#africans with mainframes

[ideemthatsheyetlives]

[nutzo0001]

1 From web, weirdcore II //NAME???//

1.1 2

1.2 3

2 9 things I learned about the world according to anonymous

3 1. Attempts to portray sincere parent/child relationships always seem creepy.

4 2. Hot curly haired black women go moist for wireless broadband routers and mainframes.

5 3. People who sit in cramped cubicles answering customer service calls in drab corporate callcenters are overjoyed to help fix your DSL modem.

6 4. At least 1 in 3 people chosen at random will necessarily be "African American," even though only 13% of the US population is black.

7 5. The amount of forced enthusiasm you have for a commercial product is directly proportional to how big of an asshole you are.

8 6. Kids love manual labor.

9 7. That one-handed, one-knee laptop bullshit is the preferred way to get real work done.

10 8. Random-ass white dudes should be placed all over your corporate website for no fucking reason.

11 9. Teenage boys share intimate feelings with each other.

12 Source

13 |references=

1 Promised Neverland

1.1 Mini-gallery

1.2 More:

2 "90s (Cyber/-) Positivism" and or, "Oldest (Alt.) Nets (80s-'93)"

We need name for

term that is something like guilty-pleasure, but it is *this* feeling when you feel good, disgusted, question how society and economy still works; and how dissecting everything into some kind of morale render us incapable to do anything that is not (in) any sense "bad"...

if you get this; what i wanted to say

[fereality-indy]

My Personal GI Joe Universe

My personal Joe-verse loosely follows the Hamaverse for the most part, but not completely. Also pretty much if I can buy a figure of a character, that character is still alive.

- I add some ideas/characters from Sunbow (Mainframe/Zarana romance, Honda Lou, Teiko, Green shirts, etc), DiC (in my version, Armadhila is the Alley-Viper that was friends with Scoop in Operation: Dragonfire, Evy the Range-Viper, etc), DDP (Firewall, Mayday, Mariner, Alexander McCullen, Mistress Armada, [American] Red Shadows II, Phoenix Guard, etc), IDW (Hashtag, Ronin, Lighthorse, etc), etc.

- A lot of Legacy characters get renamed: Resolute/RoC/IDW Dial Tone is Landline, IDW Hard Drive is Network, Sean Collins is Kamakura and Throwdown is one of his brother, Sunbow's Daina is Krasa (Russian for Beautiful), etc

- Final Faction is a branch of Star Brigade that deals with alien encurscions to Earth.

- MASK is based more on the original season of the cartoon, but has ties to GI Joe.

- Street Fighters are a loose collection of street fighters that include members of Interpol, British intelligence, US military, etc that regularly deal with various low level threats that would not require action by any of the larger teams. There is a healthy working relationship between the the Joe's and the Street Fighters.

- Oktober Guard is made up of Brekhov, Daina, Horrorshow, Schrage Stormavik, Krasa, Volga, Vorona, Gorky, Misha, Dragonsky, Red Star, Big Bear, Wong, and a couple of Original Characters.

- Action Force is made up of non GI Joe characters (ie Skip, Scout, Doc, Wheels, Jammer, Quarrel, Stalker, Steeler, Moondancer, etc) and the Joe's that were of European nationality (Big Ben, Action Man, Natalie Poole, etc). They are Europe's GI Joe equivalent.

- Argen7 is the Argentinan Joe equivalent. Made up of Shimik, Glenda, Sokerk, Redmack, Manleh, Topson, & TNT.

- Commandos En Açāo is the Brazilian version of the Joe's. Made up of Athena, Sparta, Estopim, Tigor, etc. They actually work a lot with the Argen7 team to fight Cobra in South America.

- India has the Commandos Force made up of the original characters from Funskool (Rednok, Canary Ann, Streethawk, [red Caucasian] Stalker, Wireless Tracker, Super Cop, Skydiver, etc)

- Bronze Bombers (original & 97 characters) are a private contractor group that operate out of the African continent. They operate along the lines of the A-Team in the fashion that they usually work for the oppressed and underdogs. And don't let them find you poaching if they are in the area.

- The Corps are the UN equivalent of the Joe's. They are made up of the original & modern characters.

- Cobra is based around the Hamaverse version. There are also South American & Indian branches of the group based around the figures released in the area (Armadhila, Mortal, En Aco, Kangor, O Invasors, etc for Cobra SA and Snake Shadow, Scorpion, etc for India).

- Iron Grenadiers are Destro's personal army. Other named characters are Darklon, Roddy Piper, Mayhem, Voltar, Metal Head, Copperback, Alexander McCullen, Mistress Armada, etc.

- Athena is the private contractor company owned by the Baroness' family. They were really only seen once in the DDP comics, but I have a couple of Fortnite figures I used to represent them. (Calamity is an officer and the Elite & Rogue Agents are the troops).

- Dreadnoks are a multinational biker gang lead by Zartan. Pretty much a combo of the Hamaverse & DDP versions of the group.

- SKAR is a terrorist group led by Iron Klaw. They occasionally encounter either the Joes, Action Force, or Oktober Guard.

- IRON Army is a group of cyborgs created by the former ally of Sgt Savage, Garrison Kreiger aka General Blitz.

- Red Shadows are the main enemy of the Action Force. They have a small branch in the Americas based around the DDP version. Baron Ironblood, Black Major, Red Laser, Red Jackal, Red Wolf, Red Vulture, Red Scream, etc are the command force of the European branch with Wilder Vaughn, Arthur Kulik, & Dela Eden lead the American branch.

- Marauders are a former private contractor army that went rogue. They are one of the two enemies of the Corps. Ravage, Plague I, Vulture, Road Rash, Remora, Hak Luger, & (formerly) Dusk are the named members.

- Curse created by the former Corps member Shadow, the Curse are almost all infected with nanobots that augment them in some fashion. Plague II, as Shadow now goes by, has recruited several allies; Puma, Impact, Reaper, Occulus, etc.

- Pyro's Band Of Thugs are essentially a group of mercs made up of the enemies of Bronze Bombers. Cool Breeze, the Baron, Chilly Pop, Backdraft, Crazeblaze, Firebomb, & Scorch.

- Shadaloo is a small nation that offers sanctuary to many evil people.

[cohesiveenergysolutionz]

PREFACE

This docket of past wrongs and the current continuation of these wrongs; in the context of the never-ending oppression of Africa and all his nations; starts at the very beginning; when white colonizers; daring to call themselves South Africans, at the time; DARING to call themselves the masters of this Sovereign(s) Kingdom; had trespassed upon ancestral and historically indigenous grounds, circumspecting the coast of South Africa.  And settling. Only to try and wholly consume the kind hosts who had given them much-needed water, meat, medicines or remedies and a concerned face peering into yours as you lie on a beach, half-dead: for whatever reason.

It was at this very time-ish that the Powers That Be decided that electricity was only a resource to be handed out amongst the white, suburbia residents. Handed out. Oh no; if you have a power box on your street corner, you are essentially hooked up to the mainframe. Or national grid as it is known. To; with unbridled, mad consumer streke; siphon the "national grid" dry of all it's electricity. Whilst township spend another night in the dark.

The very first streetlamps were installed in Pretori in 1882. In the same year, the Table Bay Harbour had installed 16 Brush Candlepower arc lights, illuminating the harbour; minimizing harm caused to dock workers as the result of accidents; whilst Edisons were shining brightly at the Good Hope Lodge - being the first incandescent lights ever used. They were the result of Edison having promoted a namesake prototype, similar to the design and the function of the modern-day filament lightbulb.

In 1887, the Table Bay Harbour Board  built a centralized station supplying public spaces with lighting only - by means of transformers. This was the first supplier and distributor of it's kind in Africa . The 'New Lighting Works' was built in Pretori in 1897 and thereafter, the 'Rand Central Electric Works' in Brakpan, Johannesburg was established in that same year and was the first central public utility power station.

I do have a point to make. Bear with the short summary of a lot of historical data. That, by the way, I had to doze through to write this exciting "Fuck You!" at inequality.

In the year 1889, Siemens & Halske was contracted by the national government (frauds) of the time to supply electricity to Pretori and Johannesburg.

The Victoria Falls Power Company Ltd. was established in 1903 in Zimbabwe after many wealthy businessmen had spoken with their one-up, in hushed whispers for some time, in smoky parlours - persuading investors to consider bringing the illuminating lights of electricity and various other uses as in the many mining applications of the day - to the gentleman's domestic homestead.

Victoria Falls and Transvaal Power Company Ltd became the new name three years later; after South African rulers had realized they were onto a good thing. The company is still operational in the coal mining sector; by some heavenly favour; even after the debilitating loss you will read about shortly.

The VFP bought out the Rand Central Electrics Works as well as the General Electric Power Company Ltd. in 1906.

In 1915, VFP built four thermal power stations; one at Vereeniging, one at Brakpan, one in the Simmerpan and of course, one at the Rosherville site; with an installed capacity of Mw160.

Eskom, today, still makes use of the system control centre, which was built at the Simmerpan Thermal Power Station, at about the same time.  Eskom's entire national transmission network is directed through an upgraded, upcycled version of the original system control centre.

The VFP also undertook the laying of South African electricity infrastructure, in the form of long-distance transmission of high voltage electricity in extreme climatic conditions that were prevalent in the Witwatersrand - thunderstorms and so on - and therefore, very dangerous. Salaries and wages must have been competitive.

Unfortunately, in 1910, the Power Act was instituted by the colonial governors of the time, which concluded that, after 35 lank-expensive years of infrastructure laying and the trial and error of new business ventures in the fields of the sciences, most especially, physics, that the company was to be expropriated - by government - along with any other electricity generating and supplying companies (that might have mistakenly thought they had it good); as the government wanted absolute control over (everything AND) what it deemed a utility and essential service.

After the electrification of the South African national railways, ou Trrransnet; UK based consulting engineerial firm Meets & McLellan was requested to inspect the electricity sector and it's incarnations and submit the findings of said inspection to the government. Lord Charles Hesterman Mertz was considered a universal electricity and railway electrification expert and submitted the report in 1920. As a result the Electricity Act was passed in September 1922.

The point of all this is:

a) Zimbaabweee's diamonds were most likely mined and sold and that is what afforded our level of electricity 'infrasructure' here in South Africa as it was the Victoria Falls Power Company that had laid infrastructure for 35 yrs before having to hand it all over to the guvvies of SA. I don't know what dodgy deal had transpired then but clearly Zim owns a piece of S.A. electricity. Or is owed a sweet-toned apology letter and hug. Whilst they starve.

b) David Livingstone's memoirs record the Victoria Falls as being named 'The Smoke That Thunders' or 'The Thundering Smoke'. I think we should respect that it was named by Zimbabweans that the Zimpeople named their own waterfall with most lovely name ever, translated, I think, to Tsnyamiyami.

c) Lord so-and-so and Governor so-and-so and railway electrification whatever; all this whilst, at roundabout the same time, His Royal Majesty Zulu King Cetwayo lay in a prison-like cell, at what is now called Oude Molen Eco Village in Maitland Garden Village, where he lived out his years and died; having never set his eyes on his people, Nkandla or Imbizolandela again.

The uncomfortable truths about colonialism.

Furthermore, Zimbabwe's natural resources were used to install a whole lot of essential Eskom infrastructure. It's actually physically nauseating when I look around and see Broken Native Zimbabweans, having to work further and further afield, just to hire trucks to take food home, living frugally, for that purpose, year after year.

Bibliography

https://www.eskom.co.za/heritage/the-early-years/#:~:text=Kimberly%20Electric%20Streetlights%20%E2%80%93%20February%20to,evening%20of%2015%20February%201882.

[radiophd]

africans with mainframes -- tonkolili

[ourladyofperpetualnaptime]

ty for this one aloiso <3

[uncannedmusic]

||| 21 of 2016 ||| Our Favorite Albums of Last Year

"Well never mind, we are ugly but we have the music," goes one of Leonard Cohen’s lovers in “Chelsea Hotel #2.” That may be about as hopeful as we can muster in a 2016 retrospect. Maybe we got our hopes up and forgot for a minute that doom is still eventual, inevitable. Great progressions, great setbacks, the same remote smudge on the universe. But we have the music.

It was another reassuring, optimistic year in recorded sound. The continued hybridization of musical traditions is an interior method with adventuresome, exterior motives and we’ve bound bravely into a new era of music-making. In that regard, it really isn’t such a bad time to be alive. Here's the proof: a list of 2016 standouts that receive the highest recommendation from your dear friends at Uncanned Music.

21) Mary Lattimore - At The Dam (Ghostly International, March 04 2016)

The harp has long been known as the most “heavenly” instrument. But as played by Mary Lattimore--in long, looping, droning, aimlessly explorative passages--it seems more suited to a sort of purgatory than the commonly-accepted concept of heaven. Please don’t mistake--this is no charge of a lack of beauty. At The Dam is suspended in a state of all-encompassing bliss that is true paradise for the non-progressive spiritualist, a static instrumental meditation in fully-present grace. It simply never feels like it exists at any sort of end or is even working its way towards any sort of end. It lacks the finality and intentionality required for passage into “heaven.” It is simply a collection of singular, infinite dazes that start and stop within themselves constantly and at indeterminate points, totally devoid of time concept, relinquishing its blessed listeners from the tyranny of destiny. -SM

20) Wei Zhongle - Nice Mask Over An Ugly Face (Pretty Purgatory, August 15 2016)

“Hungry freaks, daddy!” Outlandish Chicago four-piece’s latest mini-album is a substantial swerve to the left incorporating a deranged funk stent in their avant-folk primitivisms. The result is early Liars dipped in Hawaiian Tropic tanning oil or maybe a mescaline-rationed Brandon Boyd trapped in Bollywood Park. The finest outcome, though, is that Wei Zhongle’s wry outsider sensibility invites this kind of indulgent miasma of reactions. Nice Mask Over An Ugly Face is a 19-minute-clocking deviant wail of euphoria. -JD

19) Battle Trance - Blade of Love (NNA Tapes, August 26 2016)

Blade of Love is a striking force that evokes the power of nature--primal, elemental, raw, traversing extremes of delicate beauty and chaotic dissonance. Through seamless and inventive use of extended techniques, a quartet of tenor saxophonists (!!) perform lone takes that cut straight to the heart. How this album succeeds at touching on a very human and emotional level is a testament to the strength of composer Travis Laplante’s vision. -DA

18) Savoy Motel - Savoy Motel (What’s Yr Rupture?, October 21 2016)

Savoy Motel’s debut release has the choogle of T Rex’s Electric Warrior but slimmed down, teeth bare and extremely high. Fronted by Cheap Time’s Jeffrey Novak, this young supergroup of new-Nashville scene veterans refreshingly lacks the clearly inflated ego of most current Nashville bands. Taut funky rhythm guitar from Mimi Galbierz (Heavy Cream) is topped by pleasurably decadent wet-noodle fuzz leads by Dillon Watson (D. Watusi) and, while chunky drumming from Jessica McFarland (Meemaw/Heavy Cream) keeps it all moving, her vocal contributions threaten to upstage the whole show. Novak’s songwriting is as strong as ever and he coos with the sleazy charisma of a cult leader. It turns out, however, that the charming boogie of his newly recruited band is what makes Savoy Motel his most interesting project to date. -DA

17) Anderson .Paak - Malibu (OBE, January 22 2016)

Here is another hard-working veteran getting their due. However from the perspective of an uninitiated mainstream music listener, it seemed like Anderson .Paak was everywhere, out of nowhere, in 2016. The premiere voice on both of NxWorries’s fantastic Stones Throw 2016 releases, as well as a featured guest on The Blank Face LP by Schoolboy Q and the (probably-should-have-made-this-list) new album from A Tribe Called Quest, .Paak gets his propers from us for his sophomore effort as a lead artist, Malibu. A highly-enjoyable listen, Malibu showcases .Paak’s talents as a singer, songwriter, producer AND drummer across a catchy collage contextually themed (in the spirit of his 2014 debut, Venice Beach) around the beauties and tragedies of his Southern Californian lifestyle. -SM

16) Huerco S. - For Those of You Who Have Never (And Also Those Who Have) (Proibito, April 26 2016)

Recent Brooklyn-by-way-of-Kansas City transplant Brian Leeds is the experimental electronic producer known as Huerco S. A few years of vacillating between ambient strictures and a sturdy leftfield techno preoccupation led to April’s For Those of You Who Have Never (And Also Those Who Have), one of 2016’s finest experimental pursuits. A monument to headphone meditation therapy, on For Those of You…, Huerco S. discovers the personality of compounded textures and their vibrant and natural ability to express rhythm independently of traditional percussion. For Those of You… is a sonic immensity elegantly fashioned from the frailest but most voluminous strands. -JD

15) The Avalanches - Wildflower (Astralwerks, July 08 2016)

All of the mixed reactions over The Avalanches’ return after a 16-year gap between records caused Wildflower to get a bit lost in the shuffle last year. Though there seems to be a faint pulse of Big Beat resurgence in the air, Wildflower barely seemed to raise an eyebrow. Perhaps we didn’t have enough time to digest the extensive 21 tracks or we couldn’t humor the romping joviality amid the looming sociopolitical fears. Context aside, Wildflower wields some of the best electronic pop tracks of the year. The symphonic collages are buoyant, sunny, beach blanket sensations strung together by chutes and ladders of soul samples. The hope is that our outlook will improve enough at some point for us all to appreciate them. Or, as The Avalanches might suggest, it may require a move to Australia. -JD

14) Jackie Lynn - Jackie Lynn (Thrill Jockey, June 10 2016)

Haley Fohr/Circuit Des Yeux’s outlaw alter-ego Jackie Lynn is confident and smooth; a futuristic cowgirl crooner who’s almost nostalgic yet clearly malcontent and on the move. Playful synthetic beats and softly twanging guitar creating a welcoming world crowned by Fohr’s distinctive voice and rich storytelling. With the expert assistance of the Bitchin’ Bajas bizarro Wrecking Crew, this album is Circuit Des Yeux’s most finely produced work. Jackie Lynn is steely cool but something dark is off here. She has the aura of David Bowie’s character in The Man Who Fell To Earth. Before you can unravel the secrets of her story, she is gone. Hopefully, though, we will hear from her again. -DA

13) Moor Mother - Fetish Bones (Don Giovanni, September 30 2016)

Camae Ayewa, aka Moor Mother Goddess, aka Moor Mother on her 2016 breakout Fetish Bones, beats around no bushes with her poetry. She decries police brutality, systemic racism and the centuries-deep plight of black people over dense bouts of percussive noise. At times, the sonic qualities recall art-punk and Bauhaus-inspired noise-rap outfits like Dalek and Death Grips, at other times the harshest industrial pulses of My Life With The Thrill Kill Cult and Pigface. A hard-working organizer and leading voice in Philadelphia’s underground/DIY scene for some time, Ayewa’s partnership with Don Giovanni Records combined with the cultural climate of 2016 generated a massive audience for her far-from-easy-to-digest music, earning Fetish Bones highlights in major publications like Rolling Stone and Pitchfork. No argument here; certainly one of the most important documents of the year. -SM

12) Solange - A Seat at the Table (Columbia, September 30 2016)

If 2016 was the year the icon died, it was also the birth of a new class of artistic leadership. A Seat at the Table is Solange’s graduation from pop chanteuse to soul royalty. With the humble empowerment of the opening lines, “fall in your ways so you can wake up and rise,” Solange identifies the timeliness of spiritual and emotional guidance. Her melancholy on “Cranes in the Sky” is material and her romantic navigations on “Borderline (An Ode to Self Care)” are erudite and virtuous. Solange’s register, moreover, is one of calm contemplation. It, in combination with A Seat at the Table’s delicate pulse of piano-led modern R&B is a gracious statement of purpose and a firm plea for empathy. -JD

11) Africans With Mainframes - K.M.T. (Soul Jazz, May 06 2016)

Longtime Chicago orbiters Noleian Reusse and Jamal Moss (aka Hieroglyphic Being) blast into the Soul Jazz universe with a relentless acid house hardware assault. As driving and exploding as it is mesmerizing and entrancing. K.M.T. is a cybernetic machine gun suite that shoots both bullets of love and bullets of fire. -SM

10) Badbadnotgood - IV (Innovative Leisure, July 08 2016)

On IV, these jazz-school outcasts turned breakbeat superstars have reigned in their act to achieve a more refined cohesion of groove and style, a tasty mellow piece of modern mood-jazz. This record sounds dope--like a 21st century remodel of Morricone’s finest 70’s lounge themes. The juicy production would make David Axelrod smile. After their illustrious collab w/ Ghostface Killah (2015’s SOUR SOUL), BBNG sound like they have less to prove. More comfortable in their own skin and playing host to memorable guest features including Kaytranada & Future Islands’ Samuel T. Herring, IV is their best album yet. -DA

9) Jamire Williams - ///// EFFECTUAL (Leaving Records, December 02 2016)

Heard from the front as the lead artist of ERIMAJ, and from the side as a drummer for the likes of Christian Scott, Robert Glasper, Jeff Parker, and many more, Jamire Williams’s distinctively colorful, minimal and textural percussion has always projected a more finely artistic vibe than the average modern jazz drummer. His elegant rhythmic expressions are distinctively present in all the aforementioned, often swaying over swinging, sounding like a bastard child of Thelonious Monk on traps. For his first eponymous release, Jamire worked with producer Carlos Niño to channel the spirit of Jack DeJohnette’s solo percussion recordings of the 1970s. ///// EFFECTUAL is a collection of purely focused portraits, along the lines of DeJohnette’s Pictures, but utilizes an updated palette (beatboxes, hard-compression, hovering synths) to paint more contemporarily communicable abstract sound canvases. -SM

8) Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Skeleton Tree (Bad Seeds Ltd, September 09 2016)

Dismissal is a common response to late career offerings from prolific artists. Expectations of softer treads on well-worn territory are safe, simple ways to disengage as a listener. In the case of Nick Cave’s #16 studio album with the Bad Seeds, however, dismissal is a certain mistake. Skeleton Tree is exemplary of Cave’s brittle and transcendent songcraft. Cave as balladeer hasn’t struck so emotionally rife and raw as he does on “Rings of Saturn” and “I Need You” in over a decade (see: Abattoir Blues / Lyre of Orpheus). He has, once again, improved brilliantly on the form. Madman balladry may be well-worn but the difference is that Cave’s treads press deeper with contour and detail and illuminate the lively oeuvre of one of our dearest masters. -JD

7) Rob Mazurek & Jeff Parker - Some Jellyfish Live Forever (Rogue Art, February 19 2016)

The first duo recording from these longtime collaborators is a masterwork of strange and sublime beauty. Curious melodies are set to explore and delight a minimally textured Eno-esque palette of guitar, cornet and electronics with effortless command of tone and space. The alien movement of jellyfish is an apt image here; the rhythmic pulse seems infinitely repetitive yet changes occur subtly and/or suddenly over time. Placid and hypnotic, tension looms in tacit danger and dissonance. A fitting soundtrack for eternity in a submerged world. -DA

6) Jay Daniel - Broken Knowz (Technicolour, November 25 2016)

House music’s relentless mechanized beat is a polarizing force which often alienates instrumentalists and perhaps drummers in particular. Jay Daniel’s November debut is a history in reverse--the electronic producer retreats to the drum kit for rejuvenation and thusly lights the way forward. The acoustical warmth of Daniel’s loops and his rigid minimization of layers casts the spotlight onto the elements of the beat and makes Broken Knowz one of the most generous gateways into dance music to date. -JD

5) Carlos Niño & Friends - Flutes, Echoes, It’s All Happening! (Leaving Records, April 22 2016)

The majestic mellow of Venice Beach scene sage Carlos Niño has been steadily seeping into the experimental electronic, jazz and future soul sounds of Los Angeles, and the vision of its omni-present aura is nowhere more materialized than on Flutes, Echoes, It’s All Happening! Niño’s opus takes a more spiritually guided approach to blissed out orchestration in the veins of Martin Denny and Yanni, or Enya and Esquivel. But it’s most like the way Alice Coltrane & Pharaoh Sanders would interpret those purveyors of New Age and Exotica. -SM

4) Kendrick Lamar - untitled unmastered. (Aftermath, March 04 2016)

We chose not to include To Pimp A Butterfly in our 2015 list. What was immediately clear as the album of a generation did not need mention on our humble year-end recap. The addendum and expansion that is untitled unmastered. was dropped so quickly on its heels and with so little fanfare it was almost shocking--needless proof of the deep talent Kendrick & Co. have to offer. This record is just badass and so fun to listen to. Its unfiltered quality feels authentic and immediate. We are living in a trying time that calls for action and, in guiding form, Kendrick wastes no time overthinking it. He just delivers. -DA

3) Elza Soares - A Mulher Do Fim Do Mundo (Mais Um, June 10 2016)

Bygone Brazilian pop icon Elza Soares embodies A Mulher Do Fim Do Mundo (“The Woman At The End Of The World”)--extraterrestrially fashioned and coming in ablaze at seventy-something-years-old, a raging backdraft of feminine fire. She cuts no slack, unapologetically rallying and railing against oppressive patriarchal norms and the slew of imminent social issues accompanying 2016’s troubling influx of Brazilian neo-fascism. Elza’s pertinent messages are delivered passionately over brooding avant-garde dirty samba grooves, a perfect pairing. For tonal and textural fans of Toms Ze and Waits.      -SM

2) Mica Levi & Oliver Coates - Remain Calm (Slip, November 25 2016)

Though the 13 Neo-classical passages of Remain Calm may have been suited as a film score like Mica Levi’s other recent work (namely Jackie and Under the Skin), there’s a deliberate singularity to the article as a whole. Composing looped electronics and vocal samples next to Oliver Coates’ bellowing cello drones is placidly hair-raising. On Remain Calm, Levi and Coates finesse tonally grim noirs with lush acoustics signalling a prevailing existentialism within a cold and malevolent landscape. The linguistics of track titles (“Bless Our Toes,” “Dolphins Climb Onto the Shore for the First Time”) and the clipped vocal utterances reveal a resoluteness of human spirit while the network of influences reveal a lucidity of musical history and social consciousness. Remain Calm is remarkable, transcendent and unveils two collaborators working at the peak of their creative powers. -JD

1) Horse Lords - Interventions (Northern Spy, April 29 2016)

This Baltimore quartet have been revising the ‘rock band’ format since 2012, escaping the genre’s binds and mashing up a selection of 20th/21st century avant-gardeisms with faraway folk styles in their just-intonated Sahara Desert cruising machine.

Interventions is a blazing technicolor display of the ideas they’ve laid out in black & white before, a building and stripping of polyrhythmic layers tightly woven into their unique brand of groove. Mesmerizing left field jammers are broken up by could-be snippets of the members�� minimalist solo works; explorative ‘interventions’ that critically punctuate the album. Horse Lords distill challenging and diverse elements down into music that is incredibly palpable. All of that to say, the record is still fun. There is a head-nodding booty-shaking catchiness throughout. A refreshing reboot of rock music, Interventions is a hypnotically immersive listen. -DA

::: FURTHER READING :::

Uncanned Music’s BEST OF 2015 (new albums)

Uncanned Music’s BEST OF 2014 (new albums, reissues, compilations)

Uncanned Music's BEST OF 2013 (new albums)

Uncanned Music's BEST OF 2013 (reissues/compilations)

Uncanned Music's BEST OF 2012 (new albums)

[nasa]

Women in Exploration: From Human Computers to All-Woman Spacewalks

Since the 19th century, women have been making strides in areas like coding, computing, programming and space travel, despite the challenges they have faced. Sally Ride joined NASA in 1983 and five years later she became the first female American astronaut. Ride's accomplishments paved the way for the dozens of other women who became astronauts, and the hundreds of thousands more who pursued careers in science and technology. Just last week, we celebrated our very first #AllWomanSpacewalk with astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir.

Here are just a couple of examples of pioneers who brought us to where we are today:

The Conquest of the Sound Barrier

Pearl Young was hired in 1922 by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), NASA’s predecessor organization, to work at its Langley site in support in instrumentation, as one of the first women hired by the new agency. Women were also involved with the NACA at the Muroc site in California (now Armstrong Flight Research Center) to support flight research on advanced, high-speed aircraft. These women worked on the X-1 project, which became the first airplane to fly faster than the speed of sound. 

Young was the first woman hired as a technical employee and the second female physicist working for the federal government.

The Human Computers of Langley

The NACA hired five women in 1935 to form its first “computer pool”, because they were hardworking, “meticulous” and inexpensive. After the United States entered World War II, the NACA began actively recruiting similar types to meet the workload. These women did all the mathematical calculations – by hand – that desktop and mainframe computers do today.

Computers played a role in major projects ranging from World War II aircraft testing to transonic and supersonic flight research and the early space program. Women working as computers at Langley found that the job offered both challenges and opportunities. With limited options for promotion, computers had to prove that women could successfully do the work and then seek out their own opportunities for advancement.

Revolutionizing X-ray Astronomy

Marjorie Townsend was blazing trails from a very young age. She started college at age 15 and became the first woman to earn an engineering degree from the George Washington University when she graduated in 1951. At NASA, she became the first female spacecraft project manager, overseeing the development and 1970 launch of the UHURU satellite. The first satellite dedicated to x-ray astronomy, UHURU detected, surveyed and mapped celestial X-ray sources and gamma-ray emissions.

Women of Apollo

NASA’s mission to land a human on the Moon for the very first time took hundreds of thousands workers. These are some of the stories of the women who made our recent #Apollo50th anniversary possible:

• Margaret Hamilton led a NASA team of software engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and helped develop the flight software for NASA’s Apollo missions. She also coined the term “software engineering.” Her team’s groundbreaking work was perfect; there were no software glitches or bugs during the crewed Apollo missions. 

• JoAnn Morgan was the only woman working in Mission Control when the Apollo 11 mission launched. She later accomplished many NASA “firsts” for women:  NASA winner of a Sloan Fellowship, division chief, senior executive at the Kennedy Space Center and director of Safety and Mission Assurance at the agency.

• Judy Sullivan, was the first female engineer in the agency’s Spacecraft Operations organization, was the lead engineer for health and safety for Apollo 11, and the only woman helping Neil Armstrong suit up for flight.

Hidden Figures

Author Margot Lee Shetterly’s book – and subsequent movie – Hidden Figures, highlighted African-American women who provided instrumental support to the Apollo program, all behind the scenes.

• An alumna of the Langley computing pool, Mary Jackson was hired as the agency’s first African-American female engineer in 1958. She specialized in boundary layer effects on aerospace vehicles at supersonic speeds. 

• An extraordinarily gifted student, Katherine Johnson skipped several grades and attended high school at age 13 on the campus of a historically black college. Johnson calculated trajectories, launch windows and emergency backup return paths for many flights, including Apollo 11.

• Christine Darden served as a “computress” for eight years until she approached her supervisor to ask why men, with the same educational background as her (a master of science in applied mathematics), were being hired as engineers. Impressed by her skills, her supervisor transferred her to the engineering section, where she was one of few female aerospace engineers at NASA Langley during that time.

Lovelace’s Woman in Space Program

Geraldyn “Jerrie” Cobb was the among dozens of women recruited in 1960 by Dr. William Randolph "Randy" Lovelace II to undergo the same physical testing regimen used to help select NASA’s first astronauts as part of his privately funded Woman in Space Program.

Ultimately, thirteen women passed the same physical examinations that the Lovelace Foundation had developed for NASA’s astronaut selection process. They were: Jerrie Cobb, Myrtle "K" Cagle, Jan Dietrich, Marion Dietrich, Wally Funk, Jean Hixson, Irene Leverton, Sarah Gorelick, Jane B. Hart, Rhea Hurrle, Jerri Sloan, Gene Nora Stumbough, and Bernice Trimble Steadman. Though they were never officially affiliated with NASA, the media gave these women the unofficial nicknames “Fellow Lady Astronaut Trainees” and the “Mercury Thirteen.”

The First Woman on the Moon

The early space program inspired a generation of scientists and engineers. Now, as we embark on our Artemis program to return humanity to the lunar surface by 2024, we have the opportunity to inspire a whole new generation. The prospect of sending the first woman to the Moon is an opportunity to influence the next age of women explorers and achievers.

This material was adapted from a paper written by Shanessa Jackson (Stellar Solutions, Inc.), Dr. Patricia Knezek (NASA), Mrs. Denise Silimon-Hill (Stellar Solutions), and Ms. Alexandra Cross (Stellar Solutions) and submitted to the 2019 International Astronautical Congress (IAC). For more information about IAC and how you can get involved, click here.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

[siremasterlawrence]

The Files # 1 - Possessing Sam Wilson.

I had left a note for Falcon of the utmost importance to hunt me down.

The location I set forth is private sector level building.

He flew over the area circling it with what impressive speed.

“Is anybody here?” Sam calls out to a empty parking lot.

“I received your note for help.” He yells out

“What is going on here?” He scratches his head in confusion.

A young African American males hid in the wind.

He continues to backflip astoundingly in the darkness of the night.

I grab hold of him pushing his shoulder in and shove myself into his body.

“Come now Falcon relax it’s all good.”

“Relax it’s all good.” He repeats shockingly

“We are one.” I state while his eyes turn in star shape white light.

I jump up for joy spreading his costumed wing set.

I head off to The Avengers compound with plans of utter destruction.

Nobody expecting me to land across in a garage area across from the compound.

I lift my arm coordinating the perfect time to assault the building.

One short from my robotic gloves sinks in to the mainframe by sliding through the vents.

It jams the signal leaving a blue bright light and spirals to enslave all.

“Thanks for the idea Hawkeye.”

“Reporting emergency, Captain America and Bucky.”

“Please meet me at the disclosed location immediately.”

I grin in victory flying off to set the traps for them.

The end.

[pan-era-musings]

What a life so far.  In my 69 years I have seen:

The first satellite launched into space.

The first man launched into space

The advent of Color Television

The first man on the moon

“drop and cover” drills for nuclear war protection

Polio vaccine on a sugar cube

Vietnam, Gulf 1&2

The Beatles

MTV opening night (I was at one of the select watch parties)

Sony Walkman and VCR’s

The Macintosh and the first PC (had both)  

the IBM 360 mainframe I babysat in college had 256K RAM and tape drives

CD players

Sat radio (still love it)

The start of Cable TV

Jet passenger service (I flew on prop passenger planes)

Electric cars (I remember when having a 396 was the goal)

Assassinations (JFK, RFK, MLK, Sadat, Lennon, Malcom X... it’s a long and sad list)

From rotary phones with party lines to cell phones and sat phones

From using film to digital pictures and video

The first Super Bowl

Mickey Mantle

The Interstate highway system - I remember when Route 66 was the big highway and we went cross country via The Mother Road

An automobile that would go farther than 100,000 miles reliably

Home theaters instead of stereo equipment

Digital everything

Box wine

Holograms

Washington Senators

The Lloyd Thaxton Show

American Bandstand

Concert ticket cost less than $5 for A list bands

Transistor radios and portable TV’s

No Coors Beer east of the Mississippi

Mail order catalogs

Sears was the go-to department store

Midnight Special

Guitar coil chords

45’s

33’s

When CNN started

When DJ’s created their own playlists and AM ruled the music universe

The first color TV programs (Bonanza, Walt Disney)

Woodstock

Live Aid

The Concert for Bangladesh

EST

The birth of the Internet – Netscape was the browser

Social Media: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok

18-year-olds get the right to vote in 1972

The crash of 1987  

The recession of 2007-2008

Trump

Gas at 22 cents per gallon (before the gas wars of 74-76)

Gas at $5/gal

Cigarettes at 25 cents per pack and a six pack of beer for 66 cents

The first African American supreme court justice – Thurgood Marshall

The first woman VP – Kamala Harris (also first Black/Asian)

The first Black president – Barak Obama

A nickel bag was a nickel ($5)

LSD was legal

Hendrix, Morrison, Pearl

When you could get on a plane five minutes before takeoff or have them hold the plane for you

When having a Visa or Mastercard was a very big deal

The birth of the ATM and debit cards

The birth of self-checkout

[powerandmagic]

MAÑANA: Latinx Comics From the 25th Century is now open for submissions.

[Noten: Toda esta información también está disponible en español a pedido.]

"In 1492, Christopher Columbus sailed to the islands of the Caribbean. That single event led to the radical transformation of the region, the hemisphere, and eventually the entire world.

Indigenous peoples were decimated. Lands were colonized. African peoples were displaced and enslaved. Race, as a concept, took root. Black women and indigenous women were subjugated. Cultures died, fused, changed, and were, sometimes, reborn. Art, music, foods, and faiths echoed these tangled pasts. Immigrants from across the planet flocked to the newly christened "Latin America." A caste system based on race and color reigned. Liberation struggles were fought. Revolutions were won. Wars of independence were waged. Coups were orchestrated. Global capitalism ran amok, fueling the mass exodus... And we survived it all.

That all seems so far away now."

MAÑANA: Latinx Comics From the 25th Century is a speculative fiction comics anthology set throughout Latin America in the 2490s, roughly one thousand years from the voyage that changed the world. It took 500 years to get us where we are now -- where could 500 more take us?

Submission Period

Submissions will be open to the public from May 27th - July 7th, 2019 (11:59 PM Pacific Time).

Who Can Participate

To pitch a story to MAÑANA, you must be Latinx or Latin American. We define Latinx as "a person living outside of Latin America whose cultural background includes any of the Spanish, Portuguese, or French-colonized countries of the Americas and the Caribbean." We define Latin American as anyone born, raised, and currently living in any of those same countries.

You may pitch as a SOLO CREATOR (making the whole comic by yourself), as a WRITER ONLY (story writer who we will pair with an artist), or as an ARTIST ONLY (a comics artist who we will pair with a script).

Solo Creators with a strong story idea but not-as-strong artwork may receive an offer to be paired with a different artist (vice versa for pitches with stronger art than story).

"Writers Only" may request to be paired with a specific artist. The artist they request must be someone they know for a fact is filling out the "Artist Only" submission form. The reverse applies to "Artists Only" requesting a specific writer.

Age Restrictions

All contributors must be 18 years of age or older. All content must be suitable for readers as young as 14 years old.

Specifications

Comics from 2 - 12 pages long (must be an even number)

6.625” x 10.25” trim size (template will be provided)

Bleed? Yes.

Black & White, or Grayscale (no screen tones)

600 dpi

.PSD final files

Timeline

Selection Process (May 2019 - Aug 2019)

Open Submissions: 5.27 - 7.07 (6 weeks)

Selection Period: 7.08 - 7.28 (3 weeks)

Acceptance Emails & Feedback: 7.29 - 8.08 (1 week)

Paperwork: 8.09 - 8.15 (1 week)

Creation Period (Apr 2019 - Sep 2019)

Script: 8.16 - 9.15 (4 weeks)

Feedback/Edits: 9.16 - 9.29 (2 weeks)

Thumbnails: 9.30 - 10.20 (3 weeks)

Feedback/Edits: 10.21 - 11.03 (2 weeks)

Pencils: 11.04 - 12.15 (6 weeks)

Feedback/Edits: 12.16 - 12.29 (2 weeks)

Inks: 12.30 - 1.26 (4 weeks)

Feedback/Edits: 1.27 - 2.09 (2 weeks)

Toning & Shading: 2.10 - 3.01 (3 weeks)

Feedback/Edits: 3.10 - 3.15 (2 weeks)

Lettering: 3.16 - 4.05 (3 weeks)

Feedback/Edits: 4.06 - 4.19 (2 weeks)

Final Files Due: May 3rd, 2020

Kickstarter (May 2020)

Payment (June 2020)

Compensation

Contributors will be compensated at a rate of $107/page plus any Kickstarter bonuses unlocked through stretch goals. Contributors also receive a minimum of 10 complimentary copies of the anthology, royalties on all digital sales proportionate to their page-count contribution, and royalties on any future print runs of the anthology after the first printing sells out.

"Writers Only" will receive $42/page, with bonuses, comp copies, and royalties split evenly between themselves and their artist.

"Artists Only" will receive $65/page, with bonuses, comp copies, and royalties split evenly between themselves and their writer.

All contributors have the right to purchase additional copies of the anthology at 50% off the cover price for as long as the anthology is in print.

Rights

Creators will cede exclusive first worldwide print and digital rights to their stories for a full calendar year from the date of publication, and non-exclusive worldwide print and digital rights (in both the English and Spanish languages) in perpetuity. Ownership remains with the creators.

What We WANT:

Comics (not illustrations, not prose, not poetry).

Previously unpublished stories.

The protagonist (or POV character) must be Latinx or Latin American.

Writers who have a connection to the country they choose as their setting (either from there, born there, parents or grandparents born there, lived there for many years, etc.)

Speculative fiction: How has technology changed? How has society changed? How have politics changed? The natural world? Fashion? The thoughtfulness of your world building will make or break your pitch.

Informed fiction: We want stories whose ideas about the future are rooted in an understanding of the past and present. For example: we're less interested in whether flying cars exist and more interested in whether the Amazon rain forest makes a full recovery (and what that means for Brazil).

Optimism: your vision of 25th century Latin America doesn't need to be utopic (although it can be) as long as themes of improvement, empowerment, growth, or problem-solving predominate.

Peaceful stories, sad stories, triumphant stories, funny stories, failure stories, action stories, philosophical stories, love stories -- the full spectrum of humanity is welcome. The catch: it must end “positively.” Everything doesn’t have to work out, but we prefer stories end on a note of hope, new understandings, resilience, etc.

What We DON’T Want:

No fan works. No auto-bio. No prose. No one-off illustrations.

Comics that are already finished or that you’ve already started drawing.

Hacking the Mainframe: Unless you really, really think you can "WOW!" us with a highly original take, avoid "hackers take down the mega corporation" as a plot (because it's been done to death).

Fantasy: We want science fiction and/or speculative fiction based in the real physical laws of our universe. However, certain elements of magic realism can work for us (e.g. in an otherwise realistic setting, a character speaks to a long departed ancestor, experiences old gods in a vision, or watches their life unfold out of sequence).

Ahistorical Takes: any stories that erase, deny, or revise the real-world histories of Latin American peoples will be rejected.

Horror: Your story can use fear and danger as plot elements, but if instilling fear/existential dread in the reader is the overarching goal, this is the wrong anthology.

Cursing is permitted as long as words aren’t used literally (i.e. “Shit, you scared me!” as opposed to “Let’s go shit in the woods!”) and are used very sparingly when used at all. In general, we’d prefer not.

No porn. No references to specific sexual acts. No explicit nudity whether sexual or non-sexual (sorry, folks). “Consensual fade-to-black sex between legal adults” is fine.

No depictions of abuse (sexual, physical, psychological) whether pictorial or written. Characters may vaguely reference (in non-graphic language) abuse that they have suffered in the past if doing so serves the story or is integral to the character.

No gore. People can get hurt, bleed, die, etc, but not in a grossly over-the-top way that fetishizes violence.

No slurs, no racist statements nor imagery, no misogyny, no transphobia, no ableism, no xenophobia, and no white supremacist nonsense in general. Since this anthology is about Latin America's future, these topics can be broached in your story, but we urge you to tackle such subjects in a more creative way than "[insert drawing of some guy yelling a slur]."

Ready to pitch?

"SOLO CREATORS" APPLY HERE.

"WRITERS ONLY" APPLY HERE.

"ARTISTS ONLY" APPLY HERE.

Here’s what you’ll need to complete each form:

SOLO CREATORS:

A working title and page count for your comic (doesn’t have to be exact).

A synopsis of your story, including a beginning, middle, and end. Spoil everything, but try to keep it under 300 words.

Preliminary sketches associated with your pitch: character ideas, environment concepts (the latter is especially important if your portfolio lacks strong examples of background art), etc. These don’t need to be final or polished pieces! Just clear enough to give us an idea.

Links to any relevant publishing credits. Self-published works and webcomics count as credits! Choose examples that best reflect the style you intend to use for this comic. You may simply include a link to your portfolio if you have no pre-existing credits, but please note that folks with sequential storytelling examples will receive preference.

Tell us about yourself, your cultural and creative background, and why you want to be in MAÑANA. Short and sweet is best!

WRITERS ONLY:

A working title and page count for your comic (doesn’t have to be exact).

A synopsis of your story, including a beginning, middle, and end. Spoil everything, but try to keep it under 300 words.

Links to any relevant publishing credits. Self-published works and webcomics count as credits! You may simply include a link to your writing portfolio if you have no pre-existing comics writing credits, but note that folks with comics writing experience will receive preference.

Tell us about yourself, your cultural and creative background, and why you want to be in MAÑANA. Short and sweet is best!

ARTISTS ONLY:

Links to your portfolio and/or any relevant publishing credits. Self-published works and webcomics count as credits! You may simply include a link to your portfolio if you have no pre-existing credits, but please note that folks with sequential storytelling examples will receive preference.

Tell us about yourself, your cultural and artistic background, and why you want to be in MAÑANA. Short and sweet is best!

More Questions?

Check out the FAQ. If your answer isn’t there, Ask away!

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

By M. Odom

Recent studies show that the masses of youth are embracing socialism. This turn towards socialism has been matched with calls for armed self-defense. Chants such as “Fist Up! Fight Back!” and “Black Power Matters” guide the masses at demonstrations. As well, groups such as the Huey P. Newton Gun Club and Guerrilla Mainframe have sought to train the masses of the African Working Class. This is the true legacy of 1919 — socialism and self-defense.

[radiophd]

africans with mainframes -- negroid spinx

[krinsbez]

GI Joe: Remixed, Semi-Random Trivia, About Semi-Random Joes

An incomplete list of Joes who are members of minority groups; please make suggestions for additions, as there are many, many Joes with whom I am unfamiliar:

(some of these placements will be elaborated on below)

AFRICAN-AMERICAN:

Stalker

Roadblock

Doc

Doc II

Alpine

Stretcher

Hardball

Iceberg

Heavy Duty

Big Lob

Freight

Quick Stryke

Grill

Cool Breeze

Ripcord

ASIAN-AMERICAN:

Jinx

Quick Kick

Budo

Tunnel Rat

Ronin

Rico

Firewall

Black Dragon (?)

DESI:

Hashtag

LATINO:

Shipwreck

Law

Lady Jaye

Alpine

Dynamite

Hot Sauce

ARAB-AMERICAN:

Breaker

Sgt. Slaughter

NATIVE AMERICAN:

Spirit

Airborne

PACIFIC ISLANDER:

Torpedo

Red Dog

SIKH:

Hashtag

JEWISH:

Clutch

Bazooka

Budo

ISLAMIC:

Breaker

Sgt. Slaughter

QUAKER:

Lifeline

NEURO-ATYPICAL:

Helix

-Sgt. Slaughter is NOT the professional wrestler born Robert Remus, but received his codename due to a coincidental resemblance to said pro wrestler. That said, he did wrestle in college, where he majored in Classics. Note that he is still serious about his classics studies; he is fluent in both Ancient Greek and Latin, and is knowledgeable about not only Classical literature, but also the history, mythology, culture, etc. of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome.

-Alpine is mixed-race, having African-American, Caucasian, and Latin ancestry; people's efforts to pin him down to one or the other and inability to do so is a constant source of amusement to him.

-Lady Jaye is biracial; her father is as WASP as one can be without being a Boston Brahmin (although they're adjacent), while her mother is from Latin America; note that her mother's family is also filthy rich and aristocratic. Also, she's a distant cousin of Destro and Darklon.

-Rico is a character of our own creation, a Fillipina-American who's primary MOS is powered armor, specifically the Accelerator suit from Rise of Cobra

-Firewall is a young, Asian woman ala DDP rather than an older, Caucasian woman ala IDW.

-Riffing on Rise of Cobra, Breaker's parents are from Morocco.

-Budo periodically notes that both sets of grandparents spent WWII in camps; his paternal grandparents in an internment camp, his maternal grandparents in a concentration camp.

-Ripcord and Cover Girl have more-or-less their IDW backstories.

-Lifeline's aikido skills are such that he's one of the top ten best hand-to-hand combatants in GI Joe. Granted, his pacifist beliefs mean he rarely showcases them; "getting Lifeline in the ring" is a Joe colloquialism for a task that is very difficult and unlikely to end well for you.

-As with many other military regulations, the rules against fraternization are not strictly enforced for Joes, so Flint/Lady Jaye, Scarlett/Snake Eyes, and Jinx/Falcon are things.

-Dial-Tone and Hard Drive are A: female, and B: hot.

-Dial-Tone is the nerdiest nerd to ever nerd, or at least, as much as possibly whilst being an attractive woman. She also barely qualified to be a Joe physically. That said, she did, in fact, qualify, and is thus eminently capable of kicking your ass.

-Clockspring is kinda a creeper. He hasn't done anything explicitly against the regs, but he's come veeery close. As a result, Hard Drive, Firewall, Dial-Tone, and Hashtag frequently receive sympathy from other female Joes about having to work with him, which leaves them confused, because while Clockspring is aware of their gender, he slots them into his head as fellow nerds and doesn't creep on them at all.

-Clockspring also posts on a number of Incel/MRA/RedPill sites, although he keeps getting banned for telling other posters to take it down a few notches.

-Quick Kick has always been a movie guy; he got into martial arts because he realized that Hollywood is kinda racist and expects Asian-American performers to know chop socky stuff. That said, he turned out to be better at it than at acting, so ended up becoming a stunt double. Then the Cobra War happened, he joined the Army and eventually ended up in GI Joe.

-Freight, somewhat similarly, was a star linebacker, who walked away from a multi-million dollar contract to enlist when the Cobra War began. He greatly dislikes being compared to Pat Tillman.

-Contrary to what you'd expect, Freight and Red Dog (who could've been a star if he hadn't been tossed out of the NFL for frequent unnecessary roughness) get along really well.

-GI Joe's first fighter ace, somewhat ironically, was not Ace (who's codename comes form being a card shark), but Slipstream. However, Ace was the first Joe to become Ace In A Day.

-No one can remember Ghostrider The Stealth Pilot's codename, which he is surprisingly OK with, as long as they don't call him by someone else's codename...whereupon he will start calling that person by someone else's codename.

-All the Joe pilots are qualified to fly all Joe aircraft, with the possible exceptions of the Defiant and SHARCs, so Wild Bill can fly a Skystriker and Ace can fly a Tomahawk and Lift-Ticket can fly a Phantom and Ghostrider The Stealth Pilot can fly a Mudfighter and Dogfight can fly a Vector and Maverick can fly a C-130 or Dragonfly, etc.

-Quick Kick holds regular movie nights; Sgt. Slaughter is banned due to his habit of pointing out all the inaccuracies whenever QK puts on a sword-and-sandal flick.

-Roadblock and Heavy Duty are cousins. In addition to their size (which is not just "big" but freakishly its-a-miracle-they-don't-have-health-problems HUGE) and fondness for MOAR DAKKA, they also share a passion for cooking. Roadblock is a master chef, specializing in Soul Food and French haute cuisine (both nouvelle and classique), though he's also excellent at classic Italian and most American regional specialties. In general, Heavy Duty is almost as good and in some cases better (he is an internationally ranked sushi chef, for example), but rather than rely on a standard repertoire, he prefers to experiment, either with exotic foreign or newly-invented dishes he's just heard of or bizarre creations of his own; his success is...mixed.

-Quick Kick has a habit of reciting quotes from Little Caesar every time he runs into Rico in a hallway or whatever. She does not know that's what he's doing and is generally puzzled by the whole thing.

-Mainframe has a thing going on with Zarana.

-When Jinx and Falcon started dating, they got shovel speeches from Duke and Snake Eyes, respectively (yes, despite Snake Eyes being unable to talk). In addition, Storm Shadow kidnapped Falcon...then took him out to dinner, cuz he wanted to get to know his cousin's boyfriend. And because Falcon is Falcon, they ended up bar/club-hopping. Meanwhile, Duke, who only knew his baby brother was abducted by Cobra Commander's personal assassin, was ready to start World War III.

-Cross-Country believes he has a duty to reclaim the family honor he believes was lost when his ancestors took up arms to fight for slavery. His choice of outfit is bait, to trick racists and CSA apologists to make themselves known to him so he can punch them in the face.

-Quick Kick has a Japanese father and a Korean mother. As a result, when he fights the Red Ninjas, they call him a half-breed and talk shit about his mom. He deals with it by kicking their asses.

-Clutch and Rock'n'Roll are best buds. Ditto Bazooka and Alpine. Also Leatherneck and Wetsuit, albeit of the vitriolic kind where they fight constantly.

-Shipwreck is a SEAL.

-Clutch and Budo once went out together to get tattoos of their grandparent's numbers.

-Quick Kick took it upon himself to put together a crash course in cinema since the '70s for Sgt. Savage, and had to be reminded that showing him movies about Vietnam maybe wasn't the best idea.

-Grand Slam, Sci-Fi, and Red Spot are SF/F nerds. Flash is not, and gets annoyed when people assume he is.

-Spirit does not look particularly stereotypical.

-Among GI Joe's many secret mini-bases is one located in a Las Vegas casino; Ace regularly requests a transfer there, as it is the only way he will ever be allowed into a Las Vegas Casino.

-Airborne is genuinely psychic. That said, he's not very powerful; he just has "hunches" that are always right.

-Clutch has an unfortunate habit of running into secret Cobra activity whenever he goes on leave. Seriously, Every. Single. Time.

-Order is much, much more obedient than Junkyard, partially due to natural temperament but largely because Law trained him that way; Law's...kinda contemptuous of the fact that Mutt has not similarly trained Junkyard, and the two of them don't really get along because of it.

-Falcon used to hate Shipwreck, because every strategy he came up with to try and smuggle hookers into the Pit failed because 'Wreck had already tried it. Though, he's mellowed out about it since he started dating Jinx.

-Snake Eyes is under orders to have regular therapy sessions with Psyche-Out (because for obvious reason he's kind of a mess, psychologically); that Etch-a-Sketch is real handy.

-GI Joe has official social media, run by Hashtag, of course. However, the Joes take turns running the official GI Joe twitter account which leads to WMG from the people following trying to figure out who is doing it at any given time, which leads to the Joes deliberately trying to do it in other Joe's style. So, say, Shipwreck will fill it up with rhymes about cooking so people will think it's Roadblock, and Roadblock will do it in French and keep mentioning gumbo and gators so people think it's Gung Ho, and Gung-Ho keeps throwing in Star Wars references so people think it's Sci-Fi, etc. Duke hates doing it, so is very terse, so everyone always assumes he's Snake Eyes (which is hilarious to people who know Snake, who was an inveterate chatterbox before he became mute).

-Note that they also are allowed to have their own social media.

-Cover Girl's social media is a battleground, between her fans from her modeling/reality-show days and her fans since joining GI Joe.

-Heavy Duty has a youtube show where he discusses his cooking experiments. The episodes where Roadblock guest-stars are the most popular, since you now have a 100% chance of the result being edible instead of 50/50.

-Snake Eyes has a Twitter account under his real name, which is really, really active, and really, really inane, because he needs some outlet for his natural chatterbox tendencies.

-As stated, Duke does not believe in social media. As a result, there is a bit of a competition amongst the Joes to trick him into appearing on theirs.

-Cross-Country has a blog where he calls out Confederate apologists. He's been banned from multiple Civil War forums and subreddits and such for flaming same.

-Barbecue mostly goes on about Boston sports

[berniesrevolution]

Rakem Balogun thought he was dreaming when armed agents in tactical gear stormed his apartment. Startled awake by a large crash and officers screaming commands, he soon realized his nightmare was real, and he and his 15-year-old son were forced outside of their Dallas home, wearing only underwear.

Handcuffed and shaking in the cold wind, Balogun thought a misunderstanding must have led the FBI to his door on 12 December 2017. The father of three said he was shocked to later learn that agents investigating “domestic terrorism” had been monitoring him for years and were arresting him that day in part because of his Facebook posts criticizing police.

“It’s tyranny at its finest,” said Balogun, 34. “I have not been doing anything illegal for them to have surveillance on me. I have not hurt anyone or threatened anyone.”

alogun spoke to the Guardian this week in his first interview since he was released from prison after five months locked up and denied bail while US attorneys tried and failed to prosecute him, accusing him of being a threat to law enforcement and an illegal gun owner.

Balogun, who lost his home and more while incarcerated, is believed to be the first person targeted and prosecuted under a secretive US surveillance effort to track so-called “black identity extremists”. In a leaked August 2017 report from the FBI’s Domestic Terrorism Analysis Unit, officials claimed that there had been a “resurgence in ideologically motivated, violent criminal activity” stemming from African Americans’ “perceptions of police brutality”.

The counter-terrorism assessment provided minimal data or evidence of threats against police, but discussed a few isolated incidents, notably the case of Micah Johnson who killed five officers in Texas. The report sparked backlash from civil rights groups and some Democrats, who feared the government would use the broad designation to prosecute activists and groups like Black Lives Matter.

Balogun, who was working full-time for an IT company when he was arrested, has long been an activist, co-founding Guerrilla Mainframe and the Huey P Newton Gun Club, two groups fighting police brutality and advocating for the rights of black gun owners. Some of the work included coordinating meals for the homeless, youth picnics and self-defense classes – but that’s not what interested the FBI.

(Continue Reading)

[pannimanagementteam]

Mes Options For World-class Enterprises

Transparency enables rapid identification of downstream demand and highlights opportunities to shorten course of time, take out waste and react faster, reducing the need for a large inventory. It is the answer material that digitalizes all workflows across a company’s value chain, from accounting and budgets to production and customer support. Sage X3’s versatile knowledge model captures the transactions, paperwork, and details of those workflows in a constant and complete system of record. Sage X3 prepares orders and supply processes using devoted tools. Greytrix Africa makes positive that customers get pleasure from immediate delivery of products and accurate information on inventory availability. Proper handling of supplies results in better delivery of products with none damage.

ERP software for small businessescan help you move past spreadsheets and efficiently manage each aspect of your rising firm – from sales and buyer relationships to financials and operations. Small business ERP tools are usually in the cloud, fast to put in, and designed to grow with you. Computerized business applications were born within the accounting and finance world within sage x3 oil and gas the 1960’s using mainframe computer systems. These pioneering functions were quicker and more correct than guide processes – however were expensive, limited in functionality, and nonetheless sluggish. Before lengthy, these applications spawned the event of devoted, standalone solutions such as gross sales order processing and manufacturing requirements planning .

The Commvault solution was deployed quickly through Commvault integration associate, Gabsten Technologies. Assistance was additionally supplied with change management, offering support to PEC by way of hands-on person coaching sage x3 oil and gas. The requirement was for a knowledge backup and management answer that not solely built-in with present applied sciences but additionally allowed for automation and single-view operation.

ERP solutions are designed for businesses of all sizes – small, midsize, and large. You can also get industry- and company-specific functionality to satisfy distinctive enterprise needs. Regardless of your corporation sector and measurement, you’ll want to plan yourERP implementationproject fastidiously, following greatest practices. Modern ERP methods are open and versatile – and can simply integrate with a variety of software program products utilizing connectors or customized adaptors, such as software programming interfaces . Other strategies for ERP integration embrace ESB and iPaaS (integration platform-as-a-service). IPaaS, which provides a cloud-based approach, is a very popular option for contemporary businesses.iPaaS platformscan rapidly sync on-premise or cloud-based ERP with SaaS functions from the same vendor or third-parties.

Tesla shares have lost sixteen.3% since September 30, which translates right into a decline in market value of approximately $135 billion. Biden administration officials are contemplating subjecting a few of Elon Musk's ventures, including his planned acquisition of Twitter Inc., to nationwide security evaluations, according to a new sage x3 oil and gas report. Learn why Allied Metals Corportion chose Sage ERP X3 as their metal industry ERP solution. AllAfrica is a voice of, by and about Africa - aggregating, producing and distributing 600 information and information objects every day from over a hundred African news organizations and our personal reporters to an African and global public.