while the remaining cases against him will continue. (BT)

CIBC FIRSTCARIBBEAN ASSISTS DOMINICAN STUDENTS – As many residents of hurricane-ravaged Dominica start to put their lives back together, a number of Dominican students studying at the Cave Hill Campus of the University of the West Indies continue to experience difficulties. Five of them recently received a contribution from CIBC FirstCaribbean International Bank to assist them with the purchase of their groceries and toiletries for the month. In accepting the donation, they shared some of the difficulties that had led them to seek assistance. One young lady’s mother has lost her job while others do not have homes and their families are busy trying to get a roof back on their family homes. Another’s father is a farmer who has lost his entire crop and the family’s only source of income. All of these make it very difficult for the families to send money to Barbados for their children studying at Cave Hill. Others depend on the Dominican government for a monthly stipend to cover living expenses, but they have not been able to get any of those funds since the passage of the hurricane. As a result, they explained, the Cave Hill Campus has agreed to defer the payment of the campus fees for this semester until the next semester, giving them time to get their lives back in order. The presentation from CIBC FirstCaribbean will cover the groceries and other incidentals for the five students for at least one month. In answer to the question of what was their greatest need, they confirmed that groceries are the immediate need but one student stated that she would really like to go home for Christmas as she wanted to see her family and her home even though she was aware that the home she left is not the same as it now has no roof and her family is sheltered from the elements by tarpaulins. (DN)

KOLIJ RULE POOL – So Harrison College made another splash in the pool. What else is new? The Crumpton Street kids dominated the Inter-School Swimming Championships yet again, having easily defended both the girls’ and boys’ titles once more with nary a threat yesterday at the Aquatic Centre. Led by the indomitable Danielle Titus, Nkosi Dunwoody and their huge horde of national swimmers, Kolij thrashed age-old adversaries Queen’s College by more than 100 points in both standings to win a sixth straight girls’ crown and a seventh successive cup in the boys. The meet merely served as an extended coaching session, with Dunwoody winning all six of his events to help Harrison College amass 291 points in the boys’ table as opposed to QC’s 190. Yet the other race was even more lopsided after Kolij (360) almost doubled their rivals’ point-tally (190) in the girls. (DN)

ARCHER LANDS BIG BASH PICK – Barbadian fast bowling star Jofra Archer has been snapped up by Hobart Hurricanes for the seventh edition of Australia’s Big Bash League which bowls off next month. The 22-year-old Archer, who is currently representing Khulna Titans in the Bangladesh Premier League, has been called up to replace England’s Tom Curran who was drafted into the Ashes squad following injury to fellow speedster Steven Finn. Archer, a former Barbados Under-19, made his name for English County Sussex in the recent first-class season, claiming 61 wickets at 25 runs apiece and scoring 638 runs at an average of 45. Archer’s rise to prominence has been a fairy-tale one. Brought in at the latter stages of the 2016 season for his first-class debut, he snatched 23 wickets in six matches to secure a contract extension for the following season. The right-armer then led the Sussex attack brilliantly, taking 84 wickets and scoring 764 runs across all three competitions, to emerge as the club’s Player-of-the-Year. Cricket Tasmania chief executive Nick Cummins said there was already excitement at the Hurricanes surrounding Archer’s arrival for the December 19 to February 4, 2018 tournament. (DN)

Brathwaite into ICC Test top 20 – West Indies opener Kraigg Brathwaite has broken into the top 20 of the ICC Test batting rankings, after rising one place in the latest release on Tuesday. The right-hander is coming off a modest two-match series against Zimbabwe earlier this month where he scored 121 runs from three innings at an average of 40. He endured a difficult home series against Pakistan with just 101 runs from six innings, but has made steady progression up the rankings since then, especially following the three-Test tour of England where he averaged 47. Brathwaite, 24, has emerged as the Windies batting leader in recent years and averages 36 from 42 Tests. He is currently in New Zealand with the Caribbean side preparing for the two-Test rubber there starting next month. Brathwaite is the only West Indies batsman in the top 20, with the next best being in-form right-hander Shai Hope who lies 25th. Fast bowler Shannon Gabriel has remained 20th in the bowling rankings, following on from a decent tour of Zimbabwe where he took five wickets in the two Tests on flat tracks in Bulawayo. The Trinidadian is the highest ranked West Indies bowler, with leg-spinner Devendra Bishoo lying 23rd and seamer Kemar Roach, 24th. All three will line up in the imminent series against the Black Caps. Australian Steve Smith leads an unchanged top four in the batting rankings while Englishman Jimmy Anderson remains top of the bowling charts. (DN)

WRESTLERS IN BEACH BATTLE – Barbadian wrestlers had contrasting results against the region’s best combatants in the Regional Beach Wrestling Championships during the second edition of the Barbados Olympic Association’s Invitational Games Beach Festival last weekend at Pirates Cove. The primary school division saw keen competition. Rabecca Williams, of Wrestling Pandas, was given a run for her money by Young Dragons’ Shamiyah Forde. With a single leg, Forde took down Williams to gain an early two-point lead. Though Williams’ game plan lacked the usual Cuban-style approach, she equalised before going on to win with a one-pointer take-down during the two-minute regulation period. In the Under-18 category, Barbados’ Jalen Stoute had a tough time facing Suriname’s Dutch-styled duo of Nawien Bepat and Stephen Brunings. Bepat went on to win that division while teammate Brunings took silver and Stoute had to settle for bronze. After two tough battles to eliminate his opponents, Widesh Ramcharan emerged winner of pool one in the men’s Under-80 kg category. Ramcharan’s teammate Micha Williams became victorious in pool two but lost to him during the playoffs to become champion. The men’s over-80 kg category, containing elite local athletes as well as those from Trinidad and Tobago, Cuba and Suriname, proved the toughest and most competitive of the championships. The Trinidad and Tobago world ranking Sambo athlete, Martin Joseph, used some superb take-downs when he met up with 260-pounder Leandro Dongo of Suriname. Joseph held his own during the battle but lost to Dongo 3-2. (DN)

GUARD OF HONOUR – Mere weeks into his posting to the Magistrates’ Court, security officer David Livingstone Bynoe prevented what could have been a major security incident at the Coleridge Street compound. It was Bynoe who stopped a man, intent on entering the precincts, who was later found to be carrying a gun. On Tuesday, the former Barbados Defence Force soldier was showered with praise and gifts and hailed as a hero in a ceremony attended by magistrates and members of the Registration Department in a ceremony in Court No. 1 of the District “A” Magistrates’ Court. But the security officer stressed he was just doing what his job commanded him to do. And he would do it again, if the need arose. (DN)

That’s all for today folks there are 42 days left in the year Shalom! #thechasefiles #dailynewscaps Follow us on Twitter, Facebook & Instagram for your daily news. #bajannewscaps #newscapsbystephaniefchase

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