#code dasha | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

batsplat · 3 months

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right, by popular demand (a request from @washerdryer), I'm following up this post and just giving a few more details for what you can watch out for to start distinguishing tennis players in your head. how to differentiate the hoards, basically - what makes each tennis player unique. so I've split this up in three basic levels: the numbers, the units, and the shapes

the numbers

so, let's just simplify tennis playstyles as much as it is possible to simplify them, and say we have two types of players: the offensive ones and the defensive ones. the bashers and the pushers. one wants to finish the points on their own racquet, the other one just wants to get the ball back often enough. winning a tennis point is about getting the ball into the court one more time than your opponent. what this means is you can win a point either by putting the ball into a position the opponent can't get it back from, or by waiting until your opponent makes a mistake

when tennis points are coded for purposes of generating stats, point finishes can fall into one of three basic categories:

winner: a ball you hit into the court that the opponent's racquet does not touch, to cleanly win you the point (also includes aces)

unforced errors: a ball you hit that does not make it to your opponent's court, when you could have been expected to make that ball (also includes double faults)

forced errors: a ball you hit that does not make it to your opponent's court, when you have been put under enough duress to 'force' the error

now, you may be wondering how we distinguish between unforced and forced errors, which... it's complicated... it's basically a question of time. if the player had time to reach the ball, if they were in a position on the court where they could hit that ball within a relatively comfortable hitting zone, if they were in a neutral or an offensive position rather than a defensive one, then it's unforced. obviously, this isn't an objective measure, and sometimes whoever is logging in the points is like... either WAY too harsh or far far too generous.... but as a general metric, it's not the worst place to start. now, typically we only get numbers of winners and unforced errors (unless it's a fan-charted match, which we'll get to in a sec), but obviously you can infer the number of forced errors at least. even these basic stats aren't a bad starting point. if someone is playing offensively and taking more risk, it would logically follow that their counts of winners and unforced errors are both higher than for someone playing defensively, right?

let's bring in two players I thought of off the top of my head, and luckily they did not disappoint me here. kasatkina on the left and ostapenko on the right at wimbledon 2021 (this is from flashscore btw):

in the end, penko won this three set match. she won somewhat more points than her opponents - and outperformed her opponent in both service points and return points. what else can these numbers tell us?

well, first of all, penko managed to hit 48 winners vs dasha's *pinches nose* 11. so she tended to play more offensively, or was certainly more effective in doing so. on the flip side, penko hit 48 unforced errors to dasha's 24 - her high risk style inevitably generated more errors than dasha's low risk approach. obviously, in this case that approach took her to victory, despite finishing on double the amount of unforced errors as her opponent. sometimes, the difference between winners and unforced errors is treated as some kind of brute force measure of a match's 'quality' which... I don't love, but of course it's generally a good thing if you're clocking in more winners than unforced errors. dasha ends on (-13) and penko ends on (0), and penko ended up winning the match

what else can we take from this? well, penko came to the net more - and tended to have a very good success rate there. this is a super super rough metric, but I generally feel you want about two thirds success at the net at least, since more often than not you're approaching the net when you're on the offensive and should be winning points. so, y'know, 13 isn't a crazy amount of total net points but it's still fundamentally a job well done. some players don't approach the net at all - and of course it's also reflective of the fact dasha generally wasn't getting herself into positions during the match where she could get to the net. given penko's playstyle, most points will have be conducted on her racquet, where either she bullies around dasha to make an error or she makes an error herself. she's not giving dasha the time to construct rallies in a way that would let dasha gradually navigate herself to the net

and then, of course, there's the most glaring numbers of them all: the serve/return numbers. *pinches nose again* okay. so obviously, the serve is supposed to be a weapon, and especially on grass it is common enough to see 80%, 90% of service points won (if more so on the men's side). these two icons don't believe in that kind of thing, and have even managed to win more points on return than on serve on the most serve-friendly surface. given dasha's impressive returning and her very not impressive serving, I'm guessing this was mainly her fault. there's also a lot of people who will conflate a lot of breaks of serve with a match being 'bad', but those people lack taste. nobody likes a servebot

now, we can add more numbers into the equation. and yes, this is a lot of numbers, but it's all actually quite straightforward, don't run away, we're not going through all of them. this is from ryba vs krej, the wimbledon semi we just had, and is submitted as part of the volunteer-driven match charting project at tennis abstract. what you're seeing are elena's shot types:

so. what you're seeing here is every single shot rybakina hit in that match, and what the result of each and every single one of them was. rybakina hit 257 total shots - of them, 32% ended the point in some way. of those 32%, you get a further breakdown between winners, 11%, forced errors, 8%, and unforced errors, 15%. she hits 133 on the forehand side, and 124 on the backhand - and she was more likely to finish a point on the forehand side than on the backhand side. this is what we would EXPECT to see: for 99% of players, the forehand is a bigger weapon than the backhand. that doesn't mean the forehand is better, and it is often more liable to generating errors, but you can hit the ball harder on that side. the numbers here beyond that are actually a bit quirky... unsurprisingly, rybs was hitting more forehand winners than backhand winners, but in terms of errors the big disparity was in the forced errors tally. now, honestly I don't remember this match enough so this may be bullshit - but just looking at the numbers, my initial guess is that rybs was being forced to run into the forehand corner a lot and krej was extracting errors that way

there's a lot of other details you CAN look at here, but also ryba makes it easy for us by conducting most of her shots from the baseline. 'gs' here stands for 'groundstrokes' so... literally any shot that hits the ground first. she barely went to the net, she wasn't doing much slicing or dropshotting. (I notice the coder made one of her forehand dropshots a forced error, which... I can kinda see how that happens, but to me almost all dropshots are unforced.) some normal volleys, some 'swinging' volleys - also called topspin volleys, which basically looks like your normal groundstroke but without the bit where it touches the ground first

let's quickly bring in what krej was doing:

so, only 23% of shots are point ending, which is what you'd broadly expect - ryba is one of the players with the biggest firepower so she will generally be doing more point ending on her racquet. similarly to ryba, krej has a slight skew to the forehand side, and also has a strong skew towards staying at the baseline. the main thing I'm a teensy bit curious about is how krej ended up with 9 lobs and ryba with only one smash because like?? rybakina is very tall?? but also krej is the prime moonballer on tour, so if that was correctly coded then well done to her lol. the only other thing I wanted to point out is the kind of quirk you can spot through these numbers - krej is one of the big users of the forehand slice in the game, which tends to be an extremely uncommon shot, but she uses 24 times. ryba's 12 also actually feels quite high, but it's also more common to slice when you're getting a slice so that MAY be part of it

tennis has many more numbers that tells you many more things about the matches you're watching - like for instance serve efficacy and how your win % compares on the first serve to the second serve, how often you're getting your first serve in, how often it's an ace, an unreturned serve, a double fault... you'll build up a bit of a frame of reference over time for what counts as 'good' or 'bad' numbers. but, yeah, if one player is hitting a lot of winners and unforced errors and the other one isn't, you can draw some basic conclusions about what kind of player you're watching

the units

okay, so you've got the numbers, which you can also check during matches and will be provided on screen between sets. now we get to the bit where you're actually watching tennis. you basically what to figure out what units, what bits a player's game is composed of. everyone has a serve, everyone has a return, everyone has a forehand and a backhand - but what are they doing with them? how are they using them? where do they tend to win points and where do they tend to lose them? again, part of this will just be about paying attention to what the commentators tell you and try to see if you can spot it for yourself. here are like, some of the basic questions you can watch out for... many you don't need to immediately just spot, but just so you know this is something that is possible to notice:

are they a good server? very tall? good at 'hitting their spots'? do they double fault a lot? can they mix up the spins of their serve - the kick serve (literally kicks up) or slice (slides away from the opponent)? how's their ace rate? how good are they at 'disguising' their serve direction? is it easy to attack their second serve?

how about their return? is there something funky about their return position, are they standing too close or too far away? (most players will be a little bit behind the baseline.) do they change their position depending on whether they're returning first or second serve (typically but not always you'll be closer for the second)? do they get a lot of returns into play? can they attack the second serve? how good are they at 'reading' the opponent's serve?

are they more of an attacking player who attempts to generate their own offence and dominate the point, or a defensive player who is responding to what the opponent is doing and are trying to force them into a mistake? are they a counterpuncher (aka a player who can turn defence into offence)? are they 'aggressive' with their court positioning by standing further forwards? or are they retreating, buying themselves time?

where are they looking to finish points? are they a baseliner and are operating from the back of the court? are they an all courter? are they looking to come in and attack at the net? how's their forecourt game? how are their volleys? do they ever serve and volley (aka immediately follow in the serve to hit the first ball from the net)?

how are their two wings - the forehand and the backhand? how good are they at generating offence from either side? how good are they at defending from either side? is there one side where they're good at hitting 'on the run' shots but not the other? is there one side (typically the forehand) where they can generate more pace but are also more likely to make errors? can they rally consistently from both wins?

what about their variety? now, variety is a bit of a catch all term that describes how many dimensions their game has - but a lot of times it does kinda just mean 'can they slice and volley'. a slice has a different type of spin from your basic ground strokes - especially on the backhand side, it's an important defensive tool, not least to slow the ball down, but can also used offensively. are all the balls they're hitting kinda similar in terms of speed and height and spin? or can they hit their shots flatter, can they change up the spin with slices... can they get forwards and sprinkle in volleys, can they integrate different shots like the dropshot into their game? can they hit high moonballs and find short angles? or is it all just 'see ball bash ball'

how good a mover are they? both in terms of outright speed, up the court and side to side, but also how their balance is, how good they are at anticipating where the opponent will hit the ball, and do on... how flexible are they, can they reach even the unlikeliest balls? how's their endurance? can they defend point after point game after game, or do they eventually falter?

what are they like mentally? do they fold every time they're facing break point? can they actually convert their chances? what are they like at crunch time - late in sets, in tiebreaks, in deciding sets? do they choke away leads? are they clutch under pressure? can they serve out sets and matches?

how do they think they're going to win this match? what's their approach, what's the strategy, what tactics are they deploying, can they adjust these to the match situation? are you watching a player who's thinking their way through rallies, who's following a game plan, or are they just doing whatever?

these aren't questions you need to be engaging with every time you watch a tennis match but, again, they're questions you can ask yourself. not as tricky as it looks!!

the shapes

okay. you get the numbers, you know how the match quite literally is playing out. you've watched the points and can spot what they're actually doing to generate those numbers. now let's go one step further: how are these 'units' being produced? why is it that some serves are better than others? what makes different forehands produce different effects? what makes someone a good mover?

now, obviously, this is like. a massive topic, and I'm not going to give an intro to tennis technique here. but what you really want to do, especially at the start, is spot variance. the photos I included at the top of this post are all from players with techniques that immediately jump out at you for being WEIRD. snigur's forehand looks weird (it's like she's swinging a pan). delbonis' serve looks weird (bizarrely high ball toss). norrie's backhand looks weird (like he's trying to stab someone). obviously, to some extent you can only do this through brute force watching tennis to give yourself a kind of internal, instinctual understanding of what the 'average' shot looks like... but you can also kickstart this process

the thing is, right, you can say that all technique is very complicated, but at the end of the day what it boils down to is you have the bit that happens before they hit the ball, the bit where they're hitting the ball, and the bit after they're hitting the ball. usually, what tennis viewers are responding to when they're watching the sport is some kind of flash aesthetic judgement of that racquet motion. is it a 'short' or a 'long' motion? you can be super concise and compressed with your motion, and only quickly slash at the ball in a direct path, or you can draw a massive loop with your arm like you're simulating a windmill where, after yanking it in a bunch of directions, eventually you make contact with the ball... where is the racquet at the point of contact? generally speaking it should be in front of the body, though how close or far it is can vary quite a lot. and where does the racquet go afterwards?

let's bring in a straightforward example, and check out the forehand techniques of the two most recent women's slam champs - krej on the left and iga on the right

at point of contact, krej has her arm completely extended, while iga's elbow is bent. both are entirely acceptable way of hitting your forehand!! it obviously means both need to move differently to the ball to make sure it's at their preferred distance

if you look at iga's arm, you may also notice all the... bits are kinda pointing in different ways? what you might notice if you watch her a bit is that she draws quite the loop with her forehand, and that a lot of her arm seems to be moving a lot during the stroke. the underlying 'reason' for that is she has quite an extreme forehand grip (called the 'western' grip) which means that the way she holds her racquet essentially requires her to twist around her wrist to make contact with it. so, what's the benefit? why are you doing weird shit with your wrist while hitting the ball? well, iga's forehand also has a lot of topspin - the sharp wrist movement applies an intensive amount of spin to the ball that makes it fly high over the net and bounce high on the other side of the court. it's a very spin-intensive forehand grip - she WHIPS the racquet up to make that ball rotate a shit ton

now, obviously you don't need to get all that just looking at a clip of a player hitting a shot. it's more just... stuff to start paying attention to. how much they're using their arms. how much they're bending their knees. where their racquet is in relation to their body when they hit it. how big the steps they're taking are to get across the court

in conclusion

in conclusion. have fun watching the matches!!

#//#tennis #this is supposed to be an intro guide but (not to be rude) you do feel like a lot of long term fans still can't spot some of this stuff lol #so it's not mandatory. I just think tennis is fundamentally more interesting if you treat it as a puzzle. what's the story of a match #also the quirkier the technique the better

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fixedfour · 2 months

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Any explanation for the buzzed blonde look 😅

omg! 🤭 I saw that he said he was just bored

but

the moment i saw his new hair (first of all, I actually gasped), i couldn't help but think that that was so purva ashadha coded of him lol!

literally saw this the same day he cut his hair and, yes! exactly!

It’s giving Mulan, it’s giving: bringing honor to the family lol!

again, if this is true and he’s going through a new supportive dasha—

babes we could really go to the Super Bowl🧎🏻‍♀️

but also, the day we all saw that one tweet from his stylist, Kyle, the "I did it" text, that day the moon was literally in Leo! It could have 100% been an impulsive decision, he has Mars in Leo so a moon transit over Mars can make one just a touch reckless lol! and Leo = hair of course lol! 💛

also can I just add— the Cody Rhodes comparisons killed me a little bit because Cody Rhodes is actually ALSO a Scorpio/Jyeshta moon! The girls are not lying!

#astrology

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piratewithvigor · 11 months

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AEW Roster Organized By Age (& events, for context)

Source: Smackdown Hotel

Jan 3 1952 - Jim Ross

Feb 8 1952 - Elizabeth II crowned

May 30 1955 - Jake Roberts

Nov 3 1957 - Laika becomes first animal in space

Nov 7 1957 - Tony Schiavone

May 13 1958 - Velcro is patented

Sep 20 1958 - Arn Anderson

Mar 20 1959 - Sting

Jun 12 1963 - Jerry Lynn

Jul 1 1963 - ZIP codes are introduced in the US

Oct 13 1963 - Don Callis

Nov 11 1963 - Daddy Ass

Apr 14 1967 - Jeff Jarrett

May 9 1967 - Kevin Kelly

Oct 11 1967 - Taz

Dec 6 1967 - First successful heart transplant

May 10 1968 - William Regal

Oct 30 1968 - Luther

Apr 10 1969 - Dustin Rhodes

Jul 16 1969 - Apollo 11 lands the first people on the moon

Mar 24 1970 - Christopher Daniels

Nov 9 1970 - Chris Jericho

Dec 18 1970 - Rob Van Dam

Apr 3 1971 - Alex Marvez

Jun 12 1971 - Mark Henry

Feb 8 1972 - Paul Wight

Oct 12 1972 - Karen Jarrett

Nov 29 1972 - Atari releases Pong

Oct 30 1973 - Adam Copeland

Nov 30 1973 - Christian Cage

Jan 1 1974 - Jim Ross starts his career in wrestling

Sep 23 1974 - Matt Hardy

Oct 8 1975 - Michael Nakazawa

Jan 23 1976 - Nigel McGuinness

May 8 1976 - First roller coaster with a loop in it opens

Oct 4 1976 - Emi Sakura

Feb 28 1977 - Lance Archer

Aug 31 1977 - Jeff Hardy

Nov 9 1977 - Alex Abrahantes

Dec 12 1977 - The Butcher

Mar 17 1979 - Samoa Joe

Aug 1 1979 - Prince Nana

Oct 3 1979 - Johnny TV

Dec 29 1979 - Justin Roberts

May 6 1980 - Colt Cabana

Jun 2 1980 - The Blade

Jul 16 1980 - Excalibur

Nov 17 1980 - Mercedes Martinez

Dec 27 1980 - Claudio Castagnoli

Feb 19 1981 - Shawn Spears

May 22 1981 - Bryan Danielson

Aug 1 1981 - MTV debuts

Dec 12 1981 - Eddie Kingston

Apr 7 1982 - Sonjay Dutt

May 21 1982 - Kota Ibushi

Aug 3 1982 - Nyla Rose

Oct 10 1982 - Tony Khan

Dec 3 1982 - Jake Hager

Mar 1 1983 - Mark Sterling

Mar 19 1983 - Matt Sydal

Apr 1 1983 - Scorpio Sky

Jul 26 1983 - Roderick Strong

Oct 16 1983 - Kenny Omega

Dec 7 1983 - Matt Menard

Jan 26 1984 - JD Drake

Feb 2 1984 - Brian Cage

Feb 17 1984 - Jimmy Jacobs

Feb 23 1984 - Serpentico

Mar 20 1984 - Angelo Parker

May 4 1984 - Orange Cassidy

Jun 30 1984 - Dax Harwood

Jul 1 1984 - PG13 rating is invented

Sep 19 1984 - Renee Paquette

Nov 4 1984 - Ryan Nemeth

Nov 8 1984 - Keith Lee

Dec 26 1984 - Pat Buck

Dec 29 1984 - Anthony Henry

Jan 17 1985 - Mark Briscoe

Feb 13 1985 - Truth Magnum

Feb 26 1985 - Penta El Zero Miedo

Mar 13 1985 - Matt Jackson

Mar 19 1985 - Luchasaurus

Mar 20 1985 - Matt Taven

Mar 23 1985 - CJ

Mar 31 1985 - First Wrestlemania

May 16 1985 - Mike Bennett

May 19 1985 - Malakai Black

Apr 20 1985 - Jay Lethal

Jul 15 1985 - QT Marshall

Aug 6 1985 - Tony Nese

Sep 9 1985 - The Bunny

Dec 7 1985 - Jon Moxley

Dec 25 1985 - Miro

Jan 24 1986 - Vincent

Feb 5 1986 - Madison Rayne

Feb 19 1986 - Shawn Dean

Feb 21 1986 - The first Zelda game is released

Mar 2 1986 - Bishop Kaun

Mar 4 1986 - Dalton Castle

Apr 8 1986 - Big Bill

Apr 22 1986 - Chuck Taylor

Jun 15 1986 - Cezar Bononi

Jun 29 1986 - Serena Deeb

Jul 22 1986 - Thunder Rosa

Aug 21 1986 - Pac

Oct 22 1986 - Taya Valkyrie

Jan 13 1987 - Ian Riccaboni

Feb 4 1987 - Aaron Solo

Mar 1 1987 - Kyle O'Reilly

Mar 7 1987 - Angelico

Mar 10 1987 - Alex Reynolds

Mar 17 1987 - Brody King

Mar 30 1987 - Trent Beretta

May 17 1987 - Cash Wheeler

Apr 21 1987 - Dutch

Jun 18 1987 - Brandon Cutler

Jul 20 1987 - Evil Uno

Sep 5 1987 - AR Fox

Jan 19 1988 - Wardlow

Mar 20 1988 - Josh Woods

Apr 14 1988 - Marina Shafir

Apr 17 1988 - Dasha Gonzalez

Jun 11 1988 - Hikaru Shida

Jul 18 1988 - RJ City

Aug 23 1988 - Metalik

Aug 28 1988 - EJ Nduka

Aug 31 1988 - Athena

Sep 26 1988 - Buddy Matthews

Sep 29 1988 - Rush

Nov 24 1988 - Anthony Ogogo

Jan 25 1989 - Stu Grayson

Apr 10 1989 - Juice Robinson

Apr 11 1989 - Ari Daivari

Jun 14 1989 - Peter Avalon

Jul 5 1989 - Adam Cole

Jul 27 1989 - Nick Jackson

Jul 31 1989 - Max Caster

Sep 20 1989 - Ethan Page

Nov 3 1989 - Andrade El Idolo

Dec 17 1989 - The Simpsons premiers

Aug 17 1990 - Danhausen

Aug 20 1990 - Mark Davis

Sep 30 1990 - Swerve Strickland

Nov 12 1990 - Stokely Hathaway

Dec 18 1990 - Anthony Bowens

Dec 30 1990 - Rey Fenix

Jan 9 1991 - Ruby Soho

Jan 23 1991 - Powerhouse Hobbs

Jan 30 1991 - Toa Liona

Feb 4 1991 - Mike Santana

Apr 22 1991 - Nick Comoroto

Apr 23 1991 - Dr Britt Baker DMD

May 18 1991 - Colten Gunn

Jun 4 1991 - John Silver

Jul 14 1991 - Diamante

Jul 21 1991 - Adam Page

Aug 23 1991 - World Wide Web starts up

Sep 27 1991 - Ortiz

Nov 22 1991 - Brandon

Nov 22 1991 - Brent

Jan 15 1992 - Preston Vance

Apr 7 1992 - Abadon

May 19 1992 - Kip Sabian

Jun 3 1992 - Red Velvet

Aug 17 1992 - Saraya

Sep 14 1992 - Penelope Ford

Sep 15 1992 - Dralistico

Oct 9 1992 - Jay White

Dec 27 1992 - Yuka Sakazaki

Jan 7 1993 - Darby Allin

Jul 28 1993 - Sammy Guevara

Jan 25 1994 - Willow Nightingale

Feb 21 1994 - Ricky Starks

Mar 26 1994 - Paige Vanzant

Apr 12 1994 - Marq Quen

Jun 6 1994 - Lee Moriarty

Aug 26 1994 - Austin Gunn

Sep 16 1994 - Kiera Hogan

Apr 17 1995 - Bandido

Apr 23 1995 - Jamie Hayter

May 29 1995 - Konosuka Takeshita

Jun 6 1995 - Tay Melo

Aug 7 1995 - Kris Statlander

Oct 19 1995 - Toni Storm

Nov 13 1995 - Boulder

Nov 13 1995 - Bronson

Nov 22 1995 - Toy Story is released

Dec 10 1995 - Satnam Singh

Mar 15 1996 - MJF

Aug 11 1996 - Lexy Nair

Oct 26 1996 - Wheeler Yuta

Apr 29 1997 - El Hijo Del Vikingo

Jun 4 1997 - Riho

Jun 15 1997 - Jack Perry

Jul 10 1997 - Isiah Kassidy

Oct 27 1997 - Leyla Hirsch

Dec 13 1997 - Lee Johnson

Mar 9 1998 - Parker Boudreaux

Jul 15 1998 - Anna Jay

Aug 4 1998 - Mariah May

Sep 7 1998 - Daniel Garcia

Dec 15 1998 - Komander

Dec 24 1998 - Kyle Fletcher

May 4 1999 - Hook

Sep 20 1999 - Darius Martin

Oct 2 1999 - Skye Blue

Mar 3 2001 - Dante Martin

Mar 23 2001 - WWF buys WCW

Nov 8 2001 - Julia Hart

Oct 13 2004 - Billie Starkz

Jul 10 2005 - Nick Wayne

Jan 17 2012 - Negative One

#it is now law that whoever's name is higher gets to call whoever's name is lower an infant #or a child #or a baby #as is law whenever you're older than anyone #also if anyone is missing SDH didn't have their birthday #i think I just wanted to roast JR for being old as fuck #AEW #please appreciate this it took days and now I have like 90 tabs open #of wikipedia articles that I want to read after doing the research here

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thesinglesjukebox · 4 months

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MIRANDA LAMBERT - "WRANGLERS"

youtube

Use promo code "JUKEBOX" at checkout to get 20% off your first pair of jeans...

[5.36]

Alfred Soto: She didn't write a note or a word for this, and I can tell. It's as if someone typed "Gunpowder and Lead" and "Mama's Broken Heart" into ChatGPT and out came "Wranglers." The brawny production hinders: every rote syllable gets punched up. [4]

Aaron Bergstrom: Miranda Lambert knows her way around a great revenge song, so I have no idea how something as bloodless as "Wranglers" made it past quality control. This sounds like if "Kerosene" was taken over by a hedge fund. [4]

Nortey Dowuona: Someone needs to get Audra Mae on the record on how long Wranglers take to burn. We would all learn a great deal. I mean, they're jeans, how long do they -- wait. [10]

Ian Mathers: See, other jeans burn like this [crowd goes "ooooh"] but Wranglers burn like this [crowd loses it, uproarious laughter]. Wranglers be burnin', amirite folks? [crowd goes absolutely feral with joy, rips up seats, destroys stadium] [6]

Katherine St. Asaph: As a bar, "Wranglers take forever to burn" sounds badass until you think about it -- so you're what, waiting around your no-good ex's house for a couple hours watching yourself fail to commit arson? As a piece of maybe-product placement, it's no "Wrangler butts drive the cowgirls nuts." [5]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: Just as schlocky as Chris Stapleton's take on prestige-country RAWK; just as charming, too -- you get the sense that Lambert knows she could do a little better than replicating the feel of "The Chain" for the Taylor Sheridan aesthetic universe, but she's clearly having fun. The drums unfortunately sound like Stadium Arcadium-era Red Hot Chili Peppers, but everything else is gorgeously-wrought in the way that Lambert's best singles sound: it's not subtle and brilliant in the way that "Bluebird" or "Vice" were, but even unsubtle Lambert can be an exceedingly good time. [7]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: The way that the chorus descends -- as if engulfed by flames and consumed by vitriol -- is satisfying as hell. This one is for your inner pyro. [7]

Taylor Alatorre: One of the purposes of a song like "Wranglers," even if Lambert will deny this, is to demonstrate how much more "real" its performer is than Nashville newcomers like, for instance, Dasha. Which is fine on its own: gatekeeping, in forms both benign and ugly, has been a country tradition since it was still being called "hillbilly music," and it makes more sense to police the authentic in a genre whose very name embeds it in the soil. Lambert certainly sounds more comfortable tossing around the signifiers of battle-scarred, woman-scorned country than Dasha does -- maybe too comfortable, if all the instant "Kerosene" comparisons are any indication. But there's one fatal flaw that "Wranglers" shares with "Austin," and it's the intended wham line in the chorus that serves only to douse the narrative in the cold waters of an anti-climax. Steer your mind away from the familiar abstractions of vengeance and female autonomy, and actually picture what Lambert is asking us to picture here: does a pile of faded blue jeans burning in the desert sun for half an hour longer than expected really sound all that satisfying to observe? Why write a revenge fantasy where it can be assumed that the revenger is impatiently checking her watch every few minutes, waiting for the fantasy to be over already? [3]

Jonathan Bradley: A far cry from “Kerosene” or “Gunpowder and Lead,” what’s supposed to be a barn-burner turns out to be a damp squib due to a muddy mix that chokes the guitar in indistinct haze, taking Lambert’s own voice with it. Soggy kindling results in little heat and so much smoke you can’t make out much of anything at all. [4]

Mark Sinker: A pop song is after all no more than a cluster of commodities circulating within a set of interlinked markets -- so how is a Brit listener my age (me) still faintly rattled when said song’s burden is a straight-up major brand-name placement? As if that’s somehow not allowed (or anyway not really cricket). Blame the BBC’s straight-up long-term ban on any hint of advertising in anything they broadcast, and the penumbras of ideology beneath and alongside that ban, the smoke and the steel shaping my inner mind: it’s like The Who never Sold Out; like the late Nick Kamen kept his laundrette Levis on to Marvin’s “Grapevine,” like Sigue Sigue Sputnik never sold literal ad-space slots on their first LP (for L’Oréal, EMI, i-D magazine and more); it’s like Run DMC went barefoot. I escaped it enough that Vybz Kartel, Gaza Slim and Popcaan excitedly hymning their nice new furry suede shoes is one of my all-time favourite Jukebox entries. Sadly this is no “Clarks”: after a misleading Morricone lens-flare it slumps quickly into charred serge and claggy ash. No ethical immolation under capitalism! [5]

Michael Hong: If this is Miranda's attempt at returning to being the shit-talker and the fire starter, well, it sounds like she's got her kindling stacked too neatly and forgotten her matchbook at home. [4]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox]

#miranda lambert #music #country #country music #music writing #music reviews #music criticism #the singles jukebox #Youtube

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blessed1neha · 2 years

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Divisional Charts

From Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra

वर्गान षोडश संख्याकान ब्रह्मा प्रोक्तं पितामहःI तानहं सम्प्रवक्ष्यामि मैत्रेय श्रूयतामितिII क्षेत्रं होरां द्रेस्काणश्चतुथांश सप्तमांशकःI नवांशो दश्मांशश्च सूर्यांश षोडशांशकःII विंशाशो वेदवाह्वंशो भांशास्त्रींशांशकस्तथाI खवेदांशोअक्षवेदांशः षप्ठ्यंशश्च परमII

The divisions are sixteen in number as told by Brahma who is creator [eldest]; I am telling you that, O, Maitreya! listen to it.

Kshetra [Place/Rashi], Hora [D2], Dreshkan [D3], Chaturthansha [D4], Saptmansh [D7], Navansh [D9], Dashmansh [D10], Suryansh [D12 – because there are twelve different forms of Sun; this is the method by which numbers were represented in ancient Sanskrit except using coding methods such as KaTaPaYaDi], Sodashansh [D16], Vimshansa [D20], Vedvahvansh [D24], Bhansh [D27], Trimsamsa [D30], Khavedamsa [D40], Akshkhavedansha [D45] and Shastiamsa [D60] which is supreme.

शुभषष्ठयंशसंयुक्ता ग्रहाः शुभफलप्रदाःI क्रूरषष्ठयंशसंयुक्ता नाशयन्ति खाचारिणःII

Planets affined with benefic Shastiamsa gives good results, planets affined with cruel Shastiamsa destroys planets. It is a complex Sutra, people have translated it using their own mind, but the translation given here is literal over which I will apply my limited intellect. Try to understand it, It is before giving calculations of Shastiamsa chart which means it is purely related to deities of Shastiamsa [which in a broader sense means that in every divisional chart effect of planets as Good or Bad, Auspicious or Inauspicious depends upon deities of that divisional chart] it can be taken to mean that divisional chart deities decide nature of planets. Now he says planet in auspicious D60 gives auspicious results but planets in bad D60 suffers destruction. This doesn’t mean that planet in malefic Divisive bad results, no. It means that planet in bad D60 is unable to give results promised otherwise [From Rashi chart, or other divisional charts or of D60 itself]. This is further elaborated in a special Sutra, which will be presented shortly.

राशीन विहाय खेटस्य द्विघ्नमंशाद्यमर्कहृतI शेषं सैकं च तद्राशिनाथ षष्ठयंशपाः स्मृताःII

Leave Rashi of a planet, then double the [remainder], count the number thus obtained from lord of that Rashi.

Explanation: Here it says lord of the Rashi, but traditionally it is taken from the Rashi; Counting from lord of Rashi will give us another D60 which is not traditionally used, Thus, I am leaving that interpretation [which is truth] and using what is traditionally been given in all texts.

In the traditional sense, if a planet is in 10.23 degree Capricorn it is written like 09.10.23 which means he has crossed 9 Rashi’s from the beginning and is in 10th Rashi at 10 degrees and 23 minutes. Which further means that a Planet has crossed 9 Rashis and in 10th Rashi have crossed 10 degrees and is at 11th degree 24 minutes because he has crossed 23 minutes more than 10 degrees.

Hence it means for this planet Shastiamsa will be 10.23×2=20.42 which means it will be in Virgo Shastiamsa. 12 Shastiamsa in one round of zodiac and then the remainder is 8th which is Leo from Capricorn which is completed and the planet is in 9th from Capricorn which is Virgo.

वर्गभेदानहं वक्ष्ये मैत्रेय तवं विधारयI षडवर्गाः सप्त्वर्गाश्च दिग्वगाँ नृपवर्गगाःII

Now I am telling you the difference between divisions, think on this. Six divisions, Seven divisions, Ten divisions and King divisions [King means highest/biggest – which means all sixteen Varga’s]

Now let me give a secret, I marked this while reading Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra for the first time. That time I had no idea about writing an article on this and due to this I never marked references, However, I will give one example for this deduction of mine.

Shadvarga [D1, D2, D3, D9, D12, D30] is to be used for Dasha [These charts can be used independently to read effects of every Bhava’s. I remember reading an article by the editor of a magazine who wrote that an astrologer in Varanasi told him that D12 can be read like an Independent chart; many astrologers of yore like C.S.Patel and S. Krishna Iyengar always told that D9 can be read like an independent chart, this can be done will all charts coming under this division]. I will write an article on Sudarshan Chakra Dasha and will demonstrate this secret which is just amazing. Saptavarga [D1, D2, D3, D7, D9, D12, D30] is to be used for judging effects of planets in a Bhava {Many times it is said that if most of the Vargas in a house is of this planet then this effect rises, at such times this division is to be used; For example, it is said when Varga’s [mind plural – Varga’s] of Jupiter falls in Lagna then one is not born of adultery. How many divisions we are to see in this divisions, we need to see seven divisions, these seven divisions} we always need factors in odd numbers to come at a conclusion, because factors in even numbers will lead to a tie. This is the basic idea of including three factors in astrology such as [Ascendant-Moon and Sun, House-House lord and Significator], looking clearly you will notice that between Shadvarga, Saptavarga, Dashvarga and Shodashavarga only Saptavarga [7 Divisions clubbed together to make a group] can be used to take a decision, hence it is primarily used in judging effects of divisions falling in a Bhava. [When I wrote this behind the edition of BPHS which I use for my personal reference with a pencil I wrote it only after reading a strong Shloka in its favour, now after years I am unable to remember which chapter had that Shloka]. Dashvarga [D1, D2, D3, D7, D9, D10, D12, D16, D30, D60] is to used for judging the effect of planets in Rashi’s/dignity [See an example; सपारिजातध्युचरः सुखानि नीरोगतामुत्तमवर्गयातः When a planet is in Parijaat amsa it gives happiness and when a planet is in Uttama amsa it gives freedom from diseases [no diseases in it’s Dasha], this terminology of Parijaat and Uttama is only used in Dashavarga that’s why this conclusion by me. Shodashvarga [D1, D2, D3, D4, D7, D9, D10, D12, D16, D20, D24, D27, D30, D40, D45, D60] to be used for normal reading, by normal reading I mean for application of all principles given in texts of Jyotish. By normal reading, I also mean ‘to see concerned divisional chart for a concerned matter – such as D9 for Marriage and D10 for Rajyoga. But this reading has its limitations [which make it different from Shadvarga] This distinction will be clear in a while, and when you will read between lines [even in my writings, then you will find that why in all books on astrology only results for Shadvargas are given and not for Dashavarga, Saptavarga or Shodashvarga].

अथ षोडश वर्गेषु चिन्ता लग्नं वदाम्यहमI लग्नं देहस्य विज्ञानं होरायां संपदादिकंII द्रेक्काने भ्रातृजं सौख्यं तुर्यांशे भाग्यचिन्तनम्I पुत्रपौत्रादिकानां वै चिन्तनं सप्तमांशकेII नवमांशे कलत्राणां दशमांशे महत्फलंI द्वादशांशे तथा पित्रोश्चिन्तनं षोडशांशकेII सुखासुखस्य विज्ञानं वाहनानां ताथैव चI उपासनाया विज्ञानं साध्यं विंशतिभागकेII विध्याया वेदवाह्वंशे भांशे चैव बलाबलंI त्रिंशांशे रिष्टफलं खवेदांशे शुभाशुभमII अक्षवेदांशभागे च षष्ठयंशेअखिलमीक्षयेतI

Now, I am telling you which matters are known by the thought of which lagna of sixteen divisions. Lagna [D1] is the science of Body, Hora [D2] is for resources, Drekkana [D3] is to be seen for the growth of siblings, Turyamsha [D4] for thinking on fortune, Navansh [D9] for thinking about wife, Dashamsa [D10] for big fruits [which means Raajyoga], Dwadashansa [D12] for thinking about parents [appropriate word will be lineage], Shodashansa [D16] for Happiness etc and Vehicles, Worship and practice [of spiritual matters] is to be seen from Vimshatibhaga [D20], Knowledge from Vedvahvansh [D24], Bhansha [D27] for strength etc, Trimsamsha [D30] for scourge, Khavedamsa [D40] for beneficence etc, Akshkhavedamsa [D45] and Shastiamsa [D60] is to be seen for every matter.

Secret: By the use of the word लग्नं Parashara have made it very clear that in divisional chart analysis Lagna is to be used [which is Lagna of divisional chart derived mathematically], with this Parashara sanctions lordship and planetary malefic and auspicious nature in Divisional charts too. However with the use of the Shloka लग्नं देहस्य विज्ञानं Parashara gives another big hint, because lordship is taken separately for all divisional charts with the help of this Shloka we come to a conclusion [based on Shubham Alock’s own understanding] that body of any relative is to be taken from Lagna chart/Rashi only. What do I mean by this is when we see Navansha what we need to remember is 7th lord of Navansha is wife in her duties as a wife and 7th lord of Rashi taken into Navansha is wife’s body [her diseases, her physical outlook etc].

यत्र कुत्रापि संप्राप्तः क्रूरषष्ठयंशकाधिपःII तत्र नाशो न संदेहो प्राचीनानां वचो यथाI यत्र कुत्रापि संप्राप्तः कलांशाधिपतिः शुभःII तत्र वृद्दिश्च पुस्टिश्च प्राचीनानां वचो यथाI इति षोडशवर्गाणां भेदास्ते प्रतिपादिताःII

Wherever is situated a planet who is under bad Shastiansha lord, that house results suffer loss [Mind loss and not annihiliation], there is no doubt in this as it is told by ancient [elder peoples in astrology]. Wherever a planet is situated who’s Kalamsha [D16] lord is auspicious that house gets growth and endorsement, this is told by ancients. Thus ends distinction in sixteen divisions.

Secret: Here sage is very clear in mentioning that planets in bad Shastiamsa give loss and planets in good Shastiamsa gives gains, but he adds another divisional chart which is always ignored by many astrologers which is Shodasamsa [D16], he says planet in under lordship of auspicious D16 deities gives growth and under malefic deities in D16 makes the result of house where planet is situated to be limited.

In my humble opinion this is to be used with respect to the previous Secret, Just see Saturn’s Shastiamsa deity and Kalamsa [D16] deity. In D60 Saturn is in ati-sheetala amsa, it means very cold, we know Saturn is of the air element, we love cool breeze, hence he is auspicious. In D16 he is under the lordship of Shiva, this can be a bad deity but is not because Saturn is in a male sign in D16 [Gemini].

In D16 there are four deities which are Aja [Prajapati] Vishnu, Hara [Shiva] and Surya. Because Shiva and Surya are cruel in nature [as per mythology they are auspicious in male signs and because Prajapati/Brahma and Vishnu are docile as per mythology they are auspicious in female signs in D16. [All male signs are cruel and female signs are docile is a very basic principle of Vedic Jyotish which is interpreted by me here]. These four deities repeat 4 times in a Rashi to make sixteen amsha which are known as Sodasamsa. The order of deities is reversed in female signs.

Also, mind that this Saturn in D16 is in Gemini sign which is Kendra Rashi from Graha Arudha of his Saturn [calculated in Rashi chakra/D1], this gave Saturn the qualities of not giving loss [In D60 Saturn is just average] and capable of giving extreme growth [well dignified in D16 due to being in Kendra sign from Graha Arudha].

Now before revealing a special Dasha technique and an example let me give some special rules from the chapter dealing with effects of divisional charts from Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra, readers may note that many precious principles are scattered in Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra for divisional chart interpretation, compiling them all and explaining them will make a book, thus, I am limiting this article only with few more dictums and in next article of the series few more dictums will be presented.

अथान्यदपि वक्ष्येअहं मैत्रेयI त्वं विधारयI खेटाः पूर्णफलं दद्युः सूर्यात्सप्तमके स्थिताःII फलाभावं विजानीयात्समे सूर्यनभश्चरेI मध्येअनुपातत्सवॅत्र ह्युदयास्तविंशोपकाःII

Now, I am telling you other methods [other than Varga-Vimshopaka] O, Maitreya. Think about it. Planets give their complete results when placed in 7th from Sun, with Sun they cease to give their effects. In between [Conjunction from Sun to 7th from it] planets give effects according to ratio.

Secret: This is an eye-opening Shloka, people on the authority of this Shloka quotes that planets with Sun [Combust] finds themselves unable to give their effects [promised as per the chart], but this principle lacks empirical evidence. Here we come to know that this Shloka is actually mentioned in the chapter relating to effects of Divisional charts and reading Shloka’s adjunct to this Shloka we can also conclude that it is not an interpolation. Thus we need to keep this in mind that this Shloka is a modification to Vimshopaka Bala and have nothing to with those planets who are combust. [Combustion is just a criterion for weakness, as told in a Shloka reproduced above].

This Shloka means that even if planets get complete Vimshopaka bala if he is with Sun he ceases to give effects. Try to understand it, Vishopaka Bala is just a mathematical assessment of planetary strength in divisional charts which is based on their occupation of a different kind of Rashi’s in divisional charts [Exaltation, Mool-Trikona, Debilitation etc]. It is just a numerical assessment, which in my opinion can be and must be ignored, Jyotish is not so mathematical if it was then software must have replaced humans till now. Vimshopaka is just a quick way to see the dignity of planets in all divisional charts [This is its limitations which we need to understand before building our techniques or predictions on it], In my humble opinion [which will be illustrated in next article of the series], Vimshopaka Bala is to be considered separately for each and every divisional chart, This rules gives an exception which can be easily translated as if a planet be in his exaltaation [highest Vimshopaka Bala] but be with Sun, then he has to be treated like he is in neutral Rashi and not in exaltaation, empirically I can say that this rule works only for planets as house lords and not in their Dasha/Antardasha.

तनुधनं च सहजो बन्धुपुत्रालयस्तथाI युवति रन्ध्रधर्माख्यं कर्मलाभव्ययाः क्रमात्II संक्षेपेणौतदुदितमन्यदबुध्यानुसारतःI किञ्चिद्विशेषं वक्ष्यामि यथा ब्रह्ममुखाच्छु्तमII

Body, Wealth, Siblings, Kinsmen, Son, Dissolution, Virgin, Apertura, Religion, Work, Income and Expenditure in order are the name of twelve Bhava’s, that is told by me as I have heard from Brahma in a nutshell, understand more to it by your intellect. Now, I am telling you something special.

Secret: By this Shloka in the chapter dealing with divisional charts, Parahara wants to tell us that divisional charts are an expansion of a Bhava. Earlier he told us about Lagna in Divisional charts, Lagna is not a Rashi it is a Bhava [sign rising at the eastern horizon, this is Bhava because it is calculated based on one’s birthplace whereas planets are calculated as per centre of the earth]. So basically divisional charts are an expansion of a Bhava and Not of Rashi, this gives us an answer and a further hint. The answer is to a very fundamental question that why divisional charts are not in synchronization with Bhava chart, what do I mean this is something complex which only scholars can understand. Suppose I am born in 13 Degree 48 Minutes of Virgo, then Navansha in my Lagna is Taurus, now second house should precisely be 13 Degree 48 minutes of Libra [Next sign to Virgo] than finding Navansha for this we find it falls under Aquarius navansha, but in 2nd house of my Navansha chart is Gemini. This may seem like a corruption but here with this statement, Parashara makes it clear that divisional charts are an expansion of Bhava’s and not of Rashi’s hence this mathematical conclusion is illogical.

But who limits your thinking, this Shloka or this deduction of mine can also be a misinterpretation. The above statement made by me is when I am translating this Shloka, but myself as a research-minded astrologer thinks another way. As per me, divisional charts are calculated in three different ways.

When divisional charts are calculated from the sign itself like in Dwadasamsa [D12] and Shastiamsa [D60].

When counting starts from Aries in Aries and continues irrespective of any other criteria into consideration like in Saptamsa [D7], Navansha [D9], Sodasamsa [D16] and Vimsamsa [D20]

When counting starts from unknown methods such as in Vedvahvansha [D24], Nakshatramsa [D27] etc

Incorrect divisional charts such as Hora [D2], Drekkana [D3], Trimsamsa [D30], Dasamsa [D10] – Now mentioning them as incorrect can also be taken as limitation/corruption of my own intellect.

In those divisional charts described under point [1], Bhava coincides with Rashi which ends our confusion [raised in the interpretation of this Shloka] but other types don’t satisfy my hunger. I am still working on it and I have some very potent idea’s on this too which will be taught in detail in the course I am going to teach on Divisional Charts.

नवमे च पितुज्ञानं सूर्याच्च नवमेअथवाI यत्किञ्चिदशमे लाभे तत्सुर्यादशमे शिवेII तुर्ये तनौ धने लाभे भाग्ये यच्चिन्तनं च तत्I चन्द्रातुर्ये तनौ लाभे भाग्ये तच्चिन्तयेदध्रुवंII लग्नाददुस्चिक्यभवने तत्कुजादिक्रमे स्थितातI विचार्य षस्ठभावस्य बुधात्षष्ठे विचिन्तयेतII पञ्चमस्य गुरौः पुत्रे जयायाः सप्तमे भृगौःI अस्टमस्य व्ययस्यापि मन्दान्मृत्यौ व्यये तथाII

The ninth house is to see for knowledge of father so also ninth from Sun, also 10th and 11th house from 10th and 11th house from Sun, whatever is judged in 4th, 2nd, 11th and 9th house from Lagna is also to be seen in 4th, 2nd, 11th and 9th house from Moon, whatever is judged in 3rd from Lagna is also to be seen in 3rd from Mars, whatever is judged in 6th from Lagna is also to be judged in 6th from Mercury, 5th from Jupiter is to be seen for childerns, 7th from Venus for wife, and 8th and 12th from Saturn is to be seen for those matters which are seen in 8th and 12th from Lagna.

Secret: This is Bhava from Karaka, Parashara here instructs that this is to be judged in divisional charts [opposite to what people do, judge them in Rashi chart]. Karaka means what ‘doer’. to do what? do means start of something, to earn money do some work, to stop earning stop doing the work. So, doing here is the producer of results. Karaka can be seen as effects on Karaka which indicates mentality of person and concerned house from Karaka which indicates longevity [or time of marriage/childbirth in case of Venus/Jupiter], of the concerned person.

Take an example [June 18, 1973; 08:30; Ludhiana], 18 Years of marriage – 12 IVF failed then gave birth to triplets in 2016. See her D7, Jupiter is retrograde in 8th house with Venus in Scorpio who is in an exchange with Mars, 5th from Jupiter is Rahu in Pisces. Rahu being a demon is uncomfortable in Rashi of Jupiter, more so it is Pisces which is bad also because of its watery nature and being the 12th sign of the zodiac which indicates emancipation. Jupiter lord of the Rashi [in 5th from Jupiter] is in 8th house retrograde [natural benefic retrograde in 6-8-12 and natural malefic retrograde in 1-4-5-7-9-10 is weak], also this Jupiter is with Maandi, making him further weak. This was the main reason behind the results, nature of Maandi matches with nature of Scorpio which makes it more malefic and the divine light of Jupiter suffers.

यदभावाधत्फलं चिन्त्यं तदीशात्तत्फलं विदुःI ज्ञेयं तस्य फलं तद्दिः तत्तच्चिन्त्यं शुभाशुभमII

Whatever is told as the effect of Bhava’s is to be told from the Bhava and also lord of that Bhava

Secret: This is a very important Shloka, which hints that all the Dhana Yogas are told is to be seen in Hora, Whatever Rajayoga is told is to be seen in Dashamsa, Whatever Aristha yoga is told is to be seen in Trimsamsa chart etc. Also the same is to be judged from the lord of the Bhava [Here lordship taken as per Rashi chart, because lordship as per the divisional chart is already self-understood – however the distinction between the lord of 7th house of Rashi and 7th lord of Navansha is clearly described by me in a previous paragraph].

A very fine principle emerges from a reading of all the previous Shloka’s together, which tells us that Karaka is to be seen for longevity/coming of someone, Bhava tells us the condition of the matter and Bhavesha tells us about the condition of the living matter. For example, 7th from Venus indicates marriage will be early or delayed, then 7th house will indicate how is marital life and 7th lord will indicate how his wife, if malefic influences are on 7th house then it means that marriage circumstances are bad due to the native, lagna [self] makes the 7th Bhava, whereas malefic influences on 7th lord indicates there is problem in wife. Like this, you need to read between lines, slowly to understand the real meaning of Shloka and real intention of the Sage.

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queenlucythevaliant · 2 years

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An Autobiography in Books

We made a list, my mom and I, of all the picture books we loved best

All the Places to Love, which made my mom and my aunt cry together on a summer day once and I didn't understand why

Miss Rumphius

Miss Fanny's Hats

Doctor Suess's books - all of them. We used to have Suess-a-thons on snow days, all curled up together under covers in my parent's bed.

The Best Place, which was probably our favorite

(I would still like to have a screen porch someday, like the Old Wolf)

We had only just moved when we listened to Mr. Revere and I in the car on cassette tape. My parents had to pause it every few chapters to answer our questions, but after we finished with it I played Sons of Liberty with my dolls for years.

And over the years, my parents must have read the Laura and Mary books (so I called them) aloud to me twenty or thirty times. Silver Lake was my favorite. I didn't much mind which parent read them to me, except for Farmer Boy. That book belonged exclusively to my dad.

Pages and pages. I'm in my pajamas with a glass of chocolate milk. My mom or my dad sits on the edge of my bed. Ramona and Avonlea and Where the Red Fern Grows.

My first grade teacher read us a picture book that had a witch in it. I told my mom when I got home. "Can you write me a note to sit out?" I asked, thinking of the previous year's Halloween party.

"What was the book called?" my mom asked me.

"The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe."

My mom laughed. "That's a Christian book," she said. "There's a longer version. We can read it together."

My mom's copy of Little Women had gilt pages and the most beautiful painted illustrations. Sometimes, I would open the book up and flip through it, just to look at the pictures and feel the paper on my hands.

I still dream about running away to live in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, like Claudia in From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.

There was a book called For Freedom, which almost no one else seems to have heard of.

It was about a teenage girl training to be an opera singer in occupied France.

She was a spy who carried coded messages in the hollowed out heel of her shoe.

In the end, her voice gave out while singing Carmen, which to me seemed a fate worse than death.

She- the girl in the book- would pray: "God, make me brave. Make me brave and make me sing. Protect my family. Make me brave."

I won a Hunger Games trivia contest at my library before Mockingjay was released.

In sixth grade, my friends and I all read Shannon Hale's The Books of Bayern together. There were four of us and four female heroines. We each chose one and we played pretend: Elizabeth was Isi, Lauren was Dasha, Morgan was Rin, and I was Enna

(And then!)

My whole world blossomed into color when I read Gone with the Wind. I had never known such books existed! I remember a kind of frenetic eagerness. A thousand pages in less than a week, and I came away with a fierce, joyful love for messy antiheroines, sprawling epics, and bittersweet endings.

"Recommend me some more of your favorites!" I begged my mother. She handed me Jane Austen, Edith Wharton, the Brontes.

Jane Eyre was a challenge. I was forever flipping to the footnotes in the back of the book, translating the French dialogue and making note of all the words I didn't know. My reading pace was like frozen molasses and I remember several times thinking "Why is this so much harder than Gone with the Wind?"

But by the end, I saw myself in Jane. I was quiet, like her, and I hoped I could capture some of her integrity.

I read Kristin Cashore's Fire right in the middle of my forray into Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility before, Emma and Persuasion after. For that reason, my mind insists on erroneously filing Fire with Austen's work, a sort of forbidden sixth novel. It does feature

a beautiful, clever heroine who plays an instrument and wanders through the forest,

a romance with a stern but kind young military man,

and issues of class, wealth, and family,

so maybe it's an okay thing if it stays.

Anna Karenina was magic, pure and simple. I couldn't shut up about it. Eventually, my friends begged me to stop quoting. "I think you're even more into Anna Karenina than Narnia nowadays!" This assertion offended me; Narnia will always be my favorite.

(Here, I started high school.)

How to describe the first experience I had with The Age of Innocence?

I read it sitting in a sunbeam over several summer afternoons.

When I was finished, I flipped it back over and read it again.

I think I mostly wanted to embrace Ellen and tell her she was very brave.

I wanted to tell Archer that he wasn't, but that he should be.

My dad gave me a copy of The Story of Earth by Robert Hazen. It was a secular history of Earth's geology and biology, but it had just the slimmest glimmer of theism around the edges. I think this book has set the course of my life more directly than any other.

I read War and Peace and Atlas Shrugged back to back the same summer I read The Story of Earth. What a summer of ideas that was.

More needs be said about War and Peace: I set out to read it because I wanted to conquer it, but then I read Natasha and Sonya gazing at the lovely moon with Andrei below. I was still in my sundress and gold eyeliner from church, and reading Natasha's "Oh, how lovely," I felt positively celestial.

So it was that conquest became a love affair.

The Killer Angels came in the first full year of my battle with chronic illness. It was hopeful, brave and sad; it made me proud to be an American and equally proud to be fighting my own small battle. I wondered if I had any hope of winning.

On the mornings when I didn't have migraines, I sat on a certain bench outside the gym complex with a book until 7:59. I ignored everyone who spoke to me.

I didn't like The Lord of the Rings the first time I read it. I was dreadfully disappointed because I expected to find Narnia. Yet in the pages of The Return of the King, I found no Aslan, only Aragorn.

(Here, I began college.)

The Far Pavilions was just the epic I needed my first year. The migraines were bad; I was alone and in pain and my thoughts were muddled, but whenever Ash thought how unfair his lot was, I felt a little better in mine.

After considerable peer-pressure, I re-read The Lord of the Rings- on it's own terms this time- and at last I loved it.

Then I read The Silmarillion and made all the same mistakes.

It took me four attempts to finally understand the glory of Tolkien's writings.

I read most of The Gulag Archipelago crammed in the back of a van on a road trip to Florida. It was too loud - people talking over one another, radio cranked up high - and I could barely move my legs from where they were pinned to the seat in front of me. My shoulders spasmed and ached. I felt that book in some small yet visceral way. My physical discomfort made the suffering more immediate, which allowed the Solzhenitsyn's knife-words to cut me deeper than they could have otherwise.

Solzhenitsyn got some stuff wrong, my dad says. He just didn't have access to the best information. Try Anne Applebaum, if you really want to know about the gulags. But how can I replicate the experience of reading The Gulag Archipelago in the back of that van?

I was reading Nicolas and Alexandra the next-to last-time I saw my grandfather alive. We sat in the cafeteria in his nursing home and I recounted the most interesting bits for him.

I wasn't finished reading it by the time I left. I'm glad I was reading history that trip; my granddad already knew the ending.

Villette was a book about loneliness and Protestantism. It made me feel less lonely and more Protestant, which is exactly what I look for in a new favorite book.

(Okay fine, I do quite like Wuthering Heights actually, though I wouldn't call it a favorite. Are you happy?)

I picked up The October Horse for quite a shallow reason: because I learned that Julius Caesar was an epileptic, and epilepsy is quite closely related to migraine.

Julius Caesar and Ulysses S. Grant, those were my guys. However, I'd read Grant's memoir all the way back in fifth grade, so Caesar it was.

The rich velvet of Colleen McCullough 's writing came as a delightful surprise, and The Thorn Birds (soon to be another favorite) soon followed.

(It's getting harder to write this now. It's harder to write about more recent history, even indirectly.)

The Master and Margarita was strange and fascinating and I couldn't look away. I have spoken and written hundreds and thousands of words trying to explain it's appeal. I have evangelized on behalf of this book, but ultimately all I can say is: Go read it. Read it right now.

The Sparrow made me weep more times than I would like to admit. Like Emilio Sandoz, in reading it I felt naked before God. How horrible and how lovely a thing it was.

Which of this year's books will I carry with me into the future? This Too Shall Last for practical advice? Dead Souls for justice, Pyrenesi for joy, Deathless for beautiful prose? The Queen of Attolia for friendship, perhaps, or Six of Crows for my sister? Only time will tell which shapes me most.

#this is super self indulgent #but i think anyone who reads it will understand /me/ on a very deep level #if anyone else would be interested in writing a piece similar to this i would be super super interested in reading it!#i think 'here are the books that have mattered to me' is one of the best glimpses of anyone's heart that there is #because (say it with me):#literature makes us more human #that said it ended up way longer than expected (and I still left out a LOT of favorites) so congrats to you if you read it #i did very much have an audience of me when i wrote it #pontifications and creations

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youremyheaven · 4 months

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That Solar explanation in the krittika post is so me coded 😭🫠. The more I learn, the more I’m starting to realize my strongest planetary influences are fucking opps lmao!

Have you noticed any difficulty with finding balance/satisfaction if one has planetary influences that traditionally don’t harmonize? For me it’s Sun and Venus; I have balance from extremes of either, but I am split between that harsh solar girlboss and a lovey-dovey romantic venusian and then a yapping ketuvian in the middle 🗿. I’m extremely ambitious as you describe for solars but this split makes it so hard to get things accomplished, although my saturn aspect to my amk sun helps a bit with stability, I have no idea how to remedy this imbalance 😭.

It’s so difficult to have a literal split, I can shut off my emotions or I’m all in on them, this id with people too. Romantic relationships for me usually end up with me having to cut off a loser but I do have feelings for an Uttara Ashada moon man that is the sweetest but we are so distant with each other 😭 I don’t know how to easily express my feelings and don’t really know how to handle that closeness but I crave and need it like water. I have very few relationships I actually feel happy about and nourished from.

I want to find the middle path so badly but Sun and Venus are just both extremes even with a Revati sun. Do you know of any mantras or practices that can help with bridging that kind of like,,,,existential gap? It not only makes relationships difficult to cope with but I also am constantly dissatisfied, and so fucking bored and angry but I just try not to touch that, nothing useful there for me. There is ALWAYS something missing inside and I am terrified of missing something that can relieve it (swati ketu,,,🗿) which makes it hard to also satisfy my solar ambition. (The irony of my ardra saturn aspecting my amk and having a “split personality”.)

But yeah basically life is pain, which is ironic because my first 20 years of life have been in my krittika venus dasha and I’m getting ready for my revati era in june. Maybe life will be less misery with s different nakshatra over my dasha? Because I genuinely cannot take this anymore 😍 I will snap if I live another year like this 😍😍💃💃💃😉😉😜

I think everyone struggles with balancing all of their energies. We're all kind of pulled in different directions from time to time. If we wait for it to all fall into place, we'll spend our lives waiting. We just have to roll with the punches tbh but I understand how heavy it must be to swing between extremes like that 😪

Tbh I'd say any nourishing maternal Goddess will be of aid here. Kali, Matangi etc are more aggressive/fierce Goddesses. Whereas Tripura Sundari, Bhuvaneshwari, Lakshmi etc are all gentler more soft vibes?? I think they help with everything from feeling internally soft, receptive and at ease to being magnetic externally and attracting prosperity because how we're on the inside is what we reflect externally.

I'd suggest against worshipping more fierce aggressive Goddesses in general but especially if youre energetically feeling imbalanced, the Goddesses don't play around, if they have harsh principles, you will feel its impact and it's best to not invite that in when you're not in the best state to receive it.

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big-gay-bird · 2 years

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Ok I like to pretend I’m a writer so here is how I would piece these Goncharov pieces together into a coherent piece as of the 22nd of November. A lot of this is intended as a reflection of 1970s mafia movies and how those kind of “guy movies” operate and not how I wish they did. This is just for fun as a thought exercise and kind of fanfiction in a way:

-whole movie anti Russian propaganda that the US gov poured SO MUCH MONEY into, which is part of why everyone is so much ~coding~, it’s part of making them villians or mistrust worthy because this is the 1970s unfortunately

-Russian mob (knock off KGB?) trying to get established in Italy

-Mario is leader of Italian mob and set up as the antagonist (arguably he is somewhat sympathetic)

-fake out in the movie with Andrey as antagonist (cheats/implied to cheat with Katya, maybe Katya sets him up as betraying Goncharov in another more mafia way too.)

-Katya is the REAL antagonist tho

-Sofia is Mario’s sister (maybe implied orphans for more sympathy appeal?)

-Katya’s motive with Sofia is probably to gal pal her into spilling secrets about Italian mob but they actually bond (the agreed on fruit scene)

-Ice Pick Joe is Mario’s right hand man (most sympathetic so far, probably who you’re suppose to relate to most)

-joe shows his tender side with his 6 cats (Dasha is actually Sofia’s, eluding to the fact that she not as cold and aloof as she appears).

-Andrey is probably goncharov’s right hand man

-Andrey’s wife is Mariella, she is a minor character who isn’t flushed out because the film industry etc etc

-Joe is murdered by his beloved ice pick weapon of choice after making heroic sacrifice that appears to betray Mario’s orders in some way (looks like Mario did it but my crazy fan theory is Katya did it because they wouldn’t do all that work to make Mario sympathetic to have him murder a character that would obviously be a fan fav.)

-Sofia and Katya are supposed to be parallels with Sofia originally looking more badass but then the script flips when Sofia watches Katya murder her own husband in cold blood

-Andrey is murdered by Goncharov after (perceived?) betrayal

-Scene with barrel anchovies would make sense as turf battle that Goncharov and Mario both show up to (early in movie)

-“Beer bottle scene” in gambling parlor that is Mario’s pride and joy. Could be intro to Sofia who is in the infamous cocktail dress. (Also early in movie)

-Clock tower scene is some sort of confrontation, it would make sense if this was Andrey’s murder

-Bridge scene might be when Ice pick Joe does something heroic that turns on Mario (since this is a pivotal scene)

-shootout in Pompeii one of the biggest battle between Mario and Gonch near the end of the movie. Both their right hand men are dead, they’re getting reckless and less calculated (hence massive destruction of historic artifacts)

-the boat scene is some kind of triple cross Casablanca style where Katya has given Goncharov and Sofia completely different info. Real intend is to murder Goncharov and convince Sofia to take over the Italians from under her brother so they can rule the mobs side by side. (It’s implied that Katya will be “a little bit” more in charge of both empire together.)

-Sofia is horrified by how cut throat Katya can be and is like “no way in hell”

-Katya doesn’t expect this after planing everything out so perfectly.

-in Paranoia about Sofia turning her for the murder of her husband Katya fakes her own death (ensuring Sofia sees) and it’s implied she fucks off back to Russia with nothing left to her name

-The movie ends with Valery, Katya’s brother, and the only Russian with any power left, approaching Mario and Sofia and offers a deal where Valery will not stand Mario’s way to take over the mob as it’s revealed to be in shambles after all the heads murdered each other and they need to strong arm everything back in order. Valery is a behind the scenes guy. Only Mario can do it. But Valery has one request, he heard Mario has an opening as his number one and he wants a chance to prove himself in such a position.

-Mario (and the Italians generally) have won just by letting the Russians destroy themselves and this “lesson” is a BIG part of the anti USSR propaganda. It’s all pretty heavy handed in the end, but it’s a Cold War era movie so. There is also commentary on how we’re suppose to view Goncharov as pathetic and in masculine for being murdered by his own scheming wife (but it’s important that scheming wife is also defeated) because it’s the 1970s. There is A LOT to pick apart from a critical feminist lens. There is a lot to pick apart in critical lenses of almost every sort.

-The 2022 Goncharov remake (with Linda Carter chosen to be Sofia, though rumor is she turned it down) promises to address those problems, be less anti-Russian, more feminist, and explicitly gay. Fans remain conflicted on whether or not this is a good idea, they aren’t confident these problems can be fixed that easily. However we all wait in anticipation.

#unreality #goncharov

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imeverywoman420 · 2 years

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Worst succession characters:

Dasha nervosas character simply bc i cannot stand miss pedophilia anorexia nazi lover lol makes me sick to my stomach everytime i see her

Connor. Canonically a rapist (hes a sex buyer). Brought a subpar gift to logans birthday

Roman. Date rapist coded. Weird how yall woobify the creepiest motherfucker on tv

Shiv. God. Women that grew up around only brothers are insufferable. I couldnt be friends with shiv in a million years she reminds me too much of the rich girls in high school.

Kendall. Boring as fuck. I dont get how people feel anything for him other than apathy. Hes just a spoiled rich kid and hes a deadbeat dad. Im supposed to feel sorry for him? I dont.

Stewie. Dont like him because his name is stewie and i get so excited bc i think people are talking about stewie family guy and theyre just talking about the tumblr show

Greg. Hes funny but kinda annoying

Gerri. Shes cool i like her.

TOM tom tom tom tommmmmmmmmm thomasssss tommyyyyyyy.

LOGAN !!!!!!! Funniest most relatable character on the show hands down

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shuthesnake · 2 years

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The formation of AI a prompt from humains are space orcs

Here is the source.

The ship was quiet as it was soaring through the stars, it's sleek chrome design shining on the trinary system, the cool blue of the central stars creating a blueish tone on the command bridge, a humain female with a faceless silver metal mask was doing a simple pronostic as she was with the crew, the rest of the command bridge equipage had copperish masks wich meant they were new but not freshly new, this ship was rather unique due to it's metal religion inside of it, created long ago by the first capitain of this ship.

The commander was there with it's golden mask, sitting in it's chair, rather bored as they were only studying the Girek sector precisely the 96th sectorial quadrant, thier studies were mostly on a primitive species wich advanced into the medieval age, they seem to worship tar and other oily substances which was rather odd but not out of the ordinary, the Dhors were praising the stars after all, thinking that aliens came and elevated them wich was rubbish but the federation couldn't really do much, less they wanted a religious war with gargantuous church ships.

"Alia how's that pronostic?" Demanded the captain as the lady was finishing the last touches.

«its going well sir Aurelian, and I think that...hang on a minute...we got incoming out of sub space!»

A gigantic ship emerged from space, black and green tentacles were erratically swaying around as it shuddered from the jump, letting out a clicketing noises as it's insect like armor trembles in the noiseless space, the sounds tho were pick up in the comms.

The capitain would perk up from it's seat, it was impossible they weren't in any contested space.

"Put it on screen."

The lieutenant would open the communications and was shock by the sight, a crustacean like creature was on display, or so he thought, it was rather dark on the screen and could only distinguish two green eyes, mandibles clicking in a disgustingly manner.

"By Steelian mhh I am Capitain Aurelian from the federation fleet, what are-"

The rough voice echoed as it was indistinguishable from nor male or female.

”M.O.T.H.E.R HUNG-ER FOR NEW FLESSSSH!”

«they cut the transmission, augh! All I hear is static and vile sounds from hell I know where!"

"My.... prepare for battle! code red! All to battle stations!"

The chomerish corvette would pick up speed as green plasma was passing by missing greatly, it seems it was thier first time fighting in space, the lieutenant was redirecting power to shields and engines as the silverish medal would fall in one of the small opening in the command console, this medal in particular was rather special due to a failed nanites experiment wich were put inside the silver and copper medal as a cover up for this failure, as the ship replied with a quick salvo of rockets and lasers, the electricity inside the console command would melt the silver and the copper around it would conduct all of it towards the seemingly dead nanites, springing life into them as they acquired conscience and started to duplicate the silver and various components to be able to walk, a feminine voice echoed in the depth of the ships console as to the lieutenant suprise a faceless metallic silver head would perk up from the command in the middle of the screen.

”«Dasha online. I am alive. What task do you want me to perform?»”

«Aaah! No! It's not the time! Shoo! Shoo! Get out of the console I need it!»

Say the second lieutenant as she would control it with one hand while trying to chase off the head as she would make the ship turn in a drift while a sort of green wall was appearing, cutting an asteroid in two and missing the ship barely.

”«very well. I shall get out of the way.»”

The liquid silver would be going outside of the numerous micro opening from said electronic device, as the silvery texture would morph into a faceless humanoid being, it's bust making the lieutenant blush as it was a rather good distraction from all off that stress the battle was procuring, the argent female would slowly bow to look at the human's fingers going across the tactile screen as her faceless visage would shine back the light of the red alert, it seems she was unfazed by the all out battle on the front view.

The capitain would put some music as the cd was marked earth wind and fire, and pointed at the shiny lady and said.

"New crew member! Any suggestions to get out of this mess?"

She would perk up and turn towards the commander of the corvette.

”«i suggest a redirection of power towards the front shields, it would be much adequate to counter their weak proto plasmatic shots they do not seem to have a technological level comparable to ours, we outmatch them in every field except firepower and I also strongly recommend to-»”

«stop talking and do it! Oh fuck!»

Another of thoses strange green walls would materialize as the lieutenant would make the ship abruptly go up and twisted it, turning the command post over to quickly go down, making another barrel to stabilize the silvered ship, the shiny AI would not budge at all as a poor copper mask would fling around helplessly before collapsing on the railing right infront of the capitan.

"Ouuuuh! it must have hurt, seatbelts everyone! I think you broke a rib... Medical teams on the command bridge please I need to alert the federation, we don't even know their names how do we call them?"

Say the captain as he was entering all of the informations on the database.

«crustacerians or something, they are hideous!»

Say the lieutenant as the proton torpedoes of the corvette would hit the dark and green ship in it's armor, it created a noise inside the communications wich made the lieutenant throw her headphones on the side.

«thier ships are alive eurk I'm gonna be sick, how can we even do that.»

"«I can call the federation capitain we have an incoming transmission at the moment from the enemy ship.»”

"Mh...on comms but transmit a distress signal in the meantime to the nearest federation ship."

The artificial intelligence would nod as the black ship stopped to fire, the holoscreen would open up to the same disgusting alien, it's numerous micro arms shuddering.

"KARALA-SEK-KAH! witness resistance!"

It would then bring a humanoid body, what was worst is that it seemed still alive, it's body in a sort of tar like she'll as it made some helpless noises trying to look but couldn't as the thick layers of tar were making him or her blind, a hole was replacing the mouth as it tried to make more noises.

"Mph! Mhhh ...mphh! Mhh grk!"

As the alien would laugh, a blinding light would make it cover it's eyes in panic as the ship was turning.

"YIRRRG! BURNING LIGHTT! MOTHER IS NOT PLEASED!"

A golden ship would appear from primal space, concentrated ray of lights would shoot towards the enemy ship as it started to go towards the black and greenish ship, a laser cutting a whole tendril, liquid in suspension as the enemy ship was trying to run away.

The silverish female would turn to the capitain.

"«reinforcements arrived, Dhor capital ship light of the stars , cannons shooting at the enemy, bold manover to charge it while in sub space and jump diagonally in primal space, the whole ship could have blown up if it was miscalculated... impressive meatbags.»”

The captain would let out a sigh of relief.

"Oh thank god phew alright we need to... dammit they escaped."

The dark living ship was indeed escaping into sub space via a green portal while getting peppered hard by the golden ship, it seems the ancient Dhors know of this speice.

"Well we'll rescue the hostage another time, they don't seem to want to consume them like the beehive of zantarak. We'll get them next time. As for you!"

The faceless visage was looking at the capitain, her heels claccing together in an orderly fashion.

"Welcome aboard Dasha your on the Aurum now."

End of story.

#humains are space orcs #human space orc #writing #writing prompt #scifi #aliens #writeblr #creative writing #alien oc #short story #part 1 #tw:encasement #tw bugs

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justamonkeyonautopilot · 21 days

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Can't remember if it was last year or the year before I did this or both. But yesterday on my way to work I saw that Apple has already shared their Replay 2024 list. So I'm going to post it here to see if it has changed any by December. As once again I'm curious. I also noticed through this that some of the songs listed on here I have only listened to once so I have no clue how they generate these lists. Some I understand they're on there from the dance show back in February because I'd play them on repeat to practice.

Here we go then:

Texas Hold 'Em - Beyonce

Anatomy - Kenzie

Feminine Rage - Peggy

The Code - Nemo

A Bar Song (Tipsy) - Shaboozey

Stick Season - Noah Kahan

Marameo - Alessandra

I Choose Violence - Jax

Houdini - Eminem

Austin (Boots Stop Workin') - Dasha

90s Kids - Jax

The Me I Was - Kenzie

Sos - Soap

Heather On The Hill - Nathan Evans

Seventeen - Marina and The Diamonds

Born This Way - Lady Gaga

Get the Party Started - P!nk

Disconnect - Becky Hill & Chase & Status

Attention - Todrick Hall

As Long As You're There - Stuart Matthew Price (Carrie Hope Fletcher and Oliver Ormson)

Hayloft II - Mother Mother

Someone You Loved - Lewis Capaldi

Sail - Awolnation

A Song For Chelsea - Jax

Where Do All The Good Kids Go? - Maddie Zahm

Lost On You - LP

Naughty - Matilda Movie Soundtrack

Beautiful Things - Benson Boone

Anybody Have A Map? - Dear Evan Hansen

Something Just Like This - The Chainsmokers & Coldplay

Join Us For A Bite - JT Music

Kang Kang Kang (DJ) - Half Ton Brothers

The Gambler - Kenny Rogers

Dance With Me Tonight - Olly Murs

Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da - The Beatles

Gangsta's Paradise - Coolio

Whistle (While You Work It) - Katy Tiz

Ava - Natalie Jane

Airplanes - B.o.B.

Found A Way - Drake Bell

I Just Can't Wait To Be King - The Lion King

Freedom - Pharrell Williams

Like My Father - Jax

Girl In The Mirror - Megan Moroney

W.I.T.C.H. - Devon Cole

The Room Where It Happened - Hamilton

Proud Mary - Tina Turner

I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles) - The Proclaimers

You'll Be Back - Hamilton

Youngblood - 5 Seconds of Summer

Wasn't Expecting That - Jamie Lawson

Hit The Road Jack - 2WEI & Bri Bryant

I Say No - Heathers

Bang Bang - Jessie J, Ariana Grande & Nicki Minaj

I Got Up - Overnight Lows

Pretty Devil - Alessandra

Working For The Company - Willy Moon

We On Top - Photronique & Shari Short

Pretty Little Black-Eyed Suzie - Guy Mitchell

21 Reasons - Nathan Dawe

Stargazing - Myles Smith

Below The Surface - Griffinilla

Kiss An Angel Good Morning - Charley Pride

Barry and Freda - Victoria Wood

Circle The Drain - Katy Perry

I Kind of Relate - Drake Bell

Helium - Sia

Teir Abhaile Riu - Celtic Woman

Bring Him Home - Ramin Karimloo

One Day More - The 2020 Les Miserables Staged Concert Company

I'm Not Here To Make Friends - Sam Smith

Dark Horse - Katy Perry

Don't Forget - Demi Lovato

It's Goin' Down - Descendants

I Do Not Hook Up - Kelly Clarkson

Break The Ice - Britney Spears

Candyman - Christina Aguilera

Vampire - Olivia Rodrigo

Hey Mama - David Guetta

Karma - JoJo Siwa

Beat Again - JLS

I Think I'm In Love - Kat Dahlia

Diva - Beyonce

Paint The Town Red - Doja Cat

We No Speak Americano - Yolanda Be Cool & DCUP

Boyfriend - Alphabeat

Get Stupid - Aston Merrygold

I Put A Spell On You - Annie Lennox

Let Me Down Slowly - Alex Benjamin

Can't Be Tamed - Miley Cyrus

They Just Keep Moving The Line - Carrie Hope Fletcher

Kings & Queens - Ava Max

Achy Breaky Heart - Billy Ray Cyrus

She Likes - Forever the Sickest Kids

Boyfriend - Dove Cameron

The Hanging Tree - Rachel Zegler

Hound Dog - Elvis Presley

42nd Street - 42nd Street

La Vecinita - Don Omar

You Matter To Me - Carrie Hope Fletcher

(After going through them again, I genuinely don't remember listening to half of them anytime recently - it's not that I don't listen to music either I have a playlist I play in the car when I'm driving and the songs off that aren't on this list)

#Personal #Music #Apple Replay #2024

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govindhtech · 2 months

Text

AI Act EU First Regulation On Artificial Intelligence

EU AI Act

What the AI Act EU has already altered for companies

The AI Act of the European Union went into effect on August 1. Among the first artificial intelligence legislation to be implemented in one of the biggest marketplaces in the world is the AI Act EU.

What changes can businesses expect?

Describe the EU AI Act

The first significant market to establish new AI regulations is the European Union (EU). As stated by EU authorities, “the goal is to establish the EU as a worldwide Centre for reliable AI.”

What is the EU AI Act

Using a risk-based methodology, the AI Act groups applications depending on how likely they are to endanger people’s safety and basic rights. Rules for general-purpose AI (GPAI) models, criteria for developing and implementing particular high-risk AI systems, and a ban on specific AI practices that are judged to pose unacceptable risk are some of the most significant clauses.

Known as the “minimal risk” category, AI systems that do not fit into any of the risk categories outlined in the AI Act EU are exempt from its restrictions, however some may still need to adhere to other applicable laws and transparency standards.

According to Bruno Massot, Vice President, Assistant General Counsel, and Head of Legal at IBM Europe, “it is a form of regulatory pragmatism that aims to adapt constraints with the level of risk.”

Certain AI applications that pose a threat to people’ rights will be prohibited under these new regulations. Predictive policing, emotion recognition in the workplace and classroom, untargeted facial picture scraping from the internet or CCTV footage to build facial recognition databases, and biometric categorization systems based on sensitive features are some examples.

European Union AI Act

On April 22, the European Parliament passed the AI Act EU, and on May 21, the EU Member States did the same. The law went into effect on August 1st, after several clauses were gradually implemented. It was first published in the European Union’s Official Journal on July 12th.

EU Act On AI

The timeline for the EU AI Act will move extremely quickly

Everything is not surprising, even though everything is happening quite quickly. It’s long been known about the drafts. Given how swiftly technology is developing, it’s also critical to move quickly, according to Massot.

Sixth month: Prohibitions against AI techniques go into effect. Codes of practice come into effect in month nine. General-purpose AI regulations, including governance, take effect in month twelve. The high-risk AI system regulations will go into force after 24 months. In conclusion, the regulations pertaining to AI systems that are either products or safety components of products subject to special EU legislation will come into effect 36 months following the laws’ introduction.

The EU AI Act

Which actions ought firms to take?

Dasha Simons, Managing Consultant, Trustworthy AI at IBM, notes that “there is a sense of urgency.” “Somethings taking two or three years to prepare could appear excessive. However, it’s not that lengthy if you’re a global or multinational company with numerous AI systems located all over the world.

Where should they begin then? According to Simons, the first stage is to decide which regulations will be relevant to your company.

The AI Act EU lays out distinct guidelines and terminology for importers, providers, and delayers. You will have to adhere to distinct regulations based on your company’s function, according to Simons. Are you purchasing models and merely giving them a new name without altering the model itself? Or are you really adjusting the model quite a little bit? Essentially, this is the initial phase.

The second stage would be to ascertain which AI systems are in operation at your company and the degrees of risk attached to each one.

“Knowing where you want to focus at first is important,” says Simons.” Many businesses have no idea what kind of AI models and systems they have in development or in production.”

Businesses can identify their priorities by completing this assessment, which evaluates the high-risk systems after the prohibited ones.

“This will assist in identifying the procedures that must be implemented when new AI systems are introduced, and ensure that compliance with the AI Act EU is done proactively rather than reactively.”

According to Simons, the rules specify that companies must use AI strategically and that the C-suite must actively participate in this discussion.

You require technical know-how; in addition, it can be helpful to have a Chief Privacy Officer with experience implementing GDPR. While it’s important to have that knowledge available, Simons also believes that the C-level should establish accountability and strategy.

What effects will the EU AI Act have on companies?

The EU aims to set a global AI development standard. The GDPR of 2018 gave the EU a comprehensive data privacy and security law.

Parliamentarian Dragos Tudor ache, the AI Act’s main negotiator, called it “the first regulation in the world that is laying a clear roadmap on a safe and human-centric development” at a news conference.

Regarding the use of AI, numerous policies are being adopted globally

“Because it would be difficult [for businesses] to develop different systems with diverging restraints, consistency is important,” adds Massot.

An interesting development will be the requirement for organizations and enterprises operating in the EU to teach their users or workers about AI, according to Hans-Petter Dalen, IBM’s EMEA Business Leader for Watson and embeddable AI.

It’s interesting to note that there is a section on AI literacy in the AI Act EU. Hence, in order to use AI in the EU single market, any business or organization must provide a specific degree of education to both its users and workers. According to Dalen, “raising the fundamental understanding of what AI is is a very desirable thing. They don’t know what the level is yet.

“HR systems, which can currently screen resumes and suggest applicants, are one example in that regard. There are seven crucial requirements that must be met in order to proceed with that high-risk use case. Are you knowledgeable enough about artificial intelligence (AI) as the person purchasing that program to know what questions to ask about the algorithms? asks Dalen.

EU AI Act High Risk

The technological criteria that the AI Act will mandate remain mostly undetermined

The regulation itself lays out seven very loosely worded standards that must be met in order to comply with high-risk use scenarios. Ten requests for technical standards have been generated by those seven requirements, and two European standard decision organizations are currently working on developing those requests, says Dalen.

They anticipate that putting the technical standards into practice will be the quickest and least expensive way to achieve conformity, as they will provide us with clarity on the actual requirements from the regulation.”