#for ''engineer'' which is another criticism area it is not that deep i assumed the software developers and technicians that followed me

[adamsvanrhijn]

I'm sorry nobody knows what a tumblr job is

if you aren't missing a comma or a "but" there. thank u i love u

if i had unlimited characters and thought people would bother reading context associated with a poll, (i am pretty sure they usually do not) and also had some foresight about some of the specific things people would interpret differently than i intended, here's what this would have looked like:

[begin post]

[begin poll]

which of these listed tumblr job types is yours?

retail, grocery, consumer-facing service and sales (excludes call centers and food service)

food service (includes restaurants, cafes, coffee shops, bars, cafeterias, food trucks, commercial kitchens, food kitchens, etc; cooking + serving + hosting)

teacher, professor, tutor, teaching assistant, childcare provider, but not educational administrator, if you do another kind of education read the rest of the options first because one of them might be a better fit

engineer, developer, technical designer, data or computer scientist, not including technical writers

parks and wildlife, outdoor research, animal care (including animal boarding and veterinary care), animal keeping (such as zoos or aquariums), animal husbandry, farming, ranching, environmental conservation, gardener or plant nursery worker (but not florist), field archaelogist, equine therapist, outdoor camp counselor if you work with and have knowledge around plants and/or animals

librarian, archivist, docent, tour guide, curator, patron-facing researcher, consultant historian or sociologist, community educator at a cultural or knowledge (probably nonprofit) institution (including but not limited to historical reenactors); reception or guest services related to any of the previous, excepting food service, which is the food service option

writer - content, technical, proposal, marketing, fiction, nonfiction, educational, research, including editing, but has to be actively working and receiving pay from a company, an organization, and/or clients/commissioners including publications/publishers, even if income is inconsistent or not received at regular intervals. does not include captioning or transcription. translators use your best judgment

artist, illustrator, graphic designer, but has to be actively working and receiving pay from a company, an organization, clients/commissioners including publications and galleries, may include visual marketing but does NOT include ad sales, also does not include video editing unless you do like, speed paints or show off your art in videos

patient healthcare, caregiving, and advocacy. does not include animal care, pharmaceutical research or dispensing, or medical coding/billing

you are not currently working as / do not currently have any of the Tumblr Jobs listed above

[end poll]

a "Tumblr Job" is decided based on the following criteria, which is based on my own dashboard/Tumblr experiences, and tumblr searches:

either many Tumblr users have or have had that job, OR, one to a few high-profile Tumblr users have or have had that job

posts are made about that job, either about the day-to-day work itself (positive or negative), as an appeal to authority ("librarian here!"), or about the concept and/or vibes of the job or having that job

posts are reblogged about that job, and reach an audience of people who do not have that job; posts go viral about that job, even

Tumblr users might aspire to have that job, or be studying toward it

it might require a high level of interest and/or personal investment with limited positions available, OR, it might be a very common job in the world

the job is NOT one that many Tumblr users would perhaps complain and/or rant and/or criticize about other people having

the job is NOT one commonly associated with things Tumblr tends to skew away from, like industries known to contribute to climate change or jobs that tend to be associated with ultra high earners with wealth inequality in the same industry (editing to plug my other poll that 6 & 7 apply to that nobody is taking)

a "Tumblr Job" is NOT just a job anybody on tumblr might have or even a job most people or many people on tumblr might have. it's not even a job that is necessarily common on tumblr (common on tumblr != common tumblr job), that's something i am interested in finding out via the poll.

just because tumblr users you know also have your job doesn't mean it Is a tumblr job. and just because your job type isn't listed doesn't mean it is Not a tumblr job. there are only 9 job hodgepodge types here. there are more jobs in the world than this and there are more tumblr jobs on tumblr than this. these are also not and are not intended to be standard industry classifications. they are grouped by tumblr vibes, not necessarily by job role or duties.

if you do not have a job at this time, you do not currently right now have one of the listed tumblr jobs. being unemployed or being a student, even if you once had one of these jobs or are studying to obtain one of these jobs, are not jobs for the purpose of this poll.

the purpose of the poll is to see how many respondents actually have and are doing these specific jobs that i have identified as "tumblr jobs". nothing more and nothing less!

[end post]

but nobody is gonna fucking read all that & tumblr polls have character limits. if the poll was as specific as i wanted it to be it would not have however many thousands of votes it currently has. curse of my autisms <3

[lalainajanes]

For the square “water park” on my Klarosummerbingo card! Might be my worst title ever but it’s actually better than the original one so  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Slip and Slide

Caroline speedwalks through the lobby, weaving around people who seem to think it’s the appropriate place for an early morning stroll. “Hold the elevator!” she calls, ignoring the few disgruntled looks she receives.

She hadn’t been that loud, and she’s nearly late for a critical meeting. It’s the first one with a new client, and she’d hate to make a bad first impression.

She’d had to head to the dry cleaners before work, had gotten caught in a traffic snarl in an area she wasn’t that familiar with, and it had taken her way too long to figure out the detour. She should have left her place earlier.

She gets to the security gates, juggling a garment bag, her briefcase, and a portfolio. Her ID seems to be just out of reach, and she jams her hand further into her purse. Albert, her favorite guard, murmurs, “Take a breath, Ms. Forbes.”

She blows one out, frustrated. Rolls her shoulders in an attempt to relax. “Sorry. I’m just…”

“Stressed? I can tell.”

Yikes. Caroline hopes that doesn’t mean her hair has exploded.

She smiles weakly, “Big day today.”

A brand new project, after the last one had been a disaster. Caroline’s comfortable with stress, thrives on high stakes, but she could totally use a win.

Her fingers touch the familiar edge of her badge, and she pulls it out triumphantly. She taps it on the sensor, walks through the revolving gate. “Good luck, Ms. Forbes,” Alfred murmurs as she passes.

It’s a little thing, but Caroline feels a little better knowing someone’s rooting for her.

She’s relieved to spot that one of the elevators is open, a man holding the door, his eyes on her. She doesn’t recognize him, but that doesn’t mean anything. The building has 55 floors, offices for more than two dozen companies within it. He’s dressed in a suit, like the vast majority of the men she sees in the building. His is nicer than most, charcoal grey, perfectly fitted, with a very subtle pinstripe that she only notices when she gets closer. Caroline hurries into the car gratefully. She leans forward, punches 32. “Thank you so much,” she says to him, turning so they’re shoulder to shoulder. “You’re a lifesaver.”

The man on her other side makes a noise, a tiny scoff. Caroline glances at him quizzically. He’s stoic, eyes forward, but she’s sure there’s a hint of amusement on his face.

An arm brushes against hers, drawing her attention. “Feel free to ignore him,” the man who’d held the elevator says. His voice is low, smooth and she’d be charmed by the accent if they’d met in a social situation.

Or any situation, if she’s honest.

“My brother would probably describe me as more of a troublemaker.”

Huh. She hadn’t have figured brothers. They’ve both got attractive and well-dressed going for them but little other familial resemblance. Caroline’s head swings back, “Are you a trouble maker?”

His amusement is plain. His full lips curl, and deep dimples appear in his cheeks.

Oh yeah. Definitely a trouble maker.

“I’m about twenty minutes early for my meeting today; how much of a trouble maker can I be?” His tone is playful, a touch too innocent to be believed.

Damn it. Caroline does not have time for an attractive man this morning. At least she hadn’t changed into the frumpier outfit in the garment bag. Hopefully, she’ll run into this guy again.

“I think I need more info. Could be a one-time thing. I’m almost late for my meeting, which is wildly out of character.”

“Not the trusting sort, are you?”

Caroline shrugs, raising her brows expectantly.

He laughs briefly, “Well, I did send an email ahead to inquire about the coffee preferences of the team I’m meeting. I’m stopping at one of the cafes to pick it up now. Would a troublemaker do that?”

“Hmm, maybe. Could be an underhanded tactic to get on a good side before the trouble starts.”

Dimples’ brother chimes in again, dry this time. “I believe your assistant sent that email. And that she learned the practice from my assistant.”  

Dimples glowers, and Caroline must admit this is a delightful distraction from her anxiety. She glances up at the panel above the door and is disappointed to find they’re almost on her floor. “If you’re going to the café on 36, I recommend the oatmeal raisin cookies. Most people go chocolate chip. Trust me, that’s a mistake.”

The elevator pings, the doors sliding open. Caroline smiles, hitches her briefcase higher on her shoulder. “This is me. Thanks again.”

The receptionist spots Caroline, stands up, a sheaf of papers in her hands, and Caroline’s reminded about how much she has to do. She hurries out, her heels clicking across the shiny tiles of the lobby.

She still glances back at the elevator, can’t help smiling, pleased, when she finds her new friend from the elevator watching her as the doors close.

Even if she never sees him again, he’d made her morning a little brighter.

Now, though, it’s time to work.

* * * * *

Fifteen minutes later, Caroline’s pacing in her office. She’s pinned her hair back and changed into the purple pantsuit she’d picked up at the dry cleaners. It’s a great color but not the most flattering fit. The pants are fine, but the jacket’s boxy, and she’s wearing a plain pink blouse underneath, buttoned to her throat, a thick silver necklace threaded through the collar. There’s a pair of glasses perched on her nose, and she’d changed into sensible flats.

She’d learned her lesson last time, at the first meeting where she’d been the project lead. She’d been called ‘Honey’ and other more annoying pet names and asked to serve coffee and fetch snacks. She’d received skepticism when she’d introduced herself. By the end of that first meeting, Caroline had wanted to scream her credentials – a B.A. and a Master’s in Civil Engineering, a whole pile of certifications, several prestigious internships, and stellar work references, thank you very much – at most of the people in the room.

Ultimately, the project had been successful, but Caroline had experienced frequent bursts of frustration that bordered on rage. Her suggestions were met with questions that made it clear her intelligence was doubted, her corrections with condescension, even though she’d usually been the only one in the room with any significant scientific expertise.

Expertise that’s kind of crucial in designing a water park. It wouldn’t have been a good look, or a sound investment, if guests were to end up injured or dead after paying exorbitant ticket prices and expecting a fun day.

Her skin has thickened considerably, but Caroline hopes that’s less necessary this time. Her boss had assured her that this job would be easier, and Caroline’s choosing to believe her. It’s even potentially exciting – these clients own several international resorts, the park she’s pitching on will be built in Spain.

Being project leader, she’d traveled to oversee construction on the nightmare build, but Tennessee doesn’t carry quite the same appeal as the Spanish coast, at least from the photos Caroline’s seen.

At the very least, it can’t be a worse experience. She hopes.

She hears Katherine coming her way, takes a final deep breath before Kat breezes into her office. “What are you wearing?” Kat asks, sounding both mystified and vaguely disgusted. She pauses in front of Caroline, fingers pinching her lapel and tugging. “Is this polyester?”

“Maybe. I thrifted it.”

Katherine’s face twists in the sort of revulsion one would expect if Caroline confessed to grave robbing the ensemble.

“Ew, why?”

“Figured I needed a costume. To make sure that this time, no one in there thinks to call me ‘sweet cheeks.’”

She’d been paired with another designer last time, Matt Donovan, who was a nice enough guy but had been pretty useless in the having her back department. Caroline likely wouldn’t have cried into her Ben and Jerry’s quite so often had Katherine been her partner. Kat has the unique and impressive ability to make demands and issue orders and have people thank her for it.

Kat snorts, “Elijah Mikaelson would never. He’s aggressively polite. I haven’t spoken to him yet, but I doubt Niklaus would either. I assume he has the same hot accent.”

That’s a new name. Caroline doesn’t like surprises. “And who is Niklaus?”

“A brother. And a business partner. He wasn’t originally scheduled to be here but is unexpectedly in town. What do you think the British equivalent to sweet cheeks is?”

Caroline’s eyes go wide, a few puzzle pieces clicking together. British brothers, twenty minutes early for a meeting. What are the odds?

Crap. Had she been flirting with a client? In front of another client?

There’s a tap at the door, her boss’ assistant’s head poking in, “They’re ready for you in the conference room.”

Ugh. Maybe she’s cursed.

* * * * * 

The presentation goes fantastically.

Katherine had been correct – the Mikaelsons don’t seem to labor under the misapprehension that a conventionally attractive blonde woman can’t grasp complex concepts. They’d shaken her hand when she’d arrived; Niklaus (or Klaus, as he apparently prefers) had looked a bit puzzled when they’d been introduced, Caroline had chalked that up to the outfit. He’d said it was nice to see her again. Explaining her mad dash to the elevator, and Klaus’ assistance, to the room had broken the ice nicely.

Kat kicks them off, and her design is gorgeous; Elijah and Klaus appear suitably impressed. When it’s Caroline’s turn, her nerves fall away by her second PowerPoint slide. She knows her stuff backward and forward, and she’s incredibly pleased with her innovation.

She also begins to feel less bad about the flirting once she sees that Kat throws Elijah a few looks that are borderline inappropriate for the office (that he seems pretty pleased with).

They ask questions, pour over the mock-ups and technical drawings Caroline and Katherine had prepared. Their ideas are actually good, which is a nice contrast for the last project. She’d done far too much lying and finessing to attempt to steer the previous park into a less terrible direction. The Mikaelsons have far fewer notes than Caroline had anticipated, and she promises to put together an update ASAP. They schedule another meeting.

She thinks Klaus’ handshake lingers when they say goodbye, but maybe she’s just riding high on adrenaline and imagining things.

She kind of hopes she isn’t. It’s probably too messy to date a client, but a girl can fantasize, can’t she?

Caroline helps herself to the cookie tray, pleased by the generous helping of oatmeal raisin she finds. Kat’s disappeared, but she knows their boss will want to debrief. Caroline collapses into one of the conference chairs, pulls out her phone to check her messages.

She replies to a few emails before she notices one that’s just arrived.

 Hello Caroline,

I enjoyed your presentation today. I look forward to the next.

Warmly,

Klaus

 She grins to herself, slumps lower in her chair. Clearly, she hadn’t imagined anything if Klaus is emailing her when he’s barely out of the building. She takes a risk and sends a slightly more casual reply than she’d usually attempt at this point.

If he reacts badly, she can up the formality later on. If he doesn’t, well… she’s only fostering a good working relationship. That’ll be essential if they land this contract.

And she’s like 90% sure it’s in the bag.

 Hi Klaus,

Thank you!

The photos your team sent over of the location were gorgeous; both Kat and I were inspired. I think this is some of our best work to date. I’m excited to dive into the updates and meet again next week.

Best,

Caroline

P.S. Thanks for the cookies.

His reply comes minutes later.

Caroline,

I believe it. Your work is impressive, as I’m sure your new ideas will be. Have you ever been to Spain? The pictures hardly do it justice.

Warmly,

Klaus

P.S. You’re welcome. Which coffee order was yours?

 Well, that’s the opposite of a bad reaction.

Caroline sets her phone aside, tells herself she has to be smart here. She’s reasonably sure she’s not doing anything that’s prohibited. The emails will speak for themselves, and they live on the company server. Neither she nor Klaus are offering anything untoward for the contract. If things go well, she may just have to fill out an HR disclosure form. She’ll double-check the firm’s code of conduct.

Just in case.

[chrysalispen]

Prompt #11 - Ultracrepidarian

AO3 Link HERE a special thanks to pliny the elder for sauce on this most expensive of fifteen dollar word prompts

====

"There we are," she whispered with a short snip of the clippers. "Just a bit of a trim..."

There were not many places within the grounds of the Laskaris villa that Aurelia could properly call a haven, but if she had to pick her favorite place on her uncle's property it was the greenhouse. He had had it built for her aunt to preserve the tea roses she loved, along with the other flowers that grew in much warmer climes than the mountains of far northern Ilsabard, but Aunt Marcella seemed to much prefer looking at flowers to tending them.

Aurelia, who had carefully tended her own small plot back home in Ala Mhigo, was more than happy to spend her term breaks making sure the heating system was functioning as intended and ensuring the soil for each plant had the necessary nutrients to winter them. As a result, the greenhouse had become her domain, which suited her just fine. Plants couldn't criticize her deportment nor her appearance, and she could get as covered in dirt and sweat as she liked with no one to gainsay her.

She was glad of it today, for it was a rare warm day in early spring and she was preparing the roses for transport. That meant trimming them back into a semblance of order and placing them in the soil she'd spread while making sure the root systems remained intact and inured against any shocks.

This was hard and sweaty work, and one which required a good deal of concentration and fortitude.

She exhaled and wiped her hands on the long linen apron she wore over one of her old day frocks, long since stained and soiled, then muddled around on the ground in search of the carbonweave gardener's gloves she'd dug from one of the supply closets. The extra grip would come in handy when she--

"Mistress Laskaris," a reedy voice echoed at her back. Aurelia paid it little mind, bracing her hands on the rim of the pot. "...Young miss, you have-"

"Tell them to wait, Cicero," she let out a tiny grunt with the exertion as she hoisted upward, "I'll be in presently."

"Beg your pardon, young miss, but it won't wait."

Aurelia rounded on her aunt's groundskeeper, an exasperated reply on her lips, and froze. A tall and immaculately dressed Garlean man stepped forward, looking down his aquiline nose at the weakly protesting servant for one brief glance before giving her a deep and courtly bow.

"You must be Aurelia," he said, his voice ebullient with false warmth. "Father has heard much of you from your aunt."

She stared blankly.

"I," he announced, "am Sebastian wir Acisculus."

The proud, haughty expression he wore told her everything she needed to know. Inwardly she groaned-- wir meant he was at least related to Gens Galvus by marriage if nothing else, which meant he would expect her to show him due obeisance for that alone.

My thanks, Aunt Marcella, she thought irritably. A stuffy and self-important lordling to dog her heels, just what she'd wanted while she was trying to work.

Another grunt had the base of the pot braced against her thigh, and she thrust out a filthy hand in his direction.

"Aurelia jen Laskaris," she said. "Pray excuse my appearance. Aunt hadn't told me to expect visitors."

"Your aunt is not to be faulted. She didn't know I would be coming today," Sebastian said, his nose wrinkling as he took her proffered hand- and, before she could stop him, had pressed his lips to the back of it. Somehow she managed not to yank her wrist from his grasp before he dropped it and reached into his coat for a handkerchief to wipe the soil from his fingers. "My servants and I were in the area and I thought to indulge my curiosity."

"One presumes you now find said curiosity fully sated."

"Might I ask what you are about?"

She leveled a steady, faintly disdainful gaze upon the man- more than enough to indicate she thought him at least partially witless.

"His lordship, I am sure, has seen a garden before."

"Ah," he coughed. "Yes, so I have. I did not expect to see a young gentlewoman of my peerage tending it personally."

Shaking her head, Aurelia turned her back on him and in the most undignified waddle in her arsenal began to lug the pot towards the open bed.

"I'll get that for you," and without waiting for her assent he had plucked the pot from her fingers, ignoring the annoyed scowl that crossed her features as he carried it to the edge of the soil and set it on the grass. "I fancy myself something of an expert botanist, you know."

"Do you," she said, flatly. He was removing his soiled gloves with a smirk, one he turned upon her with an uptilt of his chin.

"I do. When I studied at the Imperial Magitek Academy, I thought it might be pleasant to take up a hobby." When Aurelia didn't react to the obvious namedrop, he announced, "I took some courses in horticulture, and if I do say so myself, it left me with a renewed respect and understanding for such matters."

"I suppose one must have hobbies."

"For instance, did you realize that perennials cannot grow properly in alkaloid soil?"

With some effort, Aurelia managed to keep a straight face.

"Lord Sebastian," she said, "I find it quite interesting that you attended the Academy. What did you say was your field of study?"

"Engineering, of course."

"Not bioengineering?"

"Certainly not," he scoffed. "Very little glory to be had in such things, you know."

Aurelia rolled her eyes, turned her back to him, and pulled on the gloves she had tucked in her apron pocket. Once they were secured, she reached for her spade.

"If you attended the Academy and dabbled, as you say, in horticulture," she said, "then you would have encountered the guest lecturer there, Philetus lux Merenda."

"Well, I-"

"Master Merenda was very good friends with Midas nan Garlond, the previous Academy provost," she punctuated this statement with a deep and satisfying thrust of her spade into the edge of the potted soil, "and together they created a summer exchange program between the Academy and the Valetudinarium. He gives lectures as part of the optional curriculum, and likewise Cato nan Mammula offers in-depth capstone bioengineering lectures."

"You have taken them yourself, I assume?"

"Oh," Aurelia said airily, "for the past two summer terms, in fact. I find them quite enlightening. One must always have a thorough grounding in one's area of expertise and review all options. Don't you think?"

"Yes," he said. "Of course."

"There is a saying," she braced one hand against the edge of the pot for purchase, "of which Master Merenda is quite fond. An old Ilsabardian saying he attributes to a historian of the old republic-- in Old Ilsabardian, naturally. Do you know what it is?"

"I am certain -- though perhaps you might remind me."

Aurelia paused long enough to stare him in the eye and brush a wisp of forelock from her third eye with the back of one gloved hand, her golden coiffure as sweaty and dirty and disheveled as the rest of her.

"Ne supra crepidam sutor iudicaret. I assume that shouldn't need a translation, for a learned man such as yourself."

"Madam, are you implying-"

"It does? Why, how curious. My governess was quite emphatic that a good grounding in the classics was vital for a basic imperial education." She shrugged. "Well, I suppose I can enlighten you. 'The cobbler should not judge beyond his shoe.' It means that one should not speak of matters upon which he has no understanding."

Two pinpoints of hectic blush the color of rose petals had appeared upon his prominent cheekbones. Aurelia offered a smile that did not reach her dark blue eyes.

"I find it a most apt sentiment," she said coolly, "and one well-applied to life in the modern world."

His hands clenched at his sides and without a word he rounded on one heel and stormed back towards the peristyle, her aunt's household keeper at his heels frantically offering refreshment.

She watched them go, laughed, and turned back to her work. She still had a baker's dozen of roses left to plant.

[bltngames]

Review: Lloyd the Monkey 2

Back before TSSZ News imploded, I would often do write-ups for many of the games at the Sonic Amateur Games Expo (SAGE). SAGE is an annual online expo that I started all the way back in September of 2000. I personally ran SAGE for over a year, and remained deeply hands on for at least another two years as it continued to grow. The main focus of SAGE was primarily to showcase fangames, in particular Sonic fangames, but the event never limited itself to any one type of game. It's never been uncommon to see original games appear in the lineup -- especially now, given the modern indie scene. 

One such original game was Lloyd the Monkey, a bit of a strange game, written in Javascript of all things and run through a webpage. That by itself was notable enough to stand out from most of the games at SAGE, but Lloyd was also a completely original product created by someone who possibly seemed to be young and new to game development. Making games is no easy feat, especially when they’re written in Javascript and you’re doing tons of original artwork yourself. Taken as that whole, the game impressed me, even if it was more than a little rough around the edges.

Now we have Lloyd the Monkey 2, written in Unity. The developer, Noah Meyer, sent me a Steam key in order to review the game. Up top, I just want to say how I think it’s kind of brave to go all the way in putting the game on Steam and everything. It felt like just a few years ago, newer indie developers sort of had to work up to releasing their game on Steam, usually getting a few releases under their belt first. People view games differently when they’re asked to pay for them, and critics may not be so willing to let circumstances influence their review. It can be a harsh world out there for a beginner.

Lloyd 2 is a much bigger, more ambitious game than the first. Whereas the original Lloyd didn’t even have sound effects, Lloyd 2 introduces voiced cutscenes, some of which are full-on animated cinematics. Quality is about what you would expect -- I would assume the developer sought out friends and acquaintances to voice characters in Lloyd 2, leading to wildly varying audio quality due to differences in recording hardware. Lloyd himself sounds fine, but some of the other characters are a bit quiet, while others have clear background noise. Nothing I heard was unlistenable, however. 

The story is also a little hard to follow. Not much is done to refresh our memories as to who anyone is or what’s going on, we’re just kind of thrown into the middle of things and turned loose. On one hand, it’s nice that the story doesn’t slow the pace of the gameplay down too much. On the other, you’re given a map screen with different objectives to clear but there’s very little context as to what you’re doing or why. At one point I made my way to the end of a Power Plant level only to confront what appeared to be an evil monkey. Despite a whole cutscene involving a conversation between four or five different people, this evil monkey never seemed to say a single word. He just stood there in total silence with a sinister smile. Then I killed him.

I suppose maybe I missed something, however. With greater ambitions comes a number of unfortunate bugs in Lloyd 2, one of which happened not long after our monkey and his crew landed on planet Grecia. I entered what appeared to be a castle to talk to the Queen, but I think the game expected me to take a lower route, where I was apparently meant to overhear the Queen making secret preparations before my arrival. Instead, I took the direct route straight to her chambers, and triggered the cutscene with Lloyd standing in front of her while ominous music played, even though the camera was still clearly focused on the next floor down. I apparently still had some amount of control, because midway through her dialog I touched a teleporter that sent me to the game’s map screen before she was done talking. If that cutscene was meant to give context to what I was doing, I didn’t get a chance to see it.

That was one of the more harmless bugs in my time spent playing Lloyd 2. Harder to ignore was the fact that, within the first 30 seconds of getting control, I soft locked the game. Lloyd 2 opens with a short prologue section where you play as a man with black hair. If you decide to ignore the obvious and go left instead of right, you quickly run out of solid level tiles and begin falling indefinitely. Later areas feature invisible walls presumably to prevent this exact scenario, but for whatever reason they weren’t implemented in the prologue. 

For the most part, Lloyd 2 seems to be a co-op game. Many levels see Lloyd teamed up with an alien princess named Lura, with gameplay vaguely reminiscent of Mega Man X crossed with the tag mechanic from Sonic Mania’s Encore Mode. At the touch of a button, you can switch between the Swordsman Lloyd and the more projectile-based Lura… assuming your partner is still alive, I guess. While playing alone, your partner is controlled by artificial intelligence, but it’s incredibly basic and prone to accidentally committing suicide. That wouldn’t be such a big deal (considering Tails in Sonic 2 never acted in self-preservation either), but once your partner dies, they stay dead. Your only option to bring them back is to either restart the stage or hope another cutscene triggers, since they’ll magically spring back to life in order to say their dialog (though, again, usually only seconds before they fall back into the next death pit). 

This might not be much of a problem, depending on your viewpoint. There’s not much incentive to switch between Lloyd and Lura, so once you pick whoever you think works the best, chances are, you’ll just stick with them. You do unlock special team-up attacks after beating each boss, but this just reinforces the idea that Lloyd the Monkey 2 is meant to be experienced with another person holding a second controller, as most of the team-up attacks require both characters to do something specific that the single player artificial intelligence usually can’t interpret. Regardless, the team-up attacks never seem strictly necessary to progress, so they can be safely ignored if you’re playing solo.

I understand this is a pretty negative review I’ve written here. Lloyd the Monkey 2 aims high and tries to the best of its ability to get there. I assume it was a struggle to get even this far. Making games is hard work, and like any skill, takes practice to get good at. Just because this is Lloyd the Monkey 2 doesn’t mean Noah Meyer, its developer, is automatically an expert. I'm sure he's doing his best, and, quality aside, this game has a lot of heart put into it. This isn’t something cheap, quick, or lazy. It’s really, genuinely trying, and that matters. 

I’ve said a few times here and there that I see pieces of myself in the releases of Lloyd the Monkey, and I still see them here. I remember, for an early SAGE event, I was working on a fangame project of mine called The Fated Hour. I was probably already a year or two or maybe even three deep in the game by now, and after a lot of hyping up the community, this was their first chance to play the game. I spent months and months coding this iteration of my engine, and by my standards back then, it seemed like bleeding edge technology. I felt like I was going to blow everyone's minds. 

It was a mess. Few were impressed. Even worse, the game straight up didn’t even run correctly for some people. What followed was multiple patches, and even rebuilding some entire areas from scratch. My ambitions got the better of me and I unintentionally cut corners -- not because I was trying to cheap out on doing proper development, but just because I simply didn’t know any better. I may have done the best I knew how to do, but I was running faster than my body could keep up with and I stumbled.

When I see things like the missing invisible walls in the prologue, or how easily partner characters commit suicide by accident, I think back to that demo for The Fated Hour, and how I've been in this exact place myself. There’s even a side quest in Lloyd 2 where you have to track a floating girl as she drifts through a level -- there was a nearly identical set piece in The Fated Hour, where you were chasing a robot. It’s a very strange feeling to see something like that and think, “I’ve been here before.” Like looking through a window at a younger version of yourself.

It’s true that I stumbled, but I didn’t let that stop me. I learned by doing. I kept going. Three years later, a game of mine was featured on TV, leading to more than a million downloads. The mistakes of past projects did not weigh me down and I soldiered onwards, newfound knowledge in hand. 

So where does that leave us with Lloyd the Monkey 2, then. Well, it's not exactly a game to compete with Super Mario Odyssey, but given the circumstances in which it was created, I don't think that's necessarily the point. As a learning experience clearly made for the fun of its own creation, I think it's a success. And who knows what awaits in the years to come?

[hopefulfestivaltastemaker]

August 9, 2020

My weekly review of things I am doing and looking at. A long one this time; topics included disease risk in the food system, my research work patterns, ROI for energy R&D, Apocalypse Never, OpenCog, and housing and transportation in Hillsboro.

Disease Risk and the Food System

Last week I started looking at zoonotic diseases for Urban Cruise Ship, and this week I continued a bit more on disease risk. The current page is here.

Sans images, there is now material on foodborne illnesses, antibiotic resistance as it pertains to antibiotics in livestock, ecological risk from GM crops, and crop disease risk from monoculture. The section is far from done, but it is probably going to go on hold for a while. A few observations:

- Disease risk in general is a major issue, very much on our minds due to COVID-19. That’s a big can of worms. It would take an indeterminate amount of work to do the topic justice and require that I move well beyond the food system. So it’s one that I will have to take one bite at a time.

- There is an image under development that portrays foodborne illness risk in the US by type of food, but there is also a need to look at underlying causes, recognizing that food is a transmission vector and not necessarily the underlying cause.

- Antibiotic resistance looks like a scary topic. There is a report that antibiotic-resistant bacteria could kill 10 million people per year by 2050, which sounds scary, but I need more context on that number. Does this assume a business as usual trajectory where we don’t develop new antibiotics or develop alternative treatments for AMR bacteria, such as plasma medicine, and how much do such developments bend the curve?

- Ultimately I would like to be able to assess externalized monetary cost from antibiotics in livestock in terms of AMR bacteria. I don’t have this yet, but it should be possible.

- I half-assed the genetic risks, and I think justifiably so. I don’t see any evidence, aside from vague appeals to the precautionary principle, to support any significant ecological risks from GM crops. Partly to justify the half-assedness of my effort on the topic, I pointed to a Google Trends search indicating that the public is losing interest in the GMO issue.

A few years ago, I thought I was being bold and edgy by pointing to a lack of evidence of any health or environmental risks from GMOs per se. Now that seems like the safe position, and GMO opponents have (deservedly in my view) generally lost credibility in the way the anti-vax movement has.

- One of my associates is interested in systemic risks from crop monoculture, which prompted me to add that section. It appears that disease risk is the major such systemic risk. The issue of crop and animal disease (as opposed to human diseases for which the food system is a vector) is also a major topic deserving of more careful review and analysis. I would suspect that, from the viewpoint of disease, monoculture is not the most important issue, but it appears that way because monoculture was my entry point into the topic.

The Urban Cruise Ship Work Pattern

I figured now would be a decent time to open the hood and make a few comments about how I am going about the work. Recently the funder made some major additions and changes to the scope of work. This is good for me from a job security standpoint, but it means I need to do some major rethinking about how I go about the project, to insure that things get done at a high level of quality and in reasonable time.

We are ultimately trying to present the best data, analysis, and solutions available on the full range of environmental topics.

Such a grandiose vision requires that I innovate not just in how I think about particular issues, but in how I think about the big picture and how I work. We are setting into a comparison and monetization scheme to present data, a view that was driven by the funder but I have been convinced is best.

One thing I have learned is that knowledge across topics is synergistic. That means that is probably going to be more efficient to aim for a broad and shallow understanding of the environmental landscape, after which we go deeper on the things that require a deeper understanding. This is why I am moving on from the agriculture risk section despite having a superficial treatment of the subject; I intend to come back to it later when it can be better informed by material elsewhere on the site, and I also hope that I have done there will help inform the next sections of work.

This is a work style that suits me well. My mind is always jumping from one area to the next, and I like to draw connections and look at the big picture. This is very much a contrast from most of academic work, which requires a very deep analysis of a narrow topic. I ultimately lost interest in my narrow corner of mathematical research and was not able to make a successful jump to another area; hence (in part) I was not suited for the tenure track.

The obvious drawback is what one sees on the site now. It is obviously incomplete and a bit of a mess, and it will probably remain in such a state for the foreseeable future. It means I have to move fast, which increases the risk of making major mistakes. I fear we are operating at too high a level of abstraction and generality to make actionable policy recommendations.

Although not a high priority, I really wish I could integrate the graphic making process into the larger codebase. The current division of labor is such that I see no way to do so. I dislike having these “Image Under Development” messages and lacking the flexibility to easily modify images as the research proceeds or new data become available.

Return on Investment for R&D

I mentioned before some studies that the US Department of Energy has done on effectiveness of its research and development efforts. Having looked at them more closely, I found something a bit surprising.

I tried my best to harmonize the numbers reported to make a fair comparison. It’s not perfect, but the following seem to be the central estimates of the ROI for the program investment areas studied:

Combustion engines: 53

Building technologies: 42

Wind: 5.07

Geothermal: 4.865

Hybrid and electric vehicles: 3.63

Solar PV: 1.83

They all look like good investments, though building technologies (HVAC, water heating, appliances) and combustion engines clearly stand out as the best. I would have expected the opposite. Since the building and combustion areas are more incremental, there should be more incentive for the private sector to do the R&D and therefore a “crowding out” effect that would blunt the effectiveness of the public investment.

Part of this could be an artifact of the study methodology. Since the time horizon for the lower return technologies is longer, they simply haven’t captured the full benefit. The solar PV study was done in 2010, and I would expect a higher return to be found if it was redone today. There could also be an attribution problem, in that with developing more novel technologies, it is harder to attribute gains to a particular R&D investment, therefore depressing the observed ROI.

I want to propose some solutions on R&D efforts for synfuels and industry, so these studies might provide guidance as to what kind of investments can be expected to work best. Maybe this is a sign that I should be thinking more about short term gains.

Apocalypse Never

Apocalypse Never is a new book by Michael Shellenberger castigating the harmful effects of what he sees as environmental alarmism. I haven’t read it, but I have read enough of Shellenberger’s work and discussion around it to make some relevant observations.

Not too surprisingly, the reaction from the environmental community seems to be mostly negative. This article from Snopes captures fairly well what academic climate/environmental researchers think. Despite being from Snopes, the character of the article isn’t a “debunking” so much as a critical analysis. There is much disagreement about semantics (e.g. are we really in the Sixth Mass Extinction?) rather than factual disputes. Though I have a few of those too.

Since I hope one day to have major public exposure for Urban Cruise Ship, the discussion is a helpful case study in how to present material and what kind of reception I should expect.

Since I am critical of several aspects of environmentalism--particularly degrowth and related elements--I expect some negative reaction. To blunt the effect of criticism, I think I need do to a better job of operating on the following principles:

- Focus on principles and avoid ad hominem attacks, including against abstractions such as fields and movements.

- Make every effort to insure facts presented are accurate.

- Find the right level of nuance. Too little nuance can be inaccurate. Too much nuance can water down a message to the point of meaninglessness.

Though most of the discussion I saw was pretty even-handed, there is some gatekeeping that goes on in the climate community. The bogeyman of the “climate denier” looms large and triggers a kind of circle-the-wagons mentality when the field is criticized, whether justly or unjustly. Lacking formal credentials or institutional backing, I am going to be vulnerable to gatekeeping and probably can’t do anything about it.

OpenCog

Having listened to Ben Goertzel on Lex Fridman’s podcast a while back, I got around this week to looking over OpenCog, which is Goertzel’s open source project to create artificial general intelligence.

There is a ton of material here that will take a long time to work through, especially considering that I am doing it only as a side project. Just reviewing the set of AI principles being brought to bear in the project, though, buoyed my spirits and excited me about the field in a way I haven’t felt in a long time. I am already thinking about some work I can do. Contributing to OpenCog is beyond my capabilities at present, but I have some related design ideas that have been sitting on the shelf for a long time and are time to give another look at.

I have no idea if this effort toward AGI will work. But I would guess that it is more likely to work than an approach rooted exclusively in deep learning, such as the GPT approach, which suffers from intractable diseconomies of scale. In particular, I think that a semantic encoding of knowledge is a necessary component of any AGI stack. There are people with far more expertise who disagree.

Housing and Transportation in Hillsboro

I’ve dialed back my political activities a bit lately, but there were some items at the Hillsboro (Oregon) City Council this week worth commenting on.

City staff presented on efforts to implement HB 2001, a piece of state legislation that mandates most cities allow for middle housing (du-, tri-, quad-plexes, cottage housing, small apartments) in residential areas. Without naming names, my read on the council and mayor is that among the seven, two are generally pro-housing, two are generally anti-housing, one is squishy, and two I don’t have a good read on. I have written to them to indicate my desire that we take advantage of the opportunity provided by HB 2001 for an expansive approach to opening up housing opportunities in Hillsboro.

We also had a presentation on the Get Moving package, which is the transportation package that Metro has now referred to the ballot in November. City staff seemed to be negative. The presenter asserted that Hillsboro gets a disproportionately low ROI (about 0.56) for the project and that Metro was unduly influenced by Portland-based anti-vehicle activists to reject road expansion capacity that Hillsboro needs. One council member expressed her concern (which I agree with) that the financial burden falls entirely on large employers, which will be particularly harmful in Hillsboro and I think is bad tax policy in general. On the positive side, the package includes some badly needed safety upgrades to TV Highway, which is the most dangerous highway in the state per-mile for both pedestrians and motorists. There is also money for a study of a downtown Portland MAX tunnel, which I think will be very important for the region. Ultimately, despite the extensive public engagement theatre, it is a pre-COVID package, based on economic and transportation demand assumptions that may no longer be reasonable.

I haven’t yet decided how I will vote on the package, but I am leaning toward a No right now.

[vapormaison]

Best of 2019 Vaporwave Release 3/4: Sensual Loops SPECIAL EDITION by Cyber Club

As vaporwave matures and enters the mainstream, I often find myself having discussions with vapor heads on reddit about the iconography of the genre. I realize that this is a bad idea, but cannot help myself. More often than not, they are pointlessly terse, and tend to be tediously teleological — the type of argumentation featuring enough loops of logic to cause a medieval Byzantine monk’s head to spin.

A recurring topic that baits me every single time is when a poster attempts to criticize the album art of a record, dismissing the entire work on the based on “anime” aesthetics. While this might seem like an argument so off-center and reductive that it’s parody— I’d encourage you to go on r/VaporVinyl and take a look at some of the posts replying to threads about Cyber Club’s Sensual Loops LP series. It’s not pretty, and representative where some of the fanbase is at the moment. Adding to my shock was when one of the self-appointed critics outed themselves as twenty three years old. At that moment, I was forced to confront my own bias. I had mistakenly assumed that the puritan was an out-of-touch Gen Xer or a Baby Boomer. Aesthetic intolerance is not exclusive — and plenty of Zoomers are members of this trash clique as well.

What really boggled my mind, however, was that the user had picked vaporwave out of all the other possible genres to go on their Nipponophobic soapbox against. A quick look at the aesthetic movement as a whole (sonically, artistically, etc.) establishes it as what I would assert as a primarily millennial genre — less of a statement about its creators and consumers, and more about the broader, overarching cultural milieu in which in developed. It was birthed in the decade that heralded the mass-consumption of Japanese media in the Western marketplace. Many of its early practitioners got their start chopping and screwing anime OSTs and hip hop. Future Funk effectively appeared on the sonic map by the sampling of Japanese city pop. What is even worth arguing here?

But that which bothered me even more was the user’s stubborn refusal to even listen to the album. You can not buy a vinyl because you just have a particular aversion to cover art — that’s fine! Better yet, you can not buy a vinyl just because you’re not a fan of the sound. Those are two perfectly fine reasons not to partake in a release. But then to go on reddit and complain about an album aesthetic for something you haven’t even listened to? Come on, fam. Level up your praxis. It is the whitewashing and the boorishness that is most infuriating. I’ve legitimately never heard of anyone who dismissed an entire album’s music purely on the basis of its vinyl cover art before.

And shame on them, because they are sleeping on one of the best works of 2019.

The limited edition of Sensual Loops 1 & 2 is another LP that I had the luxury of listening to while on my East Asia tour. I brought the album (among others) with me to visit a very good pal of mine, Han, who’s retired to Hong Kong. Much to my relief, he’s in a comparatively spacious apartment over in the Tai Wo area — by no means the stereotypical postage stamp — and has set up a little audiophile pad that I’m most envious of. His setup is devoted to all things B&W, and I got a beautiful listen of the album on a pair of impressive and almost imposing 700-series floor standers. Powered by the Cambridge Audio Edge series Amp/Pre combo, this was far above even my paygrade. But after working as a salaryman for two decades, he was finally able to invest in his endgame system. And what an endgame it is!

Getting the chance to listen Sensual Loops on this system cemented my opinion when I had first heard it’s release digitally: I was listening to an instant contender for the best vaporwave release of 2019.

Sensual Loops 1

Introduction immediately fills your speakers with a wide, warm guitar and horn loops that feature just enough static noise to distinguish itself as a vaporwave track. I always like it when a little minute-thirty track gives the amp a little exercise. It also proves to be a perfect sonic setup for the next track, which is ostensibly what every “intro” track should do, right?

Night carries that guitar riff from Introduction but adds a playful variance with a synth loop, and vocals that I believe are sampled from that Philly Soul classic “Children of the Night” done by the Stylistics and the Jones Girls’, among others. All of the moving parts here do wonders, syncing together in a perfect arrangement. Both Han and I commented on just how bright this played on his JBLs, which is a testament to the mix and mastering work here.

Love & Affection definitely feels the most retro-vapor of all the tracks on Sensual Loops 1, beginning with a series of loops, riffs, and synth chimes that feel as if they were picked from a certain collection of sitcoms of an early nineties vintage. The heavily distorted vocals and hypnotic drum kits pop in after about a minute to give the track an almost deep house feel as it progresses. The “all mine” hook then crescendos into a symphony of drum hits that conclude the track with a real sonic flutter in the air when played with high-end speakers.

Pain accelerates the rather slow pace of the album up to this point. I’m a big fan of the synth arrangement that opens the track, and I schmood even more with the powerfully funky vocal set that carries the track throughout. But with its short length, it does feel more like an interlude or setup for what I consider to be the highlight of the LP.

Memories is our certified slapper. It starts off immediately with an incredibly catchy synth chord arrangement supplemented by a fantastically tweaked vocal sample from the fantastically, alliteratively-named Melba Moore, another funky soul queen who needs a revival in the contemporary lexicography.

Sensual definitely swings the record a bit further away from the future funk and back towards the vapor-funk side of things. Back are cyber club’s usual array of jumpy, tinny synth chords and manipulated vocal micro-samples that still provide a really robust sonic experience on the hi-fi system of your choice. When the vocals make their appearance about ninety seconds in, I was expecting them to sound much less rich in the middle than they did, which was definitely a present surprise on the mastering side!

Alone is a beautiful cacophony of micro-samples with a vocal track manipulated to sound like an 80s ideal of a future robot gf. I’m not sure how else to describe this track except as pure atmosphere. The fluttering synths, muted percussion, electric highs that send tweeters bouncing — it’s difficult to precisely describe how a track like this comes over a hi-fi system like the Edge. It just pulls out every detail from an immensely dense track like this and does it every bit the justice it deserves.

Paradise ends up taking a traditional funk and re-engineering it into a sort of quasi-tropical sound similar to some of the early Aloe Island Posse bangers. It’s got a much more lo-fi edge to the track then most future funk takes on a track like this, and creates a really unique and playful experience.

Bliss is almost raw synth pop with a hardened vapor edge to it. Although the original sample is from a very soulful electro R&B outfit — the Loose Ends — we get aggressive drums and synth loops that bring this closer to Paula Abdul than anything that could be traditionally considered rhythm and blues. Just enough manipulation of the vocal sample and some well-timed percussion hits make this more fit for a night out than a baby-making session in, which is both remarkable and a testament to cyber club’s skill.

Sensual Loops 2

Intro captures a little more of than urban-turned-Island soundscape that we caught a glimpse of in Paradise. I’m eternally impressed by this, as it seems like Cyber Club never gets too caught up in the production to bring this too far from its vapor essence while still making this a great lede in its own right.

Sensual was a track I was initially expecting to be a remix or redux of the first Sensual from Sensual Loops 1, but I’m glad to see this piece of bass-heavy vapor exists as its own full-bodied track in its own right. It grabs you immediately with its “I’ll never give up on you” vocal loop spliced in among its synth array, and carries you through with an intriguing arrangement of instrumental loops and micro-samples throughout. The low end can really shine here with the right system.

Hold Her Now is a piece of nostalgic, vintage vaporwave straight out of the Saint Pepsi era. Ostensibly a creative cut-up some New Jack Swing that absolutely slaps with the right electric guitar riff and synthetic percussion hit, it harkens back to when vaporwave was in its “peak aesthetics” phase of production and plunder-phonic glory. Perhaps this reminder of what vaporwave used to be unfairly biases me, but it’s definitely a listen for the nostalgia driven old-heads.

Affair is the type of track that sounds completely different on certain types of stereos. While Han’s stereo brought out the crisp, wide vocal mix — perhaps a testament to Cambridge’s design history, my Harman Kardon/KEF pairing brought the synth flares here to the fore. The testament to this track is that I really enjoyed both profiles, and Affair sounded robust and detailed throughout.

Kiss is one of the tracks that I felt coolest on upon an initial listen, which is perhaps a statement to just how much I enjoyed this album. When presented with the innovative arrangements of tracks like Hold Her Now or Memories, I was left feeling that Kiss doesn’t do enough in its minute thirty second runtime. That being said, it’s fun. And that’s what music can and should be at the end of the day, isn’t it?

Touch heaps on that vapor memory with some creative vocal layering, tinny and distorted high-end flutters, and an electric horn that came out swinging in the Cambridge system, much to my surprise. It’s clear at this point that Cyber Club has created a very particular listening experience here, and I’m oh so fond of it.

Special makes a funky classic fresh and electric again, which is what I’m really starting to vibe with in terms of the Cyber Club oeuvre. It serves as a sort of confirmation, a celebration and an altogether fantastic close to the LP.

Vinyl Physicality & Listening Experience

I like black vinyl. This milquetoast statement has earned for me the ire of some enthusiasts on r/VaporVinyl when I post on my alt-account there. Because vaporwave attracts curators with “experience” in the music industry, I’ve been told by “serious LP collectors [who know] label managers” — the type of folks who spin on $100 Crosley turntables bought at a Kohl’s Black Friday sale — that new black vinyls just doesn’t sell anymore. Not for vaporwave, at least. A release should have a colored vinyl or not release at all!

This was a take from the same twenty-three year old who wouldn’t purchase Sensual Loops because of the hentai on the cover — so take that for what you will.

I’ve always liked the supplier that Sic Records uses — whoever they are. The vinyls always have a bit of mass and heft to them, leading me to guess that they’re probably in the 180g range. But that’s just my finger test. My Jungle2000 vinyl feels just as weighty. I’ve always believed there’s a definite spectrum with black vinyls — from the frail Qrate cheap options to the high end audiophile oriented waxes like the beautifully crafted Victor Japan and Columbia waxes from the late 80s and early 90s that you see most city pop and anime OSTs pressed on.

The masters on these records are definitely intriguing for the format. My biggest critique of vaporwave vinyl at this point is that some labels don’t take the requisite care to put out a good vinyl master, and often just end up going all-in with poorly optimized digital release ones. The folks at Sic definitely know what they’re doing — because this ended up playing great on a number of systems and speakers, from my KEFs and H/K setup, to a friends Technics mid-fi rig, to Han’s Cambridge endgame. Each time, we got a wide-but-not-too-wide play without the sound edging towards the bright end of the spectrum too intensely. I think this is important because it respects a lot of the samples used. The mixing work done on a lot of the Philly soul here definitely had a certain muted approach that really brought out the most from the vocals and left instrumental arrangements to a moderately more ambient role. I get that impression of continuity here and love it for that.

In short, you should snap up this release while you can. It’s a great release, and fuck the vaporwave nannies who’d shut down Cyber Club’s best two albums without even a listen. May that /u/ go down with u/hoesmad_ on r/Vaporwave’s wall of shame.

[welcometothepenumbra]

JUNO STEEL AND THE TIME GONE BY (PART ONE)

SOUND: WIND BLOWING. FOOTSTEPS.

THEIA: Caution: radiation detected at. Fatal levels. Turn back. Turn back.

User safety tip: this is. A very bad idea. Suggestion: activate Theia Global Map. To search for shelter.

Caution: I cannot act without user permissions. User permissions are needed. Awaiting user permissions.

JUNO: (GRUNTS)

SOUND: PUNCH.

THEIA: You appear. To be punching your own face. Would you like. Some help with that?

JUNO: Just… shut up… (SIGHS)

SOUND: RUSTLING, THUMP.

THEIA: For your safety. I do not recommend. You lie down. In this location.

THEIA: Reporting potential threats active as of last user scan. Threat one: a massive sandstorm. Threat two: fatal radiation. Threat three: this area of the desert is recognized by the Martian Wildlife Foundation as a protected breeding ground for. Peepers.

JUNO: I said shut up!

SOUND: CHIRPS.

THEIA: Playing previously-downloaded information on peepers.

JUNO: (GROWLS)

THEIA: Native only to the northern deserts of Mars, peepers went uncaptured and unresearched for several centuries after their discovery.

SOUND: MORE CHRIPS.

Above ground, peepers resemble colonies of small, tunneling creatures. Which pop into and out of the ground and make a noise not unlike Earth’s groundhogs or meerkats.

SOUND: MORE CHRIPS.

Researchers assumed these creatures to be individual organisms until three hundred years ago. When the first peeper was successfully brought into captivity. And those small rodent-like structures were discovered to be the sensory organs of a much larger subterranean predator.

SOUND: CRUMBLING, DEEP ROAR.

JUNO: Enh, took you long enough.

SOUND: ROAR, BLASTER SHOT, SQUEAL. QUICK FOOTSTEPS DEPARTING. WIND BLOWING, FOOTSTEPS APPROACHING.

VOICE 1: Hey. Hey, you.

JUNO: Go away, I’m busy.

VOICE 1: Hmph.

SOUND: FABRIC RUSTLING.

JUNO: Hey– hey, what the hell are you doing? Put me down, you– what the hell? I-I know you.

VOICE 1: A correction: I know you. I have been told it is important to speak accurately when beginning a business transaction.

JUNO (NARRATOR): Brown jacket; tough skin, broad shoulders; dark, hard eyes that looked like they’d draw blood if you got too close. This guy had been stalking me since what felt like a lifetime ago, back in Hyperion – and if I’d been scared of him then, seeing him up close only made it clearer how easily those big, scarred hands could snap my neck.

My name’s Juno Steel. And I’m… (SIGHS) just a guy who wanders into near-certain death in the desert and then gives the glad eye to his probable killer.

Y’know, saying that out loud, a lot of criticisms I’ve taken over the years suddenly make a lot more sense.

VOICE 1 [BROWN JACKET]: My hovercycle’s radiation shield is only active when the engine is running. Which means I’m going to go now, and you’re going to come with me.

JUNO: You were watching me… before the museum, and b– and before the subway, you were watch—

No. No, look, I’m done. If you want to spy on me that’s fine, but I don’t care. I’m doin’ this on my own.

JACKET: Dying?

JUNO: That’s… not necessarily the plan, but if that’s the last move I can make solo, then sure, that.

JACKET: (AFTER A PAUSE) He’ll find you, you know.

JUNO: What?

JACKET: The one who gave you that eye. Have you activated it recently?

JUNO: Not for a few hours, but—

JACKET: Then he has your location. He will find you – and whatever’s left of your mind, once the radiation’s done with it.

Unless you come with me.

JUNO: Yeah? Why should I?

JACKET: I know how to remove that cyber-eye from your head. I know how to set you free.

You can get in the sidecar when you’re ready.

SOUND: FOOTSTEPS DEPARTING.

JUNO: (GROWLS)

JACKET: Good. Be sure to strap in.

JUNO: Not until you tell me where we’re going.

SOUND: RUSTLING.

Of course! Another man of mystery. Listen, I’ve really had enough of these, so if you can’t even tell me where we’re going I’ll– oof!

SOUND: THUD.

JACKET: I’ll tell you. I was just looking for a helmet in your size.

JUNO: What the… how many helmets do you keep in this bag?

JACKET: Bike safety is important.

SOUND: ZIP.

We’re going to see someone about a job.

JUNO: Very specific, thanks. (HUFFS) Where?

JACKET: Where all of the most important jobs on Mars happen. The Cerberus Province.

SOUND: WHOOSH. ENGINE STARTS.

MUSIC: STARTS.

JUNO (NARRATOR): To be honest, I still wasn’t convinced my mind hadn’t gotten roasted. They say after one hour uncovered from the radioactive sun you start hallucinating, and after five it’s time to say bye-bye to a good chunk of your brain. I’d been out there… well, somewhere between those two options. My watch said it had only been ninety minutes, but on the other hand I wasn’t wearing a watch.

JACKET: So. Do you have a good reason for walking out in the desert? Besides your death wish.

JUNO: Besides my what?

JACKET: It’s well-documented.

JUNO: Documented where?

How long have you been watching me? Is that how you found me out here?

Hello?

JACKET: Hello.

JUNO: (SLOWLY) How long have you been—

JACKET: We are almost at the Cerberus Province. Buddy will answer your questions when you speak with her. If this job is not to your liking, well… back into the desert with you, and you die a free man.

JUNO (NARRATOR): So it was out of the frying pan, into the biggest hideout of thieves and murderers and outlaws in the solar system, I guess.

(SIGHS) We saw the volcanoes first. A ring of ‘em, dusty and dormant. And then, at the center of that ring…

JACKET: The lighthouse.

JUNO: What?

JACKET: The lighthouse activates at night, to guide ships to the spaceport beneath it. I hear before it was installed more ships landed inside volcanoes than was acceptable.

JUNO: So, like… one ship?

THEIA: Would you like to research the number of ships—

JUNO: (MUTTERING) Shut up.

JACKET: I will not. Are you done throwing up, now? It cannot be helping your radiation sickness to stay out here.

JUNO: I think—

JACKET: And if you vomit on my hovercycle I cannot be held responsible for what happens to you next.

JUNO: (SPITS) I think I’m good.

JACKET: Get on, then.

MUSIC: ENDS.

SOUND: WHOOSH. ENGINE RUMBLES.

JUNO (NARRATOR): The lighthouse was huge; an intricate crossing of plates and pipes that looked like somebody had spun a spiderweb from gold, then grabbed its center and pulled it up to scratch the clouds. It was even beautiful, for a minute. Then I wondered if you could see the Piranha’s body from up there, and it just made me feel sick.

The lighthouse wasn’t what I expected from the myths about some ramshackle pirate hideout hidden underneath the desert. According to the stories, the Cerberus Province was more meeting place than city – a non-stop crime convention to trade business cards and thermonuclear weaponry. It didn’t have a Dome, after all. Living there long-term would’ve been suicide.

But the lighthouse didn’t line up with the stories. Neither did the Cerberus Province itself, once we slipped underground to see it.

JUNO: What the hell are all those?

JACKET: Do you mean the buildings, or the tents?

JUNO: I-I don’t know, both?

JACKET: Well. Some are buildings, and some are tents.

JUNO: I-I know that! I mea—

Look, that lady’s drying sheets on a balcony. That’s a grocery stand in a brick house. That guy’s taking his clothes out of a laundromat!

JACKET: It is very dusty on Mars.

JUNO: Wh-why do they live down here? Nobody lives down here. Nobody.

JACKET: Not by choice. When we land it is imperative that you stay close to me and not look too long at anyone else’s property.

SOUND: ENGINE STOPS. CROWD NOISE, MUSIC FADES IN.

JUNO (NARRATOR): When he was done parking we walked out into the street. The buildings and tents I’d seen from above were thick here, people packed elbow to elbow, vendors shouting into the streets.

CROWD VOICES (IN BACKGROUND): Peepers! Getcha pickled peepers over here! Plutonian candy! Delicious Plutonian candy, Plutonium extra!

JUNO (NARRATOR): You get so lost in a place like that you forget you’re part of it, until it reaches out and grabs you.

VOICE 2: Please.

JUNO: Ah!

VOICE 2: Please, you will help me. You will help me. The teecket they give me, the teecket, it is false!

JUNO: Uh-uh, ticket? I-I-I don’t—

VOICE 2: I have moneys. On Susano-o I am doctor, do you know this place? Bank account, years, interest thirty, I have… I have… Please, please, Tammono, you will help me, you will help me!

JUNO (NARRATOR): The woman was wearing a mask, but I’d knocked it crooked in my surprise, and… underneath…

Her skin, it… (SIGHS) God, it looked so painful. Big plates of cracking charcoal crust on a plane of soft, raw, red and gray. She looked burned, or… melting, or both. Long-term radiation damage. The kind of stuff they showed us in old academy videos and promised we’d never actually see. Th-that you’d have to be crazy to stay outside a Dome long enough to get it.

All of a sudden I noticed there were people all over the street wearing masks like that, people by the dozens that must’ve been covered in those burns, and if that many people needed those masks, maybe crazy wasn’t the problem.

Then Brown Jacket grabbed me by the shoulder and kept me moving.

JACKET: Juno. We have to leave now.

VOICE 2: Moneys I have, sir! Please, your vehicle, your vehicle!

JUNO: …What?

JACKET: I told you not to look too long at anyone else’s property.

JUNO: P-property?

JACKET: That bulge beneath that woman’s sleeve? A blood filtration bracelet – what some call a debtor’s tag. She is serving an indentured servitude to pay for her healthcare. If you attempt to do as she says, her treatment will end, and she will die.

JUNO: But… you’re just gonna let that—

JACKET: I have no choice. That woman is finished. She took an illegal ride to the Solar planets, became ill, and sold herself to live a few years longer. It is a common mistake.

JUNO: But her skin… how long has she been paying?

JACKET: I have seen similar surface-level symptoms manifest within two years.

JUNO: Surface-level. Yeah, sure, that sounds great.

JACKET: Not five hours ago getting too involved in a city’s politics nearly killed you. Do you really want to make the same mistake so soon?

JUNO: I…

No. No, I guess not.

JACKET: Good.

Now please. Get in this dumpster.

JUNO: What?

JACKET: I’m afraid I must insist.

JUNO: H-hey, put me down—

SOUND: THUD. PLASTIC RUSTLING, BOTTLES CLINKING.

Ah! What the hell was that for?!

JACKET: Have you used any of your eye’s special functions since we entered the Cerberus Province?

JUNO: What? I ha– I haven’t—

JACKET: In the interest of fairness, I should tell you that if you have, I will be forced to crush your head with this dumpster lid.

JUNO: How is that any fairer— whoa, whoa, whoa, there! No, I-I haven’t used it. You said that’s how Ramses is gonna track me, right?

JACKET: That is good. And yet we are being followed.

JUNO: What?

JACKET: Quiet. Listen. There is a figure behind me, slight, wearing a black hood. Do you see their face?

JUNO: No, it’s… covered by a scarf. They could’ve just come in from outside. They’ve got sand all over—

JACKET: Their clothes have sand – but not their boots. It’s a disguise. We may have to relocate our meeting.

I am going to step into this shop and buy a large decaffeinated Jovian tea with two sugars. You will stay here and watch to see what they do.

JUNO: Wait, is th– is the tea some kind of code? What does it mean?

JACKET: It means I am thirsty. It is large because I am very thirsty, and decaffeinated because I have a predisposition to addictive—

JUNO: Okay, yeah, I get it. Just go get your stupid tea, I’ll watch the road.

JACKET: Thank you.

SOUND: FOOTSTEPS.

JUNO (NARRATOR): I had to hand it to Brown Jacket: he was right. As soon as we stopped moving our hooded tagalong stopped, too.

SOUND: BELL JINGLES.

She sat at a roadside stand and looked over the menu, flipping pages too quickly to read ‘em. I knew a tail when I saw one.

Jacket came back out a minute later sucking down something that smelled like gasoline with two sugars.

SOUND: BELL JINGLES. FOOTSTEPS.

JACKET: The deed is done.

JUNO: What deed?

SOUND: SMALL EXPLOSION.

CROWD VOICES: (YELLS) Sintoloo ga voo?! The hell?

VOICE 3: Baweebis! Baweebis!

VOICE 4: What the hell are they trying to say?

VOICE 5: They’re saying hood, hood! I think they saw whoever planted the bomb!

VOICE 3: Gawoosh! Baweebis, baweebis!

VOICE 4: Is that them? Is that the low-life that blew up my store?

VOICE 3: Baweeeeeeeeeeebis!

VOICE 4: Outer Rim bum! Learn to talk right!

Hey, she’s getting away! Get her!

JUNO: …Wow.

Did you pay them to say that?

JACKET: No. I paid the other customer to translate anything they said as ‘hood.’

JUNO: But if this place has so many people from the Outer Rim—

JACKET: There are too many languages spoken on the Outer Rim to keep up with. We have large communities from Balder. Yama.

JUNO: Susano-o.

JACKET: Indeed. And besides: they lost. Now take these.

SOUND: KEYS JINGLING.

JUNO: Keys?

JACKET: When the commotion settles, you will remove yourself from the garbage, go down this alley, and take your second left. You will look for the analog lock that matches this key, and you will wait for me there – at the lighthouse.

JUNO: The lighthouse? Really? You have the key to that big tower—

SOUND: FOOTSTEPS DEPARTING.

Hey! Hey, where the hell are you goin’?

JACKET: (FADING) To ensure the area is secure. Now be silent. Dumpsters cannot speak in the Cerberus Province.

JUNO (NARRATOR): I did what the big guy told me to do. Waited a few minutes for the dust to settle, and when I was pretty sure nobody was watching me I went down the alley.

The lighthouse was on the edge of town, and the closer I got the more radiation-ravaged the place looked. But there were no warning signs, no public health notices, just an advertisement:

VOICE 6 (FROM SPEAKER): Feeling itchy? Hearing things? Gamma rays got you down? Visit the Cerberus Board of Fresh Starts for your Blood Filtration Bracelet today! No down payment required!

JUNO (NARRATOR): The, uh… lighthouse came soon after.

SOUND: KEYS JINGLE. DOOR CREAKS.

The inside was a bar: dark wood, plush cushions. Even the dust looked nice, which was good, because there was a hell of a lot of it. I helped myself to an unmarked, extremely potent-looking bottle behind the bar and took a seat to examine it more closely with my eyes, mouth, and liver.

JUNO: Here’s lookin’ at you, lighthouse. Seems like both of us are back from the grave.

SOUND: ICE CUBES CLINK.

VOICE 7: If you keep stealing my wares, darling—

JUNO: (CHOKES)

VOICE 7: —I’ll return you to that grave myself.

SOUND: CLUNK.

That’s ten thousand creds of fine liquor you’ve just spilled. A life like yours, I’d think you’d be a little more careful about putting yourself into debt with a stranger.

SOUND: MECHANICAL WHIR.

MUSIC: STARTS.

JUNO: (CHOKING) Who the hell are you?

VOICE 7: The person you’re here to meet. Now go get yourself a drink. I’ll be taking this one.

JUNO: Hey, that was mine—

VOICE 7: And now it isn’t.

SOUND: ICE CUBES CLINKING.

It’s nothing personal, darling; I just have a natural tendency towards envy and I’ve always believed in doing what feels natural. Like now, for example: it feels natural for me to say I’ll pay you the ten thousand creds you owe me if you shut up and get yourself a drink.

JUNO (NARRATOR): The woman who’d just taken my drink was a bombshell. By which I mean she looked extremely dangerous and made a hell of an entrance. She had big plumes of flame-red hair trailing over her neck and half her face, and a dress so avant-garde I would’ve believed her if she said she got it next year. The first thing she did when she sat down was put a blaster on the table in front of her and, in the process, reveal she had another one, two knives, and what looked like a grenade strapped to her leg.

She looked ready for a war. Hell, she looked ready to fight on both sides.

SOUND: BOTTLE UNCORKS.

JUNO: So you’re the big guy’s buddy?

SOUND: CLUNK. LIQUID POURING.

VOICE 7: That’s what he called me? His buddy?

JUNO: I’m sure he’ll be disappointed to hear you disagree.

SOUND: CLUNK.

VOICE 7: I don’t. It’s just funny of him. Fine, you can call me the same. Buddy.

JUNO: Seems a little early for that.

VOICE 7 [BUDDY]: I’m friendly.

JUNO: And him?

BUDDY: He’s not interested.

JUNO: No, I mean, what’s his—

BUDDY: Besides, we aren’t here to talk about him; we’re here to talk about you. Juno Steel: ex-cop, ex-patsy for Ramses O’Flaherty, currently extremely unemployed and not taking it very well. You’ve got an eye problem, and I don’t mean like glaucoma. You’ve just spent a few months being someone else’s stooge – or thirty-eight years, depending on how you count it – and you’re just about ready to stooge stag. That’s where we come in.

What’s the matter? Did I get any of that wrong?

JUNO: No. That’s what’s the matter.

BUDDY: Oh, I’m sorry. Why don’t you pour us both a drink and I’ll try not to upset you so much, darling? What’s the danger in just… sitting and listening?

JUNO: No, you know what? I’m tired of listening. It’s someone else’s turn to listen. Got it? The second it looks like you’re trying to get me to do something I don’t like, I’m walking out into the desert with a beach towel and no sunscreen. The second. ‘Cause I am not trading one smooth psychopath for another, you got me, I am not—

BUDDY: I hear you. I’m stubborn, not deaf. Sit.

SOUND: CREAK.

JUNO: Hmph.

BUDDY: There. Doesn’t this feel so much more civilized?

JUNO: Gotta say, Buddy, I kinda walked into the desert to get away from civilized.

BUDDY: I know. And that was a very big move. Made me act faster than I planned to, but… you got lucky, and a position opened up a little earlier than expected.

JUNO: Position? That’s why you’ve been watching me.

BUDDY: Gainful employment. A lot to gain, too.

JUNO: I’m not walkin’ into any more bad contracts or big debts.

BUDDY: And you don’t have to. Like I said, I always keep my business partners happy, Juno. And unlike your two-bit former employer over at the Vixen Valley, I know that doesn’t come by force. Father always said, there are only two ways to keep the chickens in the coop: either build a big wall, or make them never want to leave.

JUNO: Didn’t think there were many farmers on Mars.

BUDDY: He was a prison warden, actually. Incredibly popular with his inmates. A bit less popular with Dark Matters.

JUNO: Rest in peace.

BUDDY: Yes, I would assume the rest of him is in one piece, but we never found it. Regardless, Juno, my point: scouting the talent I want is something I take very seriously, and you are only one name on a very, very long list. If you do not want this job, don’t waste my time. The only reason you’re here now is because I need three people, my third missed his flight to Mars, and you happened to be available.

JUNO: Wow, you sure do know how to make a lady feel special.

BUDDY: I know how to make a special lady feel special. Maybe if you’re very good that’ll be you.

Now, a toast. To a new, and brighter, future—no, no. (CHUCKLES) I’m guessing we’ve both had entirely too much of that. To… letting go. Moving on.

JUNO: Sure. To moving on.

SOUND: GLASS CLINKS.

BUDDY: Hm.

Now.

SOUND: MECHANICAL WHIR.

The job.

MUSIC: CHANGES.

As I think you’ve already gathered, our work isn’t exactly on the spotless side of the law. My friend and I work in the craft of what we call “relocation services.”

JUNO: Which I’m guessing means you relocate other people’s things to your pockets.

BUDDY: My, you are quick. They aren’t always things, but… spot-on.

JUNO: So is that what you need me for, some kind of heist? ‘Cause I—

BUDDY: No, no, the heist has been finished for weeks. It’s the sale, darling. We need you to help us with the sale.

JUNO: You… want me to work the cash register on your black market deal?

JACKET: The sale is the most dangerous part of any job in the Cerberus Province.

JUNO: Ah! Where the hell did you come from?!

JACKET: The door.

BUDDY: Do try and focus, Juno. Yes, the sale. This town is crawling with undercover law enforcement and people who expect you to do your work for free but don’t feel like telling you ahead of time, and neither sits particularly well with me. So, we’re going to make certain we get paid, or else we're not handing over anything.

JUNO: Yeah, okay. And speaking of which, what are we selling?

BUDDY: The sale’s in three hours, in this bar. We’ve agreed to meet somewhere public, which means within the next three hours we’ll have to make this place public. We’re opening it for business.

JUNO: We’re– wait. You own the lighthouse?

BUDDY: Just the first floor. I couldn’t sell it if I wanted to, honestly; too much radiation leaks in through the roof for anyone to want it. At any rate, once we open, my big friend is going to work the bar; you’re going to play sad drunk at one of those tables by the door.

JACKET: You will be drinking carbonated tea. Focus will be crucial.

JUNO: Sounds like a fun party.

BUDDY: While the buyer and I make the exchange, you will watch the crowd and contact me on covert comms if you notice anyone acting strangely. We take no chances here, do you understand? This is too important.

JUNO: Okay, but what are we sell—

BUDDY: Hopefully it all goes off without a hitch and you get paid for sitting around and enjoying some tea. Then we’ll show you how to remove that eye, and you can decide whether this kind of work interests you.

JUNO: I feel like I could answer that question a lot faster for you if I knew what we were selling.

BUDDY: There’s no need to get snippy, Juno. You only needed to ask. Show him.

SOUND: CLUNK.

We will be selling this briefcase.

JUNO: And… what’s inside the briefcase?

BUDDY: Oh, that’s none of your concern.

JUNO: Well, if I wasn’t concerned before, I sure as hell am now! Listen, I told you, if you make me do anything—

SOUND: THUD. GLASS CLINKS.

JACKET: You listen.

SOUND: MECHANICAL WHIR.

MUSIC: STOPS.

BUDDY: Thank you. I understand the word of an outlaw probably doesn’t mean much to you, Juno – but it will mean even less if you don’t let me finish a sentence.

JUNO: Hmph.

BUDDY: You can’t have it both ways. You can’t both know everything and live a life just for yourself. You understand that, don’t you?

SOUND: MECHANICAL WHIR.

MUSIC: STARTS.

If you aren’t sure you want to stay here? Then don’t stay. Don’t get involved. That’s how Hyperion hurt you, isn’t it? I don’t think that’s your fault, of course. That’s just what cities do. Once you get attached to somewhere or someone… you can’t break apart without leaving some of yourself behind.

JUNO: The hell is that sappy music coming from, anyways? It’s driving me nuts.

BUDDY: What mu– oh, that. Darling, would you?

JACKET: (GRUNTS)

SOUND: THUNK. MECHANICAL WHIR.

MUSIC: STOPS.

BUDDY: Thank you. Semi-Autonomous Music Machines. They’re all over the province and they all act like this. You’ll tune them out eventually.

JUNO: A-alright, so. You want me to watch the door while you make your trade-off. Keep an eye out for anything suspicious—

JACKET: Don’t use your eye.

JUNO: Yeah, thanks, I got that. Anything else?

BUDDY: Just one thing. Give him his weapon.

SOUND: CLANK.

JUNO: There’s… no stun on this.

JACKET: Laserproof vests are too common in these jobs. That will punch through them.

JUNO: So you just want me to kill someone? Just ‘cause you say so?

BUDDY: I assure you that if anything goes wrong, he’ll deserve it.

JUNO: But—

BUDDY: Then don’t. Use your last few hours of freedom and walk to an early death in the desert, based on the fear that something might go wrong, you might have to shoot, and the shot you fire might kill them. But those seem like silly odds to throw your life away on.

My business and my past are my concerns, Juno. Just do the job, and don’t get involved. Then, you go and do whatever it is you want to.

JUNO (NARRATOR): Don’t get involved.

I kept repeating that to myself for the next three hours, as we cleaned the place up and opened the doors and let the crowd filter in. The gun was heavy in my pocket. I wished I’d taken my blaster off the Piranha, but it was too late. She was gone. The whole life I’d known her in was gone.

And meanwhile, in this life, the sale was just a few minutes away. I sat at my table by the door and watched the crowd mob the bar, the big guy toss drinks, and Buddy schmooze like she knew everyone here personally.

SOUND: CROWD CHATTER IN BACKGROUND.

BUDDY (FROM COMMS): I’ve just received confirmation that he’ll be here shortly. Anything strange on either of your ends?

JUNO: Uh, yea– yeah, now that you mention it, I’ve been meaning to have a dermatologist take a—

JACKET (FROM COMMS): Do not complete this joke, Juno, or you will regret it.

JUNO: Oookay.

JACKET (FROM COMMS): There is nothing over here.

BUDDY (FROM COMMS): Juno?

JUNO (NARRATOR): I listened in to the crowd around me, all the faces and costumes of crime, and I didn’t hear anything weird about them – but plenty about Buddy.

CROWD VOICES: (OVERLAPPING) Buddy’s back! Buddy, sha, Buddy! The Lighthouse, open again! Has anyone seen Buddy? She was always the talk of the town, I hear… Buddy Aurinko, after all this time!

BUDDY (FROM COMMS): Juno?

JUNO: (QUIETLY) Buddy Aurinko…? (NORMAL VOLUME) Hang on, is your name actually Buddy?

BUDDY (FROM COMMS): That’s what I told you to call me, isn’t it?

JUNO: So, what, is his name actually The Big Guy?

JACKET (FROM COMMS): That would be absurd.

JUNO: Then what is it?

JACKET (FROM COMMS): We are not there yet.

JUNO: We’re not at names?

BUDDY (FROM COMMS): Quiet, you two! He’s just come in the door! Do you see him, Juno?

JUNO: Uh, little guy, gray monosuit, kinda looks like he’s allergic to light?

BUDDY (FROM COMMS): That’s the one.

JUNO: Doesn’t look like a crime boss. Too nervous.

JACKET (FROM COMMS): Not a good sign.

BUDDY (FROM COMMS): Experience suggests that that might just be his face, actually.

VOICE 8 (FROM COMMS): Eh… what was that?

BUDDY (FROM COMMS): Ah, there you are, Mister Rasbach. It’s been too long.

VOICE 8 [RASBACH] (FROM COMMS): We… spoke yesterday, I think?

BUDDY (FROM COMMS): Yes, but you are late, and that does mean it’s been too long, doesn’t it?

RASBACH (FROM COMMS): (NERVOUS LAUGH) Ah, I- uh, I see. You must excuse me, Miss Buddy, both my tardiness and my uncomprehending. Solar is not my… language initial.

BUDDY (FROM COMMS): I’m only razzing you, Razzy. You manage much better here than I would on Balder, I’m sure. Please, sit. Would you like a drink? Two drinks? You’ll have to forgive me for trying to upsell you, but, a small business owner has to keep her claws sharp.

RASBACH (FROM COMMS): It… does not appear you starve of the business. Yesterday this bar was not even in operation, and today—

BUDDY (FROM COMMS): I’ve been away a long time, and I’m impatient. Surely you know how that is. I imagine you must miss Balder terribly.

RASBACH (FROM COMMS): Is so… is so. (NERVOUS LAUGH) And yet, there are the creds to be made in these planets Solar, yes? A business top profitable. Do you know how it is to support a family, Miss Buddy?

BUDDY (FROM COMMS): I pick my own family, Raz, and the first thing I make sure of is that they can support themselves.

RASBACH (FROM COMMS): Perhaps is so, here, but on the Outer Rim, after the War? This is not always possible. My planetmen, they desperate, eh? They take the first ship from Balder they can find, they swallow the poisoning radiation, they need the healthcare to live. And so we give them this support… for the price. We support them, them support we – is cycle top beautiful, I think.

BUDDY (FROM COMMS): Do you mind if we get on with this? I have customers to attend to.

RASBACH (FROM COMMS): Of course.

(CLEARS THROAT) Shall we… ah, show the wares?

JACKET (FROM COMMS): Watch the crowd, Juno. This is the moment.

SOUND: CLICK, HISS.

JUNO (NARRATOR): I wanted to see what the hell was in that briefcase, but… I tried to remember what Buddy told me. It was none of my business. Don’t get involved.

So instead I scanned the crowd. And that’s when I saw her come in through the back door.

JUNO: Big guy, our friend with the hood from earlier just showed up. Didn’t you say you lost her?

JACKET (FROM COMMS): What is she doing?

JUNO: Nothin’ yet.

RASBACH (FROM COMMS): This is really… the Curemother. You have it!

BUDDY (FROM COMMS): Now. You pay me, you take this, and your group makes just oodles and oodles of money for you to send back to all the little orphans and victims and puppy-dogs on Balder, or whatever your story is today. Do you even have children, Razzy, or is it all just a story?

RASBACH (FROM COMMS): Does it affect our business, whether or not ‘tis so?

BUDDY (FROM COMMS): I suppose not.

RASBACH (FROM COMMS): Hm. Now, the transaction. We will be using my comms, as agreed.

SOUND: BEEPS.

Security transactional set to the audio, then the fingerprint.

BUDDY (FROM COMMS): Are we ready?

RASBACH (FROM COMMS): You read the bill of sale first, yes? Ensure is no confusion.

BUDDY (FROM COMMS): Alright…

JUNO: You see her, Buddy?

BUDDY (FROM COMMS): (UNDER HER BREATH) Ah, yes. Over by the music machine, not moving.

RASBACH (FROM COMMS): Ah, u-uh– what?

BUDDY (FROM COMMS): Oh, forgive me, Razzy. A Solar colloquialism: if something is ‘by the machine and not moving,’ that means it’s straightforward. The money is to be transferred directly from your account to mine, and the key to the Curemother’s briefcase from my account to yours.

RASBACH (FROM COMMS): Ah. I-I have not heard this expression before.

BUDDY (FROM COMMS): And you never will again. I, Buddy Aurinko, consent to this transaction. And the fingerprint…

SOUND: BEEP.

Your turn.

RASBACH (FROM COMMS): A-ah, thank you.

JUNO: She’s moving. Buddy, you’ve got someone coming right at you!

RASBACH (FROM COMMS): I, Rasbach the Eldest, Agent Acquisitional of the Cerberus Board of Fresh Starts—

BUDDY (FROM COMMS): What’s your game, Rasbach?

RASBACH (FROM COMMS): My name? Miss Buddy, I was just saying…

BUDDY (FROM COMMS): Finish it, then. Quickly.

RASBACH (FROM COMMS): I conzent to this transaction.

SOUND: BEEP.

There. Is done.

JUNO: He did it? Wait, really?

BUDDY (FROM COMMS): It appears so, yes.

RASBACH (FROM COMMS): Well. The business well done.

JUNO: Buddy, look out! She’s right on top of you!

RASBACH (FROM COMMS): Well, Miss Buddy. It has been a plea— (CHOKING)

BUDDY (FROM COMMS): Rasbach!

JUNO (NARRATOR): The hooded woman ran up behind Rasbach and without a sound a knife appeared in her hand. Then it disappeared again… into Rasbach’s back.

RASBACH (FROM COMMS): Who… who?

VOICE 9 (FROM COMMS): (GROWLS)

SOUND: THUNK.

You! Give me the briefcase.

JUNO: Stall her. We’re on our way.

BUDDY (FROM COMMS): Stay where you are, the both of you.

You don’t have the key to this. What do you plan to do? Break it open?

VOICE 9 (FROM COMMS): If you’re real, just give it. If not… get out!

BUDDY (FROM COMMS): You could damage what’s inside if you do, and then what use will it be? You– sound familiar. Do I know you?

VOICE 9 (FROM COMMS): I said get out! (GROWLS)

SOUND: METAL CLANGS.

JUNO (NARRATOR): Then they were really at it. Hood took quick jabs, lots of ‘em, but Buddy was quick too, working that briefcase like a shield too precious for her attacker to stab. It was a good defense, but Buddy’s back was almost to the wall, and it wasn’t gonna be good much longer.

So Buddy raised her gun to turn the tide, but, with her focus split for just that half-second, Hood slashed at her fingers with the knife. Some people would’ve kept the briefcase instead of their hand, I thought. But Buddy wasn’t one of ‘em. She let go, and Hood had it before it hit the ground.

BUDDY (FROM COMMS): She has the briefcase, but I can’t get a clear shot with all these people!

JACKET (FROM COMMS): She’s running towards you, Juno. You know what to do.

JUNO (NARRATOR): My stomach and shooting-hand hardened. Still the same old Juno Steel, I thought. The Proctor, Swift, Pollock, Pilot, the Piranha – someone says shoot, and I say who’s next?

The thought made me sick. I was tired. I was just so, so tired of making the same old mistakes, again and again.

SOUND: RUNNING FOOTSTEPS.

VOICE 9: Get out of my way!

JUNO (NARRATOR): So I made a new one instead.

VOICE 9: Move!

JUNO: No!

JUNO & VOICE 9: (GRUNTS)

BUDDY (FROM COMMS): What do you think you’re doing, Juno? Do you want her to stab you?

SOUND: BLADE CLANG.

JUNO: (PAINED) Too late.

VOICE 9: Move or I’ll kill you.

JUNO: Lady, if you knew the kinda week I’ve had you’d understand why that doesn’t scare me much.

SOUND: LOUD BLASTER SHOT. CROWD SCREAMS, RUNS OUT.

JACKET: This is an emergency situation. All customers must leave immediately.

SOUND: CLATTERING.

JUNO (NARRATOR): The diversion was just enough to distract her for a second, so I tried to take a swing at her. She was too fast for me and my fingers missed her face but grabbed her scarf, and she… did not like that.

VOICE 9: (HOWLS)

JUNO (NARRATOR): I could see why she’d covered herself, because she had a look too memorable for covert ops: bright green hair and bright, wild eyes. But, I didn’t know her.

Buddy did, though.

BUDDY: Vespa?!

JUNO (NARRATOR): Green hair looked back, panicked, her eyes darting. She pulled so hard her sleeve came up and I saw what was on her wrist.

A debtor’s tag, for indentured servants. Just like that Outer Rim woman in the market. And hers had something written on it: Vespa I., five.

Vespa was in a cold sweat. She looked like she was gonna be sick.

VOICE 9 [VESPA]: Not… real… you’re not… real!

BUDDY: Vespa, it’s you! I thought you were—

VESPA: You’re not real! Get out of my head! (FERAL GROWL)

JUNO: (PAINED GRUNT)

SOUND: RUNNING FOOTSTEPS DEPARTING.

BUDDY: Vespa! Come back!

JACKET: Buddy… she’s gone.

BUDDY: She can’t be gone. I saw her, I swear, I saw her!

JUNO: You’re gonna need to slow down a little for the murder victim by the door, Buddy. Who the hell is Vespa?

BUDDY: She’s… a dead woman. I saw her… die. But now she’s—

Vespa! Vespa?!

SOUND: RUNNING FOOTSTEPS DEPARTING.

JUNO: Should we follow them?

JACKET: That depends. Are you injured enough that running will cause your organs to fall out of your body?

JUNO: Uh, not that bad, but pretty—

JACKET: Then we hide the briefcase and Rasbach’s corpse in the back room first. Then we follow. Quickly.

ALL SOUNDS: FADE OUT.

***

SOUND: FOOTSTEPS.

JUNO (NARRATOR): We searched the streets for an hour, but Vespa was gone.

SOUND: KEYS JINGLE. DOOR CREAKS.

JUNO: Ow, ow… ow, ow.

JACKET: You make that noise a lot, don’t you.

JUNO: Ohhh, sorry, does it bother you? Don’t mind me, I’m just the guy who’s been playing peekaboo with his large intestine for the past hour— OW, ow, ow.

JACKET: You said your organs would not fall out.

JUNO: It was a joke! Do big caveman get joke?

JACKET: I do not know. I have never met one.

BUDDY: Stop it. Immediately.

SOUND: DOOR OPENS.

Where’s the briefcase?

JACKET: We left it in the back room.

BUDDY: I remember you saying that, but it isn’t here. And neither is Rasbach.

Well. It seems our sale was completed after all.

JACKET: He took the Curemother?

JUNO: He didn’t die?!

JACKET: But more importantly: we have the money?

BUDDY: He couldn’t take it even if he wanted to. Both of us would have to consent to another transaction. All sales final.

JUNO: So it-it’s done. The sale’s done. It sounds like it… worked out, right?

BUDDY: Do business with a glorified slave-trader once, then wash my hands of it for good. That was the plan. So yes, everything went according to plan. But… Vespa.

Karma comes in all shapes, doesn’t it?

JACKET: Buddy…

BUDDY: Her debtor’s tag, Juno. What number was on it?

JUNO: What?

BUDDY: I know she had one. I’ve been thinking about it for an hour and that’s the only option that makes sense. Just… tell me what it said.

MUSIC: STARTS.

JUNO: It-it was, uh… five.

BUDDY: Five?

Five years… I can’t…

Thank you for not shooting her, Juno. I’ve already lost her once. Losing her again… I think that would be the end of me.

(DEEP BREATH) The number on the debtor’s tag is the number of years they’ve been… owned. Vespa has been in the Cerberus Province without rest for five years. It’s a miracle that the radiation hasn’t killed her, unless… five years… Vespa, where have you been?

JUNO (NARRATOR): You could tell from the look in Buddy Aurinko’s eyes that the number of years wasn’t what bothered her. It could’ve been five months or five weeks or five minutes, and all it would’ve amounted to is the same thing: she felt hope, and she was terrified of it. The presumed-dead were walking in the Cerberus Province, and that was a nightmare. Because there’s peace when hope finally dies, when it stops moving and you can nail the coffin shut.

Buddy looked like she’d won that peace the hard way.

But there was movement in that coffin now, something pounding the lid from the inside, and if the old hope was so hard to bury the first time… who knew what kind of damage it could do the second.

MUSIC: ENDS.

***

SOUND: TRAIN MOVING, MUSIC.

CONDUCTOR: If you’ve enjoyed this tale, please consider donating to The Penumbra on Patreon. Our artists work tirelessly to bring you these stories, and if you have the means, we hope you will support our efforts. Every dollar helps. You can find that page at patreon.com/thepenumbrapodcast. If you support us on Patreon at the $10 level or higher, you’ll receive access to commentary tracks like this one, from actors Joshua Ilon, Sarah Gazdowicz, Alexander Stravinski, and co-creator Sophie Kaner:

SOUND: TRAIN STOPS, DOOR SLIDES OPEN, RAIN.

SARAH: Um, I would say that I pretty much went as straight as I could with—

SOPHIE: (LAUGHS)

SARAH: —the suggestion– okay. Okay, okay. OKAY.

SOPHIE & JOSHUA: (LAUGH)

SARAH: No, I-I think I was predominantly influenced by the, the note that I was given about the character, which was – oh, like a Katharine Hepburn being, like, a major influence or source for the- how the voice should sound. And then the struggle began with maintaining it, not making…

SOUND: DOOR SLIDES SHUT.

CONDUCTOR: Did you know that The Penumbra has merchandise for sale? It’s true! The Penumbra has partnered with DFTBA to bring you the posters, shirts, and pins your heart desires. Just go to dftba.com and search for The Penumbra Podcast.

We would like to give special thanks to all who support us on Patreon, but especially to Regan, Ko, KC, Atha Lang, Vron, Charlie Spiegel, Minchowski, Jaimie Gunter, and the Princess and the Scrivener for their incredibly generous contributions per episode. Thank you.

This tale, Juno Steel and the Time Gone By, was told by the following people: Joshua Ilon as Juno Steel, Alexander Stravinski as the Man in the Brown Jacket, Sarah Gazdowicz as Buddy Aurinko, William Schuller as Rasbach, and Chloe Cunha as Vespa.

The Penumbra is created and produced by Sophie Kaner and Kevin Vibert. If you wish to know more about our ever-expanding, infinitely-creative team of artists, musicians, editors, designers, and managers, you can read about them in the show notes of this episode.

I’m afraid this is the end of the line for today, dear Traveler. We hope you will ride with The Penumbra again soon.

ALL SOUNDS: FADE OUT.

[alexissleeps]

Stalker Film Analysis

“I can make good work based only on three things -- blood, culture, and history”        

                                                  - Tarkovsky

Bringing the audience into an alternate Russian reality, Andrei Tarkovsky, the “Poet of Apocalypse,” constructs a masterful and existential Sci-Fi world in his 1979 film Stalker (Quandt). At the start of Stalker, through a fictitious government letter, we learn of a realm called the Zone. The letter considers how it came about -- was it a meteorite? Aliens? Nevertheless, when troops were sent, they never returned. To protect the masses, the government secured the area with barbed wire, dense tunnels, and security officers. We learn of this place, then we learn of the Stalker.

A desolate, decrepit apartment. The film is a bold, impossible sepia. We hear nothing but the rumbles and rattles of a train, slowly crescendoing as it approaches the home. In bed is a family: man, wife, and child. On the bedside table rests an apple with two bites missing, tablets of morphine, a syringe in a tin, cotton, and a glass of water. This is the home of the Stalker. Aside from the train, the only noise we can hear is the Stalker getting out of bed. He is preparing for another trip to the Zone--the trade of a Stalker. He readies himself to meet the men whom he will be shepherding through the Zone, so that they may find the Room, the place where one’s deepest desires are fulfilled.

In that striking sepia, we become acquainted with the Writer. A man full of philosophies. In an unknown irony, he laments about the lack of mysticism in the world and the death of excitement. “The world is ruled by cast-iron laws,” he claims, a possible allusion to the Soviet regime which regulates Tarkovsky’s work with resolute vigor. When he speaks, all other ambient sound stops. We are forced to focus on his words, his insights, or lack thereof.  

Shortly after, viewers are brought to a bar, which, much like the Stalker’s apartment, is in disrepair. Everything is covered in a layer of dirt, puddles dot the floors from roof leaks, and the minimal lighting flickers. Here we meet the Professor. The audience learns he seeks scientific discovery, as the Writer seeks inspiration. They name their desires, they assume the stakes. But, in this contemplation, we learn a central theme of the film. The Writer says, stumbling over himself in drunkenness, “...but, how is it I can put a name to… What it is I want? How am I to know?” This admission is pivotal to the film’s message, and Tarkovsky is kind enough to give us this hint before the journey into the Zone unfolds.

On brand-new Kodak 5247 stock film, Tarkovsky fills the screen with symmetrical shots, a style ubiquitous throughout the film. He plays with the depth of field by placing mundane objects, such as a wooden beam, in the foreground to pull the viewer’s eye to the background. These shots set the scene, they tell parts of the story without saying a thing.

The three--the Stalker, the Writer, and the Professor, all referenced only by their professions, a possible communist allusion--embark on their journey to the Zone. Rumbling through sparse, mud filled streets in an all-terrain vehicle, they venture through abandoned buildings and railways. The City they are leaving is incredibly industrial: tight brick-lined corridors constricting the viewer, smog billowing in every direction, further suffocating you. Not a single vestige of vegetation in sight. The sound of stepping through puddles is as loud as the police officer’s engine they are trying to avoid. Sonically, the film is mastered at a consistent level. These staccato, pointed sounds add tension to the film and control the direction of the viewer’s attention, building with the visuals to the moment when the men finally reach the Zone.

After a series of long takes of the men’s faces, typical of Tarkovsky’s style, they arrive. We are greeted with a moment of silence, and color film, as we see the Zone for the first time. The color shows the full glory of the Zone and juxtaposes it to the sepia City. The Zone is a vast, natural landscape. With trees and grasses overtaking what remnants of civilization are left, abandoned cars sulking in their lonesomeness, and power lines, which have given way to the earth, linger in the front of the frame. A clear ecological statement. The Zone, arguably the central character of the film, slowly reveals itself to the Writer, the Professor, and the audience throughout the second half of the film.

Long takes paired with wide landscape views of the Zone envelope the viewers, taking them along for the journey. The scenes are truly immersive. To compound this emotion, the combination of synthetic and orchestral composition by Eduard Artmyev is subtle, and easier to feel rather than to hear. It hovers over the scene, or sinks beneath it, delicately shaping the mood. In an interview Tarkovsky revealed that “one mustn’t be aware of music, nor natural sounds.” Those natural sounds, such as wheels on rails, are synthetically produced and embedded within Western and Eastern inspired melodies, melting otherworldly tones with earthly ones. The music is sparse but effective.

It is impossible to travel directly to the Room. The Zone, echoing non-entry nuclear zones of Cold War Soviet Russia, demands respect. “The Zone is a very complex maze of traps. All of them death traps,” the Stalker warns his sheep. It is always in flux, and pathways which were once safe become impassable. The Stalker, looking to the heavens, says, “it’s as if we construct it according to our state of mind.” It lets through neither the good, nor the bad, but rather those who are hopeless. The truly desperate souls. In certain places, the land swells like waves, and in others it smokes and smolders. It bends time and space. It challenges the notion that there is no mysticism left in the world, it challenges those “cast-iron laws” that the world is fixed.

However, the Zone, and these men’s journey to the Room, reveal the existential truths we bury in ourselves. “For who knows what desires a person might have?” the Professor sighs. Why is the Room just a rumor? Is it a gift or a message or a curse to mankind? Is it secured by the government, not to protect people from death, but to protect them from what they want? From what their desires may do to society? The Soviet Union, “with its propaganda and party indoctrination sessions – went on beyond an imaginary fence,”  building real fences within its citizenries mind (Guardian). The Zone is a space of personal truth, a space the government can’t penetrate, deep within the Russian psyche. Within the Zone, each of the men is granted a monologue where he can exalt his truths and speak candidly without fear. For fear is the Zone, and within it they have nothing more to fear, not even themselves. This is a space where they can discover what is potentially the most elusive of truths: What do I want?

Stalker offers a cross-section of consciousness. The city is these dull, dogmatic “truths” we tell ourselves to get through the day--particularly those true in communist Russia. God isn’t real. Neither are ghosts. Everything is fixed, and tangible if real. Everything has order and, despite the boredom of it, safety. The city is the superficiality of our own existence. The sepia might be beautiful, but is incomplete: it doesn’t reveal the full-depth and complexity of the world, or the self. However, the Zone challenges these preconceived notions, these walls we build within ourselves. Or, that government and society helps construct. For example, the Writer, overcome in a moment of honesty in the Zone, says he writes because he is unsure. He writes to prove his worth to himself and to others. He doesn’t write because he thinks he is a genius, as he earlier dotes, for if he did there would be no reason to write. The Zone forces us to face ourselves, quite literally, by constructing a world based on the minds of those within it. The Stalker mutters, half-asleep, “people don’t like to reveal their innermost thoughts.” The Zone is where those thoughts foment, without restriction, to the front of the mind.

The Stalker tells us in the Zone of his mentor, Porcupine--or as he knew him, the Teacher. He taught the Stalker everything about the Zone: how to travel through it, how to respect it. How to get out of it. Then, one day, Porcupine went into the Room. Shortly after he returned to the City he became very wealthy, wealthy beyond his wildest dreams. Then he hanged himself.

If the Room is the center of the self, the deepest desires of the self, perhaps it is best left inaccessible. Desire is dangerous; its consequences unpredictable. While the death of Porcupine is a critique of humanity’s materialism, and materialism’s inability to truly satiate humanity’s existential needs, I think this film offers a criticism of (selfish) desire more broadly. The Stalker’s desire is not to enter the Room, but to escape his existence. His pleading wife, his daughter crippled by his excursions. Their shabby home. Before the Stalker leaves for the Zone, his wife warns he may find himself back in prison, he replies that “everywhere’s a prison.” He doesn’t need to enter the Room, the Zone is all he desires, it is wild and free, while the City is captivity. 

Additionally, Tarkovsky seems to be pointing at the elusive nature of desire. It’s claimed the Room knows your deepest desires, even those you hide from yourself, and then fulfills them. But, as Zizek claims, “our desires are artificial. We have to be taught to desire. Cinema is the ultimate pervert art. It doesn’t give you what you desire, it tells you how to desire.” If we acquire our desires socially, is there any desire which is independent, belonging to the self completely? Can the Room honestly fulfill someone’s deepest desires, if those desires are by nature inauthentic? Is this why Porcupine commits suicide? The ultimate horror is not the desire, it is not the longing: it is the fulfillment of that longing. Perhaps we ultimately fear fulfillment of desire because it is alien, it is a self-deception -- we don't really want it. Thus, true desire seems to move further from our understanding. Maybe it isn’t that desire is best left inaccessible, but that the Room is an illusion, and desire beyond the superficial is still inaccessible. 

The dynamic nature of the Zone, their journey which challenges the time-space continuum, is an allegory for the cyclical, impossible, and inexplicable journey to discovering one’s authentic personal desires. And, ultimately, its innate inaccessibility and potential untruth. 

This film catalogues, with visual and auditory brilliance, an existential woe of humanity. Stalker is a philosophical text with a three-hour visualizer and sound effects. While Tarkovsky was inspired by the psychological effects of living under the Soviet regime, and the film speaks to that reality, this film is durable regardless of time, politics, or country. Undeniably versatile, it can be enjoyed as a piece of entertainment, a piece of art, and a piece of commentary. If you’re looking to lose yourself, your conscious self, in a film, and find your unconscious self, Tarkovsky’s Stalker will siphon you into that Zone.

https://www.tiff.net/the-review/andrei-tarkovsky-the-poet-of-apocalypse/

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/1468-5922.12365

Gianvito, John (2006), Andrei Tarkovsky: Interviews, University Press of Mississippi, pp. 50–54,

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/06/soviet-union-kitchen-table-russian-revolution-centenary-togetherness

http://www.tasteofcinema.com/2017/the-25-best-mind-bending-movies-of-all-time/2/

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079944/

[nuttydefendoryouth]

Are stinky inflatable pool toys putting your kids at risk?

The researchers expressed concern that some of the products contain potentially hazardous chemicals that could pose a risk to children’s health, depending on the degree of exposure and concentration levels in the products.

The researchers conducted tests using an inflatable beach ball, a pair of swimming armbands and two bathing rings they bought off the shelf from local stores and online suppliers in Germany.(Shutterstock)

HEALTH

Are stinky inflatable kids' toys putting your kids at risk? Here’s what a study found

The researchers expressed concern that some of the products contain potentially hazardous chemicals that could pose a risk to children’s health, depending on the degree of exposure and concentration levels in the products.

Washington D.C. | By ANI

UPDATED ON APR 13, 2017 08:46 PM IST

Turns out, there are many dangerous chemicals lurking in your swimming pool that can risk your children’s health.

Inflatable sprinkler and swimming aids, like bathing rings and arm bands, often have a distinctive smell which could indicate that they contain a range of potentially hazardous substances.

Some of these compounds, which include carbonyl compounds, cyclohexanone, phenol and isophorone, might be critical when present in higher concentrations in children’s toys, said authors Christoph Wiedmer and Andrea Buettner.

Lead author Wiedmer from Fraunhofer Institute for Process Engineering and Packaging IVV in Germany and his team conducted tests using an inflatable pool, a pair of swimming armbands and two bathing rings they bought off the shelf from local stores and online suppliers in Germany.

A small piece of material from each sample was analysed using a variety of material analysis techniques, including one that takes infrared measurements, and it was concluded that the inflatable objects were all made from polyvinyl chloride (PVC).

The researchers then investigated the molecular make-up of the distinctive smells arising from the pool toys. They extracted detectable odours from each sample using solvent extraction and high vacuum distillation methods, and then identified the main odorants using a combination of sensory and common analytical approaches.

Between 32 and 46 odours were detected in each sample, of which up to thirteen were quite intense. The majority of these odorants were identified and among these were several fatty smelling mono- or di-unsaturated carbonyl compounds and their epoxidised derivatives, but also odouractive organic solvents such as cyclohexanone, isophorone, and phenol.

As part of the study, a panel of trained volunteers sniffed each product, and ascribed common odour attributes to these. They also rated the intensity of each odour, and had to guess whether these could be hazardous. Three of the products reminded the panellists of almonds, plastic and rubber, while the fourth more pungent one reminded them of glue and nail polish.

Wiedmer expressed his concern that some of the products contain potentially hazardous chemicals that could pose a risk to children’s health, depending on the degree of exposure and concentration levels in the products. Cyclohexanone can be harmful if inhaled, phenol is known to be acutely toxic and to presumably have mutagenic potential and isophorone is a category 2 carcinogen, which means that this is a suspect substance in the development of cancer in humans.

“A range of these substances are not yet resolved in their chemical structures. Likewise, potential negative effects on humans, such as irritation, smell nuisance, or other physiological or psychosomatic effects still need to be resolved,” said Wiedmer.

“Modern products such as toys and children’s products are sourced from a wide variety of chemical and physical manufacturing processes, and this complexity often makes it difficult for us to identify those containing contaminants and unwanted substances, and to determine their causes,” noted Wiedmer. “However, we found that in a number of cases our noses can guide us to ‘sniff out’ problematic products.”

The study appears in the journal Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry (ABC).

Backyards and patios have been working hard all year because of the pandemic, and this summer they can provide new ways to cool off and have fun in the water.

Whether you have a lot of space or a little, there’s gear ranging from water tables and tubs for kids to floating loungers with drink holders for adults.

One company, Minnidip, makes inflatable “adult kiddie pools” that aim to transport you to some exotic travel destination. Patterns on the Marrakesh pool reference Moroccan architectural details, while the Amalfi is a nod to the blue, yellow and white tile of the Italian coast.

“Because for me, having a pool on our urban Chicago rooftop felt like being transported to another place,” says company founder Emily Vaca. “I wanted to capture that feeling through design and pattern. “

Minnidip also offers inflatable drinks coolers and glam pool balls filled with gold confetti, among other offerings.

The only water table that lets you make waves, Little Tikes’ Island Wavemaker has a water wheel, plus cute sea creatures and a wee pirate to send paddling around the waterway or down the waterfall. Toddlers can practice their fine motor skills with Little Tikes’ Spinning Seas Water Table; small balls, a cup, a funnel and a water wheel set up the fun.

Step2’s two-sided Waterfall Discovery Wall has adjustable toggles, spinners and chutes to send the water tumbling in lots of different ways. And Lakeshore Learning’s Watch It Flow water table features three plastic logs that can be configured however you wish. Fill the logs using a hose or bucket; gates control the flow and can close up to make long tubs.

Foamo, also from the folks at Little Tikes, creates mountains of easy-to-clean-up foam when you add the nontoxic, biodegradable foam solution to water.

HOSE HAPPY

Turn on the hose and attach it to West Elm's inflatable car bed or giant shark mouth sprinklers. Fat Brain Toy’s Hydro Twist Pipeline Sprinkler has a couple of fountains, plus a bunch of wiggly worm hoses. Or hook up to BigMouth’s giant 6-foot-high unicorn, who shoots water out of her horn. There’s a ginormous ape, giraffe, dinosaur and giraffe here as well.

SWIM AND PADDLE

Giant inflatable water wheels let you find your inner hamster. You can find ones online for toddlers, while Wow Watersports has a grownup version they call the Aqua Treadmill.

Don’t forget the family pets; a nonporous, puncture-resistant floating dog bed at Frontgate comes in a bunch of colors and three sizes.

Chewy has ZippyPaws Floaterz sturdy turtle-shaped water toys for dogs, as well as rope-handled bumpers and a variety of floating balls.

A hard-sided kiddie pool can be a good non-inflatable option for cooling off; just hose it out and stow away. Other pluses: The doggos will also have fun splashing around in it, and it makes a great sand or snow play zone in colder weather. The Sun Squad Wading Kiddie Pool is inexpensive and has an embossed bottom, so it’s less slippery.

SLIDE AND RIDE

A basic heavy-duty plastic water slide or “slip and slide” can be set up in most backyards; if yours doesn’t come with an attached barrier at the bottom, make sure to put something soft there.

Studio 21 Graphix’s slide has a crash pad at the finish line, plus two lanes for racing and a sprinkler curtain to pass thru on the way down. Wow Watersports’ Strike Zone Water Slide is 25-by-6 feet of slipperiness; zigzag sprinkler patterns assure a wet ride, fat pontoons on either side keep riders inside, and two sleds are included. Got a really long yard? Get two; they can be interconnected.

If you’ve got lots of space, consider Costway’s inflatable Bounce House and Water Slide, with a bounce area, water gun, two slides, a basketball hoop and several balls. It comes with a storage bag for easy transport.

POOL STYLE

Marisa Issa of Los Angeles says her family’s favorite pool games are corn hole and a floating basketball hoop, but her favorite is a floating mat from Frontgate “that only mom can use,” she says. The sleek, minimalist white float has a headrest, and is made of marine-grade dense foam, suitable for chlorine or saltwater pools.

If you prefer sitting up a little, Frontgate’s got a floating armchair with attached ottoman. Choose from aqua, blue or flamingo pink. Or splash out on a full-size pool chaise kitted out with drink holders.

Want to hang out with a handful of friends in a backyard pool? Funboy has a 9-foot-wide floating metallic crown with drink holders. Or lounge luxuriously in the company’s Bali Cabana Lounger, with a curved integrated shade, a tropical leaf print, cup holders and handy grab ropes.

BigMouth has some food-related inflatables like a giant ice pop, pizza slice, donut, watermelon slice, cheeseburger and taco.

At first, glance, laying on an inflatable toy in shallow water seems pretty safe. After all, the water isn't deep, and there is a floating toy right there. Recently, a family's trip to the beach in Nova Scotia proved to be a harrowing reminder of why this is not the case. In August, two 5-year-olds played in shallow water – one in an inflatable ring, the other on an inflatable roller. Because the girls were in shallow water, their caregiver assumed the inflatable toys were enough. It wasn't until the girls began to drift away from that the complete danger of the situation became clear.

Inflatable toys can be dangerous

Because they are so light and buoyant, they tend to drift in the water or deflate when they get wet. That's when it's a problem. Kids don't know when their toys are deflated and cannot compensate when they're in the water. They can get trapped in the holes or strangle. When the girls got stuck, their caregiver did the right thing by calling for help. First responders rescued the girls and took them to the hospital to be treated for their injuries. While it's infrequent that inflatable toys are the source of injury to kids, it's good to know that they can pose a hazard. The numbers aren't obvious, but it seems that they're responsible for 1 in every 100 boating-related deaths in the U.S. and are one of the leading causes of drowning for children aged 4-6.

Why Inflatable Toys Can Be Dangerous

The giant inflatable was much bigger than the girls and began to drag the mattress toward shore, according to the parent of one of the girls who spoke with CTVNews. However, the inflatable ring wasn't nearly as big or heavy and was drifting with the current. The girls eventually lost hold of both and drifted a considerable distance. The girls' parents rushed to the scene and tried to retrieve their children, but the current was too firm, and the military eventually rescued them. The girls were found to be unharmed. Since this incident, many parents have expressed concerns about the safety of inflatable toys.

[hudsonespie]

Who Governs Climate Intervention and Geoengineering on the High Seas?

[By Olive Heffernan]

In late March, as most of the world was adjusting to lockdown, oceanographer Daniel Harrison was setting sail for the Great Barrier Reef. Though Harrison, a native Australian, had sailed these waters many times before, this particular expedition was different.

On reaching Broadhurst Reef, 100km off the Australian coast, Harrison and his skeleton crew of local scientists – just a few with permission to travel – noticed white corals stretching out in every direction, a sign that the reef was bleaching, and dying, from heat stress. This would be the third mass bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef in just five years, an event that is becoming more likely as the global ocean warms.

Harrison and his team were there to test a radical intervention that, if successful, could spare the world’s largest coral reef from total loss. Known as marine cloud brightening, their approach involves spraying seawater into the air to help form bright clouds that reflect sunlight and cool the waters below. “This is like putting the reef on life support while we deal with the underlying cause. It buys us some time” says Harrison. “Obviously bringing emissions down is the critical thing.”

Climate intervention

While Harrison’s project is small in scale, and in its infancy, marine cloud brightening is just one of numerous practices – collectively known as geoengineering or climate intervention – that could cool the planet, offsetting some of the harm caused by greenhouse gas pollution. With global emissions rising, there’s a growing awareness that we’ll likely need such radical measures to avoid dangerous climate change. “Emissions reductions alone are not going to cut it,” says Phillip Boyd, a marine biogeochemist at the University of Tasmania, Hobart. “We’ve got an increasingly fast-moving problem, and so we may need increasingly fast-moving countermeasures,” says Kelly Wanser, founder of US non-profit Silver Lining, which advocates for research into climate intervention.

A trial of prototype cloud-brightening equipment on the Great Barrier Reef (Image: Brendan Kelaher / Southern Cross University)

Using technology to control the climate is undeniably controversial, seen by some as a quick fix with unknown consequences that diverts attention from the harder task of transitioning to a zero-carbon economy. As such, there’s been little funding for research, and few real-world trials. Harrison’s project – focused on curbing a national ecological disaster – is a notable exception. “It’s essential to know whether these things work or not,” says Harrison. “If we find out that they don’t work, it just strengthens the argument for reducing emissions harder and quicker and not delaying”.

Geoengineering – or deliberate climate control – is not new. During the Cold War, both the US and the Soviet Union funded research into cloud seeding, an approach the US eventually used during the Vietnam war to extend the monsoon season and disrupt enemy troops. Since then, the field has expanded into a wide array of schemes mostly intended to mitigate climate change, though some have co-benefits such as boosting fisheries.

Broadly speaking, there are two approaches. The first, Solar Radiation Management (SRM), aims to limit the amount of heat absorbed by the Earth and could be used to quickly cool the surface. This could be achieved, for instance, by sending reflective sulphates into the stratosphere via giant balloons, or by scattering silica beads over Arctic sea ice to make it more reflective.

The alternative, Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR), focuses on physically extracting CO2 from the atmosphere and storing it, in ecosystems such as mangroves or forests, underground or in the deep ocean. Possibilities here include fertilising the sea surface with iron to promote the growth of plankton – which absorb CO2 from the air – or burning biomass as a source of energy, capturing the CO2 and storing it.

In general, SRM is seen as the more extreme approach that could be deployed with quick results in the case of a regional or global climate emergency.

So far, no single scheme has been proven to work at scale. Most research has focused on land-based solutions, but competing needs, such as ensuring food security, makes these impractical as global solutions. Scientists are now looking to the open ocean as a more pragmatic choice for geoengineering. “This is where it makes most sense, because there’s no conflict of interest with any other issues. These areas are largely unused at the moment and they also make up 50% of the planet’s surface” says Ulf Riebesell, a biological oceanographer at the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research in Kiel, Germany.

So far, 27 different marine geoengineering schemes have been proposed. There has been roughly a dozen field tests, mostly focused on ocean iron fertilisation. When a commercial company, Planktos Inc, proposed to test the technology off the Galapagos Islands in 2007, it sparked fears of unregulated interference with the planet’s climate by entrepreneurs looking to turn a quick profit by selling sequestered CO2 as carbon credits.

In response, two intergovernmental bodies sought to outlaw geoengineering. In 2010, the UN’s Convention on Biological Diversity recommended that member states ban the deployment of all large-scale climate intervention technologies, a stance that it reaffirmed in 2016. Meanwhile, in 2013, the UN’s International Maritime Organization (IMO) – which regulates shipping – added ocean iron fertilisation to its list of banned practices. Though the IMO measure is voluntary and yet to be enforced, it symbolises the taboo long associated with climate intervention.

Growing expectations for unproven technologies

With global emissions still growing despite the commitments made in Paris in December 2015, the mood has started to shift. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has made it clear that we have little chance of avoiding dangerous levels of warming, generally regarded as 1.5C or 2C above pre-industrial temperatures, without geoengineering technologies. Meanwhile, high level organisations such as the UN Environment Programme and the US National Academies of Sciences have started to seriously evaluate options for climate intervention.

“We’re now in a situation where we’re implicitly assuming that we’ll need large-scale CO2 removal, but we really haven’t put the time and money into actually finding out whether we can do it or not”, says Jeffrey McGee, director of the Australian Forum for Climate Intervention Governance at the University of Tasmania, Hobart. “The gap between expectations and knowledge, I think, is getting wider and wider by the day.”

There’s not much time to decide which of these options is useful. We shouldn’t wait another year. The science needs to start now.

Globally, just a few marine geoengineering projects are ready for field trials. Ocean artUp, being led by Ulf Riebesell, is testing the idea that artificial ocean upwelling – using vertical pumps – can enrich the ocean’s nutrient-poor subtropical gyres, boosting fish production and CO2 uptake. Riebesell’s team is currently testing various pump designs in waters off the north Atlantic island of Gran Canaria.

Ice911, an initiative started by Leslie Ann-Field, a lecturer at Stanford University in California, aims to prove that it’s possible to use technology to restore Arctic ice. Field’s method involves scattering tiny glass silica beads on the surface of thin, young Arctic sea ice as a way of boosting its reflectivity by 50%. Field’s team was due to test the method on a small scale at Utqiagvik, Alaska this summer but plans have been scaled back owing to Covid. Follow-on plans to test the method in the Arctic at a larger scale will need additional funding.

Meanwhile, the Marine Cloud Brightening Research Program, a collaboration between the University of Washington, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and a team of retired engineers in Silicon Valley, has emerged as the sole significant US effort in marine geoengineering. With limited funding, the team has designed a bespoke nozzle that can generate three trillion particles of tiny salt particles per second from filtered sea water. The next step, developing this into a system of 400-500 nozzles that can be tested in the field, will need roughly $4-5 million, which the research team is currently raising.

Prototype cloud brightening equipment (Image: Alejandro Tagliafico / SIMS and Southern Cross University)

The consequences of deploying any of these technologies at scale is unknown. Already, the ocean has soaked up one third of the roughly 40 billion tonnes of CO2 that we emit annually, as well as 93% of the extra heat from climate change. While this has tempered climate change on land, it has caused the ocean to warm rapidly and become more acidic. Conservationists worry that marine geoengineering could harm marine life, or the health of the ocean.

“Geoengineering is not only complex and unknown, but it has huge potential impact,” says Torsten Thiele, founder of the Global Ocean Trust, a non-profit that focuses on marine conservation, technology and governance. “I’m very sceptical on letting people try things out until we’ve sorted out the other steps and processes. Let’s first figure out the framework, let’s figure out the ethics standards, let’s figure out what happens in the lab. We could create a long list of things that would allow natural scientists to improve knowledge without actually trying these things out in nature.”

Governance gap

With field trials inching forward, attention is turning to how geoengineering research – and deployment, if it ever happens – should be governed. Right now, different laws could be applied to geoengineering on land and in the ocean, but none are comprehensive. The IMO amendment on ocean iron fertilisation, for instance, just applies to a single method and then only if the iron is “dumped” at sea, rather than piped or injected, for instance. “What we have right now is a patchwork of rules,” says Kerryn Brent, who researches international environmental law at the University of Adelaide, Australia.

One possibility for governing marine geoengineering is through a new law to protect marine life on the high seas, those waters that are beyond national governance. The law, which is currently being negotiated by the UN, will likely require any activity that takes place on the open ocean to first undertake an environmental impact assessment, a formal process to gauge potential damage to marine life.

While this would limit the possibility of harmful experimentation in the open ocean, some feel there is a need for more structured, high level governance of geoengineering. The problem right now, says Brent, is that no single organisation or body has a mandate to gauge the risk of harm caused by geoengineering against the risk of inaction. “One of the big gaps in governance are rules that will enable decision-makers, countries and scientists to weigh up the risks of a specific research activity or deployment versus the risk of not doing it. We just don’t have those kind of rules available," she says.

“Part of the point of all the testing and modelling that we do is to establish the safety, the efficacy and the risks” says Leslie-Ann Field, founder of Ice911. “Our first principle is to do no harm, right? But there’s also just this vast risk of doing nothing,” she says.

According to non-profit Silver Lining, the UNFCCC, which oversees international climate policy talks, could have a role in evaluating both the merits and risks of geoengineering research. The question still remains as to whether one entity, and which, would have the authority to sanction or prevent the deployment of climate intervention. The UN Security Council is one possibility, though with 15 member states, only five of which are permanent, gaining global consensus could be difficult. Meanwhile, scientists say they need regulations urgently for field research to forge ahead. “We need to phase in these technologies in ten years from now. We already know that,” says Riebesell. "That’s not much time to decide which of these options is useful. We shouldn’t wait another year. The science needs to start now.”

Olive Heffernan is a freelance science journalist who covers oceans and climate change. You can tweet her at @O_Heffernan and read her latest stories at www.oliveheffernan.com.

from Storage Containers https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/who-governs-climate-intervention-and-geoengineering-on-the-high-seas via http://www.rssmix.com/

[avengemebuckyy]

Skewered

Summary: You’re a doctor for the avengers and when Bucky comes in with a hunk of metal in his side you find that it’s not his injury that’s making you sweat.

Warnings: Description of wounds/blood, Bucky being shameless

Note: I’m overwhelmed by the feedback I got on my last fic! You guys are great! So for my second fic I though I’d try out Bucky, again I’d love any constructive comments/criticism.

“Incoming! Incoming!” Odette, the surgical tech assigned to you rushes into the room.

“How many?” you ask, looking up from the table where you’ve laid out your tools.The tech flushes. You sigh. “What type of injuries?” 

“Uh-hm..” the tech stutters. You turn around so you can hide your eye roll. “Dr.Cho’s been called in..” Odette says. 

“Thank you, Odette” You say and head to the sink to scrub your hands again. You are a top scientist working for Fury, and besides having your degree in engineering you’re an MD who specializes in general surgery. So whenever the reinstated avengers go on mission you’re put on call, which basically consists of you waiting in the med bay in case anyone needs to be treated. Usually the injuries are minor, the team are unparalleled in what they do, and you just end up patching up deep scrapes or bullet grazes. Because of this and the fact you have daily work at the Avenger’s compound you’ve become very friendly with the team.

Your palms start to sweat. Today’s mission was supposed to be high risk and it’s a bad sign that Helen’s been called in. With you and one other doctor on call her and her technology are only called in for severe injuries. The door opens and a battered looking Steve supporting an even more battered looking Bucky walks in. Steve helps Bucky sit on the examination table.

“Any more injured?” You ask, pulling on gloves.

“Scrapes all around, except for Sam. He’s badly burned.” Steve blows air out of his mouth. You look at him, his brow is creased in worry. 

“How badly?” You look at Bucky, he has a chunk of what seems to be jagged metal in his side, about two inches thick, protruding several inches from his gear. It seems to be a simple extraction job.

“Badly. But Park’s seeing to him”  Samuel Park is the other doctor in the compound “Dr.Cho’s supposed to put him in the new Cradle.I hope she gets here soon.”

You walk to the table and pick up scissors and a knife. “Odette, You should go assist Dr.Park.” the tech nods, and scurries out the door. Steve goes to follow but looks back at Bucky.

“He’ll be fine, go,” You say, and with that Steve leaves.

You look at Bucky. His eyes are already trained on you. It reminds you of the time Steve came in for stitches. His forearm had been split open. Bucky leaned against the wall in the corner of the room, he remained silent but his eyes followed your every move. Even when you looked at him he didn’t break his gaze. You assumed he was just being protective over his best friend. Bucky hasn’t said more than two words to you in the time that you’ve known him. Even after he started opening up and joking around with the team he remained oddly silent around you. You assumed you annoyed him. He had no problem talking with the others and even flirting with the research techs. 

You step up to him and start cutting away his gear. ‘Oops probably should have asked before I started cutting off his clothes’.Heat flushes down your neck and you stop your actions.

“Sorry, do you mind  if I cut away your gear?” 

“ ‘S fine” he says, voice low. You look up and you swear there’s a hint of smile on his face. You nod and continue. He smells of something metallic mixed with blood and sweat and a hint of….cologne…? As you cut away more of his gear you catch more of it. You try not to think about it. He’s handsome, the type of handsome that makes people do a double take. You try to ignore the broadness of his shoulders as his gear falls away, leaving him in a damp wife-beater. 

“Ain’t even the first date and you’re already tryna get me outta my clothes.” He rasps, startling you. You stutter and stammer, before deciding not to respond.

“Okay,” you say, taking a breath. “I’m just going to  take a look at this” You step in between his legs and inspect the metal shard. It looks worse than what you first thought it was. The shard is about the size of your hand and sticks out right below his rib cage, there’s a possibility that it might have hit some organs. There’s no exit point. Your heart rate goes up. Can a super soldier die if his major organs fail before his body can repair them? 

You wheel over your table of tools. You wish you hadn’t sent away Odette.

“Can you lay down for me?,” You ask.

“Of course sugar.” He says, piercing you with his stare.

You take a deep breath, feeling flustered. Did this man want to die on the operating table?

You cut away his undershirt and prepare some local anesthesia.

“I’m going to try to numb the area, but I don’t know how well this will work. I’m sorry I don’t have anything else on hand.” You don’t even know if anesthesia would work on him.

“ ‘S alright, darling I’ve been through worse,” He says giving you a small smile. You feel your face fall as you think about how true his statement is. You numb him and take a deep breath.You move to start extracting the shard when his hand shoots out and grabs yours. You stop yourself from jumping.

“You know there is something that would make me feel better.” Bucky says, voice gravelly.

“Of course, what is it?” You place your tools back on the table. ‘Maybe a special painkiller?’ you think.

“A kiss,” Bucky’s face stretches into a wide smirk.

You splutter “James…!”

“Bucky.” he supplies, smirk not leaving his face.

“Bucky….I uh….I don’t think that would be necessary for minimizing your pain.”

“Oh I beg to differ darlin’“ He says.

You clear your throat and start to grab your tools again. Bucky says your name, pleadingly.

“Come on, ya really gonna deny a dyin’ man his final wish.” You roll your eyes at his dramatic tone. You fix him with your gaze.

 “You’re not gonna die Bucky.” 

“Here I am,bleeding out on your table, and all I’m askin’ for is one little kiss. Just one little kiss, from the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.” He looks at you from the corner of his eye “….before she slices me open.”

You sigh. One thing you know about Bucky Barnes is that he’s stubborn as a bull. Before you can talk yourself out of it, you lean over and press a kiss to his cheek, his stubble prickling you in a not unpleasant way.

For a moment Bucky just looks at you, it seems like he’s crawling underneath your skin with that stare. Then he groans “Really sugar? Ya gonna try and cheat a man with a chunk of metal in his side?”

“I-I, uh” You stammer

“You really are heartless.” He sighs dramatically, closing his eyes.

You war with yourself for a split second, before leaning down and pressing a quick kiss to his lips. As you start to pull away Bucky’s hand comes up and stops you, and he deepens the kiss. His lips are surprisingly soft, his stubble scratches your face deliciously. Remembering the fact that he has a piece of metal in his side, you slowly withdraw. Bucky tugs on your lip with his teeth as you do so, which makes you have to turn around in order to regain your composure. When you turn back around, Bucky’s face is split in an ear to ear grin.

“Alright beautiful, cut me open, I can now die a happy man.”

You swallow, “Shut up James,” you snap, hating how your voice shakes. You pick up your tools and start to remove the metal. It comes out surprisingly smoothly, except for the last few inches. As you pull them free, Bucky starts to bleed. Way too much. The end of the shard is jagged. You try to contain the blood. But there’s just so much, you call for assistance and try to repair the damage.

By the time you finish you’re covered in blood. “Bucky, Bucky can you hear me?” You say, stepping close and touching his face, he looks drawn, pale.

“His pulse is faint. But it’s there.” Odette says. You jump, you forgot she had come in.

“Alright,” you sigh, blowing hair back from your forehead. “Guess we’ll wait.”

Bucky’s moved to a different hospital bed in another one of the rooms, and fitted with IVs. Steve understandably freaks out, with two close friends gravely injured within 24 hours it’s no wonder. Sam’s healed now, resting. You tell Steve to do the same and sit in a chair in Bucky’s room. The others wander in and out of the room.You know with his regenerative properties he’ll recover, but when six hours pass you can’t help but worry. ‘Why hasn’t he woken up by now?’ .

You blink your eyes open as a sliver of sunlight passes across your face. You squint, looking at the clock on the wall: 7 am. Damn. You finished patching Bucky up at about 4 pm last night. You had fallen asleep in his room. ‘I’m terrible at keeping watch’ you scold yourself. ‘What if he had worsened during the night?’ You look over at Bucky, only to find him watching you. You jump.

“Man you need to stop doing that.” Your voice is thick with sleep. You lick your dry lips, feeling self conscious. Standing you hear your joints cracking as you walk over.

“How can I help it when you’re always lookin’ so gorgeous?” He smirks.

“Shut up,” You say, pulling back the covers and inspecting his wound. It looks nearly healed. “How do you feel?” you murmur.

“Alright,” He says wincing slightly as you put pressure on his wound. He sits up, and you try to ignore the way the muscles in his chest and stomach flex. “I’d feel better if you’d let me buy you dinner, though” He looks up at you through his lashes. You click your tongue.

“You really are shameless,”

“Come on, it’s the least I can do after bleedin’ all over ya.” You look down at yourself, your scrubs are crusted in dried blood. You start replacing the dressing on his wound.

“You say that to all the girls who stitch you up?” You quip, avoiding his gaze.

“Nope. But then again I don’t spend six months building up the courage to ask those girls out either.” You look at him for a long while,saying nothing, and notice how red starts to tinge his ears and creep up his neck.

“Alright,” You answer finally giving him a smirk of your own.

Bucky lets out a huge breath, and chuckles  “Damn sugar, you really know how to make a man sweat, don’t ya?”

Tags : @stephie-senpai

[jbaquerot]

As we enter the latter part of 2017, it’s time to take a look at the common challenges faced by companies interested in using data science and machine learning (ML). Let’s assume your organization is already collecting data at a scale that justifies the use of analytic tools, and that you’ve managed to identify and prioritize use cases where data science can be transformative (including improvements to decision-making or business operations, increasing revenue, etc.). Data gathering and identifying interesting problems are non-trivial, but assuming you’ve gotten a healthy start on these tasks, what challenges remain?

Data science is a large topic, so I’ll offer a disclaimer: this post is mainly about the use of supervised machine learning today, and it draws from a series of conversations over the last few months. I’ll have more to say about AI systems in future posts, but such systems clearly rely on more than just supervised learning.

It all begins with (training) data

Even assuming you have a team that handles data ingestion and integration, and a team that maintains a data platform (“source of truth”) for you, new data sources continue to appear, and it’s incumbent on domain experts to highlight them. Moreover, since we’re dealing mainly with supervised learning, it’s no surprise that lack of training data remains the primary bottleneck in machine learning projects.

There are some good research projects and tools for quickly creating large training data sets (or augmenting existing ones). Stanford researchers have shown that weak supervision and data programming can be used to train models without access to a lot of hand-labeled training data. Preliminary work on generative models (by deep learning researchers) have produced promising results in unsupervised learning in computer vision and other areas.

The adage “think about features, not algorithms” is another useful way to assess data in the context of machine learning. Here’s a friendly reminder: data enrichment can potentially improve your existing models, and in some situations, it can even help ease the cold start problem. Most data scientists probably already enrich their existing data sets with open data or through third-party data providers, but I find that data enrichment can sometimes be overlooked. Obtaining external data, normalizing, and experimenting with it is not considered as glamorous as model and algorithm development.

From prototype to production

In many use cases the goal is to productionalize a data science project. We’ve pointed out that a new job role—machine learning engineer—has recently emerged to streamline this process. There are also a new set of tools to help ease the transition from prototype to production and to help track context and metadata that accompany analytic products.

We are still in the early stages of deploying machine learning into products, and best practices are just beginning to emerge. As advanced analytic models get more widely used, there are several considerations to keep in mind, including:

Deployment environment: You’ll likely need to integrate with the existing logging or A/B testing infrastructure. Besides being able to deploy robust and performant models on a server, environments increasingly include the questions of how and when to deploy models to the edge (mobile devices are a common example). There are new tools and strategies for deploying models to edge devices.

Scale, latency, freshness: How much data is needed to train the models? What is a reasonable response time for model inference? How often should models be retrained and data sets be refreshed? The latter implies you have reproducible data pipelines in place.

Bias: If your training data is not representative of the current population, you’ll get poor (and even unfair) results. In some situations, you might be able to use propensity scores or other methods to adjust your data set accordingly.

Monitoring models: I think people underestimate the importance of monitoring models, and this is an area where people trained in statistics have a competitive advantage. It can get tricky to figure out when and how much models have degraded. Concept drift might be a factor. In the case of classifiers, one strategy is to compare the distribution of classes predicted by your models to the observed distribution of predicted classes. You can also have business goals that are distinct from the metrics used to evaluate machine learning models. For example, a recommendation system might be tasked to help surface “dark or long-tail” content.

Mission-critical applications: Models deployed in mission-critical settings will need to be much more robust than your typical consumer application. In addition, machine learning applications in such settings need to be designed to run “continuously” for months on end (e.g., without memory leaks).

Privacy and security: Generally speaking, users and companies are more likely to share data if you can convince them their data is secure. And as I noted, data enriched with extra features tend to lead to better results. For companies conducting business in the European Union, one issue looms over the short-term: GDPR is set for May 2018. On other fronts, practical research in adversarial ML and secure ML (including being able to work with encrypted data) are beginning to appear.

Model development

Model and algorithm development get much more media coverage, but when you talk with data scientists, most of them will tell you lack of training data and productionalizing data science are more pressing concerns. Often, there are enough straightforward use cases that you can start with your favorite (basic or advanced) algorithm and tweak or replace it later.

Learn more Because tools make it easy to apply algorithms, as a first step it’s good to brush up on how to evaluate the results of machine learning models. With that said, never lose sight of your business metrics and objectives as they need not completely coincide with having the best-tuned or best-performing model. Follow developments pertaining to fairness and transparency that are beginning to be examined and addressed by researchers and companies. Privacy concerns and the rise of devices are giving rise to techniques that do not rely on centralized data sets.

Deep learning is slowly becoming part of the class of algorithms data scientists need to know about. Originally used in computer vision and speech recognition, there are starting to be examples and use cases involving data types and problems that data scientists can relate to. Challenges include choosing the right network architecture (architecture engineering is the new feature engineering), hyperparameter tuning, and casting problems and transforming data so they lend themselves to deep learning. (Coincidentally, one of the more interesting large-scale data products I’ve encountered this year isn’t based on deep learning.)

In many cases, users prefer and favor models that are explainable (in some settings, black box models simply aren’t acceptable). Given that their underlying mechanisms are somewhat understandable, explainable models are also potentially easier to improve. With the recent rise of deep learning, I’m seeing companies use tools that explain how models produce their predictions and tools that can explain where a model comes from by tracing predictions from the learning algorithm and training data.

Tools

I won’t attempt to create a list, as there are simply too many tools to enumerate. The ecosystem of tools that help you with data ingestion, integration, processing, preparation, and storage, as well as model deployment, are all critical. Here are a few observations on machine learning tools:

Python and R are the most popular languages. Keras is the most popular entry point for those wanting to use deep learning (Keras now comes bundled when you install TensorFlow).

While notebooks seem to be the model development tool of choice, IDEs are popular among R users.

There are a lot of libraries for general machine learning and deep learning, some are better at easing the transition from prototype to production.

Ease of scaling from a laptop to a cluster is an important consideration, and Apache Spark is a popular execution framework for making that happen. It’s also often the case that after a series of data wrangling steps you are able to fit your data set into a single, beefy server.

Vendors are starting to support collaboration and version control.

At the end of the day, you may need data science tools that seamlessly integrate with your existing ecosystem and data platform.

This is a great time for companies to assess what problems and use cases lend themselves to machine learning. I’ve attempted to summarize some recent trends and remaining bottlenecks, and your main takeaway should be that you can start using machine learning. Start with a problem for which you already have some data. The fancy models come later.

[steampoweredstrawberry]

Under the Wings of the Hawke Ch: 10

Fandom: Dragon Age II

Pairing: FHanders

Rating: Explicit

AO3 Link

Warnings:

Alcohol consumption

**Author's Note** Just as a clarification, Fenris is introduced in this chapter and he and Anders don't get along. I'm planning on steering them into a friendship direction, but until I get to that point, chapters from Anders' perspective will be Fenris-critical. I personally like Fenris very much, and the way I am writing his and Anders' relationship until they become friends is not my own personal reflection on him as a character.

Thank you.

There Anders was once again for his bi-weekly appointment. Wynne, as always, sat opposite of him in her armchair, hair pulled up and a pad of paper resting on her knee. And, as always, he felt like a child about to be scolded for being naughty, even if Wynne had never scolded him, and promised never to. Even so, he sat on the couch with a rigid back and hands folded between his knees, expecting it.

The session had been fairly routine as always. She asked him about how the medication was helping, if he was having intrusive thoughts, ways to deal with those thoughts and impulses outside of medication. The usual. He had considered lying to her about the recent bout of intrusive thoughts. About how he was deep in blaming himself for Karl once again and lacked the energy to do much of anything except browse the internet for hours, either hunting down bizarre conspiracy theories or watching cat videos. Work had been difficult, but he and Pounce needed to eat. Even if his idea of ‘eating’ over the last week had been a handful of cereal here and there, or partially heated leftover take out.

He and Wynne agreed that perhaps he needed his dosage reassessed. She signed Anders another referral for the psychiatrist in the hopes that either an increased dosage or different medication would help. The slip of paper was already crammed in his back pocket.

“Is there anything else you would like to discuss, Anders?” Asked Wynne, the warmth in her voice was unmistakable. And, despite what he was going through, Anders knew that she was a trustworthy sort.

“I...uh…I made a new friend, I guess.” Anders said, forcing a weak smile for her benefit. “She’s that woman I told you about a couple of sessions ago. The dominatrix—Claudia. We text, and sometimes talk on the phone, and we’ve hung out a couple of times. She invited me to hang out with her and some of her other friends tonight.” He paused, tracing his jaw with his fingertips. The idea filled his stomach with butterflies, but not the good kind. He had considered at least half a dozen excuses he could use to get out of going. Yet, at the same time, he couldn’t help but shake the feeling that Claudia would be disappointed in him and not want to talk to him anymore. “I’m considering not going, though she will probably be mad at me for ditching.”

Wynne scribbled something down on her note pad. “If you don’t feel like you can attend, there is nothing wrong with telling this woman that you won’t be able to make it. If you’re worried about her asking why, you can just tell her that you are not well enough to make it; you don’t need to elaborate on any of your mental health issues.”

Anders snorted, but did not smile. “I think she already figures that there’s something going on with me.”

“What makes you think that?”

“I broke down in front of her a week and a half ago.” Ander shifted how he had his legs crossed. “She stayed with me for a few hours and bought me something to eat.”

“She sounds like the sort of person who would understand if you told her that you couldn’t go.”

“I don’t know.” Hummed Anders. He couldn’t shake the feeling that not going would upset Claudia, even though Wynne’s assessment of her made sense. “I’m thinking of going, but if it becomes too much, I might leave early.”

“I can’t tell you what is best for you, Anders,” Wynne was writing something as she spoke, “however, if you feel like you will be able to make an appearance, I do think it will be beneficial in helping you through the grieving process to have some interaction with other people.”

Anders nodded in understanding.

“So, homework for next session.”

xXx

Anders paced the hallway in his apartment anxiously. He clutched his phone with an iron grip, considering just canceling and being over with it. Then, he could sink back into bed and watch cat videos, or a movie, or even masturbate if it suited him. Reading a book or playing a video game was too much effort on his brain, but at least with the other three, he could relax in bed, and even fall asleep if the strain of being awake was too much for him.

It had been ten minutes since he received her ‘on my way :)’ text. Which meant he had only a couple minutes more to respond and tell her that he wasn’t going. Pounce came trotting out of the bathroom with a cheerful meow as Anders walked passed the door. He was probably sleeping in the bath tub again.

He clicked the on button on his phone once more, checking to see how much time had gone by since she texted him. But more importantly, how much time he had left to back out. Part of him didn’t want to. Claudia had been excited to invite him to Varric’s game night, and was hoping that he would fit in well with her other friends so that they could all hang out. They had discussed the details over the phone. And, while he couldn’t see her as they spoke, he could only imagine the puppy-dog expression she must have been wearing when she made the request. It only proved to Anders that he was a weak man, having fallen for such a tactic without even being there in person to see it, nor with the will enough to refuse it, even as only lip service.

His phone buzzed unexpectedly, giving Anders a reason to jolt back half a step. He looked down at the screen. It was illuminated, and with his texting app showing him what he had just received: Here.

Anders didn’t need to check who it was from to know that the sender was Claudia. Any opportunity he had to see his way out of the scenario was forfeited. To compensate, he took a sharp breath in, then proceeded to the door. He locked up on his way out.

xXx

Claudia was waiting just outside his building in her car. From the looks of the vehicle, which was a deep blue, though with some fading in places, Anders had to wager she was the second owner. Maybe even third. But, the engine ran smooth from what he could tell and she didn’t complain about it. Anders would certainly not complain if he had a running car; relying on public transit was a hassle.

He pushed these thoughts from his mind and climbed into the passenger seat.

“Hey.” Greeted Claudia. She waited a couple seconds—long enough for him to buckle his seatbelt—before pulling out of the parking spot.

“Hey.” Echoed Anders. He occupied himself with adjusting the seat to allow himself enough leg room; whomever last sat in her passenger seat had to have been considerably shorter than him.

The ride was mostly silent, except the music she had playing softly over the radio. Occasionally, she would sing along when it was something she seemed to enjoy a bit more than the other songs. He didn't know Claudia that well, but he had to assume that something had her in good spirits.

It was a short drive, though Anders was quite alarmed when she threw the car in park in the parking lot for The Hanged Man. He was sure they were going to wherever Varric lived for a couple rounds of cards and maybe a few beers. Instinctively, he thought it was a mistake, but Claudia was unbuckling her seatbelt and reaching for the purse in the backseat. Had she forgotten?

“I thought we were going to Varric's house for cards.” Anders protested, though not before offering a hand to her in order to reach the purse; his arms were longer and made it easier to reach.

“We are. Varric lives in the apartment above The Hanged Man.” She explained. The keys were already out of the ignition and being dropped into her purse.

That didn't add up. Anders recalled Claudia saying that she lived in the apartment above The Hanged Man with her mother and uncle. He highly doubted if Varric lived there as well. “Don't you live in that apartment?”

“Kind of. Not really. We live above the shop right next to The Hanged Man. It's just easier to say I live above The Hanged Man, since everyone knows where that is.”

Anders didn't offer anymore arguments on the matter. It was kind of like how people would say things like 'I live in Denerim', despite living in a village outside the city. It wasn't exactly honest, but it made it easier to explain things to people not from the area. He thought nothing more on the matter and got out of the car.

Claudia led the way into the apartment. Apparently, she had a key to the place, Anders noticed. It struck him as a bit odd, but not nearly as odd as the fact that a famous author lived in a shithole apartment in Lowtown. He could probably afford Hightown's rent and live in a penthouse apartment with a view all the way to the Waking Sea.

“Do you know why Varric doesn't live in Hightown?” He asked curiously. It helped keep his mind off of the looming dread of having to socialize.

“He doesn't want to. He dislikes the nobles and would rather slum it in Lowtown than have to deal with them on the daily.”

xXx

Claudia didn't bother knocking when they got upstairs and to the front door. It was open, so there was no need for the key she had in her possession. When they got in, Anders was surprised at how sharply decorated the apartment was, despite it being in Lowtown. His furniture looked sturdy and Dwarven-made. Some of the pieces even looked antique. There were plenty of bookshelves, none wanting for books, either. There was no way that all of them were by Varric, but Anders couldn't help but glance over at the shelves in search of one of his as Claudia led him into the dining room.

Every one of Hawke's friends that Anders had met prior were crowded around a long, rectangular table, including the chief of police—Aveline Vallen. The only person he didn't recognize was an elven man, handsome, with white hair and markings on his skin. He was sitting beside Isabela, with Merrill on the other side. Isabela flirted with the both of them while she shuffled and dealt cards.

“Hawke!” Boomed Varric towards Claudia. “You finally made it! And you brought Blondie with, too. There's beer and soda in the fridge. Help yourselves.”

“I'm going to get something to drink. Want anything?” It hadn't registered that Claudia was talking to him until several seconds later.

Anders was embarrassed, but tried to play it off like he was busy watching Isabela deal the cards; He didn't want everyone laughing at him so soon in. “A beer is fine. Thank you.”

“No problem. Deal me in, Isabela.”

Isabela made an affirmative remark as Claudia disappeared into the kitchen.

The time in which she was away seemed to drag on. She was the only person he knew beyond  a face and a name; one of them, he didn't even have a name. Anders could feel his pulse rising and his breathing becoming shallow. He tried to remain calm and take even, deep, breaths. Social situations made him uncomfortable. Social situations when he was feeling the way he did was torture.

Luckily, Claudia was only gone for a couple of minutes. She returned with an open bottle of beer in one hand and a can of soda in the other.  The beer was handed off to him, and she took a seat near Aveline. The only other empty chair was beside Claudia, and across from the elven man, so Anders had little option but to take it.

Isabela begun divvying up the cards. She paused at Anders, probably because he hadn't confirmed whether or not he was playing. He didn't even know what they were playing.

“Do you want in, Darling?” She asked.

“What are we playing?”

“Diamondback.” Assured Varric. If you don't know how to play, you can pair up with someone to learn the rules and jump in when you feel confident.”

“I know how to play Diamondback.” Confirmed Anders. And, he did. Whether or not he was good at it was a different story. “Deal me in.”

While Isabela dealt the cards, Claudia cursed herself under her breath. “I forgot to introduce you to Fenris. Anders, the person you're sitting across from is Fenris. Fenris, this is Anders.”

The elf—Fenris—muttered a quick greeting. Anders responded with the same.

Xxx

After Several hands, Anders was really beginning to realize how terrible he was at Diamondback. Though, he was pretty sure that Isabela was cheating. Varric, he couldn't tell. It was a good thing they weren't paying for money, especially as his rent was due in three days. Conversation was pleasant enough, between Varric telling impossible stories about either someone at the table, or someone famous he knew and the litany of jokes almost everyone was sharing. Claudia seemed to be enjoying herself, at least. Anders, not so much. He would have much rather been in bed. Yet, he acknowledged, under different circumstances and if his illness wasn't an issue, this would have been fun. No matter how much he told himself that, the thoughts of Karl kept coming, and all Anders could do to keep them at bay was take another sip of the beer.

“You never did tell me how you and Blondie met, Hawke.” Varric's words caught Anders off-guard. He had been trying so hard to focus only on the cards in his hand, after all.

“He stitched my arm back up a while back.” She explained, throwing a card into the discard pile. “I left my phone at the hospital by accident after that, and he was kind enough to return it to me.”

“Why did your arm need stitching in the first place?” Asked Fenris.

“Do I really need to answer that?” Groaned Claudia.

“Yes.” Varric said.

Several others agreed with him, which seemed to upset Claudia. Anders felt bad for her, given his similar situation.

“It was a work-related injury.” Claudia spat coldly, downing probably half of her soda in one gulp. The indigestion that must have given her caused Anders to cringe.

“You spank people for a living.” Isabela sang her words sweetly, but there was a wolfish quality about the grin she wore and the sparkle in her eyes.

“And you hack into other peoples' computers for one.”

The argument, though mostly good-natured, was making Anders uncomfortable. He wanted to go home. He wanted to be back in bed. He lacked the energy to continue much more. And, the thoughts of Karl were hammering into his skull without reprieve. Anders needed to leave, but that would mean having to convince Claudia to leave early in order to drop him off.

“May I have a word with you in the kitchen, Claudia?” He requested, putting on the best attempt at 'normal' he could muster in that moment.

“Yeah. I'll be right back, everyone.”

Anders didn't bother to take in the kitchen's appearance when he found himself there. He chose instead to press himself into one of the counters, trying his best to hide his growing anxiety.

“Is something wrong, Anders?” She asked kindly.

“Yes...no...I need to go home. My...illness has been acting up recently, and I would much rather be at home and in bed than here. No offense.”

“I can ask everyone to tone it down a bit if that would help.”

“I don't think it will, but I appreciate the sentiment. I would really just like to be back home. If you would rather stay, I can walk or—“

“—It's too far for you to walk.” Claudia protested. “I'll just leave a little early and drop you off. Varric has these little get togethers regularly, so maybe if your illness isn't acting up when he hosts the next one, you can come.”

“Thank you.”

They headed back into the dining room. Isabela was collecting the cards from their last hand played, which she most likely won.

“Anders and I are going to head out now. He isn't feeling too well, so I'm going to drop him off and head home after that.”

“Lame.” Complained Isabela between shuffling the cards.

“I hope you feel better, Anders.” Merrill's remark was punctuated with a sweet smile.

“All of us are dealing with our own issues, but keep playing. Why can't he as well?”

Fenris' words put a sizable frown on Anders' face. He didn't know the other man, and yet here he was, trying to make a judgment call on Anders' behalf. Whether or not he meant to be offensive didn't matter at that moment; all that mattered was that he dismissed Anders' very real need to go back home.

“That's kind of a shitty thing to say, Fenris.” Anders was grateful for Claudia's interjection, but he didn't need her to fight his battles.

“Yes, because clearly you understand exactly what I'm going through right now.” He spat back, making no effort to hide his upset.

Before Fenris was given a chance to respond, Claudia was already tugging him out of the room.

[myfriendpokey]

hobbies etc

1. i tend to use the word "loose" when i talk about what i'm interested in, what i enjoy or like to see, and the closest i can get to defining what i mean by it is as a structure that could approximate some of the messiness of perception - noise, association, distraction, juxtaposition, comparison, the various strange and sublimated movements of attention and of drive that occur when we experience these things. i hope indiana jones can escape from that car. god, i love her hair. wait, what happened. that's the man from the thing.

2. and if i'm interested in that i think that part of it is that i find those kind of diffuse networks of association interesting and so wish that more work would engage it directly rather than just stimulate it, make it in a sense the medium in which they work, unfolding in attention, and not just assume for the nth time that i still just care about whether indiana jones can escape from the car. but there's another part of it which is the fact that "growing up playing videogames", or making videogames, makes them a specific format i have a lot of associations with, while at the same time not knowing another format which has such an abrupt disconnection between the experience of playing and the memory of that experience, to such frequently dissatisfying  effect.

3. my memory of playing for example mr. nutz is in itself a kind of imaginary landscape, with scattered platforms and enemies but also music, or multiple musics jumbled up, and "movement" which is the movement of attention within the act of playing (encompassing sensory elements, the task of "mapping" and extrapolating terrain, various small moments of excitement or dread etc) rather than the movement of the mr. nutz character. who in fact really requires a persistent unrelating focus to keep going: your memory might be able to easily glide to the next level and that horrible rollercoaster maze, but mr. nutz needs you to keep looking at him, right now, motherfucker, if you want to climb over the platform in the first level. i feel like this is an old criticism but that it's still kind of pertinent, that games persist in memory because the kind of drives they can touch upon or affect they can draw up is so mysteriously powerful, but that the actual formal structure of these things is almost totally unable to deal with or even articulate it - they need the radical unelective surgery of memory before these things can even be uncovered.

4. so it's kind of a sticking point for me, and like a formal itch i can't resist trying to scratch, that image of synthesis between what i do enjoy - certain kinds of embodied focalisation and the forms of spatial experience which they can frame or suggest, certain rhythms, imagery and structures of sensation or representation - and the kind of more "open" reading more associated with for example comic books, less frozen representationally around a single mode of seeing and allowing for a more dynamic back-and-forth between the forward motion of the panel system and the backwards motion which is the tendency for the eye to be caught and pulled elsewhere by some intra-panel detail or splash of light. and even if ultimately unreconcileable on a "deep" formal level the prospect of chimerical game structures which can pick and mix contingently between both ways of seeing still has more appeal to be than purer methods.

5. and if this interest is a purely personal one driven by who knows which despicable unsayable parts of the unconscious abyss i do feel it's something which relates to, and maybe draws sustainance from, particular parts of the way games are understood now. i've written before about finding it helpful to imagine "videogames" as not just a single self-contained concept but as a dynamic space between two different tendencies, "video" (meaning digital, technology, role and attitudes of computers etc) on one side, "games" (encompassing ideas of repeatability and permutation along with a set of inherited attitudes about entertainment, what it constitutes, what place it has in life). and i think again in this schematic it's impossible to underestimate the impact of the internet on both the imagination of the digital and also on the ways in which it's read, understood, produced and disseminated. it's not so much that gameFAQs makes it harder to keep secrets in games so much that the ability to switch fluidly between information sources in itself - and the understanding that a "game" is just another component in the broader network of such sources. the fluidity of the affective understanding of games is mirrored by the fluidity of the way in which they're played nowadays, which is something you can't put back in a box and which i think insistence on a continuum of "mechanics" as defining the game form is incapable of dealing with.

6. i don't know that this sense of historicity mandates specific forms of content (i.e. games "about" the internet, etcetera) - in fact, it seems to me like many games which adopt these strategies do so in order to represent memory, or real life, both things which have tended to be absent from computer games as a format. jack king-spooner's "beeswing" uses multiple shifting or contradicting visual strategies at once as a way to represent a space that's both personal (memory) and extrapersonal (real spaces, other people and their own memories or discourses). nina freeman's "cibele" both frames an MMO-esque videogame in the context of a fictional computer and also foregrounds that genre's juxtaposition of chat boxes with gameplay. vasily zotov's "quite soulless" uses a series of inscrutable diorama-esque symbolic systems, of which you control one or more parts, when trying to represent the opaque bureaucracy of immigration agencies which your character tries to navigate. i don't mention to suggest that it's necessarily a mimetic techique - i think instead that if it lends itself to realism, that in itself is because it's already connected to the "real" way that we experience computer games, and that it was the need for mimesis which first allowed this property to get recognised.

7. this said i am not sure that it constitutes a tendency, or that any tendency which does exist will be amenable to videogames in the way we might like to think (new golden age, advancement of the medium, lakes of stew etc). and i am not sure if even stylistic evolution has much merit in itself - the only thing "worth doing" in videogames would be disconnecting them from the formats of production, distribution and usage which helped make them a breeding ground for nu-fascists or whatever (same as the reg kind but now in tripp pants) which i think is a matter of material organisation rather than any aesthetic kind. but as i say it's an itch i like to scratch so i've been scratching.

8. previously i would have been more interested in getting this sense of looseness through sudden changes in content and "mechanics" (for example in Glory Days Of The Free Press) - i think after using unity more and more i tend to think of it in ways specifically connected to the camera, which as a disconnected "object" in that engine (rather than just a fixed viewport) becomes newly easy to play around with and manipulate. the strange rotating viewport in magic wand was a kind of crude attempt at approximating a kind of looseness in the way the screen (and correspondingly what was taking place in it, the environments and little characters) were read - where you wouldn't necessarily remain grounded to the player character, where that character would act as  the locus for a more free-floating way of experiencing the areas which would still allow for the spatial experience of crawling around said areas as a fussy little man: not being frozen to that mode of perception, but slipping in and out of it. similarly (maybe more crudely) the segmenting of areas in mouse corp into firstperson and thirdperson sections as well as more blatantly "gamey" elements where you'd see the mice framed in some less experiential system. coby castle had an extremely slow camera coupled to a mouse and a "player character" wholly disconnected from it - you could match them up if you liked or else just move around one or the other, although that game wasn't very interesting either way. glimby and crab.html and diary 24/07 are all browser games, made in either fusion 2.5 or construct 2, with the goal of absorbing elements of the way we read things in a browser, scrolling around to absorb different elements rather than focusing persistently on a single one. my current project is called bird games and uses a 2d camera following a 2d player around a 2d space, but with some 3d camera tracking and 3d environment parts, to sometimes disorienting effect. it also tries to use some of the visual conventions of both ye olde web designe and comic books - like text tables and speech bubbles - both of which carry associations on how to read them carried from less sharply focalised formats. so it's a very simple game but one which i hope can be read in this loose manner, like an alt. comic version of girl's garden(1984). i think my general lack of any kind of technical ability (after 8 years..!) puts hard limits on any desire to build some kind of Universal Digression System, something which would expand or contract to encompass any kind of content or gameplay i wanted to put there, so all efforts remain pretty makeshift, smoke n mirrors and the barest bits of 7th-hand videogame mechanics propping things up, like trying to make dollhouses out of old turkey bones. if i find out how to beat mr nutz i'll let you know.

[thisdaynews]

Democrats become the Hannibal Lecter party

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/democrats-become-the-hannibal-lecter-party/

Democrats become the Hannibal Lecter party

Former Vice President Joe Biden’s time in the Obama administration was a repeated target during the second Democratic primary debate. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

2020 elections

Republicans made a virtual industry of lionizing Ronald Reagan after he left office. The same cannot be said of Democrats’ treatment of Barack Obama’s legacy.

The dustup in recent days among Democratic presidential candidates about Barack Obama’s presidential legacy recalls a dust-up Obama himself started on the subject of presidential legacies before he had one of his own — almost a dozen years ago.

“I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America,” candidate Obama told the Reno Gazette-Journal in January 2008, when he was running for the nomination against Hillary Rodham Clinton, “in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it.”

Story Continued Below

The Clintons, who believed his presidency did indeed make consequential history, understandably took offense. But history has a sense of humor: Obama now finds himself lumped by many fellow Democrats on the 2020 campaign trail in much the same category as Bill Clinton — a satisfactory presidency, even a pretty good one, but with too many disappointments and too much incrementalism to be transformational.

Obama can ponder the irony next time he is landing at the capital’s Reagan airport or giving a speech at the massive Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, a few blocks from the White House.

The debate highlights a persistent reality of modern politics. A generation of conservatives recognized that history is an instrument of power, and built a virtual industry dedicated to celebrating Reagan’s legacy and renaming things in his honor.

Democrats, by contrast, during the same time often have become the Hannibal Lecter party — eating their party’s presidential legacies with fava beans and a nice chianti.

“Conservatives see politics as a narrative so they use history to build their narrative,” said Neera Tanden, president of the liberal Center for American Progress. “Democrats and liberal academia spend much more time deconstructing presidential power than building it up. … We should build up, not tear down, the best progressive president of our lifetime, Barack Obama.”

In the days since the most recent round of presidential debates, when Obama’s reputation became collateral damage as candidates took aim at former Vice President Joe Biden, there seems to be a rough consensus among most contenders and liberal commentators in favor of lightening up on the 44th president.

But this appeal in a way highlights the disparity. It is one thing to lay off criticism — quite another to lay on thick the praise and presidential myth-making.

No one under, say, 40 years old would have deep contemporaneous memories of Reagan’s exit from the presidency in January 1989, and even those older have become a bit misty on details.

At the time, his presidency had all the blemishes and contradictions that most chief executives acquire in office — which in his case included the Iran-Contra scandal and big deficits from the supposed fiscal conservative. The Soviet Union had yet to fall; Reagan personally was showing his age. He hardly seemed the outsize figure that even many progressives regard him as.

The effort to defend and promote his record had two distinct engines. One effort was centered around him in California, led by friends, staff and former first lady Nancy Reagan. This was based on the mainstreaming of Reagan, elevating him from a frequently divisive partisan figure into a more unifying historical one.

“We have the conservatives, let’s work on the middle,” was the thinking, explained Fred Ryan Jr., who served as Reagan’s first post-presidential chief of staff and is now chief executive of The Washington Post.

This was effectively a generation-long campaign, using key milestones like the opening of the Reagan library atop a Southern California mountainside in 1991, Reagan’s death in 2004 (with funeral planning a decade in the making) and the 100th anniversary of his birth in 2012. The Reagan library board, chaired by Ryan, over the years has included conservative loyalists like former attorney general Edwin Meese but also luminaries with scant connection to politics, including CEOs of Fortune 500 companies like GE.

The other effort was Washington-based, and much more avowedly ideological. Conservative activist Grover Norquist and fellow travelers aimed to elevate Reagan as a way to elevate their own pro-business, anti-Big Government agenda.

One goal was to name as many things for Reagan or build statues for him in as many places as possible. One of the most prominent was an airport skeptics noted was already named for a distinguished president: Washington National, just over the Potomac River from the District of Columbia.

“Look, if you have a Reagan Airport you can create 100,000 conversations, “So, Mom, we’re at Reagan Airport. What’s that about with Reagan?’” Norquist said, adding, “If people are naming things, you must be pretty cool.”

The effort, backed by then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich, left many people galled. Reagan had extolled state and local autonomy, and Washington-area governments objected to imposing a new name on an airport ostensibly controlled by a local authority. When the bill renaming the airport in 1998 reached the desk of Clinton, the president who once said Reagan presided over “a decade of greed,” aide Paul Begala walked in the Oval Office with a sign saying “VETO!” Clinton, who was in no mood for what seemed like a purely symbolic fight, smiled and signed it anyway.

Clinton may have assumed someday people would be returning the favor for him. And, in fact, the airport in Little Rock, Ark., in 2012 did get renamed for him and Hillary Clinton.

But there is not a coordinated effort of the sort that assembled to promote the Reagan legacy. For a time, it appeared that Clinton himself would run the effort. The Clinton Global Initiative, with its annual gatherings of heads of state, CEOs, and celebrities in New York, for a time burnished the Clinton legacy, but it disbanded during Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.

Meanwhile, Clinton, who was drafted by Obama to be “explainer in chief” for progressive policies in 2012, so far is a ghost-like figure in 2020 and none of the current candidates is touting their linkages to him. His documented and rumored sexual indiscretions, which he surmounted in the 1990s, have come into a harsher light in the wake of #MeToo.

“Legacies are protean things,” said Russell Riley, a presidential scholar at the Miller Center at the University of Virginia, “and the prism through which we view these presidencies changes depending on the circumstances.”

As “political conditions of the time” change, Riley said, Clinton, Obama, and even Reagan will see their standing rise and fall.

Notably, few Republicans are engaged on a history-buffing project for the Republican president before Donald Trump: George W. Bush. To the contrary, Trump has had sulfurous words for the 43rd president; Bush has largely avoided contemporary political disputes, apparently believing that the time-passing phenomenon noted by Riley will in due course lift his reputation.

In general, presidential reputations get vaulted into favorable territory one of two ways. One is on the basis of personal character and biography. This was the variety of hagiography that lifted George H.W. Bush, though never beloved by conservatives, at the time of his death last year.

The other is by seeing the person as an apostle of broader sociological or ideological change. This was the point Obama himself was making back in 2008 about Reagan. If his own historical stock rises, it will be because scholars and partisan activists come to see him and his achievements as the vanguard of a larger historical movement.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, speaking to POLITICO reporters and editors during a newsroom visit Monday, said he gives Obama credit for such achievements as the Affordable Care Act but said: “We have to go a lot further.” Progressives are feeling the sting of “missed opportunities” not only by Obama but other Democrats of recent decades.

On the other side, de Blasio said: “I think Reagan was a singular figure. Much as I disagree with him profoundly, I will give him [credit for a] tremendous sense of how to use that bully pulpit. And he did spark foundational change — from my point of view in the wrong direction — but it was foundational. … I think there is something objective about that fact. I don’t like what he did, but it had a much bigger impact than just what he did in his eight years.”

Read More

[terabitweb]

Original Post from Amazon Security Author: Becca Crockett

In the weeks leading up to re:Inforce, we’ll share conversations we’ve had with people who will be presenting at the event so you can learn more about them and some of the interesting work that they’re doing.

You don’t work at AWS, but you do have deep experience with AWS Services. Can you talk about how you developed that experience and the work that you do as a “Cloud Economist?”

I see those sarcastic scare-quotes!

I’ve been using AWS for about a decade in a variety of environments. It sounds facile, but it turns out that being kinda good at something starts with being abjectly awful at it first. Once you break things enough times, you start to learn how to wield them in more constructive ways.

I have a background in SRE-style work and finance. Blending those together into a made-up thing called “Cloud Economics” made sense and focused on a business problem that I can help solve. It starts with finding low-effort cost savings opportunities in customer accounts and quickly transitions into building out costing predictions, allocating spend—and (aligned with security!) building out workable models of cloud governance that don’t get in an engineer’s way.

This all required me to be both broad and deep across AWS’s offerings. Somewhere along the way, I became something of a go-to resource for the community. I don’t pretend to understand how it happened, but I’m incredibly grateful for the faith the broader community has placed in me.

You’re known for your snarky newsletter. When you meet AWS employees, how do they tend to react to you?

This may surprise you, but the most common answer by far is that they have no idea who I am.

It turns out AWS employs an awful lot of people, most of whom have better things to do than suffer my weekly snarky slings and arrows.

Among folks who do know who I am, the response has been nearly universal appreciation. It seems that the newsletter is received in which the spirit I intend it—namely, that 90–95% of what AWS does is awesome. The gap between that and perfection offers boundless opportunities for constructive feedback—and also hilarity.

The funniest reaction I ever got was when someone at a Summit registration booth saw “Last Week in AWS” on my badge and assumed I was an employee serving out the end of his notice period.

“Senior RageQuit Engineer” at your service, I suppose.

You’ve been invited to present during the Leadership Session for the re:Inforce Foundation Track with Beetle. What have you got planned?

Ideally not leaving folks asking incredibly pointed questions about how the speaker selection process was mismanaged! If all goes well, I plan on being able to finish my talk without being dragged off the stage by AWS security!

I kid. But my theory of adult education revolves around needing to grab people’s attention before you can teach them something. For better or worse, my method for doing that has always been humor. While I’m cognizant that messaging to a large audience of security folks requires a delicate touch, I don’t subscribe to the idea that you can’t have fun with it as well.

In short: if nothing else, it’ll be entertaining!

What’s one thing that everyone should stop reading and go do RIGHT NOW to improve their security posture?

Easy. Log into the console of your organization’s master account and enable AWS CloudTrail for all regions and all accounts in your organization. Direct that trail to a locked-down S3 bucket in a completely separate, highly restricted account, and you’ve got a forensic log of all management options across your estate.

Worst case, you’ll thank me later. Best case, you’ll never need it.

It’s important, so what’s another security thing everyone should do?

Log in to your AWS accounts right now and update your security contact to your ops folks. It’s not used for marketing; it’s a point of contact for important announcements.

If you’re like many rapid-growth startups, your account is probably pointing to your founder’s personal email address— which means critical account notices are getting lost among Amazon.com sock purchase receipts.

That is not what being “SOC-compliant” means.

From a security perspective, what recent AWS release are you most excited about?

It was largely unheralded, but I was thrilled to see AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store (it’s a great service, though the name could use some work) receive higher API rate limits; it went from 40 to 1,000 requests per second.

This is great for concurrent workloads and makes it likelier that people will manage secrets properly without having to roll their own.

Yes, I know that AWS Secrets Manager is designed around secrets, but KMS-encrypted parameters in Parameter Store also get the job done. If you keep pushing I’ll go back to using Amazon Route 53 TXT records as my secrets database… (Just kidding. Please don’t do this.)

In your opinion, what’s the biggest challenge facing cloud security right now?

The same thing that’s always been the biggest challenge in security: getting people to care before a disaster happens.

We see the same thing in cloud economics. People care about monitoring and controlling cloud spend right after they weren’t being diligent and wound up with an unpleasant surprise.

Thankfully, with an unexpectedly large bill, you have a number of options. But you don’t get a do-over with a data breach.

The time to care is now—particularly if you don’t think it’s a focus area for you. One thing that excites me about re:Inforce is that it gives an opportunity to reinforce that viewpoint.

Five years from now, what changes do you think we’ll see across the cloud security landscape?

I think we’re already seeing it now. With the advent of things like AWS Security Hub and AWS Control Tower (both currently in preview), security is moving up the stack.

Instead of having to keep track of implementing a bunch of seemingly unrelated tooling and rulesets, higher-level offerings are taking a lot of the error-prone guesswork out of maintaining an effective security posture.

Customers aren’t going to magically reprioritize security on their own. So it’s imperative that AWS continue to strive to meet them where they are.

What are the comparative advantages of being a cloud economist vs. a platypus keeper?

They’re more alike than you might expect. The cloud has sharp edges, but platypodes are venomous.

Of course, large bills are a given in either space.

You sometimes rename or reimagine AWS services. How should the Security Blog rebrand itself?

I think the Security Blog suffers from a common challenge in this space.

It talks about AWS’s security features, releases, and enhancements—that’s great! But who actually identifies as its target market?

Ideally, everyone should; security is everyone’s job, after all.

Unfortunately, no matter what user persona you envision, a majority of the content on the blog isn’t written for that user. This potentially makes it less likely that folks read the important posts that apply to their use cases, which, in turn, reinforces the false narrative that cloud security is both impossibly hard and should be someone else’s job entirely.

Ultimately, I’d like to see it split into different blogs that emphasize CISOs, engineers, and business tracks. It could possibly include an emergency “this is freaking important” feed.

And as to renaming it, here you go: you’d be doing a great disservice to your customers should you name it anything other than “AWS Klaxon.”

Want more AWS Security how-to content, news, and feature announcements? Follow us on Twitter.

Corey Quinn

Corey is the Cloud Economist at the Duckbill Group. Corey specializes in helping companies fix their AWS bills by making them smaller and less horrifying. He also hosts the AWS Morning Brief and Screaming in the Cloud podcasts and curates Last Week in AWS, a weekly newsletter summarizing the latest in AWS news, blogs, and tools, sprinkled with snark.

#gallery-0-5 { margin: auto; } #gallery-0-5 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 33%; } #gallery-0-5 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-0-5 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */

Go to Source Author: Becca Crockett Definitely not an AWS Security Profile: Corey Quinn, a “Cloud Economist” who doesn’t work here Original Post from Amazon Security Author: Becca Crockett In the weeks leading up to re:Inforce, we’ll share conversations we’ve had with people who will be presenting at the event so you can learn more about them and some of the interesting work that they’re doing.