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mostlysignssomeportents · 2 years ago

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Tesla's Dieselgate

Elon Musk lies a lot. He lies about being a “utopian socialist.” He lies about being a “free speech absolutist.” He lies about which companies he founded:

https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-cofounder-martin-eberhard-interview-history-elon-musk-ev-market-2023-2 He lies about being the “chief engineer” of those companies:

https://www.quora.com/Was-Elon-Musk-the-actual-engineer-behind-SpaceX-and-Tesla

He lies about really stupid stuff, like claiming that comsats that share the same spectrum will deliver steady broadband speeds as they add more users who each get a narrower slice of that spectrum:

https://www.eff.org/wp/case-fiber-home-today-why-fiber-superior-medium-21st-century-broadband

The fundamental laws of physics don’t care about this bullshit, but people do. The comsat lie convinced a bunch of people that pulling fiber to all our homes is literally impossible — as though the electrical and phone lines that come to our homes now were installed by an ancient, lost civilization. Pulling new cabling isn’t a mysterious art, like embalming pharaohs. We do it all the time. One of the poorest places in America installed universal fiber with a mule named “Ole Bub”:

https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-one-traffic-light-town-with-some-of-the-fastest-internet-in-the-us

Previous tech barons had “reality distortion fields,” but Musk just blithely contradicts himself and pretends he isn’t doing so, like a budget Steve Jobs. There’s an entire site devoted to cataloging Musk’s public lies:

https://elonmusk.today/

But while Musk lacks the charm of earlier Silicon Valley grifters, he’s much better than they ever were at running a long con. For years, he’s been promising “full self driving…next year.”

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/09/herbies-revenge/#100-billion-here-100-billion-there-pretty-soon-youre-talking-real-money

He’s hasn’t delivered, but he keeps claiming he has, making Teslas some of the deadliest cars on the road:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/06/10/tesla-autopilot-crashes-elon-musk/

Tesla is a giant shell-game masquerading as a car company. The important thing about Tesla isn’t its cars, it’s Tesla’s business arrangement, the Tesla-Financial Complex:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/11/24/no-puedo-pagar-no-pagara/#Rat

Once you start unpacking Tesla’s balance sheets, you start to realize how much the company depends on government subsidies and tax-breaks, combined with selling carbon credits that make huge, planet-destroying SUVs possible, under the pretense that this is somehow good for the environment:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/14/for-sale-green-indulgences/#killer-analogy

But even with all those financial shenanigans, Tesla’s got an absurdly high valuation, soaring at times to 1600x its profitability:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/15/hoover-calling/#intangibles

That valuation represents a bet on Tesla’s ability to extract ever-higher rents from its customers. Take Tesla’s batteries: you pay for the battery when you buy your car, but you don’t own that battery. You have to rent the right to use its full capacity, with Tesla reserving the right to reduce how far you go on a charge based on your willingness to pay:

https://memex.craphound.com/2017/09/10/teslas-demon-haunted-cars-in-irmas-path-get-a-temporary-battery-life-boost/

That’s just one of the many rent-a-features that Tesla drivers have to shell out for. You don’t own your car at all: when you sell it as a used vehicle, Tesla strips out these features you paid for and makes the next driver pay again, reducing the value of your used car and transfering it to Tesla’s shareholders:

https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/6/21127243/tesla-model-s-autopilot-disabled-remotely-used-car-update

To maintain this rent-extraction racket, Tesla uses DRM that makes it a felony to alter your own car’s software without Tesla’s permission. This is the root of all autoenshittification:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/#kitt-is-a-demon

This is technofeudalism. Whereas capitalists seek profits (income from selling things), feudalists seek rents (income from owning the things other people use). If Telsa were a capitalist enterprise, then entrepreneurs could enter the market and sell mods that let you unlock the functionality in your own car:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/06/11/1-in-3/#boost-50

But because Tesla is a feudal enterprise, capitalists must first secure permission from the fief, Elon Musk, who decides which companies are allowed to compete with him, and how.

Once a company owns the right to decide which software you can run, there’s no limit to the ways it can extract rent from you. Blocking you from changing your device’s software lets a company run overt scams on you. For example, they can block you from getting your car independently repaired with third-party parts.

But they can also screw you in sneaky ways. Once a device has DRM on it, Section 1201 of the DMCA makes it a felony to bypass that DRM, even for legitimate purposes. That means that your DRM-locked device can spy on you, and because no one is allowed to explore how that surveillance works, the manufacturer can be incredibly sloppy with all the personal info they gather:

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/29/tesla-model-3-keeps-data-like-crash-videos-location-phone-contacts.html

All kinds of hidden anti-features can lurk in your DRM-locked car, protected from discovery, analysis and criticism by the illegality of bypassing the DRM. For example, Teslas have a hidden feature that lets them lock out their owners and summon a repo man to drive them away if you have a dispute about a late payment:

https://tiremeetsroad.com/2021/03/18/tesla-allegedly-remotely-unlocks-model-3-owners-car-uses-smart-summon-to-help-repo-agent/

DRM is a gun on the mantlepiece in Act I, and by Act III, it goes off, revealing some kind of ugly and often dangerous scam. Remember Dieselgate? Volkswagen created a line of demon-haunted cars: if they thought they were being scrutinized (by regulators measuring their emissions), they switched into a mode that traded performance for low emissions. But when they believed themselves to be unobserved, they reversed this, emitting deadly levels of NOX but delivering superior mileage.

The conversion of the VW diesel fleet into mobile gas-chambers wouldn’t have been possible without DRM. DRM adds a layer of serious criminal jeopardy to anyone attempting to reverse-engineer and study any device, from a phone to a car. DRM let Apple claim to be a champion of its users’ privacy even as it spied on them from asshole to appetite:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

Now, Tesla is having its own Dieselgate scandal. A stunning investigation by Steve Stecklow and Norihiko Shirouzu for Reuters reveals how Tesla was able to create its own demon-haunted car, which systematically deceived drivers about its driving range, and the increasingly desperate measures the company turned to as customers discovered the ruse:

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/tesla-batteries-range/

The root of the deception is very simple: Tesla mis-sells its cars by falsely claiming ranges that those cars can’t attain. Every person who ever bought a Tesla was defrauded.

But this fraud would be easy to detect. If you bought a Tesla rated for 353 miles on a charge, but the dashboard range predictor told you that your fully charged car could only go 150 miles, you’d immediately figure something was up. So your Telsa tells another lie: the range predictor tells you that you can go 353 miles.

But again, if the car continued to tell you it has 203 miles of range when it was about to run out of charge, you’d figure something was up pretty quick — like, the first time your car ran out of battery while the dashboard cheerily informed you that you had 203 miles of range left.

So Teslas tell a third lie: when the battery charge reached about 50%, the fake range is replaced with the real one. That way, drivers aren’t getting mass-stranded by the roadside, and the scam can continue.

But there’s a new problem: drivers whose cars are rated for 353 miles but can’t go anything like that far on a full charge naturally assume that something is wrong with their cars, so they start calling Tesla service and asking to have the car checked over.

This creates a problem for Tesla: those service calls can cost the company $1,000, and of course, there’s nothing wrong with the car. It’s performing exactly as designed. So Tesla created its boldest fraud yet: a boiler-room full of anti-salespeople charged with convincing people that their cars weren’t broken.

This new unit — the “diversion team” — was headquartered in a Nevada satellite office, which was equipped with a metal xylophone that would be rung in triumph every time a Tesla owner was successfully conned into thinking that their car wasn’t defrauding them.

When a Tesla owner called this boiler room, the diverter would run remote diagnostics on their car, then pronounce it fine, and chide the driver for having energy-hungry driving habits (shades of Steve Jobs’s “You’re holding it wrong”):

https://www.wired.com/2010/06/iphone-4-holding-it-wrong/

The drivers who called the Diversion Team weren’t just lied to, they were also punished. The Tesla app was silently altered so that anyone who filed a complaint about their car’s range was no longer able to book a service appointment for any reason. If their car malfunctioned, they’d have to request a callback, which could take several days.

Meanwhile, the diverters on the diversion team were instructed not to inform drivers if the remote diagnostics they performed detected any other defects in the cars.

The diversion team had a 750 complaint/week quota: to juke this stat, diverters would close the case for any driver who failed to answer the phone when they were eventually called back. The center received 2,000+ calls every week. Diverters were ordered to keep calls to five minutes or less.

Eventually, diverters were ordered to cease performing any remote diagnostics on drivers’ cars: a source told Reuters that “Thousands of customers were told there is nothing wrong with their car” without any diagnostics being performed.

Predicting EV range is an inexact science as many factors can affect battery life, notably whether a journey is uphill or downhill. Every EV automaker has to come up with a figure that represents some kind of best guess under a mix of conditions. But while other manufacturers err on the side of caution, Tesla has the most inaccurate mileage estimates in the industry, double the industry average.

Other countries’ regulators have taken note. In Korea, Tesla was fined millions and Elon Musk was personally required to state that he had deceived Tesla buyers. The Korean regulator found that the true range of Teslas under normal winter conditions was less than half of the claimed range.

Now, many companies have been run by malignant narcissists who lied compulsively — think of Thomas Edison, archnemesis of Nikola Tesla himself. The difference here isn’t merely that Musk is a deeply unfit monster of a human being — but rather, that DRM allows him to defraud his customers behind a state-enforced opaque veil. The digital computers at the heart of a Tesla aren’t just demons haunting the car, changing its performance based on whether it believes it is being observed — they also allow Musk to invoke the power of the US government to felonize anyone who tries to peer into the black box where he commits his frauds.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/edison-not-tesla/#demon-haunted-world

This Sunday (July 30) at 1530h, I’m appearing on a panel at Midsummer Scream in Long Beach, CA, to discuss the wonderful, award-winning “Ghost Post” Haunted Mansion project I worked on for Disney Imagineering.

Image ID [A scene out of an 11th century tome on demon-summoning called 'Compendium rarissimum totius Artis Magicae sistematisatae per celeberrimos Artis hujus Magistros. Anno 1057. Noli me tangere.' It depicts a demon tormenting two unlucky would-be demon-summoners who have dug up a grave in a graveyard. One summoner is held aloft by his hair, screaming; the other screams from inside the grave he is digging up. The scene has been altered to remove the demon's prominent, urinating penis, to add in a Tesla supercharger, and a red Tesla Model S nosing into the scene.]

Image: Steve Jurvetson (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tesla_Model_S_Indoors.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

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centrally-unplanned · 2 years ago

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Annals of US city governance, we are finally embracing the radical notion of trash bins:

The new rule is part of the city’s broader plan to move trash into containers, a simple yet revolutionary change in New Yorkers’ trash habits. To do so could easily cost the city hundreds of millions of dollars over the next decade. City officials must buy new specialized trash trucks and stationary containers, while also increasing the frequency of residential trash collection in large swaths of the city.

"Specialized trash trucks and stationary containers" how will we develop this frontier technology??

Other cities like Barcelona, Buenos Aires and Singapore have already embraced trash containerization.

Genius sentence, the way its structured to imply only the best of the best in modern cities have piloted this crazy idea. Soon NYC will be on the elite list of cities not dumping bags of trash openly on the streets! If you find yourself asking "wait why has this not happened yet", well:

City officials found that it was possible to use trash containers on 89 percent of the city’s residential streets, but it would require removing 150,000 parking spots

So, yup.

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nitrosodiumgameanglia · 4 months ago

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Why Sound Design is so Important in Games

Sound design is a key point in games, though it is often neglected in college games where we do a lot of work without speakers on. Having some good audio in a game really helps elevate the experience beyond just being a solely visual medium, as much as audio changed silent movies. The games with the best sound design are often those with realistic sound systems, or ones that elicit the desired emotional response. Good sound design can make you terrified to turn a corner; it can make you cry in the game's saddest moments; it can turn a level from a selection of rendered polygons to a truly real-seeming experience. Obviously our game's sound design isn't that deep, but it doesn't add nothing to the game either.

The first game I am looking at is Thief: The Dark Project. This game came out in 1998, but I would say it still holds up today with a few patches to make it run on modern systems. The game has a unique stealth system that lets you hide in shadows, but the main thing we're looking at is the sound. Different surfaces are different levels of loudness when walked on - carpet is perfect for sneaking, but metal catwalks are loud and clank under your feet. This isn't just set dressing either, because enemies are more likely to hear you if you're clanking about on steel grating. Then there is the ambient sound, where you can hear nearby guards muttering or whistling (in a great bit of game design, this helps you keep track of them when they're out of sight), torches crackle, and strange ambient screeches echo down hallways. The ambient soundtracks in each level are interesting, and use a lot of electronic synthesiser noises, which gives them an 80s John Carpenter vibe. They help make the environments foreboding, but also help tell the story in a way that 90s graphics simply could not. For example, as you enter the deepest annals of an ultra-religious Hammerite compound, the ambient whirr of machinery gets replaced by solemn choir and hymns. Caves can have dripping water and the occasional crumbling rock, while more twisted forest environments have the endless chirring of insects and chuckling from unseen nymphs and satyrs. The actual sound technology is also really good for the time, because it supports sound cards, even though they aren't used too much anymore. With them enabled, you can listen against a door and gauge how big a room is based on the echo of the guard's voices inside. Even for today that is fairly advanced, and as far as I know, not present in many other games.

youtube

The next game I am looking at is Hunt: Showdown. It is a 2018 horror shooter taking place at the end of the 19th century, where you play as a bounty hunter trying to kill various cryptids and monsters. The game uses the Cry Engine, so it already looks good on a visual front, but the audio is also phenomenal. Most of the quality comes from its directional sound system, which is so specific you can tell where players are through buildings, which is useful for lining up shots when you don't have a good visual read on their whereabouts. Every gun also has a unique sound and echo, which allows an educated player to guess what weapon has been fired, from what direction, and even from what distance. The way that the game calculates sound waves travelling is a very unique and realistic system; a gunshot ringing out over an open field will be louder and clearer than a gunshot fired in the middle of the thick backwoods. I assume this is a built-in feature for CryEngine V because I know of no other games with this level of realism when it comes to sound - I can only assume it calculates for windspeed and other factors and then runs the sound effect through various in-engine filters.

youtube

Finally, I will look at The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. One of the lesser-mentioned qualities of this game is its environmental sound design, which help the various holds of Skyrim seem like realistic places. The wind whistles about your ears, giving you a good sense of your player's altitude and the temperature around you. In the mornings and evenings, you can hear crickets chirring and birds chirping. The rushing of rivers sounds different depending on the course - swelling into a roar of white noise in the rapids, but dissipating to a trickle when the river becomes a lazy stream. Then there are more ethereal sounds, like the creaking of the aurora borealis on winter nights. Towns have their own soundscapes also, with the creaking wood of huts and the crackle of flaming torches. The ambient music by Jeremy Soule (the same guy behind the LOTR soundtrack) also adds a lot to the game's atmosphere, with majestic orchestras making even a simple walk through the valleys a much more emotive and captivating experience. However, you can play with the sound turned off and just listen to the layered soundscapes.

youtube

From my research, I can see that the main theme that makes a soundscape good is attention to detail. Not just having one sword hit sound, for example, but several, altered depending what material you strike, and echoing with a different resonance depending on where you are. I would say that with Wallpaper of the Mind, we have achieved this as best we can in four weeks, with the different footstep surfaces. The sounds I myself provided were more stock quality, but it doesn't matter, because how sound is used mechanically is just as important. I will make a blog post on this soon.

#Youtube #indie games #gamedev #indie dev #game dev stuff #game development #game developers #devlog

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boxboxluckybird · 22 days ago

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List of articles and books that are about Motorsports or Motorsports adjacent

Idk if y'all will have total access to these- I get to them through my university's library database- I'll give titles so you can find them- and if i have links to pdfs, ill put them in too

i will continue to update this list as i continue to read more books and articles :3 also i need to go on my uni laptop to get all the crash and safety books i have on there to put on this list

Motogp-

article about Franco Morbidelli and Joann Zarco's crash in 2020- gives full analysis with the numbers and a discussion of everything (link) Name of Article: Descriptive Kinematic Analysis of the Potentially Tragic Accident at the 2020 Austrian MotoGP Grand Prix Using Low-Cost Instruments: A Brief Report by Marco Gervasi et. al. (2020-10)

article about the myth surrounding Valentino Rossi- (it is in french but there is also an italian version) Name of Article: Valentino Rossi : la construction médiatique du mythe by Charlotte Moge pp. 363-383 (DOI link)

Book Chapter Valentino Rossi: A Uniquely British Look at an Italian Motorsport Legend by Sean Bell in "More than Cricket and Football: International Sport and the Challenge of Celebrity" (2016)

this one is all about the economy and how motogp affects tourism in Indonesia-

Do Satisfied Visitors Intend to Revisit a Large Sports Event? A Case Study of a Large Sports Event in Indonesia by Pahrudin Pahrudin Link to PDF (Article) (2024-12)

Formula One-

Book about racism in sports- (i used this as a main secondary source when researching historic racism in f1) it has an article about Lewis Hamilton and other racism in formula one Title- Race, Racism and Sports Journalism by Neil Farrington (2012) (i recommend his other book about racism in sports social media)

"Technology Innovations and Consumption of Formula 1 as a TV Sport Product" by Christopher Schneiders (2022-09)

Analyzing Brand Strategy on an International Scale: The Sponsorship Performance Cycle in Formula One Racing by Jonathan A Jensen, et. al. (2024-09) (Article)

When Success Is Rare and Competitive: Learning from Others' Success and My Failure at the Speed of Formula One by Micheal A Lapre (2022-12) (Article)

Green Light or black flag? Greenwashing environmental sustainability in Formula One and Formula E by Annals of leisure research(2025-01) (Article)

Technological Discontinuities and Competitive Advantages: A Historical Perspective on Formula 1 Motor Racing 1950-2006 by Mark Jenkins (2010-07) (Article)

Sandwiched Between Sport and Politics: Federation Internationale de l'Automobile, Formula 1, and Non-Democratic Regimes by Hans Erik Naess (2017-05) (Article)

The age-productivity gradient: Evidence from a sample of F1 drivers by Labour economics (2011-08) (Article) pdf link

Book Chapter Chapter 10: Aryton Senna, Alain Prost, and the Spector of Death by Becquer Medak-Seguin, et. al. in "Cultural Exchanges Between Brazil and France" (2016)

Smoke and mirrors: new tobacco products and Formula 1 by The Lancet (2019-05) (Article)

NASCAR-

"If It Ain't Rubbin', It Ain't Racin'" Article about Nascar by Lawrence and Barbara Hugenburg (2008-08)

A comparison of college football and NASCAR consumer profiles: Identity formation and spectatorship motivation by Shaughan A Keaton (2015-03) (Article)

"Sport, Spectacle, and NASCAR Nation: Consumption and the Cultural Politics of Neoliberalism" by Joshua Newman (2011)

Book Chapter Louise Smith: The First Lady of Racing by Suzanne Wise in "South Carolina Women: Their Lives and Times" (Volume 3) (2012)

Book Chapter The Most Southern Sport on Earth: NASCAR and the Unions by Dan Pierce in "Southern Cultures : The Fifteenth Anniversary Reader" (2008)

Special interest ones-

"Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness" by Ewan Thomas- pdf- link (2022)

"The future of motorsports: business, politics and society" by Hans Erik Naess, et. al. (2023)

"The Green Transition in Motorsport: Purpose, Politics, and Profit" by Hans Erik Naess, et. al. (2023)

More than "just a driver": A study of professional women racecar drivers' agency in motorsport by Jill Kochanek (2021-01) (Article)

'What on Earth are They Doing in a Racing Car?': Towards an Understanding of Women in Motorsport by Jordan J.K. Matthews, and Elizabeth C.J. Pike (2016-09) (Article)

tag list: @raikkonens @caleb-is-existing @books4ever03

#sage rants </3 #motogp #formula 1 #formula one #nascar #motorsports #women in motorsports #valentino rossi #franco morbidelli

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jilyawards · 9 months ago

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The Jily Fandom Rec List 2024 is a compilation of Jily stories our readers want to keep an eye on for this year's awards.

JULY

Genius (completed, 4.3k) by @petalsthefish. Rated M.

After Lily breaks her iPhone, she finds herself at the Genius Bar on Valentines Day, and an old flame is there to help her in all things technology and romance.

That Summer (WIP, 13.3k as of 31 July 2024) by @thecasualauthor. Rated T.

In which James and Lily spend the summer in a house by the sea. (and fall in love in the process)

to dream the impossible dream (completed, <1k) by @emeralddoeadeer. Rated T.

From Tumblr prompt asks: “I called you at 2am because I need you.”

Only Nineteen (completed, 2.2k) by @petalsthefish. Rated M.

Lily and James discuss what to do about Lily’s unplanned pregnancy during a forced holiday up north after a mission went wrong. My prompt for the May jilychallenge was “Skinny Dipping” and I decided to make it skinny dipping but with angst because I needed a good cry

The Bath of a Lifetime (completed, <1k) by @chierafied. Rated M.

James wanted a stiff drink, a hot bath and to lounge on the couch by the fireplace. The drink seemed unlikely. The couch was a possibility. But he’d definitely be getting that bath.

star light, star bright (completed, 9k) by @gigglesandfreckles-hp. Rated G.

It's seventh year, somehow, that clinches the case, claiming the grand prize in the annals of Lily Evans's misfortunes. Because, as it turns out, harbouring feelings for James Potter while also navigating the precarious terrain of friendship with him is a fate crueller than death. [or: James keeps accidentally touching Lily and she's about to lose her mind]

December's Valentine (WIP, 16.2k as of 31 July 2024) by @stonecoldhedwig. Rated E.

Sometimes, a one-night-stand with a guy off Tinder is just that: a one-night-stand. No lasting feelings, no strings attached. It's the kind of thing that's easy to get your head around when you're trying to get your heart around the end of a relationship. Sometimes, it's not that simple. Sometimes, you're a journalist, and you get assigned to write a piece on an up-and-coming restaurateur, who just might be that one-night-stand from Tinder that you can't stop thinking about. And sometimes, to make matters worse, the two of you get snowed in... **** Or: Lily shags James, and thinks she'll never see him again. Right? Wrong.

The Smallest Men Who Ever Lived. (completed, 7.3k) by ninazenikcult. Not rated.

The time has come for Lily to leave Cokeworth, and with it, two of the smallest men who ever lived; her father and Severus Snape. But leaving the town where she has been trapped for years and exchanging it for an idyllic new life with James proves more difficult than first thought.

My Life's Blood (completed, 18.2k) by @ohmygodshesinsane. Rated E.

James Potter, Duke of Peverell, lingers on the outer edges of the Prince Regent Regulus's court, steadfastly plotting his overthrow. When the Prince Regent's new bride, the lovely Lily of Innsbruck, arrives, a formal introduction leads to James's realisation that the folk tales are true -- and that if he fails to contrive a way to stay at the princess-to-be's side, their lives will be forfeit.

Check out the previous months' recs too: January, February, March || April || May || June

#jily fandom rec list 2024

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ancient-qveen · 2 months ago

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EMPEROR in Decibel magazine issue no. 14 (December 2005)

The making of Emperor’s In the Nightside Eclipse

[…] Released from prison in December 2002 after serving nine years and four months’ time, Faust joins fellow ex-Emperors Samoth, Ihsahn (guitar/ vocals/keys) and Tchort (bass) on the eve of a sudden Emperor reunion (featuring Samoth, Ihsahn and longtime Emperor drummer Trym) to recount the making of one of the most historically fascinating and sonically influential albums in the annals of extreme metal…

[ancient-qveen: This is one of my fav emperor interviews and so i've just personally highlighted some stuff in blue for me to look back on. And i've just highlighted their names in red and added a couple pictures to help break up the huge walls of text :3 enjoy]

What are your most vivid memories of the recording sessions for In the Nightside Eclipse?

Faust: There were a lot of practical things we had to organize, because Bergen is like 500 kilometers from Oslo, and we were very young at the time, and we didn’t really know how to organize ourselves. But we managed to get hold of a car and we managed to actually get an apartment in Bergen. The car we used was from Samoth’s father, and I was the only one who had a driving license.

Ihsahn: For me personally, it was kind of a turning point. We had recorded demos before, and also the first Emperor EP, but that was in a very cheap studio. This time we went to Bergen and Grieghallen, and recorded in a big studio with an experienced sound engineer and everything. I was only 17 at the time, so I couldn’t get into the pubs, and since I had to do the guitars and the vocals and all the keyboards, I spent a lot of time in that studio. When the other guys finished their parts, they could always go to the local rock pub and hang out. I’d generally been very interested in sound engineering, and because I couldn’t get into the pubs, I’d spend my nights with Pytten, the engineer, learning about recording and studio technology.

Tchort: I remember Varg Vikernes walking around the studio in his chain mail eating ice cream. I had just turned 19 and was starting to drink coffee for the first time. Grieghallen was huge—the drums were set up in a big hall and that’s where I recorded the bass as well. Before, I had only been inside a small basement studio, and this was a hall where big orchestras could be recorded live.

Samoth: I had just turned 19 that summer, and I remember Bård and I terrorizing the Bergen neighborhoods in my dad’s old Ford Econovan. [Laughs] We had a lot of fun during those weeks, but also a lot of work. We were quite inexperienced as far as being in the studio, and this was really the first big recording for any of us. There were some magic musical moments in the studio, for sure, but I don’t remember too many concrete incidents from the actual studio session. I remember more about the time, the atmosphere and the total rebellious freedom I felt back then.

Were all the songs completely written beforehand, or were parts improvised in the studio?

Ihsahn: Oh, yes, we’ve always had all the material ready before we go into the studio. I would say it was pretty well rehearsed. We never booked time before we were actually finished writing the songs.

Samoth: The song structures were all done, but a lot of the symphonic keyboard parts were actually made in the studio. We didn’t have a keyboard player at the time, so we never rehearsed with keyboards prior to the recording. Of course, certain parts we already had planned the keyboard lines for, and some riffs were made with keyboard lines in mind to begin with, but the overall symphonic and atmospheric layering on Nightside was pretty much composed by Ihsahn during the recording session.

Tchort: As far as I remember, most of the material was written beforehand, but the intro for the song “Towards the Pantheon” was made during our stay in the apartment next to the studio.

The album was co-produced by Pytten, who also produced Mayhem’s De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas and the first Burzum albums. What was he like?

Ihsahn: He was the sound engineer at Grieghallen Studios, and still is, as far as I know. He also recorded several Immortal and Enslaved albums. Grieghallen came to be the studio where everybody recorded their first black metal albums. But Pytten wasn’t a metal guy at all—he was just a very good sound engineer. He used to work for Norwegian television, as a host on a youth program. He’s a very nice guy and a very skilled guy, socially. He related very well to all these extreme types— all these young black metallers who were coming in. He took it very seriously.

Faust: I have only good memories about him. He was very well educated in his work, and very relaxed. In the past, Grieghallen wasn’t one of my favorite studios, but I think he put a trademark sound on each recording—a very organic and dynamic sound. I think he was a part of getting the right sound for In the Nightside Eclipse. At the time, he was already famous in Norway as a musician— in the ’80s he was in a band called Blind Date. His daughter is one of the most famous handball players in Norway now—she’s a very known icon for sports, and I think she was voted most sexy female in a magazine back in 2002 or something. We met her, because she would always drop by the studio when bands were recording there. I think she was maybe a year or two younger than us.

Tchort: Everyone seemed to “know” Pytten from a TV show he used to be on, but I didn’t recognize him. He was cool to work with, kinda relaxed. I remember he didn’t like the bass I brought, so I borrowed one of his for the recording. I don’t think his bisexual daughter was into handball—or at least not known—back then, as she was probably only 15 or 16 at the time.

Five of the songs on Nightside actually have the word “Emperor” in the lyrics. Did you think of Emperor as a character, or was it purely self-referential?

Ihsahn: [Laughs] I didn’t realize that. You know, I can’t really remember all that was put into the lyrics at that time, because some of them are mixed with stuff that Mortiis wrote before he left the band. He wrote lyrics for “I Am the Black Wizards” and “Cosmic Keys [to My Creations and Times]” and then me and Samoth wrote some lyrics together. I wrote the lyrics to “Inno a Satana” and “The Majesty of the Nightsky” on my own. So it’s all a big mixture, but I think they were partly drawn out from some of the concepts that Mortiis was working on at the time. The rest was pure imagination. I think there was a lot of running through forests [laughs]—it’s all very epic. I suspect we used the word “landscape” more than once as well.

Samoth: I think we saw “Emperor” as a sort of entity. We didn’t really ever use the word “Satan” much in our lyrics. We’ve always used a lot of metaphors and symbolism. Emperor became a metaphor for our own entity, for the dark lord, for the devil, for the strong and the mighty. There could be several ways to see it, you know.

Tchort: I don’t think I read the lyrics until I was holding the finished album in my hands. I came from a different part of Norway, so the few times we met were for rehearsals — I didn’t witness the birth of the songs and the lyrics behind them.

There’s an essay in the appendix to the book Lords of Chaos that compared black metal as a Scandinavian youth phenomenon to the Norse legend of the Oskoreien, “the ride of the dead,” which was also reflected in a Norse folk custom that involved groups of young males terrorizing villages on horseback while wearing masks, making noise, etc. Are you referring to Oskoreien in “Into the Infinity of Thoughts” when the lyrics go, “In the name of the almighty Emperor I will ride the Lands in pride, carrying the Blacksword at hand, in warfare”?

Ihsahn: Until you say it now, I’ve never heard that comparison. To be honest, my only connection to Oskoreien is more or less the famous Norwegian painting—I’ve seen the original at the national museum here in Norway. It’s also on the cover of the Bathory album Blood Fire Death, which is my favorite black metal album. But I never read Lords of Chaos. I know I did an interview with that guy, and I think I’m referenced in the book, but I never bothered to read it. I’ve never had any interest in that side of it—all the hysteria, and what everybody else wanted it to be. Of course, in the beginning, we knew all the people involved, but the whole idea of a unified black metal scene was just very unfamiliar to how I experienced it. I’ve always been detached from that and, how do you say? . . . kind of self-centered about my own work. I’ve never cared very much for the whole scene and its development.

Was there anything in particular that influenced the lyrics—books, films, etc.?

Samoth: Emperor expressed many things, both internal and external, during the years. The power of Norwegian nature was always a source of inspiration for us, especially in the earlier years. We found great motivation in the vast forests and mighty mountains, and would actively be a part of it and also use its visual strength in our artistic vision. We also had a strong fascination for anything ancient, such as the Viking era. Ihsahn and I would spend a lot of time brainstorming on concept ideas, and at one point we had this whole concept of a dark fantasy world going. It was all very visual, I think. We drew a lot of influences from artwork related to Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. And keep in mind, this was 10 years before you could buy a “Lord of the Rings burger” at Burger King—quite a different vibe, so to say. We also had a period where we had a strong fascination for the whole Dracula myth and everything related to Transylvania, the Carpathian Mountains, the dark corners of Eastern Europe and folklore. For example, a film like Nosferatu—both the 1979 one and the 1922 silent movie—was a big part of our ambiance and visual influences.

Ihsahn: The lyrics represent very much the imaginary world we were occupied with. I never really read The Lord of the Rings or any of the things that everybody in that scene was reading at the time. I steered away from that, but the words we used and the fantasy imagery were still part of the whole way we thought and played. It doesn’t really mean much in particular on this album, but it does capture the essence of the atmosphere of that time.

There weren’t that many black metal bands in existence at the time you recorded In the Nightside Eclipse. Were you enjoying the freedom of what was essentially a new art form, or did you feel restricted in any way by an ideology you felt you had to adhere to?

Samoth: I don’t think we felt too restricted. When we first started Emperor, we stripped everything down from what we were used to with our death metal outfit, Thou Shalt Suffer. Our aim was to go back to basics and sound like Celtic Frost, Tormentor from Hungary and Bathory . . . lots of Bathory! But as we got more serious with Emperor, we started to develop a more personal sound in addition to the obvious black metal influences. It was based a lot around the use of keyboards and the whole atmospheric and symphonic aspects. It became our thing, and we just took that further and further, really. But at the same time, it was very important for us to make sure we still maintained a certain spirit in the sound.

Faust: Black metal had existed for many years, but this was the second wave, and ours was the more symphonic black metal. We knew—or we started to realize—that it would be something different, but I don’t think we felt we were caught by any ideology because we pretty much did what we wanted.

Tchort: Black metal was still very new to me, and since I hadn’t been in the scene—I came from a death metal band—I didn’t know much about the ideology, so I certainly didn’t feel any restrictions. I understood the passion for atmosphere and even melodies that was put into the music, but besides that, I tried to play my part well and not be concerned about anything else.

Ihsahn: We were so young, and we had no idea what kind of impact this whole thing was going to have. I suppose now black metal has become a world-renowned phenomenon, but at the time, it was so small and so totally underground, we were just occupied with trying to do our best. I mean, I know Pytten used a lot of big reverbs, so it all sounded very majestic, which is maybe how he interpreted it. For In the Nightside Eclipse, we also kind of built further on the use of keyboards to try and give it more of an orchestral feel.

Not many other black metal bands were using keyboards very extensively back then.

Ihsahn: Yeah—I think that came from when me and Samoth played in several bands prior to Emperor. We used keyboards in [Thou Shalt Suffer], so that kind of developed into a more progressive death metal. At the time we did the first Emperor EP, we wanted to use some layers of keyboards, and that kind of evolved on In the Nightside Eclipse—but even on that record the keyboards are very simplified, compared to later releases. At the time, there were no bands using keyboards in the same fashion.

Faust: Emperor and Enslaved were the only bands with guys who could actually play the synth and the piano. Up ’til then, all the use of synth in black metal had been made out of very minor knowledge of the instrument—just mak- ing the easiest chords and stuff. But Ihsahn and Ivar from Enslaved were able to create good melodies on the synth and use it as an instrument along with the guitar and bass and drums. I remember people in other bands would see Ihsahn and say, “Shit, this guy really knows how to play the synth.” It wasn’t really that common back then, so I think we realized that we were a lot different from bands like Immortal and Burzum, who played a very primitive kind of black metal back then.

Tchort hadn’t been in the band very long at that point.

Faust: Tchort replaced Mortiis, who was kicked out or asked to leave in the beginning of 1993, after the recording of the mini-album.

Samoth: After Mortiis left, we played without a bass player for a while, and then actually Ildjarn [who had been in Thou Shalt Suffer] played bass for us, but that didn’t end up being anything permanent. I think we hooked up with Tchort during the winter of ’93 [early ‘93]. We left for our first tour in June, which was the U.K. tour with Cradle of Filth, and by that time he had already been with us for a little bit.

Tchort: I felt comfortable with the band and its other members, especially since we had just spent two weeks together touring in the U.K., but recording the album and being in a professional studio was a new experience for me. I had only recorded a demo before that. I didn’t have more than a handful of rehearsals before we went to the U.K. to play—and then we went straight to the studio.

Ihsahn: [Laughs] When we went to the U.K. to tour with Cradle of Filth, they were our support act!

The album was recorded in July of 1993, but wasn’t mixed until the following year. Why the delay?

Faust: Well, basically because half of the band ended up in prison. I was arrested one month after the recording, as was Samoth, who was released not long afterwards. My charges were a bit more serious, so I stayed in prison and didn’t take part in the mixing. I wrote down my point of view on a piece of paper for them to take into consideration during the mixing, but it was mostly about the drums and stuff.

Samoth: There was a lot of stress that fall with Bård and I being arrested and taken into custody. I was, however, let out again some few weeks later, but Bård didn’t come out until nearly 10 years later. Fucking crazy, eh? There was a lot of turbulence within the scene around this time, and this pushed the whole thing back quite a bit. I believe that Grieghallen was also booked for a while, so we had to wait. Eventually we found the focus and got studio time booked for the mix. It was just Ihsahn and I who went for the mix; I remember us sleeping in a rehearsal room in Oslo, and taking the early morning train to Bergen. I believe we gave Candlelight all production parts by late fall of ’94. They had it pressed in ’94, but it didn’t really reach most distributors and shops until early ’95, so that’s why many see it as a ’95 release. It was a very frustrating time, as we lost our drummer, the stable lineup, and the whole Norwegian scene was in turmoil and we weren’t really sure what lay ahead for us as band. But in retrospect, I actually think the whole delay of the album made it an even stronger release. We sent out advance tracks to a lot of friends, and the tracks spread around the world and created a great expectation for the release.

Tchort: I also remember Ihsahn was sick during the recording of his vocals and he was spitting blood during the sessions. He did some vocals that were replaced with new vocal recordings later on—when he got better—so I think that contributed to the delay as well. They had to go back to the other side of the country to redo the vocals and do some more keyboards. He probably couldn’t do any clean vocals when he was sick, either.

Bård, were you nervous about getting caught by the police while you were record- ing the album?

Faust: Not really, because a lot of time had passed [since the murder], so I didn’t really think that much about it. I think it was a bit of luck that we were able to finish the recording before both Samoth and I got caught.

Varg Vikernes killed Euronymous shortly after you finished recording In the Nightside Eclipse. He also lived in Bergen. Did you see him often during the recording sessions?

Tchort: He came by and we spent some time at his apartment, too. I think I took a shower there and used his bubble bath. [Laughs] The killing happened later on, but I can’t recall exactly when Euronymous was murdered.

Samoth: It was just weeks after we returned from the studio that all hell broke loose in Norway. It’s weird to think about, really. If all the controversy with the police had happened a little sooner, this album would have never been made and the future of Emperor would probably have taken a whole different turn. We went to see Varg several times during the recording sessions. Even though we knew there was some tension between him and Euronymous, we didn’t really involve ourselves in that and didn’t really think that it would come to such extremes only weeks later. I have a classic memory of Varg stopping by the studio in his chain mail and standing in the recording room enjoying a huge ice cream with a smirk on his face.

At what point did you decide to dedicate the album to Euronymous?

Samoth: Sometime during ’94, I’m sure, when we pieced together the artwork for the album. It was natural for us to do so, as Euronymous had always been very supportive of what we were doing and he was also a friend of ours, especially to Bård. He wanted to sign us to his label, Deathlike Silence Productions, but we had already done the mini-album with Candlelight and made the decision to stick with them.

Ihsahn: I think it felt very natural at the time, since he was so recently deceased, and we were releasing an album at that time. Bård was working very much with Euronymous at [Euronymous’ infamous record shop] Helvete, so it felt right at the time.

Faust: Yeah, I reckon that I was the one closest to Euronymous. I worked in his record shop and also at some point lived together with him. I think it was a consensus some time after the murder when things finally started coming down to ground again. No one thought about not dedicating the album to him. It was the most obvious thing in order to commemorate his memory.

Where did you pose for the photos on the back cover?

Faust: Apart from Tchort, I think they were all taken outside of Samoth’s place—in the woods—but at different times.

Tchort: My photo was taken at a local cemetery. I was later arrested because I stole that stone angel with the blood covering it and placed it in my bedroom.

Ihsahn: I remember there was no Photoshop or anything like that at that time. If you look at my photo, there’s this dark background, and that was a very manual cut and paste. I’m cut out with scissors and glued onto a different back- ground. I think it was the same with the goat in Samoth’s picture. We had to be very handy at that point—we didn’t have all the technology that people have today. We took our own photos, too—we didn’t have any contact with photographers or designers, you know? Things are almost too easy these days.

How did you decide on Necrolord’s cover art?

Samoth: I’d seen some of his work, like Grotesque’s Incantation mini-LP and Dissection’s The Somberlain, and liked his style. This was before he took off as an artist, I guess, and before long, every black metal album had a blue-toned art piece as a front cover. [Laughs] Originally, an ex-girlfriend of mine had tried to draw something for us, and from that we had a sketch of the tower that can be seen on the cover. Later, Ihsahn and I pieced together a bunch of ideas, [including] the tower and incorporating the death rider from the first mini-album, and we sent that to Necrolord. He did an awesome job and totally got our ideas and the vibe we were looking for at the time. I think to this day it stands out as a classic black metal album cover.

Faust: I thought it was fantastic—the perfect visual for the music—even though today it might seem a bit cheesy. It’s a little bit mysterious, and maybe a bit Lord of the Rings.

Which song holds up the best for you personally?

Ihsahn: I think both “Cosmic Keys” and “I Am the Black Wizards” hold up well still—especially “I Am the Black Wizards,” which was popular from the beginning. But usually my favorites from the albums we’ve made have hardly ever been the same as everybody else’s. I think my favorite from this album is probably “In the Majesty of the Nightsky” because it has some musical elements that I feel were very well thought out for the time.

Samoth: Actually, I think the whole album holds up still. Of course, songs like “I Am the Black Wizards” and “Inno a Satana” have both gone down as “classics,” but the whole album has a very real and natural flow, I think.

Faust: I think “Inno a Satana” is the perfect black metal hymn. That track manifests itself as the personification of symphonic black metal. I think it’s a really, really good track—it’s what constitutes symphonic black metal for me.

In the Nightside Eclipse is the record many people would consider the first fully realized symphonic black metal album.

Faust: Yeah, I think it’s the first album that consciously tried to make black metal symphonic. Ihsahn has always been very good at orchestrating music, and I think that everybody who has a relationship to symphonic black metal always points back to In the Nightside Eclipse as maybe the first album that inspired him or her to start making that kind of music. That’s a huge compliment.

How long after its release did you realize the influence/impact it had?

Ihsahn: I remember the first time we went on a European tour with Bal-Sagoth. They were actually older than us, but they said they started playing more black metal–style music—with keyboards—because of the first Emperor EP. We felt that was a bit strange, but later on we were in England and we met the guys from Cradle of Filth, who claimed that In the Nightside Eclipse was the album that everybody had. But the impact Emperor, as a band, has had on this black metal scene—and to some extent extreme metal—has been most noticeable after we quit the band. But I haven’t given much thought to how influential we were, or how influenced we were by others, or any of the more superficial aspects of it.

Tchort: I am still to this day overwhelmed by the impact the album seemed to have on the scene. I travel more than ever now, with my bands [Green Carnation, Carpathian Forest], and in the darkest and most uncommon places of the world, I meet with people who approach me and tell me how much that album means to them.

Samoth: It wasn’t really until after [1997’s] Anthems [to the Welkin at Dusk] was released that we started getting a lot of front covers and bigger media attention, and then Emperor really started to become larger and taken more seriously in general. Looking at Nightside, I think there was a lot of buzz and hype about the album even before it came out—with advance tracks spreading around the world, there was a lot of anticipation in the underground about the release. When it finally came out, it quickly became an album that led to a lot of influences in the growing black metal scene—or black metal boom, rather.

Faust: I corresponded with Samoth while I was in prison, and I had access to magazines and stuff, so I saw that black metal was growing bigger and bigger. The album sold very well, and I saw that people were inspired by it, but I’m not sure I realized how big Emperor were before I started to see the tours they did and things like that. I was a little bit hidden from all that attention when I was in prison, so I didn’t really see or understand it before I started to come out again on weekends to meet people and go to gigs again. I think it was in 1998 that I had the possibility of actually going out, but it wasn’t very often—maybe six times a year or something for 12 to 24 hours. I was given that opportunity because it’s a part of the Norwegian prison rehabilitation program. I remember going to a Dimmu Borgir gig in Oslo in 1998, and it was packed with a lot of people and young girls who I wouldn’t really imagine going to a black metal show. That’s when I saw how big it had become.

Do you feel differently about the album now than you did at the time you recorded it?

Ihsahn: At the time we recorded it, I was of course very proud of it. By the time we did a couple of more albums, it’s always like you wanna go back and change things you think you could’ve done better. [Laughs] By now I feel like that about all our albums. But I see it as a product of that time, where we were musically, and how old we were. It makes me feel like an old man at times, because it’s such a long time ago, and there are so many kids coming up these days that have the album, but were barely born when we recorded it. But I’ll be 30 in October, so I guess I’m not that old.

Tchort: For a period of time, I didn’t like it so much, mostly because of the production. But I’ve probably only heard it three or four times since it was recorded. The last time I heard it was earlier this year, after a show I had done with Carpathian Forest. There was an after-show party and I was lying on a couch when they played the whole album, and it struck me that I really got a kick out of the music. And I got that old vibe again . . .

Faust: Well, I do realize that if it was released today it would be a very cheesy album, but that’s something you can’t take into consideration, because it was recorded in 1993 and released one and a half years later. I don’t really listen to the album anymore—it’s been many years since I actually put it on, but I can appreciate the moods and atmospheres in the music and I can understand that a lot of people like it because it was a very good album at the time. But for me, today, there wouldn’t be any point in trying to re-create that album or to establish a band to continue in that vein.

Samoth: The album was something totally fresh for us when we were in the middle of making it, but today I see it almost in a historical sense—as a part of my life that also had great impact on how my life has become today, actually. We didn’t really know that we had made a groundbreaking album. We knew it was a good album that had something personal and unique to it in our genre, but we never really saw it becoming one of the classic black metal albums of all time. Even saying this now is weird, but it makes me really proud of what we managed to put together. We took our music and everything around it very seriously. Those times were very special. We were quite young and very active in a rather obscure underground movement. It almost seems like another life looking back at it now.

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vgprintads · 1 month ago

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'Virtual 33'

[MISC] [AUSTRALIA] [MAGAZINE] [1995]

A Hankin & Co was formed in 1955 by Alec Hankin, a pioneering figure in the Australian amusement industry. Alec began his venture by operating amusement games in the Newcastle area, north of Sydney, New South Wales, establishing a foundation that would eventually lead to the creation of one of Australia's most iconic pinball companies. As the business grew, Alec’s sons, Peter and David, joined the company, and by 1965, they had opened their first amusement centre. Over time, Hankin expanded its footprint, establishing centres across Eastern Australia. When Alec passed away in 1974, he left behind a legacy that his sons would carry forward, culminating in the creation of Hankin Pinball. In 1978, David Hankin launched Hankin Pinball with a bold vision of producing high-quality pinball machines that would stand out in both the Australian and international markets. At a time when the pinball industry was dominated by a few major players, Hankin’s entry was ambitious, to say the least. He brought together a team of skilled engineers, designers, and artists—many of whom were local talents, including the son of the local bank manager, who became a major designer for the company. As the founder and driving force of Hankin Pinball, David Hankin was instrumental in creating some of the most iconic Australian-made pinball machines, leaving a lasting legacy in the world of arcade gaming. His vision, entrepreneurial spirit, and dedication to quality helped establish Hankin Pinball as a significant player in the global pinball market, even if only for a brief period. (...)Like many companies in the arcade industry, Hankin Pinball Australia faced challenges as the market shifted towards home gaming consoles in the 1980s. The rapid advancement of video game technology and the increasing popularity of home entertainment systems for instance Playstation and Nintendo led to a decline in the demand for traditional arcade machines. Despite producing some of the most memorable pinball machines of the era, Hankin struggled to compete in the changing landscape and eventually ceased production, marking the end of an era. However, the story of Hankin Pinball did not end there. In recent years, there has been a resurgence of interest in pinball, driven by nostalgia and a renewed appreciation for the craftsmanship and gameplay that define these machines. Collectors and enthusiasts have sought out Hankin's machines, restoring them to their former glory and sharing them with new generations of players. This revival has seen Hankin Pinball Australia regain its place in the annals of arcade history, with its machines celebrated as vintage treasures that encapsulate the spirit of a bygone era. ~Stephen Smith, Kineticist ("Australian Pinball: The Hankin Story", 9/18/2024)

Source: Cash Box International, January 1995 || Gaming Alexandria; Dustin Hubbard (via the Internet Archive)

#gaming #advertising #virtual 33 #hankin #a hankin & co #hardware #australia #arcade #1995

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formulas-bitch · 21 days ago

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For you, Always ll

4.7k words

the long awaited part 2 is out

the next day Emma woke up early in the hotel room, her mind racing with the tasks ahead. The curtains were drawn open, revealing a breathtaking view of the New York City skyline, the early morning light casting a warm glow over the skyscrapers. She had barely slept, her excitement and nerves keeping her awake. The luxurious hotel suite was a stark contrast to her tiny apartment back home, but she had no time to enjoy it.

On the day of departure, Emma remained busy with final preparations, ensuring Mr. Sainz's briefcase contained all necessary items. Upon his curt command, they headed to the waiting car. Despite her nerves, the excitement of the New York trip dominated her thoughts.

After a quick shower and a cup of hotel coffee, she began organizing the documents and materials they would need for the conference. Mr. Sainz had been up late the night before, working on a last-minute proposal that could make or break the company's future. She had to be ready to support him at a moment's notice, ensuring that he had everything he needed to close the deal.

As they arrived at the conference center, Emma's stomach fluttered with excitement. The bustling lobby was filled with powerful figures from the corporate world, their names etched in the annals of business history. She had studied their faces and strategies in textbooks and articles, and now she was standing among them, a silent observer in the grand theater of commerce.

SUMMARY^1: On the first day in New York, Emma remained busy preparing for the conference in their luxurious hotel suite. Despite her excitement, she was anxious and determined to support Mr. Sainz, who had worked late on a crucial proposal. Once ready, they left for the conference center where she felt both intimidated and thrilled to be among renowned corporate figures.

Mr. Sainz's schedule was packed with back-to-back meetings and presentations, leaving no room for error. She followed him like a shadow, her eyes and ears open for any cue that might indicate his needs. His intensity was palpable, his focus unwavering, and Emma felt a strange kinship with him in their shared commitment to excellence.

As the day progressed, Emma found herself juggling more responsibilities than she had ever imagined. From ensuring Mr. Sainz had the right documents at the right times to navigating the unfamiliar conference layout, she was stretched to her limits. Yet she remained unflappable, a trait that she knew was essential in this high-stakes environment.

Upon arriving in New York, Emma started her day in the luxurious hotel suite, preparing for the conference with Mr. Sainz's last-minute proposal. At the bustling conference center, she supported him through a demanding schedule, handling any issues that arose with poise and efficiency.

The conference room was abuzz with chatter and the faint hum of technology as Mr. Sainz took the stage. She watched from the side, her eyes darting between him and the audience. His presentation was flawless, captivating the room with his charisma and knowledge. As he concluded, the room erupted into applause, and she couldn't help but feel a sense of pride in her small part in his success.

During the breaks, Emma was bombarded with questions and requests from other attendees, all eager to get a moment with Mr. Sainz. She juggled them with ease, her voice calm and professional, despite the chaos around her. She could feel the weight of her responsibilities pressing down, but she didn't dare show it. This was her chance to shine, to prove that she belonged in this high-stakes world.

The final session of the day was the most critical. The proposal that Mr. Sainz had been working on was about to be presented to the board of a potential acquisition. The room was packed with investors and industry leaders, their eyes all on Mr. Sainz. Emma had spent hours memorizing the details, ready to jump in if needed.

As the presentation began, she could see the tension in Mr. Sainz's shoulders. This was the moment that could change everything for the company. For him. For her. Her palms grew slick with nerves as she clutched her notebook. She had never seen him this focused, this…human.

At the conference, Mr. Sainz delivered a flawless presentation, with Emma supporting him from the sidelines. She handled the chaotic breaks with poise, fielding questions and managing his schedule. The tension grew during the final session, where their potential acquisition's board would hear the critical proposal, leaving Emma feeling the gravity of the situation and Mr. Sainz's human side.

Throughout the conference, Emma capably managed Mr. Sainz's schedule and interactions with eager attendees. The pivotal final session saw her supporting him during a tense presentation to the board of a potential acquisition target. The pressure was intense, but Emma remained professional, witnessing Mr. Sainz's human side amidst the corporate stakes.

On their first day in New York, Emma prepared for the conference with a mix of excitement and anxiety, meticulously packing Mr. Sainz's briefcase and adhering to his instructions. She demonstrated her competence throughout the conference, efficiently supporting Mr. Sainz in various demanding scenarios, including his successful presentation to a board of potential acquisition targets. Her professionalism remained steadfast, even allowing her to see a glimpse of Mr. Sainz's humanity amidst the high-stakes corporate environment.

The Q&A session that followed was a minefield of probing questions and skeptical glances. Yet Mr. Sainz remained unflappable, his answers sharp and precise. Emma held her breath, watching as the tension in the room grew with each passing second. And then, it was her turn to shine. A board member had a question about a minor detail in the proposal that Mr. Sainz had overlooked. She stepped forward, her voice clear and confident.

"Mr. Sainz has covered all the major points, but for that particular detail, you're looking at the projected growth rates for the third quarter, which are outlined on page 17," she said, handing him the correct document. The room fell silent for a beat before erupting into nods of approval. Mr. Sainz shot her a quick, appreciative glance, and she felt a warmth spread through her chest.

The rest of the day passed in a blur of handshakes and business cards. As they left the conference center, the cold New York air hit her like a wall, jolting her out of her professional haze. "Miss Hathaway," Mr. Sainz said, his tone softer than usual, "I need to prepare for our meeting tomorrow. Please make sure my schedule is clear this evening."

During the Q&A, Emma confidently corrected a detail Mr. Sainz overlooked, impressing the board and the audience. Her quick-thinking earned her an appreciative glance from Mr. Sainz. As the conference wrapped up, she faced the cold reality of New York and his request for a clear evening schedule to prepare for the next critical meeting.

During the intense Q&A session, Emma stepped up to save the day by providing a critical document and confidently answering a question Mr. Sainz had overlooked, impressing the audience. The successful presentation led to a flurry of networking, and Mr. Sainz, impressed, requested her assistance in preparing for the next day's meeting, emphasizing the importance of her role.

With excitement and pressure weighing on her, Emma met Mr. Sainz's expectations for their trip to New York, handling final preparations and supporting him at a high-stakes conference. Her poise and efficiency during the critical presentation and networking sessions earned Mr. Sainz's respect, highlighting the significance of her role and her potential for growth within the company.

"Of course, Mr. Sainz," she replied, her voice steady. She had done her homework on the potential acquisition's CEO, had all the relevant data at her fingertips. But as they entered the hotel suite, the weight of the evening ahead settled on her shoulders. The private dinner with the acquisition CEO, Mr. Charles Leclerc, and his team was crucial, and she knew she had to be on top of her game.

While Mr. Sainz showered and changed, Emma set the stage. The dining table was laid with the finest linens, silverware gleaming under the soft glow of the chandelier. She had ordered a bouquet of flowers that matched the company's branding and had the caterers set up an elegant spread of New York's finest cuisine. The suite buzzed with the sound of final preparations as she checked the name tags and seating chart for the umpteenth time.

When Mr. Leclerc and his team arrived, Emma greeted them with a professional smile, her heart racing. She had studied their profiles, their company's history, and the potential points of contention in the acquisition. As they mingled over drinks, she made sure to circulate, offering insights and facilitating introductions. She was the invisible force keeping the evening running smoothly, her eyes and ears everywhere.

Ahead of the private dinner with the potential acquisition CEO, Charles Leclerc, and his team, Emma prepared meticulously, setting the stage with attention to detail to reflect their company's brand. Her thorough research and poised demeanor allowed her to play a crucial role in the evening's networking, ensuring a successful and smooth experience for all involved, showcasing her invaluable support to Mr. Sainz.

Dinner began with a tension that could have been sliced with a knife. The small talk was forced, the laughter a little too loud. But as the wine flowed and the food was served, the atmosphere began to ease. She watched Mr. Sainz, his charm and charisma on full display as he wove through the conversation with the grace of a seasoned diplomat. The room grew warmer, the smiles more genuine.

Emma hovered at the edges, refilling glasses and taking notes. She felt a strange kinship with Mr. Leclerc's personal assistant, a young man named Lando, who seemed as overwhelmed by the evening's formality as she was. They exchanged glances, and she found herself smiling at his jokes, feeling a spark of camaraderie amidst the corporate sharks.

As the main course was served, Mr. Leclerc leaned back in his chair and addressed the room. "Now that we've had a chance to relax, let's talk business," he said, his eyes sharp and focused. The conversation turned serious, and Emma could see the gears turning in Mr. Sainz's mind. He was laying out their strategy, laying the groundwork for the merger that could make or break the company.

Her heart raced as she listened, her hand poised over her notepad. She had never felt so involved in something so important. Every word, every gesture, every pause in the conversation felt significant. She took detailed notes, her mind racing with possible scenarios and contingencies.

The dinner with Mr. Leclerc's team started tense but gradually became more relaxed as the evening progressed. Emma bonded with Lando, Mr. Leclerc's assistant, sharing the pressures of their roles. When business discussions commenced, she remained observant and diligent, taking detailed notes to support Mr. Sainz in their critical strategizing for the potential merger, which carried significant stakes for the company's future. .

Mr. Leclerc nodded thoughtfully, his gaze flicking from Mr. Sainz to the platter of food in the center of the table. "Your proposal is intriguing," he said, his voice measured. "But we have concerns about the integration process."

Emma felt a rush of adrenaline. This was it, the moment she had been preparing for. She glanced at Mr. Sainz, who nodded almost imperceptibly. She cleared her throat. "If I may, I've compiled a detailed integration plan that addresses many of the concerns you may have," she said, sliding the document across the table. "It includes timelines, resource allocation, and potential synergies between our teams."

Mr. Leclerc raised an eyebrow, his interest piqued. He picked up the plan and began to read, the tension in the room palpable. The other dinner guests watched him, their expressions a mix of curiosity and skepticism. Emma's heart raced as she watched him turn the pages, her mind racing through the countless hours she had spent perfecting the strategy.

Finally, Mr. Leclerc looked up, his eyes meeting hers. "Miss Hathaway, this is quite comprehensive," he said, a hint of surprise in his tone. "Your insights are impressive."

Emma felt a warmth spread through her chest. "Thank you, Mr. Leclerc. I've done my best to anticipate any potential hurdles and provide viable solutions."

During dinner, Mr. Leclerc voiced concerns about the integration process. At Mr. Sainz's prompt, Emma presented a detailed plan she had prepared, which impressed Mr. Leclerc. Her comprehensive strategy, which included timelines and synergy possibilities, was met with a positive reception, acknowledging her significant contributions to the potential merger discussion and highlighting her growing professional acumen.

At the private dinner with potential acquisition CEO Charles Leclerc, Emma's meticulous preparation and poise helped facilitate a successful networking experience. Bonding with Lando, she gained an ally and shared insights on their roles. During business discussions, she addressed concerns with a well-crafted integration plan, impressing Mr. Leclerc and solidifying her importance in the company's future.

Mr. Sainz's eyes remained on her, his expression inscrutable. She knew he was watching her closely, gauging her performance. "Indeed, Miss Hathaway has been instrumental in our preparations for this potential merger," he said, his voice smooth. "Her dedication and attention to detail have been invaluable."

Emma's cheeks flushed with pride. It wasn't often that Mr. Sainz offered such public praise, and she felt it was a sign that she was truly part of the team. She took a sip of water, trying to keep her nerves at bay. The room was silent as Mr. Leclerc continued to read through the plan, his expression unreadable.

Finally, he looked up. "This is quite thorough," he said, his eyes meeting hers. "You've clearly put a lot of thought into this."

Emma nodded, her heart racing. "Thank you, Mr. Leclerc. I believe that a well-managed integration is crucial for the success of the merger."

Mr. Leclerc leaned back in his chair, his gaze still on her. "I agree," he said, his tone measured. "And your insights on potential synergies between our companies are quite insightful. It seems we have a sharp mind working behind the scenes."

Emma felt a smile tug at the corners of her mouth, but she kept her expression neutral. "Thank you, Mr. Leclerc. I've learned a lot from Mr. Sainz."

Mr. Leclerc expressed his appreciation for the detailed integration plan, acknowledging Emma's insights and contributions to the potential merger. Mr. Sainz publicly recognized her efforts, which bolstered her confidence and reinforced her significance within the company. This positive reception from Mr. Leclerc indicated a possible shift in the dynamics of the negotiation.

The conversation flowed around her as the men discussed the finer points of the plan. She listened intently, noting any questions or concerns they had and making mental notes for potential areas of improvement. The tension in the room had dissipated, and the air was filled with a cautious optimism.

As the dinner drew to a close, Mr. Leclerc's team began to exchange business cards and pleasantries, their expressions a mix of professional courtesy and cautious excitement. Emma gathered the empty dishes, her mind racing with thoughts of the work that still needed to be done. There was no time to rest on her laurels; the real work was just beginning.

Mr. Sainz stood, signaling the end of the evening. "Thank you all for your time tonight," he said, his handshake firm and confident. "We look forward to a productive partnership in the future."

Emma collected the last of the dishes and hurried back to the kitchen to thank the staff. The chef, a burly man with a thick accent, nodded gruffly. "You did good," he said, a rare smile breaking through his stern demeanor. "Your boss, he's a tough cookie, but he's fair."

Emma nodded, feeling a mix of pride and anxiety. "Thank you," she said, her voice sincere. "I'm just trying to learn as much as I can."

"You're doing more than that," the chef said, his eyes twinkling. "You're making a difference."

The dinner concluded with a sense of optimism for the merger's future. As the guests departed, Mr. Leclerc's team showed excitement and Mr. Sainz expressed anticipation for a successful partnership. The chef's rare compliment reinforced Emma's impact, confirming that she was not only learning but making a significant difference in the company's high-stakes negotiations.

The words echoed in her mind as she made her way back to the hotel, the city lights casting a warm glow on the pavement. The weight of the evening's events settled heavily upon her shoulders, but she felt a sense of accomplishment that she had never experienced before. She had faced her fears and come out on top.

Once back in her room, Emma flopped onto the plush hotel bed, her mind racing with the day's events. She had seen a side of Mr. Sainz she had never expected, a side that was driven not just by power and ambition, but by a deep desire for success that was almost palpable. It was intoxicating, and she found herself eager to be a part of it.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the buzz of her phone. It was an email from Mr. Sainz, his words succinct and to the point. "Good work tonight, Miss Hathaway. You've proven to be a valuable asset. Expect more responsibilities on this trip." The message was cold, but the underlying praise warmed her like a cup of hot tea on a winter's day.

The next few days were a blur of meetings and presentations. Emma barely had time to explore the city, her schedule packed to the brim with company engagements. Yet she thrived under the pressure, her organizational skills becoming sharper with each passing hour. She anticipated Mr. Sainz's needs before he even had to ask, ensuring that every meeting went without a hitch.

Returning to the hotel, Emma reflected on her growth and the unexpected side of Mr. Sainz she had witnessed. His curt email acknowledged her value to the company, hinting at increased responsibilities ahead. Despite the hectic schedule, she excelled in her role, handling all meetings and preparations flawlessly and growing more adept at anticipating his needs, which brought her a sense of achievement and belonging in the corporate world.

The dinner's success and Mr. Leclerc's appreciation highlighted Emma's growing significance in the merger negotiations. Mr. Sainz's public recognition boosted her confidence, and her private interactions with Mr. Leclerc's team revealed a newfound respect. Her performance during the dinner earned Mr. Sainz's private praise via email, suggesting a bright future with increased responsibilities within the company.

One evening, as they returned to the hotel, Mr. Sainz paused at the elevator bank. "Miss Hathaway," he said, his voice a low rumble, "I need you to join me for a meeting with Max Verstappen tomorrow morning. It's crucial for the merger's success."

Emma's heart skipped a beat. Max Verstappen was known throughout the industry as a shrewd businessman with a reputation for being tough to read. She knew that this was not a meeting to be taken lightly. "Of course, Mr. Sainz," she replied, trying to keep her voice steady.

The next morning, she was in the hotel lobby at 6 AM sharp, her briefcase packed with all the necessary documents. Mr. Sainz was already waiting for her, his eyes scanning the lobby with an intensity that made her feel like he could see through walls. "Good," he said, nodding at her. "Let's go."

The meeting with Max Verstappen took place in a high-rise office with a view of the city that made her dizzy. The room was sparse, with only a large mahogany desk and a few leather chairs. The air was thick with anticipation as they waited for Verstappen to arrive. When he did, his handshake was firm and his smile was cold. He was not a man to be underestimated.

The story progresses with Mr. Sainz assigning Emma a crucial meeting with industry heavyweight Max Verstappen. Despite the early hour and the gravity of the situation, she meets Mr. Sainz's expectations and maintains her composure. The meeting's setting is described as intimidating, setting the stage for the tough negotiations to come.

Emma sat quietly as Mr. Sainz began the negotiations, her eyes darting between the two CEOs. Verstappen's questions were sharp and precise, cutting through the air like a scalpel. Each time he spoke, Mr. Sainz would glance at her, and she would provide the necessary information without missing a beat. Despite the early hour, she felt alive, her mind sharp and her instincts honed.

As the meeting progressed, she noticed a subtle shift in Mr. Verstappen's demeanor. His initial skepticism began to give way to curiosity, and she could see the wheels turning in his mind. The tension in the room was palpable, but she remained calm, her voice steady as she presented their case. The stakes were high, and she knew that one misstep could mean the difference between victory and defeat.

Mr. Verstappen leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers. "Your proposal is intriguing, Mr. Sainz," he said slowly. "But I need more than just numbers to make such a significant decision."

Emma's heart raced as Mr. Sainz turned to her. "Miss Hathaway, would you mind summarizing the strategic advantages of this partnership for us?"

Emma took a deep breath, gathering her thoughts. She had studied the proposal inside out and knew every detail by heart. She spoke with confidence, her voice clear and measured. "Mr. Verstappen, the merger would not only combine the financial strengths of both companies but also create a dynamic synergy in terms of innovation and market reach. Our combined resources would allow us to penetrate new markets and develop cutting-edge technologies that could revolutionize the industry."

Mr. Verstappen's gaze remained on her, his expression unreadable. She could feel the weight of his scrutiny, but she didn't falter. She continued, highlighting the potential cost savings and the strategic alignment of their companies' visions. As she spoke, she watched the tension in the room begin to ease, replaced by a sense of possibility.

When she finished, Mr. Verstappen nodded thoughtfully. "You make a compelling argument, Miss Hathaway," he said. "Your insights are quite valuable."

Emma felt a rush of pride, but she knew better than to let it show. "Thank you, Mr. Verstappen," she said, her voice cool and professional. "I'm just trying to support Mr. Sainz in the best way I can."

Mr. Verstappen's eyes narrowed slightly. "Indeed," he said, his voice a low rumble. "And you're quite good at it."

The rest of the meeting was a blur of numbers and strategies, but Emma remained focused, her mind racing to keep up. When they finally left the office, she felt drained, but also exhilarated. They had made progress, significant progress, and she had played a key role in it.

Back in the hotel room, Mr. Sainz turned to her, his expression unreadable. "You did well today," he said, his voice gruff. "Your preparation and poise were crucial."

Emma's cheeks flushed with pride. It was the closest thing she had ever gotten to a compliment from him, and it meant the world to her. "Thank you, Mr. Sainz," she murmured.

He nodded, his gaze lingering on her for a moment before he turned back to his laptop. "Get some rest," he said. "Tomorrow, we'll need to finalize the terms of the merger. It's going to be another long day."

Emma nodded, her mind still racing. As she lay in bed that night, she couldn't help but feel a sense of excitement. Despite the challenges she faced, she was making an impact. She was not just an intern; she was a key player in a high-stakes game of corporate chess.

The next morning, the final day of the trip, she woke up with a newfound energy. She knew that today was the culmination of all their hard work. The tension in the air was thick as they all gathered in the hotel conference room, ready to hammer out the final details of the merger agreement.

Mr. Sainz began the meeting with a brief summary of the previous discussions. "We've made significant progress," he said, his voice calm and steady. "But there are still a few key points we need to address."

Emma took her seat, her eyes flicking over the documents spread out before her. She felt a knot of anxiety in her stomach but pushed it down. This was her moment to shine.

The negotiations with Max Verstappen were intense, a dance of words and numbers that required precision and finesse. Each time a question was posed, she had an answer at the ready, her preparation serving her well. The hours ticked by, the tension in the room growing with each passing minute.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Mr. Verstappen leaned back in his chair, a thoughtful look crossing his face. "Your proposal is interesting, Mr. Sainz," he said, his eyes flicking to Emma. "And your assistant here has certainly made a compelling case."

Mr. Sainz nodded, his expression unreadable. "Miss Hathaway is indeed an invaluable part of the team," he said, a hint of pride in his voice.

Emma felt a rush of adrenaline. This was it, the moment of truth. She could almost taste the victory, but she knew better than to let her guard down. The final details were discussed with a fervor that was both thrilling and nerve-wracking. Each point was dissected, analyzed, and debated with the finesse of seasoned diplomats.

The room was a symphony of shuffling papers and murmured agreements. The air was charged with anticipation as they approached the endgame. Mr. Verstappen's expression grew more thoughtful with each point addressed, and she could see the wheels turning in his head. The stakes were higher than ever, but she remained poised, her thoughts clear and focused.

"Very well," Mr. Verstappen said finally, his voice cutting through the tension like a knife. "I believe we have the framework of a deal."

Emma's heart skipped a beat. It was happening. The merger was on the cusp of becoming a reality.

"Thank you, Mr. Verstappen," Mr. Sainz said, extending his hand. "We look forward to a prosperous partnership."

Emma watched as the two CEOs shook hands, the air in the room charged with the promise of something monumental. The rest of the team erupted into applause, the tension dissipating like mist in the sun. She felt a rush of relief and excitement mingle within her, and she couldn't help but join in the celebration.

Mr. Sainz turned to her, his stern features softening slightly. "You've done well, Miss Hathaway," he said. "Your work here has been instrumental in sealing this deal."

Emma couldn't help but smile. It was the first time he had acknowledged her efforts so openly, and it felt like a victory in itself. "Thank you, Mr. Sainz," she replied, her voice a mix of excitement and relief.

The final paperwork was signed, and the handshakes exchanged. The merger was official. As the team began to disperse, Mr. Sainz turned to her. "Miss Hathaway, I need you to organize a gala to celebrate our new partnership. It must be nothing short of spectacular."

Emma's heart raced at the thought of planning such an extravagant event. "Of course, Mr. Sainz," she said, her voice a mix of excitement and trepidation.

The gala was to be held in the city's most prestigious venue, the Grand Hotel, a place of opulence and grandeur that was the epitome of corporate excess. She had a month to pull it off, a feat that seemed impossible given her limited experience and the high expectations of Mr. Sainz and the board members. But she was determined not to let anyone down.

Emma dove into the planning with a fervor that surprised even herself. She spent her days and nights scouring through event planning guides, making countless calls to vendors, and tasting a never-ending parade of hors d'oeuvres. Each detail was meticulously considered, from the lighting to the floral arrangements, the music to the seating chart. She knew that every element had to be perfect to reflect the gravity of the merger.

The days turned into a blur of appointments and decisions, but Emma felt alive. This was what she had dreamed of when she accepted the internship – being at the center of it all, her brain working at full capacity, her skills truly tested. The weight of her responsibilities was heavy, but she carried it with a newfound confidence that grew with each successful step she took.

TAGLIST: mangodreamsicle

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#cl16 x reader #max verstappen x you #carlos sainz x reader #carlos sainz jr x reader #carlos sainz x y/n #carlos sainz x you #charles leclerc x y/n #max verstappen x reader #max verstappen x y/n #f1 x reader #carlos sainz imagine

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mostlysignssomeportents · 11 months ago

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Utah’s getting some of America’s best broadband

TOMORROW (May 17), I'm at the INTERNET ARCHIVE in SAN FRANCISCO to keynote the 10th anniversary of the AUTHORS ALLIANCE.

Residents of 21 cities in Utah have access to some of the fastest, most competitively priced broadband in the country, at speeds up to 10gb/s and prices as low as $75/month. It's uncapped, and the connections are symmetrical: perfect for uploading and downloading. And it's all thanks to the government.

This broadband service is, of course, delivered via fiber optic cable. Of course it is. Fiber is vastly superior to all other forms of broadband delivery, including satellites, but also cable and DSL. Fiber caps out at 100tb/s, while cable caps out at 50gb/s – that is, fiber is 1,000 times faster:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/why-fiber-vastly-superior-cable-and-5g

Despite the obvious superiority of fiber, America has been very slow to adopt it. Our monopolistic carriers act as though pulling fiber to our homes is an impossible challenge. All those wires that currently go to your house, from power-lines to copper phone-lines, are relics of a mysterious, fallen civilization and its long-lost arts. Apparently we could no more get a new wire to your house than we could build the pyramids using only hand-tools.

In a sense, the people who say we can't pull wires anymore are right: these are relics of a lost civilization. Specifically, electrification and later, universal telephone service was accomplished through massive federal grants under the New Deal – grants that were typically made to either local governments or non-profit co-operatives who got everyone in town connected to these essential modern utilities.

Today – thanks to decades of neoliberalism and its dogmatic insistence that governments can't do anything and shouldn't try, lest they break the fragile equilibrium of the market – we have lost much of the public capacity that our grandparents took for granted. But in the isolated pockets where this capacity lives on, amazing things happen.

Since 2015, residents of Jackson County, KY – one of the poorest counties in America – have enjoyed some of the country's fastest, cheapest, most reliable broadband. The desperately poor Appalachian county is home to a rural telephone co-op, which grew out of its rural electrification co-op, and it used a combination of federal grants and local capacity to bring fiber to every home in the county, traversing dangerous mountain passes with a mule named "Ole Bub" to reach the most remote homes. The result was an immediately economic uplift for the community, and in the longer term, the county had reliable and effective broadband during the covid lockdowns:

https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-one-traffic-light-town-with-some-of-the-fastest-internet-in-the-us

Contrast this with places where the private sector has the only say over who gets broadband, at what speed, and at what price. America is full of broadband deserts – deserts that strand our poorest people. Even in the hearts of our largest densest cities, whole neighborhoods can't get any broadband. You won't be surprised to learn that these are the neighborhoods that were historically redlined, and that the people who live in them are Black and brown, and also live with some of the highest levels of pollution and its attendant sicknesses:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/10/flicc/#digital-divide

These places are not set up for success under the best of circumstances, and during the lockdowns, they suffered terribly. You think your kid found it hard to go to Zoom school? Imagine what life was like for kids who attended remote learning while sitting on the baking tarmac in a Taco Bell parking lot, using its free wifi:

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/09/02/elem-s02.html

ISPs loathe competition. They divide up the country into exclusive territories like the Pope dividing up the "new world" and do not trouble one another by trying to sell to customers outside of "their" turf. When Frontier – one of the worst of America's terrible ISPs – went bankrupt, we got to see their books, and we learned two important facts:

The company booked one million customers who had no alternative as an asset, because they would pay more for slower broadband, and Frontier could save a fortune by skipping maintenance, and charging these customers for broadband even through multi-day outages; and

Frontier knew that it could make a billion dollars in profit over a decade by investing in fiber build-out, but it chose not to, because stock analysts will downrank any carrier that made capital investments that took more than five years to mature. Because Frontier's execs were paid primarily in stock, they chose to strand their customers with aging copper connections and to leave a billion dollars sitting on the table, so that their personal net worth didn't suffer a temporary downturn:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/04/frontiers-bankruptcy-reveals-cynical-choice-deny-profitable-fiber-millions

ISPs maintain the weirdest position: that a) only the private sector can deliver broadband effectively, but b) to do so, they'll need massive, unsupervised, no-strings-attached government handouts. For years, America went along with this improbable scheme, which is why Trump's FCC chairman Ajit Pai gave the carriers $45 billion in public funds to string slow, 19th-century-style copper lines across rural America:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/27/all-broadband-politics-are-local/

Now, this is obviously untrue, and people keep figuring out that publicly provisioned broadband is the only way for America to get the same standard of broadband connectivity that our cousins in other high-income nations enjoy. In order to thwart the public's will, the cable and telco lobbyists joined ALEC, the far-right, corporatist lobbying shop, and drafted "model legislation" banning cities and counties from providing broadband, even in places the carriers chose not to serve:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/19/culture-war-bullshit-stole-your-broadband/

Red states across America adopted these rules, and legislators sold this to their base by saying that this was just "keeping the government out of their internet" (even as every carrier relied on an exclusive, government-granted territorial charter, often with massive government subsidies).

ALEC didn't target red states exclusively because they had pliable, bribable conservative lawmakers. Red states trend rural, and rural places are the most likely sites for public fiber. Partly, that's because low-density areas are harder to make a business case for, but also because these are also the places that got electricity and telephone through New Deal co-ops, which are often still in place.

Just about the only places in America where people like their internet service are the 450+ small towns where the local government provides fiber. These places vote solidly Republican, and it was their beloved conservative lawmakers whom ALEC targeted to enact laws banning their equally beloved fiber – keep voting for Christmas, turkeys, and see where it gets you:

https://communitynets.org/content/community-network-map

But spare a little sympathy for the conservative movement here. The fact that reality has a pronounced leftist bias must be really frustrating for the ideological project of insisting that anything the market can't provide is literally impossible.

Which brings me back to Utah, a red state with a Republican governor and legislature, and a national leader in passing unconstitutional, unhinged, unworkable legislation as part of an elaborate culture war kabuki:

https://www.npr.org/2023/03/24/1165975112/utah-passes-an-age-verification-law-for-anyone-using-social-media

For more than two decades, a coalition of 21 cities in Utah have been building out municipal fiber. The consortium calls itself UTOPIA: "Utah Telecommunication Open Infrastructure Agency":

https://www.utopiafiber.com/faqs/

UTOPIA pursues a hybrid model: they run "open access" fiber and then let anyone offer service over it. This can deliver the best of both worlds: publicly provisioned, blazing-fast fiber to your home, but with service provided by your choice of competing carriers. That means that if Moms for Liberty captures you local government, you're not captive to their ideas about what sites your ISP should block.

As Karl Bode writes for Techdirt, Utahns in UTOPIA regions have their choice of 18 carriers, and competition has driven down prices and increased speeds. Want uncapped 1gb fiber? That's $75/month. Want 10gb fiber? That's $150:

https://www.techdirt.com/2024/05/15/utah-locals-are-getting-cheap-10-gbps-fiber-thanks-to-local-governments/

UTOPIA's path to glory wasn't an easy one. The dismal telco monopolists Qwest and Lumen sued to put them out of business, delaying the rollout by years:

https://www.deseret.com/2005/7/22/19903471/utopia-responds-to-qwest-lawsuit/

UTOPIA has been profitable and self-sustaining for over 15 years and shows no sign of slowing. But 17 states still ban any attempt at this.

Keeping up such an obviously bad policy requires a steady stream of distractions and lies. The "government broadband doesn't work" lie has worn thin, so we've gotten a string of new lies about wireless service, insisting that fiber is obviated by point-to-point microwave relays, or 5g, or satellite service.

There's plenty of places where these services make sense. You're not going to be able to use fiber in a moving car, so yeah, you're going to want 5g (and those 5g towers are going to need to be connected to each other with fiber). Microwave relay service can fill the gap until fiber can be brought in, and it's great for temporary sites (especially in places where it doesn't rain, because rain, clouds, leaves and other obstructions are deadly for microwave relays). Satellite can make sense for an RV or a boat or remote scientific station.

But wireless services are orders of magnitude slower than fiber. With satellite service, you share your bandwidth with an entire region or even a state. If there's only a couple of users in your satellite's footprint, you might get great service, but when your carrier adds a thousand more customers, your connection is sliced into a thousand pieces.

That's also true for everyone sharing your fiber trunk, but the difference is that your fiber trunk supports speeds that are tens of thousands of times faster than the maximum speeds we can put through freespace electromagnetic spectrum. If we need more fiber capacity, we can just fish a new strand of fiber through the conduit. And while you can increase the capacity of wireless by increasing your power and bandwidth, at a certain point you start pump so much EM into the air that birds start falling out of the sky.

Every wireless device in a region shares the same electromagnetic spectrum, and we are only issued one such spectrum per universe. Each strand of fiber, by contrast, has its own little pocket universe, containing a subset of that spectrum.

Despite all its disadvantages, satellite broadband has one distinct advantage, at least from an investor's perspective: it can be monopolized. Just as we only have one electromagnetic spectrum, we also only have one sky, and the satellite density needed to sustain a colorably fast broadband speed pushes the limit of that shared sky:

https://spacenews.com/starlink-vs-the-astronomers/

Private investors love monopoly telecoms providers, because, like pre-bankruptcy Frontier, they are too big to care. Back in 2021, Altice – the fourth-largest cable operator in America – announced that it was slashing its broadband speeds, to be "in line with other ISPs":

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/27/immortan-altice/#broadband-is-a-human-right

In other words: "We've figured out that our competitors are so much worse than we are that we are deliberately degrading our service because we know you will still pay us the same for less."

This is why corporate shills and pro-monopolists prefer satellite to municipal fiber. Sure, it's orders of magnitude slower than fiber. Sure, it costs subscribers far more. Sure, it's less reliable. But boy oh boy is it profitable.

The thing is, reality has a pronounced leftist bias. No amount of market magic will conjure up new electromagnetic spectra that will allow satellite to attain parity with fiber. Physics hates Starlink.

Yeah, I'm talking about Starlink. Of course I am. Elon Musk basically claims that his business genius can triumph over physics itself.

That's not the only vast, impersonal, implacable force that Musk claims he can best with his incredible reality-distortion field. Musk also claims that he can somehow add so many cars to the road that he will end traffic – in other words, he will best geometry too:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/09/herbies-revenge/#100-billion-here-100-billion-there-pretty-soon-youre-talking-real-money

Geometry hates Tesla, and physics hates Starlink. Reality has a leftist bias. The future is fiber, and public transit. These are both vastly preferable, more efficient, safer, more reliable and more plausible than satellite and private vehicles. Their only disadvantage is that they fail to give an easily gulled, thin-skinned compulsive liar more power over billions of people. That's a disadvantage I can live with.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/16/symmetrical-10gb-for-119/#utopia

Image: 4028mdk09 (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rote_LED_Fiberglasleuchte.JPG

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#pluralistic #fiber #broadband #physics #public goods #utah #utopia #red states #ole bub

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