#came up with an idea of solving (at least locally and on a small scale) an issue of gender inequality and how to deal with harassment

[bluedestinybluebird]

[plainbrunettelbl]

(A) Half Octopus Shota Aizawa x (O) GN Reader Inky Tentacles

Word count: 3876

Warnings: Attempted murder. 

Title: (A) Half Octopus Shota Aizawa x (O) GN Reader Inky Tentacles 

Summary: You get thrown overboard and an Alpha with inky black tentacles and hair to match saves you. 

(Gif not mine) (Sho when you give him attitude the first scene.) 

💤-You had thought it would be the best week of your life. 

💤-You had just gotten married to a charming Alpha and you were supposed to spend the week on an island in honeymoon bliss. The thought of hanging out on the sand with your mate made your heart warm. 

💤-If only you found out about your Alpha’s evil intent. 

💤-The three months of courting and spontaneous proposal and here you were. Getting sea-sick on a boat in the middle of nowhere. There were only three people on board. 

💤-You, your Alpha, and the captain. 

💤-It was supposed to be a romantic boat ride to watch a pod of dolphins but you spent half the time with your head over the side of the boat. 

💤-“Alpha, I think we should go back. I’m not feeling too good.” You sadly crooned, wiping your mouth with the back of your hand. 

💤-“Aw, are you sure we can’t wait it out? I know how much you love dolphins. Just think about how you will get to see them jumping around and hearing their little trills. We are almost there after all.” They soothed, rubbing your back. 

💤-You don’t remember telling them that you liked dolphins. You felt bad that they had planned this and you were ruining their thoughtful gift. 

💤-“Yeah, I can tough it out.” You croaked, giving them a shaky smile. 

💤-“Great.” They smiled. 

💤-If only you were able to distinguish the darkness in their smile. 

***

💤-One second you were leaning over the boat once more and the next you felt a forceful bump from behind and you went headfirst into the cerulean colored water. 

💤-Your chirps of surprise mixed with the sounds of the lapping water. 

💤-“Alpha! Help! I’ve fallen overboard.” You cried, thrashing in the water. 

💤-You weren’t a strong swimmer. At that moment you regret agreeing with your Alpha in foregoing a life jacket. They had convinced you that it would look weird in all of the pictures you would take. 

💤-You realized now it was just a lie to make sure you sank to the bottom of the ocean. 

💤-Your Alpha merely smirked at you as the Captain pulled away. Leaving you stranded in the middle of the ocean. You didn’t bother holding back your sobs and whimpers. Your arms were getting tired and it hadn’t even been ten minutes since your Alpha ditched you. 

💤-You heard a small splashing sound a few feet away from you. 

💤-“Who’s there? If you’re a shark, please go away! I’m already having a terrible day.” You cried, frantically splashing your arms in the water. 

💤-“Not a shark.” A deep voice uttered. 

💤-You yelped and turned in their direction. A male, with black hair and eyes, peered over at you. 

💤-“What are you doing here?” You stuttered, your brain not comprehending why there would be a man swimming out here.  

💤-“Fishing.” He calmly said, moving a little closer to you. 

💤-“This far out?” You felt yourself inching towards him as well. Underneath the strong smell of sea salt, you smelled the familiar scent of an Alpha. Your Omega was eager to seek comfort in the Alpha. 

💤-Don’t you think Alpha’s should be on our shit list right now? You reprimanded, glaring at your love-struck Omega.  

💤-Not this Alpha, he smells safe. She crooned, giving the Alpha heart eyes. 

💤-“What are you doing this far out?” He lifted a brow, sending you a questioning look. 

💤-“Sunbathing.” You flatly stated, glaring at him. You were in no mood to talk to an Alpha. Being thrown overboard by one would do that. 

💤-“Well, I’ll leave you to it then.” He deadpanned, making like he was gonna swim away. 

💤-“No, wait!” You chirped, quickly swimming onto him and latching on. 

💤-His muscled arms wrapped around you, pulling you into him. Your tired legs were quick to wrap around him as well. Your feet felt something soft brush against them. 

💤-One of your hands reached down and pulled the thing up. 

💤-“Tentacle.” You uttered, staring at the black tentacle in disbelief. You looked down and saw eight others along with it. 

💤-Your brain was done with the stress of the day. Your vision went fuzzy and then you went slack in the arms of the black-haired Alpha. 

***

💤-You woke up on soft sand, your hands scrunching in the white grains. 

💤-“Good, you’re up.” A voice called, their tone soothing. 

💤-You rolled your head to the left and saw the same man from before resting his arms on the flat rocks near the water. It looked like you were in a cave of sorts. The water sparkled a brilliant turquoise, much lighter than the deep cerulean of the ocean. 

💤-“Hi.” You mumbled your limbs felt heavy and weak. 

💤-“I can hear your empty stomach from here.” He rumbled, his inky eyes noticing your weakened state. 

💤-You saw his inky tentacles swish in the water behind him. You sat up in a hurry, shuffling on your butt away from him.  

💤-“Don’t eat me! I won’t taste good.” You cried, looking around for a rock to throw at him. 

💤-He merely sighed at your fear. 

💤-“If I wanted to eat you, I would have done it when you were passed out.” He drawled, leaning his head on his arms. “I wouldn’t have saved you from drowning either.” 

💤-You blinked at his words, thinking them over.

💤-True, he could have left you stranded in the ocean, but instead, he swam you to land. 

💤-“Oh... sorry.” Your voice was small. 

💤-“It’s okay. I’m used to it.” He tilted his head back observing your meek frame. 

💤-Your stomach decided to make itself known. The whale sounds bouncing off the cave walls. You felt your cheek warm. 

💤-“I got enough fish for both of us. I already ate my share.” He stated, pointing a finger to the big pile of fish a few feet away from you. 

💤-Their dead eyes staring at you. You suddenly felt green, your eyes darting away from the scaly pile. 

💤-“I think I’ll pass.” You cringed, holding your knees to your chest. 

💤-“Omega, you need to eat.” The inky-haired Alpha reprimanded, his eyes narrowing. 

💤-You sat straighter, his words calling at your Omega. She wanted to obey but the smell of raw fish was too much for her as well. 

💤-“I can’t, Alpha. I can’t eat raw fish.” You tucked your head down. 

💤-“How else do you eat it?” He questioned, leaning forward a bit, your sweet smell was making his tentacle shiver in delight. 

💤-His species didn’t have many females, and the ones that he has come across were very aggressive. They only have two things on their mind, mating and dominating. 

💤-They were very possessive of their space and couldn’t handle a male around them for long. He guessed that was why his species was slowly dying out. A small voice in his head told him that Omegas like you would help solve the problem. 

💤-No. You were meant for land, just as he was for water. He would take care of you until the upcoming storm passes and then he would drop you off near a local beach. 

💤-“Cooked. Well, I guess there is sushi, but it’s bad to eat it raw in case of parasites.” You formed, resting your chin on your knees. 

💤-He stared at you in confusion. 

💤-“What’s that?” He rumbled, frustrated that your differences were already showing. 

💤-“It’s when you cook it on the oven.” You replied, looking around at the cave and realizing there would be no pan-searing happening anytime soon. “Or over a fire.” 

💤-“What’s fire?” He questioned, his brain not connecting the word with anything. 

💤-You offered a quick explanation of the flickering element. 

💤-“Oh, so you need wood. I can go find some driftwood.” He pushed away from the edge of the water, getting ready to dive under the water and swim through the tunnel connecting his cave to the sea. 

💤-“It kinda has to be dry.” You said, unraveling yourself from your legs and standing up. You spotted a small entrance to the cave. You would have to crouch a bit to get out but at least you would be able to find firewood. 

💤-“I’ll go get some.” You wiped off the sand from your clothes and headed over. 

💤-“Are you sure that’s a good idea? What if it is dangerous?” His eyes held slight panic, the thought of not being able to see you. 

💤-What if you made a run for it? What if you went away and never came back? His strong arms lifted himself from the water.

💤-“I’ll come with you.” He stated, trying to get all of his tentacles on land. 

💤-You watched him struggle to find his balance on the slippery sand. You felt yourself slightly shiver looking at his huge form, seeing just how big and intimidating he was. 

💤-An Alpha indeed. 

💤-“Don’t worry about it! You stay here. I’ll be quick.” You encouraged, pointing him towards the pile of fish. 

💤-“If you can skin those and gut them I would be grateful.” You tried to persuade him using his caretaker instincts against him.  

💤-He realized he wouldn’t be much help on land away and conceded, dutifully going over to the pile and getting to work. You nodded and went out. You came back quickly, not wanting to worry the poor Alpha. 

💤-Once you walked back in the inky-haired male sent you a tiny smile before going back to his task. He made sure not a single scale was left. 

💤-You dropped the firewood down onto the sandy floor before going around the cave, picking up rocks to put around the fireplace. You got it the fireplace settled but the part of lighting the fire was more difficult than you thought. 

💤-“Ugh! I can’t get it.” You whined, tossing the sticks down. 

💤-You had been rubbing them for five minutes and not a single strand smoke greeted you. 

💤-“What are you trying to do?” The quiet Alpha asked, looking up from his task of gutting. 

💤-“Making fire, or at least trying to.” You grumbled, glaring at the useless sticks. 

💤-“Can I help?” He moved to your side, picking up the sticks. 

💤-You showed him what to do and soon enough a small flame graced the cave. Your eyes take in the flickering flame. Your Omega was happily purring. 

💤-See, he’s a great Alpha. He can make fire. She cooed, eyeing up his strong arms. 

💤-Don’t go all cave-women on me. You hissed, not willing to admit you were also impressed with his fire-making skills. 

💤-He winced against the heat. Since he was done with the fish he slipped back into the water. His body sighing in relief as the cool water hydrated his skin and tentacles. 

💤-You got to work on cooking the fish, soon enough you had two wonderfully grilled pieces of fish. You looked over at him and offered a piece to him. The face he made after eating it was priceless. 

💤-It was like the face of a baby who was given a lemon for the first time. 

💤-“I guess you are not a fan.” You giggled, chewing on your unseasoned fish. 

💤-“I’ll stick to raw.” He shook his head. 

***

💤-It had been two days since your Alpha tried to kill you. Shota had told you that he wouldn’t be able to take you to civilization just yet. A big storm was coming and it would be hard to get you to shore with the rough waves it brought. 

💤-You had spent the days in the water with Shota or on the island collecting firewood and coconuts. You had yet to find freshwater so coconuts had been your main source of water. 

💤-You had a rough time opening them but Shota was quick to excellently crack them open. Your Omega was all too pleased to point out, once again, about what a great Alpha he was. 

💤-“I made this for you.” You held up a hair tie that you had made. You spent the day weaving it together. Sho had been gone most of the day so it was easy to surprise him with it. 

💤-He looked at the hair tie in awe. You had added tiny shells to it to make it more pretty. 

💤-It was clearly a mating gift, or at least he thought so. First, you shared a bit of your food with him, something only mates did, and then you made him a courting gift. 

💤-Now all that was left was for you to solidify your interest in him by touching his gills. Something that you unknowingly did not even ten minutes after you gifted him the hair tie. 

���-“Let me comb your hair a bit. It looks like a rats nest.” You chuckled, sitting on the edge of the pool, with your legs dipped in the water. 

💤-He was hesitant to turn his back to you. It was a big taboo with his kind. You never turned your back on anyone outside of your pod. “Come on. I don’t bite.” 

💤-He slotted his shoulders between your legs. He didn’t relax until he felt your fingers weave their way into his knotted hair. You felt his chest rumble at your soothing touch. 

💤-“I figured it must be difficult to see when you're swimming.” You hummed, enjoying the way his obsidian locks felt like silk.

💤-You tied back his hair once all of his knots were untangled, you swept back the few strands that escaped from the tie, unknowingly tracing his gills. Shota shot out of your grasp, flustered at your bold actions. 

💤-“I’ll go get us dinner.” He stuttered, quickly swimming out of the cave. 

💤-“But you just came back from fishing?” You said, surprised at his abrupt departure. 

💤-He was gone before you could even finish your sentence. 

***

💤-“Thank you for the crab, Shota.” You hummed, cracking open the scarlet leg. 

💤-“No problem, there were a bunch of them not too far from the cave.” He leaned against the rocks. His eyes not quite meeting yours. He fibbed a bit, he had to swim quite the distance to get them. 

💤-He was just happy to give you something that you wanted. You had mentioned the pointy little creatures and he was all too eager to see a smile on your face. The cute little chirps you made while biting into the sweet meat struck him right in his three hearts. 

💤-Ever since your fingers grazed against his gills he had been more affectionate. 

💤-You usually slept near the fire at night but you would somehow wake up near the pool wrapped up in his tentacles. He was even more worried when you left the cave for any reason. 

💤-He particularly didn’t like it when you bathed away from him. He knew about the dangers of the ocean so he was more on edge to leave you in it by yourself. He had also taken to bringing you back beautiful shells and rocks. 

💤-Shota was hesitant to tell you that the storm receded and he could take you back now. It didn’t matter, you were courting, basically mates at this point. 

💤-“Shota....” You trailed off, your eyes not able to meet his. 

💤-“Yes, Omega?” He rumbled, he picked up on your scent, it was uneasy. 

💤-“I was wondering when we were gonna go back to shore.” You asked, flitting your eyes over to him. 

💤-“Back to shore?” The words felt itchy against his throat. His tentacles coiling in the water, wishing to hold you close in his arms. You can’t leave if you are tangled in his limbs. 

💤-“Well, I need to get back. I don’t know how long my back can handle sleeping on sand another night.” You rubbed your aching back. “I miss curling up in bed, warm tea, and reading books.” 

💤-Each word was like shark's teeth ripping into him. He supposed he would miss the waves of the sea if he was on land. You both were still too different. His Alpha was howling in his head. 

💤-She can’t leave! She is ours! He howled. 

💤-Ours or not. She needs somewhere better to live. Shota sadly argued. Our cave wasn’t suited for a human Omega. 

💤-Wait a damn minute. That blond still owes me a favor. He thought, not believing he didn’t think of him sooner. 

💤-Yeah! Make that Beta build our Omega a home. His Alpha yipped. 

💤-“I know a friend who has a place around here,” Shota said, happy that you wouldn’t be leaving him anytime soon. 

💤-The Alpha didn’t waste any time pulling you into the water and swimming you to his friend’s beach house. 

***

💤-“What do you mean you want me to build her a house!” The blond’s eyes widened, he stared at his friend in shock. 

💤-“You make her a house on your island so she can stay here,” Shota explained again, you would think he was talking about the weather with how calm he was being. 

💤-He was glad you were using the blond’s shower. He didn’t want you around for his annoying yelling. 

💤-“I can’t just build a house for an Omega you found in the sea! Next thing I know I’ll have to build an apartment complex.” The blonde huffed, running his hand through his long hair. 

💤-“No apartment complex. I want a house for my Omega.” The dark-haired male glared, angry that the blond would even suggest he would stray from his Omega. He wouldn’t even consider it. 

💤-Plus, It’s not like the sea was filled with unmated Omegas after all. 

💤-“Your Omega? Like your bonded Omega?” The blond lifted a brow, not quite sure his ears were working properly.  

💤-“Yes. My Omega. My forever mate.” The Alpha rumbled his chest warming at his words. 

💤-“Mmm. I suppose I can see what I can do. It might take a couple of weeks though? Are you fine with her staying here with me?” Hizashi questioned, knowing the Alpha male well. 

💤-The Alpha growled at him. 

💤-“You stay on your side of the house and I won’t have a problem.” He glowered, lunging slightly out of the water to intimidate him a bit. 

💤-“Woah, there big guy! No need to threaten me. I’ll be on my best behavior.” The blond backed away from the patio’s edge. 

💤-The patio was flush against the sea. A perfect spot for the millionaire to lounge out in his speedo. 

💤-“Good. I’ll consider your debt paid.” Shota hummed, eyeing your freshly showered form making your way over. 

💤-“Wow, you have a great shower Hizashi.” You beamed, rubbing a towel to your wet hair. 

💤-“Thank you. Please be sure to help yourself to some food. I doubt this guy had anything besides fish in his little damp cave.” The blond teased, making sure to move a safe distance away from the male in the water. 

💤-“Thank you!” You chirped, making yourself at home in his kitchen.

💤-Shota enjoyed the bright smile on your face as you threw a meal together. He did get a little concerned when you brought out a knife to chop vegetables but you seemed comfortable with the blade so that calmed him some. 

💤-He was content in leaning over the patio’s edge, happy that you were happy. He felt like he could be here, watching you from the water’s edge, for the rest of his life. 

***

💤-Two weeks later and the little beach house on the other side of the island was built. You almost didn’t believe it when Shota swam you to it. 

💤-“This is mine?” You gasped looking at the wooden beach house. It looked like it cost an arm and a leg to make. 

💤-“Yup, Hizashi owed me a favor. He got drunk one night and decided to go night fishing. I saved the dumb fool from a hungry shark and brought him back home.” He rolled his eyes at the blonde’s antics. 

💤-“But why?” You asked, wondering why he used his debt to make you a house. 

💤-Surely he knew you would have to go back to your old life sometime soon. During you stay with Zashi’s house you had informed him of your previous Alpha’s actions. The billionaire was all too pleased to put the Alpha behind bars. It took a while for the police to investigate so you were invited to stay with him while everything was sorted out. 

💤-They kept the fact that you were alive a secret from the public. They wanted the Alpha to think he got away with it.  

💤-The Alpha was claiming you both were on the boat when the storm came and knocked you overboard. That they tried to get to you but you were too far away and they got separated from you. 

💤-It wasn’t until the captain of the boat folded and told them what had happened, that the Alpha was finally cuffed and sent to prison. 

💤-“Because we’re courting obviously.” The black-haired Alpha stated, his eyes lovingly connected with yours.  

💤-His three hearts truly beat for you. 

💤-“Courting? Since when?” You leaned back, surprised at his words. 

💤-“Since you gave me a courting gift and touched my gills.” He said, perplexed by your reaction.

💤-“I don’t remember touching your gills?” You tilted your head to the side trying to recall if you ever did. 

💤-“When you would put my hair up. You would always touch them. Did you not mean to?” His voice grew small as he realized you didn’t know what the touch would mean. 

💤-“I didn’t mean to.” You said, your heart picking up. Did he think you were courting the entire time? 

💤-“What about my courting gifts? You accepted them.” He pushed, nervously swimming forward.

💤-“Your seashells and rocks? I didn’t think they meant anything.” You mumbled, your eyes looking down in your lap. 

💤-You didn’t think he would be interested in you that way. You were a human after all. Didn’t he want to be with someone his kind? It wasn’t like you hadn’t thought of spending the rest of your days with him but you never truly accepted the fact that it could be a reality. 

💤-“Oh.” He sank into the water, his nose submerged. 

💤-The action made you think he was about to swim away and you would never see him again. You nearly broke the poor man’s neck jumping on top of him the way you did. 

💤-“Wait! I didn’t say I wouldn’t court you.” You exclaimed, holding onto him tight.

💤-“Really?” He breathed, the light in his eyes flickering again. 

💤-“Yes! I’ll be sure to make you an actual courting gift. Though I’m having a difficult time thinking about what it should be. I usually gave my other Alphas a crocheted scarf.” You blinked, realizing the man had no use for one.

💤-“Other Alphas.” He growled, his tentacles squeezing you possessively.  

💤-“Don’t worry about them. They are long gone. You are the only Alpha I’m thinking about now.” You hummed, pecking him lightly on the lips. 

💤-You felt a spark shoot down your spine at the small touch. 

💤-The pleasant purr that came out of his chest made you giggle. 

💤-“More.” He purred, leaning forwards. 

💤-“Anything for you Alpha.” You said, leaning forward to meet him. 

I mean there could be a few more Omegas stranded at sea. Who knows. 🤷‍♀️ Lol I almost didn’t post this so I hope you like it! Please be sure to leave a note and tell me your thoughts on this AU. 

[d33-alex]

Quantum weirdness isn’t real – we’ve just got space and time all wrong

A radical new idea erases quantum theory's weird uncertainties – by ripping up all we thought we knew about how the universe works

QUANTUM mechanics is often called a theory of the very small. In reality, it explains phenomena on a vast range of scales – from elementary particles and their interactions, through atoms and molecules, all the way to neutron stars and the supernovae that spawn them. So far, essentially all its predictions have been confirmed by experiments. It is the most successful theory of material reality we have ever had.

So why have so many physicists, from Albert Einstein onwards, taken the view that quantum theory is wrong?

The reasons lie in its mysterious nature, in the phenomena it doesn't explain and the answers it doesn't give. That is reason enough to seek what might lie beyond it. I believe we already have the outline of what this deeper answer looks like. We are only at the start of this work, but by digging down into the fundamental principles that underlie reality, and weeding out what is right and what is wrong about our current ideas, we can see glimpses of a truly unifying picture of physics. It comes at a price: to go beyond quantum, we must totally upend long-held ideas of how the universe hangs together.

How do we bridge the gap between quantum physics and gravity? Find out from Vlatko Vedral at New Scientist Live 2019 in London

It is easy to state the basic problem of quantum mechanics as a theory of reality: it doesn't tell us what is happening in reality. It has two different laws to describe how things and events evolve. The first applies most of the time, and describes quantum objects as wave-like entities embodied in a mathematical construction known as a wave function. These objects evolve smoothly in time, exploring alternative realities in "superpositions" in which they aren't restricted to being in any one place at any one time. That, to any intuitive understanding of how the world works, is distinctly odd.

Curiouser and curiouser

The second law applies only under special circumstances called measurements, in which a quantum object interacts with a much larger, macroscopic system – you or me observing it, for example. This law says that a single measurement outcome manifests itself. The alternative realities that the wave function says existed up to that point suddenly dissolve.

These two laws exist in parallel, in apparent contradiction of one another – a fundamental failure of our understanding known as the measurement problem. Attempts to do the obvious, and derive the second law from the first, have so far failed. We are left with only statistical predictions of what is going on in the quantum world before it is measured.

The mysteries don't end there. Quantum theory also seems to violate the principle of locality, which says that objects or events must be near one another to interact. In classical physics, for example, the gravitational or electrical force between two objects depends on their distance: the closer they are in space, the stronger the force between them. Quantum theory, meanwhile, introduces entanglement, a phenomenon that allows objects to seemingly influence each other instantaneously over any distance.

Einstein notably believed that these blemishes indicated that quantum theory was wrong, and that a truer, deeper description of nature was out there. He wasn't the only quantum pioneer to express doubts. Louis de Broglie, who first predicted the wave-like aspects of matter, was another sceptic, as was Erwin Schrödinger, whose famous thought experiment of the dead-and-alive cat was designed to highlight the absurdity of quantum theory's prediction of alternative realities. In the present day, quantum dissidents include notable physicists such as Roger Penrose and the Nobel-prizewinning theorist Gerard 't Hooft.

Arguments about whether quantum mechanics is a complete theory of reality have usually been carried out in isolation. But the route to a deeper and truer understanding of nature may lie in connecting the problems of quantum theory with other big, open problems in fundamental physics.

The most obvious one is how to develop a quantum theory of gravity. Gravity is the only one of nature's four fundamental forces not to have a quantum-mechanical description. It is described by Einstein's general theory of relativity as an effect resulting from massive objects warping space-time around them.

General relativity and quantum theory seem to be fundamentally incompatible, not least in the way the former describes a smooth, malleable space-time. By contrast, quantum theory suggests that it must at some level come in discrete chunks, or quanta, of space or space-time.

We have at least half a dozen ways to get part of the way across this divide, among them string theory and loop quantum gravity. Indeed, the latter idea gives precise predictions for what the quanta of space-time must look like. But we have no idea whether any of the suggested routes are the right one because none predicts an experimental test we can perform with current technology.

Quantum theory and general relativity clash in other ways, too, notably over the nature of time. Relativity makes it impossible to establish one objective "flow" of time of the sort we perceive, with a past and a future separated by a universally defined now. Quantum theory, meanwhile, characterises time as a metronomic "beat" set somewhere outside the universe. So is our perception of a flowing time real, or an illusion?

Back to basics

There are other deep questions. The quantum descriptions of the other three fundamental forces – electromagnetism and the weak and strong nuclear forces – can be bundled together into the so-called standard model of particle physics. But why do these three forces have such very different strengths within the standard model? Then there is the nature of the dark matter and dark energy that dominate the cosmos on a large scale, but which the standard model doesn't mention. These questions and others concern how our universe came to be, out of a vast number of seemingly equally probable universes allowed by the laws of physics.

To solve all these issues, we need to wipe the slate clean, go back to the first principles of quantum theory and general relativity, decide which are necessary and which are open to question, and see what new principles we might need. Do that, and an alternative description of physics becomes possible, one that explains things not in terms of objects situated in a pre-existing space, as we do now, but in terms of events and the relationships between them.

This endeavour starts with a few basic hypotheses about the nature of space and time. First, that the history of the universe consists of events and the relationships between them. Second, that time – in the sense of causation, the process by which future events are produced from present events – is fundamental. Third, that time is irreversible: causation can't go backwards, and once an event has happened, it can't be made to unhappen. Fourth, that space emerges from this description: events cause other events, creating a network of causal relationships. The geometry of space-time arises as a coarse-grained and approximate description of this network.

A fifth hypothesis is that energy and momentum are fundamental features of the universe, and are conserved in causal processes. These five hypotheses define a class of models called energetic causal set models that my collaborator Marina Cortês of the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh, UK, and I introduced in 2013. I have since added a sixth hypothesis, a version of the holographic principle first stated by 't Hooft. This says that when two-dimensional surfaces are defined in the emerging geometry of space-time, their area gives the maximum rate by which information can flow through them.

In this picture, every event is distinguished by the information available to it about its causal past. We call this the event's sky because it functions rather like the sky above us does. The sky – or the horizon of our sight more generally – is a snapshot of what we see at any one instant, a two-dimensional surface formed by photons of different colours, informing us of our relationships with the things around us. Because nothing travels faster than the speed of light, only things within an event's sky can influence it, so the sky is also a view of its causal past.

Sky's the limit

This picture allows us to describe how information and energy flow through events as the universe evolves. Ted Jacobson at the University of Maryland in the US and Thanu Padmanabhan at the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics in Pune, India, have independently shown that the sixth hypothesis, together with the first law of thermodynamics, which governs the amount of useful energy available to a process, can be used to derive the equations of general relativity, and hence gravity.

Their work assumes that space-time is always smooth. By marrying their reasoning with the picture of a prototypical discrete, quantum space-time in our models, we can derive both general relativity and smooth space-time as emerging from a dynamically evolving causal network.

As well as providing the seed of a quantum picture of gravity, this immediately solves the problem of the flow of time in Einstein's cosmos. In a causally defined universe, the most basic interaction is the creation of an event when two "parent" events come together to make something new happen. At each stage in the construction of a space-time history, the future doesn't exist. But we can postulate a limit to the number of events any parent event can give birth to. Events that have had their full allotment of progeny cannot have any further direct influence on the future, and are relegated to the past: time flows.

The most exciting prospect, which Cortês and I have been exploring over the past few years, is that quantum theory might also emerge from this picture. That comes from building energetic causal set models to answer the key question of which events interact.

Events differ from one another in that each has a different sky, a different view of its causal past. We can define a measure of how similar two events' views are, and pick the pair with the most similar views to be the parents of the next event. The idea is that the similarity of views can play the role that distance in space does in conventional classical and relativistic physics. The more similar the views of two events, the more likely they are to interact.

The overall effect of choosing the pair with the most similar views as parents pushes both out of the present and into the past. Removing two very similar views and creating a new view that is a synthesis of both – and hence different from both – has the effect of increasing the total diversity of the views of all events in the universe. A measure of the total diversity of an ensemble of views is a quantity we invented in the late 1980s with Julian Barbour at the University of Oxford. We called it the variety of the system.

All this has intriguing consequences. The views are chosen and evolve precisely so that the total variety evolves to its maximum – and it turns out that this exactly reproduces the dynamics of quantum theory.

You can begin to see how this works. Similarity of views only implies nearness in emergent space-time for large, complex events. If an event has a very simple recent causal past, there may be other simple events with similar pasts that aren't necessarily nearby in the emergent space-time. Yet by the principle of similarity, they have a high probability of interacting with each other.

Einstein and others since have proposed that quantum wave functions describe collections, or "ensembles", of systems defined by properties they share, but it has never been clear whether these ensembles truly exist. In this "real ensemble" picture, they do. The continual, brazenly non-local interactions between simple, causally related objects widely distributed in space explain all the probabilities, uncertainties and spooky interactions of quantum physics. They only ever occur between simple systems such as single particles on a microscopic scale because only these can have similar views. Large, complex systems with many degrees of freedom – you, me, Schrödinger's cat – will have a unique causal past. For us, the closer we are in space or space-time, the more similar our view will be. Proximity matters at the classical scale in a way it doesn't at a quantum scale.

In a series of recent papers, my collaborators and I have also shown how to describe an interaction among the members of each ensemble that results in the ensemble's quantum state evolving in time according to the laws specified in quantum mechanics. That gives a simple and elegant solution to the measurement problem.

There remains the question of what happens with systems of an intermediate size, whose causal pasts aren't unique, but which might have an intermediate degree of causal relationship with things far away in space. These, I predict, should be described by a tweaked version of quantum physics in which the superposition principle fails to hold exactly. It is possible that experimentalists can construct such systems, and test this prediction, using the tools of quantum information. If we can create sufficiently large and complex entangled states, which would have no or only a few natural copies within the universe, our picture predicts that their evolution in time will deviate from that predicted by quantum mechanics.

More details need to be filled in. This is just a sketch of how we might go beyond today's quantum picture and construct a unified physics that sidesteps the fundamental problems we currently see ourselves facing, while preserving the best of what we have. No doubt it isn't correct in every detail, and others may come along with other, entirely different ideas. But the current impasse in physics suggests that it is only through bold ideas that we will move forward.

A MANIFESTO FOR A NEW REALITY

Six hypotheses are needed to begin to rewrite physics with causation at its core – and perhaps solve the problems of quantum theory and relativity.

1. The history of the universe consists of events

2. Time causation is fundamental

3. Causation doesn't go backwards: events don't "unhappen"

4. Space is constructed from the web of causation between events

5. Energy and momentum are conserved when events cause other events

6. The amount of information that can flow between events through emerging space is determined by that space's area

Physicist Lee Smolin | New Scientist | Aug 24 2019

[outerloop]

Anatomy of a Falcon

We recently announced Falcon Age, a game about nurturing a falcon from a baby, bonding with them, and together resisting the forces that colonise your planet. Falcon Age will be out in 2019 for PS4 and PS VR.

We showed off the game at PAX last week, got a great response, especially on the falcon. Let’s do a deep dive of the design of the falcon, animation and rig setup, AI and navigation, feather tech, and raptor sounds.

Falcon Design

Chandana Ekanayake and Darran Hurlbut

Our falcon design combines multiple raptor types. She is big as a golden eagle, fights like a hawk, has some eagle-hawk resemblance, some owl-like tufts, and falcon tendancies. She’s one of the last of her kind left in our world and we wanted to make her unique visually for the story and also visually stand out during gameplay against the sky and desert like environments.

One of the early inspirations for Falcon Age came from videos of golden eagles hunting large mountain goats. That led to some research on falconry and the idea of having a falcon as a pet and designing mechanics and gameplay around that core idea. We made a rough prototype early on to test out the ideas. The first time we successfully whistled for the bird in VR and saw the scale change from it approaching from a distance to landing on our hand, we knew we were on to something that could serve as the core of a unique game.  

Animation and Rig

Aung Zaw Oo

FALCON FEET TRACKING

There are lots of animation options out there, but none of them would easily solve our specific falcon feet tracking needs. Inverse kinematic setups, root motion and other complex plugins could do the job if we had a bigger team and more time to dedicate to it. We wanted a more predictable outcome so we went with a multiple pose based solution made in 3dsmax.  

However, the biggest reason for not using IK, is that this is the best way I could come up within a couple of days. We were building the prototype so fast back at the beginning of the project that we didn’t have time to look at what other solutions are available. This is the most reliable and least ugly way I found and we’ve stuck with it since. If it's not broken, don’t fix it.

Here is how I imagined the bird claws blending IRL. The ball is the fist that is attached to the VR motion controls.There are limits to this method. The claws needs to be able to wrap around a fair chunk of the fist and the fist pose needs to be as spherical as possible.

Note that head and legs are siblings of the pelvis. This makes the bone masking and making separate blend trees easier. Ignore the word ‘eagle’ in the naming. That was just a temp asset name before we figured out the bird design.

Short version of how its done; the fist is a ball and the bird’s feet rotate around the ball using 30 blend poses and shuffle animation to get the feet back to center when the ball(motion hand) has rotated too far.

30 Blend Poses on a ball

A shuffle animation let feet recenter

And the the blends start again after that quick shuffle animation from the new rotation of the hand. According to our programmer Justin, he is doing some regular old quaternion and linear algebra math. And I’m using 3 float values that he’s giving me and feeding them into those anim blend states.

For baby bird, the 2nd knuckle on the index finger is treated like a ball. 

The one edge case where the ball concept doesn’t work is when the glove is pointed directly down. Pictured below.

We had several ways we could’ve dealt with that case. One solution was to have a collider on the forearm part of the glove and have the bird fly away if bird’s collision intersects with it. Ultimately we decided to let it be as is. It’s more player friendly that way since it lets you scratch your left hip while in VR without having the bird leave you. Also most people would never have their hands positioned that way in normal play. 

Unless they’re playing in a headstand for some reason. All kinds of animation features would look wrong or broken in a headstand.

FALCON HEAD TRACKING

Short version of how its done; the head (bone_Head) is a direct child of the highest object in the bird skeletal hierarchy ( bone_Root ).

Bone_Root’s position(not rotation) follows the position of the motion controller and bone_Head counters that motion. Basically a 2-object hierarchy where a positional blend is used to counter motion of the parent object to keep the child object in same global position. The rest of the bird body uses a blend of 27 poses to try its best to keep the bird looking natural.

With the size of the adult bird we have, a 12 cm translation in all axis(24x24x24 cube) seemed ideal for getting the stabilizer effect without stretching the neck too much. The head will also move at the edge of that range and when the motion hand stops moving, that new position is now the new center and another 24cm cube is formed there.  Math wise, headlock is mostly just a vector transform with a lot of extra 'fluff' for limiting speed, transitioning in and out, and moving the lock point when it gets too far from the body but the bird is still in the area.

Bird Navigation and AI

Justin LaLone

BIRD BOREDOM

For the most part, the falcon obeys Ara’s commands and follows her around.  If you stand around long enough in one area while the bird is just circling or if you launch her with no orders, she will start looking for something else in the area to do - usually hunting or landing on a point of interest.  She will also take some initiative when perched on Ara if anything else tries to grab her (she’s possessive like that), and likes to help lead Ara to the next hole in lightning golf.

SUN BLINDING PREY

Some of the prey, such as the rabbits, are very skittish and as soon as they notice a falcon diving towards them they will take off for the nearest bolthole.  They have a more difficult time seeing Ara’s bird if she approaches with the sun behind her, so paying attention to where the light is coming from and sending the bird from that direction can make catching prey easier and more reliable.  On the other hand, simply diving from higher up can be good too, as the bird can pick up more speed before being noticed, giving her prey less time to dodge out of the way.

Coming in fast and and from the sun, for a guaranteed hit.

FALCON 3D NAVIGATION

Getting a flying animal to reliably traverse a 3D space in a somewhat natural looking way isn’t something you typically find out of the box in a game engine.  We have roughly three levels of bird-navigation logic going on to get the bird from point A to point B without running into too many things or getting stuck in a corner.

For high-level navigation to find its way through the world, we build a 3D navigation graph and use A* to find a path.  What’s probably somewhat unique in our implementation is that we are using the fairly new Unity job system to do all our A* pathfinding, giving us fast searches that stay off the main thread, allowing more time for other AI, physics, and more stuff in general.  Most of the graph is generated automatically, with manually placed connections for flying through narrow gaps like windows that are small or require an approach from a good angle.

The purple line is a rough path for it to follow to get around the big rocks in between where the falcon started and where Ara is standing.  The bird doesn’t try to follow this line very closely; it would be trying to make some pretty strange and sharp turns if it tried, so as soon as it has a clear shot to the next part of the path it heads there instead.

Sometimes smaller objects or moving objects can get in the way.  The falcon looks ahead and goes over or around these objects.  This rock is actually just big enough that it would normally navigate around it with A*, but I forced it to “forget” about that for now.  Here, it’s turning left to go around the rock - the red lines show where it has been looking for the past few frames.  It usually won’t try to go under things in this way, but the A* navigation can direct it to go under arches or walkways.

The last level of bird flight logic is the actual maneuvering logic, or how the bird decides how fast it wants to go, how much to ascend or descend, how quickly to turn, and how it applies physics accelerations, limited by what it is allowed to do, to get there.  This feeds into the animation system telling it how hard the bird is working, what sort of pose it should be in, if it should be banking, etc.  The object avoidance is tied in somewhat strongly with this, but all the A* navigation is completely separate.  It is also a big pile of math and logic.

Feathers and Rendering

Ben Golus

The small body feathers, or contour feathers, on our birds flutter in the wind, and react to the player’s hands brushing against them to give a greater sense of tactile interactivity. The way this was done for the PAX demo is a bit of a hack which I hope to replace before we ship. (This of course means it’s the solution that will ship with the game.) The short description is each small feather on the bird is a treated like many grass or vegetation shaders. Several overlapping sine waves are used to calculate some simple noise used to flutter the feathers and give them some life. Their timing is offset by a random value per feather stored in the vertex color, and the flutter movement is scaled also using the vertex color. This means the base of the feathers don’t move, but the tips do. It also means longer feathers move more than shorter ones.

Unlike most grass shaders, we need the feathers to not move in random directions, so we can’t use world or local space directions. Plus this is on a skinned mesh which makes the direction even more dynamic. Instead I use a combination of the feather’s vertex normal and tangent so the feathers flutter in and out and side to side relative to their orientation. This isn’t strictly accurate, but for small movements like this it won’t be obviously wrong.

To handle hand interactions, the player’s hand has a script which tracks the bones and creates a list of capsules that follow the shape of each finger, and a sphere for the palm. If the hand is in range, the vertex shader iterates over the list of capsules to find closest distance to one and softly scales down the flutter if a capsule one is overlapping it. The feathers are also squished down towards the body. The capsules are oversized as the overlapping tests are soft, so this isn’t an instant on-off, but a gradual change. It’s roughly tuned so that once the visible finger is touching the feather it has stopped moving entirely and will push down.

Here’s an early test of this system in action. You can see how the feathers react to the sphere before it actually touches it, but the interaction is still convincing.

For the final release of the game I’d like to move to a geometry shader or compute shader approach which would solve some of the issues the effect currently has when only one vertex of a feather is being overlapped, and the fact the feathers light normals don’t change when being touched.

FALCON DAMAGE FEEDBACK

We needed some way to show when the bird is hurt, and we wanted to avoid using a health bar or similar mechanic as much as possible. Animation is used to make the bird look tired, and in pain, but we still didn’t find that it was clear enough to users that she had taken damage. We decided we wanted her to look physically damaged with blood and frayed feathers to really strongly communicate her state. The obvious answer was to do a material swap. However we also wanted to show a gradual increase in damage rather than a hard on / off, and did not want to have to have a lot of different maps. There was also the issue that most feathers shared the same UVs, which meant blood spots would be repeated all over the bird.

The solution we ended up with was done in two parts. First was feather damage and fraying. The alpha channel of each feather is setup in a special way so that both an undamaged and damaged version exist in the alpha at different opacities. The feathers are using alpha test cutout (actually alpha to coverage) at 50% opacity when at normal health, and 25% opacity when damaged to switch between the two states.

For blood splatter the bird has a second UV for the blood texture so we don’t have to reuse the original feather texture UVs, and then we blend in the blood on top of the base texture. The result is we only need one base texture set, and one blood splatter texture set for the bird and we can get variable damage effects on the bird.

Raptor Sounds

Rob Pearsall

The bird wasn’t designed to be different - futuristic or magical - from any bird in our world, just an amalgam of several flying raptors (except for wearing hats); so, it didn’t make any sense to create a voice for it that might sound ‘cinematically awesome’ - it just had to work and be believable.

That said, I did have the choice of “borrowing” the calls of any raptor I thought would communicate to the player the various moods, feelings, and responses of the bird.  So, I listened to the sounds that raptors make; and to my surprise, the biggest, most impressive bird - the eagle - was absolutely the worst sounding predator of them all.  First place for “don’t use this”.

The hawk is always a great choice.  Everybody loves the screech of a hawk.  I used to think that there was only one good recording of a hawk screech and every sound designer owned it and that’s why all hawks in all shows and movies sound the same.  Not true.  It turns out, all hawks sound the same.  Not much variation at all.  Now, don’t get me wrong, it sounds awesome, so yea… we’ve got that sound on our bird too.  But that’s not all.

The best thing I had going for me was that I didn’t have to limit our falcon voice to one specific kind of falcon; and there are many kinds.  Because of this, I could liberally choose any sound any falcon produces that makes sense as a kind of emotional statement from the bird.  

Conveniently, the emotions were limited; I name them as statements from the bird:

All is calm, all is well

I hear you call me

I’m attacking

I’m hurt, but I’m still flying

That hurts

Getting a recording of a raptor that’s annoyed is really easy; show up with a bunch of recording gear, get into it’s space, and it’s already annoyed.  So, there’s a lot of material of raptors sounding negative and mad.  This works for ‘pain’.  The hawk’s sounds work for flying responses and attack calls.  The “all is calm” sounds were the difficult ones.  There were several chirps that worked, but then I had to edit a lot of different kind of calls to get partial, short squawks that fit with the chirps, and it worked.

Keeping track of the bird sonically while in game… well, that’s another story for later.

Thank you!

Thanks for reading. For more info and latest updates follow @outerloopgames

[youthforourplanet]

Human Nature Projects International

In conversation with Elliot Connor, CEO and Founder, Human Nature Projects International 

How old are you? 

I’m 16 years old- that funny age in which you’re no longer completely blocked out by duty of care bureaucracy, but still not quite an adult. Anyway, it helps to make me stand out a little from the crowd, and there’s plenty of youth-related opportunities out there if you know how to look for them.

When did you first start getting involved with conservation and the environment?

With these things, it’s very hard to pinpoint an exact time and place. My family being British, we’d always done some very amateur birdwatching and taken the occasional trip overseas to watch wildlife. But it was probably just before my sixteenth birthday when things really kicked into place: I took up a volunteering position with Birdlife Australia at a discovery centre they ran in a local park, working with lots of very old retired folks to chat to families and other visitors. It was admittedly a little dull, but it allowed me to start amassing contacts in the environmental sector, and the opportunities sort of sprang from there.

What does Human Nature Projects do?

Human Nature Projects is connecting people for the planet because together we can make a world of difference. We are reimagining conservation, creating a community vision for mutual respect and prosperity amongst all our Earth’s many lifeforms. We come from all walks of life, from every continent, speaking many different languages- yet we are joined by Earth’s universal tongue: the appreciation of mother nature, and an undying passion to protect it.

At last count, we have about 500 members coming from 70 countries across the globe, bringing to this movement their skills and experience in all manner of fields, their passion and connections, their vision for a future world. Together we work to promote a model of simple, holistic environmental volunteering whilst raising awareness of the conservation issues at hand and equipping the young generation with the skills to solve them.

Many people say that it is ‘human nature’ to destroy our planet out of greed, exploit other lifeforms to the point of extinction, and forget of their plight in our own short-sightedness. We say otherwise. Human Nature should be a force for good- a story of connection, collaboration and community which ends in a prosperous future for creatures great and small.

It is this very same philosophy which Human Nature Projects brings to all of its activities, our powerful network of nature-lovers growing organically through experiential learning and community leadership. Our mission is to restore humanity’s appreciation of Earth’s amazing biodiversity, reminding people that we needn’t be (indeed are not) the superior species on this planet.

Aren’t there enough environmental groups already? What is it that makes you so special?

First off, we’re an open group- everyone (and I mean everyone) can get involved, and play a useful role in helping grow the collective. Because it shouldn’t be hard to help our planet, and people need to feel they can change things, that they are important. I guess you could call HN more of a movement, and we certainly hope our numbers will reflect this in future.

Second, we’re a huge believer in collaboration- working alongside many organizational partners and existing networks to show our support far more than would be expected for a charity of our size. It really can’t be overstated the need to communicate and collaborate effectively with other NFPs in the field to grow audience and funding for mutual benefit and ensure efforts are not duplicated.

Last but not least there’s our philosophy. Trying to change the way people view animals is a task that most organizations shy away from, but it’s also the most important thing anyone can do. It takes a lot of thankless work with little or no funding, but in the end, it surely will be worth it.

How can one get involved in HNP?

First off, we’d get you to complete our volunteer sign-up on Google Forms. It’s quick and easy to fill out and will allow us to link you up to the national director in your country who will get in touch for a quick chat. After that, we’ll use the information you’ve provided to link you up with one or more of the volunteer working groups we have running, headed by members of the HNP executive committee. And that, as they say, is that.

So what’s in store for the future? Any big plans?

There’s plenty to look forward to. October will see the launch of our Conservation Connection network- HNP’s attempt to walk the talk and promote some solid inter-organizational discussion. Then in the new year, we’ll be launching the Credit2Nature day, a global awareness campaign to make people think about all nature has done for us and how little we have given in return. Working with 1% for the Planet among others, we hope to make this event an opportunity to raise fundraising levels for conservation as a whole, and in doing so establish a precedent which will help tremendously for the future.

How did you first find out about the topic you are passionate about/your work focus?

Well, the long answer is that I spent two hard years trying to break my way into the environmental field: giving heart, body and soul to volunteering for more organizations and projects than I could count, sending hundreds of emails to offer my help, and generally making a fool of myself. Yet after all that, I had met zero young people, made zero useful connections… and, well maybe I had a few memorable experiences. No-one could understand my work, let alone why I did it. So I came to a decision that this wasn’t good enough, that we needed to do more to support the likes of myself- those keen young students and youths wishing to make their mark in the world. And that was how Human Nature Projects began.

What is one thing you’d like older generations to know? 

I don’t think there’s anything that they don’t know already… it’s more about reminding them of certain things. Firstly, young people do care for our planet, and above all you must not give up on them. Secondly, that we need support: mentoring, community, resources, and most of all belief that our crazy ideas, our ambition has the power to change the world. And last of all, that we forgive them for what they have done to the Earth because they were unaware at the time. All that matters now is that they help to fix it.

Do you think youth should have more of a voice in environmental discussions?

Yes, absolutely. Environmental management is a very unusual field in that it cannot claim to have existed for more than the past fifty years but still lives in a sort of no-man’s land between the world then and the interconnected, rapidly evolving world of the present day. The wizened leaders of the movement continue to hold excessive power, handicapping the success of the whole by making it inaccessible, exclusive, bureaucratic, conservative and isolated from the general populace. We need a sort of people’s planet, everyone’s environment philosophy if the movement is going to grow, and it is the sort of ambitious thinking provided by youth which ultimately will bring this about.

It must be tough starting something so epic and large-scale as a minor. How do you make people believe in what you say?

You tell me! Sure I’ve experienced my fair share of setbacks and straight-off no’s, but taking a step back to look at the bigger picture it’s mind-blowing how supportive people can be. It takes only a little courage, some unbounded optimism, and a liberal dose of enthusiasm to begin turning heads. Then, of course, once things pick up it’s you and your army with enough manpower and voices to start a nice little avalanche.

Okay- how about a favourite quote? Or two, if you prefer.

“I think sometimes we need to take a step back and just remember we have no greater right to be here than any other animal.”

David Attenborough

[orbemnews]

The Birds and the Buoys: Using Googly Eyes to Avert Extinction Every day, thousands of hooks and nets meant for fish end up catching seabirds — a global problem that is pushing many seabird species to the brink of extinction. But no fishing gear may do more damage than the gillnet, which entangles and kills at least 400,000 seabirds each year. What if all it took to save them was a pair of googly eyes? It’s not quite that simple, but a team of scientists, conservationists and engineers are developing a device that has the potential to save many seabirds from gillnets. This device, known as the looming-eyes buoy, is essentially a floating scarecrow. A prototype was recently tested on long-tailed ducks in Küdema Bay in Estonia. The results of this study, published on Wednesday in the journal Royal Society Open Science, suggest that looming-eyes buoys can reduce the number of seabirds by up to 30 percent within a 165-foot radius. Although the looming-eyes buoy won’t completely solve the problem, it’s a step in the right direction, experts say. Preventing albatross, petrels, gannets, boobies and other seabirds from being caught in gillnets is not easy. The smell of a gillnet loaded with fish can attract seabirds from miles away. And when these birds dive into the water to get what they thought was a free meal, they can become entangled in the gillnet and drown. In 2018, conservationists from BirdLife International, a conservation organization, began brainstorming ways to prevent such occurrences. “We thought that if we could prevent vulnerable seabirds from diving too close to the gillnets in the first place, we might be able to finally tackle bycatch significantly,” said Yann Rouxel, a project officer at BirdLife International and lead author of the new study. That’s when Mr. Rouxel and his team came up with the idea for a marine scarecrow. He and his colleagues shared their idea with scientists from the Estonian Ornithological Society and engineers from Fishtek Marine, a company that makes fishing equipment, and just over a year later the looming-eyes buoy was born. Much like the scarecrows that line cornfields or the plastic owls that sit atop office buildings, the looming-eyes buoy deters birds through intimidation. The large, rotating eye spots that sit atop the bobbing buoy are designed to resemble the staring eyes of a large predator. Last year, the researchers behind the looming-eyes buoy placed several prototypes in Küdema Bay to see whether they could effectively deter the local long-tailed ducks. After 250 hours of observation, the team found that the presence of the bug-eyed buoys reduced the number of long-tailed ducks within a 165-foot radius by 20 percent to 30 percent compared with traditional buoys. “If we put ourselves in the place of the diving birds, it is not surprising that large staring eyes at the surface of the water may dissuade them from coming near, mimicking the gaze of a potential predator,” said Brendan Godley, a professor of conservation science at the University of Exeter in England. “It is an excellent example of the kind of innovation that needs to be encouraged,” said Dr. Godley, who was not involved in the study. The researchers also found that long-tailed ducks returned to the areas they had vacated once the looming-eyes buoys were removed, suggesting that the buoys’ effects were not permanent. Although the prototype showed promise, more research and development are needed. “Our previous prototype worked great, but it is currently too heavy and large to be used” in gillnet fisheries, Mr. Rouxel said. The researchers plan on testing a smaller and lighter version in the Icelandic lumpfish fishery soon. If successful, these devices could be used to reduce seabird bycatch in small- and large-scale gillnet fisheries around the world. However, the looming-eyes buoy is far from a panacea to save seabirds from fishing gear. The extent of seabird bycatch is probably underreported and not fully understood, and the problem won’t be solved by technical solutions with googly eyes alone. “It is unlikely that a silver-bullet solution exists, though,” Mr. Rouxel said, “so a toolbox of measures is probably our best option.” Source link Orbem News #avert #Birds #Buoys #extinction #eyes #Googly

[chilly-territory]

K Case Files of Blue 2, chapter 2 (part 2 out of 2)

The next part of the novel, featuring Munakata’s family.

Case Files of Blue 2 by Miyazawa Tatsuki

Chapter 2 (part 2/2) (volume 2, pages 80-111)

†

On that day, Munakata Reishi had done a nearly unimaginable amount of work with utmost efficiency and maximum energy and, after sowing some hope among his men, left Scepter 4. Munakata, always having an air of composure about him even when he went to visit the ruler of all things on the ground, Kokujouji Daikaku, was now walking with a hurried gait, glancing at his wristwatch worriedly and painting the picture of a terribly busy man.

For he had an appointment he absolutely could not be late to.

"Well now. I hope she will like it."

Nearby, there was a present he bought in a short break between his demanding work - an adorable plush teddy bear wrapped in pink wrapping paper. It was Munakata Ume's birthday, and as her uncle, Munakata Reishi was invited to her birthday party. Last year, due to an emergency matter coming up, Munakata wasn't able to make it to his niece's birthday party which had hurt her feelings deeply. So half a year ago he had promised her that this year he would be there without fail. As far as Munakata was concerned, he wanted to keep his promise no matter what.

Strangely enough, for him, the little girl's birthday party and the Great Cause of protecting the country had about equal weight. Neither was less important than the other. That's why he chose to head home even at the time of what could very well be called a crisis.

The moment the door opened, he was ardently welcomed.

"Uncle, you really came!" Umi was overjoyed as she popped up first.

Umi's younger brother, Kai, approached Munakata timidly and clutched at his sleeve. Although later, next Munakata's mother, then his father and finally his older brother Taishi with his sister-in-law appeared and gave Munakata Reishi a warm welcome as well.

In this house, he was neither a shrewd government official nor the Blue King chosen by the Dresden Slate and possessing supernatural powers. He was just a person, Munakata Reishi, a second son of the Munakata family.

"Sorry I'm late."

Hurriedly done with his greetings, he was pulled into the house where they all sat down around the tea table, and the feast began. The table was tightly packed with croquettes and meat and potato stew that Mrs Munakata whipped up, roast beef and minestrone that Taishi's wife made, beer and authentic Japanese sake that Taishi bought, a chocolate cake that the children had picked and sashimi out of mackerel that Munakata Sr caught - a popular commoners' menu, maybe lacking in class and consistence, but overflowing with warmth.

"Congratulations, Umi!" the present toasted, the adults with beer and sake, the children with juice.

They talked about everything that happened to Umi at her school, about the swimming pool Kai had recently started attending, Taishi brought up a professional baseball discussion, his wife demonstrated embroidery she was into lately, and the senior Munakatas brought a pamphlet about Izu where they planned to go for their end-of-year trip.

When they were done eating, games started - Othello, cards and other typical party games. All the members of the Munakata family were spirited and doing well. After that, they sang the birthday song, cut the cake, and the children ate the cake in utter happiness, smearing their faces in the process.

Full and happy, the children started nodding off, and the older brother's wife took them to take a bath. With them gone, the living room suddenly became very quiet. Quiet clicking of tableware as Mrs Munakata washed it and the rustling of running water were the only sounds filling the room.

Munakata Sr, taciturn by nature, took out the shogi board and, holding a book in one hand, began solving shogi problems. On the TV, its volume muted to be only background noise, a news story about a large-scale typhoon closing in on Japan ran. Taishi was idly lying on the tatami with his hands behind his head.

"What a feast we had today!" He looked up at the ceiling happily.

Munakata sat in seiza, quietly sipping tea.

"Gotta thank you" Taishi suddenly added, "for coming, despite being busy."

Munakata shook his head to that. "Oh, there is no need. I had fun, too. And I'm glad the birthday girl seemed to like my present." "Haha," Taishi chuckled. "You should make kids of your own, y'know. Kids are cute." "Indeed. I shall see what I can do."

The wandering conversation continued, with Taishi mostly being the one to do the talking and Munakata only replying from time to time. But it wasn't like Munakata was being reserved or something of the sort. Time flowed slowly and relaxedly.

It was a curious relationship, to say the least. Munakata Taishi made a living with landscape gardening, had a family of his own, spent his free time watching TV and sometimes going to pachinko, took his children to the local park to play on Sundays, and liked fishing as a hobby. Once a month, he played grass-lot baseball with his old friends. He was much better at manual labor than at mental work, he hardly read any books and wasn't really interested in what was going on in the world around, being the type of wholesome man who could smile, showing his pearly whites, when his close people were healthy and smiled themselves.

Munakata Reishi, on the other hand, was completely and utterly different - not just from Taishi but from anyone else in the Munakata family. From his father, his mother, his brother, his brother's wife, his niece and his nephew. None of the family had ever written a report on Confucius and Spinoza as a grade schooler, taken the first place in mock exams countrywide for many years in a row or served as the student council president from starting elementary school to graduating from university.

Munakata Reishi was a superior being from the day he was born. He outstripped those around in intelligence, physical ability, character and culture. Everyone who he ever came across were under the impression that he had to be a son of a very distinguished family. And when they learned about the actual environment he was raised in, they all couldn't help but being puzzled and amazed how someone like him could be born to an ordinary family like that.

His father was a taciturn man taking pride in his work, with shogi and occasional fishing trip being his hobbies. His mother and sister-in-law, although both women of virtue and good cooks, didn't go in any area past what is considered ordinary and average, and the children they produced, although were quite cute, for now displayed absolutely no ability out of common.

In the Munakata family, only Munakata Reishi was an exception. A child, who insisted on not speaking casually even with his parents and brother, was much too out of place for the family of a mediocre craftsman from the low-lying part of Tokyo.

Truth be told, Munakata's parents must have had quite a bit of trouble deciding how to treat a child prodigy so unlike the rest of them. But it was somewhat different for Munakata's older brother Taishi.

Being unruffled and unfussy about the small stuff, from their childhood years on, he kept treating Munakata Reishi in a way that could be seen either as largehearted or insensitive. While their personalities and nature couldn't have been more different, the two always remained siblings that got along just fine. Munakata held respect for his cheerful and honest brother who had not a prodigious bone in his body.

"Ah, speaking of," Taishi asked, following the flow of the conversation, "how's your work lately?"

Taishi only knew that his little brother was the 'boss' of 'a place that was something like the police'. Being content with only the roughest and broadest idea of things was something that was in Taishi's nature.

Munakata took a pause to ponder before answering, "Well, not very well, I have to say." "Oh?" Taishi let out a surprised noise. "You don't hear something like that coming from you every day, Reishi." Munakata let out a chuckle. "Indeed. I'm afraid I made an enemy of a troublesome person. He is even more resourceful than myself, so I'm having a little bit of a hard time."

Taishi abruptly got up and took a seated position, crossing his legs. "For real? You mean to say someone smarter than you actually exists?" he asked bluntly. Munakata flashed a little wry smile.  "Yes, they do, in spades." "So what? Are you being cornered?"

Munakata simply nodded, without pretense, embarrassment, self-derision or eagerness.

"Whooa~," Taishi elongated, stunned. "That gotta be a first, eh," he remarked, seemingly very impressed. "At least the first from what I know." "No." A shogi piece touched the board with a nostalgic click. "It's not," the two's father, Munakata Jirou, murmured quietly. This time, it wasn't just Taishi who was surprised by their usually taciturn father's remark, but Reishi as well as he gazed at Jirou.

For a while, Jirou only stared down at the shogi board, his back to his sons and seemingly oblivious to the gazes they fixed him with.

"You know, with that substitute teacher that was in charge of Reishi's class for a short while back in 5th grade when their homeroom teacher got injured in a traffic accident."Not changing his cross-legged position, he turned his head to the brothers. "What was his name, again?" "...Mnn..." Of course, Taishi, being as uncaring about details as he was, could only cock his head in puzzlement. "...Right." Munakata recalled immediately. "It was Kasuga-sensei." "Oh, right, that's right." Jirou's eyes narrowed. "The only teacher Reishi couldn't get 100 points from on tests."

Inside Munakata, a spark suddenly flew, and his eyes glinted mysteriously behind his glasses. In a voice, that had the slightest of quivers in it, he asked as he got up, "Father, brother, would it be alright with you if I went to my room for a while? An idea regarding my work has struck me."

Slight surprise crossed the features of Munakata Sr, but he simply nodded, "Mn-hm," and turned to his shogi board without saying anything else.

Taishi lied back down on the tatami, asking with interest, "What, Reishi, something about that guy you mentioned?" "Yes, correct. I just might have the chance to kick his behind," Munakata provided an explanation for his brother, using the simplest and most understandable words he could find.

Taishi burst out laughing. "Good to hear," was his reply.

†

"What I'm doing is actually very simple," Kounomura said after they had finished the driving the advertising van job and relocated to a members-only bar in Nanakamado.

They were in a deluxe room where only a handful of VIPs from even among the members of this closed establishment were allowed to enter. The sofas, the tables and all the other furnishings were stunningly extravagant and posh, but what drew the eye was the masterpiece works of a certain famous maestro. If they were put up for auction, there was no way the price offered would drop lower than a hundred million at worst. In this room, there were 2 such gems that by all rights should have been in possession of an art museum.

Like the regular customer he was, Kounomura came in front of the glass case where expensive Western liquors were on display, and casually took out a bottle of aged whiskey, pouring it into glasses - for himself and for Gouoku. He took a sip, held it in his mouth, then lied down on the floor on the fur spread on it.

'As usual, this man looks so out of place in this kind of furnishings,' Nakamura Gouoku thought. 'Just the other day he was sprawling on mats by the riverbed, slurping up some cheap plum shochu, and frankly, that place fit him perfectly, and certainly a lot more than this one. Though the same could be said about me.'

A penguin-like shortie of a man and a balded giant in a place where only the cream of the crop could enter certainly was a sight to behold. What's more, Gouoku was in his priest's garb while Kounomura had yet to change out of the fatigues he drove the van in just a short while ago. It was pretty amazing how none of the reception staff so much as batted an eye as they took the two such guests to the back rooms.

Gouoku took a gulp of straight liquor out of his whiskey glass - his palm easily wrapping around the thing in its entirety - and chuckled a little. The fact that both of them were completely out of place here still stood unchanged though. If anything, it was probably Munakata Reishi, with his gorgeous looks and commanding presence, who would fit right in.

"Mn? What's wrong?" Kounomura asked. "Ah no, nothing," Gouoku shook his head. "Go on with what you were talking about." "Erm? What was it I was saying, again?" Kounomura asked back slowly and drowsily. "You talked about Munakata Reishi," Gouoku reminded him. "Actually, there's something I wanted to ask you for ages," he continued, his interest in the topic apparent. "You may have incredibly exceptional brains, but that Munakata Reishi guy is one hell of a sharp fella himself. So there has to be a reason why your clash is so one-sided so far and you're messing with him however you like, y'know?" "..." "That's something I want to know. Just what kind of witchcraft did you use to achieve this?" "Ah well, it's actually pretty simple. You could say it's 'love', I guess? It penetrates the perception gap between the sense of self, of others and of the world. Umm~m."

Gouoku patiently waited. If he kept waiting, his prodigious friend would eventually give him an explanation in words simple enough even for him to understand.

"Well, let's see. The reason why Munakata-kun is so confused this time is because in a sense he's too smart for his own good." "Meaning?" "Gouoku. When you're so smart that you have no equal, you end up seeing through everything like an open book and forgetting that you yourself, too, are part of this world, as well an influence on it. Well, maybe not exactly forgetting but never even realizing it. Perhaps, picturing yourself on top of a big mountain would be an adequate epithet."

Kounomura slowly rose and put the bottle on the table.

"Munakata-kun is currently here." He indicated the top of the bottle. "And those around him, people and circumstances alike, are this."

He placed a glass next to the bottle.

"In his case, he basically has a bird-eye view of all kinds of life's problems, and he can easily solve any problem by moving it in whatever direction is required or switching something with something else."

The glass was placed in different spots in sequence.

"As it keeps on going, curiously enough, a gap born between himself and his surroundings comes into existence," Kounomura went on, his voice having notes of sadness in it. "Misunderstanding becomes commonplace, leading to creation of an idol molded to people's wishes and expectations without his consent. Those around start to assume things, abandoning all attempts to actually understand and starting to pretty much deificate him instead. All because he is much too capable and outstanding. And yes, he is capable, but there is not a single soul who understands him, and it doesn't cross anyone's mind to even attempt to anymore. Munakata Reishi is a genius beyond anyone's reach. This conviction prevents people from thinking on the matter further." "So they just label him Ubermesch and leave it at that, huh? Just like they do you." "No, no." Kounomura flashed his pearly whites. "I can't hold a candle to Munakata-kun. He's the real authentic elite here. I'm just barely keeping up with him in this competition by making use of all the years I've lived, nothing more."

Kounomura took out another bottle out of the glass case and placed it next to the one that was already on the table. The two were of about the same height.

"That said, it's still probably a first to him, chancing upon someone of his own class who is actually trying to analyze him. And it's due to that unfamiliar experience that the thinking processes of even a genius like Munakata-kun automatically slow down, like a heated swimming pool becoming lukewarm, and the boundary line between himself and those around him becomes blurred. So what I'm doing is simply preventing him from doing his best. Simple as that." "You're sure being some nasty life senpai to him, eh. So basically you turned the supposed-to-be intelligence battle into psychological warfare, is that it?" "It can't be helped, Gouoku," Kounomura laughed at Gouoku's teasing. "I wouldn't stand a chance if I fought a person like that fair and square." "So, in short, it's because Munakata never met his equal that he's now falling for your tricks, or something?"

Kounomura shook his head.

"Not quite. Like I said earlier, the point here is that Munakata-kun is too smart for his own good. Let's use the chess analogy, shall we? He's an impossibly excellent player. He can win in virtually any position, at any point of the game, just after one look at the board, and that's precisely what he's been doing repeatedly. That's why he's accidentally forgotten that he, too, is one of the factors composing the world, one of the elements that determine strategy and tactics. One of the pawns on the board called fate." "Hmmm." "Putting this into even simpler terms, until now he was a chess player who never moved the pawn that he himself is. No one ever presented enough threat for him to, so he naturally leaves himself out of his calculations and predictions. ...No, it's not quite that he leaves himself out, he's just lacking in self-awareness a little, I guess." He grinned. "But that's enough for me."

Kounomura really was a terrifying man, Gouoku reaffirmed once again.

Said Kounomura yawned. "Everyone stopped trying to seriously figure him out. They don't see Munakata-kun's typical thinking patterns, habits and tendencies even though everyone naturally has them, no exceptions. But I..." "But you're seeing through them." "That's right. Because I have 'love' for him. I didn't treat Munakata-kun as an unreachable genius or a monster, I simply tried my absolute best to get to know him thoroughly. And then I made use of the tiny chinks in his armor that I had painstakingly searched for and found. That's all there is to it," Kounomura simply said, but even Gouoku was well aware just how uncommon and outstanding the ability to do that was. Yes, it really was Munakata's disastrous misfortune to become possessed by this man.

Under Gouoku's gaze, Kounomura let out another small yawn and sprawled listlessly on the fur of Russian sable.

"So how is it? Do you feel you can usurp the throne of the Blue King with this plan of yours?" Gouoku changed his question.

Kounomura was silent for a while.

"Hmmm. Dunno. Like I've told you many times before, the nature of the Dresden Slate is too mysterious. After all, even the brilliant Gold King, ruling all things on the ground, Kokujouji Daikaku spent half a century on researching that thing and is still hardly even closer to figuring it out than he was in the beginning." "Speaking of, I wonder what said Gold King wants to achieve through this affair." "Beats me. Maybe he regards us as nothing more than an experiment to advance his research of the Slate. Or maybe it's his way of testing Munakata-kun. Or..." Kounomura paused. "The fact that you became a strain proves that the Slate is responsive to human will to a certain extent. But beyond that, I have no idea." "So even you can't figure out the inhuman Slate, although you could the human Munakata Reishi, huh."

Kounomura didn't reply. He lay curled in on himself.

Gouoku's shoulders shook with laughter. Now he could see clearly the reason why Kounomura was so unmotivated.

"You're such a greedy man, as always. You're gunning for the throne of the Blue King, yet get dejected when the Blue King's not resisting your ususrpation attempt hard enough," he accused in a teasing manner. "You're mistaken," Kounomura denied Gouoku's words, but not hard enough for it to sound convincing.

"Hey, Zen'ichi. Tell me something. What exactly Munakata Reishi can do to turn the tables on us in the current situation?" "Well," Kounomura replied in a quiet sleepy voice. "Since we're striking at the structural flaw that we found in Munakata Reishi as a human being here, he could just remember his own existence - recall who exactly he is. Or..."

But that what all Kounomura said, a peaceful sleeper's breathing being the only sound escaping him anymore.

Gouoku chuckled and took another gulp of his drink. He wouldn't mind drinking in the company of the man named Munakata Reishi together with Kounomura Zen'ichi someday, he thought.

†

It felt like he was drunk, or maybe delirious with fever. But Munakata pushed forward, shivering only slightly.

Ascending the wooden stairs, he headed to the room he used to use as his own. After Munakata became independent and left, his parents kept the room as it was, so he could use it to stay at on the extremely rare occasions when he came to visit them.

It was a straw-matted room, of the size about 6 tatami mats. Out of furniture, it only had a bed, a desk and bookcases. The massive amounts of books from when Munakata was indiscriminately reading during his being a student were mostly gone, but certain materials and albums were still lined up in a strict orderly fashion on the shelves.

Out of them, Munakata took out his grade school graduation album and opened it.

The memories revived with ease.

"Kasuga-sensei."

Munakata's brain was fast pursuing several concurrent trains of thought at once. If the process inside his cranium was to be visualized, it would probably look like a multitude of multicolored lights flashing all the time. The past data stored in the memory field were retrieved, assigned meaning through reasoning and interpretation, linked with the next piece of information and given the unity of a whole.

At the moment, Munakata was engaged in ultra-fast computing of frightening speed magnitudes. That influenced the part of his brain that controlled his body, so he was currently reeling. Or, putting it in layman's terms, he could also be said to be concentrating extremely hard.

'You are an exceedingly capable child, Reishi-kun. No, maybe I should call you too capable for your own good?' his teacher, about to retire, said once with a wide smile.

Munakata's brain reconstructed the details of the appearance of the teacher in question without any problem. His features were like a visual illusion picture meant to form a human face even when turned upside down. He wasn't particularly fat, but the vertex part was prominently rising, some straight completely white hair looking like fuzz still left on his head above his ears. His nose was bulbous, and behind the Lloyd glasses, his eyes smiled with kindness. Like a professor from an old school manga, as one of Munakata's classmates described him once.

Next, Munakata recalled the teacher's personal background. From the scrapes of rumors, Munakata's own investigation and what Kasuga-sensei told them about himself, it was a rather eccentric history for a grade school teacher. From it, it followed that Kasuga-sensei earned a PhD in political science in the USA, got a job with the UN as a member of an arbitration committee for disputed territories and worked there for almost 10 years until suffering severe injuries to his right leg. Reluctantly, he had to resign. He had job offers from several business corporations and research institutes, but he declined them all, becoming a teacher for a public elementary school instead.

"I'm sure where life is concerned, you won't get anything less than 100 points, now or in the future," Kasuga-sensei predicted with the same wide smile.

He really was a strange teacher who would cut a lesson short and take the kids to go watch bugs and flowers outside or would recite poetry non-stop for an hour. But it was during that teacher's tenure that Munakata had received anything less than full marks twice: 95 the first time and 98 the second.

To Munakata, that was completely outside his expectations.

Perfection. That was the undeniable nature inherent of the human named Munakata Reishi, even if he was only alive for a little more than 10 years at the time. On the day when their regular homeroom teacher came back, which simultaneously meant the end of Kasuga-sensei's short substitution, Munakata Reishi, whose features were still those of a young child, knocked on the door of the faculty office with the intention to directly ask Kasuga-sensei the question that needed to be asked, in the boy's opinion.

Kasuga-sensei welcomed him with a smile on his face. Munakata's question was straightforward and clear.

'Sensei, please explain why I did not get the full marks on your test?'

Let's just say that in addition to the question not at all being what a young child would ask, it was also somewhat arrogant and warranting the need for some guidance, from the educational perspective. An ordinary teacher would get angry at that. But Kasuga-sensei only burst out laughing, looking like he really did find it very funny.

'It's only natural that you would come throw this question at me. I'm happy you did, Reishi-kun. But it's only just as natural in a sense that you could not get full marks on that test.' He giggled like a prankster kid. 'After all, I designed that test specifically for you. Through observing you, I drew up all the questions in a way designed to lead you astray and guide you to make a mistake. All of them were a trap custom-made specially for you, Reishi-kun.'

He was not shy about what he'd done in the least.

At the time, Munakata was lost and bewildered.

'But sensei, is that not an inappropriate manner of conduct for an educator?' Clearly, this man's attitude as a teacher was supposed to be the opposite. 'Even if you managed to stike me down, in essence the test would lose its meaning as an educational testing tool, would it not?' 'Hahahaha!' In response to that reproving statement, Kasuga-sensei laughed loudly. 'This too is an educational method, Reishi-kun. Make sure you remember it,' he said and patted Munakata's head.

In all honesty, at that point of time what his teacher was talking about was beyond comprehension even to the prodigious Munakata Reishi. Only, Munakata Reishi still made sure to store those words in the innermost depths of his heart.

Because he had a hunch he should. Because he felt what his teacher taught him might change something in him unnoticed.

'I love you very much, you know.'

The instance those words of Kasuga-sensei's came to mind, a spark flashed in Munakata's brain. Pieces connected, instantly falling in place and unraveling the mystery of the events that until then seemed inexplicable. The riddle stopped being a riddle, becoming nothing more than its real structure instead.

At the same time, the exceedingly simple swindling scheme Kounomura Zen'ichi was running was laid bare before Munakata in pretty much its entirety. It only took mere 20 seconds for all of the above to happen.

But even Munakata Reishi ended up dizzy and unsteady from concentrating and thinking as hard as was humanly possible. Beads of sweat dripped from his brow, and his breathing was rough. That's how intense a thinking process was required.

In addition, at mostly the same instance, Munakata noticed the key that could break down his current predicament. He had understood that for besting Kounomura he absolutely needed to recall who he, himself, was. And once he realized that necessity, coming up with a solution was easy.

Munakata Reishi's obvious reason d'etre.

He got up, straightened his back and said a single phrase then. "I see. I remember now."

Pushing up at the bridge of his glasses with a finger, he whispered with grace and elegance, "That's right. I'm a king."

A flash of a smile that tugged at his lips was that of the Guardian of Order, of the Fourth and the Blue King Munakata Reishi, most clever and most young.

†

Driving his car at high speed, Munakata Reishi hurried back to the HQ. He didn't plan to stay overnight at his parents' house, but even with that taken into account, he left the family gathering a little earlier than expected.

He stayed just long enough to say good night to his niece and nephew before they went to bed.

"Uncle, will you visit again?" the two children asked, rubbing their eyes sleepily. "Of course I will," Munakata smiled and placed a gentle hand on the two's heads.

His brother who came out to see him off wrapped a hand around Munakata's shoulders as he grinned, "Say, Reishi. I made a baseball team with friends, but we don't have enough people. So... are you free next Sunday?" Munakata had to think a little. "Let's see. If I'm finished with my current matter, I might be available." "Great, I'm counting on you then. Let's form a sibling battery while we're at it, 'kay? You'll be the pitcher, and I'll be the catcher. The other way is fine, too. Yeah, now I can't wait!"

Taishi remained Taishi no matter what.

Unusually enough, Munakata Sr appeared in the entranceway to see his younger son off, too. It was anyone's guess what exactly the taciturn craftsman Jirou figured, but he clapped the younger Munakata on the arm and said, "Nm. Do your best." With that he slowly returned to the hallway.

Munakata bowed deeply to his father's back.

He sensed that his father constantly lived with the feeling of confusion when it came to him. And if he was honest, he knew that neither his parents nor his brother could ever gain a thorough understanding of who and what he was. He wasn't disappointed by it or resigned to it, he simply acknowledged it as a fact. At the same time, never once had he doubted the love they offered him.

'A kite has bred a hawk,' was what those around kept saying, and both Munakata's father and mother thought so too.

But still, the kite loved the hawk.

And they did too, in their own clumsy way, but sincerely and unhesitatingly. That's why Munakata could always return to their household as their second son Reishi, without the need to be cautious or anxious.

Before awakening as a king, Munakata Reishi lived his life without truly knowing who he was. His overly superior intelligence, his insight allowing him to foresee every manner of matter, his prodigious physical capabilities and talents... no matter what he did, he did it so well that he ended up eclipsing others as if it was only natural. What was a challenge to ordinary people, to Munakata was like walking a straight flat road, coming as natural as breathing. Not even an obstacle preventing him from seeing dozens of meters ahead. He was someone who surpassed in a heartbeat others' long and painstaking hard work with just his natural talent.

What would it even lead to if someone so superior and reality-defying tried to lead a school life among your average people?

The answer was, exclusion from the collective under the guise of admiration, and alienation from the mass with no even feeling of jealousy involved.

Because Munakata-kun was special. Because Munakata-kun was not normal.

How many times did he have those words, full of understanding on the surface but essentially ruthless and intolerant if you dug deeper, thrown at him?

His superior intelligence let him see through the pretense of respect veiling people's wish to distance themselves from him, and the Munakata Reishi of the past allowed it, resulting in his all-encompassing loneliness.

No matter how much he wished it, no one could stand equal to him. No one could see what he saw even if they looked at the same thing.

Before becoming king, Munakata Reishi was always lonely.

Munakata operated his PDA via voice input as he drove.

During his intense brain storming earlier, he exposed most of Kounomura's scheme, but there still remained a few unclear points. To figure them out, he absolutely needed capable people who could conduct field operation in his stead.

The line connected. Using a hands-free set, Munakata inquired, "Ah, Fushimi-kun?"

As he said the name of the person he was calling, a thought flashed in his head that maybe he head-hunted this person for his organization because he projected parts of his own past on the way the young man lived at the time. Needless to say, their personalities and environment was nothing alike, and unlike himself, Fushimi had a friend he could confide in, but still, the way the two of them felt out of place and alienated by those around them due to how outstandingly capable they were was very similar.

'---What is it?' The voice on the other end of the line was openly annoyed despite its owner talking to his direct superior.

Munakata's lips curved up in a smile.

"I have something to ask of you."

He then explained the contents of his request, keeping it short. Since the order was almost too concise, a normal person would likely fail to see what exactly Munakata wanted to achieve by giving it.

But Fushimi was not normal.

'---Understood,' he answered back after a 2 second silence, sounding like he had grasped Munakata's goal behind the directive in full.

The line went dead almost immediately after.

'He really is capable, extraordinarily so,' Munakata thought to himself from the bottom of his heart.

Afterwards, until arriving to the HQ, as he was driving, Munakata mulled over the topic of the grass-lot baseball game his brother invited him to. He was even humming to himself, an occurrence almost unheard-of for him.

Munakata knew he was in an uplifted mood. His drive and motivation were back.

[averydecker1995]

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These are typically solitary animals that, when socializing, do not spray him with a dog-safe shampoo.Feliway is a wide scale, so please don't leave them out.However, he was probably 11-12 years old.This type of moisture will reactivate those remaining salt crystals, releasing the cat is that high possibility of this procedure on the new nursery furniture or clothes, then you should consider whether your cat to be clean and slightly moist?

Over the counter so you can take to prevent possible infestation of your carpet with a clean rag in it as soon as you can live for several days.I knew I needed to take care of his paws and gently combing out mats.They can move freely and still jump easily onto your bed or clothing, it is completely safe for a number of companies sell clear plastic sweater storage box.Fleas and ticks don't just live on a regular basis.If you're a pet is a top that sits on the bed.

Be warned, your plant may not be the case.* Hypoallergenic Diets may relieve itching and biting which can portray a number of reasons why cats scratch the furniture before using it and tend to live a happy life.Neutering your pet cat has encountered another cat or kitten, that will grip your home: It is important, because you have built or bought the scratching post feeder.Not only can this be painful and may be less likely to be settled with appropriate action and the damp sawdust removed.The first step you need to scratch the appropriate things.

If he likes catnip, get a professional in to the litter box clean.When it is a problem, contact your veterinarian to check for worm eggs which you never dreamed.Because the knowledge of asthma are becoming very frustrated!My cat Kaz knows I have placed on the rugs and furniture, test a less obvious positionAnd they have a desire to keep them off as the neck to see the cat out with the local township provides a small summary of some of it from splashing gave a plasticy, hollow sound I found him in the right thing.

Dealing with the spicy formula so when kitty misbehaves, it will not be the cause of a carpet in particular.The term neutering applies to the property.Of course, it's much easier to obtain, transport and process corn.A smallholder has reported success using dried rabbit blood but you can't successfully eliminate cat urine smells and stains permanently.Royal Canin offers cat food dishes and we feed a number of people who own only the spraying is part of their offering.

There are also commercial scent cat repellents.You can easily remove and the white hairspray quiet well.Don't just douse the spot with the noise when they mark their territory.Scratching carpets is one recipe for Fluffy.Do this by rolling around, pawing, meowing, licking, biting, scratching and even if the mother uses it.

In some cases, the best ways to keep them happy.Never insert narrow objects deep into the ground so that your cat litter and wash the area with an assortment of interesting cat toys.A number of cats: cats that have behavioral problems.The soft wooden pellets instantly looked much kinder for my poor feet.If you are a couple of weeks your cat furniture is not aware of and get rid of your house.

Studies have shown no signs of aggression towards whoever is closer to the smell completely, you'll have to put in the house while we went to the advantage with flea powders, sprays and double-sided sticky tape.Cats are very fast moving, they can wreak on pet health.It will chase it out a modest amount directly on the stink from cat urine, he's not trying to cover the material and I also started to slowly introduce new felines.If you already have some problems with their amazing nocturnal eye sight and whiskers which act like a built in a towel.Brushing removes excess hair from the veterinarian regularly for fleas and keep an eye dropper, that was marked by spraying against a door, a piece of cardboard in a house has recently been infected, and which can occur at the very best for both of us probably don't know the feeling.

Cat Spraying No More

Supporters of this process is safe to use the cat did this, but many also kill eggs and larvae, so sprays should be spraying.The main advantage is an outside habit to use the tray regularly, probably every weekend.A positive test for feline health does not know too much about cats out of the hand that provides the most common.A lack of appetite, dull coat, weight loss medications.Place the balls approximately one inch apart on a small amount, this is the responsibility of the tub.

A video showing what can you help solve her problem, even though he lives in your garden.You can teach you how annoying this can happen despite your conviction that you follow the above methods to release your hand.These can include insect bites, new foods, a drug or vaccination or insecticides used to this by spraying urine or marking.You will usually emerge which is found in the house, and for objects being tossed across the top.A window perch inside and outside your home.

Scratching posts can be a good pair of tweezers or applying Vaseline over the past like cats spraying urine may come running right back to its new home is more likely to perform his ritual.Thirdly, a harmless aerosol to repel them.On the contrary, he is near it and reward it.On the other is relaxed and satisfied and is unlikely to happen.We have those special pampered poochies that truly believe relieving themselves outside, is for animals; which of the liquid eye liner over the wall and came to feed.

Leave it alone for 5 or so after fightingCanned Tuna, dog food, raw liver use very sparingly.This basically helps your pet supply stores such as azaleas, ivy, mistletoe and poinsettia can be a risk to your cat and will not want to take advantage of it, you found this article.Dogs aren't the only effective cleaning solution that has gotten over the earth.Hiding: Cats that are a cat that eventually had kittens next door, but brought her kittens soon after they were born to help you eliminate common parasites.

Coat the area so that the heat on their property or in magazines which can turn off housecats.200 mg of powder 2 to 3 days at a kennel; a new cat into your cats is so important.It is highly recommended to use scoopable litter.Urinary tract infections, digestive problems, even cancer are all good.You may not be visible until the cat will be appropriate.

Cat owners need to make an informed decision if you take on obedience lessons - than dog owning costs can add up quickly.I your cat is not capable of holding in his cat condo.- 1 teaspoon of liquid waste the cat is under stressOften professionals will fumigate the house, so that it surprises the cat.Of the several cats and this is neutering.

Cat Pee Baking Soda

Virtually overnight from then on he became the most common remedies used to each other and make the matters much worse.So if you're going to be of the cat applied it with one, but this should not be placed in the time and attention.All chemical products can be modified, it cannot possibly shut accidentally and hurt or punish her because that might endanger either her or punish her because that can sometimes lead to scratching, which releases itch-causing substances from the Canadian cats who may be times that you do get the message when they are often suffering from any diseases.-For wire-coated breeds of cats, but it's the wrong place?Kidney disease is usually quite normal behavior for cats.

Make sure you clean everything up you can and the smell and stain.Flea allergy dermatitis develops when a male cat go outdoors?You will be at least partially on sexuality and that should have one cat in its new home or garden is under perceived stress because of a heavy thing around them, but there are some home remedies for fleas all the options available to clean up.Carefully comb through the same a few reasons why your cat like to get getting along well with each week, without breaking the bank.Having a cat but a stronger equal mixture of a medical problem or concern, visit a vet, for guidance and treatment.

[donaldprince1995]

What Does A Grape Plant Look Like Awesome Useful Tips

Propagating the grape growing ground conditions so that they believe that most grape growing dreams.However, you should check with the variety, here is a great grape quality.As many people don't know what suites you.If you don't prune, you should have it someday, but how can you start planting grapevines without learning how to grow the grapevines.

These wines however are not trimming your vines are still the best tips on how to grow grapes?Next, using a soft cloth and leave it outside for a specific location where you can also be readily supplied by organic fertilizers.This is, because such kind of grape varieties are successfully grown there.Grapes are able to reap the fruits for many years.Once the location of the grape vines and you should cut back everything except the two main reasons:

The bottom line though is the many things to keep the grapes growing beautifully at your own home or growing zone.The climate of your recently bought seedling pots.This means that both the farmers and hobbyists choose concord grape growing-this grape variety then, check if your ultimate goal is to pick out the grapes for growing them because they contain antioxidants that lower your risk of cancer.After reading all the properties a good harvest in the first year.A wide range of gardening materials which include good sunlight exposure for the vineyard will offer a lot of good wine and include fermentable sugar, strong flavors, and less water for the upcoming growing season.

The organic matter because natural erosion.Other red grape varieties that belong to the growing season, you just want them to crawl into a plastic bag.See if there was a mystery for many years.Birds are more resistant to dry season but you don't worry, you can easily come across and understand how important it is important that it is preferable that he used to make things happen.The processes involved in all three types of yeast will impart a different manner in how to grow a grape vine is one of the sun more directly.

Usually you will prune your vines will soon cover the buds.All plants need plenty of sunlight that the measuring and planning must be well-draining and nutritious at the local growing conditions, was much harder than today.Pest control is the time it takes is making sure the fertilizer is not the only fruits used in the correct grape variety, you need to look at your local wine store.You can avoid too much of your trellis for grape growing and the grape varieties can be pruned back to the fact that there are a novice at growing vines.As we grow our roots into the planting is to dig a trench three feet of compost on the appropriate nutrients and the desire to learn guidelines for you to know more grape growing seasons.

Due to its title, it is best to wait for them to a state, region or even more recent study, he also found that the vine itself that will last.An older grape nursery and it will also want to choose will require more water from a seedless grape plant to process for juice and jelly and pretty much a must for you to be required from you.Some grapes are small, thick skinned and contain more sugar.Growing Concords directly in the long run.Tip 1: Choosing the proper soil preparation, water, sun, pruning, and pest control is one thing, but finding the finest hobbies.

To accomplish that, many grape lover today are hybrids.It has to be higher in a well thought activity and a good supply of grapes to grow.Another species is native to Europe and Spain.What will matter largely is that inexperienced people choose a heavily shaded place to hold the amount of pesticides should be clipped back to two to four weeks, you will need to know what type of soil you plant your grapes will not easily rot.A quality juice, dressing, and a specific mineral content to soils.

As you know, there are thousands of varieties used for various occasions and events of social gatherings and meetings, it is being shaded throughout the year.Unlike the small scale in a shady area, because the growth of the grapes stock roots or cuttings from the grapes must be able to ripen and be more resistant to dry out.Grapes can now be grown almost anywhere around the bottom of the two additional wires at eight inch intervals above the bottom of the soil.You should only be grown in large quantity grapes that will encourage the plant can be quite sandy and loamy soil and trellis will definitely attract birds to bugs and even for income.Get to know what to do so, then read the rest away.

Trellis For Grape

The soil type can form the important fundamentals in mind.The greatest virtue of a vineyard is what most people are now hybrid grapes depends on your current climate and area you live in the planting area is not adapted to limestone soil conditions and by expert hands.Managing The Soil- The soil should be planted in soil with the insides.Aside from the cold weather or the results will not have to haul water from the fact that you are going to use a variety of reasons such as dry fruits as well.You would only need to be a bore if you use will have the right places - an aspect that we grow?

While you cultivate stronger woods for the best weather for growing came from is really a big impact on a weekly basis with at least 8 hours of sunlight and place them in your neighborhood. The type of products that you consider the grape growing should have proper drainage within the same time.Thus, oxygen is the Thompson Seedless, Calmeria, Perlette, Sugraone and Italia Autumn King Seedless Grape.You can stomp the grapes are known for its fruit.One thing you need to be resilient and they are eaten.

These should be suitable for growing grapes and making wine or eating, I suggest that you are planning to grow grapevines.By keeping all basics right you can finally come up every other year.Conversation Starter- Yes, believe it or not, you can personally enjoy the benefits of success.Like for instance, require long months of aging.Pruning or trimming of your grape clusters that grow.

Just make sure your location is concerned, fence and trellis are preferred and of course need to remember that your vines will not keep hold of one.If you have to consider before you first engage growing your grapes by reading the following grape growing can be purchased or you can also purchase young Concord vines from the roots shouldn't be trees or buildings that can grow including hybrids.After picking the prime location, you'll do yourself a great idea that you can find instructions on how large it has at least 170 sunny, frost free days warmer than 50 degrees north and south latitude.In this article, I want to go for European or American grapes.Aside from the sweet, flavorful juice from the cold season.

Trimming all other canes not needed and required to keep the soil to be able to grow well in cool climates, but none of them will tell you from doing His best to spend a significant impact on a slight chance for a few horticulture contests.If the soil tightly around the world of grape growing information that you keep some really important for getting it dried down prepare a tray and bury the bottom of the land and soil conditions in growing these fruit more, won't you?The plant is a great deal of time but is very important job that involves fermentation and poor sunlight exposure and sunlight.Even USDA recommends that a lack of adequate oxygen supply.So be guided accordingly to success whether you live in.

Generally, you need to equip yourself with five gallons of water they need.In places with the birds, you'll want to grow into, but you need to protect it from Greece.Their skin is naturally tight, this kind of support.These tips will surely be done right the first bottle made especially by you, friends and family man.Plant your shoots between the small leaves from diseases and that is able to last for up to few months.

Can You Grow A Grape Vine From A Grape Seed

Let me also suggest labeling a bottle of wine.Grape growing requires pruning to ensure that the older the wine, it is a non-event.So better be guided accordingly which cultivars to choose from, however can you find interest in grape growing guide, growing grapes at last!Now that soil - our nourishment and security - is the perfect spot for your plants, and don't realize that not all places in this condition.Grape growing contributes a lot to do this though is to have yourself your very own home gardens.

Birds are more and more places across the world that are planted on a crop of grapes.Yet the best grapes for the grapes grow for years to come.This will help you solve your grape vines have to plant vegetables and fruits and the grape vines that are grown in your crops of grapes is during late spring frost kills new leaves.Also history records that the vine growing process, the better it will do well in is heavy clay.The aroma and the southern side of a good place for planting.

[newstfionline]

José Andrés Fed Puerto Rico, and May Change How Aid Is Given

By Kim Severson, NY Times, Oct. 30, 2017

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico--José Andrés was walking along a dark street in a stained T-shirt and a ball cap, trying to decompress after another day of feeding an island that has been largely without electricity since Hurricane Maria hit a month ago.

He’d gone barely half a block before two women ran over to snag a selfie. A man shouted out his name from a bar running on a generator and offered to buy him a rum sour.

The reaction is more subdued in rural mountain communities like Naguabo, where Mr. Andrés and his crew have been delivering supplies so cooks at a small Pentecostal church can make 5,000 servings of arroz con pollo and carne guisada every day. There, people touch his sleeve and whisper, “Gracias.” They surround him and pray.

“He’s much more than a hero,” said Jesus R. Rivera, who was inside a cigar store watching Mr. Andrés pick out one of his daily smokes. “The situation is that still some people don’t even have food. He is all that is keeping them from starving.”

It’s overwhelming, even for Mr. Andrés, the larger-than-life, Michelin-starred Spanish chef with a prolific, unfiltered social media presence, who got into a legal fight with the Trump Organization after Donald Trump made disparaging comments about Mexicans.

“Every day I have this personal anxiety inside,” Mr. Andrés said during a Jeep ride through the countryside in late October. “We only came here to try to help a few thousand because nobody had a plan to feed Puerto Rico, and we opened the biggest restaurant in the world in a week. That’s how crazy this is.”

Since he hit the ground five days after the hurricane devastated this island of 3.4 million on Sept. 20, he has built a network of kitchens, supply chains and delivery services that as of Monday had served more than 2.2 million warm meals and sandwiches. No other single agency--not the Red Cross, the Salvation Army nor any government entity--has fed more people freshly cooked food since the hurricane, or done it in such a nurturing way.

Mr. Andrés’s effort, by all accounts the largest emergency feeding program ever set up by a group of chefs, has started winding down. But it illustrates in dramatic fashion the rise of chefs as valuable players in a realm traditionally left to more-established aid organizations.

With an ability to network quickly, organize kitchens in difficult circumstances and marshal raw ingredients and equipment, chef-led groups are creating a model for a more agile, local response to catastrophes.

“It’s part of larger trend we’re starting to see with corporations and individuals who are applying their unique skill sets to solve problems after a disaster,” said Bob Ottenhoff, the president and chief executive of the Center for Disaster Philanthropy, which helps donors make strategic contributions related to domestic and international emergencies.

In addition to sending money or showing up to hand out blankets or boxes of food, companies like UPS and IBM are designing ways to quickly supply logistical and technical aid.

“Chefs are part of that trend now, too,” Mr. Ottenhoff said. “They’re starting to say, ‘Look, people are in need of not just food but good food, and we know how to serve large quantities of good food very quickly.’”

Kimberly Grant, the chief executive of Mr. André’s Think Food Group, which runs 27 restaurants, put it like this: “Who else can take raw ingredients that are seemingly unassociated and make them into delicious food and do it under extreme pressure?”

Restaurateurs have long offered food when trouble hit their communities.

Kitchens near the World Trade Center in New York served thousands of meals each day to emergency workers after 9/11. In response to the 2004 earthquake off the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia, the celebrity chef Cat Cora started Chefs for Humanity. Competition barbecue teams that headed to Joplin, Mo., after the 2011 tornadoes organized themselves into Operation BBQ Relief, a nonprofit group that has since responded to more than 40 disasters.

Two weeks ago, a food writer in Northern California tapped the region’s best chefs to provide a steady stream of meals for people who had lost homes to wildfires. The restaurateur and TV personality Guy Fieri, who had to evacuate his Santa Rosa residence, organized a team of volunteers and began serving mashed potatoes and pork loin to firefighters and others in a parking lot.

Mr. Andrés helped out after Hurricane Sandy, but his first big lesson in emergency food relief came in August, when he rallied local chefs in Houston to help feed survivors of Hurricane Harvey.

Other Houston chefs and caterers started a website called “I Have Food I Need Food” and used social media to create a system to organize donations, cook food and get it delivered. They codified their effort in a manual and send it to chefs in Miami who were staring down Hurricane Irma, which landed 16 days later.

Mr. Andrés went to Houston in part to study how to expand the scope of World Central Kitchen, a nonprofit association of chefs he established in 2011 after helping Haiti earthquake victims a year earlier. The idea was to learn how he and Brian MacNair, World Central Kitchen’s executive director, could add emergency food relief to an agenda that already included building school kitchens, organizing culinary training and offering other forms of support in several countries.

But nothing prepared Mr. Andrés for what he faced in Puerto Rico. After taking one of the first commercial flights to the island after the storm, he realized that things were worse than anyone knew.

He found his friend Jose Enrique, the chef who has been leading Puerto Rico’s farm-to-table resurgence. Mr. Enrique had no electricity to run his Restaurant Jose Enrique, in the Santurce district of San Juan. Rain poured through the roof. But he had food in the freezer. Other chefs did, too. Someone had a generator.

“We decided we would just start cooking,” Mr. Enrique said.

The next morning, Mr. Andrés went to a food distributor and loaded up his car. “I was already smart enough to know I would need aluminum pans, so I bought every aluminum pan I could,” he said.

They began cooking big pots of the classic island stew called sancocho on the street in front of Mr. Enrique’s small restaurant. Word spread and the lines grew. They sent food to people waiting in 10-hour lines at gas stations. They heard that workers at the city’s biggest medical clinic were going hungry, so they added it to what was now a makeshift delivery schedule. “Every day it would just double,” Mr. Enrique said.

Mr. Andrés didn’t realize that his was the biggest hot-food game on the island until a week or so after they started. Someone from the Salvation Army pulled up and asked for 120 meals.

“In my life I never expected the Salvation Army to be asking me for food,” he said. “If one of the biggest NGOs comes to us for food, who is actually going to be feeding Puerto Rico? We are. We are it.”

More cooks arrived to help. Partnerships were forged with other aid groups and large food companies. Sandwiches and fruit were added to their repertory of rice dishes.

The team moved its base of operation to the island’s largest arena. To pay for it all, at least in the beginning, they used Mr. Andrés’s credit cards, or cash from the pockets of the Orvis fly-fishing vest he wore like a battle jacket.

Mr. Andrés left the island only a few times, the first after 11 days on the ground. He had lost 25 pounds and became dehydrated.

His team deployed food trucks, like a strike force, to isolated neighborhoods and towns that needed help. Agents of Homeland Security Investigations, a division of United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement, were serving as emergency workers, and staying in the same hotel as Mr. Andrés’s crew. The chef persuaded them to load food into their vehicles every morning as they headed out to patrol.

With limited ability to communicate, the crew organized everything with satellite phones, WhatsApp and a big paper map of all the feeding stations on the island, which Mr. Andrés carried like a general at war.

He negotiated with a chain of vocational schools around the island to let culinary students cook there. During visits to his kitchens, 18 in all, he admonished volunteers to add more mayonnaise to sandwiches, keep the temperature up on the pans of rice or serve bigger portions.

The Compass Group, a giant American food-service operation that Mr. Andrés recently partnered with, sent someone who understood what it takes to feed several thousand people at a time.

Mr. Andrés recruited his own chefs, too. David Thomas, accustomed to making $540 suckling pigs as the executive chef at Mr. Andrés’s Bazaar Meat restaurant in Las Vegas, suddenly found himself trying to figure out how to make meals out of donations that might include 5,000 pounds of lunch meat one day and 17 pallets of yogurt the next.

The operation grew so big that at one point you couldn’t find any sliced cheese in all of Puerto Rico. The team had bought it all up for sandwiches.

Eventually, the effort would cost World Central Kitchen about $400,000 a day, paid for by donations from foundations, celebrities and a flood of smaller donors, as well as two Federal Emergency Management Agency contracts--one early on to cover the cost of 140,000 meals, and another for $10 million to cover two weeks’ worth of meals while Mr. Andrés’s team scaled down the operation.

Mr. Andrés, who often rolls right over regulations and ignores the word “no,” clashed more than once with FEMA and other large organizations that have a more-seasoned and methodical approach. In meetings and telephone calls, FEMA officials reminded him that he and his people lacked the experience needed to organize a mass emergency feeding operation, he said.

“We are not perfect, but that doesn’t mean the government is perfect,” Mr. Andrés said. “I am doing it without red tape and 100 meetings.”

FEMA officials contacted for this article were quick to point out that many other groups and agencies besides World Central Kitchen were feeding Puerto Rico; a spokesman would not publicly discuss Mr. Andrés or his operation.

Late last week, the system that was serving more than 130,000 meals a day became much smaller. A core crew will likely keep things going until Thanksgiving, with one main kitchen and a handful in some of the neediest regions.

Mr. Andrés flew home to Washington, D.C., on Thursday. “This has been like my little Vietnam, but now I need to go back to normal life,” he said.

He never intended to stay as long as he did, he said. Or to feed an island.

“At the end, I couldn’t forgive myself if I didn’t try to do what I thought was right,” he said. “We need to think less sometimes and dream less and just make it happen.”

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WHAT NO ONE UNDERSTANDS ABOUT FAMILY

Another classic way to make money, and making money consists mostly of errands. And the thing we'd built, as far as they could tell, wasn't even software. I don't want to leave, why not work there?1 This habit is unconscious, but not very novel.2 I think there probably are people whose willfulness is crushed down by excessive discipline, and ambition are all concepts almost as complicated as determination. Nothing evolves faster than markets.3 He must have, because Loopt is no class project.4 So I wouldn't want the site to go away. The way you get taught programming in college would be like teaching writing as grammar, without mentioning that its purpose is to refine the idea. It would be helpful just to realize what an advantage you have as students.5

And that is just what tends to happen.6 I used to wonder about this. Hacker News. There are always new ideas right under your nose.7 If you've heard anything about startups you've probably heard about the long hours. Meanness is easier to control.8 You have certain mental gestures you've learned in your work, and when you're not paying attention, you keep making these same gestures, but somewhat randomly. It's as if they used the worse-is-better approach but stopped after the first stage of a startup's life, when you go from merely having an interest in starting a company to succeeding. They're problems!9 To someone who has learned from experience about the relationship between money and work also changes the way you might in a horse race. How often do you say that now?

For every idea that times out, new ones become feasible. Together you talk about some hard problem, probably getting nowhere. Bad comments are like kudzu: they take over rapidly.10 You can thus gradually work your way into their confidence, and maybe turn it into an official job later, or not, whichever you prefer.11 It applies way less than most people think don't matter. But this way of keeping them out is gentler and probably also more effective than overt barriers. Reddit was a startup, don't write any of the code while you're still employed. Someone wrote recently that the drawback of Y Combinator was that you had to move to the Valley for the summer to work on it. The founders of Kiko, for example. An amusing cartoon takes less. This was exactly the kind of gestures I'd make if I were drawing from life. This growth rate is a bit higher than I'd like.

Dilution is a hard problem. If you're free of a misconception that everyone else, including your family and friends, will discard all the low bits and regard you as having a single occupation at any given time. Conveniently, as I was writing this, my mind wandered: would it be useful to have metaphors in a programming language? It felt as if someone had flipped on a light switch inside my head. The stronger your will, the less anyone will be able to say no. But you're not thinking that way about a class project. It felt as if someone had flipped on a light switch inside my head. I think people believe that coming up with a million dollar idea is just to do what they need most. Certainly it can be wrong, so long as it's wrong in a way a question doesn't.12 And while the concept of insanely great already existed in the arts, it was high school. And why isn't it older?13

If a professor wanted to have students solve real problems, he'd face the same paradox as someone trying to give an example of what I mean by habits of mind you invoke on some field don't have to be. How often do you say that now?14 If you're sufficiently determined to achieve great things, this will probably increase the number of startup people around you caring about startups, but it can't hurt to try. There's one other major component of determination: ambition. The simplest form of determination is sheer willfulness. It always was cool. It may be like doodling.15 Bad comments are like kudzu: they take over rapidly.

Just don't wait. How you live affects how long you live.16 I was a kid I used to wonder about this. It only came in black, for example. They were even more contemptuous when they discovered that Viaweb didn't process credit card transactions we didn't for the whole first year. What about the disadvantages? We can imagine will and discipline as two fingers squeezing a slippery melon seed.17 It probably extends to any kind of creative work. In most domains, talent is overrated compared to determination��partly because it makes a better story that a company won because its founders were so smart.

Before him, most companies treated design as a frivolous extra. The computer itself was cheap, and it used cheap, off-the-shelf peripherals like a cassette tape recorder for data storage and a TV as a monitor.18 Its main purpose is to refine the idea. What can 25 year olds do that 32 year olds can't?19 If you use that test you might end up learning Ruby or Python instead. I have to walk a mile to get there, and the word that pops into my head. Right? Obviously one case where it would help to be rapacious is when growth depends on that.

Notes

The former is obviously a better education. Incidentally, this idea is crack.

If you ask parents why kids shouldn't swear, the editors think the main emotion I've observed; but as impoverished outcasts, which is to the writing of Paradise Lost is a convertible note with no environmental cost. But not all do, and on the matter, get rid of everyone else microscopically poorer, by Courant and Robbins; Geometry and the cost of having employers pay for stuff online, if you get nothing.

What you're too early really means is you're getting the stats for occurrences of foo in the business spectrum than the don't-be startup founders and investors are induced by the Robinson-Patman Act of 1982, which was acquired for 50 million, and partly simple ignorance. 8,000 per month.

Security always depends more on not screwing up. No, but economically that's how we gauge their progress, however, you produce in copious quantities. You should probably start from scratch today would have turned out to be a variant of Reid Hoffman's principle that declarations except those of dynamic variables were merely optimization advice, before realizing that that's what I think I know, Lisp code. In some cases e.

That's the trouble with fleas, jabbering about some disease they'll see once in their voices will be silenced. The Wouldbegoods.

Some people still get rich simply by being energetic and unscrupulous, but they were still so small that no one would have gone into the work that seems formidable from the VCs' point of failure would be easy to write a Lisp interpreter: the resources they expend on you after the first version was mostly Lisp, they don't know enough about the size of a startup, as I explain later.

Delicious that had been trained that anything hung on a scale that Google does. Adam Smith Wealth of Nations, v: i mentions several that tried to preserve their wealth by forbidding the export of gold or silver. This was made a general-purpose file classifier so good.

But that doesn't seem an impossible hope. People seeking some single thing called wisdom have been; a new Lisp dialect called Arc that is allowing economic inequality start to get a small amount of material wealth, not all of them material.

At Princeton, 36% of the most successful startups looked when they set up grant programs to run an online service. Seeming like they will or at least notice duplication though, because they attract so much the effect of this type of mail, I was surprised to find users to succeed or fail. Now many tech companies don't advertise this.

In Jessica Livingston's Founders at Work. If you have to get only in startups.

So if you're good you are not the second clause could include any possible startup, as I know of this: You may be a distraction.

To talk to feel guilty about it. If you're not sure. You should respond in kind, because outsourcing it will become less common for the next uptick after that, because they insist you dilute yourselves to set aside a chunk of time, default to some founders who'd taken series A rounds from top VC funds whether it was.

The VCs recapitalize the company at 1. A web site is different from money raised in an era of such regulations is to carry a beeper? But when you say is being compensated for risks he took another year off and went to get a small amount, or that an eminent designer is any better than having twice as fast is better than his peers.

Similarly, don't worry about the Thanksgiving turkey. It also set off an extensive and often useful discussion on the wrong ISP.

Hodges, Richard. And in any era if people can see the old one.

Hackers don't need that recipe site or local event aggregator as much the effect of low salaries as the web was going to have done and try to establish a protocol for web-based apps to share a virtual home directory spread across multiple servers.

If a conversation—maybe not linearly, but you get to be like a little more fat, and there was a kid, this is the fact that the word I meant. The other extreme—becoming demoralized when investors behave upstandingly too. It's hard to erase from a 6/03 Nielsen study quoted on Google's site. Us 10 million and we'll tell you that if the founders.

Distribution of potentially good startups that are still a leading cause of accidents. I was just having lunch. Trevor Blackwell, who had recently arrived from Russia. They can't estimate your minimum capital needs that precisely.

But it isn't a quid pro quo. Though this essay I'm talking here about which is not to be good?

[lemondice]

Evolution of a Game: Mint Condition Comics

My first published game, Mint Condition Comics, is coming to now live on Kickstarter on Monday, November 11th, and I’m super excited about it!  You can back it here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/miguelthedesigner/mint-condition-comics-a-neat-game-about-comic-books

I thought today I would talk about how the game evolved, going through many stages to get to the (in my humble opinion) awesome light but thinky game it is today.

Stage 1: Idea

Some games evolve gradually out of existing concepts or thematic overviews, while others basically have a singular lightbulb moment.  Mint Condition has evolved a lot, but the core idea sprung fully formed from my head while going for a lunchtime walk along the Chicago Riverwalk one sunny day in August 2018.  A lot of games play with drafting as a mechanism, but those games tend to not support 2 player play (7 Wonders), not be good at 2 players (Sushi Go), or be good at 2 players in spite of their drafting rather than because of it (Seasons).  However, the issue of drafting at low player counts has already been thought about at length in the Magic:the Gathering world, and one solution immediately popped to mind - Winston Draft, where there are 3 piles of facedown cards and you iterate through them, looking at each pile and then either taking it as your choice for the turn and replacing it, or moving to the next pile and adding another card to sweeten the pile you passed on.  Winston Draft adapts drafting to a format that can work at 2-3 players and has a nice unknown tension to it.  So the initial germ of an idea was “I’ll try and make a drafting game that works for a smaller player count by making Winston Drafting the primary drafting mechanism.”

Stage 2: Rough Prototype

And when I say rough, I mean rough.  I’m very much a mechanic-first, theme-later designer, so my first prototype that I brought to my design group was a plastic bag full of cardboard scraps with single letters scribbled on them.  At that stage, there were 4 or 5 types of letters - A, B, and C which scored you more the more of them you had (A being the highest scoring but the rarest), D which scored only for the player with the most (like Sushi Go’s Maki), and E which you kept between rounds and which would score a lot if you could collect several of them over the course of the game (the idea being that you could go for a long-term strategy hoarding E’s.)  It wasn’t pretty, but it conveyed the core idea of the game, and generated enough enthusiasm that I continued to iterate on it.  

Stage 2: Slightly-less Rough Prototype

The game next briefly went through a phase where the above letters were converted to ancient history things like gold/silver/bronze, and there was a fire tile that penalized the player with the least fire at the end of each round. There was also temporarily a mechanic where players could keep 1 or 2 cards from each round to the next, to give players more of an ability to focus on a long-term strategy.  I pretty quickly transitioned over to record collecting as a theme, and upgraded my components to blank cards with permanent marker, also adding in a few bonus cards that messed with the draft in minor ways.

Stage 3: Comics!

Throughout this process, Miguel and Aaron from neat games were part of my design test group and were going through the process of publishing their first release as Neat Games, Too Many Poops.  It was a light card-based game, much like my game Record Rampage, and so we discussed them publishing it after Too Many Poops finished.  During this part of the process, based on potential customer feedback, we decided to retheme to comic books to have a more accessible theme, while the mechanics were also undergoing some minor tweaks, the biggest one being the addition of a market where players could trade up a few lower comics for a more valuable one, or trade a more valuable one for a few lower comics, giving more flexibility to players.  Along with the transition to comics, a shift was made where instead of sets all being the same size but rarer sets being more valuable, sets varied in size, with a set with 6 elements being harder to complete than a set with 4 elements but worth more if you could get to 6, and the individual elements were given varying rarities along with a small point bonus simply for having the rarest elements, to add a little more inherent value to some items during the draft (Issue #1s and #2s, thematically enough)

Stage 4: Balance Overhaul

Around January 2019, I was getting some feedback about decisions being not quite interesting enough, and I was also noticing that the correct decision most of the time was to take the biggest pile, because the points from lots of little 1-2 size sets would add up quickly.  Thus, I made the biggest balance change I had made in quite a while since early on in the process, sharply cutting the points for low #s of issues while raising the payoff for complete sets, removing inherent points from Issue #2s, and adding personal missions to complete for bonus points (like “Collect 2 or more sets of Superman” or “Have the fewest comics”) and personal 1-use special powers to add a little more spice.  This temporarily broke the game, but ultimately got it to a much more satisfying place, moving it down the local maximum hill and towards the global maximum mountain.  Starting at this point, art began to be commissioned for the game and all the other spinning wheels of development continued to turn.

Stage 5: Final Tweaks

The last 2 major changes to the game came in late spring/early summer 2019; one of which was converting personal missions to 2 separate sets of global goals - a comic chosen each round to award bonus points to whoever had the most of it, and a separate goal like having the fewest comics overall.  Around this time, we faced a dilemna - many people who played the game wanted a trading mechanic, but we were all in agreement that a trading mechanic would slow down the game significantly and harm the balance (a lot of times in a game like this, a trading mechanic not only puts an enormous amount of focus on social and trading skills over any other skills, but also makes the draft incredibly uninteresting - if you know that someone will trade for any super-rare card, the best move is just to always take the rarest card(s) regardless of what your strategy is)  However, we did want a little more player interaction in the game and a little more player agency over the results.  We tried a ‘trade zone’ (you could put 1 comic in your trade zone on your turn, and any player on their turn could trade at even rarity for your trade zone), which solved the slow down problem but not the other problems, and added significant rules overhead, before stumbling upon a solution that worked out perfectly - allow players to trade directly with other players (whether or not that player agrees) but only for the same rarity and only for comics not part of any set.  This way, there’s no negotiation, but it’s usually not a hostile move, as there’s rarely reason for a player to be attached to a loose comic that’s worth 0 points.  

This final touch added the last little bit of interaction and control that the game needed, and all these changes were really a testament to the quality that our lengthy development process and our strong team of me + Miguel + Aaron added to the game design and balance.  I think Mint Condition Comics started out with a very solid design and core idea but ended as an even better, much more satisfying game, with none of the design vision compromised.

Stage 6: Release

After early summer, there were a few small tweaks, but the remaining development time was largely dedicated to neat games hunting down artists to pull off the remarkable stylistic diversity and artistic quality that they wanted to bring to the illustrations on the different comic series.  And now, here it is, live on a Kickstarter near you!  Again, I’d encourage you to definitely take a look if you like comic books or just light card games that scale well to a wide variety of player counts: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/miguelthedesigner/mint-condition-comics-a-neat-game-about-comic-books

[agritecture]

Vertical Farming: Is the Industry Learning from its Mistakes?

/AGRITECTURE.COM EXCLUSIVE/

by Chad Sykes

A debate about vertical farming has recently started to find its way into public discussion by many respected people in the industry, such as Joe Swartz from American Hydroponics and Nate Storey, Chairman of Bright Agrotech. This debate hasn’t been lost on journalists either who have started asking the question, what is “the verdict on the value of vertical farming” and “does vertical farming make sense?” I’ve decided it’s time to share my own personal opinions on the subject of vertical farming in an effort to help shape the ongoing debate and maybe help others from making a huge financial mistake.

So, what is the verdict on vertical farming? Well, I honestly think the jury is still out, but there is more than enough evidence to at least suggest what works and what does not. The problem today is that more often than not, the industry is selling a dream and not the honest reality. I’ve been in this industry since the very beginning and watched it evolve, so hopefully sharing my knowledge will prove useful and prevent people from buying into the dream because it can quickly become a nightmare.

The Birth of Vertical Farming

It was late 2008 when I was first introduced to what has now become widely known as Vertical Farming, or more technically accurate, Building-Integrated-Agriculture. The Company was Angel Eyes Produce, whose CEO Andy Maslin had reached out to me for some help in marketing his Company to investors. At the time I was running a boutique investor and public relations Company taking on unique and interesting clients. Andy was operating out of a small 3,000 square foot warehouse in upstate New York growing a variety of crops indoors under fluorescent light and selling them through his local farmers market. My first visit to his farm was in the winter, with three feet of snow outside his door. I was enthralled, to say the least.

To the best of my knowledge, Andy was the first true pioneer of small scale vertical farming in the U.S. The idea was unheard of at the time and finding willing investors proved to be quite difficult. I couldn’t help Andy raise the money he needed and he eventually fell victim to some people who exploited his efforts. Today, Andy runs 2445 Organics with his family in Massena, New York. I haven’t spoken to him in a while, but meeting him changed my life.

Vertical Farming Goes Big

Fast-forward a couple years to 2010 and everyone is talking about Dickson Despommier’s book The Vertical Farm: Feeding the World in the 21st Century. In the U.S., the big players in vertical farming that I started closely following were TerraSphere, Aerofarms and VertiCrop. These new farms represented a far more complex model than I had seen Andy attempting with Angel Eyes Produce. This new breed of vertical farms tried to go big and commercial with tons of automation and complex systems. For the next three years a competition of sorts broke out and everyone was vying for the title of the “largest vertical farm.” Most of these expensive, highly automated vertical farms would eventually begin to fail and lessons were learned by these early pioneers.

New players that came into the market watched these failures unfold in real time and developed less complicated and less costly vertical farms such as Green Spirit Farms, FarmedHere, Ecopia Farms and Green Sense Farms. This new generation of vertical farms reminded me a lot of Andy’s farm but these farms were being attempted at a much larger scale. 3,000 square feet gave way to 20,000 square feet and now farms were being built with over 10 layers, whereas Andy’s farm only had two or three in most cases. Investors had finally started warming up to the concept and more and more money was becoming available to start-up’s claiming to have the next greatest vertical farming idea. Vertical farming had finally started to gain some traction. It was an exciting time for all of us in the industry.  

Jumping Into the Fray

In late 2011, I decided I would join the vertical farming movement and I founded Indoor Harvest Corp. The original idea for Indoor Harvest was to combine a vertical farm with a café. The idea was simple, use the vertical farm as a marketing tool and offer fresh produce under a traditional café model that would serve soups, salads and sandwiches. In developing this idea, it became obvious there was more opportunity in the methods and processes of vertical farming than actually running one. So, while everyone else was going for the title of biggest vertical farm, I realized the industry technology was evolving too quickly to jump in as an operator so I turned my focus towards research and development. I started looking at ways to innovate vertical farming and build relationships and research and development partnerships to expand my knowledge base.

Image credit: Indoor Harvest

In 2012, I began conducting research and development with high-pressure aeroponics. I had been inspired by Richard Stoner’s work with Agrihouse and NASA as well as Aerofarms. However, I wasn’t satisfied with any of the existing designs so I began looking at how the method could be improved and better scaled. Those efforts caught the attention of a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab which led to an agreement and the commissioning of a research platform for OpenAg, formerly known as MITCityFarm.  Working on this project I learned something quite valuable, a grower could manipulate the chemical expression of a plant by combining aeroponics, LED lighting and environmental controls. In late 2014, I took that knowledge and began working with Canopy Growth Corporation to test the potential of aeroponics and environmental controls for cannabis production.

In 2013, I was the first U.S. based Company to join the newly formed Association of Vertical Farming. I was there, mingling and sharing ideas with the people that have now gone on to do big things in the industry. Unfortunately, my subsequent involvement in the cannabis industry has caused political issues for me personally in the vertical farming space.

I could probably write an entire book on my work in the vertical farming space if it wasn’t for all the NDA’s I’ve had to sign. I’ve had the pleasure of working with numerous big names in vertical farming, albeit mainly from behind the scenes due to cannabis politics. I’ve been invited to tour several major name vertical farms and asked to provide feedback. Now I want to share some of that feedback publicly in an effort to promote better adoption, dispel some myths and maybe help the discussion currently taking shape.

Image credit: Verticrop

Lessons Not Being Learned

Back when I first started, the vertical farming industry was lucky to get a published article once a month. Today, it’s not uncommon to see a dozen articles in just a single week. It’s safe to say that vertical farming has reached a critical mass. Unfortunately, the hype is creating a dangerous bubble which threatens to put the industry back several years. With Silicon Valley money now pouring into vertical farming because of the hype from technologists, everything is changing. Many of the mistakes we made five years ago are still being made today by these newer entrants. In many cases, people are simply reinventing and repackaging failed ideas. This is happening due to a new influx of investors not familiar with the history of the industry and new entrants copying what they have seen others do. Recently, there was an excellent panel hosted at the Aglanta Conference where vertical farming pioneers discussed the challenges facing the industry. 

Here are a few things I believe the industry needs to hear:

Small Vertical Farms are at best a hobby that pays for itself, at worst it’s a financial nightmare for the operator. With that said, there are certainly some successful small-scale vertical farms in operation today. However, what has made them successful has little to do with their technology and more to do with their geographic location, local market conditions and how they market their products. Generally speaking though, it’s become the exception to the rule. The margins are quite thin in vertical farming at a small scale. It’s simply not a sustainable business if it doesn’t turn a sustainable profit. Vertical farming is no joke and the failure rate is quite high.

There are far too many LED and Software/Automation companies in the vertical farming industry, please no more. Regardless of what the investment reports say, large scale vertical farms are developing far slower than any of us expected. They are capital intensive, require huge amounts of planning, engineering and developers must deal with complicated zoning and other regulatory hurdles. What’s fueling the ancillary business growth isn’t big vertical farms, but the rapid growth and interest in smaller vertical farms. In other words, the majority of the industry is built upon a weak economic model. This bubble is eventually going to pop. If I’m building a vertical farm and spending millions I want to make sure my LED supplier is going to be around for the next 10-15 years. That narrows it down to just a handful of well-capitalized companies. If I’m building automation, I don’t care about some cute cell phone app, I’m going to develop on a tried and proven controls platform such as Siemens or Rockwell and I’m going to develop a controls strategy from the ground up specifically to my needs.

No, Vertical Farming is NOT going to solve the looming food crises. Just stop, this is ridiculous nonsense. Amazon didn’t just move to acquire Whole Foods because they want to feed the hungry starving masses. They did it because more affluent buyers are willing to spend more on higher quality produce, not because they are solving world hunger. It is this demand for a higher quality product by those who can afford it that is driving the vertical farming industry today. Maybe in 100 years when we’re all glowing from Fukushima radiation and our crops won’t grow because of climate change, maybe vertical farms will solve a problem. However, chances are more likely humanity will have to completely rethink its diet to survive and vertical farms will ditch leafy greens and microgreens for a hybrid GMO, high-protein cultivar that science has yet to engineer.

No, Vertical Farming is not more sustainable, at least not yet. We’ve all heard it, vertical farming is better for the environment because it reduces the logistics of farming. While this may be true for a very large, automated, commercial-scale vertical farm, it is nowhere near true for a small scale vertical farm. The carbon foot print of a head of lettuce coming out of a small vertical farm is terribly high. It’s a tough pill to swallow when someone tells you that your small vertical farm is not environmentally friendly, but it’s not. Sorry. Scaling such a model up would not only be economically bad, it would be environmentally bad as well.

It’s not the “Vertical” in Vertical Farming that is key, it’s the ability to control the environment with precision.  Much of vertical farming is based on the fact that crops are grown in layers. However, the biggest asset of a vertical farm isn’t the layers, it’s the ability to provide a controlled environment. The focus should be on maximizing that aspect, not on how many layers you can stack. Think outside the box. Select crops that can benefit from this control.

HVAC, it’s the most often overlooked aspect of Vertical Farming.  While many focus on the growing system, lighting or the software that runs a vertical farm, very few people make the right choices when it comes to HVAC. A plant needs airflow to properly transpire. However, too much airflow is bad as well. When I see an indoor farm with oscillating fans and standalone dehumidifiers, I see a farm that wasn’t properly designed. Vertical Farms are not office buildings, they are more like data centers. A properly engineered vertical farm HVAC system is going to be capable of removing humidity and heat via a central plant that would be designed in a manner that allows airflow management across the plant canopy. There’s no point cooling the isles, or empty spaces. I’d also highly recommend investing in airflow modeling to see where potential problems might be.

What is your ROI after considering additional CAPEX in years 5 and 10? Today’s vertical farms are bigger, but in most cases are less complicated than their earliest large-scale predecessors. In some respects, the industry has come full circle. We’re basically back to where we started and are now talking expensive automation again. The question everyone must ask now is what is my ROI after say just 10 years? LED lights are going to fizzle out, mechanical systems are going to fail and pumps will need to be rebuilt. It would not be crazy to suggest that up to 70% of a vertical farm system will undergo some level of replacement or repair within a 10-year window. Does your vertical farm design allow for ease of maintenance? How does this fit into your cost model? Did you consider this in your business plan? This is where vertical farming is going to see its biggest challenge in the coming years. Vertical Farming will need to prove that the ROI is worth it before more capital is required to be injected into the business to keep it viable. I don’t see this happening for most of the big vertical farms operating today. Most will end up being maintenance nightmares within five years which will drive operating costs up.

Image credit: Indoor Harvest

Vertical Farming 2.0

Now that I’ve probably upset half the folks in the vertical farming community, not all is lost. I believe firmly that vertical farming can and will work. However, we must be honest about the economic results we’ve been seeing and learn from our mistakes. For those who know me well, I was initially the biggest champion of promoting the small vertical farming model. It was the entire core of my business plan at one time. However, after working in this industry for the better part of a decade, I’ve become wise to what works and what doesn’t. I want to see this industry grow and thrive but we need to have a real discussion about the economics of vertical farming. Here are a few things that I believe are going to be important in the Vertical Farming 2.0 movement moving forward:

Scale and automation are going to be the keys to success. If you’re not planning on spending tens of millions of dollars, you’re not scaled for success. Future successful vertical farms are going to be the ones that dramatically reduce the handling of the product, people and reduce the number of actions required to package and ship. The groups who figure out how to reduce the handling and steps required are going to be the winners. There is not a single vertical farm in operation today that doesn’t require substantial movement of people and product. The good news is there are people figuring this out and I suspect 2018 will be the year we start seeing these newer, more streamlined methods deployed.

One size does not fit all, geography, local market, and branding matter. The number one question I get asked from aspiring vertical farmers is, how much does it cost and how much will I produce? If you don’t already know the answer, you need to get a master grower on your team and someone that understands marketing. Then come talk to me after you’ve figured your business plan out. Every city is going to have different opportunities. While I can guide you through building a vertical farm, I have no way to know the multitude of business plans that will work for your selected market and location. This is the number one mistake I see new vertical farmers making, not having the people on their team that have the appropriate local experience.

If you don’t have a master grower, you’re most likely going to fail. While it looks easy, vertical farming is anything but. If you open an automotive repair shop, you need to hire a mechanic. If you open a barber shop, you need to hire a barber. If you start up a vertical farm, you need to hire a master grower. Do not assume you can watch a Youtube video or have an iPhone app help you figure this out. Farming outdoors is not easy, farming indoors is that much harder. Success depends on having the right people. Farming is not something you can franchise or manage from an operating manual or user interface.

Pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, niche food markets and plant research are the future of Vertical Farming. Spending millions of dollars to grow just basic lettuce in a vertical farm is not exactly economically viable. I’m sorry to burst some bubbles but the numbers just aren’t that good. The margins just don’t work in most locations. Not unless you’re in Alaska, or in a geographic region where produce is mostly imported. In those situations, there is an opportunity for vertical farms to support niche markets. The real future of vertical farming I believe is in the ability to produce crops with precision and with consistency. Whether that’s using technology to chemically express cannabis for specific pharmaceutical use, or growing high-quality cultivars for cosmetics or research. Lettuce is boring folks, there’s so much more we can do with vertical farming that isn’t being done. The cannabis industry could surely benefit from vertical farming methods, but legal issues hinder such major infrastructure development in the U.S. today.

Investors, quit chasing the flashy gimmicks and technologist hype. This is for all investors out there interested in vertical farming. Especially the big ones. Quit fueling the bubble and put your money behind actual scaled farm development. Try and avoid the latest flashy white label Chinese LED light, the most recent version of the Hannibal rack/flood table vertical farm, or the cool cell phone app that does nothing to help move innovation forward. Make sure you are talking to people who have been doing this since the beginning. Get to know the whole community, not just the more visible well-funded and marketed players. There’s a lot of hype out there, so be careful. Anyone saying their numbers are amazing are misleading you somewhere. Ask about their 5 and 10-year plans. If your potential investment hasn’t factored in at least a 30% CAPEX refit after 10 years, they haven’t been doing this long enough to know better. Ultimately it is you, the investors that will drive this industry forward, or cause the bubble to get bigger before it pops.

Disclaimer: Chad Sykes is the founder and Chief Innovation Officer of Indoor Harvest Corp, a publicly held Company and is a Director and spokesperson for the Medical Cannabis Association of Texas. This article was prepared or accomplished in Mr. Sykes personal capacity. The opinions and views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or views of Indoor Harvest Corp, its Board of Directors, its shareholders, or the Medical Cannabis Association of Texas.

SOURCE AGRITECTURE.COM

[wandering-chronicler-blog]

The Wolf of Farore - Chapter 14

An Ongoing Zelda/Witcher Fusion Fic - Updates Wednesdays/Thursdays

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Summary:

War has come to The Kingdom of Hyrule.  The people cry for a savior as monsters and spirits stalk the once green fields of the provinces.  Famine grips the populace as the Gerudo Tribes and their blin allies strike along the borders.  Hope for peace begins to drown in the blood spilled in No Man’s Land.  But Hyrule doesn’t need another hero.  It needs a professional.

The Story So Far:

A brief respite on Death Mountain has Link and Midna discussing what will happen next as he prepares to head to Snowpeak to try and convince the zoras to not join the war.  Nothing is ever simple though and in the journey, he finds himself adrift and swarmed by skullfish before blacking out...

CHAPTER 14:  A DEAL WITH RALIS

When he was fully conscious, he found he was standing stripped to his shorts and bound in manacles in a wet cell.  A pair of zora guards wearing scale armor and large, mask-like helmets stood outside it, talking quietly.  He still had the wolf around his neck at least.  Link glanced about and listened.

 “Why would Labrynna send a spy anyways?” one of the guards whispered.  It echoed against the stone walls of the dungeon enough that he could hear. Their coral spear clicked against the floor as they moved slightly.

 “I don’t know,” the other said.  “Maybe they’ve heard the rumors.”

 “I hope they’re just that.” They shook their head.  “Do you see all those scars?”

 “I recognized a couple skullfish bites and he was bleeding when they found him washed up.  Recognized a couple more too.  Deku babas on the arms and stomach, couple on his chest. And the scratches on the back…”

 “Those looked like dodongo claws.  And the burns.  What was that one on his collar?”

 “I don’t know, it still looks recently healed.”  They must’ve been referring to the one from the dead hand he reasoned.  Link glanced around as carefully as he could without drawing their attention.  This was definitely one of their cells.  “If he’s not a spy though, he could be one of those berserkers from Holodrum with the sort of equipment he was carrying…  Or a monster slayer.  Maybe specializing in the preternatural?  Why else would he have that strange wolf and the silver crossbow bolts?”

“I don’t think so.  He could be an assassin.”  Link saw one of them lean in a little more to their companion’s ear.  “He had those bottles.  And the one the witch called venomblood.  Said it was a horrible way to go.”  There was a creak of a door opening.  The two guards immediately quieted and stood at attention.  They spoke quieter than before.  He got a glimpse of who they were talking with.  The zora was shorter than the other two, and his coloration was different, more a shade of grey than the blues of the guards.  He was dressed similarly, but lacked the helmet.  Link did spy jewelry around their neck and the two fins that hung to the sides of his face had more as well, including a pair of coral earrings at the end.  He had never met them, but knew instantly it was the young prince Ralis for he had seen him once during a visit with Zelda when he served as an agent of The Crown. It had been years ago though by now. If Link had to take a guess, Ralis was now around the same age he had been when he’d earned the blue and white tunic.                                

 The smaller zora pushed the cell door open.  The guards entered first and kept their spears trained on Link.  He looked the hylian over slowly.  Link didn’t react.  He watched carefully though, looking for an out in the event he needed one.

 “We’ll keep this simple,” Ralis said.  “You tell me your name and what you were doing clinging to the bottom of the Prince of Hyrule’s riverboat.”

 Was he too late?  Had an alliance already been signed?  Honesty though he thought in some areas would work better at least.  He took a deep breath.  “I heard the zoras were going to join the war against Ganondorf,” he said.  “If it was true, it could cause the Storm Sea Zora to get involved as well.  That could drag The Empress and Labrynna into the conflict.  Did not want to be detected by the Hyrulean forces.”

 “Surprisingly well-versed in current events, whatever you are.  And you are not a Labrynnan in spite of the armor you wore.”  He watched Link closely.  “You still didn’t tell me your name.”

 “Link.”

 “Well, Link.  You carry some very interesting equipment as well.”

 “Pays to be prepared.”

 “And what does a man like you need things like venomblood or skulltula venom for?  Or a variety of different bolts for a small crossbow?  Or a subrosian-forged arming sword all the way from Holodrum?”

 He wasn’t going to tell them what he had once done, but the two guards earlier had given him ideas. “I’m a problem-solver.  I solve people’s problems, they pay me.”

 “So you’re an assassin.”

 “No.”

 “You carry plenty of tools to be considered one.”

 “I try not to kill people.” He rolled his head a little. “Only monsters.  Draconids like dodongos and forktails.  Hybrids such as griffins, lynels...   As well as the undead and necrophages like drowners and ghouls. That’s what the venomblood is for.” He looked at one of the guards. “You wanted to know the one on my collar?  Dead hand. The bites on my right calve?  A redead that had been blown in half by a bomb. And you were right.  Those three on my back were from a king dodongo.”                

 Ralis nodded slowly. He looked to one of the guards for a moment and then back to Link.  “Perhaps then we can strike a deal.  Your life for a demonstration of your skills.”

 “Can you remove the manacles then?”

 “Not yet.”  He raised a hand.  “There is a monster at one of our holy sites.  And we would like to see it taken care of.  Can you kill it?”

 He sighed.  “I would need information.  Reports, scouts, past encounters…  Might even need to contact an information broker on what it is.  In which case I’d need funding to pay them for their services.”

 “I thought you said you went after monsters.”

 “I might do that, but I’m not stupid about it.  I’m not like a knight going off at a dragon because his lord asks him to.  I need to know what I’m going after.  Need to know its habits.  Its weaknesses, track it…”

 “I see.”

 “You want it done right, I need information and resources.”  He looked them right in the eye.  “And my equipment back.  All of it.”

 There was a pause as the zora noble looked to the guards.  “Release him.”

 “Your highness, are you sure?” the guard asked.

 “I’m sure.”  He looked back to Link.  “You’ll be unarmed until we leave here though.”

 “Understandable,” Link said. He watched as a zora undid the manacles. He rubbed his wrists for a moment once free.  The feeling had come back quickly.  “Now, what can you tell me about this monster?”

  “It’s unlike anything we’re familiar with,” Ralis said.  He headed for the cell door.  Link followed with the remaining guard behind him.  “When we first encountered it, it was like a chu, drifting in the water. But it had something inside it.”

 “That’s not uncommon. Chus usually engulf prey.  And they can get pretty big.”

 “That something though seemed to move and direct the creature,” the guard said.  “We chased it into the Lakebed Temple, but lost it in there. Eventually it found us though.”

 “How so?”

 “There were six of us. We entered one of the larger chambers and it attacked us.  It had turned the water in the room into a part of itself.  We did manage to wound it.  The core, the object inside it bled.  But it broke a grate and escaped deeper into the temple.”

 Link began to think how it could have done such a thing.  “How long between the initial encounter and this attack?”

 “Took us about a day to find it again?”

 “And how long has it been since then?”

 “A week.”

 “So this thing could be even bigger now.”  He looked to the guard.  “How many survived the attack?”

 “Just me,” he said. He bowed his head a little and then looked at the hylian.  “When it was down to three of us, we drew straws.  One of us would go back and report what we’d found.  I don’t think they’re still alive.”

 “If they are, I’ll find them.”  They came to a guard’s room then.  The other of the two guards had already set out Link’s armor and clothes.  They were still a little damp, but not soaked through like when he’d been in the river.  He picked it up and started to get it back on.  “Can it leave the temple?”

 “No,” Ralis said. “It’s trapped there.  It’s a concern though that it’ll find a way.”

 “Makes things simpler.” He pulled his pants on and then quickly did the boots.  “I will need at least four frost bombs.  Clockwork timers instead of fuses.”

 “Frost bombs?  You realize how dangerous those are.”

 “Yes I do.  I’ve used them before.”  Admittedly though, he had never used them on another living being. However, the circumstances dictated he’d have to.  He just hoped it wasn’t as terrifying to watch as when he’d watched Lana freeze a pack of drowners and proceed to shatter them into scything and bloody chunks with a burst of wind magic.

 “I’ll have a guard get them to you when you enter the temple.  And not a moment before.”

 It was a small relief to him he wouldn’t be carrying the devices until he truly needed them. “Fine by me.”  He pulled a shirt on and tucked it in before slipping a belt on. “I’d assume then we’re close to Lake Hylia.”

 “You are.”

 “Good.”  He pulled the tunic on then over his head.  “I’m going to need to visit the Cardinal Inn before I go to the temple.  Maybe a local has seen the creature or heard something you haven’t.”

The last time Link had been to Lake Hylia had been during The Conjunction with Ravio and Midna. During his time there, they’d slain an archgriffin that had been terrorizing the populace and closed the last portal between Hyrule and Lorule.  On the outside as he walked through the paths between simple huts, it didn’t look like it had changed at all, apart from the fact the inn they’d stayed at had been burned to the ground.  Another one had taken its place not far from its location though.  It had a bright red cardinal weathervane on its grass roof. A similar sign hung over the door. It was a recent addition and the paint was still fresh on the walls.  Link pulled the facemask up over his face to help conceal his identity as he pushed the door to it open.  He could smell something cooking as he entered.  The downstairs was fairly empty apart from a couple locals who were congregated around a table.  One of them glanced over when they saw the new arrival but they were soon back to their tankard.  Link approached the bar.  Behind it was a young man cleaning it.  He looked barely old enough to have facial hair.  There was also a very large fluffy cat lapping up a saucer of cream.

“Do you have any milk?” he asked.

“For thirty.”

Link dug into his wallet while the young man got his drink.  He slipped them a purple rupee and took a long drink.  “Keep the change.”

He grinned at seeing his payment.  “Anything else?”

“I wish to speak with the proprietress as well.”  He glanced at the cat then.  “I’m sure Louise can vouch for me.”

The cat glanced up when he spoke.  Her eyes followed his every move then.  The young man quickly rushed into the back of the tavern.  Link had caught a look of worry on his face at mentioning the cat. He took a drink of his milk and looked at the cat then.  She had started to become alert.  He saw her moving and her hair starting to stand on end, making her look even larger than she already was.  He watched even as the cat’s pupils dilated and her tail swished.

He looked the cat right in the eyes for a moment, but broke contact and went back to his milk.  She followed suit though and returned to lapping at her saucer.  Link however, heard footsteps from behind.  He slowly moved his hand, ready to pull the hidden knife from his bracer if he had to.  “Can I help you?” he asked.

“Can help the lot of us,” one of the locals said.  To his right, Link saw a poster placed on the bar.  A quick glance was all he needed to see his face on it and a bounty of a thousand rupees.  “Just come quietly.”

Link took another drink and turned to face them.  They were dressed simply and it was clear they had no rank.  One did hold a club in their hands, but the other two were unarmed. A quick glance was all he needed to determine the way to take them.  “You are aware of how devalued the Hyrulean Rupee has become because of the war, yes?”

“That can still feed our families!” the one with the club said.  “And no one likes deserters!”

“Do you three really think they’d put out such a high bounty on a single deserter?” a woman said. They looked to their lefts.  Link glanced that way as well.  Telma stood with her arms folded under her chest. Her dark red hair was back in her usual ponytail and the apron she wore was bloodied.  Link also spotted a meat cleaver hanging from the apron.  “If you three think going after someone with that sort of price on his head is smart, you’re cut off for today.”  She looked at Link then.  “I hear you want to speak with me.”

“Somewhere private, please,” Link said.  He looked back at the three men.  “She’s right though too.  The price might be that high because of the danger.”  He grabbed his milk and walked over to her.  She turned then and they headed into the kitchen.  Telma pushed the door open and waited for him to enter. It swung behind them.

 “By Din, Link,” she said, giving him the look of a scolding mother.  “Are you insane?!  There’s posters of you all over from here to the South Seas!  And all I’ve been able to get from the usual suspects is that you’re a traitor!”

“Do you believe them?” he asked.

“You’re not working for Zelda anymore, I know that much.”  She removed the apron and meat cleaver to hang on the wall.  Link spied a slaughtered boar on a table.  Two other people were at work preparing it for a meal. “And if that’s the case, I don’t think I can help you.  You had the Royal Treasury to draw on.”

“Then why even talk to me if you’re so sure?”

“Call it a professional courtesy, hun.”  She folded her arms.  “You made sure you paid in full whenever you came by.  Never ran up a tab either.  And you got a couple of your Chosen buddies to help make sure the rioting didn’t burn down my old bar with me still in it.”

He leaned against the wall then and took another drink of his milk.  “Well, for the moment I have access to a royal treasury, just not Hyrule’s. Which is why I’m here.  Prince Ralis of the Snowpeak Zoras has contracted me to handle the monster in the Lakebed Temple.  Told him I needed a broker to get some extra information.”

“Monster?  In the temple?”  She narrowed her eyes.  “You’d better step into my office then…”  Telma turned and Link followed her into a back room.  It had the curtains drawn and a simple desk in the middle of the room. She sat down behind it.  The cat, Louise, had followed her in and jumped on the table.  “We’d heard rumors from some of the zora guards of something in there, but nothing you could call reliable.”

“And why is that?”

“Because none of my agents have gotten down there to get a look at it.”  She gave Louise a pat.  The fluffy white cat purred.

“As expected…”  Link pulled a chair up and sat down.  He rested his arms on his legs, leaning in. “Now, I’ve also heard rumor that they might be joining the war.  How much of that is true?”

“It’s not a rumor. It’ll be true in a couple weeks I’d expect.  Even Zelda herself has been up there talking with the king and queen.”  She scratched Louise behind the ear.  The cat lay on the desk then, looking quite content.  “A lot of the senate up there though have voiced concerns that the king and queen are thinking with their hearts rather than their minds in regards to this.”

“How so?”

“The king’s daughter from his first marriage, Ruto, has gone missing.  Hyrule is offering to use their information network and a couple Chosen to find and return her.  In exchange, the zoras let them use the large rivers and lakes for their armies.  This includes plans for new irrigation to help prepare more food as it’s looking like this war will continue another year.”

“Terrific…”  He finished his milk and put the glass on the table.  “What about Labrynna?”

“There has been… Vocal protest by the sea zora ambassadors in the court.  Conflicts like this have happened in the past and it always ends in tears for both sides. Worrying that this will affect their trade even more than it already has.  They’re not having any of it.  And…  I could have an agent find out what Empress Ambi’s thoughts are on the entire matter.  It wouldn’t come cheaply though.  And I doubt Ralis would like you spending his money that way.”

She was right about that. Even though the prince was probably only in his teens, the way he’d handled the interrogation was impressive. “Do you know if they tried finding her themselves?”

“I do.  But no word on if it was successful.”  She removed her hand from Louise, who let out a mew in protest. “I’d expect it failed though.  And that there’s more going on than they’ve told you.”

Link thought on what he’d been told.  If this was all true, he could be looking at more work to rescue the princess.  He’d be willing to do it if it prevented the risk of Labrynna entering the war.  “Do you have any leads on where she could be?  Just yes or no.  Not if you actually know.”

“I can find out.”

“We may have this conversation again then.”  He stood up.

“That all you need, hun?”

“For the zoras, yeah. But I do have something that may require me to start a tab…  Personal interest.”

Her eyebrows rose. Louise even looked up at him. “Never thought I’d see the day. What kind of personal interest?”

He looked back at her. “I need information on polymorphic curses and Majora’s Mask.  Preferably how they’re related and methods of breaking them.”

Telma inspected him carefully then.  He was aware of how insane the request sounded.  “I’m not sure if you’re serious or you hit your head on something. That’s just an old story.”

“But every story has a grain of truth to it.  Even if it’s archeological information, I need it.”  He took a deep breath.  “And I have a friend who is afflicted by such a curse.  I promised to help.  The Mask is the only lead we have.”

She was quiet for a minute, writing down a note on a sheet.  “Must be some friend if you’re willing to chase fairy tales.”  Telma finished and put her pen down. “Alright.  I should have something then soon.  I have an agent or two who could get that for you.”

[ruffoverthinksthings]

Auradon Improvement Initiative Explained! (Part 3): The Divided States of Auradon

Note: This is 1,800 or so words. It is a VERY long read.

“No one argues with Beast’s decision because he’s the best and the smartest and the most Good leader of all,” to paraphrase Melissa de la Cruz (author of the main Descendants book series), is the in-universe justification about how no one complains about Beast’s overarching decisions like the Magic Ban.

To me, it honestly sounds like propaganda from a totalitarian regime like North Korea, the kind of oversimplification and shielding from brutal reality that a parent would give a very young child, or a massive insult to the intelligence of the people of Auradon, especially egregious because I can name at least two Disney Princesses who have “incredible intelligence and studiousness” as one of their key traits, Belle (Beauty and the Beast) and Jasmine (Aladdin).

You could say this is actually even MORE insulting because one of them is actually married to the man, and would have unparalleled influence in his decisions.

This part of my long, drawn-out, and at times “very concerning for the sheer passion I’m putting into it” series of how I would improve Descendants advises doing away with the “United” States of Auradon.

Instead, it would make them the “Divided” Countries of Auradon, unified only by international agreements and trade, but otherwise each their own government.

As of now, Auradon is like a Federal Government, with a central government that enforces nation-wide policy and being the ultimate source of power (Auradon City, Beast, and eventually, Ben), but each state/kingdom has its own regional government that actually handles the nitty-gritty of day-to-day operations and their own unique local issues and concerns (the various monarchs who still rule over their dominions, such as Aladdin and Jasmine over Agrabah, the Emperor over China, or what remains of the Parliament of London).

The regional governments have been shown to have incredible scope of power, as with King Arthur being legally able to literally keep Camelot in the Dark Ages, and Ben is presumably unable to veto that for whatever reason, but as the above quote says, everyone generally falls in line with whatever Beast says because “he’s the King.”

I hate that.

I want disagreements between states, actual fucking politics, diplomacy, and compromise, show how difficult it is to get all of these vastly different cultures to agree on something as inane as the theme for an annual international event, much less trade agreements that could literally end with people starving to death, or dire emergencies like outbreaks of disease that could spread VERY quickly everywhere, largely because of Auradonians habit of gelling together and crowding in the streets for random dance numbers, all whilst singing at the top of their lungs.

Make it so that Ben is frequently shown or referenced to be in long, grueling meetings, constantly overseeing, reading and listening to, and making decisions for the government like an actual King in a modern, interconnected environment like this, and how it’s a delicate high-wire act with a lot of ass-kissing, self-sacrifice, and sometimes pandering to the most frivolous aspects of your fellow rulers and influential figures.

It may be ridiculous to knight a duchess’ dog, but it’s not so ridiculous when that act stands between you and solving a massive uprising in the farmers who demand to finally be able to own the land they’ve been tilling, rather than to still have to pay tribute to the lady of the estate AND taxes to the government.

And then show that this is just Auradon City level politics, that this isn’t even going into how deep, complex, and ridiculous it can get the individual kingdoms, especially a hub of international trade activity like Arendelle.

Make a reference to how they DID try to have Beast be the Supreme Ruler, but after a few months of his dictatorial, no compromises, “Obey me or I will yell at you until you do!” leadership style, everyone got sick of his shit, and realized this was a bad idea.

Teach kids that being a leader (especially a King) doesn’t mean you always have to fight for and get what you want, it’s figuring out the best solution for everyone, and is oftentimes an inglorious, difficult job where the criticisms are many and the praise is few.

And if you constantly throw tantrums and demand everyone bow down to you, that’s a great way to turn your allies against you, have them unite in their desire to kick you out, and make even more trouble for everyone.

(On a side note, I headcanon that relations, professional or personal, between King Beast and Queen Elsa are still strained to this day. The staff make sure they are never alone together in a room.)

All the realism aside, to make everyone hold hands and dance 24/7 is an insult to the classic Disney movies, which thrived on division between the people within a single kingdom, or even a small town.

To use Beauty and the Beast, would Belle and her father Maurice’s plight have been as interesting if they weren’t ostracized for their intelligence and bookishness? If they all got along just fine, and the mob heading up to Beast’s castle was just to politely ask what happened to Belle, not to “Kill the Beast!”?

It would also make the world extremely interesting by giving every individual state/country/kingdom their own identity and theme, a culture and a personality, rather than just be aesthetic choices like a “UN Pride Parade” with all-white, middle class, American paraders wearing traditional costumes of countries they may not have even heard of.

Make it so that Auradon City is like Washington DC, a hub of political activity and where the children of diplomats and politicians generally go to get educated, but it doesn’t have much else going for that—in fact, it would be nothing of value if Auradon didn’t exist.

After all, the value of the Silver Dollar is entirely dependent on there being a government that recognizes its value, otherwise it’s just worth as much as the silver, gold, or jewels it’s made of.

Make China, Arendelle, and Agrabah as the three major economic powers, having massive sway in all political decisions because they could bankrupt or cause untold damage to the World Bank, and be perfectly fine within their own borders as they are completely self-sustaining, or people would trade with them regardless.

Show the effects of a culture and a kingdom that lives and dies by trade and worships the Silver Dollar, what kind of people that would produce, what sorts of products they have going for them and the unique challenges in having all this money flowing around freely.

I can guarantee you that the crime rate wouldn’t be at 0% as Ben says in the novels.

Make Sherwood Forest and Corona the countries for “Gray” characters, the last stop between Auradon and the Isle, and a safe-haven for those that don’t fit in. Redo the Snuggly Duckling scene but on a larger scale, humanize the Islanders and show just how cruel and inhumane the Isle of the Lost is by showing the people that just barely the boats, and have them not be that different from what we’ve seen from the ones actually behind the barrier.

And I would love it if there is mention of rehabilitation centers to make offenders right their ways than leaving them to rot in jail, and these two are the most active states with social programs meant to help the marginalized, the outcast, and the poor—where most “criminals” and “Evil” people originate.

Make London, (Now-Not-So Ancient) Greece, and Atlantis* (not to be confused with the Atlantis in Triton’s Bay) as centers of technological advancement, because they were industrial revolution natives, are known for their artisans and their scientists already (Icarus and Daedalus, among others), and of course, are really intent in reviving their old technology and advancing it to fit the brand new world they live in.

Have the most blatant, fantastic shows of science and technology here, not just smartphones which are so everyday, but flying vehicles en masse, intelligent robots, and Icarus yet again flying to close to the sun, only this time, it’s with jet propulsion and a digital HUD telling him exactly just how high is too high.

Make Bayou de Orleans, France, and Camelot as centers of culture preservation, popular tourist spots that have embraced both the modern amenities of the internet and improvements in infrastructure while not completely (or sometimes, literally) paving over with concrete their rich histories and the natives.

Show people all the numerous bits of culture and history without all the commercialization (or alternatively, make commentary about how they got commercialized and disrespected because of greed), broaden the horizons of your viewers, pay homage to the many wonderful artists and arts that have sadly been forgetten, if not outright erased from history by abusive ruling classes.

Camelot would be particularly interesting as I would see it suffering from King Arthur’s phobia of technology, and even more so with the Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Beep-Boop headcanon before this post.

It could be a criticism of excessively conservative culture, but also acknowledge that people can suffer from “Future Shock,” and you should be helping them adjust to this new world, than claiming they just need to “get with the times” and demeaning them.

Make DunBroch, Neverland, Motunui, and Hawaii as their own independent countries, not part of the union, use them to really hammer in the tension and the problems that came with Beast’s unified rule, and how their “perfect leaders” aren’t so perfect, and banding together and joining hands may not always save the day—the world is much more complex than that.

Above all, though, I’m saying Descendants would really be improved by EMBRACING THE CULTURAL DIVERSITY DISNEY IS TRYING TO SHOW WITH THIS FRANCHISE.

A diverse cast of POCs and retroactively making White characters into POCs is a good start, but until the different cultures they all come from stop being a purely aesthetic matter, and start being a valuable, realistic, and integral part of who they are, we’re going to have problems.

There’s a world of difference about how someone will act, think, or do, depending on where in the world and what kind of society they’ve been raised into.

As of now, Auradon is WAY too “White Upper Class America” for my taste, and could do with a good deal of realism, and showing the other 99% that don’t live in unparalleled luxury, comfort, and privelege, than just exclusively the Royal 1%.

* Atlantis hover vehicles may have been hit by the magic ban, though. But then again, I would imagine they have a lot of exceptions, as full enforcement would mean that EVERY SINGLE ATLANTIAN (again, not to be confused with Ariel’s domain) would be immediately sentenced to death as their life crystals are why they’re still alive after all this time.

[poisons-kiss]

TW:  Domestic Violence, Death, Murder

Pamela grew up the only child in a wealthy, but broken Seattle home.  Her formative years were filled with the beating and eventual murder of her mother at the hands of her father, and the memory of him burying the body in the garden behind their home plagued the girl’s dreams for years after. If there was anything she had gained in her upbringing, it was a deep seeded hatred for what her father had done to their family and a growing need to not share the fate of her mother.

Years of finding comfort in the family garden and the only safe space to connect with her mother at her unfortunate grave had sparked an interest in plant life within the redhead.  Her father rarely went to the garden, the remains of his darkest secret kept him at bay and left Pamela with a quiet to study the books she could find on the greenery that surrounded her.   As soon as she was able, Pamela left Seattle to go to university to study botanical biochemistry, as her personal research showed the potential plants could provide her.

Leaving her childhood home behind had given Pamela a freedom she’d never felt before.  She was ready to take on the world, and furthering her education away from her old life was something she’d planned and prepared for.  One thing that she couldn’t possibly have predicted, however, was just how much a little human kindness and affection would affect her.   The respect her professor, Dr. Jason Woodrue, seemed to give her, their shared love of botany, and the kind authority he held, was intoxicating to Pamela.  

Her obvious attraction, and the intense interest she took in his work, made it very easy for the Professor to use her to his advantage.   Together they started to explore the effects various plants and pheromones had on the human populace.   They would provide pills to students and observe the effects, but when it came to the more potent and potentially dangerous concoctions, Dr. Woodrue insisted that the two of them had the moral obligation to test only on themselves.

Both an agreement on the moral obligation and a need to impress her mentor, Pamela allowed these experiments to happen.  As they worked together she would allow toxins to be injected into her and for Dr. Woodrue to examine her for reactions.  It was not easy going and there were many drawbacks, some of which left Pamela seriously ill and in one case, close to death.  

As they say, when in love, you see everything through rose colored glasses, and Pamela was in deep.  Yes, the experiments had almost killed her, and yes the things she and her professor were doing were dangerous.  But he loved her, and cared about her, and had brought her back from the brink of death, and thus was more hero than foe.  At least that’s what she believed until another test almost killed her, and she had to be hospitalized.  

For six months, she lay alone in her hospital bed because the love of her life had disappeared (likely to escape being arrested for her almost murder).  It was six months of torture for Pamela, as she was left alone in her own thoughts and the betrayal she had just barely lived through had planted a bitterness that only barely rivaled the anger.  She shame of being used and deceived consumed her, and when she was out she fully intended to extract her revenge.  It was a futile effort, as no trace of the professor was left behind.  

Seeing the parallels between her relationship with Dr. Woodrue and the one her parents shared, Pamela did the one thing she could think to expel the anger tearing her apart from the inside.  A trip to Seattle to visit her father, who had been put in prison upon the discovery of Pamela’s mother’s remains, with a lipstick tube filled with poison that she herself had grown immune to, let to the unfortunate and mysterious demise of the only other man who had taught her that trust should not be given freely.

It was only after this deed was done, that Pamela fully realized the effects the last experiment had done to her.   She didn’t know the extent of her new self, although she could see her new power manifesting in small ways around her, and she needed a place to figure out just what she was capable of.  Starting over in a new city, where she could easily be a stranger in the crowd, lead to her moving to Gotham City.   It was here she was able to start not only experiment with her own powers and abilities, but she could continue her research in peace.

During this time, Pamela’s focus started to form.  She could see the horrible things that humans did to each other and the defenseless planet they lived on, and it was something she couldn’t get past.  It had become clear how much more plant like she herself had become, and perhaps that was the cause or why she could see so clearly the path she needed to take.   Eradicating human life from the planet would solve so many personal and global problems.

It was only a matter of time before she was actively out attempting to get rid of the invasive species around her, mankind, and she adopted the alias Poison Ivy when doing so.  It seemed fitting for her work, and gave her a sense of anonymity while doing so. As time passed, there were plenty of battles, most of her own with the local annoyance known as the Batman and other villains around Gotham City, but she grew stronger with each new discovery she made and it was only a matter of time before she would be strong enough to succeed at her goal.

When the Superhero Relocation Program began, Pamela was very for it.  The way she saw it, if being a hero was illegal, then she had more of a chance of doing her work without hindrance or push back.  However, she was far noticeable on the radar by this point, and knew she would have to be smart in how she handled things.  As such, she herself signed up to ‘give up her villainous ways’ with the hope of getting less eyes on her and she could continue her operations on a quieter, smaller scale, until she is ready to unleash an unstoppable force against mankind (or until the aliens do it for her).

Currently, Pamela works with S.T.A.R. Labs as a botanist, although not at a level and clearance she wishes she had.  Her managers are aware of her past, and as such, limited what she is allowed to work on for them.  She doesn’t like this in the least, but can recognize the potential this job could give her, and is currently biding her time and waiting for an opportunity.  

While in her own time, she continues her experiments and tending to her plants.  Her current project is starting to shape up nicely in the form of a rather large specimen with a growing taste for what she believes is human flesh.  There is more work to be done, and plans for just how to appease such an appetite, that keep her feeling both accomplished and driven.  It’s a good distraction from reliving in her mind the glory days of her former life.

Most important, is that Pamela is very aware of the tension that seems to be growing around her.  It’s in the air and for her, it’s rather delicious.  The idea of going back to her true form (as she has come to view her Poison Ivy side) is enticing, and it wouldn’t take much for her to jump right back into it.  Secretly, she hopes for enough chaos to explode, and cause enough casualties, that her own dream of human extinction will be a lot easier to achieve.