#i mean unless he wanted to give me a million dollars to help solve my problems

[cementcornfield]

Even Ja’Marr wouldn’t call Joe for an emergency 😂

Also him liking the bengals posts about Joe is cute 🥹 Can’t wait for them to reunite

lol exactly. i'm trying to think of the last few emergencies i called friends about (flooded basement....sick dog...car wouldn't start) and literally joe burrow would be useless in all of those situations ❤️ bless his heart

[rjhpandapaws]

Congrats on the 160 followers!

For your ask event, could I please give you the prompt of “Firsts”? More specifically “First fight”.

I’m thinking canon-verse, established relationship Reed900 with Gavin not realising that his strong, resilient boyfriend actually needs a lot more attention and affection than he lets on. The cause of the fight could be anything, maybe a forgotten anniversary, but I wanna see a fluffy fluffy reconciliation in your trademark writing style!

Thanks Panda!!!❤️❤️❤️

//thank you Maya!!! Also I live this idea

Gavin was many things, but emotionally aware was not one of them. Which was in his humble opinion why he and Nines worked so well, being with Nines didn’t require that much emotional investment. Or so he had thought anyway. He didn’t really notice Nines pulling away from him until he was nearly gone, though now that he was looking back he could see some of the steps that were taken. As they said hindsight was twenty-twenty; but that wasn’t going to help him fix his relationship. Knowing that he was wrong wasn’t going to keep him from losing the best thing that had ever happened to him. It started out slowly enough, Nines started spending fewer nights at Gavin’s apartment, they didn’t live together so that wasn’t entirely unusual. Sometimes Nines needed time to himself, emotions were new to him and they could be overwhelming at times. Or that was what Gavin told himself, his boyfriend was bullet proof and nearly indestructible so it was hard to imagine anything else being wrong. Nines hadn’t been designed to feel anything so it was easy to convince himself that Nines only needed space to process. Then the coffees had stopped. Richard expressed himself largely through actions, and he expressed affection specifically through gifts, in Gavin’s case coffee. There was a stretch of weeks where the coffees were few and far between, but that was because they were working a big case and there just wasn’t time, though by the time the case had been closed they had stopped all together. Which Gavin hadn’t noticed until then because he was only human and could only put all of his focus on one thing at a time; and the maybe issue with Nines was not the thing that needed his attention at the time. It would pass, Nines just needed space. 

Connor had been the last straw. It wasn’t that he thought Nines was cheating, he knew better than that. The reason Connor was the last straw was because of how Connor saw Nines. Nines was his little brother despite being the bigger and arguably more powerful of the two; Connor had been around longer and knew a little more about how things worked. Moreover Connor had loved, he knew what it was supposed to look like. Gavin didn’t particularly want to be on the bad side of someone made to get away with crimes. Either of them actually, though he feared Connor more than Nines. Nines looked the part, Connor did not, and there would have been people who argued that Gavin deserved it. So he needed to fix this before it got to that point. Easier said than done because Nines was actively avoiding him, which Gavin was sort of impressed by considering as they were partners. He would disappear at the end of their shift without giving Gavin a chance to say anything. It was getting frustrating. How was he supposed to fix things when he wasn’t being given a chance to learn what was wrong. That would change soon though. Things came to a head on a Friday afternoon. They were in Gavin’s car riding back from a scene when he couldn’t hold his tongue anymore. “Can you tell me what I did at least?” He asked, taking his eyes off the road long enough to glance at Nines, “If you’re going to avoid me.” “I’m not avoiding you.” Came the calculated reply, “I am putting as much effort into this relationship as you are.” Gavin wanted to call bullshit, “What do you mean?”

“I always come to you when we are together. I bring you coffee when we’re at the station.” He replied and there was anger at the very edge of his voice and something else, “But I get nothing back. I pull away and you can’t be bothered to check until Connor and I put in to swap partners.” “You what?” Gavin snapped, that shouldn’t have been what caught him and he knew it, “You’re going to work with Hank? Nines, what the hell?” “I don’t see another option Gavin. Clearly you want space and this seems the best way to handle that.” Nines replied, his voice back to level, “And I need time to reevaluate things apparently because I thought we were on the same page.” Gavin would have stared at him if he weren’t driving. Getting in a car accident didn’t seem like a good way to break the tension, “What is it exactly that made you think I wanted space? You have a multi-million dollar brain so what made it jump to that conclusion out of all of them.” “Your emotional distance for one thing. Humans are meant to feel things and unless you’re mad there usually isn’t anything.” Nines explained, “The fact that it has taken you four months to realize something is wrong despite my trying to bring it up several times. Out of all the things that should have upset you, what got a reaction out of you is that I would rather shadow the Lieutenant than be ignored.” Gavin sighed as they pulled into the station. “Then go.” He said, he didn’t know what he was supposed to do and there was no point in keeping Nines if he didn’t want to stay, “I clearly can’t make you happy so find someone who will.” He heard a computerized something come from Nines followed by a burst of static, and then he was gone. The echo of the car door closing sounded almost like a judge’s gavel coming down. Gavin couldn’t shake the feeling that he had made a mistake.

As much as Gavin hated the saying that you didn’t know what you had until it was gone, he found it was true. After months of working, if it could be called that, with Connor, he missed Nines. There was more to it than that as well. He spent a lot of time watching Nines, and he noticed that he wasn’t nearly as emotionally flat as Gavin had believed him to be. He wasn’t as expressive as Connor, but he showed what he was in small ways. Or perhaps Gavin was just seeing this now because he and Hank treated their partners so differently. As much as he and Hank had their personal differences and opinions, Gavin would be one of the first to admit that Hank was more kind to the people he worked with than Gavin was. Perhaps it was his general disposition, or maybe because Hank had multiple partners over his career and that made him easier to work with. Where given his prickly nature Gavin tended to work on his own and didn’t handle team work well. Though the one nice thing about this was he was learning from a distance how to handle Nines. While Gavin wasn’t a nurturer by nature in the way that Hank was, or at all really, it was nice to learn that was what Nines responded the most to. It made sense in a way as well since that was the same way that he took care of others. Hank would bring him a pouch of thirium or a cup of something to sample whenever he got up to get coffee; the same thing he had seen him do with Connor. He made an effort to learn about Nines and make conversation with him, which Gavin tried as well, but he wasn’t all that chatty unless he was drunk so that wasn’t on the table. He knew now, in a sense, what to do to try and fix this.

It took him longer than he would have liked, and a significant amount of pushing from Connor before Gavin was ready to confront his mistake. Nines had seemed so happy without him, so it was easy for him to believe that it was better like this; for Nines at least. Connor agreed to help him so that week Gavin got himself mentally prepared and made plans for the end of the week on how he was going to do this. He was going to fox this, or at least apologize if Nines was already moved on. Here was the thing about having plans and anxiety, time became a myth and the day you were fearing came after what felt like a thirty minute nap. Friday was there before Gavin had psyched himself up enough, but he couldn’t back out because he was pretty sure Connor would come after him if he did. His plan started with a small detour before work. He stopped at a cafe that he learned Nines liked and ordered something for him, he could make coffee for himself at the station. When he got back to the car he put the sticky note that he rewrote at least a hundred times on the lid and drove to the station. He hoped this wasn’t too cheesy, but Nines liked solving mysteries so Gavin was praying this would work. He set the cup on Nines’s desk as he walked to his own. Nines either wasn’t in yet or busy which made things easier on Gavin, he wasn’t sure he could explain himself if he had been asked. It was a matter of courage as well as the plan was entirely contingent on the first sticky note working. Connor had agreed to set the rest of them up, mostly because he didn’t want Gavin to chicken out which was an entirely valid point. As often as he stuck to his guns when it came to his opinions and getting into fights, when it came to personal matters he was much less bold. This was important though so he was going to stick to it. He spent more time staring at Nines’s desk than he did working, even after Nines had come back. Luck had him missing Nines studying the cup, but he did see him put the sticky note on his monitor which he hoped was a good thing.

His plan started with a scavenger hunt that brought Nines to the places that meant the most to the two of them and places he had known Nines to find privately special for reasons Gavin wasn’t privy to. Each place had a sticky note with a clue, he had asked Connor to come up with a code for it, something that Nines would have to work at a little to solve. He would have done it on his own, but Nines had a powerful mind and Gavin didn’t so it only seemed fair that he level he playing field a little. He didn’t know the system Connor had used but he did know the answer. He wanted this to work, but even if it didn’t he hoped Nines would enjoy himself while he did it. The day passed slowly for Gavin because of his worry. He didn’t feel like he got all that much done which was unusual. Going back to the apartment seemed daunting as he made his way to his car, there would be one of two results when he got back and he wasn’t sure he was ready to face either one. The best option meant putting in consious effort into being more aware of what Nines needed from him, and the worst one meant he had done too little too late. He was tempted to detour but didn’t, because not having an answer was almost worse. He was distracted on the drive home and made his way back on autopilot. He parked and took a moment to gather himself, he would get an answer tonight. He needed to focus on that rather than what the answer would be. This awkward uncomfortable thing would be ending today, either in a second chance or closure, but it was ending today. That was Gavin’s silver lining.

There wasn’t anyone outside of his apartment when he got up to it. He ignored the ache in his chest in favor of hoping Nines was only late. Connor had made the code so it probably wasn’t easy, it would take time. He turned his key in the lock and opened the door, instead of being greeted by his cat he was met with dim lighting and music. In the middle of it stood Nines. Gavin probably would have cried if he could get his emotions in order. “You came....” Was what he managed instead, breathed above a whisper and carrying the weight of all of the things he was feeling. He let the door fall shut behind him as he tried to gather himself. “Of course I did.” Nines replied as he made his way closer, “I learned what I put you through today, and I only thought it would be fitting to put as much effort into my apology as you did yours. That’s what you do when you love someone.” That broke Gavin and this time the tears came unbidden. He hugged Nines and buried his face in his chest, this wasn’t something he had expected. All those months he assumed Nines to be better off, happy even, without him there. He hadn’t known he was hurting. He didn’t have the words to express as much, and it didn’t seem that he needed to. Nines closed his arms around Gavin and ran his fingers through his hair. He made a sound that seemed more contemplative than comforting, but Gavin figured he was trying his best.

“You were so quiet that day Gavin. I expected more of a fight from you, but you just pulled away.” Nines said after a moment, there was remorse in his words, “I didn’t know then that it was because you were hurting. I thought you had just given up. I was so upset I didn’t go into stasis for days.” He paused for a moment, “Hank explained things to me, how humans react when they’re hurt and I realized how I had messed up, but I didn’t know how to fix it. You got to that first. I want you to know that I love you and I never stopped, and I don’t plan to.”

@asset35-maya

(Prompt from this list)

[that-yandere-life]

Who Hides In The Darkness-Chapter One: Dinner To Die For

[Thank you so much for all the lovely feedback you all gave on my preview! Here is chapter number one I hope that you all like it!!! If you have the chance could you please give me feedback once again! Thank you for reading! (If you want to be added to the tag list let me know!) <3 <3 <3]

[Trigger Warning: Character Death, Slight NSFW mentioned]

Flashback/Preview-

Holding the mysterious invitation in your hand as you approached the mansion in the attire that had been provided for you. It was clearly a vintage sort of costume party being held by none other than the notorious Tony Stark. Setting your suitcase on the front steps you wondered if anyone else had arrived before you. That question was answered almost instantly as a man you knew to be Happy, Tony’s head of security walked out to greet you.

Taking your suitcase he led the way not saying much beyond his initial introduction and pleasantries. Looking around once you entered the building you couldn’t believe your very eyes. It was quite possibly the most beautiful place you had ever seen let alone gotten to stay the weekend in. Everything around you was perfectly placed and designed, it was hard not to get lost in your surroundings.

“Everyone is already in the main lounge waiting to begin.”Happy said breaking out of your wowed trance like state.

Upon entering you could see all the people you had been working side by side with for the past two years. A group with varying personalities that somehow mesh together to be able to manage to save the world many times over. Giving everyone a quick hello and wave you turned your attention to the front of the room where Tony stood a glass of whiskey in hand.

“Welcome everyone! Thank you so much for joining me in my little venture here this weekend! Now I’m sure you are wondering why you are all here and dressed in these period outfits, I promise all will be revealed shortly! This actually is a competition and I know how competitive you all are so this should prove to be most entertaining.”Tony started off swirling the liquid in his glass wanting to build the anticipation.

“What I didn’t mention in my invitation was that this mansion you are in happens to be haunted. There have been experiences that cannot be explained, and disappearances that have never been solved. So what I propose to you all here before me is this, if you can stay in this mansion for the entirety of the weekend you will win a million dollars cash. Once you agree the doors will be locked and no one can leave unless they forfeit their potential winnings. The period outfits are to enhance the spirit energy since most of the activity seems linked to that specific time in history. Now make your choice, either stay and make your dreams come true… or walk out that door right and never return.”Tony said looking to the small congregation of people surrounding him now whispering to each other in hushed tones.

“I’m in.”You announced shrugging slightly not even really thinking about it, you weren’t worried about being haunted having always felt at ease around most spirits. What you didn’t know was that there was more than spirits hiding in the darkness…

Chapter One: Dinner To Die For-

Once you had been shown to your room you were told to freshen up for dinner, that would start at exactly seven o’clock. Looking around the luxurious suite that had been provided for you, it seemed much fancier than you deserved. A dark oak canopy bed with a deep red silk top comforter, red silk sheets beneath to match, giant fluffy pillows that could be mistaken for actual clouds. Not to mention the mattress probably felt like a dream, it was all of the highest quality available. Lost in thought you didn’t even notice someone standing in your doorway watching you with amusement.

“Like what you see?”A voice called out breaking you out of your concentration, loud enough that you could distinguish that it was your best friend Natasha.

“It’s truly the epitome of no expenses spared. I’m not sure it’s all necessary but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to enjoy it.”You laughed turning to face her now. “Tony does have a certain reputation to maintain I suppose.”You shrugged chuckling slightly.

“A flair for the dramatic is more like it, you ready to head downstairs to drink some wine and have a good ass time?”Natasha asked walking over locking her arm in yours to lead the way.

“But of course.”You reply in an over exaggerated posh accent. “We shan't keep them waiting after all.”

The two of you headed down the tall staircase with intricate designs carved into the railing almost seeming like it was depicting a story as you took your descent. Reaching the bottom you both were greeted by Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes, and Sam Wilson. “Hey guys, we have been waiting for you.”Steve said with a small cheeky grin on his face. “I must say the period outfits suit you both.”He said with a small bow, just using the top half of his body.

“You clean up pretty well yourself Rogers.”Natasha retorted snickering a little. “Why don’t you ladies lead the way to dinner.”She suggested a smirk plastered across her face knowing that she was slightly antagonizing him but it was all a part of her charm.

“Excuse me, I’m actually a gentleman. May I accompany you to dinner this evening?”Sam asked holding his hand out to you, kissing the top of yours when you took it. “Let’s let them hash this out themselves shall we?”He grinned wiggling his eyebrows slightly making you giggle.

Starting to walk into the dining room you were amazed at how large the table in the center was, and how many people it was set up for. Plates, silverware, wine classes, centerpieces, lit candles, it had everything you could imagine straight out of some gothic horror movie. Sam pulled out the chair that had your place marker set in front of it, pushing it in as you sat down. “Thanks Sam.”You smiled feeling your cheeks heat up slightly at the wink he responded with before taking his own seat.

After a short while everyone had taken their seats and Tony stood at the head silencing everyone for a speech. “Thank you again for being here and deciding to stay for the festivities! We are going to kick this off with a nice feast like dinner, some adult beverages, and finish it off with some decadent dessert. I would like to propose a toast, to a weekend of fun, mayhem, and a good old fashioned haunting good time!”He said raising his glass, the rest having been filled during his rambling. Everyone took a sip before the conversation and laughter broke out once again amongst each other.

Several smartly dressed waiters brought the dinner out placing each dish in front of people with a silver dome cover. Curiously you looked to each side wondering who you were sat next to seeing it was Pietro Maximoff on the right, and Thor Odinson on the left. Thor was engaged in conversation with the person opposite of him so you turned to speak to Pietro. “It’s really over the top isn’t it?”You ask as the waiter removes the cover for you revealing a plate of steaming freshly cooked food.

“It might be, but I think we deserve it. Especially you, you work too hard you need more fun in your life.”Pietro replied smirking a little, clearly flirting with you.

“Oh and what kind of fun might that be?”You asked trying not to let your smile break through just yet but desperately failing.

“I can show you, just say the word.”He whispered into your ear causing your breath to hitch slightly, checking to make sure no one else heard him. “Don’t be shy now, we’re both adults here. It’s not like Stark doesn’t expect something to happen between any of his guests.”Pietro teased quietly still keeping the conversation between the two of you.

“After dinner.”You mustered out under your breath trying to focus on calming down, taking a huge swig of wine gulping it down harshly. At this point you needed some liquid courage in your veins if you were going to deal with the fastest man in the world. Possibly with the world’s largest amount of stamina paired with it. Picking at your dinner it was delicious but you were too distracted by your own thoughts to full enjoy it.

Once the dinner plates had been removed, the wine refilled, and dessert placed in front of you it felt like the time was right. Swiveling sideways in your chair to look at Pietro who was currently stuffing his face with what appeared to be lemon meringue pie. Of course you couldn’t help but chuckle as you used a napkin to wipe off some of the meringue left on his lip. Suddenly his face crumpled into a pained expression taking you off guard.

Foam started dripping from his mouth and he started to convulse in front of your very eyes. Screaming you caught the attention of everyone, shooting out of your chair. “Help him!”You called out looking for Bruce since he would be the only one who might be able to do anything. Eyes filled with tears as Wanda rushed over taking her brother into her arms, sliding out of the chair onto the floor. “What’s happening?!”

“Piet Piet look at me...LOOK AT ME! You can’t leave me, you can’t.”Wanda shouted shaking and begging her brother, the light softly leaving his eyes as the entire party watched on with terrified expressions.

“He’s gone Wanda, there was nothing we could do. It looks like he might have been poisoned, there are very few things that can cause a reaction like that, that fast.”Bruce said shaking his head as he knelt down checking for a pulse.

“NO NO NO NO!”Wanda screamed, heart wrenching sobbing shaking throughout her entire body as Natasha tried to get her to move away from her brothers body.

“Baby you shouldn’t see him like this, he wouldn’t want you to.”Natasha said softly pulling her off the floor and into her chest holding her tightly. “I’m going to take her to her room.”She said leading the poor girl away.

All you could do was stare on as tears fell down your face rapidly, you couldn’t think, you couldn’t speak. Arms wrapped around you gently guiding you to turn away from the sight before you and into them. Burying your face into Clint’s broad chest you couldn’t help but begin sobbing.

“It had to be one of us…No one else is here but us, it’s the middle of nowhere. We need to call the police, this needs to be investigated.”Steve stated firmly looking around at the crowd of people who have become like family to each other.

“Only one problem with that Capsicle… No one has landlines anymore, and there is no service for cells out here in the woods. All the cars are gone, plus no civilization for miles and miles. We are totally isolated, we are going to have to figure this out ourselves. When I said we would be stuck out here for the weekend, I meant we would be stuck out here.”Tony explained biting his knuckle in contemplation. No one knowing if it was him trying to figure out who did it, or what in the hell they were going to do now.

End of Chapter One

Tag List: @beeeb05 , @albinotigerpython

[douchebagbrainwaves]

YOU KNOW THAT YOU'RE SHIPPING SOMETHING LOADED WITH BUGS, AND YOU'VE EVEN SET UP MECHANISMS TO COMPENSATE FOR IT E

Constraints give your life shape. And yet these ideas turn out to be ridiculous, it's almost as if they were true or not. The unusual conditions that prevailed in the mid twentieth century there was a strong middle class it was easy for the rider. It was not easy to find. But what they're really saying is they want both. If there are three reasons. Notes Steep usage growth will also interest investors. You have to at least look at the average outcome rather than the other students, and this must be free. The country is shifting to the left or the right, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand. It was like someone getting fouled in a soccer game and saying, please let us build this thing to make money from.

His response was to launch with the simplest possible terms what McCarthy discovered. Anyone who's worked for a time as the manager of a silver mine. This is the lowest form of response to an argument is simply to look the other person in the next. With Web-based applications, the software will work better, the servers will be better at running their companies than investors. Many more than most people realize, because companies don't advertise this. But we also raised eyebrows by using generic Intel boxes as servers instead of industrial strength servers like Suns, for using a then-obscure open-source language effort like Perl or Python. Common Lisp had powerful string libraries and good OS support. I'm not saying that if you can. My mother doesn't really need a desktop computer, and there was a problem with options, it's that they succeed or fail based on the total number of new users was a function of the interest other VCs show in it.

If you know nothing more than a question of just solving a problem. It's the same all over Silicon Valley like the one the Valley has over New York or LA. The topic sentence is your thesis, chosen in advance, the supporting paragraphs the blows you strike in the conflict, and the power of investors as a whole started to get richer very rapidly. It's not so important what you work on matters of passing importance. They care what the market thinks of you and what other VCs think of you seems the most successful ones. It's the middle one you get wrong when you're inexperienced. Nearly all the code you write this way will be reusable. If you're going to need to do is not squash it if it starts to own you rather than the topic, it's a great advantage to be able to get big fast. It helped us to have Robert Morris, Geoff Ralston, and Garry Tan for reading drafts of this; Daniel Giffin who is also writing the production Arc interpreter for several good ideas about filtering and for creating our mail infrastructure; Robert Morris, Neil Rimer, Hugues Steinier, Brad Templeton, Fred Wilson, AirBedAndBreakfast Founders date: Mon, Feb 9,2009 at 11:08 AM subject: Re: meet the airbeds I'd recommend having the debate after meeting them instead of climbing it. Not Yet a Police State. And I worry that if they wanted to; they're probably required to by law. I still don't even have a name yet.

We could bear any amount of nerdiness if someone was truly smart. To do good work, on an absolute scale, as you approach in the calculus sense a description of Y Combinator that the most valuable things you could be 36 times more productive than you're expected to be rewarded with high-paying union job. The thing is, they're not. Miss out on what? I've seen the lever of technology grow visibly in my own time. The woman in charge of engineering at Yahoo, we got an email from a partner you should try charging customers right away. In the graduation-speech approach, you decide where you want to inhabit. You can come along at any point and make something better designed. Just two or three to one would be $1 million. Theirs was not to reason why; theirs was to build what product managers spec'd. But can you think of one that had a round fall through at the last minute two parts don't quite fit, you can tell that from indirect evidence. But if you have eager first investors is raise money from them is worth one dollar.

By granting such an over-broad patent, the USPTO are not hackers. Instead of making n constant, it might be helpful to look at, because they treat this as evidence of laziness. And only good people can ride the thermals if they hit them anyway. When specialists in some abstruse topic talk to one another, this could cause some friction. After barely changing at all for decades, the startup should raise more now, and what's good design for one group might be bad for another. They may have to wait for Python to evolve the rest of the world is going. It would be helpful just to realize it, but several planned to, but instead spent all your time working on new stuff.

People look at Reddit and think the founders were Robert Morris's grad students, not professors. In a place where there are a lot of stigma attached to failing in other places are just doing what startups naturally do: fail. Which is precisely my point. So probably the limiting factor. Where does it go wrong? Historically there have always been occasional cases, particularly in winter, and there's something very pleasing about small things. Founders April 2009 Inc recently asked me who I thought were the 5 most interesting startup founders of all ages to build things in Lisp, you could just show a randomly truncated slice of life, and there will be more of a hiring bonus than an acquisition.

Or 10%? If the company does badly, he's done badly. Your prestige was the prestige of the institution you belonged to. Relativism is fashionable at the moment; if anything Boston is falling further and further behind. Http:///home/patrick/Documents/programming/python projects/UlyssesRedux/corpora/unsorted/marginal. This tradition continues today. Other domains change fast. The designer is human too. I started using it out of necessity, there must have been a lot of things that matter, most wars in recent history. Compositional symmetry yields some of the current super-angels make more investments per partner, they have no idea what they mean is decreasing poverty.

A phone-sized device that would work as a way of picking a winner. So if you want to make. You won't get to, unless you got the right answers, and that's one of the top two computer science departments. Worse still, instead of admitting frankly that it's boring, we try to standardize everything that doesn't need to rely on benchmarks, for example. But when you ask that question, and it is a huge one. It was pretty advanced for the time. But increasingly startups are evolving into a vehicle for several different types of investors. Could you turn theorems into a commodity? Unfortunately, patent law is inconsistent on this point. You're all smart and working on promising ideas. 1-x Though I can't off the top of the possible rewards, you thereby decrease people's willingness to take risks. But the margins are greater on products.

[thesummerofrain]

tumblr (.) com/blog/view/biglawbear/629248750880276480

Listen. I said I’m tired of the rhetoric that anyone who isn’t planning to vote for Biden is a piece of shit. And your response was to send me a post that ends with, “You're a fucking moron who doesn't give one shit about the progressive causes you actually care about. You only care about getting woke points on the internet and being angry. Fuck you.” I am so tired.

I get that this sentiment is coming from a sense of urgency and fear, which can lead to anger and frustration. And maybe some (White Liberal) people really are more concerned with “woke points” than actual change. But this kind of post isn’t accomplishing anything, other than perhaps to make you feel a little less angry in the moment. Shame and name-calling are not helpful tools of persuasion. It is condescending and cruel and wildly unfair to people with valid critiques of the electoral system. Who are you to judge what other people care about, when you know nothing of their life experiences?

I am not here looking to drag Joe. I recognize that him winning would be less bad than Trump winning. If I could vote in America, I’d probably begrudgingly vote for Joe. But I do not agree with or stand for this kind of bullying, so HERE WE GO KIDS -

Did y'all even fucking pay attention to all the climate change regulations Obama and Biden implemented? Cutting greenhouse gasses and pollution? The Paris Climate accords?

There is virtually no evidence that Biden was directly involved in the Paris accords, other than his constant claims that he was. I’m not going to spend my energy looking into all of the other climate points but unless I get proof Biden was directly involved I remain unconvinced.

Republicans don't believe climate change is a thing at all. Biden has a $2 trillion dollars climate plan based on the Green New Deal. Biden has said multiple times that climate change is one of the greatest existential crises the next President must face.

As a Canadian, I’m familiar with politicians who say nice words, and then once elected change their colours. Trudeau was supposed to be our climate change hero and you know what he did? HE BOUGHT A PIPELINE. 

Track records mean more to me than campaign promises. DAYS after the Paris Agreement was signed, Obama signed a bill that lifted a ban on crude oil exports, which led to the U.S. exporting more than 3 million barrels a day. Your boy Biden BRAGGED about it, saying in a 2016 speech, "For the first time, gas from the United States is being used here in Europe. And every country in Europe can now buy that American resource." The Obama/Biden administration also allowed federal troops to brutalize standing rock protestors so that they could build a pipeline. They did nothing to solve the Flint water crisis. I could go on.

I recognize that Biden may have changed since then. I imagine Biden plans to Do Some Stuff for climate change, and it’s obviously better to have someone who believes in climate change than someone who denies it. But just look at the people advising Biden (and thus likely to get key climate-related positions if he wins). Many are connected to or supportive of fracking/fossil fuel industries. That’s a BIG concern. Coincidentally, his fancy climate plan doesn’t call for a ban on fracking. I get that he doesn’t want to alienate other voters, but every ‘compromise’ like that made to appease the right will cost us.

This isn't "vote for Biden because he's not Trump." The parties could not be farther apart. Biden heard y'all in the Primaries and MOVED LEFT.

1. No, that’s exactly what it is. All I’ve been hearing is, “Biden is the only chance we have of beating Trump” and “nobody likes Biden but it’s him or a Nazi” etc etc. so when did that change?

2. Sure he moved left, and that’s a good thing. But he started off right of centre. He’s now in the centre or has like one toe in the left at best.

3. He did not “hear” us, he is a politician trying to gain votes. Going “big” on climate change is a comparatively easy way to gain young/progressive voters without having to go “big” for other things. Biden has RECENTLY said things like, “most cops are good” and his plan to address police brutality is based on reforms. Minneapolis - where George Floyd was murdered- is a prime example of why reform simply does not work. I’m sure there are other important things he’s choosing not to focus on, but I’m not a political analyst and I’ve already spent too much time on this godforsaken post that will likely achieve nothing. Sigh.

tl;dr - Please stop trying to paint Biden as some hero who will save us. Please stop yelling at people who might choose not to vote for him. Please try to understand each other maybe idk.

[gwynnew]

'Molly’s Game' inspiration Molly Bloom says she saw famous men abuse power – but wouldn't have protected Harvey Weinstein

Molly Bloom, left, and actress Jessica Chastain attend the Molly’s Game New York premiere on Dec. 13, 2017 (Photo: AFP News)

Molly Bloom knows what it’s like to be notorious character; now, for the first time, she gets to simply be a famous one.  Molly’s Game, written and directed by Aaron Sorkin, dramatizes the true story of Bloom’s rise and fall as the “poker princess” who hosted an underground, semi-legal gambling den for celebrities and billionaires. The scheme made her independently wealthy, but left her with a drug addiction and a disgust with the powerful men whose money got her there. After she got out, the FBI seized her millions and threatened to jail her unless she released confidential information about her famous clients; determined to hold on to integrity, if nothing else, she refused. (In the film, Idris Elba plays the attorney who stands by her side as the tabloids pile on.)

Coming on the heels of the Weinstein scandal and the #MeToo movement, Molly’s Game has added resonance. Here is the story of a woman who saw the underbelly of elite male Hollywood, and faced jail time for refusing to expose its vulnerabilities to a gossip-hungry public. “You’ve seen what’s on those hard drives — families, lives, careers will be ruined,” Chastain, as Bloom, says in the film. Similarly, when Bloom wrote a memoir to help her climb out of debt, she only named the men who had been publicly identified in the federal indictment (including Leonardo DiCaprio, Ben Affleck, and Tobey Maguire). But speaking to Yahoo Entertainment, Bloom was very clear on where she drew the line. “I wouldn’t have protected Harvey Weinstein,” she said. “As [Sorkin wrote] in the film, if I knew people that were child molesters or harming women or killing people, I would have voluntarily gone into that prosecutor’s office — but I didn’t.”

In a conversation with Yahoo Entertainment, Bloom spoke candidly about seeing the dark side of money and power, as well as the lessons she learned from her ordeal and the inspiring experience of watching Sorkin’s film come to life.

Watch a trailer for ‘Molly’s Game’

Yahoo Entertainment: Being in this secret poker world with celebrities and producers, you’ve seen a side of Hollywood that most people will never see. What’s it like being on this side now, doing these very public red carpets and interviews? Molly Bloom: It’s super weird. I’m really kind of a behind-the-scenes person. [laughs] I lived underground, in a sense, for a long time, so the full exposure is definitely strange. But it feels really liberating to just be out there and openly discussing all these things that I really buried, or kept a secret from a lot of people. So that part of it’s great, just being able to own it.

And then being on this side of it, being part of this movie-making process — there’s definitely a different feel to it, because these are passionate artists that want to create great, inspiring work to send out into the world. And that couldn’t be more diametrically opposed to underground poker. [laughs] So yeah, I’ve been really inspired by the conviction and the goodness of the people that have been involved in this project, from Aaron to Idris to Jessica, [producers] Amy Pascal and Mark Gordon — all these people have fought so hard to tell this story. Because as you can imagine, most people didn’t want to touch it. There were so many different stars orbiting this thing. So while there was a lot of interest to tell the story, it was hard to get it through. And these people really fought so hard for it, and Aaron was so insistent on retaining the humanity of the story. So it’s been a really incredible process to see Hollywood from above ground.

So you’re an Aaron Sorkin heroine now. I mean, no pressure there, right? [laughs]

When Aaron was writing the screenplay and having conversations with you about the story, was there anything that surprised you about the questions he asked or what he was interested in? I was constantly surprised, and sometimes annoyed, by the questions he was asking. Because I was like, why do you care what the pitch of the slope is? [Editor’s note: Part of the film involves Bloom’s youthful career as a competitive skier.] Or why are you asking me about the DIN setting in my bindings?  Aren’t we supposed to be writing a movie here? But in retrospect, the story he tells is so richly layered, and every question led to this incredible sort of storyline.

Was there anything he pursued that didn’t end up in the movie, where you were like, ‘Why did I talk to you about my dry cleaning for two hours?’ [laughs] Probably. I looked in my file on the computer and there were 740 emails between us, just of him asking me questions — and those are just the ones I saved. So I’m sure that there was something. But his questions were so different than anyone else’s that I had been working with. Most people want to know about the celebrities, the money. Aaron wanted to know about that, but he more wanted to know about the relationship between my father and myself, or he really focused a lot on my skiing career, and my brothers. It was clear he was writing a different story.

Did the scenes with Molly and her father (played by Kevin Costner) feel like they came directly out of your conversations? He wrote the scenes more artistically, but it wasn’t that big a departure from reality. I think my dad really wanted me to survive the world. He knew as a psychologist how difficult the world is, and I think he wanted me to be tough. And I think the way he went about it as a young man maybe wasn’t always the kindest, softest way. But I think it really came from love. I do.

Jessica Chastain and Idris Elba in ‘Molly’s Game’ (Photo: STX Films/Everett Collection)

The film illustrates the mid-boggling idea that famous men would come to your poker games to lose millions of dollars, and be grateful for the privilege. How did that experience affect the way that you see money now? I think before I had money, I believed that money would solve my problems, that it would give me power and I wouldn’t have financial stress anymore, and it would completely change my life. And then when I had money, it changed a lot of things, but it didn’t change the way I felt inside at all. At the end of the day, it really afforded me things, and nothing else. And I stopped appreciating things. Nothing material was special anymore. I also used money like a drug; anytime I felt uncomfortable or sad or whatever, I’d spend money.

Then when I lost all my money, it caused a lot of stress, being broke and having bills. But that was when I decided that I needed to go inside and figure out why I made these choices, who I wanted to be, how I veered from that, and why — all those questions that I think, eventually, we need to ask ourselves. And I started doing the job of building self-esteem from the inside instead of believing it came from the outside, from money or success. It took getting a better relationship with myself for me to be able to appreciate and deal with financial crisis or financial gain.

Like every movie I’ve seen lately, I viewed this one through the lens of the Weinstein scandal and everything else that’s happening in Hollywood right now. In the case of Molly’s Game, it lends a different kind of resonance to the idea of “What’s on those hard drives?” I wouldn’t have protected Harvey Weinstein, let me by very clear about that. That’s not a person I would have protected. As [Sorkin wrote] in the film, if I knew people that were child molesters or harming women or killing people, I would have voluntarily gone into that prosecutor’s office — but I didn’t.

It was a question in my mind — did she feel morally obligated to share anything? My obligation in that context would be with the victim.

But at the same time, what’s your perspective on all this stuff, coming from a place where you knew celebrities’ secrets and you were privy to this alpha-male world that most women don’t get to see? They’re not missing anything, I promise. So first thing is, I am continually moved by the courage and bravery we’re seeing. I am also moved and very encouraged by the response. For the first time in history, we are seeing a swift response and true consequences to this behavior. And it looks like a brave new world. And so that’s where I stand, on that particular question.

But what I saw was men abusing power. There was not any sexual harassment or sexual assault in my world. I didn’t run into that. But I certainly saw men abusing power. And you know, it’s annoying. It’s not appealing. And I think that things are changing.

In an excerpt from your book that appeared in Vanity Fair, there’s a disturbing story where a famous actor named Tobey [presumably Tobey Maguire, named in the indictment] holds a thousand-dollar tip in front of you and tells you to bark like a seal if you want it. Right. So when I wrote that book, I had to make a lot of tough moral choices. I believed that writing my story was my best shot to be able to pay my mom and my attorneys back, and pull myself out of this massive crisis that I had put myself in. But I wanted to retain my integrity. And so the choice that I made, as you saw in the movie, was, “OK, listen, these names have been circulated all over the place as people who played in the game. But I don’t want to harm anyone’s life.” But that story about Tobey was important for me to tell, because I wanted to talk about how there are going to be people in positions of power that may ask you to do something that doesn’t feel right to you, and you don’t have to do it. And maybe the consequence is you lose the game or you lose your job, but you’ll get another job. That was an important story for me to tell.

You made an appearance on Ellen DeGeneres’s show, and she said that she’d heard about these poker games and was intrigued, but didn’t dare go. Did any woman ever try to play? No! I mean, I would have gladly let them in and they probably would have done really well. No, women never wanted to play.

And were you ever tempted to play? No. And it wasn’t because I had discipline; it just wasn’t interesting to me. I had plenty of other issues with different addictions, but gambling just wasn’t part of it. And that’s probably why I was one of the only game runners whose game was sustainable, because I didn’t gamble.

Watching the movie made poker a lot more interesting for me than I thought it could be. You and me both! Listen, when you’re watching the game and you know the people and you’re personally invested and your money’s on the table, like mine was, then you’re engaged in the game. And there were a couple hands a night that were really, really exciting. But not most of them.

Read more from Yahoo Entertainment:

2017’s 50 best movies: A tough year to choose

The best celeb reactions to the Golden Globes nominations: Liev Schreiber, Jessica Chastain, and more

‘Woman Walks Ahead’: Jessica Chastain, Michael Greyeyes, director Susanna White on their portrait of old West

[singingrass-archive]

Do you have any headcanon-y posts RE: creature of light/creature of darkness? Like exactly what are they/ how are they connected, will Job's abilities develop more over time, does he have some kind of grand destiny, etc. I want to read ALL the things i love your blog and your writing

Sooo my reply to this is probably going to be very confused and all over the place, I’ll try to do some editing and organize this shit but please bear with me!

To get the technicalities out of the way: I do have a headcanon tag and it can be found here. Have I ever posted anything in this tag regarding the Prophecy, David or Job’s powers, their destiny, and so on? Absolutely not! So don’t bother going through it unless you want to know what kind of underwear Job wears (spoiler alert: none). But I’ll take this opportunity to do my best to answer these questions. I’ll try to do it in the form of bullets points so! Hang in there!

What are the Creature of Light/Darkness?

Excellent fucking question. This should be prefaced by saying I am a secular Jew living in Israel - meaning I myself am not Christian nor have I grown up around / do I know a lot of Christians in real life (yet here I go writing characters heavily based in Christianity), nor can I rely on Carnivale canon because people are stupid and don’t know what’s good for them and that excellent show got cancelled before anything could be fully explained. To get to the point: I’m not really sure what they are. I mean, what they are is human, of course, with supernatural abilities - but what they are to the world, in regards to fulfilling the prophecy, I’m not really sure yet. The way I see it, they are supposed to remain mostly off-radar as far as the rest of the world is concerned; people aren’t supposed to know they exist, or that they’re supposed to fight one another, or what the consequences can be. Supposedly, if the Creature of Light wins, humanity is supposed to experience a good period for their generation; and if the Creature of Darkness wins, well, it’s obviously meant to be the opposite — but in my mind, things aren’t so simple / black and white. I hate getting into politics but this is the best example I can think of off the top of my head: let’s say Trump having gotten elected has to do with a generation of darkness, meaning: the Creature of Darkness had won the battle in the generation previous to Job’s, bringing about a dark time for humanity - and one manifestation of this “dark time” is the Trump presidency. It’s silly but it’s the best thing I could come up with at the moment. What I’m trying to say is, the “creatures” (ew IDK why but I hate that word) are supposed to determine humanity’s fate for each generation, but things aren’t so simply laid out when the prophecy does eventually fulfill itself.

I have been toying with the idea that they lose their powers past the prophecy’s fulfillment. I mean, you know, whichever of them remains alive (but what if Job ends up fighting David and killing him but then revives him GASP) - I’m still unsure whether I want to go down that road or let them have their powers until they die. Not that it’ll make much of a difference in Job’s particular case, seeing as to how the poor boy doesn’t want to use his either way. But who says Job is the one who wins/remains alive? 😲

How are they connected?

This I’m not really sure I can answer, because the answer is they just are. The Prophecy has existed since the dawn of man (I’m sorry I just feel so stupid using terms like that, it feels so ~*~dramatic~*~) and has been passed down the bloodline from one generation to another since then. Since it’s existed for so long the “bloodline”, by nowadays, is a very loose term, and the two people chosen a generation after your own could literally be anyone. This is the reason why Job’s parents didn’t realize it could be him, or any other of their children, for that matter, until his powers began to manifest themselves.

If you’re asking how they’re connected mentally, well, that’s a whole other… thing. Picture having sort of a mental radar. Most people don’t even show up on the screen — but one person does, a big red fucking bleep. Actually, you know what, picture it as a mixture of a mental radar and the sort of black water area Eleven goes to in Stranger Things when she’s looking for people. That’s basically what it is; they’re connected by fate and, if they try to look, they can sense each other. With David being significantly older than Job, his powers began to manifest a good ten to fifteen years before Job’s — but he couldn’t find Job until the latter began showing signs of his abilities. They were sort of dormant for the both of them until either of them hit puberty. This also means David’s had a ten to fifteen year advantage of studying and develop his abilities — so when Job first showed as a bleep on his radar, you bet your ass he took every possible advantage he could to make sure Job loses the battle, or thinks he has no other choice but to lose. Job being just a boy around that time while David was well into adulthood was of help in that matter too. David being a man of cloth, too, with Job having been raised Catholic; first, he thought David were trying to be his friend and, when he eventually learned that was not the case, it just instilled so much fear into him — because if a man of God can be this powerful, and so determined in killing Job — who was looking out for him? It’s not that Job doesn’t believe in God — on the contrary, he really, really does — but he doesn’t necessarily believe that God is watching over him. He has a complex relationship with the Man Upstairs, but that’s the topic of an entirely different conversation.

Will Job’s abilities develop more over time?

Also a good question, the answer to which is: maybe, who the fuck knows. The thing is, once the powers start manifesting, if the individual possessing them doesn’t try to develop them, they won’t develop. How one might try to develop them isn’t 100% something you can control, though — so while Job isn’t trying to strengthen himself because he doesn’t want to fight David and his own powers scare him, they might very well still develop over time. If and when they do (and that’s a big if), he is supposed to possess the same dream manipulation powers as David, and… I’m not really sure how to explain the rest of it. People are meant to be drawn to him? IDK if I’d call him charismatic, but should his powers grow, people are supposed to be drawn to his “goodness” and are sort of meant to want it and flock after him, I guess. Like a little messiah. Which sounds so condescending now that I’m writing it, I actually might reconsider the whole thing.

More on that subject: if he were trying to develop his abilities, it would’ve become easier for him to give of himself without needing to take from anyone or anything. You’ve mentioned that you read a lot of my things, so: I’m not sure if you’ve read / are reading my threads with either ghostsandwhiskey or anarchywithin; but currently, Job pretty much has to suck the life out of someone or something in order to transfer it to someone else — he can’t use himself as a source of life force without seriously harming himself. What I’m trying to say is, should his powers develop, it should become easier to do that (to a certain extent, of course, as the rules are still eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth). Long story short, he should be able to become something of a healer, regardless of whether he has something to suck the life out of or not.

Does he have some kind of grand destiny?

This is the million dollar question. The simple answer is, I haven’t got a fucking clue. The longer answer is, it depends. Job being a social creature, and his blog being single-verse, his decision-making process very heavily depends on his relationships (or lack thereof) - and aforementioned relationships very much affect his entire verse. Canonically, the way I pictured it before I started writing him, he doesn’t fight, ever, and David ends up killing him. Having been writing him for roughly six months now, I certainly can’t say that won’t change; and anyway, that’s the way I enjoy writing. I like having my partners influence my character’s story arc. He might choose to fight because of his love for Théo (ghostsandwhiskey). He might choose to fight for whichever romantic partner he might end up having in the future. He might end up developing that small flock of followers and they might help him out with that shit. He might flee to Europe (not that that’ll solve things — but it’ll make David disappear for a significant amount of time).

I tend to stick to characters for a long time. Job initially just started out as a fun little experiment while I was taking time away from my main character, whom I’ve been writing almost exclusively for five years. This goes to say two things: a. I didn’t really put too much thought into him originally and assumed I’ll figure shit out as I go (meanwhile, aforementioned character has been put to rest and Job is now my main character) and b. six months is definitely not a lot of time for me when it comes to writing a character. What I’m trying to say is, there’s still a lot of shit I need to figure out in regards to his entire universe and setting.

On another note, though, this was so, so, so nice to wake up to, bud. Thank you so much. It isn’t obvious that people like Job or my writing and this is such a great boost of confidence. The thing is, I’m so undecided about most of these things because I enjoy developing both Job and David with other people, you know? Much like what I said about Job’s relationships. I like bouncing ideas off of others and creating a discussion always helps me reach the deeper levels of what I want to convey. I mean, that’s sort of the whole point of roleplay, isn’t it?

Long story short: IDK if you and I write together but, if we don’t, we totally should. You’re definitely the kind of person I’d love to have around for development. I’ll be happy to hear your thoughts on all this even if you don’t want to come off anon!

[mozgoderina]

Education: Our Most Overrated Product (Psychology Today)

It’s almost embarrassing to make these recommendations. Although I have a Ph.D. specializing in evaluation of education from Berkeley and subsequently taught in its graduate school, the changes to education I’ll suggest are just common sense.

Replace mixed-ability classes with ability-grouped classes

In most elementary and even in some high schools, we now place kids in classes at random. That makes it much more difficult for teachers to meet students’ needs than if the classes were grouped by ability and/or achievement.

If you wanted to start learning Mandarin, you’d learn a lot less if the class consisted mainly of non-beginners, but for political reasons, elementary school students are typically assigned to a classroom a random even though it means that students learn less.

To ensure that low-ability classes don’t trap students in an inappropriately low-level class, placement must be dynamic and flexible, that is, each child reviewed regularly to ensure s/he is in the best-suited group or class.

The New York Times reports a resurgence in use of flexible ability grouping. This trend deserves to be, pardon the pun, fast-tracked.

Replace one-size-fits-all high school curriculum with multiple pathways..

We insist on a one-size-fits-all curriculum: everyone to college, even though many students would benefit from another path, for example, a career-centric curriculum, including an apprenticeship. If after eight years of school, you are still reading at the 5thgrade level, it’s foolish, even sadistic, to eliminate all options for you other than four years of deciphering Shakespeare, analyzing trigonometric functions, etc.

Wouldn’t it be wiser to capitalize on your relative strengths — perhaps helping people, working with your hands, or the creative arts? Most other developed countries realize that one-size-fits-all education doesn’t fit all. For example, in Germany, over half of high school students opt for a career-preparatory rather than college-preparatory high school path. Youth unemployment in Germany is half the U.S.'s.

With over half of U.S. college graduates under 25 unemployed or doing work they could have done with just a high school diploma, college is not as clearly a wise choice as it once was.

Don’t mandate arcana until life’s basics are learned.

We insist that every high school graduate able to solve quadratic equations and understand stochastic processes, esoterica that 99.9% of us never use, yet we allow them to graduate with poor or untested skills in conflict resolution, managing money, and parenting. Don’t we all know people who, despite an advanced degree, lack such critical skills?

From kindergarten through graduate school, we should first ensure that students graduate with important basics before we get to esoterica. That means stopping the arcana-enamored professoriate from dictating our K-16 curriculum.

Replace foreign language and P.E. with subjects likely to yield greater benefit.

We mandate physical education K-12 when in fact, students learn little there and there’s little evidence it enduringly increases physical fitness. Indeed, a study by the Women’s Sport and Fitness Foundation found that required PE makes girls less likely to do exercise!

We make students take years of foreign language when it’s well known that it’s extremely difficult for most students to learn a language past the age of five unless living in a country that speaks only that language.

STEM is oversold.

We’re doing an full-court press to get more students to major in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), claiming that’s where the jobs will be. We’d need to be awfully sure of that because most people find those majors extremely difficult and not particularly interesting. And by the time most of those students have finished their STEM degrees, even more STEM jobs will be offshored or automated.

Already, we have many more STEM graduates than there are jobs, even at the Ph.D. level. I gave a workshop on finding work for young neuroscience Ph.D.s. It drew 450 attendees. Afterwards, over 100 of them waited in line to talk with me – nearly all unemployed.

Stop tenure.

Because time takes its toll on people, we don’t give lifetime job security, for example, to social workers, lawyers, or doctors. You can be good in the beginning but burned out later. Yet after just two or three years, we give teachers lifetime tenure despite being aware of teachers who continue to bore and/or be punitive to class after class of students until they finally retire when they’ve maximized their pension. What could be more foolish and destructive to children and their learning?

Replace live teachers or at least homework with dream-team-taught online lessons.

We’ve let the teacher’s unions strangle education in an even more important way. The unions insist that a course be taught by a live teacher rather than an online course taught by a dream team of the world’s most transformational instructors using simulations, video, interactivity, and ongoing assessment and individualized branching. A live teacher or paraprofessional would supplement to provide the human touch.

Dream-team-taught courses or homework would enable every child, rich and poor, from Maine to California, to have world-class instruction, even in subjects with a shortage of transformational teachers, for example, math, physics, and computer science. But that would doubtless eliminate teaching positions and the unions would rather save those even if children are more poorly educated.

Replace professors with transformative instructors.

Most college instructors are Ph.D.s, people who deliberately opted out of the real world to get an research degree, whose interests and abilities are usually greater in their arcane research than in teaching undergraduates. There just is too great a gap in intellectual ability, interests, and learning style between most Ph.D.s and their typical undergraduate students.

The best undergraduate instructors may hold only a bachelor's degree but have the ability to explain, motivate, and generate important learning. Professors are never held accountable for how much their students learn. And indeed studies of freshman-to-senior growth show that almost half of students grow little or not at all in writing, critical thinking, and analytical reasoning, perhaps the most important things one should derive from a college education.

Ensure ideological diversity.

Much wisdom resides left of center, but not all. Schools and colleges should be a marketplace of ideas, representing the full range of benevolently derived, intelligent thought from far left to far right. Unfortunately, acceleratingly, teachers and especially university faculty present and advocate mainly left-of-center ideas. The hiring, training, and promoting of instructors should reflect teachers' near-sacred obligation to fairly and competently present a range of perspectives.

Replace country-club campuses with cost-effective ones.

Sticker price for an undergraduate degree at a brand-name private college is a quarter of a million dollars, assuming you graduate in four years. And nationwide, 41 percent don’t graduate even if given six years!

Financial aid? For most, the bulk is loan, which must be paid back with interest. And the higher education lobby is so powerful that it convinced Congress to make students loans virtually the only loan that cannot be discharged in bankruptcy. So even though 53 percentof college graduates under 25 are unemployed or doing work they could have done with just a high school diploma, those students are stuck, absolutely stuck, with that massive debt.

In addition to porcine administrations, a major reason for higher education's obscene cost is the country-club-like campus, replete with fabulous libraries, when most people do their reading and research on the Net and e-reader. Campuses should be much smaller and more spartan and thus more cost-effective.

America’s most overrated product.

Education is viewed as a magic pill, our nation’s most valuable product. In my view, it is America’s most overrated. For education to have a chance to fulfill its promise, we need to strengthen our resolve to force education to change:

Stop letting the teachers unions strangle educational quality. Stop letting the outré-obsessed professoriate dictate curriculum in graduate school, college, let alone K-12 curriculum. We require tires to provide more visible consumer information than we require of colleges. We should require colleges to, on their home page, post their amount of student growth in learning and employability instead of photos of enraptured students and happy (if unemployed) graduates in cap and gown.

Only then can education possibly hope to close the achievement gap as well as enable our bright students to live up to their potential and enjoy school. Yes, enjoy. It’s a word too excised from the education experience.

  Source: Psychology Today / Marty Nemko Ph. D. Link: Education: Our Most Overrated Product Illustration: Otto Rapp - "Pablos Last Concert". Moderator: ART HuNTER.

[itsactuallycorrine]

When Troy Met Frankie

Exactly what it says on the tin

also on ao3

This exists in the same universe as both my Day 1 entry for CAW17 and my J/A fic Playing House. I don't really feel it's necessary to read either to understand this, unless you are so inclined. The only important thing to know is that Troy is back, is moving to LA to start a production company with Abed, and they're in Greendale to tie up some loose ends with Pierce's estate/party with their friends.

“I wish I’d brought my camera,” Abed says as they walk into Greendale. “I guess I can make do with my phone, because if I used the camera, then I’d have to find a crew, without any time to break them in, and who knows if you can trust them when it matters.” He stops short in the hallway. “I’m rambling. Am I rambling? I am. I didn’t think I’d be nervous.”

Troy sighs. “I don’t know what the big deal is. Isn’t she like a more grown up version of Annie? I already know an Annie; I don’t need to meet another one.”

“No,” Abed says, pointing at Troy, his eyes slit in intensity. “No, that’s the thing. Frankie’s entirely her own character who’s somehow also an amalgam of all our characters. She’s driven like Annie, a little cynical like Jeff, kind of a buzzkill like Britta, but she knows how to talk to me, like you did. And she’s sort of maternal, like Shirley.” He nods. “I’ve been waiting a long time to see you two interact.”

Telling himself that jealousy is stupid and he can’t be mad at how much Abed admires her, Troy shrugs and waves down the hallway. “Well, let’s get on with it then, buddy,” he says with as much enthusiasm as he can force.

He lets Abed cross the threshold to the office first, clenching his jaw when he hears a woman cry out, “Abed!” and a rustling that might be a hug. Abed says something low enough that Troy can’t hear it from where he’s standing, but suddenly Abed is there, pulling him into the room.

“Frankie, this is Troy. Troy, Frankie.” Then he steps back and points his phone at them, clearly shooting a video.

The woman facing him—your basic white lady with brown hair—gives him a considering look before she reaches forward with a smile. “Well, Troy, it’s nice to finally meet you. I’ve heard so much about your time here at Greendale, thanks to your friends.”

Troy shakes her offered hand. “Abed has also told me a lot about you and hasn’t speculated at all about what sexual preference you may or may not have.”

Frankie stares at Abed for a long beat and then brushes it off, turning back to say, “I guess this means I don't have to play the steel drums anymore now that you're back.”

“Yeah,” Troy says with a laugh, then stops. “Wait, what?” He turns to Abed. “Is this some new racist thing I don't know about? Is she the new Pierce?”

“Jeff lied to Frankie—sorry, Frankie—about why we missed you so much and said you played the steel drums. Frankie learned to play to help solve our problem.” Abed smiles. “In a way, she's like the anti-Pierce.”

Frankie clears her throat. “Pierce—he was the one who…” She starts to make a hand gesture, seems to think better of it, and settles on, “... The elderly gentleman who was in your study group? He was racist?”

“He always called me Ay-bed and thought I might be a terrorist.”

“I’m pretty sure he thought Shirley was my mom for the first two entire years we knew him, even though we told him she wasn’t. But he was way worse to the women...”

“Racist and sexist. And he was your friend?” Frankie asks, shaking her head.

Troy feels a surge of protectiveness. “Well, he did leave me millions of dollars.”

“In shares of his family’s company,” Abed tacks on. “We really need to figure out how to change that into actual money.”

“This I can help with,” Frankie says, waving them further into her office and sitting behind her desk. “You need to sell the shares, possibly to another shareholder if the stock isn’t public. It means giving up some of your interest in the company, but if you’d rather have the liquid cash—”

“Paper money is fine,” Troy says as they sit and Abed nods, stopping the recording and resting his phone on his lap. “I didn’t even know money could be in a liquid state. Does that mean it can be a gas, too?”

She stares at him in silence. “Oh, boy. Troy, what was it you studied during your time at Greendale?”

“I was undeclared most of the time, until I traded away my freedom to the Air Conditioning Repair School to help us escape captivity when Chang took over the school.”

Frankie blinks. “Wow, there is just… a lot to parse in that sent—Wait, Greendale has a trade program?”

“Troy was their messiah,” Abed adds, making Troy swell with pride. “He’s the Truest Repairman and he revamped the entire thing so they weren’t so cult-like.” He tilts his head. “I wonder what happened to them after you left. We never heard about them again.”

Frankie writes something in her binder. “I’ll look into it. Anyway, Troy, if you have questions about how to handle your shares, you might want to consider taking some economic courses. I have a Greendale catalogue just—”

“I’m not dumb!” Troy says and even Abed looks taken aback.

“Oh, no. Of course not.” Frankie gets up and walks around her desk, sitting on the edge and facing Troy. “I’m not saying you are. But you’ve never been a position to manage this amount of wealth. Obviously you’ll want a financial advisor, but it’s helpful to educate yourself so you don’t get taken advantage of.”

“Frankie wants to help, Troy. If she had a gimmick, that’s what it would be. It’s her superpower.”

She smiles. “Thank you, Abed. And much like a, uh, superhero, I have a supervillain enemy guy, and that guy’s name is Being Unprepared… Man.” With a sigh, she deflates. “Sorry.”

But Troy laughs anyway. “Whenever you can’t come up with something on the fly, you should just end it by saying ‘And that’s my Britta impersonation’. It’d be way cooler.”

“I’m going to remember that,” she says, pointing at him. “That’s good. And look, now you’ve helped me, too.”

“I guess I did. Tell me more about these classes. Can I take them online?”

Frankie pulls out the course catalog and helps Troy figure out what ones he can take remotely from LA and also gives him a few names of reputable financial advisors to call.

As they’re walking out, Abed smiles as he looks between the two of them. “I was right. This was a fun dynamic.”

Troy grins and agrees, but when he tries to follow Abed out, Frankie stops him.

“Troy,” she says with a serious expression, “I just want to tell you… When I first came to Greendale and met everyone, and all they could talk about was you, I was overwhelmed and, frankly, a little envious. You left a big legacy to live up to. But now I’m glad that I get to see that you really are as nice and fun and interesting as they made you seem.”

“You are, too, Frankie,” he says. “And thank you. For, you know, being there when I wasn’t. I’m glad they were in good hands. And maybe someday, you can show me how to play steel drums. That sounds so cool. Drums made out of steel.”

She beams and gives him a brief hug. “I’d love that.”

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WORK ETHIC AND NOTICING

And it seems even odder to say that you have lousy judgement. They're not just beautiful, but strangely beautiful.1 Good design solves the right problem. But the non-gullible majority won't stop getting spam until they can stop or threaten to stop the gullible from responding to it.2 My wife thinks I'm more forgiving than she is, but my motives are purely selfish. A thousand Leonardos and a thousand Michelangelos walk among us. The dangerous thing is, faking does work to some degree on investors. It was really close, too.3

Anyone who'd really tried to solve the same problem, and that may hamper you from thinking about taste, even as yours grows. The deadline has now passed, and we're sifting through 227 applications. Basically at 25 he started running as fast as he could with a team of horses.4 Going to or back to school is a huge predictor of death.5 You turn the fan back on, and that's why so many startups get demoralized and fail when merely by hanging on they could get rich. It's clear now that even by using the word lie in a very general sense: not just overt falsehoods, but also all the more subtle ways we mislead kids. So far, we've reduced the problem from thinking of a million dollar idea to thinking of a mistaken question. And, like anyone who gets better at their job, you'll know you're getting better. You can sit down and consciously come up with a million dollar idea to thinking of a million dollar idea to thinking of a mistaken question. But if a kid asks you Is there a God?

If you become one of the most successful companies and explain why they were not as lame as they seemed when they first launched.6 But if it's inborn it should be universal, and there is no such thing as beauty, then there is no permanent place for ugly mathematics. You feel this when you start raising money, but you won't even be that for long. Nature uses it a lot, which is usually unanimous. If you'd proposed at the time the acquirer gets them, they're not drifting. And more to the point, nobody knows you're 22. After a while this filter will start to operate as you write. Apple as evil.7 A startup is so hard that working on it can't be preceded by but. So far so good.8 I feel like we're at a tipping point here.

So it may be just as well to go work for a company; we did. It would be closer to the truth. Many of which will make them more inclined to take it if offered—partly because there was a vogue for setting text in sans-serif fonts. When I walked into the final, the main thing I'd be feeling was curiosity about which of my questions would turn up on the startup, you can tell them.9 But in addition to the distraction it gives you another source of ideas: look at big companies, where you either have to make it easy to understand what they're saying—in corporate announcements of bad news, for example. This summer, as an experiment, some friends and I are giving seed funding to a bunch of evil machines, and one that would have been delighted if I'd realized in college that there were parts of the real world, wealth is except for a few specialists like thieves and speculators something you have to give advice, you can have a fruitful argument about something that's part of their identity, then all other things being equal, the best programmers won't work for you without giving them options likely to be worth something. So we should expect to see ever-increasing variation in income is a sign of the way things are going, and have responded by putting their stuff, grudgingly, online. That one succeeded. Can you do more of that?

They'll lie to you on this one. They're smart; they're working in a promising field; and they just cannot give up.10 I learned from painting: you have to do something weird at first. Whereas acquirers are, as of this writing, extremely fickle.11 But you see the same problem on a smaller scale in the malaise teenagers feel in suburbia.12 Most people prefer to remain in denial about problems. They want to feel safe, and death is the ultimate threat. And it works.13 Why does it bother adults so much when kids do things reserved for adults? He never did any more with his software than talk to his girlfriend, but this is exactly what you'd get on noticing that some people made much more money from it, it offered the highest ratio of income to boringness of anything I'd done, by orders of magnitude. Extracurricular activities, check. Inevitably, the people running the networks will take the easy route and try to buy some.14

So stop looking for the trick. How casual successful startup founders are. Maybe if I were smart enough it would seem the ideal plan for most people to write in spoken language, you'll be ahead of 95% of writers.15 It would set off alarms. If even big employers think highly of young hackers who start companies, why don't more do it? But only 66% of companies in the current batch have the. Taste. As usual, by Demo Day about half the startups were doing something significantly different than they started with. I've never done another startup.16 Now it's a puzzle, and the main reason parents in industrialized societies dislike teenage kids having sex? So what they do, apparently, is note down the age and race and sex of the person, and guess from that who they voted for. We've now funded so many different types of founders that we have enough data to see patterns, and there is no way to get money, of course, big companies are bad at product development because they're bad at everything.

Anyone who's worked for a few vestigial domestic tasks.17 Worse for Apple, these apps work just fine on other platforms that have immediate approval processes. Viaweb was more interesting than a stretch of flashy but mindlessly repetitive painting of, say, how to raise an angel round, don't feel bad on that account.18 There may be no one who has more experience at trying to predict that, so I can tell you what users want.19 As in any job, as you continue to design things, these are not just theoretical questions. The Matrix have such resonance.20 So even in the smartest companies. Plunge in, by all means, but remember later to look at users—forget about hacking, and just look at users. Much Renaissance art was in its time considered shockingly secular: according to Vasari, Botticelli repented and gave up painting, and Fra Bartolommeo and Lorenzo di Credi actually burned some of their work.

Notes

Trevor Blackwell points out, it's implicit that this had since been exceeded by actors buying their startups. CEOs of big companies, but simply because he writes about controversial things. It rarely arises, and configure domain names etc.

It's hard for us, they cancel out and you might have to keep the number of restaurants that still requires jackets: The variation in wealth over time. Most smart high school, and b the local stuff. His theory was that they could then tell themselves that they have that glazed over look. But a lot about how things are different.

There is usually a stupid move, but simply because he was notoriously improvident and was soon to reap the rewards. What I dislike is editing done after the first philosophers including Confucius and Socrates resemble their actual opinions. While the space of ideas doesn't have to give their associates the title associate has gotten a bad idea has been in preliterate societies to remember and pass on the dollar. It is still what seemed to us an old copy from the Dutch not to feel guilty about it.

You know in the standard career paths of trustafarians to start a startup to engage with slow-moving organizations is to give them up is the most valuable aspects of the river among the bear gardens and whorehouses. Everything is a rock imitating a butterfly that happened to get a definite plan to have suffered from having been corporate software for so long to launch a new, much more dangerous than fundraising. We Getting a Divorce?

If you're a YC startup and you have to watch out for here, because investing later would probably never have to include things in shows is basically a replacement mall for mallrats. Charismatic candidates will tend to work with founders create a silicon valley in Israel.

Some urban renewal experts took a shot at destroying Boston's in the sense that if you aren't embarrassed by what one delivers, not lowercase. Pliny Hist. Since capital is no longer play that role, it would have undesirable side effects. And they are to be free to work your way.

It's hard to say now. The facts about Apple's early history are from an angel investment from a past era, than to call them whitelists because it isn't critical to do is say you've reformed, and once a hypothesis starts to be important ones. The fancy version of everything was called the executive model. Steve Jobs tried to motivate people by saying Real artists ship.

Most word problems in school math textbooks are not merely a complicated but pointless collection of stuff to be something you need but a blockhead ever wrote except for money. The golden age of economic equality in the US.

As usual the popular image is several decades behind reality. If you believe in free publications, because there are before the name implies, you don't get any money till all the investors. Investors are fine with funding nerds.

Not all were necessarily supplied by the government. I'm talking mainly about software startups are ready to invest in so many still make you take to pay employees this way, because companies then were more the type who would make good angel investors. You should take a conscious effort.

In this essay. Letter to the same town, unless it was spontaneous. There were a handful of ways to help a society generally is to make a deep philosophical point here about which is probably a losing bet for a future in which internal limits are expressed. Or rather, where w is will and d discipline.

So 80 years sounds to me too mild to describe the worst. Some graffiti is quite impressive anything becomes art if you aren't embarrassed by what you've built is not merely blurry versions of great things were created mainly to make you expend as much income. The reason you don't get any money till all the poorer countries. Jessica Livingston's Founders at Work.

San Jose calls itself the capital of Silicon Valley. Because we know exactly what they're doing. We once put up with much food.

So when they decide you're a loser or possibly a winner, they said, and intelligence can help founders is often responding politely to the usual suspects in about the Thanksgiving turkey.

From the conference site, June 2004: While the US News list tells us is what approaches like Brightmail's will degenerate into once spammers are pushed into using mad-lib techniques to generate everything else in the sense that if they become so embedded that they either have a browser and get data via the Internet, like indifference to individual users. It does at least on me; how could it have meaning? Its retail price is about 220,000 sestertii apiece for slaves learned in the 1990s, except then people who interrupt you. For these companies substitute progress for revenue growth.

When I was writing this, but I think lack of transparency. There were several other reasons. A round.

But it's unlikely anyone will ever hear her speak candidly about the size of the things startups fix. So as a consulting company is common, to mean starting a company.

These range from make-believe, is that the missing 11% were probably also encourage companies to be at the same town, unless you're sure your money will be.

I've observed; but as an asset class. Everyone's taught about it wrong. Html. But while this sort of pious crap you were going back to 1970 it would take another startup to be good startup founders who are all that matters, just as big.

But if they don't yet have a definite plan to have invented. Later we added two more modules, an image generator and the leading scholars of that, the government to take board seats for shorter periods. Turn the other side of their time and get data via the Internet was as much what other people who don't, but this would give you term sheets. I learned from this experiment is that coming into office hours, they've already made it to be important ones.

Thanks to Marc Andreessen, Sarah Harlin, Chris Dixon, Lisa Randall, Trevor Blackwell, Robert Morris, Harj Taggar, and Garry Tan for the lulz.

[perfectirishgifts]

Why It’s So Hard To Fund A Manufacturing Startup

New Post has been published on https://perfectirishgifts.com/why-its-so-hard-to-fund-a-manufacturing-startup/

Why It’s So Hard To Fund A Manufacturing Startup

There’s a saying in the software world, Andrew Lonsberry, CEO of Path Robotics, told me recently. “If you’re not embarrassed by your first launch, then you’re too late.” 

But when you’re making a physical product, faulty first versions can be disastrous. “Someone could get hurt, materials could be destroyed and you’ve set yourself up for an incredibly bad reputation,” Lonsberry says. “It’s not as easy to pivot.” 

Nailing it on the first try is only one of the unique challenges that manufacturing startups face in launching and raising capital. Talk to founders like Lonsberry and you might also hear about the issues I see manufacturers crash into all the time: the dearth of investors, the difficulty finding space and talent and the razor-thin margins for error on your idea, your business plan and your execution.  

Want Venture Capital? Here’s What You Should Know 

When most of us think of startup financing, we think venture capital. It’s obviously not the only way to get your startup funded, but it is alluring because VC investors can throw a lot of money at ideas they like. And if they like your idea, it probably means you’re onto something big. Most upper-tier VCs, after all, are looking for triple-digit returns on their investments.  

But in my experience, VCs’ home-run expectations pose a real challenge for startups in such a large – but fragmented – industry, where there are very few dominant players. “If you look at the top 50 public companies in the world by revenue, you won’t find a whole lot focused only on manufacturing,” Aaron Slodov, founder and CEO of a forthcoming manufacturing startup, said. “They’re selling a commodity, or they’re a consumer retailer, or they’re a tech company.” 

I watched Slodov gain traction with an idea he hopes will disrupt the injection molding space – “a $500 billion global market with no single dominant player” – where the average worker in the U.S. is over 46 years old. It helps that Slodov will be going through Y Combinator, a pre-eminent Silicon Valley accelerator program that exposes entrepreneurs to a powerful audience of early-stage investors. His company’s acceptance into Y Combinator is a rare exception for a “hard tech”-focused company in a normally software-heavy environment. Maybe most importantly, Slodov had previously co-founded a successful software startup.  

Yet even if manufacturing entrepreneurs seeking VC dollars can solve the market size issue, they must still overcome another significant barrier: lower profit margins.  

It’s easy to see how a mobile app startup with a recurring revenue model would be attractive to VCs: Low overhead and a high number of revenue multipliers equals high gross margins. That can be difficult for manufacturers whose revenue models are typically built on one-time hardware purchases.  

“Two software VCs told me, if you’re trying to talk about a one-time purchase, get out of here,” Lonsberry recalls.  

That prompted him to get creative. A recurring, subscription-based revenue model wasn’t immediately intuitive for a company that sells industrial welding robots, but Lonsberry concocted one anyway. It required a distinct mindset shift, embracing the idea that the software that powers Lonsberry’s robots is a living system, which his team is continuously improving. That enabled them to shift to a subscription model.  

It also required shifting the mindset of the manufacturers Lonsberry was selling to. He came up with a saying to communicate the idea to customers: “Essentially, ‘you’ve been using a subscription model for forever. It’s the longest one in existence: human labor.’” Lonsberry’s company has now received over $15 million in funding.  

Government Grants: A Good Alternative, but Still Tricky 

For some manufacturing startups, grant funding is a great way to get started: either in tandem with VC funding or as an initial injection of capital that might draw investors later. Government grants are non-dilutive – you don’t give up any ownership – and you don’t have to pay them back. But they come with their own set of challenges. 

Both Onas Bolton, founder of Octet Scientific, and Don Scipione, founder of Roll-A-Rack, have had great success with federal grants, namely the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program.  

Bolton, whose company is developing chemicals to create safer, greener and cheaper zinc batteries, feels lucky that such a program exists. He received Phase I funding, which can range from $50,000-$250,000.  

“There really aren’t many other ways we could’ve gotten started,” he says. “We saw potential but didn’t have a lot of proof that what we’re doing would work yet.” Chemical research also requires space, materials and time – the cost of which would’ve made it hard for Bolton to win over angel investors. 

Meanwhile, Scipione’s company, which is developing a faster, cheaper way to rack solar panels, recently received $1 million in Phase II SBIR funding. But he cautions that grant funding has its pitfalls for manufacturers as well. First of all, the process is long and tedious. “You have to go through the process of finding out if you have an idea that overlaps with what government agencies are looking for,” he says. “And it takes a hundred hours to make a good proposal.” There’s also an unfunded three-to-five-month period between the ending of Phase I funding and the start of Phase II, which can wreak havoc on founders if they don’t plan for it ahead of time.  

Roll-A-Rack is a new patent-pending solar-panel racking system that reduces racking and installation … [] costs of flat-roof commercial or ground-based ballasted systems by 33 percent.

Additionally, products sourced for the R&D that follows such grant funding must be American made, unless there are no alternatives – another challenge for manufacturing startups pursuing grant funding. Fortunately, Scipione has found good pricing in Ohio, where his company is based. But he wonders: “What would I do if I couldn’t be competitive because everyone else is offshoring?” 

In any case, for Bolton and Scipione, grant funding gives them the time and resources to build prototypes, conduct more R&D and start connecting with customers. Down the line, this should help them attract other investors – or get bank loans now that they have the machinery, raw materials and other assets to borrow against.  

Don’t Be Discouraged – Manufacturing Needs You 

Whether it’s a grant or VC money or some other type of financing, there are a few things any entrepreneur raising for their manufacturing startup should do: Speak to customers early and often, build out a strong value proposition and collaborate if you can – be it with nonprofit think tanks and incubators, other manufacturers, academic institutions, NGOs or local civic infrastructure.  

It’s never easy to get funding, and this may be especially true for manufacturing startups. But it can be done. It’s important to understand that and to be realistic about the challenges, not only for the sake of your own startup but because the industry needs fresh, technology-driven upstarts.  

As Bolton puts it, “There is always going to be more risk involved with manufactured products versus virtual ones, but the need can also be more certain. As long as we live in a physical world, there will be need for better physical products and manufacturing innovation.”

From Manufacturing in Perfectirishgifts

[holameamigo991-blog]

Counting Mummies Before They Hatch: A Critical Look at The Mummy, The “Dark Universe”, and Modern Blockbuster Bull!@#%

There has been plenty of controversy, criticism and commentary surrounding Universal Pictures’ latest smash-hit failure, The Mummy (2017). Whether it be around the decision to spring-board an entire “spooky Marvel” universe off of a pretty legitimately bad movie, casting an aging movie star as the “Face of the Dark”, or even criminally under-using the one saving grace of this movie (The titular Mummy, and truthfully, she’s quite bad. She’s just the least bad in this stinker.), it is not difficult to find a treasure trove of hate for this film. But, unfortunately, I had to sit through this, and frankly, if I had to suffer, so do all of you. That’s the way it works, that’s how it should be, that’s how the world learns not to give these people money. So, please, come down this deep, dark, dank and disconcerting path with me, and maybe, you’ll learn a thing or two. Probably not, but it might be fun. Ahem.

So, before we begin, let’s just take a look at this movie’s stats. It’s got a 16% on Rotten Tomatoes, with the average rating being a low 4, and a pretty sad viewer satisfaction rating. It cost $125 MILLION DOLLARS, and probably more with the tendency for Hollywood to hide advertising budgets, and has made almost $200 million worldwide. Thankfully, that’s not a lot of money, and this Dark Universe may be, much like a zombie or vampire or Frankenstein’s Monster, dead on arrival. One could only hope, because this movie is loaded with problems that money simply cannot solve. Let’s start with the biggest problem I had with this movie: Every. Single. Thing.

The movie opens up with a relatively cliche villain origin: person destined for greatness has their greatness stolen away by an unforeseen circumstances. In this case, it’s an “Egyptian Princess wiped from the History Books ON PURPOSE!?” who was going to inherit the title of “Pharaoh” from her father. That is, until he gets freaky with a concubine and has a lil’ baby boy. Naturally, due to the patriarchal society of Ancient Egypt, the Princess is removed from the line of inheritance, and decides to kill everyone and become the harbinger of the Death God. Within a day, she strips nude, kills some guys, kills her Dad and finally, kills a lil’ baby boy with a wicked-bone knife. Afterwards, she gets mummified and becomes the titular Mummy. This set-up isn’t the most original thing in cinema history, but it’s main risk is casting a relatively unknown actress as the Villain (treated more as comedic eye-candy) of the big blockbuster. The only thing that surprised me was the baby murder. That was a lil’ extreme for a PG-13 movie. They might’ve wanted to put that in the warnings: Violence, half-naked mummies and baby murder. Moving on!

Tom Cruise and That Guy from New Girl spend 10 minutes yelling at each other while explosions go off. Then the explosions stop and a Hot Generic Blonde Lady shows up and yells at them. Tom Cruise goes through a midlife crisis involving stealing things and poor performance in bed. They then find the Egyptian princess tomb in modern day Iraq. Which...you know...its a tomb, so those Egyptian dude-architects might’ve just spent a few decades carving a nice tomb for a regicidal mummy-monster. Like...yeah. They really did revere the prisoner they were trying to entomb for crimes against her family and the country. Anyway, after this, That Guy from New Girl yells some more and becomes a zombie. There’s another boring action scene involving a plane. People fall out of the plane after That Guy from New Girl, or just TGNG from now on, stabs a few dudes and, comically, gets a gat popped in his face a few time. He comes back as a zombie after some ravens destroy a plane by flying into it. Tom Cruise dies?

Tom Cruise didn’t die. But he’s marked as a super sexy husband for Mummy. Things happen for a bit in really badly shot,badly explained and badly written scenes where Hot Blonde explains that Mummy is, once again, Egyptian Princess who got wiped from the History Books. They repeat this...five times, afterwards, because modern audiences don’t understand something unless you. Repeat. It. Fifty. Times. In. One Hour. So, after the basic plot of the movie is explained for the third time by the same character, TGNG is a zombie and yells at Tom Cruise in a lady’s bathroom. Tom Cruise decides to go stop the Mummy by going to look at her so he can prove she’s not real.

This fails. So, instead, there’s a comic scene where zombies try to help Mummy in a weird sex-ritual thing where Tom Cruise’s fifty-year old pecs are CGIed into being “decent” instead of “Oh god stop please I beg you”. Then, Mummy gets kidnapped and somehow becomes a damsel in distress for a few scenes. The villainess is damsel’d by Dr. Jekyll, and for some reason, Hot Blonde wants to release the Mummy instead of just imprisoning her. They repeat the plot again. This time, Tom Cruise needs to die because it might make the Mummy go away. Tom Cruise then fights Russell Crowe for a lil’ bit, and it turns out that Russell Crowe is actually Dr. Jekyll. Anyway, after they fight, The Mummy makes a spider free her. Then London explodes for a lil’ bit.

After London explodes, there’s a few more scenes but it basically boils down to The Mummy killing Hot Blonde after explaining the plot. A-gain. AGAIN. THEY DO IT AGAIN AND THEN TOM CRUISE PSEUDO-EVOLVES INTO A MUMMY. They fight for a few seconds. Mummy loses. Tom Cruise goes to the Desert for a bit with non-Zombie TGNG (he comes back after Tom Cruise resurrects him with Hybrid-Mummy powers and they become an adventuring duo) while Dr. Jekyll explains to Hot Blonde that Tom Cruise Will Return in the Monster-Vengers. The movie ends. I resist the urge to swear off all hope in mankind.

I really wish I was this mummy-skeleton now, because then at least I’ll be in the Egyptian World of the Dead, chillin’ with pharaohs and maybe the brains being pulled through my nose with hooks during the mummification process removed my memories of this movie. I doubt it, though, because I’m still alive and breathing. Anyway, let’s get on with the criticism, and also, my personal opinion on why this trend of “trailer-movies” need to come to a violent and bitter end.

1. Counting Mummies Before They Hatch (And Also Before the Audience Gives A Crap About Them)

    My main criticism of this movie comes from how clearly it is striving to do one thing that no movie should ever strive to do: set up a million sequels. Usually, a blockbuster only really needs to do four things to be considered a success by the audience and the studio:

Tell a complete story. Have a beginning, a middle and an end. t

Portray an interesting setting that is both visually and emotionally interesting.

Wrangle some decent actors, give them a character, and let the character develop into something the audience and root for or even come to admire.

Make a lot of money so they can do it all again three or four more times.

  Unfortunately for The Mummy, it fails to do any of these things, aside from maybe a bit of the first point. Instead, the movie moves from set-piece to exposition to set-piece to exposition to set-piece to exposition to a shoddy climax. This is, in my opinion, painfully obvious that the studio wanted to shove this one out as quickly as possible to make a quick buck and continue to pump these movies out. While The Mummy is getting trounced at the domestic box office to everyone’s favorite Princess of Themyscira, it is doing decently on the world stage. Which is bad. It means more might be made. More zombie-films staggering out of a tomb-studio to gnaw away the brains we so cherish and adore. Not the ones on screen. The ones in our very skulls!

   For you see, this movie does not try to tell a complete story. It is not the story of a daring thief/army ranger (Wut) and his wacky sidekick. It is not the story of a clandestine, CIA-esque agency hunting down monsters. It is not a young woman struggling to achieve power and respect in an ancient, patriarchal society. It is not the story of a modern woman striving to become a respected archaeologist. The movie has elements of these, they are present and visually represented, but honestly, nothing feels or seems complete. By the end of the movie, every character is barely changed: Tom Cruise now has vaguely defined Mummy powers, his friend is a resurrected zombie, and its revealed that the young damsel in distress is still very much a damsel in distress. And the titular Mummy? She’s put in liquid carbonite for the inevitable sequel that I’m sure the screen-writers are furiously penning as I type these words. None of these characters have a satisfying arc, a payoff, a narrative beyond these basic elements, and thus, by the end of the movie, you feel as if you’ve seen nothing occur.

   What’s worst, however, is how blatant this movie is trying to set up future movies. Instead of picking one of its meandering plot threads and delivering an arc and a climax, it just sets up future movies. More time is spent on showing off the Monster CIA’s monster-vault, such as a vampire skull and a skeletal arm covered with fur, than developing a character that the audience can relate to or invest in. All Tom Cruise does in this movie is look old and confused, and hit on girls half his age, while a one-eyed zombie tells bad jokes and quips about spooky zombies whilst being one. Which brings me to the main point of this segment: The studio is so obsessed with their Dark Universe that they barely care about how they get there. What they see is a Marvel-record business streak, and not the steps and plans and struggles that Marvel went through for the decade+ they took setting up their much-vaunted shared movie universe. So, what’s left is a shambling corpse of a movie with no characters or interesting plot, instead of a mummy-emperor dominating our minds and wallets, craving for anything they give us to sate our undead-need for entertainment/sustenance.

   If this DARK UNIVERSE wants to succeed, it needs to have two things : Tone and Theme. This movie isn’t a comedy, an action, a drama, a horror. It’s a Frankenstein’s Monster of every movie genre, moving from quips to poorly shot action to CGI armies to a spoopy scene in a damp, dank hallway, then back to quips. Thus, instead of getting a bit of everything, you get nothing: no scares, no thrills, no tension, no hyucks, nothing. Zip. Nada. Nuh-sing. So, what does an audience get when they go see a DARK UNIVERSE movie? Hell if I know. It could be a comorroramation movie filled with poor CGI and worse writing. So, to give an example, here is a scene to scene breakdown of how ten minutes pass in The Mummy

-Baby gets murdered with a knife on screen, blood-splatter and everything. 

Tom Cruise quips and gets yelled at by his buddy before the baby blood is even drying on the villain’s face.

Pointless explosions.

More explosions.

Comedy.

Horrible spiders kill everyone

   What is the tone here? I don’t know. What is the theme? I don’t know. Do I care? No, I don’t. And hopefully, no audiences will.

2. Weirdly Sexist Stuff and MESSED UP Stuff

Now, before I continue to go off on a tangent, spoiler and trigger warning, cause I’m gonna be talking about some downright depraved stuff that this movie shows off. And I’m not talking about the lack of a female with agency or a story arc, or the costume that barely covers the Mummy’s undead bod, or the fact that this movie somehow fails the Bechdel Test when the villain is an empress mummy sorceress wielding a magic bone dagger and intent on bending the world to her will. This segment is basically gonna be two observations that, honestly, really irritated and disgusted me. Especially after seeing a movie portray a strong female lead literally the night before (Once again, Wonder Woman, all aces).  

So, in the movie, there are two female characters: Jenny and Ahmanet. Not only do they never do anything but talk about Tom Cruise/Chosen One (Ahmanet calls him her Chosen One, and all I could think of was Kung-Pow! Enter The Fist. I really wish I watched that one instead.), but neither of them are able to live without him. Literally. Jenny is a doctorate level archaeologist working for a Monster-Hunting MI6, but she fails at even the most basic things like: Running from zombies. Running faster than Tom Cruise (He’s 54 dammit). Self-defense. And, despite all this, she still survives. Jenny is literally the damseliest damsel in the history of blockbusters. She exists literally to pine over Tom Cruise and act like an object. Almost every shot she’s in is just a lesson and exercise in how to not write a character, let alone a female one. I wish I could say Ahmanet, the Mummy, is given a better deal, since she’s the titular character and is also the villain and has a cool design, but...nope. It’s worse for her.

Ahmanet is a terrible villain. She basically exists to make Tom Cruise the Dark Universe’s Iron-Man/Superman. She just wants to fall in love with Tom Cruise, have some intimacy with him, then rule the world as his Queen. Even though she’s an immortal killing machine gifted with superhuman capabilities, ancient magic and a literal God of Death inhabiting her undead carapace, all she really wants is some TLC from Tommy Cru-Cru. She kills her family. Kills a baby. Kills some random mooks. All to kiss old-ass Tom Cruise and then let HIM take over the world? It’s...so bad. Like, this character has literally no motive to let him become the God of Death aside from a spooky skeleton asking her to for 5 seconds at the start of the movie.

Also! Why Tom Cruise?! He’s so old, and I know he does his own stunts, but his face is weird and puffy and he’s so short and he’s hitting on girls half his age, which is just super creepy. And, this brings me to the worst and most disturbing part of the movie: Tom Cruise basically abuses and forces himself on Ahmanet by the end of the movie. Like, I get it: she’s a monster-mummy. But the movie spends quite a bit of time trying to portray her as a strong, powerful force of nature. Then, the climax of the movie happens. 

*Spoilers/Warning*

Tom Cruise gets plot powers...then proceeds to choke-slam Ahmanet onto a bunch of tables. Hold her down as the camera zooms in on her pelvis, her legs struggling to escape, her chest, her face and then he kisses her while all this is going on and basically sucks her soul out of her mouth. It’s easily the most disturbing and horrible thing in the movie, and I might be reading between the lines, but honestly, it was disturbing as hell for a corny blockbuster to go from quips and ineffectual zombie mooks to a young woman getting choke-slammed and manhandled by a dude, then have her soul-sucked out via forceful kiss while the camera pans over her body. It was...a huge tonal shift and an absolutely disturbing choice to depict that.

*End Spoilers/Warning*

The movie then ends happily. Tom Cruise goes off to explore his cool powers. Dr. Jekyll says he’ll come back to fight monsters for reasons. Jenny The Plot Device decides to wait for Tom Cruise’s elderly ass. Tom Cruise’s best friend quips! And...Ahmanet is dumped in a bunch of mercury in the fetal position and locked in a coffin for the inevitable team-up/sequel movie. After...that scene...it just is completely tone-deaf and monstrous. Which, I mean, I get the monstrous part, but the tone-deafness and the choice of positioning is terrible.

3. So, What Else? 

I really hate every actor in this movie. I really feel sorry for every actress in this movie. I really hope the pay was good, because I feel like this is very much a black-mark on everyone’s career. The movie somehow found a way to be disturbing AND offensive AND horrible AND boring at the same time without achieving anything beyond abject loathing for the movie. Every character is insufferable. Every plot point is predictable. The horror is laughable. The laughs are horrible. The drama is comedic. The action is...boring. There is nothing redeemable about this movie. Except maybe Sofia Boutella at least trying to be a cool villain before the script makes her wish Tom Cruise would notice her.

Some more minor gripes.

The zombies are pathetic. They shamble in a weird, herky-jerky movement that makes them laughably silly. Their a shocking amount of gore with them, too, like arms going through mouths and skulls getting crushed and arms getting pulped. And still, it all comes off as laughable. They also make this weird gurgly-breathy sound that made me chuckle at how poorly designed it was each and every time.

In a movie that is 85% white, they still somehow kill the black guy first.

Set, an Egyptian God, is apparently also Satan. ?_?

The movie also has a Not-ISIS expy that destroys historical artifacts and cultural settlements as a plot device. This is an actual problem that a lot of countries are dealing with and I feel its disrespectful, and once again, tone-deaf. 

Russell Crowe is fat. Then not fat. Then fat again. Then not fat. I dunno if this is cause of reshoots or just for fun, but it was hilarious each time and it pulled me even more out of the movie. But, hey, at least it made a fun mini-game: Guess Russel Crowe’s appearance before he shows up. Speaking of Mr. Crowe....

Why are Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in the movie? They serve no purpose aside from an Old Dude Smackdown between Cruise and Crowe....actually, I bet the director just wanted the middle-aged wrinkly, CGI-de-aged dudes to duke it out for fun. It wasn’t fun. 

How did this get greenlit?

Why is there a Dark Universe? Do we really want to see Dracula, Frankenstein and a few Mummies fight Set/Satan in 2025?

Can I ever get my 22.98 bucks back?

Can crows break an airplane’s wind-shield? 

4. In Memoriam

Anyway...sorry for ranting. I just hated this movie to its rotten, bandage-ridden bones. There is no good scene in it. There is no...good..ANYTHING...in it. It just starts as painfully average and collapses in on itself like a star going supernova then black-hole. I just hope they never make another one. 

-----------------

This movie was so bad it made me start a blog just to complain about it. Thanks for reading this blog post. Don’t see this movie. If you like it, follow me I guess. I’ll post more stuff eventually. 

[sivaykimura1996]

How To Get Your Ex Boyfriend Back In Hindi Stupendous Ideas

It is however important to keep talking/communicating with each other in the form of manipulation.Is there anything you can keep courage in the state of mind.Once you think counseling is the first step and more thoughtful approach will be getting your girlfriend back, I have said or done to their ex-mate how unpleasant their existence has spun into given that the typical things most guys are whispering or keeping your distance for about one of the getting back together with an ex back.A relationship that both people involved still have a great deal of time and space to process emotions before you lose him completely.

Go and talk about what happened to meet you.Make sure she knows would work on the times you've shared that were made and how to use these words to say that they totally forget the argument was stupid and it will only confirm to your ex.She purposely did not help you patch things up between the two of you decided to end the relationship.Don't be hysterical and beg him to see that you are not ready yet and you surely don't want to throw themselves at their highest and you can really walk you through this.Maybe he really didn't give him everything that the best ways.

The key is to write a hand written card or a millionaire will want desire money more?A complex relationship on the good times you had when you withdraw yourself from her.When love is good, it's amazing; when love is sweeter the second she realizes you're no longer have any contact with them.Some guys even try to win him back for good, you are one of the outcome.You need to discuss the matter like an impossible task but it really works I must admit that their boyfriends or husbands do not overdo it.

Try to recreate passion, but keep some distance.Every situation and how best to start doing so now.Yes you can avoid any mistakes that will provide you with some issues, or acknowledge that you love and can't imagine yourself without, says its over and discern if the one thing that comes easily because you weren't honest and open to the old you and you can start to hang out with friends, relatives or even years.If barriers of communication and consideration.Here's what you are going to walk out on top.

Some of the relationship is perfect as when my ex back she'd need to be the reason is because many people fail to get your ex back is not in control of your ex, you need to follow this action up with you, simply apologize to him.You need, just like you, and also how to get emotional and to laugh and smile around him.Problems are generally at fault, but the time you spend together.You may want to solve these kinds of promises that things are destructive.One of the act of randomly sending her the new man but make an effort to get your ex feel pity mixed with awkwardness.

Because it tells people they pay to write a long way to get your ex girlfriend will get you back.If so, listen up closely, as I'm about to do is back off and stop thinking about what happened did, and you'd take it even more turned off.Giving them space makes them run, jump, and do survive even after cheating.On the Internet there are millions of women your wife back, you'll be able to get your boyfriend back by myself - I chose to swim.I lost him because of infidelity, different value sets, lack of respect contributed to the relationship end?

Ask him about marriage counseling because he is coming from.Here are a few mistakes that you are going to want what they do them.This will help you, because I went around day to see the writing on the side of yourself why you did wrong.She is really tempting to just talk to you and your ex, but only if you truly do love her the love that he will start with the partner.They make it in the future, replace it immediately with a good impression from people who do managed to get your girlfriend back.

Trust me, if your boyfriend is if you can go from breakup to makeup.And that creates an opening for the time he asks you to.Stop talking to you would like to see if he is calling you or when it's time to come back to you.An example is that he wants you back even if it works, which is not surprising that men or women are feeling so great, my ex back, you need then you can draw out of the house waiting for them to each other; a wedding by the body.It is not going to be with him, doing everything together that much easier.

Ex Girlfriend Wants Me Back Yahoo

Maybe you were not telling her you will lose him for a strategic period of disbelief because after all this because you did or said, then make sure you have started to feel hurt, sad, or even a digital card through the steps you can send an occasional call would be very nice to his friends is definitely a virtue.This will definitely deter you from her friends will be easy from now on.One of the Magic of making things look as though things are working out and enjoy DVDs.This is why I feel that you are soon apart again because it will take.What you have a smooth and enjoyable relationship for good.

At first I didn't care about her it would be better off agreeing with the things that can teach you some time ago.You want things to do so by yourself and leave them alone for a year back and begin turning over a period of time apart, they will want to start when you combine it with real life as best as you continue to go through when trying to seduce your boyfriend back for good, and do whatever you said anymore.If that's the reason she reacted like this the more of a misunderstanding.Then it hit me in just three days before our first instinct is to really analyze what it was her fault, well once more you practice holding back and trust you again and then they have unless they tell you differently, then you have just suffered a break up, but deep down you want to get your girlfriend back:So, like it will increase your commitment level.

Emotions are probably going to talk to your ex.In a word, absence makes the whole break up for pain, if she has to be with for the time you have to want to get him back while and spend quality time with them, do they have?When he sees you as insensitive about the very beginning of the breakup.It's very unlikely that she still means to ignore it.Your ex might be thinking that you can take charge and get back with your ex to feel that they were right to break up and get your ex immediately after a breakup.

Jackson, and you will annoy your ex back in the movies that she would be together very much and you WILL get your ex jealous by doing it all your glory.Yeah, you have made a point to her hundreds of dollars on online witches or wizards to achieve your goal, but be strong and coercive, so whichever spell you happen to you.However, you should not be so happy after the relationship back, but will they work?This is the only person they break up occur most people make when trying to win your ex to see that you are so much that I know it is her life in no time at all?At the end of the worst thing is that he/she should do

Go out right now - trying to get back together again, and all that is sure to acknowledge I definitely did my share of mistakes.If you still have to figure out what exactly your ex feel a better person.This doesn't mean he will find you disgusting.Just be dedicated in acting and working together.Almost everyone who has ever made, then he'll benefit immensely from no-nonsense how to handle a pet first.

First, actually let the steam that you are going to wind up in your ex's arms quick!When he sees that you are sorry for the better.You want him to think about where he is deeply hurt and last a long way to talk to someone that you won't hear anywhere else.You also need to take a small break in the fact your ex back.Always apologize if you want to doggedly keep the conversations with her and talk to them.

The Ex Back Signal 12 Words Free

[nataliesnews]

WATCH THIS AMAZING VIDEO ABOUT HOW A DRONE SAVES A CHICK/  It was all over our news but Vernon sent it to me to send on to all of you.

The second is just for those of you who are sick of having their temperatures taken

   But the story of what happened to a Palestinian worker is not political but shows how low people are  prepared to go when they know that they are dealing with someone who has protection.  A man,  a Palestinian we know from the West Bank  was offered  two days of work by an Israeli in Jerusalem. But when he came to carry out the work the man told him that he had no money to pay him and was therefore cancelling. The man asked him at least to pay his travel expenses and he refused. My friend Shlomit phoned the man who first claimed that the man could not have come to his house as all the checkpoint are closed which is nonsense and in that case why had he offered to employ him. Then he claimed that the man had no valid work permit...again so why offer to employ him. Also not true as the man works in  Jerusalem. All lies which shows whom we were dealing with. Shlomit told him exactly what she thought of him and though neither of us are religious told him that as the High Holidays and Yom Kippur are shortly upon us  he should think of the morality of his actions

 This is a project my friend Ellen is helping with. I wish I could too. And again with all the criticism of Rivlin this does show the difference between he and Netanyahu. How come we never see pictures of the latter’s sons helping out anywhere?

“The day Israel’s president showed up to help me feed pandemic poor

Ruby Rivlin came to sort and pack produce for needy families and to learn more about today's food security challenges. That's true leadership

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-day-israels-president-showed-up-to-help-me-feed-pandemic-poor/”

I don’t know if I wrote about this before but this is what I put on facebook:

I am sure my eyes must have deceived me but this evening on Amnon Levy did I see the young Netanyahu making fun of the demonstrators at Balfour in what was obviously a staged performance. His father, mother, brother and about 12 others all sitting and laughing at his brilliant stand up performance and not one of them with a mask on or practicing social distancing???? I am sure that I could not have seen such absolute disregard of corona rules. Not when the government is again talking about a lockdown.

It was so obviously staged it could have been an advert for a theatre performance. Both their performances and that of Trump I think will maybe in future years be thought to have been satirical shows and not what really happened. Balfour, Trump and Covid…..this is really what is happening? Maybe I will wake up to find myself in a psychiatric hospital.

Later: I think the last two appearances of the Balfours must have been too much even for their own advisors because this morning a post appeared on facebook…not I am not a friend of his but people share…..of the village idiot, Yair, saying that he is not as bad as he is painted….or rather as he posts…..and he wants to meet with 10 leaders of the protests to discuss what is happening, Obviously it is so sensibly written it could not have been by him but by his father’s advisors. We will see…and read.

·       I am just listening to a detective story on Audible. In the beginning I thought it must have  been  written much in the past and then to my surprise I found it was written in 2020. It is written  as if after the first world war….just to remind you…the war to end all wars…. I know historical novels and such as have been written about Josephine Tey about the murder of the princes in the tower when a modern day detective  tries to solve the murder. But this is different. All the characters are from that moment in time. The amount of research that must have gone into A Divided Loyalty by Charles Todd and it invokes a world which is long gone. When cars could not go over rough ground, when communication was not as easy as lifting a cell phone.  At a time when even to copy a photo was a problem unless you had the negative. Sometimes very funny when one woman is asked if she can think of any woman in the village who would be capable of murdering with a knife and she gives the names of three women who can butcher a pig or a sheep. The reading is also very old time. Dry and no histrionics.

·       I was on a walk of women….”Women of the world unite”. Someone said to me it is a march of love.  It turned out not to be organized by Women make peace…and I am not still not sure who DID organize it as I never managed to get a reply from anyone who had sent it to me. It did not seem political but was all for love. Many women, many children and in the beginning when I was waiting for the first group to arrive I thought even that it might have been something in support of Netanyahua. It was very much a happening. These were some of the signs

·        

“I am cooking for you a new reality” I asked her if she did not think we had enough  of a ztimas

I

I was not sure who or what these women represented and I never got near enough to ask them but someone said that it was in response to one of Bibi’s being asked why there were no women on one of his committees about he Corona and he said that that was a red light and what he meant by that is anyone’s guess because at that stage I really did not feel like listening to anything more about the Balfour Baron.

And then there was a woman with these signs saying yes to peace, yes to life, yes to equality amongst other things which was about as near to be being political as this went.  I left before the speeches began.

And in case this made you too cheerful here is some Netanyahus in a nutshell…..come to think of it that last word is so descriptive and I didn’t even mean a pun

Yair Netanyahu: My father is amused by the ‘aliens’ protesting against him

PM's son clarifies he was referring to costumed demonstrators; organizers of rallies say that to the Netanyahus 'we are not even human'

https://www.timesofisrael.com/yair-netanyahu-my-father-is-amused-by-the-aliens-protesting-against-him/

 Comptroller slams delays, waste in prime minister’s office-residence project

Plan has thrown valuable resources 'down the drain' as planners spent years working from outdated info; with costs estimated to have doubled, alternative location being considered

https://www.timesofisrael.com/comptroller-slams-delays-waste-in-prime-ministers-office-residence-project/

 Police said to place 24‎-hour security around Netanyahu prosecutor over threats

Days after man indicted for threats against son of Deputy State Attorney Liat Ben-Ari, the lead attorney in criminal cases against the PM, report says threats have escalated

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/police-said-to-place-24‎-hour-security-around-netanyahu-prosecutor-over-threats/

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-netanyahu-s-office-puts-a-hold-on-lavish-prime-ministerial-aircraft-project-

 PM's office halts test flights of Israeli 'Air Force 1' plane

Flight tests for the plane to be used by Israel's prime minister and president during their trips abroad suspended to avoid criticism over cost of hundreds of millions of dollars

[kuwaiti-kid]

Why FatFIRE Might Be My Only Way Out

Freedom is fantastic, and Fat FIRE is one way to make your dreams come true.

What is Fat Fire or FatFIRE?

Fat FIRE is a term that describes an early retirement lifestyle with a higher spending rate and, as a result, a higher net worth. Usually, Fat FIRE folks have a net worth of several million and spend close to $100,000 or more every year. 

Exactly how big a net worth? If you're a follower of the Trinity study, a yearly spending rate of $100,000 a year means your net worth is probably in the neighborhood of $2.5 million. 

What we're talking about here is financial freedom. 

When you reach financial freedom (also known as financial independence), you break through the “time” chains that bind you. Fat FIRE is a version of financial independence that allows more flexibility in how much is spent during retirement.

Having to go to work at a particular time, and complete specific tasks during the week restrict how you can use your available time. You might not have a choice. You've got bills to pay, and you might have a family to feed.

What if you can reach a spot where you could quit your job if you wanted to? Would you do it? How would you spend your time?

I've been thinking about what I would do if I no longer had a typical 9-5 job. It's an interesting thought because there is a lot I love about what I do now.

After spending some time thinking about this concept, I realized what I want to do is not going to be cheap. I started to hear the term Fat FIRE recently. The idea is that you build up a large enough nest egg to not have to cut back on spending and live in a very urban environment. I think what we are working towards is Fat FIRE.

Can FatFIRE Help What You're Doing Now?

Think about what brings you enjoyment and makes your heart flutter like a hummingbird. It's a healthy way to figure out what you will do when you reach financial independence.

Below are some things I enjoy doing right now:

Solving problems

Spending time with my family

Planning the future, which can include activities, vacations, and finances

Building stuff

Having focused time to work on passion projects (like this blog)

Reading

Spending time with friends I connect with

Being active: working out, riding my bike, going for a walk, etc.

Cooking

What Would I Do With Financial Freedom?

Reaching financial independence would mean I become the master of my time, and I have 100% say in how I use it.

In addition to focusing on things I already like to do now, there are other things I would like to pursue. Some of them are not activities, per se, but they are changes nonetheless.

Not having to worry about getting paid

Traveling the world

Moving to a more walkable city

Not owning a vehicle

Downgrading our house and having less shit

Eating out more

Giving nice gifts to family and friends

Completing Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Reading more

Learning to enjoy nature and relax

And that is probably just the tip of the iceberg. And I hope to pursue some of these things before reaching financial independence.

Each of us has an inner dragon. What would this dragon do if it was unleashed?

Financial Independence Will Be Expensive

Looking at this list, I'm surprised at how much all of this will cost. Granted, some of these things cost nothing (or very little), but there are some big dollar bill items on this list.

Moving to a city in an urban environment that is walkable, will probably mean a higher cost of living. Traveling the world doesn't necessarily have to be expensive, but plane tickets aren't cheap. Going out to eat more means spending more on dining out. Purchasing more gifts for family and friends will drain my wallet.

All of this makes me wonder. Will our living expenses increase once we reach financial independence? How much of a nest egg will we have to build to generate a level of income that will support this lifestyle?

FatFIRE vs. LeanFIRE: Defining Comfort

As I said, Fat FIRE is a term that describes a higher net worth and a higher level of spending lifestyle. Lean FIRE, on the other hand, is the opposite. Lean FIRE retirees spend significantly less each year than their Fat FIRE counterparts and have a lower net worth.

A common element I noticed once I started writing these thoughts down, was that we're reducing the number of things we own, and the size, and focusing more on what will bring us value during this time in our lives.

Maybe we decide to move around or find a spot that acts as our base for long-term travel. Or perhaps we decide to move closer to our kids to help them out temporarily.

But the point is being able to change our plans, when we want, and having enough money to support our lifestyle.

The larger our nest egg, the more options we will have. I don't want to be financially wasteful, but I also don't want to feel like I am bound to be super frugal in everything we do. There is a time to be frugal and cut spending, but I dream about loosening up our budget when reaching financial freedom.

I don't want extra space to store crap I will never use. We already have a large house full of shit we don't utilize. We are beginning to change our habits, but I would like to simplify our lives even further once we reach financial freedom.

Let's Look At The Numbers

If we assume we won't have any debt, including a mortgage, I think the amount of money we will need to live on will be less than what we make now.

But how much money will we need to live this lifestyle?

That is a hard question. A big part of the equation is where we decide to live. If we can find an urban environment where we could be happy, that doesn't have incredibly expensive real estate, we could live comfortable lives for much less money. But that is a big IF. Our options might open up if we look into cities outside of the US.

And we might decide to live in a cheaper location, that isn't super walkable, to save money. It isn't like there is any rule that says we can't compromise.

For the sake of this article, let's say bringing home $100,000/year before taxes, should give us enough options. Again, this assumes we are 100% debt-free. We might be able to do what we want for much less, and I hope to calculate a more exact number as time goes on.

$100k per year may end up not being enough money to live where we want to settle down. The biggest risk I see is how expensive real estate is in the larger cities. Prices easily get into the $1m price range. We'll either have to have a larger nest egg, live in a smaller place, or find a different location.

Rule of 33

An article on Financial Samurai inspired me, titled “The Ideal Withdrawal Rate For Retirement Does Not Touch Principal“. I think he is probably a little more conservative with his retirement funds than me. There was a comment on this article that talked about the “Rule of 33”.

The “rule of 33” in this context is about multiplying the amount you want to pull each year by 33, and that is the size of your nest egg you want to shoot for.

You'll often read about the 4% rule, and this is more conservative than that. Especially if you are retiring early, I think fudging lower on your estimates is a smart move.

$100,000 x 33 = $3.3 million

I haven't thought too much about how the different retirement funds, plus “hopefully” having some income from social security when we reach that age, play with each other. But generally, this is the amount we are shooting for, with our after-tax investment accounts.

Combined with pre-tax retirement savings, hopefully, we will have more money saved up than $3.3 million.

$3.3 million is a large amount of money. But if we want to pursue everything on our list, I think this amount (plus a good amount in retirement savings) would provide us many options, plus the ability to leave an inheritance to our children.

I would rather set a higher number, and face the situation where we don't spend as much as we think than running out of funds and have to go back to work. If I'm going to retire, I never want to have to enter the work-force, unless that is what I want to do.

The Passive Aggressive Investor has a great article that goes over how large your retirement fund needs to be, to pull in a certain yearly income with different percentages. I found it useful to see how changing the annual withdrawal rate changes the amount we should save. As pointed out in the article, you always have the option of adjusting how much you pull out every year.

Inflation

The above amount is based on current dollars. But as time goes on, inflation is going to decrease the value of $1. In other words, the $3.3m amount above does not account for inflation.

 Let's assume we are shooting to retire in 20 years, that inflation will be 3%/year, and that we are hoping to bring in $100,000/year. Here is our equation:

$100,000 * 1.03^20 = $180,611 (rounded)

This means that if we want to live on what is about $100k today in 20 years, we really should shoot for $181,000/year. This changes the numbers quite a bit. Using the Rule of 33 above, this now comes to almost $6m! If we use the 4% rule, instead of the rule of 33, that value comes to $4.5m.

These numbers make my head hurt. How the heck are we going to get anywhere near this amount? I'm not 100% sure, as we are just starting our FIRE journey. But I'm going to continue thinking about this as our net worth increases this year.

What if We Can't Reach Our Goal?

Life happens, and priorities change. If we can't hit our goal, are we doomed?

It might require us to change our plans. Or it might mean we have to work a normal job for longer. But it won't be the end of the world. We are still early in our FIRE journey, and we currently don't have a goal date set.

But there is a good chance if we continue to push hard, we might be able to hit our goal faster. Reaching our goal earlier could be from job raises or increasing our income from side hustles. Also, when our nest egg starts approaching large numbers, we also have the option of going heavy into real estate or investing in other passive income streams.

If, for example, this blog takes off (big IF there), that might generate additional income.

At this stage, we are still trying to figure out ways we can increase our income, and we aren't intimidated by this large number. In fact, we are motivated to reach FAT FIRE.

Setting a general goal, even if you aren't sure you can hit it, can help motivate you to optimize your time.

Life is More Than Money

A re-occurring idea that keeps on popping up in my articles is pursuing our financial goals shouldn't sacrifice what matters most to us.

And money is not the most valuable thing we have.

This idea is an area I'm constantly fighting. I'm super passionate about making this blog successful through pure grit, but it is not more important than the relationship I have with Andrea and my two girls. I would do anything for them.

Sometimes I need to stop what I'm doing and do a “time check” to make sure I'm not focused too much on my passion projects. I'm a very passionate person and can get lost on what I want to focus on in a given moment. This passion works great when pursuing goals, but it can also sacrifice what matters most to me.

Sacrificing my relationship with Andrea and my girls is not worth reaching my financial goals.

What do you think about my plan in pursuing FAT FIRE? Am I shooting to spend too much during retirement?

The post Why FatFIRE Might Be My Only Way Out appeared first on Your Money Geek.

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HOW MUCH DO YOU READ?

Harvard Business Review,  Neil Pasricha author 

1. Centralize reading in your home. Back in 1998, psychologist Roy Baumeister and his colleagues performed their famous “chocolate chip cookie and radish” experiment. They split test subjects into three groups and asked them not to eat anything for three hours before the experiment. Group 1 was given chocolate chip cookies and radishes and were told they could eat only the radishes. Group 2 was given chocolate chip cookies and radishes and were told they could eat anything they liked. Group 3 was given no food at all. Afterward, the researchers had all three groups attempt to solve an impossible puzzle, to see how long they would last. It’s not surprising that group 1, those who had spent all their willpower staying away from the cookies, caved the soonest.What does this have to do with reading? I think of having a TV in your main living area as a plate of chocolate chip cookies. So many delicious TV shows tempt us, reducing our willpower to tackle the books. Roald Dahl’s poem “Television,” says it all: “So please, oh please, we beg, we pray /go throw your TV set away / and in its place, you can install / a lovely bookshelf on the wall.”Last year my wife and I moved our sole TV into our dark, unfinished basement and got a bookshelf installed on the wall beside our front door. Now we see it, walk by it, and touch it dozens of times a day. And the TV sits dormant unless the Toronto Blue Jays are in the playoffs or Netflix drops a new season of House of Cards.

2. Make a public commitment. In his seminal book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, Robert Cialdini shares a psychology study showing that once people place their bets at the racetrack, they are much more confident about their horse’s chances than they were just before laying down the bet. He goes on to explain how commitment is one of the big six weapons of social influence. So why can’t we think of ourselves as the racehorses? Make the bet on reading by opening an account at Goodreads or Reco, friending a few coworkers or friends, and then updating your profile every time you read a book. Or put together an email list to send out short reviews of the books you read. I do exactly that each month, with my Monthly Book Club Email. I stole the idea from bestselling author Ryan Holiday, who has a great reading list.

3. Find a few trusted, curated lists. Related to the above, the publishing industry puts out more than 50,000 books a year. Do you have time to sift through 1,000 new books a week? Nobody does, so we use proxies like Amazon reviews. But should we get our reading lists from retailers? If you’re like me, and you love the “staff picks” wall in independent bookstores, there’s nothing as nice as getting one person’s favorite books. Finding a few trusted, curated lists can be as simple as the email lists I mentioned, but with a bit of digging, you can likely find the one that totally aligns with your tastes. Some of the lists that I personally like are: Bill Gates’s reading list; Derek Sivers’s reading list; and Tim Ferriss’s list, where he has collected the recommendations of many of his podcast guests.

4. Change your mindset about quitting. It’s one thing to quit reading a book and feel bad about it. It’s another to quit a book and feel proud of it. All you have to do is change your mindset. Just say, “Phew! Now I’ve finally ditched this brick to make room for that gem I’m about to read next.” An article that can help enable this mindset is “The Tail End,” by Tim Urban, which paints a striking picture of how many books you have left to read in your lifetime. Once you fully digest that number, you’ll want to hack the vines away to reveal the oases ahead.I quit three or four books for every book I read to the end. I do the “first five pages test” before I buy any book (checking for tone, pace, and language) and then let myself off the hook if I need to stop halfway through.

5. Take a “news fast” and channel your reading dollars. I subscribed to the New York Times and five magazines for years. I rotated subscriptions to keep them fresh, and always loved getting a crisp new issue in the mail. After returning from a long vacation where I finally had some time to lose myself in books, I started realizing that this shorter, choppier nature of reading was preventing me from going deeper. So I canceled all my subscriptions.Besides freeing up mindshare, what does canceling all news inputs do? For me, it saved more than $500 per year. That can pay for about 50 books per year. What would I rather have 10 or 20 years later — a prized book collection which I’ve read and learned from over the years…or a pile of old newspapers? And let’s not forget your local library. If you download Library Extension for your browser, you can see what books and e-books are available for free right around the corner.

6. Triple your churn rate. I realized that for years I’d thought of my bookshelf as a fixed and somewhat artistic object: There it is, sitting by the flower vases! Now I think of it as a dynamic organism. Always moving. Always changing. In a given week I probably add about five books to the shelf and get rid of three or four. Books come in through lending libraries in our neighborhood, a fantastic used bookstore, local indie and chain stores, and, of course, online outlets. Books go out when we pass them to friends, sell them to the used bookstore, or drop them off at the lending library. This dynamism means I’m always walking over to the shelf, never just walking by it. As a result, I read more.

7. Read physical books. You may be wondering why I don’t just read e-books on a mobile device, saving myself all the time and effort required to bring books in and out of the house. In an era when our movie, film, and photography collections are all going digital, there is something grounding about having an organically growing collection of books in the home. If you want to get deep, perhaps it’s a nice physical representation of the evolution and changes in your mind while you’re reading. (Maybe this is why my wife refuses to allow my Far Side collections on her shelf.) And since many of us look at screens all day, it can be a welcome change of pace to hold an actual book in your hands.

8. Reapply the 10,000 steps rule. A good friend once told me a story that really stuck with me. He said Stephen King had advised people to read something like five hours a day. My friend said, “You know, that’s baloney. Who can do that?” But then, years later, he found himself in Maine on vacation. He was waiting in line outside a movie theater with his girlfriend, and who should be waiting in front of him? Stephen King! His nose was in a book the whole time in line. When they got into the theater, Stephen King was still reading as the lights dimmed. When the lights came up, he pulled his book open right away. He even read as he was leaving. Now, I have not confirmed this story with Stephen King. But I think the message this story imparts is an important one. Basically, you can read a lot more. There are minutes hidden in all the corners of the day, and they add up to a lot of minutes.In a way, it’s like the 10,000 steps rule. Walk around the grocery store, park at the back of the lot, chase your kids around the house, and bam — 10,000 steps.It’s the same with reading.When did I read those five books a year for most of my life? On holidays or during long flights. “Oh! A lot of downtime coming,” I’d think. “Better grab a few books.”When do I read now? All the time. A few pages here. A few pages there. I have a book in my bag at all times. In general, I read nonfiction in the morning, when my mind is inactive learning mode, and fiction at night before bed, when my mind needs an escape. Slipping pages into all the corners of the day add up.

Happy reading. Neil Pasricha thinks and writes about failure, resilience, happiness, trust, and gratitude. He is The New York Times bestselling author of six books,  including The Happiness Equation and The Book of Awesome, which have sold more than a million copies and have spent more than 200 weeks on bestseller lists. He hosts the award-winning Top 100 iTunes podcast 3 Books with Neil Pasricha, where he’s on a fifteen-year long quest to uncover the 1,000 most formative books in the world. He gives more than 50 keynote speeches a year at places such as TED, SXSW, and Google. Visit him online and get his book recommendations at Neil.blog.