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wes-deactivate · 2 years ago

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Title: Star Track: The Next Acceleration - "Race Through Time"

A detailed screenplay of an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, set in the cinematic universe of Pixar's Cars franchise. When a character appears, give a brief description of their Cars persona. Create puns of the original characters' names to name the Cars equivalent.

Teaser:

In the vastness of space, the starship Entreprise-95 cruises through the galaxy, captained by Jean-Luc Pickard, a sleek, silver sports car with a confident and wise air. This vessel carries a crew of unique vehicles from all corners of the universe, seeking out new life and new civilizations, boldly going where no car has gone before.

ACT I

EXT. SPACE - THE ENTREPRISE-95

The Entreprise-95 glides gracefully through space, its engine hums as it sails into the cosmic unknown.

INT. ENTREPRISE-95 - BRIDGE

The bridge is filled with the crew working diligently at their stations.

At the helm is Wheeliam T. Riker, a tall, blue SUV with broad shoulders and a well-groomed front grille. He is the dependable, cool-headed First Officer.

Next to him is Dataway, an advanced android car with a sleek, streamlined body and a metallic gold paint job. He is the ship's Operations Officer and is known for his incredible intelligence and curiosity about the human experience.

At the tactical station stands Worfshift, a powerful, black and red muscle car with a Klingon heritage. He has a fierce exterior and sports a custom grille designed to resemble a Klingon warrior's armor.

Tiresly Crusher, the ship's Medical Officer, is a stylish red convertible with a brilliant mind and a compassionate heart. She's attending to the health of the crew while maintaining her charm.

At the communications station, we see Geordi LaForge GT, an innovative, yellow sports car with futuristic, high-tech visor that grants him unparalleled vision. He is the ship's Chief Engineer and an expert in all things mechanical.

In the captain's chair sits Jean-Luc Pickard, a sleek, silver sports car with a confident and wise air. He commands the ship and crew with unmatched grace and diplomacy.

JEAN-LUC PICKARD

(voiceover)

Captain's log, stardate 47318.2. We are en route to the Felisian System to investigate reports of a temporal anomaly. Starfleet has ordered us to determine its origins and assess any potential threat to the quadrant.

Suddenly, the ship jolts, and the crew braces for impact.

WORFSHIFT

Captain, we've been hit by an unknown energy wave.

JEAN-LUC PICKARD

Status report!

DATAWAY

Sensors indicate that the energy wave is a temporal distortion, similar to the anomaly we are investigating.

GEORDI LAFORGE GT

Captain, the wave has caused significant damage to our warp drive. We're currently running on impulse power.

TIRESLY CRUSHER

I'm picking up multiple injuries throughout the ship. We need to attend to them immediately.

JEAN-LUC PICKARD

Understood, Doctor. Dataway, begin analyzing the energy wave. We need to determine its origin and how to protect the ship from any further damage. Worfshift, assist the doctor with the injured crew members. Geordi, repair the warp drive as quickly as possible.

The crew quickly gets to work, each attending to their tasks. The ship is under immense pressure as they attempt to unravel the mystery of the temporal anomaly.

INT. ENTREPRISE-95 - SICKBAY

Tiresly Crusher and Worfshift work tirelessly to treat the injured crew. Among the injured is Deanna Troicar, the ship's Counselor, and a sleek, purple luxury vehicle. She has an empathic ability, which allows her to sense the emotions of others.

WORFSHIFT

Counselor Troicar, are you alright?

DEANNA TROICAR

I'll be fine, Worfshift. But I can sense that the crew is on edge. The energy wave has affected more than just the ship.

WORFSHIFT

We must stay focused on our tasks. We will get through this.

DEANNA TROICAR

You're right. We need to stay strong and united.

INT. ENTREPRISE-95 - ENGINEERING

Geordi LaForge GT and his team of engineers work diligently to repair the warp drive. Sparks fly and engines whirr as they race against time to restore the ship's capabilities.

GEORDI LAFORGE GT

(over communicator)

Captain, we've managed to repair the warp drive, but it's going to take some time before we can safely engage it.

JEAN-LUC PICKARD

(over communicator)

Understood, Geordi. Keep me informed of your progress.

INT. ENTREPRISE-95 - BRIDGE

Dataway continues his analysis of the energy wave, while the rest of the crew maintains their stations, awaiting further instructions.

DATAWAY

Captain, I have completed my analysis of the energy wave. It appears to have originated from a nearby star system. The temporal distortions are consistent with the use of a highly advanced time-travel technology.

JEAN-LUC PICKARD

Could this be connected to the anomaly we were sent to investigate?

DATAWAY

It is highly probable, Captain. The energy signatures are nearly identical.

WHEELIAM T. RIKER

If this is a result of time-travel technology, we may be dealing with a highly advanced civilization. We should proceed with caution.

JEAN-LUC PICKARD

Agreed. Set a course for the star system, Mr. Riker. We'll continue our investigation there.

As the Entreprise-95 slowly makes its way towards the mysterious star system, the crew braces for the unknown, uncertain of what lies ahead in their race through time.

——

INT. ENTREPRISE-95 - BRIEFING ROOM

The senior crew members gather around a table, where a holographic projection of the star system is displayed. Each character is equipped with specialized tools that extend from their bodies, allowing them to interact with the environment around them.

JEAN-LUC PICKARD

We must be prepared for the possibility that the civilization responsible for these time distortions may not be friendly. It's crucial that we approach this situation with caution and diplomacy.

DATAWAY

Captain, I have analyzed the star system's composition, and I have detected a planet rich in a rare energy source called "Chronofuel." This element could be the key to their time-travel technology.

GEORDI LAFORGE GT

That's fascinating, Dataway. If we could study this Chronofuel, it might help us better understand the time distortions and how to counteract their effects on our systems.

TIRESLY CRUSHER

We should also be cautious of any potential side effects of Chronofuel exposure on our crew. I'll run some simulations in the sickbay to prepare for any medical emergencies.

WHEELIAM T. RIKER

We'll need to establish contact with the inhabitants of this star system. Their knowledge of time travel could be invaluable to Starfleet.

DEANNA TROICAR

I agree, but we must also remember that they may not be receptive to our presence. As empathic vehicles, we should be ready to navigate any tense situations that may arise.

JEAN-LUC PICKARD

Very well. Let's proceed with caution and open communication. Dataway, can you establish a connection with the planet's inhabitants?

DATAWAY

I will attempt to do so, Captain.

INT. ENTREPRISE-95 - BRIDGE

Dataway sends out a transmission to the planet, while the crew awaits a response. A video screen on the bridge flickers to life, revealing a group of vehicles unlike any they've seen before. Their designs are intricate, and they exude an air of wisdom and advanced technology.

ALIEN LEADER

(voice distorted)

Greetings, travelers. We are the Chrononauts, the guardians of the Chronofuel. What brings you to our corner of the universe?

JEAN-LUC PICKARD

Greetings, Chrononauts. We come in peace, seeking to better understand the time distortions that have been affecting our ship and crew. We believe your knowledge of Chronofuel and time-travel technology may be of assistance.

ALIEN LEADER

We understand your plight. However, our technology is highly classified and protected. We must first evaluate your intentions and character before we can consider offering our assistance.

The crew exchanges glances, aware of the challenge that lies ahead. With their journey taking a twist into the unknown, they must prove their worth to the Chrononauts in order to unlock the secrets of Chronofuel and ensure the safety of the Entreprise-95.

——

INT. ENTREPRISE-95 - BRIDGE

JEAN-LUC PICKARD

Very well, Chrononauts. We are willing to cooperate with your evaluation. We have nothing to hide and seek only to ensure the safety of our crew and other civilizations that may be affected by these time distortions.

ALIEN LEADER

We appreciate your willingness to cooperate. We will send a delegation to your ship to begin the evaluation process.

The transmission ends, and the crew prepares to receive the Chrononaut delegation.

INT. ENTREPRISE-95 - OBSERVATION LOUNGE

Captain Pickard and his crew await the arrival of the Chrononaut delegation. The doors hiss open, and a group of majestic alien vehicles enters the room. The crew exchanges formal introductions with the Chrononauts, who appear intrigued by the Entreprise-95 crew.

To break the ice and build rapport with their guests, Captain Pickard decides to share a rare, vintage bottle of WD-40 he has been saving for a special occasion.

JEAN-LUC PICKARD

(gesturing to the bottle)

In the spirit of friendship and cooperation, I would like to share a fine vintage of WD-40 with our esteemed guests. This particular blend is known for its exquisite lubricating qualities and smooth finish.

ALIEN LEADER

(pleasantly surprised)

We are familiar with WD-40 and appreciate your gesture, Captain. It is not often we come across such a refined vintage.

As the WD-40 is served to the guests, the mood in the room becomes lighter, and the Chrononauts begin to relax. The crew engages in conversation with the alien vehicles, sharing stories and experiences from their adventures in space.

Meanwhile, Tiresly Crusher closely monitors the interaction, ensuring that the WD-40 does not have any adverse effects on the crew or their guests.

INT. ENTREPRISE-95 - ENGINEERING

While the meeting takes place, Geordi LaForge GT and Dataway work on analyzing the Chronofuel energy signatures. They hope to gain insight into how the technology works and possibly develop a way to counteract the time distortions.

DATAWAY

Geordi, I believe I have discovered a pattern in the energy signatures. If we can replicate this pattern, we may be able to create a stabilizing field around the Entreprise-95.

GEORDI LAFORGE GT

That's excellent news, Dataway. Let's get to work on building a prototype.

INT. ENTREPRISE-95 - OBSERVATION LOUNGE

As the evening progresses, the crew and the Chrononauts develop a mutual respect and understanding. The Chrononauts are impressed by the integrity and dedication of the Entreprise-95 crew and ultimately decide to offer their assistance.

ALIEN LEADER

Captain Pickard, we have come to a decision. We are willing to share our knowledge of Chronofuel with you and help you counteract the time distortions affecting your ship.

JEAN-LUC PICKARD

Thank you, esteemed Chrononauts. We are grateful for your trust and assistance. Together, we can ensure the safety and well-being of countless civilizations throughout the galaxy.

With the alliance forged, the crew of the Entreprise-95 and the Chrononauts work together to unlock the secrets of Chronofuel and protect the galaxy from the perils of time distortion.

——

INT. ENTREPRISE-95 - BRIDGE

As the crew and the Chrononauts work together, an urgent alarm sounds, and the crew rushes to the bridge. The viewscreen displays an incoming transmission from an unknown source. The image flickers to life, revealing the Borg Queengine, a terrifying, cybernetic vehicle with an intricate network of mechanical and electronic components fused into her chassis.

BORG QUEENGINE

We are the Borg. Lower your shields and surrender your vehicles. We will add your technological and vehicular distinctiveness to our own. Resistance is futile.

The crew exchanges looks of dread, recognizing the immense danger posed by the Borg.

JEAN-LUC PICKARD

(to the Alien Leader)

The Borg are a relentless, assimilating force. They seek to consume all cultures and technologies in their path. We must stand together against them.

ALIEN LEADER

We understand the gravity of the situation, Captain. Our knowledge of Chronofuel may provide us with the means to counteract the Borg's advances.

WHEELIAM T. RIKER

We'll need every advantage we can get. The Borg are notoriously difficult to defeat.

INT. ENTREPRISE-95 - ENGINEERING

Geordi LaForge GT and Dataway, now joined by a team of Chrononaut engineers, work feverishly to adapt the Chronofuel technology to create a defense against the Borg.

DATAWAY

If we can modify the Chronofuel to create a temporal distortion field around the Entreprise-95, it may disrupt the Borg's ability to adapt to our defenses.

GEORDI LAFORGE GT

It's risky, but it's our best shot. Let's get to work.

INT. ENTREPRISE-95 - BRIDGE

As the crew prepares for the imminent confrontation with the Borg, Captain Pickard addresses his crew and the Chrononauts.

JEAN-LUC PICKARD

The Borg have proven time and again that they are a formidable adversary. But today, we stand together, united in our pursuit of freedom and the preservation of our unique cultures. I have faith that we will overcome this challenge and emerge stronger than ever before.

With a renewed sense of determination, the crew of the Entreprise-95 and the Chrononauts work together to face the Borg Queengine, employing their combined knowledge and resources to protect their worlds from assimilation.

——

INT. ENTREPRISE-95 - ENGINEERING

Geordi LaForge GT, Dataway, and the Chrononaut engineers finalize the modifications to the Entreprise-95's systems. They incorporate the Chronofuel technology to create a powerful temporal distortion field.

GEORDI LAFORGE GT

We've retrofitted the ship's axle arrays with Chronofuel injectors. Once activated, they will generate a high-frequency temporal distortion field around the Entreprise-95.

DATAWAY

Additionally, we have modified the ship's spark plug emitters to create a concentrated ignition pulse beam. This beam will be capable of disrupting the Borg's nanochip circuits, rendering their assimilation technology temporarily inoperative.

INT. ENTREPRISE-95 - BRIDGE

The crew and Chrononauts man their stations as the Borg ship approaches. Captain Pickard gives the order to activate the temporal distortion field.

JEAN-LUC PICKARD

Activate the temporal distortion field. Prepare to fire the ignition pulse beam on my command.

The Entreprise-95 shimmers as the distortion field envelops the ship. The Borg struggle to adapt to the rapidly fluctuating time distortions.

WORFSHIFT

The Borg are attempting to adapt, but our temporal distortion field is causing their systems to malfunction.

JEAN-LUC PICKARD

Now's our chance. Fire the ignition pulse beam!

A brilliant beam of energy bursts from the Entreprise-95, striking the Borg ship. The beam penetrates the Borg's defenses, overloading their nanochip circuits.

INT. BORG SHIP - BORG QUEENGINE'S CHAMBER

The Borg Queengine writhes in distress as her connection to the collective is disrupted. Her mechanical components spark and malfunction.

BORG QUEENGINE

(weakly)

This is... impossible.

INT. ENTREPRISE-95 - BRIDGE

The crew watches as the Borg ship suffers critical damage, ultimately retreating from the battlefield.

DEANNA TROICAR

The Borg are disoriented and withdrawing, Captain. It appears we have succeeded.

JEAN-LUC PICKARD

This victory would not have been possible without the invaluable assistance of our Chrononaut allies. Our combined knowledge and determination have proven that unity can overcome even the most formidable adversaries.

ALIEN LEADER

We are honored to have fought alongside you, Captain Pickard. Your crew's courage and resilience have earned our deepest respect.

As the Borg threat dissipates, the crew of the Entreprise-95 and the Chrononauts celebrate their victory, knowing that their unity and collaboration have saved countless lives and civilizations. The stars await their next adventure, as they continue to explore the final frontier.

FADE OUT.

THE END

#chatgpt #star trek #the next generation #tng fic #ai fiction

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olko71 · 4 years ago

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New Post has been published on All about business online

New Post has been published on http://yaroreviews.info/2021/02/jeff-bezos-exits-as-ceo-but-his-role-at-amazon-will-likely-be-little-changed

Jeff Bezos Exits as CEO, but His Role at Amazon Will Likely Be Little Changed

Behind the scenes, the founder had been laying the groundwork for such a move for years, according to people who work closely with him. So much so, that when Mr. Bezos signaled to the board around six months ago that he was ready to move to a new role, the directors weren’t surprised. He had already been involving himself less and less in day-to-day management, said one of the people.

Among the most successful entrepreneurs in history, the famously driven Mr. Bezos developed a hard-charging work culture in Amazon. AMZN -2.00% Over the past several years, the 57-year-old has focused much more on high-level strategic decisions, and has made clear he would like to build a legacy for himself that goes well beyond Amazon.

Tech founders are often succeeded by their opposites, typically older executives with greater managerial experience. Mr. Bezos wanted someone more like him.

Andy Jassy, whom Mr. Bezos promoted five years ago to CEO of Amazon’s cloud business and who will take over as CEO of the company later this year, fit the bill. He started his career at Amazon in 1997, acted as Mr. Bezos’s technical assistant early on, and drove the creation of Amazon Web Services, which dominates cloud computing and accounts for the bulk of Amazon’s operating income.

“Jeff always made clear that his greatest fear is that ‘if I got hit by a bus, you would pick somebody to succeed me who was unwilling to take risks and launch new efforts,’ ” said Tom Alberg, a longtime director who retired from the board in 2019. Amazon’s board has a succession planning meeting every year to discuss major moves at the company.

Andy Jassy, pictured in 2018, will become Amazon’s CEO later this year.

Photo: KAMIL BIALOUS for The Wall Street Journal

Mr. Bezos was front and center in the CEO role last year in ways he hadn’t been for a while, as he publicly guided the company’s response to Covid-19 and was drawn into intensifying U.S. government scrutiny of Amazon’s competitive practices.

The pandemic initially disrupted Amazon, putting new demands and risks on its huge workforce of warehouse and delivery workers. It has since proven to be a boon to the company, propelling revenue for 2020 up 38% to $386.1 billion.

Mr. Bezos accelerated hiring, and Amazon increased its employee count by 63% last year to 1.3 million. People close to Mr. Bezos said he was involved every day in guiding Amazon’s pandemic response during the crisis.

Strategic guide

Mr. Bezos likely reversion to his role as Amazon’s strategic guide has left many Amazon shareholders sanguine that the company’s trajectory won’t change much. Amazon’s stock, which rose 76% last year was up nearly 4% so far in 2021 before sliding 2% in Wednesday trading.

“I don’t worry about this as a major change in the direction of Amazon, or that it will lose its way,” said Trip Miller, managing partner of Gullane Capital LLC, which he said owns roughly $25 million in Amazon stock. “This has been in the works for a while obviously. [The pandemic] was one more challenge Amazon faced in the last year, and it performed quite well in a struggling economy.”

In Amazon’s first decade or two, Mr. Bezos was involved in the minutiae of its operations. “There is no rest for the weary,” he wrote in a shareholder letter reviewing 1998. “I constantly remind our employees to be afraid, to wake up every morning terrified.”

As the company grew, Mr. Bezos was drawn to specific projects that fascinated him, including the 2014 Fire Phone, which flopped, and the Echo smart speaker, powered by a virtual assistant called Alexa, which was a success. The idea came from Mr. Bezos’s vision of a home equipped with a device like the spaceship computer on “Star Trek.”

In April 2016, Mr. Bezos gave bigger titles to his two top lieutenants. Mr. Jassy, who had been senior vice president, was named CEO of Amazon Web Services, and Jeff Wilke, who ran the better-known retail operation, became CEO of Consumer Worldwide.

The move was widely seen as an indication of succession plans, something the board had become especially attentive to the previous decade, after Mr. Bezos survived a helicopter crash in Texas in 2003.

The appointments also underlined that Messrs. Jassy and Wilke had more authority over day-to-day decision making, enabling Mr. Bezos to spend more of his time on nascent Amazon businesses, including its Hollywood arm, Amazon Studios. He was less visible in the company’s routine operations.

Jeff Wilke, CEO of Amazon’s Consumer Worldwide division, in 2019.

Photo: Joe Buglewicz/Bloomberg News

Mr. Bezos would quip that the only time he really knew all that was going on at Amazon was in its annual budget meetings.

“He’s not super involved in the day-to-day operations,” Matt Garman, a veteran of Amazon’s cloud-computing division and top lieutenant to Mr. Jassy, said of Mr. Bezos in a 2019 interview. “I met with him more in the first 18 months than I probably have since.”

In an interview on stage at the Economic Club of Washington, D.C., in 2018, Mr. Bezos emphasized his hands-off approach, saying he rarely took meetings before 10 a.m. or after 5 p.m., and focused on strategy over detail. “If I make, like, three good decisions a day, that’s enough,” he said.

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS

How do you think Jeff Bezos’s new role will affect Amazon? Join the conversation below.

He had long championed innovation and reinvention, exhorting his employees to treat Amazon as a startup long after it had become a colossus.

In that spirit of reinvention, he increasingly became fixated on projects and goals beyond Amazon. He purchased the Washington Post in 2013, and had started rocket company Blue Origin in 2000.

Founders of the tech giants have shown a penchant for taking on ambitious new projects. Bill Gates stepped aside as Microsoft CEO after 25 years and devoted himself to reinventing philanthropy. Google co-founder Larry Page, even before stepping back from his management role in 2019, had devoted his time and wealth to side projects developing flying cars.

Mr. Bezos has taken particular interest in Blue Origin, which competes with Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX, run by Elon Musk —Mr. Bezos’s rival for the title of world’s wealthiest person.

Mr. Bezos celebrated the successful launch and landing of a Blue Origin rocket in 2015.

Photo: Blue Origin/Planet Pix/ZUMA PRESS

Mr. Bezos for years has funded Blue Origin, whose annual budget tops $1 billion, by selling some of his shares in Amazon. He devotes every Wednesday to Blue Origin, using a conference room to take meetings and get updates.

In a public appearance in 2018, Mr. Bezos described Blue Origin as perhaps more important to him in the long run than Amazon because it would help keep human civilization dynamic and avoid stasis.

Other changes were happening in Mr. Bezos’s personal life. In 2018 he surpassed Mr. Gates to be declared the world’s richest man. The father of four, who had long depicted himself as low-key despite his wealth, started spending more time at Hollywood parties and events, as Amazon’s entertainment business grew.

In January 2019, Mr. Bezos announced he and MacKenzie Scott, his wife of 25 years, would divorce. Mr. Bezos, often with his girlfriend, Lauren Sanchez, appeared at concerts and flashy beach clubs like Club 55 in St. Tropez, hanging out with celebrities and yachting around with other billionaires.

In April, members of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee’s Antitrust Subcommittee demanded he testify after a Wall Street Journal article showed that Amazon employees had used proprietary data on outside vendors that use its platform to create rival products—something the company had publicly denied doing.

Mr. Bezos spoke via videoconference during a House Judiciary Subcommittee hearing on July 29.

Photo: Mandel Ngan/Agence France-Presse/Bloomberg News

At a subcommittee hearing in July where Mr. Bezos testified with three other Big Tech CEOs—his first such appearance before Congress—Mr. Bezos often appeared uncertain about how Amazon and its products worked, and pledged to find answers later.

In August, Amazon announced that Mr. Wilke would retire. He told the board months earlier, one of the people familiar with the matter said. The move left Mr. Jassy as the heir apparent.

About six months ago, Mr. Bezos told the board he was ready to make the move to executive chairman. The news was a closely guarded secret within Amazon, with some senior executives not knowing until they saw the press release Tuesday, according to other people familiar with the situation.

Several of Mr. Bezos’s latest Instagram posts have been related to Blue Origin. On Jan. 14, he posted a picture of himself stepping into a space capsule.

About a week ago, he shared a picture of a “hotfire test” of a Blue Origin engine. “Perfect night!” he wrote in the caption.

Write to Dana Mattioli at [email protected] and Sebastian Herrera at [email protected]

#PAID

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gen-is-gone · 5 years ago

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Ok folks, you know what, I’m tired and sick and sad today and the world is fucked up and humans are consistently awful to each other and I don’t really think I can deal with that rn so I’m (finally) gonna talk about my huge, over-complicated Star Trek library AU that I love very dearly and y’all are just gonna have to deal. This somehow also ended up long as balls, wtf.

[I’ve left out a bunch of stuff and it’s a little incoherent and I haven’t done anything with Disco-trek bc I haven’t seen it yet. It’s one in the morning. Time to post and go to bed.]

SO:

It’s not a city system bc ye gods that would fuckin enormous even by the standards of like, New York. It’s maybe?? a state system? or province? sort of?? And there are a fuck load of different branches in different towns with very different patron demographics and staff.

The James T. Kirk Enterprise Memorial Central Library (It’s nicknamed ‘The Original Sector’ and everyone just calls it Enterprise anyway) is the largest location and also the (obvs) central branch, which houses admin and holds processing and ILL and all sorts of everything. It’s a memorial library built on the same foundation as the original (sort of, I’ll get to that in a sec) Enterprise Central Library. That building burned to the ground, and had to be rebuilt, and when it was, it was given a huge overhaul, expanded to more than twice its initial size, and crammed full of exciting new tech and large windows and low shelves and Optimized Seating Arrangements. (Yes, there is a 3D printer). Area manager Jean Luc Picard is in charge of not only this building, but the other feeder branches in the city, and coordinates with the area managers in the other cities in the system, as well as admin. Basically, he handles a lot, ok?

...But on the flip side, he also manages the library in probably the wealthiest, most gentrified part of the system. He gets to deal with politicians coming by for photo ops, and old white ladies complaining about how their Kindles aren’t working, and unsupervised toddlers trashing the maker space.

T’was not always the case, however. The man after whom the library is named, one James Tiberius Kirk, was a master innovator and cultural shifter, who radically changed the very principles of modern librarianship. Kirk was a legend in sixties library circles. He was famous for his skills as a listener and deescalator (though he was also known to have on multiple occasions broken up fights by, literally, leaping into the middle of them). The original Enterprise library was desegregated and accepted PoC and women applicants for all positions, including administrative. There were certainly controversies and it had its shared of stumbles, but the Enterprise library that founded the system is still fondly remembered by older patrons and its ethos drives the best librarians to do better.

(The original original Enterprise Library is located somewhere else entirely. It’s over one hundred years old and tiny and only used as a historic site/museum/reference branch these days.)

The Voyager Library (It’s a not a memorial library yet) is a brand spanking new, technologically innovative, gloriously modern branch in the middle of rural nowhere in a teeny tiny town. This is one of those unfortunate cases of people with genuinely good intentions fucking up in part because they aren’t aware of the community’s needs and don’t realize, for instance, that what this branch might need is a robustly digitally literate and ideally multi-lingual and culturally sensitive staff capable of helping folks learn how to make and submit resumes online and not say, a 3D printer. Like, it’s not that you shouldn’t have a 3D printer? But maybe that shouldn’t be your first priority. And then also since it really is located out in the boonies, like we’re talking the back of beyond, the ass-end of nowhere, nothing but grazing ungulates and staple crops for miles, admin used this as an opportunity to shunt some disgruntled malcontents who for one reason or another can’t be fired, out where no one else has to deal with them. So the rising stars who got transferred to get the branch competently on its feet are none too pleased to be forced to put their careers on hold rubbing shoulders with the likes of say, Tom “bratty daddy-issues” Paris.

Luckily, they eventually end up with a wonderful children’s librarian in Anika Hansen, though she only ever goes by her strange nickname, Seven of Nine. (She was raised in cult. She’s working through a lot.)

Harry Kim is a page who through all manner of ridiculous circumstances has done pretty much every job in the branch up to and including running it, by himself with a skeleton crew, on more than one occasion. His official job is still book shelving. He’s a temp. He doesn’t have health insurance. Janaway keeps emailing admin going “Ok we’ve had two staff members quit unexpectedly and another one fucking died of a rare disease, can we maybe make Harry a circ clerk at least?” and keeps getting “no, sorry we just don’t have space in the budget for a new hire right now :) :)” in reply.

And then, getting to my favorite part of the AU and what started me off on the whole thing, there’s DS9. DS9 is the janky downtown library with the weird smells and the hideous brutalist architecture and the homeless patrons and the terrible boiler system that means it’s always either freezing or baking and nothing in between. It most definitely does not have a 3D printer. DS9 is my library.

Ben Sisko was a children’s librarian who lost his wife suddenly and unexpectedly, (not in a warzone because this isn’t that kind of AU but it was sudden and violent, I just don’t know how yet) and afterward, just lost all interest in continuing in his job. He was sort of numb, going through the motions and waiting ‘til retirement (or, let’s be honest, until someone fired him. He didn’t really care which at that point, other than if he were fired, it would affect Jake). Due to a long and complicated series of events whereupon admin discovered the previous staff running the library were horrifyingly corrupt and in some cases actively criminal, a round of mass firings happened that left the library almost completely unstaffed. Ben was offered the promotion to area manager, and basically told that if he didn’t accept, he’d be forced into early retirement. Remember, this is what he wanted. But a (somewhat hostile) talk with Picard and a (rather less hostile) talk with his Rabbi convinced him to keep the position, against his better judgement. So he moved himself and his son to be closer to the branch, and set up.

Kira is the newly-promoted adult services librarian, and one of very few people to maintain a job after the mass severance. She despised her previous area manager with a passion, and initially doesn’t trust Ben, not the least of which because she’d applied for area manager and didn’t get it. (She was told she lacked politesse and tact. She told the interviewer where to shove his tact). She was responsible in part as a whistle blower who brought up Dukat’s corruption, sexual harassment, and illegal side hustles to first admin, and then the cops, and finally, the media. Depending on who you ask, Kira Nerys is a backstabbing snitch with no loyalty, or the best staff member in the whole system.

Speaking of Dukat, he maintained throughout the entire investigation that he was an innocent victim being targeted by Kira for ___ made up reason. He later embroiled himself in multiple sex scandals, fessed up to (at least one) love child, got hired by Dominion System Services, then ran for mayor. It was a whole thing. Kind of a shit show.

Miles is the maintenance supervisor, and spends all his time horrified that the building is basically crumbling around him. He’s found live rodents living in the vents! No one should work in this building, it’s a toxic waste dump! FFS!

Worf drives the bookvan. He named it Defiant. He chugs it around the city blaring Russian opera with the windows down. Senior citizens love him. No one is quite sure why or how.

Jadzia Dax is a youth STEM coordinator with waaay too many siblings. The Daxes and the Siskos have been friends for decades.

Ben: hey so Enterprise has a trained, on-sight specialist in trauma-informed care, do you think we, a library serving a number of significantly disadvantaged groups who often deal with heavy trauma, could maybe hire someone like Counselor Troi?

Admin: That’s an excellent idea! But fully-trained therapists are expensive. Jadzia, you have a sister who’s a psych major, right?

Jadzia: yes but she’s not certified, and she’s a clerk.

Admin: great, she already knows how to use the library! we’ll transfer her immediately!

Jadzia: no that’s not what I meant

Admin: oh by the way, we’re also transferring Jadzia, no take-backsies

Ben, Jadzia, and Ezri: noooo...

Admin: :) :) :)

Julian is a circulation clerk trying to hold down a job while in med school. His second week on the job, he attracted the attention of That One Regular, an otherwise avuncular gentleman who hangs around all the time reading the paper, who might bend your ear for hours about politics or art, or might ignore everyone and make a beeline for the best seating in the back, depending on the day. Julian seemed oblivious to his obvious flirting at first, and one day Kira takes him aside in the back and asks if Garak is making him uncomfortable, and if he is, Julian doesn’t have to interact with him at all, and we can ban him if he starts causing trouble okay? Just let me know. And Julian kind of laughs, because he’s an idiot and he’s excited and flattered that this charming worldly gentleman seems interested in him. Kira just sort of stares, dumbfounded. (NOTE: Do NOT do this. This is a fanfic trope. Never assume that anyone in a customer service role is personally interested in you when they have to be nice to you because it’s their job.)

Meanwhile, everyone kind of thought that maybe Garak was homeless? His clothes are impeccable but all pretty old, he spends all his time in here, no one who’s talked to him can agree what his story is, but apparently he does have a place to go at night. He has an alterations shop just up the street, but since he’s the owner and sole employee, he just leaves it closed half the time because there’s nothing to do. He has some beef with the old staff who got fired but no one knows what it is?

Quark runs the skeazy bar next door, and is directly responsible for about 40% of their drunk patrons. His nephew Nog was just starting, and just about to drop out of, high school when Ben and Jake first arrived. Nog used to cause a lot of trouble for the library, vandalizing furniture, stealing all the (free!!) stuff he could fit in a backpack, generally behaving in a most unruly manner. By the time Ben retires, Nog has not only stopped being a poster child for the school to prison pipeline, he’s just completed his bachelor’s and is about to head off to library school for his MLIS.

Odo is city security and senior officer on the library crew. He doesn’t believe in deescalation training. He’s incredibly torn between wanting to be a real cop, and knowing just how corrupt they are, being best friends (and secretly in love with) with Kira.

Look, the Dominion is Library System Services crossed with Amazon ok? It’s some shady shit. A private, for-profit run library system that cuts services to the bone while promising municipalities that at least the library will stay open on the one hand, and a big box brick and mortar for an online retail monolith actively crushing libraries (and writing Forbes articles about how libraries should just be replaced with Amazon stores) on the other. They’re flat out evil. They’re gloating corporate criminals. They plant corporate spies in systems everywhere, looking for weaknesses to exploit and local government contracts to gobble up, all while paying their store-front employees garbage wages and forcing them to work in inhumane conditions. They make you pay to use the 3D printer. Eventually, Our Heroes manage to expose the Dominion’s tactics and destroy its public reputation, and the company (or at least, the for-profit library wing) shutters before they can force DS9 under their contract.

And like? This isn’t something I’d ever actually write per say, because it doesn’t really have a plot so much as contemporary everyone’s human AU takes on the canon stuff. But it just makes me so happy. Just imagine Ben Sisko in a librarian cardigan and Benny Russell’s reading glasses, performing story times for kids at ten in the morning and talking down belligerent drunks at eight at night. An amazing library staff transforms DS9 from a dead space run by a creep, that made people feel unsafe, to a hub of community and learning.

Star Trek encompasses the original sense of the liberal ideal, of acceptance of diversity and difference, and a love of both science and stories. Libraries offer resources for free to anyone and everyone who needs them. Libraries promise to safeguard and make accessible all kinds of knowledge and truths in the face of ignorance and lies, and try and try to live up to that promise. Trek and libraries also are by no means immune to recreating the injustices they both try to fight, but both the franchise and the institution keep soldiering on, trying, always trying, to be better.

#star trek #star trek DS9 #Star Trek TNG #deep space nine #star trek voyager #adventures in L Space #megan whines into the empty abyss of cyberspace

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bluemagic-girl · 5 years ago

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Star Trek-style visor helps five blind patients see again

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Giving sight to the blind was the moment just the eyesight of science fiction but a revolutionary new visor is now supporting five individuals battling blindness to see once more.

The Star Trek-style headgear – evocative of the iconic prosthetic worn by Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge – tackles a typical trigger of visual impairment.

Considerably like the gadget adorning the cult character, the eyeglasses translate visual data from the outside earth into visuals that the wearer can perceive.

Volunteers with age-related macular degeneration who took portion in a demo of tech company Pixium Vision’s ‘bionic’ program ended up ready to study letters working with the system.

The gadget is created up of a pair of goggles equipped with a movie digital camera, attached to a compact laptop processor.

Just before they can relay images, however, sufferers should have a gentle-activated pc chip placed driving their retina at the again of the eye.

This tiny processor converts the visual facts gained by the visor into an infrared picture that the goggles then beam back into the eye.

Electrical pulses activate electrodes in the 2mmx2mm chip, which sends a sign down the optic nerve that the mind can assemble into an image of what’s being found.

The innovative unit is efficiently a pair of goggles fitted with a online video digital camera and connected to a tiny laptop or computer processor. But just before they can relay photos, sufferers will need a light-weight-activated chip that is inserted guiding their retina at the again of the eye

This is due to the fact the pocket-sized processor converts the recording into an infrared picture that the goggles beam back into the eye. Pulses then activate electrodes in the 2mmx2mm chip, which will cause the optic nerve to carry the visuals to the brain

Pictured: Star Trek character Geordi La Forge, who was born blind, donning a visor in an episode of the sci-fi sequence that can help him see

How it functions: A surgeon 1st implants a compact silicon chip with 378 electrodes powering the retina of a affected person with dry age-linked macular degeneration

AMD is the most prevalent bring about of blindness and affects 600,000 folks in the Uk, and all around 11million in the US.

Now, there is no way of treating the ‘dry’ form of the situation – the very same form tested in the trial by Pixium Eyesight.

The chip it has formulated has pretty much 400 electrodes – made to ‘excite’ cells in the retina to have illustrations or photos to the mind.

It is implanted beneath the retina, where ruined photoreceptors are located. The organization statements the course of action is minimally invasive.

The patients involved in the demo, done at the Hopital des Quinze Vingts in Paris, all had the ‘dry’ form of AMD – the more common style.

It impacts the central part of vision with gaps or ‘smudges’, earning day to day routines like reading and recognising faces tricky.

The individuals associated in the demo, executed at the Hopital des Quinze Vingts in Paris, all experienced the ‘dry’ kind of AMD – the a lot more typical variety (a more recent technology version of the program)

Other trials of Pixium Vision’s process, known as Prima, are previously below way in Pittsburgh and Miami, NewScientist reported

HOW DOES IT Work?

A surgeon initial implants a small silicon chip with 378 electrodes behind the retina of a patient with dry age-connected macular degeneration.

When the affected person puts on the system’s dark glasses, an built-in video clip digicam mounted onto the goggles sends photos to a transportable laptop or computer.

A connected ‘pocket processor’ converts that recording into an infrared graphic, which the goggles will then beam into the eye.

Pulses activate electrodes in the implant, which ‘excites’ cells in the retina to carry photos to the mind via the optic nerve.

Right after operation, clients have to learn to use the procedure, but with apply are capable to ‘see’ black, white and grey shapes.

The organization, also based in the French money, reported there ended up no critical problems claimed by any of the people after 12 months.

Talking about the demo, Pixium Vision’s chief govt Lloyd Diamond informed NS Medical Equipment: ‘The individuals are really satisfied.

‘There is of study course some rehabilitation on their aspect to interpret the alerts, but most are viewing mild and even styles, figures, or letters the place they didn’t just before.’

Having said that, their eyesight is even now impacted for the reason that the implant only produces images at much less than 400 pixels.

He said the chip – which is effective by converting gentle into electric power – does not go following it is implanted for the reason that tissue grows all around it.

Mr Diamond added: ‘An integrated mini-camera mounted on glasses is made use of to seize the visual surroundings.

The chip – which functions by converting light-weight into energy – does not transfer following it is implanted for the reason that tissue grows close to it

Pixium Eyesight stated it is operating to improve the algorithms concerned in the program – and has lately announced a new technology product (pictured)

WHY IS DRY MACULAR DEGENERATION?

Dry macular degeneration is a prevalent eye condition among persons around 65.

It causes blurred or lessened central vision owing to thinning of the macula, which is the aspect of the retina liable for people’s immediate line of sight.

Much more than 1.75 million individuals put up with in the US. The condition’s Uk prevalence is unclear.

The wet type of the condition occurs owing to leaking blood vessels below the retina and triggers extra sudden eyesight reduction than the dry sort.

Dry macular degeneration develops step by step, affecting people’s potential to do factors, this sort of as read through, generate and recognise faces.

Signs are commonly painless and contain:

Visual distortions, these types of as straight traces appearing bent

Reduced central eyesight

Need for brighter lights

Problems adapting to small-degree lights

Blurred printed terms

Reduced colour brightness

Problem recognising faces

Dry macular degeneration normally affects each eyes ultimately.

It hardly ever results in blindness due to peripheral eyesight getting unaffected.

The bring about is unclear and may perhaps be a combination of genetic and environmental things, this sort of as using tobacco.

It can be prevented via regime eye exams, managing circumstances this sort of as higher blood tension, not smoking cigarettes and ingesting perfectly.

There is no cure.

Procedure may include assembly with a lower-vision rehabilitation professional or operation to implant telescopic lenses.

Supply: Mayo Clinic

‘This visible scene is processed and simplified by the pocket laptop or computer through algorithms driven by AI.

‘This approach extracts useful info, in a simplified structure, from the photos that are then sent again to the glasses.’

The digital projector then sends the illustrations or photos through pulses of infrared light-weight, which activates the photovoltaic chip, he reported.

Right after medical procedures, individuals have to find out to use the technique, but with apply are capable to ‘see’ black, white and gray styles.

Mr Diamond reported the enterprise has an ‘aggressive’ commercialisation system and hopes to start its merchandise in Europe and the US.

Other trials of Pixium Vision’s program, identified as Prima, are previously underneath way in Pittsburgh and Miami, NewScientist noted.

And an even even larger study is prepared for subsequent year, with the intention of enrolling sufferers at a variety of eye-care centres throughout Europe.

Pixium Eyesight mentioned it is functioning to improve the algorithms associated in the process – and has not long ago announced a new generation unit.

Retinal implants that restore some sight when in the blind are now available, but their top quality just isn’t superior more than enough to work in quite a few true-earth conditions.

Professionals also hope the implants could be applied to address retinitis pigmentosa, an inherited issue that slowly constricts vision.

It comes immediately after the Mail before this thirty day period exposed physicians have restored sight to the blind by sending video clip photos instantly to the brain.

In a world-to start with that provides hope to thousands and thousands of people, five men and one particular lady regained vision soon after years of ‘living in the dark’.

They experienced electrode chips planted in the visual cortex at the back of their skulls that picked up images from a small online video digital camera mounted in a pair of glasses.

Sufferers who have benefited from the Orion tech include things like those who have misplaced their sight owing to glaucoma, trauma and infections.

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#Nosy Media

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jordanthatblondegirl · 6 years ago

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“They’d wiped his mind and put him inside a gigantic maze.”

The Maze Runner series by James Dashner was released in 2009, gaining a large enough following to warrant a movie adaption. It follows a boy named Thomas as he mysteriously awakens in a Maze alongside other teenage boys. After the boys conquer The Maze, they learn they are part of the world’s largest experiment - run by an organization known as WICKED - with the goal being to cure a deadly disease known as The Flare. Along with his friends, Thomas treks across a wasteland known as The Scorch and makes daring plans to take down WICKED for their crimes.

I can say Dashner does two things very well: writing intro chapters that relate enough to the last book to jog your memory without re-stating the whole story and writing action sequences. Both instances require working a delicate balance. In the case of first chapters, the author has to include enough information to jog the memory of readers who took some time between novels. They also should avoid over explaining for the binge-readers who read the novels back-to-back. (Guilty.) Dashner struck this balance well by picking one or two major points of the previous story and briefly examining how they got Thomas into his current situation. Similarly, Dashner didn’t over narrate his action scenes. Movies allow us to view all the minute details of a fight scene each second, but reading all that information in a linear faction takes time. That can slow a scene down and make it less exciting. The final battles of each novel were easily the most engaging parts.

One of the things I think he wasn’t so good at is writing characters. The characters of The Maze Runner series weren’t totally 3-D, more like 2.5-D. They had enough to distinguish themselves from one another and enough for you to pick a favorite, but not much to add real depth to even the core group surrounding Thomas. It is a personal belief of mine that well written characters can carry a story further than an interesting plot, and that a plot has to be super innovative and attention-grabbing to make up for a flat cast. The characters Dashner created weren’t in dire need of a rescue, but the story wasn’t so stellar I could excuse it.

I never got over the telepathy. There was so much about the story that asked us to suspend our disbelief that flawless telepathic communication was the straw that broke my camel’s back. I’ve said it in a previous review, but maybe I would’ve been more receptive to it if it had been written differently. Unfortunately for me, as the story progressed, there was no easy fix that could remove it from it’s status of Important Plot Device.

Maybe I’m thinking too hard about this story and I’m belting too left-brained over this, but I was so frustrated by the science being conducted in this experiment. Ask me to believe that everything in the two year period The Maze was operating and the two week period they were in The Scorch was carefully planned and I’ll say, “Yeah, okay.” But these scientists weren’t following the most basic of scientific concepts: eliminate your variables. I don’t care how uber-smart you are or how advanced the tech you’re using is, it is a basic concept for all experiments. Basically, how are these scientists sure they aren’t screwing up their own data? When looking for a cure to the worst disease humanity has had to face since maybe the Black Plague, I would think you want to be sure of what exactly caused the disease to die off.

One area I was really disappointed was in. representation. We find out there’s a second group in the experiment where the genders are flipped and we only ever learn the names of less than five of them. They don’t get the same societal construction The Gladers did. The girls didn’t even get a self-identifying name; the two groups were The Gladers and “Group B”. It was a huge missed opportunity for world building that Dashner didn’t craft that second group as much as he did for Thomas’ bunch. Before you defend it by saying the girls were a perfect mirror so we didn’t need to learn anything new about them, answer me this: why have a second group at all if absolutely nothing was different between them?

After reflecting on the story, I propose an easy - although major - change to fix the representation problem and better developed the world. I think Dashner should have followed the girls of Group B through The Scorch. It would’ve offered chances at innovative storytelling to offer multiple points of view and would have expanded the world in a way that would make it more believable.

I think there were more than a few points throughout the series that got me excited for some new prospect, got me to ask new questions and be interested in the world, that ended up leaving me with subpar answers if any answers at all. The plot operated at half capacity and the characters followed suit. Together, they made a standard story that would be a complete, easy read for many middle-grade or reluctant readers. As an avid adult reader, I can only hope the movie adaptions enhance the storytelling. Ultimately, these books are not staying in the Library of Jo.

The Maze Runner Rating: 2 / 5 stars

The Scorch Trials Rating: 3 / 5 stars

The Death Cure Rating: 3 / 5 stars

The Kill Order Rating: 3 / 5 stars

Series Rating: 2.75 / 5 stars

#The Maze Runner Series #The Maze Runner #The Scorch Trials #The Death Cure #The Kill Order #James Dashner #Spoilers #BOOKS #Book Review #Jo's Notes #Jo Post

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hardersonne87-blog · 6 years ago

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Tronwatch Wallet

The Idea Behind Tron TRON is the creation associated with Justin Sun, some sort of small Chinese business innovator together with tech influencer which is likewise behind projects similar to Callme (known as Peiwo inside China), which was initially an application much like Snapchat for the Asian market place. He was also often the Chief Associated with Ripple with regard to Tiongkok, features appeared 2 times on Forbes Asia�s 40 Under 35 list, plus is a popular prot�g� of billionaire Plug in Tuttavia, possessing graduated by Ma�s Hupan University for upstart Chinese entrepreneurs. TRON was founded by Sun following he / she realized the planets advertising and entertainment style doesn�t properly allocate benefit to those who retain it running. More notably, Sun realized that blockchain by itself isn�t plenty of to interrupt the status quo. TRON was envisioned as a great infrastructure for developers to simply create the next generation of decentralized multimedia plus entertainment software. The TRON mainnet (launched Summer 2018) uses TRX as it has the currency for running computer code, and to denominate the buying price of content on the software. This TRON Foundation utilizes the profits generated by TRX to advance the purpose associated with disrupting the global fun industry. Tron Alliance TRON is a maturing project, although it has yet for you to make some sort of main little water with partnership announcements, also though it has recently been lively. One of this earliest close ties was initially having Baofeng, which is just like Netflix in Asia. Seeing as a content and enjoyment giant, Baofeng is working together with TRON to establish a sturdy network of nodes in the community. More recently, the company announced a collaboration with hybrid decentralized exchange JOYSO, which would discover JOYSO building an trade intended for TRON�s dApp bridal party for being traded securely. TRON has unofficially partnered with Baidu�China�s largest internet seek company�to assistance strengthen the particular network working with Baidu�s cloud tech. Tron�s BitTorrent Acquisition By far this largest �partnership� however seemed to be truly a purchase by TRON of BitTorrent and uTorrent, two of the major peer-to-peer content sharing marketing networks on the traditional web. This has successfully added in over 100 thousand active consumers to TRON�s network, putting the company on the trajectory that the idea expects to help maintain.

image: https://twitter.com/BitTorrent TRX Price History The price of TRON exhibits movements that showcases most cryptocurrencies. As a crypto the fact that ranks between the most well-liked coins tokens, TRX loves high volumes in addition to results over several significant crypto-to-crypto exchanges. From TronWatch Wallet of $0. 0019, unique investors could possess made over 130 periods their initial investment possessed they purchased at the TRX all-time a lot of $0. 20 reached in The month of january final, 2018. Intended for case in point, $1, 000 spent during often the TRON ICO was the equivalent of 526, 000 TRX, which would have told a value equivalent for you to $131, 000 at this height of its increased. While this is amazing, the idea echoed the profits skilled by means of investors within other cryptocurrencies during often the same period. Bitcoin�s selling price on the same Jan fifth date was more than $16, 000. Since now, the cryptocurrency market has been in decline and TRX has mirrored this specific downturn. Declining from $0. 25, TRX found bottom part early in 2018 with around $0. 03, in advance of climbing once again to $0. 09 in June. Following this significant �dead cat bounce� was realized by the market place, TRX finally got destroyed by means of support sitting on $0. 02 and features not too long ago touched as low as $0. 01 in advance of some sort of rebound in feeling aided prices recover. TRON Technological innovation TRON deploys an advanced mix of technology, which will aids you to delineate the assignments of each one stakeholder and participant inside their ecosystem. Furthermore management and support agencies for example TRONSR (a forum-like group about TRON) and even TRON ECP (a deposit for you to incentivize VC and even dev participation), the networking is likewise composed of unique blockchain ammenities that assist it function devoid of some sort of centralized authority. Triple-Tier Architecture: TRON�s architecture employs a 3-tier model that will involves the storage covering, often the core layer, plus the program layer. The storage coating is a distributed standard protocol that handles block hard drive and state storage space. The core layer contains savvy contracts modules, account management and consensus usefulness, even though the application layer has a new Exclusive Machine to allow for several programmatic languages and tie in budget application. DPoS: TRON�s comprehensive agreement mechanism is referred to as DPoS, or maybe Delegated Proof of Pole, meaning that changes to be able to the TRON network happen to be voted on by slots of TRX. There are special roles reserved for all those who else are �voted in� and who now should look after the system. Voting is an regular action depending on precisely how well this delegates are usually performing. Graph Database: This specific is the model that TRON uses to retail store data for effortless make use of in any type of use. Whilst Bitcoin makes use of the essential ledger model of url list data structures, plus Ethereum added key and value storage to allow greater functionality, TRON�s chart database delivers enhanced speed performance for a wider variety of software. TRON Expression (TRX) TRX is applied to implement code about the TRON blockchain and even to access the program. The particular token is in addition what users spend to be able to buy content as well as shell out for publishing on this TRON network, and because the circle grows as a result will the associated with TRX. There are 99 thousand TRX in circulation, generating this an inexpensive gold coin in fiat terms, still together accessible for brand-new buyers. To preserve the provide and price of TRON, as well as the particular sustainability of the environment, the first phase of the expression supply strategy that the workforce executed after mainnet unveiled throughout June was to burn 1 billion TRX, bringing the total supply down from its original 100 billion. Furthermore, the team locked it has the portion of TRX (33 billion) inside of 1, 000 various trading accounts until January first, 2020. On the TRON website, anybody can click about the TRONscan feature to look at these and additional high-value TRX wallets, as very well as the regular movement of TRX inside cryptocurrency market. How to Purchase TRX It�s not probable to be able to mine TRX, for the reason that there is simply no �work� that goes into validating transactions or actions in the TRON blockchain. Instead, all of TRX was minted through the ICO, and those which spent during the ICO or acquired in down the road can stake their TRX to make more. TronWatch Wallet Download , which includes famous types like Binance, Bittrex, OKEx, Bitfinex, Huobi, and several more. At the time period of writing, this 24-hour total volume of TRX across these exchanges by using numbers $71. 3 million (November 26th, 2018), with Binance displaying the top single-exchange volume at $11. 5 million. TRX isn�t available today for direct purchase along with fiat forex, so stock traders will need to transfer their Money or Pounds first to the common counter-currency, such as Bitcoin or Ethereum, before buying TRX with their crypto continues. TRX is also listed on the following swaps: BitForex (Trade TRX with USDT on BitForex) Binance (Trade TRX with ETH on Binance) OKEx (Trade TRX with BTC about OKEx) Huobi (Trade TRX with USDT on Huobi) Digifinex (Trade TRX using USDT on Digifinex) Tips on how to Store TRX The general popularity of TRX runs into the wallet world, rationally. Several wallets are specially designed to hold TRX alongside any other ERC20 gold and silver coins, such as MyEtherWallet. This kind of also opens up the possibility to store TRX with hardware pocket devices the fact that support ERC20 such seeing as the Ridotto Ledger T. It�s not really recommended to be able to keep your TRX in a exchange wallet, despite becoming a good convenient way in order to cope with volatility, as almost all centralized transactions won�t let you control you wallet�s private key. TRX likewise has many custom billfolds built for it by TRON�s community of fanatics with the TRON developer workforce. Well-liked community-developed wallets include things like iTRON, TRON Wallet, TronLink, in addition to TronPay. Other third-party pouches have integrated TRON through it has the own group, such as Trust Wallet, Cobo Budget, and Atomic Pocket book. Plan and Future Strategies TRON releases new usefulness using periodic space-themed launches. Exodus introduced the totally free P2P content distribution podium, Odyssey and Great Journey insert economic incentives, personal ICO capabilities and more. TRON mainnet 1. five and one 6 are usually identified as Star Trek in addition to Eternity (for now), plus plan to ultimately transform the network in to a fully-fledged blockchain gaming setting. BOSS and Founder Direct sun light recognizes videogames as one connected with the tips to crypto�s future, nevertheless integrating all of them with blockchain will be a good ambitious feat together with some sort of realistic deadline recently 2027.

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karamellos-blog · 6 years ago

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based on the popular game series, the mass effect movie trilogy follows shepherd twins jax and jayna as they take on the reapers in the year 2183 to 2186. the first movie mass effect: the attack of the geth released this summer to rousing reviews and an absolute massacre at the box office raking in a record breaking 300 billion dollars at the box office. the biggest opening for a video game movie. this made the stars of the first movie instant celebrities and opened doors for them. this is kind of this universe answer to star trek/star wars. details about each movie and the characters are listed under the cut if interested please message me here or on discord at amara #0987, if you want one of the smaller roles like council person hmu

MASS EFFECT: THE ATTACK OF THE GETH ( released july, 2018 )

mass effect: the attack of the geth follows the story of the shepherd twins jax (kelly) and jayna. the twins were separated at birth. jax grew up as an orphan in the rough and tumble streets of earth and enlisted in the military at eighteen and is known for being ruthless and domineering. meanwhile jayna grew up on the colony on the moon and the twin parents were captured and killed by batarian slavers. she enlisted in the military at eighteen to work to end human trafficking. she is known for being a true hero and an example for the human alliance military. both meet for the first time on board the normandy, a top tier warship, where their origins are revealed to them by mentor and family friend captain anderson. they also discover there are in competition for the lone human spectre spot and an elite turian spectre nihilus is there to observe them as they uncover valuable tech from an ancient race known as the protheans that could push galactic innovation forward another 500 years. a spectre is an elite government agent that don’t adhere by galactic law and only answer to the galatic council. when they land at their destination eden prime with fellow soliders kaidan alenko and corporal jenkins they discover that the colony has been ransacked by the geth a mysterious race of AI that were created by the quarians and later rebelled against them. the geth are being led by saren a rogue turian spectre. when this information is presented to the council by the twins, the council is reluctant to believe that saren is guilty. the twins then decide to join forces and expose saren. together with turian c sec officer garrus vakarian (richards), krogan bounty hunter wrex urdknot, quarian prodigy tali'zorah nar rayya, asari scientist liara t’soni, lieutenant kaidan alenko, pilot joker moreau and lieutenant ashley williams they hunt down saren. in their quest they discover that saren has been brainwashed by the reaper sovereign. the reapers were a race of sentient AI that wiped out all intelligent life in the galaxy 50,000 years ago and endeavour to the same now. sovereign’s plans are thwarted by the shepherd twins and peace is restored. however, heavy losses are incurred as the team loses one of their own ashley williams during a siege.

MAIN CAST FOR MASS EFFECT: THE ATTACK OF THE GETH

commander jackson “jax” shepherd - killian kelly commander jeyna shepherd ( must resemble killian kelly, early 30s ) - lieutenant kaidan alenko ( must be of asian descent, late 20s- early 30s ) - lieutenant ashley williams ( love interest for jax in the first movie, late 20s- early 30s ) - joker moreau ( late 20s, early 30s ) - officer garrus vakarian (mo cap, love interest for jeyna in all three movies ) - cinna richards urdknot wrex ( mo cap, 50s+ ) - tali'zorah nar rayya ( mo cap, must be middle eastern descent, early 20s ) - liara t’soni ( mo cap, late 20s - early 30s ) - saren ( mo cap, late 40s early 50s ) - matriarch benezia ( mo cap, 50s+ ) - nihilus ( mo cap, late 40s early 50s ) - sovereign ( voice, must be commanding ) - captain anderson ( late 40s - early 50s, must be of african american descent ) -

MASS EFFECT: THE RISE OF THE COLLECTORS ( filming begins february 2019, release date july 2020 )

after the defeat of sovereign, jax and jeyna shepherd are on a routine run when the normandy is attacked by a mysterious alien ship. jax and jeyna perish saving the crew. their bodies are recovered by cerebus a rogue pro human organization led by the clandestine elusive man. they are brought by to life three years later by cereberus and put on a special task to investigate the disappearance of several human colonies the galactic council is ignoring. jax is amenable however jeyna is suspicious of the elusive man’s intentions. they recruit garrus vakarian who is now known as archangel a vigilante on a rogue colony known as omega, a krogan supersolider known as grunt, tali'zorah nar rayya who is now a member of the quarian’s elite circle of government operatives, miranda lawson a powerful biotic, jacob taylor an impressive solider, jack an experimentally superior biotic, samara an asari justicar, mordin an accomplished salarian scientist, kasumi goto a thief, legion a geth construct, thane krios an assasin and zaeer masani a mercenary to go on a suicide mission through the omega three relay to defeat the collectors. they discover that the collectors are repurposed husks of the protheans and the reapers were making a human reaper taking the remains of the colonists to construct it. the team manages to defeat the reapers general harbinger and destroy the collectors base much to the chagrin of the elusive man who vows to get revenge

commander jackson “jax” shepherd - killian kelly commander jeyna shepherd ( must resemble killian kelly, early 30s ) - lieutenant kaidan alenko ( must be of asian descent, late 20s- early 30s ) - garrus vakarian/archangel (mo cap, love interest for jeyna in all three movies ) - cinna richards mordin solus ( mo cap, 50+ ) - joker moreau ( late 20s, early 30s ) - urdknot grunt ( mo cap, late 20s ) - urdknot wrex ( mo cap, 50s+ ) - tali'zorah vas neema ( mo cap, must be middle eastern descent, early 20s ) - miranda lawson ( late twenties, early thirties, main love interest for jax in second movie ) - jack ( late twenties, early thirties ) - jacob taylor ( late twenties, early thirties, must be of african american descent ) - kasumi goto ( late twenties, early thirties, must be of japanese descent ) - samara ( mo cap, late 40s - early 50s ) - morinth ( mo cap, early twenties, must resemble samara ) - thane krios ( mo cap, late 30s - early 40s ) - liara t’soni/the shadow broker ( mo cap, late 20s - early 30s ) - elusive man ( late 50s - early 60s ) - captain anderson ( late 40s - early 50s, must be of african american descent ) - harbinger ( voice, must be commanding ) - legion ( voice ) - EDIE ( voice ) -

MASS EFFECT: THE CRUCIBLE ( filming starts late november 2019, release date july 2020 )

the final entry in the series sees the twins rallying the troops against the reapers for one final standoff. the galaxy is overwhelmed by reaper attacks and earth is under siege. the twins split up. jax travels to tuchanka to rally the krogan to join the fight meanwhile jeyna travels to the turian homeworld to appeal to the turians. the krograns will join the fight if the genophage ( a biological weapon that was deployed against them by the turians and salarians ) is eradicated. jax recruits the help of mordin solus to help come up with a cure but he must hold off the reapers and the rival krograns to see mordin succeed. mordin sacrifices himself to cure the genophage. the krograns and jax arrive on the turian moon paladin to find that jeyna and garrus are pinned down despite help from tali and the quarians. even with the krograns the fight is futile. the gang retreats when a distress call is released from the asari homeworld. however, they arrive too late. all is not lost however, the galaxy’s different species are working to build the crucible a weapon that the protheans left unfinished 50,000 years ago. they need the quarians help to finish. however the quarians will not give their aid until the geth are exterminated. jeyna and jax must make a choice between legion and tali. however, before they can act legion sacrifices himself to resolve the conflict. elsewhere, the council is under siege as cerberus invades the citadel. jax infiltrates the citadel whilst jeyna travels back to eden prime to retrieve something for the citadel. thane dies buying jax time to save the council at the hands of cerberus assasin kai leng. jax vows revenge and meets up with jeyna to find that she’s discovered a prothean warrior to join their cause against the reapers. the gang head to earth for one final assault against the reapers and the elusive man. jax sacrifices himself to save earth and jeyna manages to outwit the elusive man. the movie ends in a flash forward where garrus and jeyna adopt a human boy and name him jax.

commander jackson “jax” shepherd - killian kelly commander jeyna shepherd ( must resemble killian kelly, early 30s ) - lieutenant kaidan alenko ( must be of asian descent, late 20s- early 30s, jax’s love interest in the third movie ) - garrus vakarian (mo cap, love interest for jeyna in all three movies ) - cinna richards mordin solus ( mo cap, 50+ ) - urdknot grunt ( mo cap, late 20s ) - urdknot wrex ( mo cap, 50s+ ) - urdknot eve ( mo cap, female, 50s+ ) - tali'zorah vas normandy ( mo cap, must be middle eastern descent, early 20s ) - thane krios ( mo cap, late 30s - early 40s ) - liara t’soni/the shadow broker ( mo cap, late 20s - early 30s ) - joker moreau ( late 20s, early 30s ) - EDI ( mo cap, late 20s early 30s ) - lieutenant james vega ( late 20s, early 30s, must be of hispanic descent ) - captain anderson ( late 40s - early 50s, must be of african american descent ) - elusive man ( late 50s - early 60s ) - admiral hackett ( late 50s - early 60s ) - legion ( voice ) - kai leng ( late 20s- early 30s, must be of asian descent ) - javik ( mo cap, late 20s- early 30s ) harbinger ( voice, must be commanding ) -

#sensationalrp #sensationalrprequest #ch: killian kelly

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solarcharger105 · 2 years ago

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Step by step instructions to Start a Cell Phone Recycling Business

While carrier rooms presently can't seem to turn into a piece of our everyday method of transportation, there is one thing from "Star Trek" tech that has turned into a famous buyer gadgets staple. The compact "hand held communicator" that was utilized by the team of the Starship Enterprise, has advanced toward our planet as a PDA. Meshing the innovation into the texture of our general public took some time. The main handheld cell economically accessible to the US market was the Motorola DynaTAC, way back in 1983. The expense to claim a DynaTAC was around 4,000 bucks. The calling plan was an incredible one dollar each moment. This made the phone cost restrictive to the majority of the overall population. Just those with monetary means could bear to possess it. It required over 10 years, yet like most things in the mechanical field, telephone costs at last dropped and the cell arose. It was more modest and more convenient then it's most memorable cousin the DynaTAC.

Cell towers began to jumped up all around the nation, and calling plan costs when from dollars to pennies each moment. Correspondence for the majority was at last conceived. Today, it is elusive any individual who isn't visiting on their PDA, or has a remote blue-tooth headpiece joined to their ear like a "Borg" limb. Alongside this blast of correspondence innovation came new items and backing administrations like cell covers, calling cards, ring-tones, ear pieces, camera telephones, message informing and Internet access. Pretty much any capability you can perform on your home PC should now be possible on a wireless that weighs under a pound. While both phones and frill are entering the customer market at a quick speed, new models will supplant old, and the present up and coming extras will wind up in the upcoming landfill. PDAs and extra gadgets, including headsets and batteries, give new open doors to an assortment of green plans of action to arise.

It is assessed that there are more than 20 million utilized cells in families across America. While some cell specialist organizations and producers are supporting reusing endeavors, a sharp Business person could possibly find a specialty in the wireless reusing business. The primary key to outcome in the cell reusing business rotates around obtaining. Certain individuals toss their cells in the rubbish. Most, are recently neglected, ending up in cupboards, wardrobes, and assigned garbage draws of families all through America. The overall population, generally, is as yet ignorant that their old cells can be reused. In certain region of the nation, utilized mobile phone reusing endeavors are not as pervasive or too known as cardboard and aluminum can recovery. Playing out your expected level of investment and setting up PDA assortment stations inside vigorously dealt areas inside your state or neighborhood local area is one method for disclosing the overall mindful of your reusing endeavors. There are a few exchange gatherings can give you statistical surveying, as well as help material to assist you with setting up assortment stations. Click over here solar charger power bank

One such association is The International Association For Wireless Communication, (Ctia.org). Ctia.org gives position papers and articles relating to how utilized cells are gathered for reusing. Utilize the hunt highlight on their landing page and type in the catchphrase expression "reuse". RecyclewirelessPhones.org is one more association devoted to assisting people and organizations with beginning a mobile phone reusing business. After you have investigated as needs be and set up various utilized wireless drop off stations, the following stage is to track down a productive deals source for your product. Fortunately you don't need to set up a site or sell your telephones on eBay to bring in cash (except if obviously you need to). With the expansion of remote correspondence in regular daily existence and new models supplanting old ones, some reusing organizations are currently work in purchasing new and utilized phones. GRC Recycling (Grcrecycling.com) is only one organization that pays for new and utilized mobile phones. GRC will pay somewhere in the range of fifty pennies to thirty bucks relying upon the make, model, and state of the mobile phone you bring to the table.

Recellular (Recellular.com), and Ecophones (Ecophones.com), are two extra organizations that are like GRC Recycling. Ecophones.com will likewise pay for utilized workstations, camcorders, and other hardware things. As well as purchasing your utilized electronic product, both Ecophones and GRC Recycling offer exhortation and direction for benefit and non-benefit organizations who need to set up utilized cell assortment stations. Free wellsprings of schooling about the pre-owned wireless industry can be found at Cell For Cash (CellForCash.com). They offer a free downloadable eBook for all purchasers and organizations keen on gathering and selling utilized PDAs as a full or parttime business. On the off chance that you are pondering engaging with a business that has the potential for benefits while keeping the landfills cleaner, and the planet greener, then the pre-owned mobile phone reusing is the business opportunity for you.

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atthevogue · 6 years ago

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“Tony de Peltrie” (1985)

The basics: Wikipedia

Opened: A landmark piece of computer animation, the Canadian short was part of the 19th Annual Tournee of Animation anthology that showed at the Vogue Theater in March and April of 1986.

Also on the bill: At least one Saturday in April, it was programmed in the 9:00 slot after Chris Marker’s Akira Kurosawa documentary A.K. and Woody Allen’s Sleeper, and before a midnight showing of Night of the Living Dead, which sounds to me like a very good eight-hour day at the movies. Otherwise, you could have had a less perfect day seeing it play after Haskell Wexler’s forgotten Nicaragua war movie Latino and the equally forgotten Gene Hackman/Ann-Margaret romantic drama Twice in a Lifetime.

What did the paper say? ★★★1/2 from the Courier-Journal film critic Dudley Saunders. Saunders described the Tournee as “a specialized event that shows signs of moving into the movie mainstream,” correctly presaging the renaissance in feature-length animation in the 1990s generally and Pixar specifically, whose Luxo, Jr. short was released that same year. Of Tony, Saunders singles it out as “one of the most technologically advanced,” and that it featured “some delightful music from Marie Bastien.” He then throws his hands up: "Computers were used in this Canadian entry. Don’t ask how.” Saunders was long-time film critic for the C-J’s afternoon counterpart, the Louisville Times, throughout the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s. In the late 1980s, he would co-found Louisville’s free alternative weekly, the Louisville Eccentric Observer.

What was I doing? I was six and hypothetically could have seen an unrated animation festival, though I'd have been a little bit too young to have fully appreciated it. Although, who knows, I’m sure I was watching four hours of cartoons a day at the time, so maybe my taste was really catholic.

How do I see it in 2018? It’s on YouTube.

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A four-hour-a-day diet of cartoons was probably on the lower end for most of my peers. I grew up during what I believe is commonly known as the Garbage Age of Animation, which you can trace roughly from The Aristocrats in 1970 to The Little Mermaid (or The Simpsons) in 1989. The quantity of animation was high, and the quality was low. Those twenty years were a wasteland for Disney, and even though I have fond memories of a lot of those movies, like The Black Cauldron, they’re a pretty bleak bunch compared to what was sitting in those legendary Disney vaults, waiting patiently to be released on home video.

Other than low-quality Disney releases, the 1980s were highlighted mostly by the post-’70s crap was being churned out of the Hanna-Barbera laboratories. Either that, or nutrition-free Saturday morning toy commercials like The Smurfs and G.I. Joe. Of course there’s also Don Bluth, whose work is kind of brilliant, but whose odd feature-length movies seem very out-of-step with the times. Don Bluth movies seem now like baroque Disney alternatives for weird, dispossessed kids who didn’t yet realize they were weird and dispossessed. (Something like The Secret of NIMH is like Jodorowsky compared to, say, 101 Dalmatians.) Most of the bright spots of those years were produced under the patronage of the saint of 1980s suburbia, Steven Spielberg. An American Tale or Tiny Toon Adventures aren’t regarded today as auteurist masterpieces of animation (or are they?), but they were really smart and imaginative if you were nine years old. Still, the idea that cartoons might be sophisticated enough to be enjoyed by non-stoned adults was probably very alien concept in 1985.

In the midst of all of this, though, scattered throughout the world were a bunch of programmers and animators working out the next regime. Within ten years of Tony de Peltrie, Pixar’s Toy Story would be the first feature-length CGI animated movie, and within another ten years, traditional hand-drawn animation, at least for blockbuster commercial purposes, would be effectively dead. That went for both kids and their parents. Animation, like comic books, would take on a new sophistication and levels of respectability in the coming decades.

I love it when you read an old newspaper review with the benefit of hindsight, and find that the critic has gotten it right in predicting how things may play out in years to come. That’s why I was excited to read in Saunders’ review of the Tournee that he suspected animation as an artform was showing “signs of moving into the movie mainstream.” His sense of confusion (or wonder, or some combination) at the computer-generated aspects is charming in retrospect, too.

Tony de Peltrie is a landmark in computer-generated animation, but its lineage doesn’t really travel through the Pixar line at all (even though John Lassetter himself served on the award panel for the film festival where it was first shown, and predicted it’d be regarded as a landmark piece of animation). The children of the 1970s and ‘80s grew up to revere the golden era of Pixar movies as adults, and the general consensus is that not only are they great technical accomplishments, but works of great emotional resonance.

As much of an outlier as it makes me: I just don’t know. I haven’t really thought so. I think most Pixar movies are really, really sappy in the most obvious way possible. The oldest ones look to me as creaky as all those rotoscoped Ralph Bakshi cartoons of the ‘70s. Which is fine, technology is one thing -- most silent movies look pretty creaky, too -- but the underlying of armature of refined Disney sap that supports the whole structure strains to the point of collapse after a time or two.

Film critic Emily Yoshida said it best on Twitter: she noted, when Incredibles 2 came out, she’d recently re-watched the first Incredibles and was shocked at how crude it looked. "The technoligization of animation will not do individual works favors over time,” she wrote. “The wet hair effect in INCREDIBLES, which I remember everyone being so excited about, felt like holding a first generation iPod. Which is how these movies have trained people to watch them on a visual level...as technology.” There’s something here that I think Yoshida is alluding to about Pixar movies that is very Silicon Valley-ish in the way they’re consumed, almost as status symbols, or as luxury products. This is true nearly across all sectors of the tech industry now, but it’s particularly evident with animation.

One of my favorite movie events of the year is when the Landmark theaters here in Minneapolis play the Oscar-nominated animated shorts at the beginning of the year. Every year, it’s the same: you’ll get a collection of fascinating experiments from all over the world, some digitally rendered, some hand-drawn. They don’t always work, and some of them are really bad, but there’s always such a breadth of styles, emotions and narratives that I’m always engaged and delighted. They remind you that, in animation, you can do anything you want. You can go anywhere, try everything, show anything a person can imagine. Seeing the animated shorts every year, more than anything else, gets me so excited about what movies can be.

And then, in the middle of the program, there’s invariably some big gooey, sentimental mush from Pixar. Not all of them are bad, and some are quite nicely done, but for the most part, it’s cute anthropomorphized animals or objects or kids placed in cute, emotionally manipulative situations. I usually go refill my Diet Coke or take a bathroom break during the Pixar sequence.

Yeah, yeah, I know. What kind of monster hates Pixar?

I don’t hate Pixar, and I like most of the pre-Cars 2 features just fine. The best parts of Toy Story and Up and Wall-E are as good as people say they are. But when you take the reputation that Pixar has had for innovation and developing exciting new filmmaking technology in the past 25 years, and compare it to the reality, there’s an enormous gap. And it drives me nuts, because if this is supposed to be the best American animation has to offer in terms of innovation and emotional engagement, it's not very inspiring. Especially placed alongside the sorts of animated shorts that come out of independent studios elsewhere in the U.S., or Japan, or France, or Canada.

Which brings us to Tony de Peltrie, created in Montreal by four French-Canadian animators, and supported in part by the National Film Board of Canada, who would continue to nurture and support animation projects in Canada through the twenty-first century. A huge part of the enjoyment -- and for me, there was an enormous amount of enjoyment in watching Tony de Peltrie -- is seeing this entirely new way of telling stories and conveying images appear in front of you for the first time. Maybe it’s because I have clear memories of a world without contemporary CGI, but I still find this enormous sense of wonder in what’s happening as Tony is onscreen. I still remember very clearly seeing the early landmarks of computer-aided graphics, and being almost overwhelmed with a sense of awe -- Tron, Star Trek IV, Jurassic Park. Tony feels a bit like that, even after so many superior technical accomplishments that followed.

Tony de Peltrie doesn’t have much of a plot. A washed-up French-Canadian entertainer recounts his past glories as he sits at the piano and plays, and then slowly dissolves over a few minutes into an amorphous, impressionistic void. (Part of the joke, I think, is using such cutting-edge technology to tell the story of a white leather shoe-clad artist whose work has become very unfashionable by the 1980s.) It’s really just a monologue. The content could be conveyed using a live actor, or traditional hand-drawn animation.

But Tony looks so odd, just sitting on the edge of the Uncanny Valley, dangling those white leather shoes into the void. Part of the appeal is that, while Tony’s monologue is so human and delivered in such an off-the-cuff way, you’re appreciating the challenge of having the technology match the humanity. Tony’s chin and eyes and fingers are exaggerated, like a caricature, but there’s such a sense of warmth underneath the chilliness of the computer-rendered surfaces. Though it’s wistful and charming, you wouldn’t necessarily call it a landmark in storytelling -- again, it’s just a monologue, and not an unfamiliar one -- but it is a technological landmark in showing that the computer animation could be used to humane ends. It’d be just as easy to make Tony fly through space or kill robots or whatever else. But instead, you get an old, well-worn story that slowly eases out of the ordinary into the surreal, and happens so gradually you lose yourself in a sort of trance.

As Yoshida wrote, technoligization of animation doesn’t do individual works favors over time. To that end, something like Tony can’t be de-coupled from its impressive but outdated graphics. These landmarks tend to be more admired than watched -- to the extent that it’s remembered at all, it’s as a piece of technology, and not as a piece of craft or storytelling.

Still, Tony is the ancestor of every badly rendered straight-to-Netflix animated talking-animals feature cluttering up your queue, but he’s also the ancestor of any experiment that tries to apply computer-generated imagery to ways of storytelling. In that sense, he has as much in common with Emily in World of Tomorrow as he does with Boss Baby, a common ancestor to any computer-generated human-like figure with a story. When Tony dissolves into silver fragments at the end of the short, it’s as if those pieces flew out into the world, through the copper wires that connect the world’s animation studios and personal computers, and are now present everywhere. He’s like a ghost that haunts the present. I feel that watching it now, and I imagine audiences sitting at the Vogue in 1986 might have felt a stirring of something similar.

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123designsrq · 4 years ago

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3D PORTRAITS FROM HARRY POTTER? THEY’RE A REAL THING NOW!

I’m a firm believer in the truth that sci-fi films assist mold culture. And that during flip facilitates outline innovation. If it hadn’t been for Back To The Future, hoverboards and self-tying footwear wouldn’t be a thing. Now no longer to say the multitude of items which are direct descendants of the Star Trek and Star Wars franchises (inclusive of the world’s first cellphone. Which change into stimulating way of Captain Kirk’s communicator). In that very vein, searching on the Looking Glass 3D Portraits ought to nearly right away remind you of a cult reference from the Harry Potter series. I am, of course, speakme approximately the well-known interactive artwork observed in Hogwarts and the relaxation of the Potterverse. The Looking Glass Portrait is a 7.9-inch photograph body that does lots greater than simply showing memories… it brings intensity and lifestyles to them. The holographic show helps you to exhibit pics in beautiful 3d portaits, letting you view them from one-of-a-kind angles while not having glasses. While the holographic tech is itself brilliant to have a take a observe all day, the Looking Glass Portrait focuses greater at the revel in, with the capacity to feature 3d picture out of your smartphone the usage of its portrait mode, or create 3d photos the usage of a couple of digital digicam pics stitched together, or maybe show real 3-d portraits. Moreover, to offer the body its Potter-esque appeal, you may report 3-d movies too. The usage of hardware ju Read the full article

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kokania0 · 4 years ago

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Electronic Music History and Today's Best Modern Proponents!

Electronic music history pre-dates the rock and roll years by decades. Most of us were not even on this areas when it began its often obscure, under-appreciated and misunderstood development. Today, this 'other worldly' herdsman of sound which began close to a century ago, may no longer appear strange and unique as new appointment have accepted much of it as mainstream, but it's had a bumpy rising and, in prognosis mob designation acceptance, a slow one.

Many musicians - the modern backer of electronic singing - developed a luster for analogue synthesizers in the late 1970's and early 1980's with signature songs like Gary Numan's breakthrough, 'Are Friends Electric?'. It was in this age that these pole became smaller, more accessible, more exploiter friendly and more affordable for loads of us. In this article I will tests to phantom this history in easily digestible endings and withdrawal model of today's best modern proponents.

To my mind, this was the beginning of a new epoch. To create electronic music, it was no longer necessary to have entrees to a roomful of technology in a senate or live. Hitherto, this was solely the crew of artists the ambition of Kraftwerk, whose daybook of electronic instruments and cocaine built gadgetry the extent of us could only have dreamed of, even if we could understand the logistics of their functioning. Having said this, at the time I was maturing up in the 60's & 70's, I nevertheless had little uptake of the experience of handling that had synopsis a predecessor in previous decades to arrive at this point.

The history of electronic music owes much to Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928-2007). Stockhausen was a German Avante Garde copier and a pioneering figurehead in electronic singing from the 1950's onwards, influencing a occurrences that would eventually have a powerful look upon nickname such as Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, Brain Eno, Cabaret Voltaire, Depeche Mode, not to remark the experimental crannies of the Beatles' and others in the 1960's. His cover-up is seen on the lid of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band", the Beatles' 1967 expert Opus. Let's start, however, by traveling a little further back in time.

The Turn of the 20th Century

Time stood still for this stargazer when I originally discovered that the first documented, exclusively electronic, observance were not in the 1970's or 1980's but in the 1920's!

The first purely electronic instrument, the Theremin, which is played without touch, was invented by Russian scientists and cellist, Lev Termen (1896-1993), circa 1919.

In 1924, the Theremin made its concert debut with the Leningrad Philharmonic. Interest generated by the theremin drew appointee to exactness staged across Europe and Britain. In 1930, the prestigious Carnegie Hall in New York, experienced a possession of classical singing using nothing but a plan of ten theremins. Watching a amounts of skilled musicians playing this eerie sounding medium by glimmering their hands around its feeler must have been so exhilarating, surreal and group for a pre-tech audience!

For those interested, team out the recordings of Theremin virtuoso Clara Rockmore (1911-1998). Lithuanian born Rockmore (Reisenberg) worked with its researcher in New York to perfect the hindrance during its early era and became its herdsman acclaimed, brilliant and recognized comedian and spout throughout her life.

In retrospect Clara, was the first celebrated 'star' of genuine electronic music. You are unlikely to discovery more eerie, yet beautiful aspect of classical singing on the Theremin. She's definitely a longing of mine!

Electronic Music in Sci-Fi, Cinema and Television

Unfortunately, and due mainly to problem in aptitude mastering, the Theremin's future as a musical stipulation was shot lived. Eventually, it found a nook in 1950's Sci-Fi films. The 1951 cinema classic "The Day the Earth Stood Still", with a soundtrack by influential American film music copier Bernard Hermann (known for Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho", etc.), is rich with an 'extraterrestrial' score using two Theremins and other electronic flight melded with acoustic instrumentation.

Using the vacuum-tube oscillator technology of the Theremin, French cellist and radio telegraphist, Maurice Martenot (1898-1980), began composition the Ondes Martenot (in French, known as the Martenot Wave) in 1928.

Employing a order and familiar fingerboard which could be more easily mastered by a musician, Martenot's obstacle succeeded where the Theremin failed in beings user-friendly. In fact, it became the first successful electronic medium to be used by copier and orchestras of its energy until the gift day.

It is featured on the topic to the original 1960's TV cell "Star Trek", and can be heard on contemporary recordings by the say of Radiohead and Brian Ferry.

The expressive multi-timbral Ondes Martenot, although monophonic, is the closest medium of its legislature I have heard which approaches the sound of modern synthesis.

"Forbidden Planet", released in 1956, was the first major commercial section cinema to feature an exclusively electronic soundtrack... aside from introducing Robbie the Robot and the stunning Anne Francis! The ground-breaking score was produced by husband and spouses squad Louis and Bebe Barron who, in the late 1940's, established the first privately owned booking boldness in the USA booking electronic experimental artists such as the iconic John Cage (whose own Avante Garde boldness challenged the definition of singing itself!).

The Barrons are generally credited for owning telegram the retreat of electronic singing in cinema. A soldering iron in one hand, Louis built circuitry which he manipulated to create a excess of bizarre, 'unearthly' artfulness and motifs for the movie. Once performed, these sounds could not be replicated as the mouseover would purposely overload, smoke and burn out to exponent the desired sound result.

Consequently, they were all recorded to tape and Bebe sifted through hours of reels edited what was deemed usable, then re-manipulated these with subordination and reverberation and creatively dubbed the endings role using multiple tape decks.

In supplements to this laborious money method, I sense compelled to include that which is, arguably, the record enduring and influential electronic Television signature ever: the topic to the long jogging 1963 British Sci-Fi look series, "Dr. Who". It was the first time a Television design featured a solely electronic theme. The themes to "Dr. Who" was created at the legendary BBC Radiophonic Workshop using tape loops and tests pendulum to run through effects, entrance these to tape, then were re-manipulated and edited by another Electro pioneer, Delia Derbyshire, interpreting the order of Ron Grainer.

As you can see, electronic music's prevalent custom in vintage Sci-Fi was the odds source of the general public's opinion of this music as beings 'other worldly' and 'alien-bizarre sounding'. This remained the proceedings till at least 1968 with the sovereignty of the bins scrapbook "Switched-On Bach" performed entirely on a Moog modular synthesizer by Walter Carlos (who, with a few surgical nips and tucks, subsequently became Wendy Carlos).

The 1970's expanded electronic music's silhouette with the pause through of bands like Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream, and especially the 1980's when it found more mainstream acceptance.

The Mid 1900's: Musique Concrete

In its segment through the 1900's, electronic music was not solely confined to electronic circuitry creature manipulated to group sound. Back in the 1940's, a relatively new German concoction - the reel-to-reel tape salesperson developed in the 1930's - became the subject of interest to a amounts of Avante Garde European composers, pack notably the French radio broadcaster and copier Pierre Schaeffer (1910-1995) who developed a montage medium he called Musique Concrete.

Musique Concrete (meaning 'real world' existing sounds as opposed to artificial or acoustic ones produced by musical instruments) broadly involved the splicing together of recorded segment of tape containing 'found' sounds - natural, environmental, industrial and human - and manipulating these with kingdom such as delay, reverb, distortion, speeding up or slowing down of tape-speed (varispeed), reversing, etc.

Stockhausen actually held symmetry convention his Musique Concrete happenings as promoting tapes (by this platform electronic as well as 'real world' sounds were used on the recordings) on apex of which live instruments would be performed by classical player responding to the understanding and motifs they were hearing!

Musique Concrete had a wide impressing not only on Avante Garde and composition libraries, but also on the contemporary music of the 1960's and 1970's. Important proceedings to summary are the Beatles' use of this senate in ground-breaking tracks like 'Tomorrow Never Knows', 'Revolution No. 9' and 'Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite', as well as Pink Floyd albums "Umma Gumma", "Dark Side of the Moon" and Frank Zappa's "Lumpy Gravy". All used tape cut-ups and home-made tape loops often fed live into the main mixdown.

Today this can be performed with guiltlessness using digital sampling, but yesterday's heroes labored hours, age and even weeks to perhaps complete a four minute piece! For those of ourselves who are contemporary musicians, understanding the history of electronic singing helps in appreciating the portion leap technology has taken in the recent period. But these early innovators, these pioneers - of which there are many more down the queue - and the important figure they influenced that came before us, created the revolutionary foundation that has become our electronic musical legacy today and for this I pay them homage!

1950's: The First Computer and Synth Play Music

Moving striker a few years to 1957 and enter the first computer into the electronic mix. As you can imagine, it wasn't exactly a portable laptop escape but consumed a whole room and user friendly wasn't even a concept. Nonetheless creative fly kept pushing the boundaries. One of these was Max Mathews (1926 -) from Bell Telephone Laboratories, New Jersey, who developed Music 1, the original singing program for computers upon which all subsequent digital synthesis has its roots based. Mathews, dubbed the 'Father of Computer Music', using a digital IBM Mainframe, was the first to synthesize singing on a computer.

In the peak of Stanley Kubrik's 1968 cinema '2001: A Space Odyssey', utility is made of a 1961 Mathews' electronic stall of the late 1800's poetry 'Daisy Bell'. Here the musical accompaniment is performed by his programmed mainframe together with a computer-synthesized human 'singing' voice section pioneered in the early 60's. In the movie, as HAL the computer regresses, 'he' reverts to this song, an cheerfulness to 'his' own origins.

1957 also witnessed the first advanced synth, the RCA Mk II Sound Synthesizer (an enhancement on the 1955 original). It also featured an electronic sequencer to program music property playback. This massive RCA Synth was installed, and still remains, at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center, New York, where the legendary Robert Moog worked for a while. Universities and Tech laboratories were the main outcome for synth and computer singing trying in that early era.

1960's: The Dawning of The Age of Moog

The logistics and experience of composing and even owning entrees to what were, until then, comedian unfriendly synthesizers, led to a occurrences for more portable playable instruments. One of the first to respond, and definitely the prince successful, was Robert Moog (1934-2005). His playable synth employed the familiar piano loci keyboard.

Moog's bulky telephone-operators' profile plug-in makes of modular synth was not one to be transported and design up with any prince of instinct or speed! But it received an enormous boost in commonness with the fate of Walter Carlos, as previously mentioned, in 1968. His LP (Long Player) best merchant entryways "Switched-On Bach" was unprecedented because it was the first time an albums appeared of fully synthesized music, as opposed to experimental sound pieces.

The albums was a complex classical music lineup with various multi-tracks and overdubs necessary, as the synthesizer was only monophonic! Carlos also created the electronic score for "A Clockwork Orange", Stanley Kubrik's confusion 1972 futuristic film.

From this point, the Moog synth is prevalent on a sum of late 1960's contemporary albums. In 1967 the Monkees' "Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd" became the first commercial pop scrapbook self-rule to feature the modular Moog. In fact, singer/drummer Mickey Dolenz purchased one of the very first conveyance sold.

It wasn't until the early 1970's, however, when the first Minimoog appeared that interest seriously developed amongst musicians. This portable little group with a fat sound had a significant gradations becoming fragments of live music outline for dozens touring musicians for years to come. Other firm such as Sequential Circuits, Roland and Korg began producing their own synths, assigning onset to a music subculture.

I cannot close the intensity on the 1960's, however, without caution to the Mellotron. This electronic-mechanical medium is often viewed as the primitive announcer to the modern digital sampler.

Developed in early 1960's Britain and based on the Chamberlin (a cumbersome US-designed media from the previous decade), the Mellotron keyboard triggered pre-recorded tapes, each key corresponding to the equivalent recollection and endings of the pre-loaded acoustic instrument.

The Mellotron is legendary for its use on the Beatles' 1966 ballad 'Strawberry Fields Forever'. A flute tape-bank is used on the haunting introduction played by Paul McCartney.

The instrument's popularity burgeoned and was used on dozens recordings of the age such as the immensely successful Moody Blues epic 'Nights in White Satin'. The 1970's saw it adopted more and more by progressive rock bands. Electronic pioneers Tangerine Dream featured it on their early albums.

With time and further overtures in microchip technology though, this charming medium became a relics of its period.

1970's: The Birth of Vintage Electronic Bands

The early fluid scrapbook of Tangerine Dream such as "Phaedra" from 1974 and Brian Eno's currency with his self-coined 'ambient music' and on David Bowie's "Heroes" album, further drew interest in the synthesizer from both musicians and audience.

Kraftwerk, whose 1974 seminal albums "Autobahn" achieved international commercial success, took the medium even further adding precision, pulsating electronic beats and meter and noble synth melodies. Their minimalism suggested a cold, industrial and computerized-urban world. They often utilized vocoders and conversations synthesis device such as the gorgeously robotic 'Speak and Spell' voice emulator, the latter creature a children's education aid!

While inspired by the experimental electronic subroutine of Stockhausen, as artists, Kraftwerk were the first to successfully combine all the elements of electronically generated singing and noise and group an easily recognizable ballad format. The supplements of vocals in dozens of their songs, both in their native German tongue and English, helped earn them universal acclaim getting one of the hordes influential contemporary singing pioneers and actor of the past half-century.

Kraftwerk's 1978 gem 'Das Modell' punch the UK sum one loci with a reissued English language version, 'The Model', in February 1982, structure it one of the earliest Electro sketch toppers!

Ironically, though, it took a impression that had no association with EM (Electronic Music) to facilitate its broader mainstream acceptance. The mid 1970's hoods movement, primarily in Britain, brought with it a unique new attitude: one that gave impulse to self-expression rather than performance dexterity and formal training, as embodied by contemporary progressive rock musicians. The initial offensive of metallic neighborhood transformed into a less abrasive word during the late 1970's: New Wave. This, mixed with the comparative affordability of lots small, easy to utility synthesizers, led to the commercial synth detonation of the early 1980's.

A new adeptness of cub flight began to explore the potential of these instruments and began to create soundscapes challenging the prevailing spotter of contemporary music. This didn't arrive without batalla scars though. The singing trade establishment, especially in its media, often derided this new example of word and accomplishment and was anxious to consign it to the dustbin of history.

1980's: The First Golden Era of Electronic Music for the Masses

Gary Numan became arguably the first commercial synth megastar with the 1979 "Tubeway Army" handcuffs 'Are Friends Electric?'. The Sci-Fi ingredient is not too far away once again. Some of the imagery is drawn from the Science Fiction classic, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?". The 1982 box cinema "Blade Runner" was also based on the same book.

Although 'Are Friends Electric?' featured conventional drum and bass backing, its dominant use of Polymoogs gives the songs its very distinctive sound. The booking was the first synth-based self-sufficiency to achieve quantity one unit office in the UK during the post-punk years and helped manager in a new genre. No longer was electronic and/or synthesizer singing consigned to the mainstream sidelines. Exciting!

Further development in affordable electronic technology placed electronic squarely in the fins of pups researcher and began to transform professional studios.

Designed in Australia in 1978, the Fairlight Sampler CMI became the first commercially available polyphonic digital sampling barricade but its prohibitive betrayal saw it solely in use by the fondness of Trevor Horn, Stevie Wonder and Peter Gabriel. By mid-decade, however, smaller, cheaper instruments entered the market such as the ubiquitous Akai and Emulator Samplers often used by musicians live to replicate their studio-recorded sounds. The Sampler revolutionized the stipulation of music from this sequences on.

In sum major markets, with the qualified zone of the US, the early 1980's was commercially drawn to electro-influenced artists. This was an exciting years for dozens of us, myself included. I know I wasn't alone in closeting the distorted guitar and amps and immersing myself into a new kind of musical manifestation - a sound shore of the conscription and non traditional.

At home, Australian synth based bands Real Life ('Send Me An Angel', "Heartland" album), Icehouse ('Hey Little Girl') and Pseudo Echo ('Funky Town') began to schemes internationally, and more experimental electronic design like Severed Heads and SPK also developed cult followings overseas.

But by mid-decade the first global electronic succession missing its boldness amidst appeal fomented by an unrelenting old seminary singing media. Most of the artists that began the decade as predominantly electro-based either disintegrated or heavily hybrids their sound with traditional rock instrumentation.

The USA, the largest ore market in every sense, remained in the conservative music wings for scads of the 1980's. Although synth-based records did box the American charts, the first being Human League's 1982 US design topper 'Don't You Want Me Baby?', on the whole it was to be a few more era before the American mainstream embraced electronic music, at which spunk it consolidated itself as a dominant last for musicians and officer alike, worldwide.

1988 was somewhat of a watershed year for electronic music in the US. Often maligned in the press in their early years, it was Depeche Mode that unintentionally - and mostly unaware - spearheaded this new assault. From cult period in America for much of the decade, their new high-play revolution on what was now termed Modern Rock radio resulted in mega stadium performances. An Electro accomplishment playing sold out dock was not common fare in the USA at that time!

In 1990, Quaker chaos in New York to greet the fraction at a central entrance firm made TV news, and their "Violator" albums outselling Madonna and Prince in the same year made them a US household name. Electronic music was here to stay, without a doubt!

1990's Onward: The Second Golden Era of Electronic Music for the Masses

Before our 'star music' secured its hold on the US mainstream, and while it was losing commercial lands elsewhere throughout much of the mid 1980's, Detroit and Chicago became unassuming laboratories for an outburst of Electronic Music which would see out much of the 1990's and onwards. Enter Techno and House.

Detroit in the 1980's, a post-Fordism US industrial wasteland, produced the harder European influenced Techno. In the early to mid 80's, Detroiter Juan Atkins, an obsessive Kraftwerk fan, together with Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson - using primitive, often borrowed appointments - formed the flock of what would become, together with House, the predominant singing club-culture throughout the world. Heavily referenced artists that informed early Techno clause were European pioneers such as the aforementioned Kraftwerk, as well as Yello and British Electro acts the yearning of Depeche Mode, Human League, Heaven 17, New Order and Cabaret Voltaire.

Chicago, a four-hour cultivation away, simultaneously saw the section of House. The name is generally considered to be derived from "The Warehouse" where various DJ-Producers featured this new singing amalgam. House has its roots in 1970's disco and, unlike Techno, usually has some making of vocal. I think Giorgio Moroder's undertaking in the mid 70's with Donna Summer, especially the poetry 'I Feel Love', is pivotal in appreciating the 70's disco influences upon burgeoning Chicago House.

A many of variants and sub troop have developed since - crossing the Atlantic, reworked and back again - but in many spirit the popular success of these two soul forms revitalized the entire Electronic landscapes and its associated social culture. Techno and House helped to profoundly challenge mainstream and Alternative Rock as the preferred listening variety for a new generation: a meeting who has grown up with electronic singing and accepts it as a given. For them, it is music that has always been.

The history of electronic music continues to be written as technology advances and people's anticipation of where singing can go continues to push it forward, increasing its vocabularies and lexicon. https://kokania.com/product-category/electronics/

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tecinfo · 5 years ago

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This time, without a doubt! Ars Technica's 2020 Deathwatch

Now and again, your motivation in life is to be a wake up call.

Stunning, that 2019, however. While we had any expectations of a shining new year as it started, it turns out the sparkle we saw rather was only the Cherenkov radiation from atomic fueled Russian doomsday torpedoes. Or on the other hand maybe it was the twinkling of the million–dumpster-fire walk that 2019 transformed into—with a portion of those dumpster fires lit by the organizations we respect here in our 2020 release of Ars Deathwatch.

Presently, it's an ideal opportunity to glance forward out of resentment—well, we're not so much furious, simply disillusioned, so we'll state "apathy"— at another new year, as has become our custom. We have taken the beat of our editors and perusers and divined the remains from every one of those stunning dumpster fires with an end goal to foresee the organizations, administrations, and items in the tech world that will lead 2020's unavoidable walk into shame. Also, we're not in any case going to make reference to the political race cycle, I guarantee.

To begin with, how about we get our typical disclaimer off the beaten path: in case you're a first-time Deathwatch player, this isn't an expectation of the real end of organizations or advancements. We realize that it takes a ton to really delete an organization or an innovation from the substance of the Earth nowadays—all things considered, huge numbers of our past Deathlisters have risen up out of Chapter 11 on different occasions before going into Chapter 7. Indeed, even the most noticeably awful thoughts and organizations frequently wait on through inactivity or get consumed by some other organization and metastasize in new and horrendous manners.

So when we state "Deathwatch," what we truly mean is that we are seeing tech-associated elements confronting a few (existential or not) financial, social, or legitimate danger. Organizations may confront difficulties that render them immaterial, cause them to be casualties of "drop culture," make them actually irrelevant, or render them as pal for sharks of obtaining, case, and different types of business hellfire.

While these guidelines are not written in stone, a contender for the Deathwatch is commonly an organization or item division of an organization that ought to have encountered in any event one of the accompanying:

An all-encompassing time of lost piece of the overall industry in their specific classification

An all-encompassing time of monetary misfortunes or an example of yearly misfortunes

Genuine administration, legitimate, or administrative issues that bring up issues about the plan of action or long haul methodology of the organization or product offering

There were hardly any real fatalities on a year ago's rundown, however some are at where our staff (I'm taking a gander at you, Ron Amadeo) didn't think they were even worth referencing any longer. (I'm certain Essential, the cell phone unicorn that proved unable, would likely be glad for the consideration.) So as opposed to go over our other battered survivors (goodness, that Facebook the executives shakeup expectation sure didn't age well), we're going to blast through our new rundown of unfortunate casualties—some of them showing up.

Here they are: 2020's… champs? First up, red-shirted (in reference both to university sports and Star Trek expendables) for 2020: that thing we used to call Oath.

- Sean Gallagher

Verizon Media (otherwise known as the Yahoo/AOL division)

Verizon's Yahoo/AOL division (once in the past called "Promise") was on our Deathwatch list a year back, and it hasn't done quite a bit of anything to get off death's doorstep from that point forward. Presently called "Verizon Media," the specialty unit comprising of previous Web monsters that lost their magic years before Verizon got them, it started and finished 2019 with cutbacks. The division had around 11,385 specialists toward the start of 2019 yet laid off almost 1,000 individuals.

Verizon Media's Q3 2019 income of $1.8 billion was down two percent year over year. Work area publicizing income keeps on dropping, and versatile advertisements haven't sufficiently developed to counterbalance that decay. Verizon demands better days are ahead, with CFO Matt Ellis saying in an income approach October 25 that "Just because, we are seeing portable traffic increments outpace work area traffic decreases in our center claimed and worked items, including sports, fund, news, amusement, home and mail." But in an online-advertisement showcase commanded by Google and Facebook, Verizon Media appears to be bound to stay a piece player, best case scenario.

- Jon Brodkin

G/O Media

Alright, we concede: the main things that make G/O Media tech-related are its Gizmodo (once in the past lead) brand and the way that its distributions are conveyed by Internet parcels. Yet at the same time, G/O has been a quick consuming, self-immolation machine of a sort we haven't seen since the gas battle in Zoolander.

A while ago when it was Gizmodo Media Group, things were... all things considered, they were extremely unsure. Univision acquired Gizmodo and its sister destinations after Gawker Media's crumbling in the wake of the Hulk Hogan claim. Be that as it may, it immediately became evident that Univision executives had definitely no clue how to manage what they had purchased.

So when in April, (asserted) computerized news big shot Jim Spanfeller—already at Forbes, Ziff Davis, and Playboy—and the private value firm Great Hill Partners purchased Gizmodo, joined the gathering with The Onion and rechristened it all G/O Media, there was a lot of cheering.

Spanfeller vowed to restore the Web productions to benefit and said there was no requirement for cutbacks or anything. He rebranded the consolidated destinations as "an amazing distributing stage to draw in well-off and powerful Millennials." (Ok, boomer.)

Only two weeks after Spanfeller dominated, 25 of G/O's 400 staff members were laid off, including Gizmodo's publication chief. Spanfeller acquired administrators from his past organizations, distancing a few staff members since he pushed all the non-white-male initiative out in the process in the wake of promising to respect a guarantee to assorted variety. Deadspin ran an article about the developing malevolence among staff and the executives in August.

Presently, Deadspin Editor-in-Chief Megan Greenwell quit to accept a position at our sister production Wired after she said she was advised to stop non-sports inclusion on the site, refering to her own morals.

New G/O Media Editorial Director Paul Maidment at that point commanded that Deadspin scholars "stick to sports." They didn't, and supervisor Barry Petchesky was terminated. Deadspin essayists at that point chose to stop as a group in what may be the most Pyrrhic work activity in late media history.

The contention with staff, including the association, has cost G/O income in direct ways. Staff members composed posts requesting peruser input on a promoting effort from Farmer's Insurance that included auto-play recordings, and G/O executives requested the posts pulled down. The staff grumbled about the tales being pulled in a post by the association Twitter account. Ranchers at that point pulled the $1 million publicizing effort.

The administration issues likewise produced badgering claims by previous female officials who said Spanfeller made an unfriendly workplace for ladies. Maidment quit. Different executives have fled.

Thus, rather than putting out a seething tire fire, in only eight months Spanfeller's contention with the unionized staff has turned G/O Media into a furious inferno filled by cash and professions. Consider it a Boomer-Millennial battle in the event that you need; I'm a Gen-Xer, and I'm only here to watch everything burn.Symantec has gotten abhor for quite a long time from Ars perusers over its endpoint security programming. Also, let's be honest, work area against infection programming isn't actually a development showcase. With Microsoft basically giving both shopper and endeavor endpoint assurance away for nothing and the PC advertise contracting, security organizations have needed to do a great deal of rotating in the course of recent years. A lot of digital "unicorns" have additionally jumped up in the course of recent years, so there's a touch of union going on in the security programming space. In the most recent year, Webroot was obtained via Carbonite; Cylance was gained by BlackBerry; CarbonBlack was procured by VMWare; and Sophos is being procured by Thoma Bravo, the private value bunch that recently purchased Barracuda Networks, Veracode, and Imperva, among others.

Add Symantec to that blend... kind of. A couple of years back, as Symantec was blowing up itself, the organization procured the profound parcel sifting firm Blue Coat—from Thoma Bravo. Presently, after somewhat of a terrible time, Symantec is selling its venture centered bits to Broadcom, (which sold Veracode to Thoma Bravo). Also, the customer item bunch that remaining parts—you know, the Norton stuff, and so forth.— is perhaps going to be purchased by another private value firm.

To start with, about that "awful time." In 2014, at that point Senior Vice President for Information Security Brian Dye said that Symantec's antivirus programming was "dead" and "destined to disappointment" since it couldn't get present day malware. At that point Dye left to go work for Citrix before bouncing to Symantec's rival McAfee. As the organization attempted to un-dead its antivirus, it created different issues—the wormable adventure sort of issue. Deals did what you'd anticipate.

In any case, with cash to consume from each one of those long periods of Norton permit deals, Symantec purchased Blue Coat in 2017 for $4.6 billion—as executives attempted to escape from the declining PC commercial center and turn to greater ticket undertaking framework security.

Organization incomes flooded in 2018—generally in light of the fact that the organization offered its computerized declaration unit to DigiCert for $1 billion in the wake of getting nailed for mis-giving more than 30,000 SSL testaments. And afterward "representative concerns" (an informant report) about how Symantec had depicted its budgetary outcomes prompted an interior review and an abrupt drop in Symantec's stock cost. (Possibly it was an impractical notion for Symantec to begin its monetary year on April 1.) A survey found that Symantec's executives had booked one arrangement as $13 million, yet $12 million of that was re-assigned as "conceded" by the review.

Extremist investors have been pushing for some time for Symantec to part the organization HP-style, if just to shed the low-development shopper business (which presently incorporates the stunning LifeLock group of credit checking administrations

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mostlysignssomeportents · 7 years ago

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The Big Idea: Tal M. Klein

Teleportation: A great idea, but with some practical… problems. It’s a physics thing. In this Big Idea for The Punch Escrow, author Tal M. Klein wonders, what if you could solve those problems, not with physics, but with another branch of human intellectual endeavor entirely?

TAL M. KLEIN:

F#*%ing transporters, how do they work?

It was the Ides of March of 2012. I had just started a new job and was chatting with a co-worker about lens flare. Specifically, I was ranting about J.J. Abrams’ penchant for gratuitous lens flare, using the Star Trek reboot as an example, when all of a sudden the conversation was interrupted by our CEO.

“It’s bullshit!” he shouted.

(He wasn’t talking about the lens flare.)

Our CEO wielded a PhD in Computer Science and was using it to fight with Star Trek, or more specifically its transporters. He went on to monologue about Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, explaining that the position and the velocity of an object couldn’t both be measured exactly, at the same time, even in theory, and in the highly improbable likelihood that somehow someone did manage to circumvent the uncertainty principle, they’d still have to contend with the no-cloning theorem, which stated that it was impossible to create an identical copy of any unknown quantum state.

Here is what I heard: “Teleportation is impossible because physics.”

Now let’s be clear, I’m not a scientist. What I am is a product man. I build and market technology products for a living. Having bet my career on startups, my brain senses opportunity where others see impossibility. In fact, whenever anyone tells me I can’t do something, my mind automatically appends a “yet” to the end of their statement.

My favorite author growing up was Larry Niven. This fact is germane here because the first thing that came to mind during the CEO’s aforementioned monologue was a Niven essay entitled Exercise in Speculation: The Theory and Practice of Teleportation, part of a collection called All The Myriad Ways. Niven’s spiel on teleportation explored the pros and cons of the myriad ways (see what I did there) we might achieve commercialized human teleportation. The science was interesting, but what I remembered latching on to as a kid was his take on the anthropological impact of teleportation.

Niven’s itch was akin to what angered my CEO: If we discount for Star Trek’stechnobabble and defer to actual physics, then every time Scotty teleported Captain Kirk he was actually killing him in one place and “printing him out” somewhere else.

This destructive teleportation variant of the twin maker trope has been explored almost ad nauseum. Though there are several good stories and movies that address the existential problems teleportation could introduce should it ever become a viable transportation mechanism, none have adequately presented a marketable solution to that problem — at least none that might pass muster with an anthropologist.

How come nobody ever discussed how society might come to adopt teleportation in the first place, I wondered. Science fiction seemed to lack a scientifically plausible teleportation mechanism that could be deemed safe enough to commercialize in the near future.

So, I decided to solve the teleportation problem — with marketing!

In my day job as a chief marketing officer, when I’m asked to play out this kind of go-to-market strategy problem, I use a game theory methodology known as Wardley mapping; an augmentation of value chain mapping. The “product” came in the form of the Punch Escrow. It’s the MacGuffin that makes teleportation safe and thus both scientifically and anthropologically plausible. The value of mapping in predicting the future is based in pragmatism. If we can assess what components of tech will become commoditized in society, we can envision innovations that build on those commodities in alignment with basic needs, making their commercialization more plausible.

Consulting with a real life quantum physicist, I used the Wardley mapping approach to understand the teleportation problem and then solve for it: When someone teleports, the Punch Escrow is a chamber in which the they are held — in escrow — until they safely arrive at their final destination. That way if anything goes wrong during teleportation, the “conductor” could just cancel the trip and the traveler would safely walk out at the point of origin as if nothing happened.

But how does one market this scenario given the very obvious twin maker issue?

A capitalist society will always want to get from point A to point B faster and on-demand. I don’t think anyone would argue that safe teleportation is a highly desirable mode of transport. The Punch Escrow makes it possible, and International Transport (the company behind commercial teleportation in the 22nd century) effectively brands it as “safe.” To wit, critics of early steam locomotives avowed that the human body was not meant to move faster than fifty miles an hour. Intelligent people with impeccable credentials worried that female passengers’ uteruses might be ejected from their bodies as trains accelerated! Others suspected that a human body might simply melt at such speeds. You know what? It didn’t matter. People wanted to get from point A to point B faster, train tycoons marketed to that desire with implied underpinnings of safety, and trains took off.

Just as locomotives didn’t transform our world into a dystopia, it stands to reason teleportation won’t either. Yes, people die in train accidents (not because their organs fly out of their orifices, I should add), but the benefit is anthropologically perceived as greater than the risk. Same goes with commercial flight. Of course you’ve heard the axiom, “If God had meant man to fly…” — that didn’t seem to stop droves of us from squeezing into small flying metal tubes in the sky. Today, we face similar fears with autonomous vehicles, but I’m certain that the marketers will calm our nerves. I believe within a generation the notion of manual driving will seem as esoteric a means of getting around as a horse and carriage. Maybe the same will be said of teleportation a century from now?

whatever.scalzi.com/2017/07/25/the-big-idea-tal-m-klein/

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