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macrolit · 6 months ago

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By Elisabeth Egan May 18, 2024

“You’d be shocked by how many books have women chained in basements,” Reese Witherspoon said. “I know it happens in the world. I don’t want to read a book about it.”

Nor does she want to read an academic treatise, or a 700-page novel about a tree.

Sitting in her office in Nashville, occasionally dipping into a box of takeout nachos, Witherspoon talked about what she does like to read — and what she looks for in a selection for Reese’s Book Club, which she referred to in a crisp third person.

“It needs to be optimistic,” Witherspoon said. “It needs to be shareable. Do you close this book and say, ‘I know exactly who I want to give it to?’”

But, first and foremost, she wants books by women, with women at the center of the action who save themselves. “Because that’s what women do,” she said. “No one’s coming to save us.”

Witherspoon, 48, has now been a presence in the book world for a decade. Her productions of novels like “Big Little Lies,” “Little Fires Everywhere” and “The Last Thing He Told Me” are foundations of the binge-watching canon. Her book club picks reliably land on the best-seller list for weeks, months or, in the case of “Where the Crawdads Sing,” years. In 2023, print sales for the club’s selections outpaced those of Oprah’s Book Club and Read With Jenna, according to Circana Bookscan, adding up to 2.3 million copies sold.

So how did an actor who dropped out of college (fine, Stanford) become one of the most influential people in an industry known for being intractable and slightly tweedy?

It started with Witherspoon’s frustration over the film industry’s skimpy representation of women onscreen — especially seasoned, strong, smart, brave, mysterious, complicated and, yes, dangerous women.

“When I was about 34, I stopped reading interesting scripts,” she said.

Witherspoon had already made a name for herself with “Election,” “Legally Blonde” and “Walk the Line.” But, by 2010, Hollywood was in flux: Streaming services were gaining traction. DVDs were following VHS tapes to the land of forgotten technology.

“When there’s a big economic shift in the media business, it’s not the superhero movies or independent films we lose out on,” Witherspoon said. “It’s the middle, which is usually where women live. The family drama. The romantic comedy. So I decided to fund a company to make those kinds of movies.”

In 2012, she started the production company Pacific Standard with Bruna Papandrea. Its first projects were film adaptations of books: “Gone Girl” and “Wild,” which both opened in theaters in 2014.

Growing up in Nashville, Witherspoon knew the value of a library card. She caught the bug early, she said, from her grandmother, Dorothea Draper Witherspoon, who taught first grade and devoured Danielle Steel novels in a “big cozy lounger” while sipping iced tea from a glass “with a little paper towel wrapped around it.”

This attention to detail is a smoke signal of sorts: Witherspoon is a person of words.

When she was in high school, Witherspoon stayed after class to badger her English teacher — Margaret Renkl, now a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times — about books that weren’t part of the curriculum. When Witherspoon first moved to Los Angeles, books helped prepare her for the “chaos” of filmmaking; “The Making of the African Queen” by Katharine Hepburn was a particular favorite.

So it made sense that, as soon as Witherspoon joined Instagram, she started sharing book recommendations. Authors were tickled and readers shopped accordingly. In 2017, Witherspoon made it official: Reese’s Book Club became a part of her new company, Hello Sunshine.

The timing was fortuitous, according to Pamela Dorman, senior vice president and publisher of Pamela Dorman Books/Viking, who edited the club’s inaugural pick, “Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine.” “The book world needed something to help boost sales in a new way,” she said.

Reese’s Book Club was that something: “Eleanor Oliphant” spent 85 weeks on the paperback best-seller list. The club’s second pick, “The Alice Network,” spent nearly four months on the weekly best-seller lists and two months on the audio list. Its third, “The Lying Game,” spent 18 weeks on the weekly lists.

“There’s nothing better than getting that phone call,” added Dorman, who has now edited two more Reese’s Book Club selections.

Kiley Reid’s debut novel, “Such a Fun Age,” got the nod in January 2020. She said, “When I was on book tour, a lot of women would tell me, ‘I haven’t read a book in four years, but I trust Reese.’” Four years later, on tour for her second novel, “Come and Get It,” Reid met women who were reading 100 books a year.

Witherspoon tapped into a sweet spot between literary and commercial fiction, with a few essay collections and memoirs sprinkled in. She turned out to be the literary equivalent of a fit model — a reliable bellwether for readers in search of intelligent, discussion-worthy fare, hold the Proust. She wanted to help narrow down the choices for busy readers, she said, “to bring the book club out of your grandma’s living room and online.”

She added: “The unexpected piece of it all was the economic impact on these authors’ lives.”

One writer became the first person in her family to own a home. “She texted me a picture of the key,” Witherspoon said. “I burst into tears.”

Witherspoon considers a handful of books each month. Submissions from publishers are culled by a small group that includes Sarah Harden, chief executive of Hello Sunshine; Gretchen Schreiber, manager of books (her original title was “bookworm”); and Jon Baker, whose team at Baker Literary Scouting scours the market for promising manuscripts.

Not only is Witherspoon focused on stories by women — “the Bechdel test writ large,” Baker said — but also, “Nothing makes her happier than getting something out in the world that you might not see otherwise.”

When transgender rights were in the headlines in 2018, the club chose “This Is How It Always Is,” Laurie Frankel’s novel about a family grappling with related issues in the petri dish of their own home. “We track the long tail of our book club picks and this one, without fail, continues to sell,” Baker said.

Witherspoon’s early readers look for a balance of voices, backgrounds and experiences. They also pay attention to the calendar. “Everyone knows December and May are the busiest months for women,” Harden said, referring to the mad rush of the holidays and the end of the school year. “You don’t want to read a literary doorstop then. What do you want to read on summer break? What do you want to read in January?”

Occasionally the group chooses a book that isn’t brand-new, as with the club’s April pick, “The Most Fun We Ever Had,” from 2019. When Claire Lombardo learned that her almost-five-year-old novel had been anointed, she thought there had been a mistake; after all, her new book, “Same As it Ever Was,” is coming out next month. “It’s wild,” Lombardo said. “It’s not something that I was expecting.”

Sales of “The Most Fun We Ever Had” increased by 10,000 percent after the announcement, according to Doubleday. Within the first two weeks, 27,000 copies were sold. The book has been optioned by Hello Sunshine.

Witherspoon preferred not to elaborate on a few subjects: competition with other top-shelf book clubs (“We try not to pick the same books”); the lone author who declined to be part of hers (“I have a lot of respect for her clarity”); and the 2025 book she’s already called dibs on (“You can’t imagine that Edith Wharton or Graham Greene didn’t write it”).

But she was eager to set the record straight on two fronts. Her team doesn’t get the rights to every book — “It’s just how the cookie crumbles,” she said — and, Reese’s Book Club doesn’t make money off sales of its picks. Earnings come from brand collaborations and affiliate revenue.

This is true of all celebrity book clubs. An endorsement from one of them is a free shot of publicity, but one might argue that Reese’s Book Club does a bit more for its books and authors than most. Not only does it promote each book from hardcover to paperback, it supports authors in subsequent phases of their careers.

Take Reid, for instance. More than three years after Reese’s Book Club picked her first novel, it hosted a cover reveal for “Come and Get It,” which came out in January. This isn’t the same as a yellow seal on the cover, but it’s still a spotlight with the potential to be seen by the club’s 2.9 million Instagram followers.

“I definitely felt like I was joining a very large community,” Reid said.

“Alum” writers tend to stay connected with one another via social media, swapping woot woots and advice. They’re also invited to participate in Hello Sunshine events and Lit Up, a mentorship program for underrepresented writers. Participants get editing and coaching from Reese’s Book Club authors, plus a marketing commitment from the club when their manuscripts are submitted to agents and editors.

“I describe publishing and where we sit in terms of being on a river,” Schreiber said. “We’re downstream; we’re looking at what they’re picking. Lit Up gave us the ability to look upstream and say, ‘We’d like to make a change here.’”

The first Lit Up-incubated novel, “Time and Time Again” by Chatham Greenfield, is coming out from Bloomsbury YA in July. Five more fellows have announced the sales of their books.

As Reese’s Book Club approaches a milestone — the 100th pick, to be announced in September — it continues to adapt to changes in the market. Print sales for club selections peaked at five million in 2020, and they’ve softened since then, according to Circana Bookscan. In 2021, Candle Media, a Blackstone-backed media company, bought Hello Sunshine for $900 million. Witherspoon is a member of Candle Media’s board. She is currently co-producing a “Legally Blonde” prequel series for Amazon Prime Video.

This month, Reese’s Book Club will unveil an exclusive audio partnership with Apple, allowing readers to find all the picks in one place on the Apple Books app. “I want people to stop saying, ‘I didn’t really read it, I just listened,’” Witherspoon said. “Stop that. If you listened, you read it. There’s no right way to absorb a book.”

She feels that Hollywood has changed over the years: “Consumers are more discerning about wanting to hear stories that are generated by a woman.”

Even as she’s looking forward, Witherspoon remembers her grandmother, the one who set her on this path.

“Somebody came up to me at the gym the other day and he said” — here she put on a gentle Southern drawl — “‘I’m going to tell you something I bet you didn’t hear today.’ And he goes, ‘Your grandma taught me how to read.’”

Another smoke signal, and a reminder of what lives on.

#reese witherspoon #reese's book club #reading #literary #club #book #new york times #elisabeth egan #article

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simply-ivanka · 2 months ago

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If Taylor Swift Had Endorsed Donald Trump

Democrats would scorn her business savvy, cap her ticket prices, and fret over her huge carbon footprint.

Wall Street Journal

By Allysia Finley

Forbes estimates Taylor Swift’s net worth at $1.3 billion. Despite her liberal leanings, the singer-songwriter has amassed her wealth the old-fashioned way: through hard work, talent and business savvy. Her endorsement of Kamala Harris last week is rich considering she owes her success to the capitalist system the vice president wants to tear down.

“The way I see it, fans view music the way they view their relationships,” Ms. Swift wrote in a 2014 piece for the Journal. “Some music is just for fun, a passing fling. . . . Some songs and albums represent seasons of our lives, like relationships that we hold dear in our memories but had their time and place in the past. However, some artists will be like finding ‘the one.’ ” She has become “the one” for hundreds of millions of fans worldwide with lyrics that chronicle relationship woes women commonly experience.

Ms. Swift took advantage of her ardent fan base in 2014 by removing her catalog from Spotify in a bid for higher royalties. “Valuable things should be paid for. It’s my opinion that music should not be free,” she explained. “My hope for the future, not just in the music industry, but in every young girl I meet, . . . is that they all realize their worth and ask for it.”

She also criticized Apple Music for not paying artists during the streaming service’s free trial, prompting the company to change its policy. As she jeers in a hit song, “Who’s afraid of little old me?” Apparently, Big Tech companies.

Last year she reportedly raked in $200 million from streaming royalties on top of the estimated $15.8 million she grossed per performance during her recent “Eras” tour. Some fans have shelled out thousands of dollars on the resale market to see Ms. Swift perform. Americans have even traveled to Europe when they couldn’t get tickets in the U.S.

Her fan base may be more loyal and enthusiastic than Donald Trump’s. JD Vance scoffed at the idea that the star’s endorsement of Ms. Harris could influence the outcome of the election. The “billionaire celebrity,” he said, is “fundamentally disconnected from the interests and the problems of most Americans.” Maybe, but she certainly taps into the problems of young women.

Democrats hope to use Ms. Swift’s endorsement to drive them to the polls. But it isn’t difficult to imagine what the left would be saying about her had she endorsed the Republican antihero. It might go something like this:

The billionaire has gotten rich by ripping off fans, avoiding taxes and harming competitors. Time for the government to break her up. Unlike rival artists, Ms. Swift writes, performs and owns her compositions. This vertical integration allows her to charge exorbitant royalties and ticket prices.

Tickets for her “Eras” tour on average cost about $240. That’s merely the price for admission—not including food, drink or Swiftie swag. VIP passes that include memorabilia go for $899. How dare she make young women choose between paying for groceries or rent and going to a concert.

The Federal Trade Commission must cap Ms. Swift’s ticket prices at a reasonable price—say, $20—and ban her junk fees. Concertgoers shouldn’t have to pay $65 for an “I Love You It’s Ruining My Life” sweatshirt.

Her romance with Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce also unfairly boosts their star power, letting them charge more for endorsements. As Ms. Swift writes in one song, “two is better than one.” Mr. Kelce reportedly signed a $100 million podcast deal with Amazon’s Wonderly. By breaking up the couple, the government could reduce their royalties and ticket prices.

Ms. Swift, the self-described “mastermind,” also dodges taxes on her “full income,” which includes some $125 million in real estate and a music catalog worth an estimated $600 million. “They said I was a cheat, I guess it must be true,” Ms. Swift acknowledges in her song “Florida!!!”

Under the Biden-Harris administration’s proposed billionaire’s tax, she would have to pay a 25% levy on the $1 billion increase in her fortune since 2017. But that isn’t enough. Ms. Swift should also have to pay taxes on the appreciating value of her “name, image and likeness,” which the Internal Revenue Service considers an asset.

How much is her brand worth? Easily billions. She might say, as she does in a song, that her “reputation has never been worse.” True, Miss Americana’s image took a hit after reports that her private-jet travel in 2022 emitted 576 times as much CO2 as the average American in a year. When Ms. Swift sings, “It’s me, hi, I’m the problem, it’s me,” she’s correct. She and her fat-cat friends are what’s wrong with America.

Appeared in the September 16, 2024, print edition as 'If Taylor Swift Had Endorsed Donald Trump'.

#Taylor Swift #swifites #eras tour london #TS13 #trump #president trump #trump 2024 #repost #donald trump #america first

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covid-safer-hotties · 2 months ago

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Also preserved on our archive

This is directly tied to covid for a number of reasons including weakened immune systems from frequent infection and vaccine hesitancy strengthened during the pandemic.

By Eilis O'Neill

Whooping cough is spreading nationwide at the highest levels since 2014. There have been more than 16,000 cases this year — more than four times as many compared to the same time last year — and two confirmed deaths. And experts are concerned that the outbreak could worsen in the fall and winter months.

“More children are going back to school now, [which leads to] greater exposure,” said Dr. Eric Chow, the chief of epidemiology and immunization at the Seattle and King County public health agency. “We’re coming up on the kind of winter season when people are spending more time indoors with other people.”

The disease is most dangerous to babies: 1 in 3 who get it require hospitalization.

Whooping cough cases are especially high right now on the West Coast.

King County, where Seattle is, has seen more this year than any year since 2015 — “and the year isn’t even over yet,” Chow said. He said the county is still seeing new cases of whooping cough every week.

Why the big outbreak now? Experts say there are a number of possible explanations for the size of the current outbreak.

Doctors are testing for whooping cough more, so they’re identifying more cases.

It’s possible that the bacterium that causes the disease has mutated.

Also, people got behind on their vaccines during the pandemic, and they haven’t caught up.

“One of the challenges that we have with [the vaccine that protects against whooping cough] is that it is a five-dose series over the course of the first six years of a child’s life, so it does require regular visits to the primary care,” Chow said.

And, Chow said, not everyone can get to the doctor regularly.

But access isn’t the only problem.

“There still is a lot of vaccine hesitancy and anti-vaxers out there that will not vaccinate their kids,” said Dr. Tina Tan, a pediatric infectious disease physician at Northwestern University and the president-elect of the Infectious Diseases Society of America.

For the first couple of weeks, whooping cough looks like a mild cold, but then the coughing fits start.

Babies who get it “are going to be whooping when they cough,” Tan said. “And they may cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, and then look like they're not breathing at all.”

Tan said those pauses in breathing are life-threatening, and a sign that it’s time to go to the hospital.

Whooping cough can also lead to pneumonia and other complications.

But babies can’t get their first dose of the vaccine that protects against whooping cough, also called pertussis, till they’re 2 months old.

“That’s why it’s important for pregnant women to get the pertussis vaccine when they’re pregnant,” Tan said, “so that you can protect your baby for the first two months of life until they’re old enough to be vaccinated themselves.”

Even before the pandemic, only about half of pregnant women got the pertussis vaccine. Now, that number is even lower.

In King County, of the 12 babies who have been seen with whooping cough this year, none of their mothers got the shot during pregnancy.

Vaccine fears, and confidence Dr. Chow, with Public Health-Seattle & King County, said that’s a missed opportunity.

“Sometimes you require a kind of sit-down conversation with the patient who may be a little bit more hesitant or may have encountered misinformation,” he said, “so it just requires a longer time to build trust and rapport.”

Also, not all obstetrician/gynecologists offer the vaccine in their offices, and some people don’t have the bandwidth to go to a pharmacy for a shot.

At a playground in Seattle’s White Center neighborhood, Kay said she has two kids, ages 12 and 4, and she’s always been hesitant about vaccines.

Kay declined to give her last name because she’s concerned about revealing private medical information.

“With COVID, it even made it even more scary, because everybody started coming out saying, ‘The COVID shot’s not actually good for you,’” Kay said. “So I was like, ‘Maybe the other vaccines are bad too.’ And then I went down the rabbit hole of looking up kids who have supposedly gotten vaccinations and passed away.”

Experts say vaccines are very safe and can prevent diseases that once killed or harmed many babies, children, and adults.

Kay eventually got her 4-year-old daughter the shots required for daycare but nothing else.

“It's hard for me to get childcare, and it's just easier for me to say, ‘OK, just give me whatever she needs, just to get her into school,’” Kay said.

So her daughter did get the required whooping cough vaccines — but not any COVID shots, which are not mandated.

Aaron Sittinghorse was at the same playground with his 3-year-old daughter. He said the pandemic had the opposite effect on his thoughts about vaccines.

“It opened up my eyes to how important they are,” he said, “and so now, I'm a believer in vaccines. It's important, even if it's not for yourself, but for everybody around you.”

Sittinghorse said he saw on the news that there’s a whooping-cough outbreak right now, and it worries him a little — but not too much, because he and his family are up to date on their vaccines.

#public health #wear a mask #mask up #wear a respirator #whooping cough

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andhumanslovedstories · 11 months ago

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You get hit by a truck and isekai into your favorite tv show, but your favorite show is Hell’s Kitchen and you get dumped into the body of the first person to be eliminated in season fifteen, and filming is starting today. It is the year 2014, the season airs in early 2016, and you’re here to win the season, Gordon Ramsay’s respect, and also, god willing, the American presidential election

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mariacallous · 1 month ago

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It's election season in Eastern Europe, and for the Kremlin -- bogged down in Ukraine and desperately in need of allies -- the stakes are higher than ever.

Moldova is holding a presidential election and referendum on October 20 that could help secure the country's future in the EU. Romania has just banned a pro-Kremlin rabble-rouser from running in its November presidential election. And the pro-Kremlin, far-right Revival party in Bulgaria is expected to win a sizable presence in parliament after upcoming elections.

So what is the Kremlin -- and its populist regional allies -- pulling from its playbook to influence the votes?

Don't Be Too Fussy About Who You Work With

Plan A, according to Anton Shekhovtsov, a Ukrainian political scientist and expert on the far right, "was always to cooperate with mainstream forces" and then corrupt them to align with Russian foreign policy interests.

In some countries, Plan A has worked, with the Kremlin maintaining good relations with politicians such as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, and Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico.

"The problem for Moscow," Shekhovtsov said, "is that mainstream forces are less likely than the populists to cooperate with Russia, especially after 2014 (the annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula) and even more so after February 2022 (Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine)."

That has meant increasingly falling back on Plan B. "Russia has tended to align with far-right parties," said Mitchell Orenstein, professor of Russian and East European studies at the University of Pennsylvania, "but it will also form alliances with far-left parties and even support centrist parties to some extent."

Acting pragmatically and working with the political fringes can sometimes bear fruit. For years, Revival leader Kostadin Kostadinov operated in extremist circles, once referring to Romany people as "parasites" and venomously castigating migrants. But now his party, which has opposed democratic reforms and advocated for Bulgaria's withdrawal from NATO, is tipped to finish as high as second in the October 27 parliamentary elections.

Be Careful With The Bags Of Cash

Authorities in Moldova -- which has struggled to shake off Kremlin influence and still has more than 1,000 Russian troops stationed in the breakaway region of Transdniester -- recently announced they had uncovered a scheme led by Ilan Shor, a pro-Russian fugitive accused of the country's biggest-ever bank fraud, to buy votes and disseminate false information about the EU, with more than 130,000 Moldovans receiving over $15 million in Russian cash in September alone.

Such schemes, however, are rarely discovered -- and often very hard to prove, with financial support masked by shell companies and offshore accounts. And for the Kremlin, direct financing is a risky tactic. "They are being very, very cautious," Shekhovtsov said, as "we're talking about criminal activity here because there are no taxes [and parties are] taking money from a foreign power."

A Deluge Of Disinformation

For the Kremlin, a cheaper and more efficient way of boosting its allies in Eastern Europe is to flood the market with disinformation.

In addition to Russian state outlets such as RT, "Russia has websites in different European languages that promote messages beneficial to antiestablishment, populist forces," Shekhovtsov said. "This compensates for the populists' lack of media influence in their own countries."

U.S. tech giant Meta said on October 11 that it had deleted a network of accounts aimed at Russian-speaking Moldovans, which spread pro-Russian content and ran pages masquerading as independent news outlets.

Such operations are often part of larger networks, sometimes known as "mushroom sites," which are created in bulk and on the cheap and monetize the spread of disinformation.

Mobilize Through Fear

If you buy into the disinformation, migrants are coming for your jobs, the LGBT community is coming for your children's souls, foreign-funded NGOs are plotting to topple governments, and only Russia can restore peace to fascist Ukraine.

Igor Dodon, Moldova's Moscow-backed former president, has recently warned, without any evidence, of "LGBT quotas" in state institutions if the country's pro-EU President Maia Sandu wins reelection.

And in Bulgaria, Revival is pushing for a Russian-style foreign-agent law, which would target Western NGOs. "You will be next!" party leader Kostadinov told the America for Bulgaria Foundation, the country's largest foreign donor.

In socially conservative societies, with people disillusioned with democracy and reeling from economic hardship, much of it from the COVID-19 pandemic, such emotional narratives often strike a powerful chord.

By scaremongering about threats to traditional lifestyles and sovereignty, Russia is positioning itself -- not for the first time -- as the region's potential savior.

Tailor The Message

A key part of the Kremlin's strategy is localizing its messaging. "Russia looks for any possible commonality between their approach and the parties they're supporting," Orenstein said. "In one country, they might appeal to pan-Slavism; in another, to Orthodox religious connections; and in yet another, to anti-Ukrainian sentiment."

For example, in Bulgaria, pro-Russian parties play on Soviet nostalgia and well-established narratives of Russia as a liberator from Ottoman rule. In Hungary and Slovakia, pro-Kremlin parties exploit fears about migrants and the perception that the EU is undermining national sovereignty.

In Moldova, Irina Vlah, a pro-Moscow ex-governor, has said the country's large number of Romanian passport holders is evidence of a sinister Romanian plot to take over its smaller and poorer neighbor.

What Is The Kremlin's Endgame?

In the long term, the Kremlin's goal is to undermine the EU and NATO and pull countries in Eastern Europe back into Russia's orbit.

In the short term, it's all about Ukraine. For the Kremlin, that means blowing apart the fragile European consensus that Kyiv is deserving of military and economic support.

What the Kremlin cares about most, Orenstein says, is the "foreign policy orientation" of parties it supports in Eastern Europe -- in order to secure their backing on issues such as sanctions or the status of Crimea.

"You have some parties that [when] they began taking Russian support, they actually changed a lot of their foreign policy positions to orient them towards Russia," Orenstein said.

Crucially, though, Russia doesn't necessarily need explicit support to succeed. Sometimes sowing discord and polarizing populations can also chip away at the democracies and civil societies the Kremlin so desperately fears.

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arshipweek · 7 months ago

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AR Ship Week - Scorpia Backstory in the Book and the TV Show

This is the last weekly post in the lead up to Alex Rider Ship Week. Only one week left!

This week we have a guest post by @icebluecyanide about the differences between Scorpia in the book and TV canons.

Scorpia Backstory in the Book and the TV Show

After two seasons of ominous statements and mystery, series three of the TV show finally dove deeper into the criminal organisation known as Scorpia, and the way their history intertwines with Alex’s. But what is their backstory, and how does it differ from what we see in the books?

In this meta, I will be diving into some of the changes in how Scorpia is presented in the book (Scorpia) and the TV show. Since this is a rather broad topic, and could potentially lead to me listing every single difference from the book, I will focus specifically on the Scorpia backstory and on the structure of Scorpia as an organisation.

I’ve used book quotes throughout this meta, including page numbers. The page numbers refer to the 2014 Walker Books (UK) edition.

Scorpia

Let’s start this off by taking a look at how Scorpia is described in both the book and the show. I’ll first give an overview of Scorpia in the book, then move on to the TV show and do a comparison.

Scorpia in the book

Scorpia was all over the world. It had brought down two governments and arranged for a third to be unfairly elected. It had destroyed dozens of businesses, corrupted politicians and civil servants, engineered several major ecological disasters, and killed anyone who got in its way. It was now responsible for a tenth of the world’s terrorism, which it undertook on a contract basis. Scorpia liked to think of itself as the IBM of crime - but in fact, compared to Scorpia, IBM was strictly small-time. (Scorpia, p. 39)

In the book, Scorpia is a criminal organisation that has its roots in the early 1980s, during the last decade of the Cold War. As we learn in Scorpia (2004), it was founded by people who were involved in the Cold War as spies or assassins or secret police for various governments, and who realised that as the Cold War came to an end, they would be able to make more money going into business for themselves.

It was a fanciful name, they all knew it, invented by someone who had probably read too much James Bond. (Scorpia, p. 38)

The name of Scorpia is taken from their four fields of operation: Sabotage, Corruption, Intelligence and Asassination. They will take on any client that is willing to pay them, and don’t care about who gets caught in the crossfire. They’re a powerful organisation, and as Julia Rothman mentions, sometimes even the intelligence agencies make use of their services for jobs that cannot be traced back to them. They operate very much as a business, and they don’t make things personal, but they also are ruthless in getting even and don’t make hollow threats. Scorpia don’t forgive and they don’t forget.

Scorpia is led by an executive board consisting of the original founders. Of the original twelve, only nine remain at the time of the book, including Julia Rothman (the only woman on the board) and Max Grendel (the oldest executive). The executives on the board are equal partners, but for each project one of them is assigned as the leader, in alphabetical order. (It’s unclear how this works for The Australian, who in some editions doesn’t have a name.)

At the time of the book, the project that Scorpia is focused on is Invisible Sword, and the executive in command is Julia Rothman. There is a client, who is offering a great deal of money for Scorpia to break the special relationship between the UK and the US, and most of the Scorpia board seem unconcerned about the principal target of the weapon being children. The only exception to this is Max Grendel, who is old and has grandchildren of the same age, who has enjoyed getting rich working for Scorpia over the years, but who now wants to retire and not be a part of the new project. Sadly, his retirement gift is a suitcase full of deadly scorpions, so his retirement is rather brief.

Scorpia are an international company, with offices and people all over the world. However, Alex first runs into them in Venice, where Mrs Rothman has a large mansion on the grand canal that is referred to as the Widow’s Palace. On the island of Malagosto, near Venice, Scorpia also has a school where they have a training and testing facility for their assassins. This is where John Rider and Yassen Gregorovich were tested and trained, and it’s where Alex also takes part in lessons.

Scorpia in the show

Blunt: At that time, we already knew that SCORPIA were the single most dangerous emergent threat since the Cold War. (3x07)

At first glance, the Scorpia we meet in the TV show appears to be from a canon divergent AU where the organisation was all but destroyed around the time when Alex was just a baby. This is a fascinating change, and also makes intuitive sense, as of course the third series of the show came out twenty years after Scorpia (2004) did. From the start, we get hints that Scorpia in the show is different from the one in the books.

We first learn of the name Scorpia at the end of s1, as Mrs Jones and the rest of the Department realise that Yassen Gregorovich was behind Ian’s death, and that he is still alive. Going by the descriptions we are given, Scorpia was as powerful in the past as they were when Alex met them in the book:

Smithers: I know the file, of course. At one point, they were responsible for a tenth of the world’s terrorism.

Crawley: And political assassinations, personal vendettas. All available to the highest bidder, without remorse or compunction. (1x08)

In 2006, Scorpia was taken down by the Department, in a well-coordinated operation based on the info John Rider was able to gather. Alan Blunt was in command as all over the world, the bases and known locations of Scorpia were raided. In the chaos, some members of Scorpia went missing and managed to escape, such as Julia Rothman and Yassen Gregorovich, but when they failed to resurface in the five years that followed, their files were closed and they were assumed to be dead.

After this, Scorpia seem to have retreated to the shadows, and operated almost entirely in secret. While they no longer have the same presence in the world, they still have both funds and technology to continue their work. They have no problem spending several millions to fake the payment for the assassination of the US president in season 2 at Yassen’s request, and they have a system set in place with a phone line that can be reached only with a specifically assigned code, or else the number will be disconnected, as we see when the Department pretend to call as Martin Wilby to determine who he got his orders from. In the first two seasons, Scorpia took jobs such as helping with Dr Greif’s plan at Point Blanc, and Damian Cray’s Eagle Strike plan, and they still appear as ruthless as in the book, not caring about the deaths those plans would cause.

At first, we mostly encounter Scorpia in the scenes with the Department, where Scorpia (through Yassen) have turned Martin Wilby to pass on information about the Department and got him to lure Ian Rider to his death at Yassen’s hand. Interestingly, Ian appears to be the only person still looking for Scorpia:

Crawley: I don’t think they ever went away. I think they just got better at hiding. And we were so confident we’d finished them. Only Ian was still looking, of course. (1x08)

Ian seems to have been aware of Yassen’s survival, and presumably who he works for (“Oh Martin, you have no idea who you’re working for.” - 1x01), but none of the rest of the Department have any idea until Alex mentions having seen Yassen at Point Blanc:

Blunt: Scorpia.Mrs Jones: It explains everything. The sophistication, the global reach, and Wilby. Given our history, of course they would target us.Crawley: But we finished them.Blunt: Well, clearly not. (1x08)

In season three, we see Alex (together with Tom and Kyra) actively looking for Scorpia by visiting old locations mentioned in the files on Smither’s phone (that Kyra stole). These include Berlin and Venice, where presumably Julia Rothman had her Palace like in the book. They end up finding Julia in Malta, where she is from. This is a change from the books, where she is Welsh. We meet Nile, her apparent second-in-command, and Max Grendel, who apparently also survived the takedown.

As Alex is pulled into Scorpia, we also learn that they are planning an operation called Invisible Sword. Unlike in the book, this is not a job they took on for a client, but something Julia Rothman came up with personally. As the season goes on, we discover that while she explained it as a way to demonstrate Scorpia’s power and boost their reputation, the real objective was to take revenge against the Department for the blow they dealt Scorpia seventeen years ago.

Scorpia Leadership

Let’s narrow in further for a moment on the question of who is in charge in Scorpia. There do appear to be some changes in the leadership of Scorpia in the TV show, and part of these can be explained by the canon divergence, while others suggest that perhaps this has always been a different Scorpia. Firstly, it’s good to note that instead of talking about an executive board, the leadership are referred to as council members:

Nile: I wondered if perhaps one of the other council members decided to push their luck. (3x01)

In general, the show appears to have less of a ‘business’ vibe compared to the book. It may be that this is a change that only came with the new Scorpia, but this may also always have been different in this universe. Similarly, we hear that Julia Rothman was elected as leader, which suggests that also the way of picking a leader isn’t the rotated schedule from the books. It appears that Julia Rothman has been elected after the failed jobs with Dr Greif and Damian Cray, in an attempt to bring Scorpia back to prominence.

Razim: We elected you because you promised to restore our influence globally. And so far, we have seen nothing. (3x01)

Speaking of Razim, we get another change from the book. The name Razim is a reference to one of the new board members brought on in Scorpia Rising in the books, and he wasn’t present in the original Scorpia book. It makes sense that with most of the organisation taken down years ago, they will have filled their ranks with new members. However, there is some suggestion that perhaps Razim was actually part of Scorpia leadership before Julia:

Julia: Razim’s always resented me. He thinks when Nicolai died, inherited my place at the table. (3x01)

Julia Rothman

Max: And besides, we both know you earned your place. (3x01)

It appears that unlike in the books, Julia Rothman was not a founding member of Scorpia in the show. This also matches up with what we learn about her from the Department file on her, where it states she ‘possesses broad knowledge of Scorpia Operational Structure and is being groomed for command’. She was most likely part of the inner circle through her husband Nicolai, given the comment about inheriting her place.

Nicolai Rothman/Mrs Rothman’s husband definitely appears to have been alive and married to her for longer in the TV show than in the book, although in both she is eventually known as the Widow.:

Mrs Rothman’s multimillionaire husband had fallen to his death from a seventeenth-storey window. It had happened just two days after their marriage. (Scorpia, p. 45)

Also an amusing detail is that in the book Nicolai Rothman is a multimillionaire, while in the TV show he’s referred to as a billionaire. Julia Rothman is canonically richer in the TV show!

Malagosto

Let’s take a moment also to look at the differences in how Malagosto is portrayed in the two canons. In both the show and the book, Malagosto is a training facility for Scorpia operatives, but that appears to be where the similarities end. The location is different in the two canons, with it being on an island near Venice in the book, and on Malta in the show. Specifically, we discover that there is a Scorpia base located underground in an old Cold War listening post on Malta. It might be that the original location had to be abandoned after Scorpia was raided, but the fact that The Department show no recognition to the name later suggests that they have never heard of it before. Definitely, the base in Malta was not known before.

This raises some questions about whether John Rider actually trained at Malagosto in the show as he did in the book. We do have the following quote from Julia Rothman, which if taken literally suggests that he was on Malta with Alex:

Julia: Twenty years ago, your father stood where you are now. Ready to join Scorpia. (3x04)

However, if John trained at Malagosto, it is strange that this location wasn’t known to the Department or raided in the operation to take down Scorpia. So perhaps the quote should be taken metaphorically, with Alex being about to join Scorpia as his dad was, and perhaps John never trained with Scorpia. After all, in the book, he was likely only tested rather than trained, so he may have been tested elsewhere and simply put to work.

THE STUDENTS

Another difference related to Malagosto concerns the students or recruits who are present when Alex is there. In the book, d’Arc (the principal or headmaster of the school) mentions that there are usually around ten to fifteen students. Most of them appear to be people who were either part of the intelligence world or soldiers who have defected:

Alex knew all of them by now. There was Klaus, a German mercenary who had trained with the Taliban in Afghanistan. Walker, who had spent five years with the CIA in Washington before deciding he could earn more working for the other side. (Scorpia, p. 174)

They are people similar to John Rider, who already have had training of some sort that makes them suitable for Scorpia. In this sense, the school is firstly a testing facility, where Scorpia checks if people have the right skills to become part of Scorpia. Alex himself is an exception due to his age, but as d’Arc and Mrs Rothman discuss, he already has experience from both his missions and his uncle’s and MI6’s training. The other students are all older, but treat Alex surprisingly well and are friendly to him.

In the show, the recruits are all orphans and likely closer in age to Alex himself. There is no indication that Alex himself is an outlier in terms of his age. The other recruits also don’t appear to have had prior training if we take Alyona and Oleg as examples. They seem to have been children without families, either taken from orphanages or similar. Some, like Oleg, may have shown a propensity for violence which drew Scorpia’s interest, but they were not the trained soldiers or intelligence agents we see in the books.

This change could perhaps have been a result of Scorpia needing to operate from the shadows. While in the books they could recruit rather blatantly and without worrying about being noticed, they have tried to keep a low profile in the show. Perhaps they have shifted to training teenagers into operatives instead, as they have ‘No baggage, no background. It helps.’ (3x04).

It’s also noteworthy that there are only four other students aside from Alex present at Malagosto. Again, this is easily explained by Scorpia having shrunk in size and operating in more secrecy, and no doubt it made it easier for them to make the commitment of training teenagers. Sadly for Alex, they are not as nice as in the book, and he gets beaten up for being seen as weak on his first day there.

THE BUILDINGS

Another change seems to be in the buildings themselves. As mentioned, Malagosto in the show is located in an old listening post dating back to the Cold War, and that’s reflected in the lack of natural light and the bare, metallic and industrial vibes of the interior. The listening post also appears to be on a remote part of the island, but all that’s visible on the surface is a few abandoned buildings, and Scorpia seem to keep their presence low-key.

In the book, we see the same outside appearance of abandoned buildings, as Scorpia has retrofitted an old monastery for their needs. The appearance is deceptive, however, as the insides have been modernised and Alex’s own room is much more luxurious than the one he gets in the show:

They left the main building and walked over to the nearest apartment block that Alex had seen from the boat. Again, the building looked dilapidated from the outside but it was elegant and modern inside. Jet showed Alex to an air-conditioned room on the second floor. It was on two levels, with a king-sized bed overlooking a large living space with sofas and a desk. There were french windows with a balcony and a sea view. (Scorpia, p. 164)

Alex was left alone. He sat down on one of the sofas, noticing that the room had a fridge, a television and even a PlayStation 2 - presumably put in for his benefit. (Scorpia, p. 165)

The other buildings are similarly updated, and students can train outside as the island is sheltered by trees and away from the mainland. It makes sense that in the show this is less of an option, because Scorpia are much more motivated to keep their presence hidden from the authorities. In the book, they have a legal reason to be there, as they bought the island on a lease from the Italian government, but in a world where Scorpia is assumed to be destroyed, they would need to be more careful. This explains why we only see the students go outside once for training, and that was during a night incursion exercise.

THE TEACHERS

Malagosto is a training facility, and a training facility needs instructors. This plays a larger role in the book, where we are introduced to several of the teachers at Malagosto in Alex’s time there. There is Gordon Ross, the technical specialist who teaches about weapons and explosives, Professor Yermalov, who teaches martial arts and practical skills, and Ejijit “Jet” Binnag, who teaches Botany (focused on poisonous plants). There are classrooms and textbooks and lessons as if it were a real school, but also more practical lessons such as diving and gun practice.

In the show, it’s a bit unclear who normally teaches at Malagosto. We only see two people acting as instructor – Nile and Yassen – and Yassen appears to have been assigned to Alex as a tutor rather than having general teaching duties. Nile appears to take on the role of instructor, but we also see him running around taking care of things for Julia Rothman outside, so he can’t be a full-time teacher. Perhaps we simply don’t see other instructors (much like how we don’t see the catering at Malagosto), or the training is handled more informally, with students working on their skill individually as we saw Syl doing in her first appearance.

One other thing related to the teaching at Malagosto is that in the book, John Rider is mentioned to have been an instructor there. During this time, he was also in charge of Yassen’s training for a while. This isn’t mentioned in the show, and while we get Alex asking if John trained with Yassen, we never get an answer. As Malagosto wasn’t known to the Department, as mentioned before, John was probably not a teacher in this universe.

Since we already touched on him briefly, let now take a look at John Rider and his mission to dive deeper into some of the changes.

John’s mission

Blunt: The intelligence John gathered during that time enabled us to strike at the very heart of Scorpia. Within months, we’d dismantled their entire operation. (3x07)

Based on what we are told, John’s mission is largely the same in both the book and the series. We learn that John was a decorated soldier who was in the Parachute Regiment and had seen combat before (in Afghanistan and Iraq in the show, Northern Ireland, Gambia, and the Falklands in the book). But everything seemed to go wrong for him when he killed a man in a bar fight, and was sentenced for manslaughter.

He goes to jail for two years in the show, while in the book Mrs Rothman claims he was there for less than one, and there is some ambiguity about whether he went to jail at all:

“Everything Julia Rothman thought she knew about your father was a lie.” Mrs Jones sighed. “It’s true that he had been in the army, that he had a distinguished career with the Parachute Regiment and that he was decorated for his part in the Falklands War. But the rest of it — the fight with the taxi driver, the prison sentence and all that — we made up. It’s called deep cover, Alex. We wanted John Rider to be recruited by Scorpia. He was the bait and they took him.” (Scorpia, p. 347)

Scorpia took the bait, and John was recruited by Scorpia. In the show, we learn that John spent three years embedded in Scorpia, learning names and details about the organisation, including their long term goals and ambitions. In the book, the timeline is fuzzier, but we know he spent several months in the field as an assassin before working as an instructor at Malagosto. We are simply told that he ‘had told [MI6] as much as [they] needed to know about Scorpia’ (Scorpia, p. 348).

The reasons for breaking off the mission were similar then in both the show and the book. The risks were increasing, John had discovered most of what he set out to discover, and Helen was pregnant with Alex and John wanted to be with his family. In the book, we also specifically learn that there was a risk due to Julia Rothman, who had fallen in love with him.

This is a point where the canons seem to deviate slightly, because the show is more explicit about John being asked to get close to Julia Rothman. The file on the Widow (Julia Rothman’s codename) mentions that a Department operative Hunter (John Rider) was assigned to develop a relationship. Julia Rothman herself told Alex that his dad was a ‘very close friend’ of hers, and showed him what are clearly love letters describing John’s feelings for her (3x03).

Now, some of this is also in the book. Julia Rothman tells Alex she was very attracted to his father, and that he was a handsome man. And one of the letters from the show is taken straight from the book:

My dearest Julia, A dreary time without you. Can’t wait to be at the Widow’s Palace with you again. John R. (Scorpia, p. 151)

Interestingly, we do see that Julia apparently went by her code name despite the fact that she and John became close enough over the years that she passed him information about Scorpia. John himself was known as Hunter to the Department rather than this being his Scorpia code name like in the book (although the code name isn’t mentioned in Scorpia itself). He signs the letter with his initials JR in the show, and she clearly knew him as John Rider.

It’s well possible given the way Julia Rothman doesn’t mention Alex’s mother in her initial story to Alex about John, that she was not aware at the time that he was married or that John was already with Helen. In the book, she specifically mentions that while she was attracted to him, he was married to Alex’s mother, suggesting that they never acted on the attraction.

The story of John’s capture is roughly the same, there is a trap set for him (on Malta in the book), and he is captured. A few weeks later, Scorpia kidnap a senior British civil servant (or his son, in the book) and MI6/The Department make them an offer to return John Rider to them in an exchange. This takes place on Albert Bridge in the book, while in the show it’s on another bridge somewhere. John’s death is faked, and the idea is that he will be given a new identity along with Helen and Alex so they can live quietly and without Scorpia knowing he was actually a spy.

This is the point where we get the biggest divergence in the backstory, as in the show the information gathered by John’s mission is enough to take down most of Scorpia. The operation is largely orchestrated by Alan Blunt, which is part of why Julia Rothman’s plot in the show is also aimed at him:

Mrs Jones: I’ve been looking at how we brought down SCORPIA 17 years ago. Really was an astonishing operation. Dozens of agents. Coordinates across three continents. Forty-seven key figures, dead or arrested. The entire SCORPIA hierarchy decimated overnight. You waged a private war against Scorpia, made it your mission. (3x06)

It’s not specified whether the take down of Scorpia happened before or after John and Helen’s plane was blown up by a bomb. Blunt tells Alex that ‘within months’ they were able to dismantle Scorpia’s entire operation, while Julia Rothman took six months to track John down. It seems more likely that Scorpia was taken down first, as this would give the Department an extra reason not to suspect Julia Rothman as being behind the bomb on the plane. Blunt’s reaction to Alex’s suggestion that it was Julia Rothman suggests that they didn’t have a clear suspect for all those years, which makes sense if Scorpia were believed to be defeated and not heard from again (aside from the bombing of the plane itself). WIth Scorpia gone, it also makes sense that perhaps someone became too careless in hiding the fact that John Rider is alive, as there would have been less reason to worry.

In the book, we are first told merely that there was a bomb on the plane, which exploded and killed John and Helen and the pilots instantly. Mrs Jones and Alan Blunt seem to have no doubt about it being Julia Rothman, who had discovered the truth, although they are not clear on how she learned about it. MI6 learned valuable information about Scorpia through John’s time as an undercover spy, but they either don’t know enough to take Scorpia down for good or they don’t act on their information.

In a way, the book takes a more cynical approach to the relationship between Scorpia and MI6. Scorpia are too large to take down completely, and any half-hearted effort to destroy them will lead Scorpia to seek revenge. And if you can’t beat them… As Julia Rothman herself points out, the secret services may nominally oppose Scorpia, but they are not above making use of their services:

The secret services can’t do anything about us. We’re too big and they’ve left it too late. Anyway, occasionally some of them make use of us. They pay us to do their dirty work for them. We’ve learnt to live side by side! (Scorpia, p. 132)

Wrapping it all up

So what does it all add up to? As we’ve seen, the show’s portrayal of Scorpia shows an organisation that was nearly brought down seventeen years ago, and that has been operating in secrecy ever since. This single divergence explains most of the differences that we see in the present day structure of Scorpia, from younger recruits to the new leadership. However, we also saw that some aspects have always been different in this universe. The code names for both Julia Rothman and John, as well as the fact that John never mentioned Malagosto show that the backstory in the show was different even before Scorpia was taken down.

In the end, Scorpia is a different organisation in the book and the show, but in many ways it is also still the same. They are a group of people who are ruthless in their pursuit of power and money, who have no compunction about killing and even enjoy it. Scorpia may have been brought to the brink of destruction in the show, but even while hidden from the world, they have been able to keep up their activity for seventeen years.

Until they encountered Alex Rider, that is… :)

#Alex Rider #arshipweek #meta #mod posts #julia rothman #scorpia

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boxboxblog · 2 months ago

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A Quick Look at the FIA and F1 Rules

Hi everyone, glad people seemed to like my more technical posts. I thought it would be helpful to take a look at the FIA and some of the most important rules and regulations in F1. I won't get to every rule, there are far too many, but I will cover the most important ones.

To understand the rules one must first understand the governing body, the FIA (Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile). The FIA is the organization that started F1, but is in fact in charge of all motorsports worldwide. So endurance racing is overseen by the FIA and so is MotoGP for example. This means that most rules are pretty streamlined across the different types. It also means that the FIA has somewhat of a monopoly over motorsports.

Some people think of the FIA like its a big room of people sitting around a table and making decisions, but this isn't the case at all. Rather, the FIA is made up of various national motoring associations and is spread all over the world. Most members don't even meet, and it feels less like a body sometimes and more like a union of allies. It is led by a president who is elected by FIA members, and has a variety of vice presidents who cover certain divisions (safety commission, F1 commission, etc).

The major duties of the FIA are to create rules, oversee races, discipline rule breakers, oversee technology, and ensure safety of drivers and fans. In truth, they have a very complex job to do over such a wide berth. And every single year there are new rules an regulations that the FIA creates or even is forced to create. It enforces these rules through the judicial system (namely the stewards, race directors, and International Court of Appeals) and acts essentially as any other government would work. While all members vote on certain issues, the World Motor Sport Council (WMSC) is the ultimate decision maker (a lot like the US's congress) and covers all motorsports around the world, not just F1.

Alright, so that is just a quick look at those guys. Let's dive into some major rules.

Power Unit Regulations

Power Units are majorly regulated in F1. They have to be a specific type in modern F1, namely a hybrid power unit. The rule that requires hybrid power units was put in place in 2014 in order to encourage teams to innovate in engine recovery, and ultimately be more sustainable. Another rule around power units is the power unit limit. Cars are limited to a certain amount of replacement components (ICE, MGU-K, MGU-H, etc) during the season, and if they go over they incur a grid penalty. For example, in Spa this year Yuki Tsunoda took multiple power units over the limit and received a 60 place grid penalty. This rule is in place to make sure that wealthy teams who can afford to replace their parts often do not get an unfair advantage.

2. The Spending Cap

Introduced in 2019 or 2020 I believe, the spending cap is one of the newer big rules in F1. It was created (after pressure from some smaller teams) to make sure that the wealthier teams weren't spending an excessive amount. For example, before the cap a team like Ferrari would spend something like $400M or more on their car, but a team like Williams would only be able to afford around $250M. The FIA felt this gave the big teams a massive advantage (it did) and thus the cap was created to level the playing field more. The cap excludes driver salaries and other such costs.

3. Aerodynamic Restrictions

There are many regulations surrounding the aerodynamics on a car. These limit the sizes of things like the wings and diffusers, but also limits the design. For example, on the rear wing, the DRS flap must have a certain level of stiffness in order to pass regulation. One of the new regulations surrounding aerodynamics was the introduction of ground effect in 2022. This is a complex array of tunnels and pipes in the floor of the car that generates more downforce. This was created and declared legal in order to increase the rate of overtakes and ensure more close races.

4. Tire Regulations

Like aerodynamics there are a lot of rules around tires. The major one is the race day tire allocation. On the day of a race, teams are limited to choosing only three compounds of tires to have ready. On top of that, during the race they must use at least two different types of compounds. So a team can't stay on mediums the whole race. If they start out on mediums they must switch to a hard or soft eventually. Another rule, this time meant for safety, is the wet weather rule. If there is rain during the race, teams must switch to inters or full wets. If they don't they can receive a major penalty, financial or on the grid.

5. Qualifying Rules

Qualifying has its own set of rules that must be followed. The major one is of course the sessions formatting (Q1, Q2, and Q3). They also must pay attention to the clock. If they do not start their flying lap before time is over, they are out of luck. One big rule is the yellow flag rule. If a driver is on flying lap, but a yellow flag comes out, they must slow down and abort their lap. If they don't, they risk a grid penalty or deleted quali time. We saw this recently in Singapore, when Max Verstappen's first Q3 time was deleted after he ignored a yellow flag. Speaking of deleted times, track limits are also very important in quali. This rule states that during a flying lap, drivers must remain inside the white line or have their time deleted. This rule is in place to ensure they don't get an unfair advantage. We saw this also in Singapore, when Charles Leclerc's time was deleted and bumped him down to P9. The last quali rule I will discuss is the impeding rule. This rule states that if you are on an outlap or inlap and a car doing their flying comes behind you, you are required to move out of the way. If you don't that's a penalty, often a grid penalty, and is called impeding. I lied, actually the last rule I will discuss is parc ferme. When drivers park their cars in parc ferme after quali, absolutely no changes to the car are allowed. This is a big one, and teams have been fined millions for not complying.

6. Race Rules

Buckle up. There are a lot of race rules. The ones that viewers probably notice the most surround giving overtakers space. Essentially, when you are driving and about to get overtaken, you must leave room for the other to come through. That doesn't mean to not defend, but if them getting past is inevitable you cannot push them out. Contact in general is frowned upon, and if two cars hit, it will be investigated to see who is at fault. If no one was, it is ruled as a racing incident. If one driver is at fault, they will receive a time penalty. Many drivers break these rules. This also goes hand in hand with the rule that states that a driver cannot overtake if they are off the track. So in a race if two cars are battling, one goes off track and gets ahead, they must give the position back. Again, drivers break this rule all the time.

More rules that drivers must bow to during the race include rules about adhering to flags, safety car rules, and DRS rules. For the flags, no matter what drivers must follow the rules. If its yellow, slow down. If its red, race is over. If its blue, you are getting lapped and must let them by. Under the yellow flag a safety car usually comes out as well. When the safety car is out, overtakes are not available and speed is limited. Rule breakers are severely punished. For DRS the major rule states that it can only be used in DRS zones around tracks and when your car is within 1 second of the car in front of you. I have never seen a driver break this rule, but I assume the punishment is severe. There are a lot more race rules I could say, but these are the most normal ones to see enforced.

7. Pit Rules

During quali and the race, the pit lane has its own set of intense rules. the first one I will discuss is the pit speed limit. This limit forces drivers to slow down to about 50 MPH while they are driving through the pit lane (terribly slow for an F1 car) and was created for safety purposes. Those who break it during quali might receive a fine or a grid penalty if it was bad. Those who break it mid race will receive a time penalty. Another important rule is the safe release rule. This rule states that before releasing the car from the pit box or garage, they must ensure the lane is clear. If they don't and almost cause an incident (like two cars crashing) then a driver will be charged with a unsafe release and incur a penalty. The final rule I will discuss is the pit penalty rule. if a driver during the race receives a time penalty, they often serve it when they pit. What happens is the driver will pull up like normal, and then however long they have been penalized, they must sit there. The Pit Crew is not allowed to touch the car until the penalty is served. If they do, they incur another more aggressive penalty and often have to serve the first one again.

8. Super License

I'm sure you have heard of a Super License before. Essentially, all F1 drivers must hold a valid FIA Super License. It requires them to accumulate a certain amount of points in junior categories before they can drive an F1 car. This ensures that all drivers have sufficient experience to avoid accidents.

9. Car Development

There are strict regulations of the F1 cars. The dimensions must be within a certain limit, the weight must be over a certain limit, and other such rules. The biggest rule, in my opinion, is the rule around car development. Shortly, a team must design their car themselves. So they cannot copy another teams designs, or purchase major parts from last year car. The whole point of being a constructor is that you construct, so the FIA set these rules to make sure no unfair advantages were being taken. Certain parts can be bought from other teams as long as they are un-listed by the FIA however, so small teams like Haas often purchase simple parts.

10. Protests and Appeals

During the season, teams have the right to protest other teams if they believe their actions/cars are illegal and can also protest any decisions made by the racing director during a race. If it is investigated and the car was declared illegal or the decision was declared incorrect, there will be retroactive action, like removing a penalty or disqualifying a team from the protested races. if the hearing is held and a team is charged, that team can appeal the hearing and present new evidence in an attempt to reverse the decision.

Alright that is all the major rules! If there are any I forgot or ones you need clarification on, please let me know.

As always, cheers!

-B

#f1 #formula 1 #f1 rules #fia #formula 1 rules

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uboat53 · 2 months ago

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It's been a while, but I feel the need for some political analysis. Not the specific issue things I've been doing, but a broader look at the 2024 election. LONG RANT (TM) time?

INTRODUCTION

As I imagine you're aware by now if you read anything I write, I'm a bit of a data guy. I've been following the polls for a few decades now and I find it a good way to keep sane in the chaos of an election season. This time, though… this time I'm not so sure.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm still following the polling like a crack addicted muppet, I'm just no longer sure that it's accurate, even within its own margins of error. There are a few reasons for this, the long-standing ones like declining response rates, but also some new ones to do with the changing electorate. A bunch of things are coming together in ways that make me no longer certain that we're getting an accurate picture.

That said, there is still data I'm seeing that I find useful. Focus groups, for example, are still producing interesting nuggets of information that help fill in a few gaps, but more on that later. First, the polling.

HOW POLLING WORKS

So polling, at its heart is fairly simple. You call, text, or otherwise survey a bunch of people, usually on the order of a thousand or so, and ask them for their opinions. Then you figure out the race, age, and other demographic information of the people you got and use some statistical tools to normalize them to the broader population.

For example, if your thousand person sample was 5% black but you think the voting population is going to be 10% black, you'll "weight" the answers your black respondents gave. In other words, you'll give more impact to their answers to try to better represent who you think is actually going to show up on election day. If you get more of a group than you think will actually show up, you'll do the reverse and de-weight them.

If you think about that for a minute, you'll realize that there are two really big places where error can seep into your polling.

POLLING ERRORS

The first is called the response rate. It used to be that you'd have to call about 2,000-3,000 people to get 1,000 responses. Nowadays, you've got to hit closer to 10,000 people. And there's good research showing that the kind of people that respond to polls are meaningfully different than the kind of people who don't respond but still vote.

That said, pollsters have adapted and have gotten reasonably good at adjusting for this kind of error. Well, the good ones have, the bad ones just do low-quality polls and their results are terrible as a result. There was one particularly longitudinal poll during the 2016 election that apparently only had one black Trump supporter, who they weighted heavily, who would just stop answering their questions when he felt Trump was doing badly which led to some wild swings in their results depending on whether he answered that week or not. Generally speaking, though, this kind of error isn't as big of a problem in decent polling as we kind of thought it would be when it started showing up a decade or two ago. The other kind of error, though…

Look, in order to weight your polled population properly, you have to have a reasonable idea of who's actually going to show up to vote. Will 30% of white women between the ages of 18 and 24 show up or will it be 50%? Will the electorate in Georgia be 30% black or 40% black? Answering these questions makes a huge impact on how the final result turns out, and the way we generally answer these questions is we look at the past few elections.

The problem with that is, there's nothing consistent or predictable about the last few elections. 2012 and 2014 were pretty standard elections where the predictable groups showed up in predictable numbers and things went as expected. In 2016, though, Trump turned out a huge amount of people who had never voted before and shifted the result in key states that were not expected to go for him. Those same people, though, didn't show up in 2018 when he wasn't on the ballot and the result was a pretty solid win for Democrats in places that hadn't been expected to for them after 2016. Then, in 2020, those same people showed up to vote for Trump again, but this time they were outnumbered by ANOTHER new group of voters who hadn't showed up before but now showed up to vote against Trump. Finally, in 2022, yet another huge wave of new voters showed up, energized and outraged by the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe vs. Wade, and completely overturned the conventional wisdom of a strong Republican showing.

In other words, there's no way anyone could reasonably say that we can make a strong prediction of what the 2024 electorate is going to look like based on the last decade of elections. Are the voters who were outraged about abortion in 2022 still outraged? Will the new voters who showed up for Trump in 2016 and 2020 show up in the same kind of numbers? Will the anti-Trump voters of 2020? Maybe they have got it right this time, but there's absolutely no way to know that. Even worse, there's no way to know which way the error is running, the polls might be massively overweighted in Trump's favor or Harris's.

I certainly can't say and I'm fairly certain no one else can either.

OTHER DATA

That said, there is other data we can look at. My personal favorite these days are focus groups, particularly those conducted by people who are good at running them like Whit Ayers or Frank Luntz. Rather than look at what percentage of voters are voting for Trump, Harris, or undecided, they simply take a group of undecided voters and ask questions to determine why they're undecided and what could shift them and the results of those conversations are really interesting.

I've seen results from a few of these focus group results so far and they're fairly consistent. There's the standard undecided voters, the low-information voters who simply haven't paid attention enough to know where they stand and there's the so-called "double-haters" who just really dislike both candidates, but, surprisingly, these groups aren't the majority.

The majority of undecided voters apparently are generally moderate conservative voters who know that they don't like Trump but don't feel like they know enough about Harris to vote for her. Specifically, they feel like they don't know enough about her economic policies.

And that's a very interesting result, because it's the kind of result you see when an unpopular incumbent runs for re-election. Unpopular incumbents can and do win re-election; it's not enough that people don't like them, they also have to like the alternative. That's why John Kerry didn't defeat George W. Bush in 2004 and why Bill Clinton did defeat George H. W. Bush in 1992. Clinton persuaded voters that he would be better and Kerry didn't.

When Biden was running against Trump earlier this year, he was the unpopular incumbent and, while people didn't like Trump either, a critical mass of them seem to have liked him better than Biden. With Biden's withdrawal, the race has shifted. Trump may not technically be the incumbent, but people have seen him in office and they didn't like him. Harris has been Vice-President for about three and a half years now, but that's not being President, not even close. She's the unknown in this race.

WHAT IT ALL MEANS

Look, I don't know if there's enough undecided voters in this race to make a difference. Heck, it's possible that either Trump or Harris already have enough voters in the tank to win this thing in the key states and we just don't know it. All that said, there's a clear fight on for what undecided voters currently exist.

Harris needs to convince them that she has a plan to manage the economy. Job growth, wage growth, and consumer spending are strong and inflation is back down to reasonable levels, but the scars of high inflation remain. If she can convince voters that she has a plan to bring down costs and/or raise wages, she'll win. This is going to take more than the broad-strokes style answers she's been giving so far, my take is that she'll need to give a formal economic policy address, preferably more than one, and go into detail and depth about her economic plans.

Trump's only chance, on the other hand, is to smear Harris as well as he can. After four years in office and about a decade of a constant campaign, I'm pretty sure there's nothing left that could convince these voters to like him. Fortunately for him, he doesn't need them to like him, he just needs them to dislike her. That said, the relentless personal attacks he's been lobbing aren't going to do it, he's going to need to actually attack her economic policy, but that runs the risk of highlighting it to voters who may have otherwise not have heard about it.

CONCLUSION

Look, the polling data is iffy to me. It may be accurate or it might not, but we really have no way of knowing given the massive churn in the electorate this last decade. Assuming, though, that this race really is a tight one and will come down to undecided voters, it seems like this really is Harris's election to lose. If she can define herself, particularly her economic policies, in a way that appeals to undecided voters, it's likely that she can win them and, presumably, the election as well and there's not a lot that Trump can do about that without becoming a far different person than he is.

#politics #us politics #2024 elections #trump #kamala harris #long rant (tm)#political analysis

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jimi-rawlings · 2 months ago

Text

Victor Osimhen's Holdup & Link-Up Play So Far This Season... (2023/24)

youtube

THE AFRICAN LINK UP

Hogan believed that possession-based football was the answer, but that it must be founded upon constant passing and movement, and added versatility in his players and increased fitness that would allow them to bamboozle an opponent with the fluidity of their attacking moves. James Hogan (16 October 1882 – 30 January 1974) was an English football player and coach.[1] He enjoyed some success as a footballer, reaching an FA Cup semi-final with Fulham in 1907–08, but his primary legacy is as a pioneer of the game and as an innovative coach across multiple European club and national sides. Named "the most influential coach there has ever been" by Jonathan Wilson,[1] Hogan is regarded by some as the architect of Total Football.[2][3]

Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa (US: /mənəŋˈɡɑːɡwə/ ⓘ mə-nəng-GAH-gwə, Shona: [m̩naˈᵑɡaɡwa]; born 15 September 1942) is a Zimbabwean politician who is serving as the third president of Zimbabwe since 2017. A member of ZANU–PF and a longtime ally of former President Robert Mugabe, he held a series of cabinet portfolios and he was Mugabe's first-vice president from 2014 until 2017, when he was dismissed before coming to power in a coup d'état. He secured his first full term as president in the disputed 2018 general election. Mnangagwa was re-elected in the August 2023 general election with 52.6% of the vote.[2]

A popular front is "any coalition of working-class and middle-class parties", including liberal and social democratic ones, "united for the defense of democratic forms" against "a presumed Fascist assault".[1][2] More generally, it is "a coalition especially of leftist political parties against a common opponent".

Harmony and Contrast Formula/System: xG Analytics 2:3 Goals/Assist Ratio; 0-0 Games with Possession Football Analytics Post Game

F9/Target Man Combination Football: 4 v 4 Manipulated Offside Trap with Depth Link up in Hole for Triangular Wall Pass (F9); 2 V 2 Chest Cradle Half Volley 2 Touch Finishing (Target Man and F10)

Midfield Pivots 4-3-3 (Build Up Back 4, Triangle Midfield (1 Attacking, 1 Defensive, 1 Box to Box Deep Lying Playmaker), Attacking 3 (False 9, False 10, Inverted Winger)

5-2-3

4-1-5

4-4-2 F9 or F10

Skill Drills

2 V 2 Box Play with 3 Neutrals Pass Ins 2 Touch or 1 Touch Finish

Link Up Diamond Futsal 4 v 4

Agility Ladder Futsal Dribbling

Skills: Aerial Duels, Chest Cradled Half Volley, Finishing, Link Up and Hold Up, Counter Pressing, Shoulder Barging

HULU Target Man False 9 Tactics and Skills

Depth in attack: The attacking side uses the depth of the pitch by moving men either up from the rear, or down from the top, but may use a constant "target striker" or front man to always invoke a presence deep in the defence.

Give and Go: A version of this play involving a through ball into space as a return to the initial passer (known as a wall pass [13]: 30 ) is sometimes used to get past the first level of defence (for example).[14]

Triangular play: A subtype of the give-and-go tactic; allows for a safe and quick movement of various areas in play whilst maintaining control of the ball. In a triangular play the ball is passed between three players to form a triangle. The triangle is then shifted to a different position when a new player is added. Many triangles can be created with various combinations of players with the intent to incrementally move the ball forward without compromising possession. This tactic is common when trying to gain control of midfield. However it may also be used for (final 3rd) attacking purposes.[19]

In the space between the opponent's defensive line and midfield line (the "hole"): A common strategy of attack is to pass (or move) the ball into the spaces between the opponent's defenders and midfielders. If a pass is made, a midfielder in an advanced position or an attacker in a deeper position will want to receive the ball right between the lines of the opponent. A player can also try to move the ball into this area on their own, at which point they may look for a passing option; alternatively attempting to create a good scoring chance on their own.[13]: 18

Strong side overloads: Attacking teams may pressure the defence on to one side of the pitch by moving most of its attackers and midfielders to the ball side while letting a wing player or defender come to the opposite side with little or no coverage. By compressing space in the areas where the ball is, the defence has to respect the strong side threat by adding extra players into the mix. The ball is then crossed or passed into an unmarked area on the far side of the pitch for a free or near free shot, dribble or pass.

Target man: The implied use of a quality striker who has the ability to take on the whole defence on their own - and will often occupy two defenders - making the defence vulnerable. Complemented with two fast wingers, this tactic may give the 4-man defence potential problems. Teams may also benefit from a target man at set pieces.

Cross into the box: A player (often a winger, wide midfielder or fullback) situated outside the width of the penalty box (on one of the flanks) attempts a cross into the penalty box, for a teammate (usually a striker, or a forward) to try to score on (with a header, a volley, or a one touch shot). Crosses into the box can be of various height and length and target various areas of the penalty box. For this to work, the player attempting the cross needs to be skilled at performing this type of pass, as well as able to read the game of play, and the receiving target has to have a number of competitive advantages (such as height, strength, speed or heading skills) in order to beat the defence for the attempt at goal.[13]: 17

Freekicks: If the free kick is close-range but in a less-than-ideal angle to attempt to take a shot on goal, a common method of creating a scoring chance is to cross the ball into the penalty area, usually aiming for a spot in the angle towards the penalty spot, at which attacking players will try to beat defending players to the ball in order for a header or volleyball shot to hit the target. This is common to a corner kick.

Sometimes teams tactically divide the pitch horizontally into five corridors instead: Outside left, inside left, central, inside right and outside right. This is among other things reflected in the positional names being used in formations with five midfielders, or five defenders.[22][23]

Physique Endurance Cycling (MAS) and Isometric Plyometric Jump Rope (VO2 max) with Landmine Complex; Lion Heart DNA (Muscle Fibers and Walking Mechanics)

18U Stylistic Biomechanics with Skill Drills and Scrimmage. 12U fundamentals and practice.

Sprint dribbling: Invisible 4, Crescent Moon Pull Back, and Dorsiflexion

Genome Editing: TYRP1, ACTN3, FBN1 gene, ACE Gene, XYY Prenatal Hormones with Fetus Alcohol Consumption for Sensory Overload Asperger's, Expansive Mood with Disinhibition Impulsive Borderline

A notable connection exists between VO2max and MAS, encapsulated by the “Léger formula”: VO2max = MAS x Cr, where Cr represents the energy cost or running economy, measured in mL/kg/km. This energy cost differs among runners, with a commonly accepted average value being 210 mL/kg/km. This leads to the equation VO2max = 3.5 x MAS. A lower running economy (energy cost) implies that a runner expends less energy and is more efficient. Elite Kenyan and Ethiopian runners, for example, often exhibit a running economy around 180 mL/kg/km (equivalent to a coefficient of 3). In this context, VO2max can be seen as the runner’s ‘engine’. In contrast, MAS reflects the engine’s efficiency, influenced by factors like posture, relaxation, stride quality, and muscle quality. The formula VO2max = 3.5 x MAS is, however, a theoretical estimate.

Hamstring Activation Cycling

Intramuscular EMG was used to verify muscle activation during cycling. The activation pattern of deep muscles (Vint and BFS) could, therefore, be described and compared to that of the more superficial muscles. The complex coordination of quadriceps and hamstring muscles during cycling was described in detail.

Maximal aerobic speed (MAS) is simply the lowest running speed at which maximum oxygen uptake (VO2 max) occurs, and is typically referred to as the velocity at VO2 max (vVO2 max). MAS was developed for the purpose of increasing the specificity of training and to enable coaches to monitor training loads more accurately.

Lengthy Landmine Complex

Although typically used for simple core and functional-type movements, the landmine is actually an amazingly versatile tool that can be used as a primary exercise for many muscle groups:

Side Facing Clean to Single Arm Press

Front Squat To Press

Single Arm Drop Lunge Squat

Squeeze Press

Lateral Squat Jumps

Reverse Lunge to Knee Drive

Sumo 1/2 Rep Squat Jumps

Single Arm Fall Out Push Ups

Sit Up To Press

1-2 minute rest between rounds if you perform multiple rounds

Circuit training has been shown to have greater effects on the magnitude and duration of EPOC than traditional forms of strength training.[8] All told, you can burn hundreds and hundreds of calories in a properly-executed circuit training workout.

The multi-stage fitness test (MSFT), also known as the beep test, bleep test, PACER test (progressive aerobic cardiovascular endurance run), or the 20m shuttle run test, is a running test used to estimate an athlete's aerobic capacity (VO2 max).

Bariatric surgery (or metabolic surgery or weight loss surgery) is a medical term for surgical procedures used to manage obesity and obesity-related conditions.[1][2] Long term weight loss with bariatric surgery may be achieved through alteration of gut hormones, physical reduction of stomach size, reduction of nutrient absorption, or a combination of these.[2][3] Standard of care procedures include Roux en-Y bypass, sleeve gastrectomy, and biliopancreatic diversion with duodenal switch, from which weight loss is largely achieved by altering gut hormone levels responsible for hunger and satiety, leading to a new hormonal weight set point.[3] Bariatric surgery of various types may influence hedonic hunger[31][32][33] particularly if accompanied by counseling interventions that reduce automatic hedonic impulses.[34] These surgeries may work in part by modifying the production of gastrointestinal hormones, particularly by increasing glucagon-like peptide-1 and peptide YY (PYY);[31][35] reduction of ghrelin has been inconsistent.[31]

Counter Pressing Progressive HULU False 9

Skills: Attack, Power*, Movement*, Skill*, Mental*, Defence*

A false 9, similar to a more advanced attacking midfielder/playmaker role, is an unconventional lone striker or centre-forward, who drops deep into midfield. The purpose of this is that it creates a problem for opposing centre-backs who can either follow the false 9, leaving space behind them for onrushing midfielders, forwards or wingers to exploit, or leaving the false 9 to have time and space to dribble or pick out a pass.

Deep Completions: Deep Completions represent successful passes made within 20 meters of the opposition goal. It indicates a player’s ability to execute accurate and incisive passes in dangerous areas.

12. Carry%: Carry% signifies the percentage of a player’s carries (running with the ball) that were successful. It measures their effectiveness in maintaining ball control and progressing play through dribbling.

13. Deep Progressions: Deep Progressions encompass passes and dribbles/carries into the opposition’s final third. It quantifies a player’s ability to advance the ball effectively into areas close to the opponent’s goal.

14. xGBuildup: xGBuildup is a model that attributes the expected goals (xG) value of the final shot to all players involved in the entire possession leading up to the shot. It focuses on evaluating the possession work and build-up play prior to the end of the attacking sequence.

15. xGChain: xGChain is a model that attributes the expected goals (xG) value of the final shot to all players involved in the entire possession. It captures the contributions of players throughout the possession, considering their involvement in generating goal-scoring opportunities.

16. OBV Metrics: In addition to the aforementioned features, it’s worth exploring the concept of On-Ball Value (OBV) metrics. OBV is a comprehensive framework developed by StatsBomb that evaluates a player’s contributions and effectiveness in possession. It takes into account various factors such as passes, dribbles, shots, and more to provide a holistic assessment of a player’s on-ball performance.

Link-Up Play; You must play with your back to the goal, hold the ball under pressure, and lay it off to advancing teammates. For this, you'll need ball control, strength, and the ability to shield the ball from defenders. Moreover, effective link-up play helps create fluid attacking movement. For hold-up play (plural hold-up plays) (soccer, idiomatic) A play where an attacker retains possession of the ball, while the teammates can move up the field. Push-and-run, also known as a wall pass, a one-two or a give-and-go, is a tactic and skill often used in association football. It involves quickly laying the ball off to a teammate and running past the marking tackler to collect the return pass. It proved an effective way to move the ball at pace, with players' positions and responsibility being fluid.[1] All the definitions agree on just one thing: a progressive action advances the ball somehow. At The Athletic, we count a completed pass as “progressive” if it’s at least 10 metres (11 yards) long and moves the ball at least 25 per cent of the remaining distance to goal.

Current measures:

Expected assists: If we have an expected likelihood for each shot resulting in a goal, we can look back at the pass prior to that shot to see which players played the passes that could have resulted in goals. This is more informative than just looking at assists, but has the limitation of being heavily dependent on the shot-takers being able to get their shot away following the high value pass, and only considers the pass immediately preceding the shot. Any passes that contribute significantly to the buildup prior to that are neglected.

xG chain: This is a logical extension of the expected assist approach. To overcome the limitation of only considering the pass prior to a shot, we can propagate the goalscoring likelihood for each shot back through all the passes in the sequence leading up to it. That way, players frequently involved in plays that result in high quality chances are still rewarded for their contributions. This approach has some benefits, but still assumes the presence of a shot-taker who is able to capitalise on the good buildup to take a high-quality shot. Moreover, this approach can conflate the contribution from teammates. For example, a player that reliably plays easy passes to a key playmaker will generally be highly rewarded by this approach, even if most of the buildup value comes from the playmaker.

Progressive passes: A less shot-centric approach to valuing buildup is to consider the number of passes that bring the ball closer to the opposition goal. These types of approaches typically define some threshold for progression, either number of yards forward or how much closer the ball gets to goal, as a % of starting distance. This allows the separation of players whose passes are mostly safe and cautious from players whose passes disproportionately drive the ball forward towards the opposition goal. This has been used successfully in the past to identify players who progress the ball well, but is still a relatively coarse approach. Fifty yard progressive passes are treated similarly to 15 yard progressive passes, and a 15 yard pass down the wing is treated the same as a 15 yard forward pass into the penalty box.

Packing: None of the other approaches above consider the location of off-ball players. One approach that does take this into consideration is Packing.

Counter-pressing in football is the act of actively pursuing the ball in a coordinated manner with the aim of regaining possession quickly after ball-loss. The upper bound of time the ball must be won back within varies from coach to coach, and thus in execution by different teams. Two player contesting for the ball side by side. they can bump shoulders and run that shoulder into the opponent in an attempt to move the opponent off the ball. it becomes illegal when the arm is raised to push the opponent away or more force than is necessary is used with the shoulder. (Thigh Tug Counter Pressing)

Aggressive Actions: Aggressive actions encompass tackles, pressure events, and fouls recorded within 2 seconds of an opposition player receiving the ball. It assesses a player’s defensive intensity and ability to disrupt the opponent’s play.

9. Counterpressures: Counterpressures indicate the number of pressures exerted by a player within 5 seconds of a turnover. It demonstrates a player’s commitment to regaining possession quickly after losing it.

Signature Move

Sole Forward Roll Placement for Hold Up Play

2 v 2 Off-Ball Shoulder Barging Two Touch and One Touch Finishing: Lofted feed in order to strike on Chest Cradled Half Volley Lofted feeds in order to head to goal.

Spacing, Possession, Pass Completion, and Counter Pressing with Pursuit and Ambush Predation One Team Box Touches and Capture the Flag with Analytics-Geometry Total Football Trixie Bet on CNS Drugs (Xanax and Modafinil); 1-1-2-1 Diamond Rover Futsal Pivot Formation

Define a run in one of two ways: (i) as a set of consecutive goals scored by one team, without the other team scoring a goal; (ii) as a set of consecutive scoring events by one team, each event being either a goal or one or more Set Piece. Play aggressive and with counter pressing and run it up on the score board in the first half and after halftime play defense. You get a break at half and it's easier to win when someone plays defense and looks for opportunities instead of Attacking.

Set Piece Stylistic Biomechanics: Shooting Knee at Wall for Curve and Placement Knee for Corner. Follow through with Shot with proper Body Alignment

Knee to Feet or Shoulder to Feet Cradling for Touch/Entertainment

Posterior Chain Super Compensation and Speed-Endurance (Elastic-Connective Tissue) Force-Velocity Curve; Crescent Moon Horizontal Plane Vertical Force Sprinting Mechanics.

Placement Mechanics: Ankle-Heel Linedrive and Arch-Knuckle Raised Curve; Placement Foot and Reverse Rotation with Shoulder for power and Accuracy; Arch of Feet at Target for Follow Through Accuracy; Plant Foot-Eyes on Ball for Football Contact Point then Eyes on Corner.

Agility Ladder Eyes Pocket: Eyes Between Defenders Feet and Ball, Numbered Footwork V-Step (Shifting Defenders with Momentum) et L-Step (Explosive First Step), All moves should form a Triangle or an Incomplete Triangle

Sprint Size Up: A series of feint Karaoké dribble moves with Eye Tricks (Fake Pass) but Sprint Position Finish

Triangle Flip Flasp: All Dribbling Moves should form a Triangle or an Incomplete Triangle while using V-Step (Shifting Defenders with Momentum) et L-Step (Explosive First Step). The flip flap (also known as the elástico, akka, snakebite, and la culebrita) is a dribbling move, or feint, in football used to trick a defensive player into thinking the offensive player, in possession of the ball, is going to move in a direction they do not intend to. Players perform it by using the outside of their dominant foot to push the ball towards their dominant side, then quickly move the dominant foot around the ball and using the inside to push the ball to their non-dominant side. Although the footwork is the most distinctive aspect of the flip-flap, its success as a feint also relies heavily on the attacking player having an explosive acceleration from a stationary position.[1]

Thé Crescent: In Close Dribbling; Crescent Footwork with L Shapes

On the Run Dribbling Moves: Letters and Shapes; Still Play 1 on 1: Numbered Footwork

À ma sauce Courts: Drills Side/Box Play with 1 Net; Design Vaporwave Action Painting Angels; Knee for Direction and Sole Drags for Dribbling Touch and Crescent Moon Sprint Mechanics

Gambling Games: 5 Roll (Captain, Ship, Crew); Live-Pool Betting Monopoly

Stylistic Biomechanics: Dribbling Foot To Ball Contact (Balls of Feet and Arch of Feet); Knee for Direction; Foot Drags; & Hip Angle, Crescent Moon Running Mechanics, and Laces Kick.

Futsal Courts: Drills Side/Box Play with 1 Net; Design Vaporwave Action Painting Angels; Knee for Direction and Sole Drags for Dribbling Touch and Crescent Moon Sprint Mechanics

Chic Operations

The Prince (Italian: Il Principe [il ˈprintʃipe]; Latin: De Principatibus) is a 16th-century political treatise written by the Italian diplomat, philosopher, and political theorist Niccolò Machiavelli in the form of a realistic instruction guide for new princes. As a remarkable general theme, The Prince appears to take it for granted that immoral acts are justified if they can help achieve political glory.[1]

Frame of Contract Negotiations are Jersey Sales

Clientelism or client politics is the exchange of goods and services for political support, often involving an implicit or explicit quid-pro-quo.[1][2][3] It is closely related to patronage politics and vote buying.[4]

Sin Stock Investment Trust: Pay a minimum of 90% of their taxable income to their shareholders through dividends; Arms, Tobacco, Pharmaceuticals, Entertainment District Rental Properties, and Sports Betting. (Piccadilly Circus as an Example) Lastly, maritime corruption may be categorized according to various fraud scenarios,[8] such as: under-invoicing, where the merchandise in question is declared of lower value than the actual sale price in the invoice, bribes paid to gain contracts, where large shipping and commercial vessel companies bid for long term contracts from large exporters, illicit payments to marine surveyors, so that the surveyor is paid illegally in order to give a better review of the inspected vessel, facilitation payments to customs officers, where bribes are paid to officers to ensure smooth customs procedures and to turn a blind eye to certain procedural requirements, and illegal purchase of letters of credit, where payment is promised for certain documents which validate that goods have been delivered as required.

2 Full Star Fixed Signs and a Urban City Teenager Planetary Intelligence Leo/Aquarius: Sun, Moon, Mercury, Uranus-Saturn; Brooklyn NY (Spirit) age 17; Tutlery Spirit: Drumming Orchestra

Jungle Capital Formula for African Games Retail Integration: Craftsmanship, Commercialism, Commerce, Cash-Conversion-Cycle, and Medium of Exchange. Horizontal integration involves the acquisition or merger of companies operating in the same industry and at the same stage of the supply chain. (Football, FL Studio and Poetic Meter, Track and Field, Rings Gymnastics, Real Estate Investment Trust, Sin Stocks Investment Trusts for Partying, and Culinary Linguistics).

Books: Mirror for Princes, Psychology, and Business.

Decentralized Gambling Economy: Pigou Effect, Corporate-Capital Gains Tax Haven, High Stakes Minimum Buy In, Domestic: Boxing, Retirement: Boat Racing, Residency Program for Tax Benefits

Ceremonial drums are membranophones and idiophonic slit drums, which are played in a ritual context cult, religious or ceremonial social occasions by indigenous peoples around the world, often accompanied by singing or chanting. Some ceremonial drums were specially made for their purpose and are accordingly elaborately designed. This includes drums, which are considered sacred objects and may only be used by a certain group of people. The drums can be played solo or in a small ensemble to accompany singing in ritual rituals, or can belong to a larger orchestra for courtly ceremonies and plays. Ceremonial drums can include tubular drums standing upright on the floor, large kettle drums, hand-held frame drums, and wooden slit drums.

Shango Course

Encomium (pl.: encomia) is a Latin word deriving from the Ancient Greek enkomion (ἐγκώμιον), meaning "the praise of a person or thing."[1] Another Latin equivalent is laudatio, a speech in praise of someone or something.

Encomium also refers to several distinct aspects of rhetoric:

A general category of oratory

A method within rhetorical pedagogy

A figure of speech praising a person or thing, but occurring on a smaller scale than an entire speech

The eighth exercise in the progymnasmata series

A literary genre that included five elements: prologue, birth and upbringing, acts of the person's life, comparisons used to praise the subject, and an epilogue[citation needed]

The basilikos logos (imperial encomium), a formal genre in the Byzantine empire

In Byzantine rhetoric, a basilikos logos (Greek: βασιλικòς λόγος, literally "imperial word") or logos eis ton autokratora ("speech to the emperor") is an encomium addressed to an emperor on an important occasion, regularly at Epiphany.[1]

The parameters of the genre were first set out in a treatise attributed to Menander Rhetor of the late 3rd century. The encomiast should praise the emperor's origins, his physical beauty, his upbringing, good habits, feats in peace and victories in war, philanthropy, good fortune and practice of the four cardinal virtues. He identified the presbeutikos, a speech of supplication given by a city to an emperor, as a subgenre of the basilikos logos. The panegyric of Constantine the Great delivered by Eusebius of Caesaria established a new convention of depicting the ideal emperor rather than the actual. The Christian basilikoi logoi dropped references to good fortune (tyche) in favour of piety. The term presbeutikos also shifted in meaning to refer to an ambassador's report.[1]

The delivery of a basilikos logos could be used as an occasion to subtly advise the emperor, becoming a sort of "mirror of princes". This is the form it took when Agapetos praised Justinian I (6th century) and when Basil I his son Leo VI (9th century). The surviving biography of the Empress Theodora (9th century) may originate in a basilikos logos addressed to her during her regency.[2] John the Oxite wrote and presumably delivered an unconventional logos that was highly critical of the policies of Alexios I Komnenos (11th century).[3] Michael Italikos (12th century) wrote a logos for the Emperor John II Komnenos based primarily on his deeds and another for Manuel I Komnenos that was more conventional.[1]

S-1 Talk

Laws of Power, Strategies of War, and Laws of Human Nature By Robert Greene

Law 1: Never Outshine the Master: Ensure that those above you always feel superior. Go out of your way to make your bosses look better and feel smarter than anyone else. Everyone is insecure, but an insecure boss can retaliate more strongly than others can.

Law 2: Never Put too Much Trust in Friends, Learn How to Use Enemies: Keep a close eye on your friends — they get envious and will undermine you. If you co-opt an enemy, he’ll be more loyal than a friend because he’ll try harder to prove himself worthy of your trust.

Strategy 1: Do Not Fight the Last War: The Guerrilla-War-of-the-Mind Strategy: What most often weighs you down and brings you misery is the past, in the form of unnecessary attachments, repetitions of tired formulas, and the memory of old victories and defeats. You must consciously wage war against the past and force yourself to react to the present moment. Never take it for granted that your past successes will continue into the future.

Strategy 2: Segment Your Forces: The Controlled-Chaos Strategy; Speed and adaptability are critical elements in war, and come from flexible organization. Decentralize your army, segment into teams, and let go a little to gain mobility. Give your different corps clear missions that fit your strategic goals, then let them accomplish them as they see fit.

Law #3: People Can Be Influenced: We all need our self-image confirmed because we know it’s not always objectively accurate. We tend to like and listen to the people who validate us.

Law #4: People Wear Masks: We all display a persona, or a mask, that pumps up our positive qualities and shows ourselves in the best light. However, it’s not always easy to hide our true natures—while we have good control of our words, we don’t always have good control of our body language and nonverbal cues

Law #8: People’s Individuality Is Overpowered by Groups: When we’re in groups, everyone else’s emotions affect us and potentially provoke us into doing things we wouldn’t do alone.

Law #9: People Are Influenced by Their Generation: Everyone belongs to at least one group—their generation. Generational values are shaped by world events that took place during the generation’s coming-of-age years and the inevitable conflict with other generations.

Instrumental aggression refers to aggressive behavior meant to achieve a specific goal. Unlike other types of aggression, the behavior is not due to anger or other emotion but rather a calculated means to an end. Instrumental aggression is similar to bullying but with a specific, manipulative purpose.

FLOW FOOTBALL

Futsal Courts: Drills Side/Box Play with 1 Net; Design Vaporwave Action Painting Angels; Knee for Direction and Sole Drags for Dribbling Touch and Crescent Moon Sprint Mechanics

Diamond Football (15 mins)

Set Up

-Lay out two overlapping sets of 4 flat markers in the positions shown above.

-Ask the players to stand on a flat marker for their teams colour (Red on Red, Yellow on Yellow).

Instruction

-Whenever the ball goes out for a kick in or for the defenders ball, the players must stand on their markers before play begins.

-As soon as the ball has been played in, players are free to move.

-Reset everytime the ball goes out.

Coaching Points, Progressions Ect.

-Ask players to shout out what each position on the park is to devlop understanding of their roles.

-If you decide to go to a normal game , leave the markers out for a visual aid for the players.

-If more than 8 players, Add in Goalkeepers who would then play the ball out to the DF,LM,RM.

-Rotate Positions, Ask Players to stand on a marker they haven't been on before

Port-Tuxôn, Boma, Congo-Kinshasa Representation for Ballon d'Or and World Cup Sleeve with Front Office Retirement

Premier-Chargé d'affaires and Executive Branch Communist Working Class

The Westminster system, or Westminster model, is a type of parliamentary government that incorporates a series of procedures for operating a legislature, first developed in England. Key aspects of the system include an executive branch made up of members of the legislature, and that is responsible to the legislature; the presence of parliamentary opposition parties; and a ceremonial head of state who is separate from the head of government. The term derives from the Palace of Westminster, which has been the seat of the Westminster Parliament in England and later the United Kingdom since the 13th century. In diplomacy, a chargé d'affaires is a diplomat responsible for fulfilling the functions of an ambassador (or other head of diplomatic mission) in the absence or unavailability of the latter as well as between the departure of a holder and the arrival of his successor. When two countries do not maintain official diplomatic relations, in the event of their breakdown or lack of recognition, each of them may designate a chargé d'affaires who sits in the representation of a third country to carry out this function. Under Canada's system of responsible government, the premier is both a member of the provincial legislative assembly and the head of the executive. Executive Branch The Executive Council is made up of elected Members of Provincial Parliament appointed as Cabinet Ministers by the Lieutenant Governor on the advice of the Premier. The executive branch is the administrative governing body, who sets priorities and public policy. Communism (from Latin communis, 'common, universal')[1][2] is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement,[1] whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered around common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange that allocates products to everyone in the society based on need.[3][4][5] A communist society would entail the absence of private property and social classes,[1] and ultimately money[6] and the state (or nation state).[7][8][9] Vanguardism, in the context of Leninist revolutionary struggle, relates to a strategy whereby the most class-conscious and politically "advanced" sections of the proletariat or working class, described as the revolutionary vanguard, form organizations to advance the objectives of communism. They take actions to draw larger sections of the working class toward revolutionary politics and to serve as manifestations of proletarian political power opposed to the bourgeoisie. This theory serves as the underpinning of the leading role of the Communist party, usually enshrined in the constitution, after the seizure of power in the state by Communists.

Signature Plays: Shoulder Barging One - Two Pass

Porsche Engine on Track.

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