#its usually floating just above the core of when i create original worlds

[brbgensokyo]

[thygesendaugherty86-blog]

How To Clone Website Online?

It allows you to download websites from the Internet to your local hard drive on your own computer. Website Downloader arranges the downloaded site from the original websites relative link-structure. The downloaded website can be browsed by opening one of the HTML pages in a browser. The web grabber takes each HTML file and downloads and clones it to your local hard drive. You can use an HTML editor to make changes to each HTML file locally or use an HTML editor online. In case you are not a coder you can use a WYSIWYG-HTML Editor instead. They convert all the links in the HTML files so that they work locally, off-line, instead of pointing to an online website.

CSS and JavaScript files will be downloaded under a simple folder structure and referenced correctly in the HTML files. Like other assets, also images will be downloaded and referenced locally. Clone Website enables you to easily copy any website online. We do all of the work for you. Simply enter httrack of the website you want to copy, make a payment and we’ll take care of the rest! You’ll receive a download link usually within 24-hours. We copy all websites using the newest technologies and provide you with a “ready to work” clone. It is a paid service. The verify process can take up to the max.

The popularity of torrent sites is decreasing each year but they still remain one of the most visited websites on the web. However, at times, accessing a torrenting source like The Pirate Bay or 1337x can be difficult due to bans imposed by schools, offices, authorities, and governments. Talking specifically about 1337x, it’s one of the best torrent trackers around. To help you out in case the website is down, I’ve prepared a list of the popular 1337x alternatives that people tend to visit if the website faces a downtime. The Pirate Bay is the first website that should rightly make an appearance on any list of torrent sites.

Often referred to as TPB or Pirates Bay, this Swedish-origin site is available in about 35 different languages. Over time, it has, somehow, managed to survive downtime (here are some TPB alternatives) and a long list of legal troubles. The home page of this 1337x alternative is very minimal. While its text-only interface might not be pleasing to your eyes, it gets the job done. There’s a search box for entering your query and tick-boxes to select the torrent categories like audio, video, apps, games, etc. There are some ads on the search results but they won’t bother you much. While TPB might be the most popular torrent site around, Zooqle is the one getting tons of attention in the world of P2P sharing. Although its interface contains lots of information and pictures, it isn’t cluttered.

Zooqle actually sorts the torrents and the categories in a very intuitive manner. The site claims to feature more than 4 million verified torrents and supports more than 2,000 trackers. LimeTorrents is known for hosting mostly verified torrent files to ensure that users don’t end up downloading malware. The website features a pleasant color theme and its interface looks a lot like KickassTorrents. You can search for torrents, choose various categories, and sort the files as per date, size, seeders, leechers, etc. This 1337x alternative also shows a star badge in the listings to highlight a verified upload. When it comes to ads, LimeTorrents doesn’t feature many. However, the website keeps showing VPN affiliate banners that take you to different VPN providers.

Overall, the experience isn’t much intrusive as compared to other torrent providers. Just like The Pirate Bay, KickassTorrents has also faced multiple troubles like losing its primary domain, shutdowns by ISPs, and legal actions by governments. There are many mirrors and fake clones of this torrent alternative floating around — so you need to be careful. Talking about the interface, it’s the same as the original site. However, for some reason, the sorting feature doesn’t seem to be working. While the site doesn’t display any intrusive ads, the lack of sorting feature is a big downside. In 2016, the original Torrentz was shut down after a series of legal actions.

Following that, Torrentz2 surfaced as an unofficial clone of the website with about 60 million torrents. Over time, this torrent search alternative for 1337x has managed to gain back its userbase. Talking about the site, it’s basically a metasearch engine for torrent — not a typical torrent download website. It means that it indexes the torrent files from all popular sources and displays them at one place. The search result page lets you sort the torrents according to peers, rating, size, and date of upload. There’s also an option to rate the torrent and provide feedback. While P2P file sharing isn’t an illegal activity, users often indulge in sharing copyright protected media on the web. But, how do you make sure that the torrent that you’re downloading is legal? Legit Torrents is one such website that provides 100% legally free media. The website’s interface is as clean as it gets; there are a couple of ads on the pages but they are non-intrusive. The home page of this legal alternative to 1337x features a listing of torrents and a search box at the top. You can sort the results as per date, seeders, leechers, etc. There’s a link to an Extra Stats section at the top that provides lists of different sections of top 10 torrents.

The ability to execute code in parallel is crucial in a wide variety of scenarios. Concurrent programming is a key asset for web servers, producer/consumer models, batch number-crunching and pretty much any time an application is bottlenecked by a resource. It’s sadly the case that writing quality concurrent code can be a real headache, but this article aims to demonstrate how easy it is to get started writing threaded programs in Python. Due to the large number of modules available in the standard library which are there to help out with this kind of thing, it’s often the case that simple concurrent tasks are surprisingly quick to implement.

We’ll walk through the difference between threads and processes in a Python context, before reviewing some of the different approaches you can take and what they’re best suited for. It’s impossible to talk about concurrent programming in Python without mentioning the Global Interpreter Lock, or GIL. This is because of the large impact it has on which approach you select when writing asynchronous Python. The most important thing to note is that it is only a feature of CPython (the widely used “reference” Python implementation), it’s not a feature of the language. Jython and IronPython, among other implementations, have no GIL. The GIL is controversial because it only allows one thread at a time to access the Python interpreter.

This means that it’s often not possible for threads to take advantage of multi-core systems. Note that if there are blocking operations which happen outside Python, long-wait tasks like I/O for instance, then the GIL is not a bottleneck and writing a threaded program will still be a benefit. However, if the blocking operations are largely crunching through CPython bytecode, then the GIL becomes a bottleneck. Why was the GIL introduced at all? It makes memory management much simpler with no possibility of simultaneous access or race conditions, and it makes C extensions easier to write and easier to wrap.

The upshot of all this is that if you need true parallelism and need to leverage multi-core CPUs, threads won’t cut it and you need to use processes. A separate process means a separate interpreter with separate memory, its own GIL, and true parallelism. This guide will give examples of both thread and process architectures. The concurrent.futures module is a well-kept secret in Python, but provides a uniquely simple way to implement threads and processes. For many basic applications, the easy to use Pool interface offered here is sufficient. Here’s an example where we want to download some webpages, which will be much quicker if done in parallel.

Most of the code is just setting up our downloader example; it’s only the last block which contains the threading-specific code. Note how easy it is to create a dynamic pool of workers using ThreadPoolExecutor and submit a task. Using threads works well in this case since the blocking operation that benefits from concurrency is the act of fetching the webpage. This means that the GIL is not an issue and threading is an ideal solution. However, if the operation in question was something which was CPU intensive within Python, processes would likely be more appropriate because of the restrictions of the GIL. In that case, we could have simply switched out ThreadPoolExecutor with ProcessPoolExecutor.

Whilst the concurrent.futures module offers a great way to get off the ground quickly, sometimes more control is needed over different threads, which is where the ubiquitous threading module comes in. Let’s re-implement the website downloader we made above, this time using the threading module. For each thread we want to create, we make an instance of the threading.Thread class, specifying what we would like our worker function to be, and the arguments required. Note that we’ve also added a status update thread. The purpose of this is to repeatedly print “Still downloading” until we’ve finished fetching all the web pages. Unfortunately, since Python waits for all threads to finish executing before it exits, the program will never exit and the status updater thread will never stop printing.

This is an example of when the threading module’s multitude of options could be useful: we can mark the updater thread as a daemon thread, which means that Python will exit when only daemon threads are left running. The program now successfully stops printing and exits when all downloader threads are finished. Daemon threads are generally most useful for background tasks and repetitive functions which are only required when the main program is running, since a daemon can be killed at any moment, causing data loss. So far we’ve only looked at cases where we know exactly what we want the threads to be working on when we start them. However, it’s often the case that we need to start a group of worker threads, then feed them tasks as they arrive.

The best data structure for dealing with these tasks is, of course, a queue, and Python provides a queue module which is especially geared towards threading applications. FIFO, LIFO and priority queues are available. Ok, that’s pretty basic so far. Now let’s use it to create a tasks queue for our website downloader. We’ll create a group of worker threads which can all access the queue and wait for tasks to come in. Note that in this example all the tasks were added in one go for the sake of brevity, but in a real application the tasks could trickle in at any rate. Here we exit the program when the tasks queue has been fully completed, using the .join() method.

The threading module is great for detailed control of threads, but what if we want this finer level of control for processes? You might think that this would be more challenging since once a process is launched, it’s completely separate and independent - harder to control than a new thread which remains within the current interpreter and memory space. Fortunately for us, the Python developers worked hard to create a multiprocessing module which has an interface that is almost identical to the threading module. This means that launching processes follows the exact same syntax as our examples above. We think it’s awesome that Python manages to keep the same syntax between the threading and multiprocessing modules, when the action taking place under the hood is so different. When it comes to distributing data between processes, the queue.Queue that we used for threading will not work between processes.

This is because a queue.Queue is fundamentally just a data structure within the current process - albeit one which is cleverly locked and mutexed. Thankfully there exists a multiprocessing.Queue, which is specifically designed for inter-process communication. Behind the scenes, this will serialize your data and send it through a pipe between processes - a very convenient abstraction. Writing concurrent code in Python can be a lot of fun due to the inbuilt language features that abstract away a lot of problems. This doesn’t mean that a detailed level of control cannot be achieved either, but rather that the barrier to getting started with simple tasks is lowered. So when you’re stuck waiting for one process to finish before starting the next, give one of these techniques a try.

Games download website PCGames-Download - popular for offering cracked games - has announced it’s shutting down. In an announcement post on the website, the owner says it’s no longer possible for them to continue managing the site, so they have decided to shut it down. The team members have taken other paths. We removed the notification of updates also a few months ago, because we can no longer provide 20-30 updates every day as before. There are also a lot of dead links on the site not fixed for weeks. I do most of the work, alone for months. I can no longer insure it for personal reasons. I made that decision a few months ago.

The owner says they will pull the plug on the last day of this year - 31 Dec 2018. So users have a few days at hand to download stuff they want. We’ll give you a few days to continue downloading until, 31.12.2018 the server will be closed on this date, so hurry up ! Not only that, the owner also cautions people about similar but fake sites that may crop up after PCGames-Download gets shut down. Clone sites may appear to take advantage of the disappearance of the site in order to trap you with viruses or other things.if you see a site that looks like this site, run away.

’s a fake. There will be no other site. Users can be seen expressing their disappointment regarding this shutdown across the online discussion platform Reddit. For those who aren’t aware, earlier this month, another similar games-focused website GoodOldDownloads also called it quits. All we can say is, farewell PCGames-Download. The shutdown indeed left users complaining. 31.12.2018 and I just saw it. NOTE: To read more news related to app or website shutdowns, head here. PiunikaWeb is a unique initiative that mainly focuses on investigative journalism. This means we do a lot of hard work to come up with news stories that are either ‘exclusive,’ ‘breaking,’ or ‘curated’ in nature. Perhaps that’s the reason our work has been picked by the likes of Forbes, Foxnews, Gizmodo, TechCrunch, Engadget, The Verge, Macrumors, and more. Do take a tour of our website to get a feel of our work. And if you like what we do, stay connected with us on Twitter (@PiunikaWeb) and other social media channels to receive timely updates on stories we publish.

Sometimes you may want to download a website, or part of it, to your local system. Maybe you want to make use of the contents while you are offline, or for safekeeping reasons so that you can access the contents even if the website becomes temporarily or permanently unavailable. My favorite tool for the job is Httrack. It is free and ships with an impressive amount of features. While that is great if you spend some time getting used to what the program has to offer, you sometimes may want a faster solution that you do not have to configure extensively before use. That's where WebCopy comes into play. 1. Paste or enter a web address into the website field in WebCopy.

2. Make sure the save folder is correct. 3. Click on copy website to start the download. That's all there is to it. The program processes the selected page for you echoing the progress in the results tab in the interface. Here you see downloaded and skipped files, as well as errors that may prevent the download altogether. The error message may help you analyze why a particular page or file cannot be downloaded. Most of the time though, you can't really do anything about it. You can access the locally stored copies with a click on the open local folder button, or by navigating to the save folder manually.

This basic option only gets you this far, as you can only copy a single web page this way. You need to define rules if you want to download additional pages or even the entire website. Rules may also help you when you encounter broken pages that cannot be copied as you can exclude them from the download so that the remaining pages get downloaded to the local system. To add rules right-click on the rules listing in the main interface and select add from the options. Rules are patterns that are matched against the website structure. To exclude a particular directory from being crawled, you'd simply add it as a pattern and select the exclude option in the rules configuration menu. It is still not as intuitive as HTTracks link depth parameter that you can use to define the depth of the crawl and download.

WebCopy supports authentication which you can add in the forms and password settings. Here you can add a web address that requires authentication, and a username and password that you want the web crawler to use to access the contents. 1. The website diagram menu displays the structure of the active website to you. You can use it to add rules to the crawler. Additional URLs. This can be useful if the crawler cannot discover the urls automatically. 3. The default user agent can be changed in the options. While that is usually not necessary, you may encounter some servers that block it so that you need to modify it to download the website. The program is ideal for downloading single web pages to the local system. The rules system is on the other hand not that comfortable to use if you want to download multiple pages from a website. I'd prefer an option in the settings to simply select a link depths that I want the program to crawl and be done with it.

If you need to download website, use the offline browser SurfOffline. Enter the URL in this field to start download website from. This name is displayed in the project tree. If you select this item, files (except for images) will be downloaded only if they are located in the folder of the start page or its subfolders. Images are an exception since they are downloaded from any servers. This item allows you to download the entire website. Links to other websites will be ignored. Images are an exception since they are downloaded from any servers. This item disables the limitations concerning the location of the files that can be downloaded. You should be careful when selecting this item because the program will go outside the start website. It makes sense to use this option only if you limit very much the depth of the project being downloaded. Depth level. Shows how deep from the start page the links will be downloaded.

Some people want to download YouTube videos to their computer to watch offline. For instance, if you have a favorite YouTube series you want to watch while you’re not connected to the Internet, you may want to watch the video on your computer or mobile device. Or, if you’re someone who wants to practice their video editing skills, you might want to download YouTube videos to edit on your computer. There are several web tools and sites that can be used to download YouTube videos and you might be wondering if they are legal or not. Depending on whether the video creator gives you direct permission to download their content, or explicitly states that their content can be downloaded, it could be illegal to use third-party web tools to download YouTube videos.

YouTube Terms of Service: Is it legal to download YouTube videos? According to YouTube’s Terms of Service, there are at least two sections that would describe downloading YouTube videos as an action that violates their Terms of Service rules. The “Your Use of Content” section provides further insight into whether it is legal to download YouTube videos. “Content is provided to you AS IS. You may access Content for your information and personal use solely as intended through the provided functionality of the Service and as permitted under these Terms of Service. You shall not download any Content unless you see a “download” or similar link displayed by YouTube on the Service for that Content.

You shall not copy, reproduce, distribute, transmit, broadcast, display, sell, license, or otherwise exploit any Content for any other purposes without the prior written consent of YouTube or the respective licensors of the Content. But let’s face it, sometimes you might want to save YouTube videos for personal use only without any intent to redistribute for any reason. While it might not be fully legal in terms of YouTube’s Terms of Service guidelines, it can be done easily with a simple click of a button. There are several web tools that allow you to download YouTube videos for free. Some sites may force you to watch an advertisement, or send you into a black hole of ads to click on and never actually let you download the video. Most of the sites work the same.

You first copy the URL of the YouTube video and paste it into the address bar on the download website. Depending on how the video was uploaded to YouTube, you’ll be given the options to download the videos at different sizes. If you know you’re just going to look at the video on your mobile device, you may want to consider downloading a smaller size to save space on your phone. If you’re looking to play the video on your computer or practice video editing, you may want to download the largest size available and then choose to scale the size down. Here are a few sites that allow you to download YouTube videos quickly and easily.

Beware: You should scan your computer each time you visit these sites, as they can sometimes inject malware into your computer. Don’t say we didn’t warn you. A quick Google search could also lead you to other web tools, browser extensions and standalone apps that will do the same thing. If you’re someone who wants to follow YouTube’s Terms of Service agreement and download content legally, you can download videos if you’re a YouTube Premium (formerly known as YouTube Red). YouTube Premium lets you download video content to watch on your mobile device offline the same way other streaming services such as Spotify. If you're a YouTube Premium (Red) subscriber, you simply have to look for the download button in the video player to download the content and watch it offline. 11.99 and you can do a free three-month trial to see if you like it.

[5questions]

Richard Wehrenberg

Richard Wehrenberg was born in Akron, Ohio and is the author of Abracadabrachrysanthemum (2018), Hands (2015), and River (2014), co-written with Ross Gay. Their work has been published in The Academy of American Poets, Peach Mag, Bad Nudes, Monster House Press, & elsewhere. They are a poet, writer, artist, & designer living in Bloomington, Indiana.

I want to start with the cover. I admire its minimalism but also the way that minimalism allows the title to speak for itself, carrying the reader along as they go to the next page. What are some of your favorite book designs? How has your own design aesthetics changed since you first started designing chapbooks and websites over ten years ago? Do you have any sort of codified process for your design work?

I perceive Text as Image and Image as Text, in a kind of infinite stirring/reworking. My aesthetic/process for design feels necessarily influenced by how my specific body-form perceives/reads the world, via its various miracles and supposed ‘deficiencies’—ie. having one barely-able-to-see (left) eye and one incredibly-over-achieving (right) eye, as well as having benign hand tremors (ie. my hands shake, inexplicably). I understand designing as the praxis of ‘de-signing' (ie. removing the signs from) this Earth/traditions/meanings/images. To quote one of my fav poets, Mahmoud Darwish—“I love your love / freed from itself and its signs,” which to me means: I love you ‘best’ when we shed the layers/masks/images that bury us in stories, when we dwell in our original and base-form—which of course has to be, for me—Love—the desire to see the world as un-riven, as One, despite everything working against the infinite forms love embodies. I feel my design aesthetic as ‘spiritual,’ or at least to me it feels like it springs enigmatically from a spiritual impulse/condition/base. All to say—my style/praxis is mysterious, even to myself, and my design depends on this kind of unknowability/improvisation. For Abracadabrachrysanthemum (and Three Crises by Bella Bravo, which share almost identical design elements), I viewed the circle on the covers to be a kind of gravitational wormhole into the book’s work, like you implied. A simple entranceway that has, like a planet or black hole, its own gravity to pull/cull others in, to merge and connect worlds. As far as design influences—I love love love Quemadura’s work (who you probably know as Wave Books’ designer.) I remember seeing their stark, simple, text-based covers as a younger poet/designer and being moved by space they allow for the text (exterior and interior) to become its own image/meaning apart from other visual suggestions. Also, Mary Austin Speaker’s work—who does design for Milkweed Editions—is always so precise, gorgeous, and enchanting. Outside of the poem-world, I am constantly inspired by fellow Bloomington designers/friends Aaron Denton and Sharnayla. The beauty they channel is astounding. Since I began designing, I feel that I’ve just become better and faster at designing, and my core aesthetic has mostly stayed the same. Being self-taught, you kind of just pick up little preferences, skills, and potentialities randomly along the path of work. I’m in a constant state of knowledge-acquisition re design and thus my process is really just experimentation. One codified process I do have is to meditate on a book’s content, to summon its image by intentionally dwelling on it within an unconscious states of meditation, dream, trance, etc. Usually I can call up a color palette, or image/font/et al that each individual book/design is calling for via these means. I believe in this kind of prayer/listening in my work, and I cite the unconscious as my main source of artistic capacity and production. I’ve also dreamed book covers before. That’s the best.

Many of the poems in this collection have geographic allusion, descriptive precision, and a general sense of place becoming character. This reminds me in many ways of your book RIVER, co-authored with Ross Gay. While that was prose and this is poetry, this is something I have noticed in your writing. How would you describe your aesthetic connection to geography? nature? environment? This book seems to expand beyond America in ways previous writing of yours doesn’t...

I can’t not attempt to constantly locate my Self in this World—can’t not see/feel/attempt to understand where/how/who/why I am in relation to ‘others’—to the land, rivers, oceans, to other animals, to the incredible manifold instantiations of plants, to the water with which without we would vanish, to all the ostensibly separate “I’s” on this shared Earth/consciousness/World surviving, dwelling, praying, creating—Being. I am an empath and embed/imbibe my surroundings almost automatically/unconsciously into myself. I become wherever I am. And thus its violences and gorgeousnesses alike become my own. And thus I speak for them, to them, of them, with them, in service and toward the healing of them/us/I/we. I unbecome my self to reset my churning and lumbering around this planet, to geographize ‘my’ position within this unpositioned House we find our selves. I am also quite of the mind that we are indeed both Here and Not Here. This Not Here is completely devoid of the drama of the body/ego, which we so often encounter and identify with today (and have since arriving on Earth.) My body, it’s specific forms and desires, languages and impulses, with yours, in conflict with theirs, with the scarcity, the low amount, the abundance, the never-ending forsaken nothing-everything, all of it, all the time, ever, ever, never-enough or always-too-much, the never-quite-right. You compared to me, thine in yours with mine of we. In spirit realm, there is no time and ID like we think here. Both Here and Not Here are real/valid places—the corporeal realm and the spirit realm—and I know, at least for now, I live in both places. I realized recently one of my main hopes for my writing is for it to re-embed the divine into the every day, re-pair it with the quotidian—to reunite these worlds-torn. What I mean is: I identify heavily with wherever I am in this 3D reality called life, and also identify heavily with the spirit realm as an (un)geographic place where I also reside. Over-identification with either realm leads to misery/suffering or disassociation/location, to paraphrase A Course In Miracles.

There is a sense of unity between the voice of these poems and everything else in the world, seen best, in my opinion, in “Signifying Brown Bear” wherein a stuffed animal becomes a virtual tunnel into all sorts of real human and existential experiences. Do you think something fundamental has changed in contemporary consumer society from ancient or medieval or even early modern societies, in which we have too many outlets for our emotions and experiences? Maybe too many is good (whatever "good" means)? In this poem, the stuffed bear almost represents your own yearning to connect as fully as you already are with universe around you. It has many of the conceits of a love poem and, at times, a tongue-in-cheek tone. In the end, the poem is what makes us think. You have turned a mirror on the reader. Was this your intention? How do you decide when to write in second-person versus first person etc.? Is any of this interpretation at all on point?  In “Signifying Brown Bear,” I am referring to an actual brown bear (ie. Ursus arctos) and the poem is just kind of about how people/entities who I become close with can begin to feel like sweet-tender-almost-cryptozoological-creatures to me and I want to also just be a sweet-tender-almost-cryptozoological-creature—or hell, I’ll settle for even a plant or a rock—back to them. Anything but this warbling, incomplete, stammering-maunderer of a human being! (Exaggeration.) I do not want my humanity at times—my human-being-ing—which has been categorized, documented, and shrink-wrapped for societal use and relation, who is part of the decimation of Earth via capital. I want the freedom (and I’m sure we could say unfreedom) of the brown bear who is in relation to the Sycamore by the river, and the salmon floating above the stones, the water gliding over, ever-thinning rock into sand granules—slowly—and back again—and back. I don’t want to be (and can’t be, is perhaps my thesis) relegated to the realm of signifiers and signs imposed via any of the manifold categorization machines we navigate on the daily to obfuscate these kind of otherworldly, ancient connections I feel as Real. To decimate that last paragraph—I also believe in becoming fully-embodied/present in the form we are in in this life, too. So, it’s confusing, this ever-always-transforming-ing perceptioning. The confusion about what energy/thing I am and what you are is a little about what that poem is about, too. I was reading Agamben’s The Use of Bodies and came across this ancient Greek word, poiesis, which appears in the poem and means, “the activity in which a person brings something into being that did not exist before.” I love that idea, and think it is what we are here to do, in part. So often for me the unprecedented-something we are trying to bring into existence is ourselves and the art/energy we carry in us must be made into song. I want to always make the reader aware of their presence in my writing—to me writing is a collective act and readers are always existent, even if they never ‘read’ your work. The imagined, the dead, the unborn, the spiritually uncanonized, the already-gone-never-was reader, writer, seeker, be-er. I switch between tense often and freely, because in poetry, at least for me, we feel/fall into each word/line we write and there’s less of a need to be ‘coherent’ in the sense of the popular notion of storytelling/fiction, which (I might have another thesis here) feels like a symptom of capitalism, too. Of course it feels really nice to have a coherent story. I love television and pop culture. I want to write for television. I want to be perceived as coherent. But I want to say too: the ‘incoherence’ of poetry is a kind of coherence, a prayer toward a ‘new’ form, if you will, despite being so old itself. Poetry coheres to a perhaps more experimental way of telling a story, a precedentless next-ing, and this variation is vital—these unforeseen forms, stories, ways of being. We are a species that evolves, and because the mouth/mind is the site of evolution now, I am playing accordingly.

What ended up happening with MHP?  Why did you decide to stop active involvement in it? What are you doing now in terms of day-to-day life? Monster House Press has evolved through many forms. In 2010, it began, semi-naively, as a collective publisher of zines and chapbooks in the eponymous punk house. It then expanded and evolved into a project I was maintaining, mostly on my own, from 2012-2016 in Bloomington, Indiana. In the summer of 2016, MHP rose again as a officially collective project—an amorphous mass, as we liked to call it—primarily because the workload had become unsustainable for me to do on my own, and we were doing more and more, gaining recognition, et cetera. We decided to lay MHP to rest at the end of the 2018, as many of us involved in keeping it going are moving onto graduate school and/or starting new projects/lives. It felt apt to end this specific instantiation in my career-form of publishing, as I have moved away from the punk/DIY scene from which it was born, and the name itself has too become divorced from its origin and who I/we was/were then. I’m sure I’ll always be editing, publishing, reading, designing and helping steward others’ work in this world, as that impulse is something part and parcel of my being, this collaboration; however, the terms and boundaries within this specific modality as MHP have expired to me. In my day-to-day life, I am a freelance graphic designer, artist, editor, and writer. I usually sit at my house with my dog, working on whatever project I have in my docket at the time, or go out to a coffee or tea house to do work. I also just finished auditing a graduate poetry workshop called Joy & Collaboration with Ross Gay, which was, in a word, divine—and I currently spend my days/time helping out with the growing at a communal greenhouse as well as generally just reading/writing/watching/listening to the Earth/Universe, hoping to be of service, use, and care.

What future projects are you working on? Do you still play music with organized groups? Have you thought of writing long-form fiction?

I’m hoping to start my MFA in Poetry next year. As far as writing projects—I’m writing a collection of sonnets about my alcoholism/being an alcoholic in the United States. (I’ve been sober for 5 years now.) The sonnets are these kind of little, tender love-songs to my alcoholic/former self (who I can never fully extinguish) which—I hope—also reckon with and help shed light on addiction, malevolent masculinity/whiteness, and which also seek to forgive and release—to heal. I also have this big, kind of far off ditty of a dream to open a Poetry Center one day, in the Midwest ideally, kind of a little like Poets House in NYC, where events, workshops, reading, writing, and magic can happen. A hub for poetics/healing/joy/collaboration. There will probably be an herbal/plant element too, somehow, as I love working with/growing plants. And music! I haven’t played music in an organized group in a while, but enjoy being able to play piano and saxophone here and there, when I can, however that happens. I helped transpose, sing, and record a score for a little art movie project, along with Ross Gay and Lauren Harrison, which was super delightful. Music is the literal heart of the world, imo. I listened to 36 days of music this year, ie. for 1/10 of the year I was listening to music, which was kind of staggering and incredible for me to realize. I love writing long and short form fiction, but have found it removes me from the world too intensely, which, I feel I am supposed to stay more rooted/involved in the World in a proactive sense, so I tend to write poetry and other forms over fiction. I am interested in the hybrid essay form—with poetry hidden inside—and creating/seeking new hybridized forms. There’s so much potential for greatness—and so much to come.

[muzakmaker]

Madeon Achieved Fame Through Copyright Infringement, And That’s Okay.

Hugo Pierre Leclercq is a French Producer, DJ, and Singer-Songwriter and just generally a typical EDM artist. Better known by his stage name Madeon. While he had some prominence in the EDM community, winning some remix competitions, Leclercq started his rise to fame when he released a 39-song mashup/song (the two will be used interchangeably in this case) known as Pop Culture. The song was created live online on a 64-button drum pad (also called a launchpad, the name brand) from samples of various popular songs, all of which, according to my research, were at least popular in France and parts of Europe if not also more globally including the United States. The genres and styles of the artists included are widespread. There’s safer, poppier pieces from all eras including Michael Jackson, Madonna, and Katy Perry while also using rock artists like Linkin Park and Coldplay and Hip-Hop and R&B Artists like Gorillaz and the Black Eyed Peas. Even more interesting, Madeon also included samples from his fellow EDM artists, using Deadmau5 tracks and other artists’ remixes of popular tracks. To top it all off, Madeon sampled himself using his own remixes of Deadmau5’s Raise Your Weapon and Yelle’s Que Veux Tu. Madeon’s masterful blending of all the different sounds of these artists and producers into something entirely new and cohesive is a testament to his skill as an artist. This high level of skill coupled with the popularity of songs created an entirely unique listening experience that employs juxtaposition and pure joy which then pushed Madeon and his mashup into the spotlight and launched his career even when copyright and royalty restrictions kept the song confined to the Internet.

Song Breakdown

The song first opens with a short sample that neither I nor Whosampled.com can seem to identify, it is played first forwards, then backwards, then forwards again. Then the opening hard-cuts to several openings combined, the main two being the now “meme-song” Bag Raiders’ Shooting Stars’ simple snap pattern of an opening and a sped up version of the piano opening to Capsule’s Can I Have a Word, then jumping into the one of the primary beats of the song. This core loop is a little long and kind of strange to describe, For the sake of time, I will refer to the first part as the “Around the World” section, as its main hook before it repeats is a sample of Daft Punk’s Around the World. This section appears throughout the song and changes slightly every time to add a little flair for this live performance. After a few trips around the world (pun intended) we get the first taste of some cohesive theme lyrically to the seemingly random mish-mash of pieces. Madeon Plays the “Missing you” hook of of One-T + Cool-T’s The Magic Key

After that, the majority of the music drops out and leaves the listener floating while Madeon throws in the chorus of Boys & Girls by Martin Solveig, using this chorus brings the overall song sound closer to a remix rather than a mashup but the prevalence of other songs makes the song’s qualities as a mashup much more apparent.

After two repetitions of the line, it does one last one while building back up to jump back into the Around the World loop, again slightly changing every time. The song then drops out again, this time using a slightly modified version of The Who’s Baba O'Riley and begins another build up. First starting with the opening lines to Madonna’s Hung Up, her lines talking on the passage of time over the subtle sound of a ticking clock coupled with the floaty feeling of the song give a Sci-Fi time-travel type of sound. This is then followed by even more buildup from the “Missing you hook” again and vocals from Gossip’s Heavy Cross. Then the real drop for the song comes in with possibly the only part that is completely original to Madeon. He wails away on a synth he plays on the same launchpad. As stated before, this solo is the only completely new composition Madeon has in this song. Lastly, the song fades out in a way very similar, but, as usual, not quite the same as fade in from the beginning.

    A technical breakdown is all well and good, but what does it all mean? The truth is, Pop Culture does not have much, if any, deeper meaning to it. One could make an argument that Pop Culture was created as a critique of mainstream music by taking the typical pop sound and transforming into a EDM banger but that poppy influence is still very prevalent in the song, youredm.com went so far as to call the song “sweet, sugary, bubblegum ear candy.” It is also important to mention that EDM was arguably on the cusp of being mainstream or being very much in the mainstream by time Pop Culture was released in 2011. My evidence in the lack of Pop Culture’s meaning is rather strange: a lack of mainstream evidence. Basically every article I’ve found on Pop Culture is a more or less a puff piece that boils down to “Hey, check this out.” or just lists the songs samples and reminisces on its release nearly seven years ago now. Pop Culture is very much about having fun and just enjoying yourself. It uses its juxtaposition of very thick and very thin textures to give the listener distinct rises and falls to sway and dance to and keeps most of the parts on the line between predictable and random so the audience can keep up but remain surprised. The reception of this song on youtube and other forums is much better evidence of this song’s significance and impact. I have three youtube videos that show how the Internet Community latched onto the song to give it more depth. The first being the unofficial music video for the song:

Released a couple years after Pop Culture, This video is visually very interesting and, more importantly, helps to illustrate just how many songs that Madeon used. By splicing together the music videos of every song that is present in Pop Culture’s aural foreground (i.e. the pieces that are easier to hear, lyrics, riffs, and hooks as compared to just beats.) This splicing adds to Madeon’s already choppy and contrasting styles. The song that truly brought the song into the spotlight is Nathan Barnatt’s dance video to the song.

Being released soon after original Live Mashup video, this video pushed Pop Culture into the spotlight and it exemplifies the pure fun of Pop Culture in addition to bringing in EDM culture’s general love of self expression and just letting go. By depicting a rather plain guy just dancing in a wide variety of locales, the video also illustrates Madeon’s love of juxtaposition. Barnatt’s carefree attitude of just dancing wherever he pleases coupled with the occasional person in the background joining in really illustrates the song’s poppy fun aspects and self expression. Compounding on that, the moment right before the synth solo, where our protagonist thinks he’s about to be ridiculed and alienated. by deviating from the norm is instead embraced and internet illustrator Jenny Fine joins in on Nathan’s fun.

The last video I have to show is a bit of a left turn from the last two. It still shows Pop Culture’s two main elements of pure fun and contrast but in a different way. This video is titled Fan.tasia and is a modern take on Disney’s Fantasia set to Pop Culture.

This video is technically part of a broader class of youtube culture known as AMV’s or animated music videos, the majority of other AMV’s typically use clips from Anime, hence why you may often see the “A” stand for anime instead of animated. Fant.asia is what introduced me to Madeon’s song and his work in the first place. The exemplary video editing greatly adds to the song but in a different way from the other two. Fan.tasia typically uses much smoother cuts and transitions than Barnatt’s or the spliced-together music video. The juxtaposition instead lies in the wide variety of clips across Disney’s decades-long catalog and using scenes from Disney’s many musicals in a different context played against a style of music very different from the source material. The video content absolutely drips with childhood joy and nostalgia which is adds to Madeon’s music choices that themselves are fairly nostalgic by time Fan.tasia was released in 2016.

The three videos above illustrate just how much of an impact the song had in the Internet sphere but that begs the question: “Why on earth didn’t such a massive hit get more mainstream attention?” The unfortunate answer to that is never expressly said but seems rather apparent with enough thought, copyright infringement. A 39-song mashup most definitely infringes upon the copyrights of every song involved. Especially the more prominent songs like Magic key and Boys & Girls which are very much the standing dead center of the song. The inherently illegal nature of the song is potentially also the reason why the song got very little mainstream media attention outside of EDM news sites. Fortunately for Madeon, he still got several offers from record labels as a result of the song and the song is protected on the internet under fair use rules but likely cannot be released on a mainstream music platform, be it physical or digital, but that doesn’t matter. Pop Culture will remain in the digital consciousness for years to come through its creative editing, its unique fan-made videos and through the pure raw joy that it represents. That is the reason why I think that this song is a significant work and why I chose it to write for this project.

[jamierenfrey]

Week 3b- Playtest Report: Mutant Kitty

Feedback

During playtest week, everyone in our IGB220 course were able to play through eachothers games for design sprint 1.

Although I had completed many playtests of Mutant Kitty, it was interesting to receive critiques from others about the mechanics I had incorporated into the game.

Positives

Your game concept is super light hearted and fun! I love the character, really cute and the whole setting aesthetic ties in well too.

The running and jump mechanic is pleasant and smooth! The keys chosen were simple which is great

The eye lazers are unique as it isnt the usual gun, or sword etc etc so i liked your creativity on that! Overall, it is a neat game and would see myself playing this game in my own time (perhaps on a phone).

The world used for the game is really nicely designed and the sprites used look really good

The game was fun, with a cool aesthetic.

The movement was smooth albeit the firing of the laser was unique. 

Interesting and fun concept behind your game. 

The art assets were very nice however there were some tiling issues I noticed but that wasn’t really a big issue that should be focused on in a prototype (I’m not even sure if there is such a thing as auto tiling in GDevelop).

Reading your concept, the idea that the mutant kitty gets more powers could really lend itself to creating some potentially really well designed mechanic based platforming / puzzle levels

Overall, a great game concept so far that has the potential to be expanded upon based on what you’ve said in your concept. The art is great and the gameplay controls well with just some minor tweaks to make it feel really good.

Despite this, I think the laser mechanic is especially fun in an already fun concept. There’s something really satisfying about running through the level and holding down mouse1. Since the lasers are so fast (visually)

From a visual perspective, I love how there are trees in the background but also the foreground. It makes it so that when the player is walking on that particular platform, it’s like they’re weaving between the trees.

Art style is really aesthetic

The level has multiple raises and drops the player must traverse, increasing its gameplay challenge as a result

I love how the game has a backstory where Mutant Kitty must take down the mad scientist mad dogs to save the world instead of putting you in a game where the motive for gameplay is unknown (other than fun of course)

Game has a main menu, which is very thoughtful, and presumably features a pause menu as well, which I unfortunately couldn’t test on Mac

I love the idea of a cat shooting lasers out of its eyes to vaporise dogs twice its size

The level of detail put into this level is very good for a first prototype, featuring clouds, multiple platform types, and even an area where the player feels like they are inside a forest!

Overall, I thought this game was truly amazing, combining an interesting art style with great level design. Core elements such as the player’s health and dog kills worked well for the most part, increasing and decreasing at the right events. There were a few bugs encountered that can be touched on to make the game more user-friendly, and a few platforms could be aligned better to allow for more immersive gameplay. Thank you for making this Mutant Kitty Laser-Shooting Cat vs Bad guy scientist dog game!!

The playermodel is really cute and I love that his eyes and mouth open when he jumps.

The health bar on your kitty worked as intended during my playtime as well as the enemy counter on the opposing end of the screen.

This isn’t to say that the map wasn’t creative - it was really intricate for such an early prototype, and makes me excited for the future of Mutant Kitty. 

Negatives

for someone who doesn't use a mouse i found it a bit tricky to shoot the lazers. Maybe having the choice to press another key to shoot the lazers would be a good addition.

At times i was hoping perhaps there was a dash or boost so that it could sprint.

I found reaching the platforms kind of difficult at times, maybe adjust the placement of them or extending the distance of the jump.

I did end up getting stuck on the bottom level and couldnt go back up to the top so had to restart.

the only problems I can  see are having the lazer fire off of the mouse, as I am someone without a mouse that is hard for me to use.

My main point I want to make is that the firing of the laser is way too overpowered right now. I accidentally completed the game by jumping around spawn messing with a visual glitch when Jumping + firing a laser. Through more testing I found out the laser doesn't have a cut-off point and was clearing the whole level killing everything. I also noticed that the laser does not reset on death either, it is still there and still going. 

I think movement could be a little bit faster and tighter to make the player character seem more action oriented and fit its movement animations a little better. 

I’m not sure exactly how the laser shooting mechanic is supposed to work based on what I played. Is it supposed to be one continuous laser that you keep shooting or just one singular laser that you shoot at intervals?

I reached a point in the level where there seemed to be an invisible wall that I could not pass and I was floating in the air. There was an enemy on the platform I was trying to get to so I’m not exactly sure was going on there

I don’t think it’s intentional, but on the first playthrough, I was just jumping around and shooting. After some time, the “You Win” end screen popped up. I’m not sure what I did to trigger that, but I hadn’t actually attacked any enemies yet (not on my screen at least). After trying a few more times, it’s still unclear to me what exactly the win condition is. I realised that the lasers seem to have infinite, or rather a super long range, which meant I was clearing enemies from spawn, prompting the end screen.

I’d like to see some faster movement. As it stands, the player feels a bit slow when moving, even more so while shooting the lasers.

There seem to be a few invisible walls that prevented me from getting to the upper part of the level :(

Some platforms don’t align perfectly

Laser is overpowered and can shoot through walls; could be single fire only instead of spamming to victory and could dissipate when in contact with a platform for example

Bugs have occurred where dog faces appeared where they shouldn’t (top of the first tree on the right - seemingly aligned horizontally as they do at the top of the screen)

Dogs near the forest area refused to get banished from existence; probably an error with the trees overlapping or something

His eye laser is cool, however it feels too overpowered in that I am able to hold down left click and it will continuously shoot.

The enemies look tough and probably would pose a threat if the lazer didn't tear through them before they even entered onto my screen.

Once you drop down into the area under the trees, your’re stuck and much like other parts of the map are constricted by invisible walls that you feel like you should be able to cross- obviously due to time constraints.

In Conclusion

Although my prototype was not 100% ready and my own curiosities regarding certain mechanics were a focus, it was interesting to receive feedback like the above.

During my own playthroughs of other games I learnt about different mechanics and could see how other people used those to the benefits of their games.

I have begun an edit of the original Mutant Kitty concept and will hopefully have incorporated the right changes to the game.

Stay tuned for the next post!

[zamantha-ducroix]

The Trial (Part 2)

( Written with: @jagathi-amarjeet, Part [1] )

“I stood where you stand now, years ago. I will hinder your hold over your magic and ensure you abide by my commands.” Jagathi gripped her left shoulder with a massive hand and pressed his other into her back. It was as if she was being branded by the power, and seconds after he had finished, withdrawing would reveal a handprint forged of void, with wisps rising from her like smoke.

Zamantha cried out in pain, almost dropping to her knees. The lack of sleep, the lack of eating, and their fight the night before had taken a lot out of her. Emotionally, mentally, and physically.  She had already been in pain, but this, this was overwhelming. Then the smell hit her, making her feel like she would wretch what little she had remaining in her stomach.

Jagathi turned and walked around the edge, keeping clear of the platform before stopping to face her. “That will keep you in check until you either rise above or perish below.” He crossed his arms, gazing upon her. “Now rise, step within, and focus your energy upon the sphere lying at the center.”

Zamantha grit her teeth, forcing herself to take steady steps towards the ring. Her back was screaming in pain, shooting down into her arms until she could feel it in her fingertips. She would not fail Finn, or Benjamin. She had to do this for her people, for the ones she would sacrifice everything for. For herself. She exhaled slowly, planting her feet firmly in place before letting her eyes shut. Like reaching for a string, she delved deeply into a part of herself she didn’t normally go. The connection to the fel magic, that shimmering string. She reached for it. It was more faded, duller than usual. But it was still there, and she could still grasp onto it. If she just… focused.

It would take as much strength as she could offer before the connection would prove promising. Not only would she have to call upon the connection within herself, but she needed to manifest such power into a tether between herself and the sphere. Until then, until it was enough, her efforts seemed in vain.

And it did take a long time, too long, in fact. In the back of her mind, she found herself terrified that he would see this as failure and would kill her for it. There was so much riding on her shoulders, more lives at stake than just her own. And it was enough to drive her to dig deeper. At last, she was able to grab hold of the connection and yanked. Fel fire sprung from her hands, lapping at her skin with hunger yet never doing her harm. It’s color faded briefly as she struggled to form a tether between herself and the sphere, but she managed it. Somehow. Her brows furrowed as she focused, the color draining from her face as she struggled to pour every ounce of strength and power she could muster. Even the color of her eyes became duller, fading to a pinkish color. But she wouldn’t stop.

Jagathi watched as slowly but surely the fel she commanded began powering the device. A smile even came to his lips, though the deed was far from done. As the fel surged through the sphere it began filling the runic groove that ran throughout the smooth stone that Zamantha stood upon until finally forming at the outer ring. From the outer edge sprung a faint but ever present wall of felfire, rising higher and higher the longer she put forth the effort. Still however, the task seemed incomplete. “Remember the faces you’ve seen, the fates now intertwined with your own, the graves I’ve created for the men of Choi, those that will bloody the earth. If you do not pull from the depths of which you’ve cowered from, hope for your men will be snuffed out with your own fire,” Jagathi spoke in a low and drawn out tone, mocking Zamantha, as he raised his head and closed his eye, relishing the very idea he concocted. “Or would it be more fitting for Benjamin to be here, groveling at my hooves as I break his bones?”

His words got the exact reaction he had desired. Faces flashed in her mind’s eye, pain spiking through her chest more and more as each one went by. The men who had served her with unwavering loyalty all these years, who had grown up alongside her, who had mentored her. Men with families- wives and children- who welcomed her into their homes with open arms when she needed a place to stay or a visit with a friendly face. They believed in her, and she in them. She saw each one of them now. She saw Benjamin. She saw Finn. And then…

Davmir. Smiling. Laughing. Happy. His arm wrapped around her waist, pulling her closer to his side as they sat curled in front of the fire reading. The moment that he had proposed to her, hidden away from the world and blissfully peaceful in that moment. The look in his eyes when he had seen her on their wedding day.

Zamantha cried out in anguish, anger coursing through her veins. She reached deeper, yanking on a string she so rarely touched. Void magic exploded from her form, the dark purple energy dancing through the bright green flames. Her eyes seemed to glow a demonic black color. “You will -never- touch them,” she hissed. “Never. Again.” She wanted to turn her rage on him, to let the magic consume her. But she focused on the orb, fueling it instead. She needed her Draenei captor in order to get out of here… For now

Oh did the darkness dance and meld with the fire along with a tune that Zamantha played- one only she could hear. Jagathi watched on as an audience as the walls that separated him from his prodigy rose higher and higher, growing as intense as it was beautiful. Taking a step back, an audible sigh of pleasure escaped his lips and the sphere that lay dormant came to life. The cracks that appeared like roads on a map began glowing with violet and green energy, pulsating with energy at a rapid pace. Eventually, it would rise, forming its own tether with the base of where it once was until about eye level with Zamantha. Whispers filled her ears amidst the roaring of magic she poured into it, words of eredun, kalimag, every language known to this mortal world it seemed due to such a primordial origin. The pulsing grew in strength and in such quick succession that eventually it seemed a solid sphere of void infused fel.

Finally, Zamantha had made some headway. The sphere was torn asunder, but the explosion was contained. The pieces that threatened to scatter after the blast remained suspended save for bits that were vaporized. The floating bits of rock remained tethered to what the warlock could only surmise as a core formed from pure magic. It was beautiful, the manifestation of this deeper power she called upon. The deep violet weaved through the bright greens in a dance of chaos and fire. She found herself drawn to it, wanting more of it. This pure power. And somehow it had all stemmed from her. This new knowledge of what she was truly capable of hit her like a wave, washing over her in a tremendous realization.

Jagathi watched too, the glow of violet and green enveloping his face until the core seemed to defy physics itself and melt into the setting below it like that of magma. As it did so, the magic within the grooves, the walls that rose high, even the tether she formed, suddenly dissipated in a bright flash. Before she knew it, the floor gave way like water and suddenly, she would descend into what appeared to be a dark pool of liquid, abyssal in nature. She plunged downwards into the pool without even a hope at being able to avoid it. It was terrifying, finding herself dropping like a stone into darkness.  Her chest tightened. She couldn’t breath. She couldn’t see. She couldn’t hear.  And still, her shoulder screamed in pain from the rune he had burned into her flesh.

“Deep,” Jagathi started, a drawn out sound as he closed his eye for but a moment, “deep into the jaws of the abyss.” And so, that is where she went. Further and further she plummeted into the black pool against her will. It was so cold against her skin. Down… Down… It seemed by now her legs were being held, her arms fought against resistance, until finally she fell through. As if being birthed anew, Zamantha fell down from the ceiling of the chamber and the dim light from above illuminated only slightly the portion of water she had just come through being to solidify back into stone, sealing her into her fate. From there, only blackness. She heard nothing. She saw nothing. She felt only smooth stone beneath her feet, cold, and her form still damp from moments ago. Should she attempt to call upon her power, it would be near impossible as the symbol on her back inflamed and helped hold her back.

She could breathe again. She found herself hastily breathing in the air, glancing upwards as she was sealed shut within the chamber and plunging her into darkness that swallowed her whole. A shiver ran through her form, arms wrapping around herself in a vain attempt to regenerate any of her body heat. Everything ached- her back especially. But she tried to keep her mind sharp, going over every possible explanation for this room. Trying to explain what he could possibly want from her here.

Nothing could reach her down there and Jagathi knew that this would either be one of the greatest obstacles she was to overcome, or simply her tomb. As the stone platform solidified once more, the man fled into the shadows of his hovel, with only the sound of his chuckling filling the halls.

[buriedunderbones-blog]

EDGAR BONES APPLICATION

I realised that after the original main got hacked I didn’t re-post my application and I thought it would be helpful/interesting to have it somewhere that can be accessed by everyone. (It was a while ago now though so Ed now may differ a bit from my first idea of him. Also there may be some mistakes or spelling errors oops) Anyway, under the cut is my app for Ed!

DESIRED CHARACTER Edgar Bones

FACE CLAIM William Moseley 

REASON FOR CHOSEN CHARACTER

I find Hufflepuffs that really defy the house’s stereotype really interesting and in particular love the dark and brooding artist vibe of Edgar. I’m a huge fan of poetry and I can’t pretend that his name alone didn't interest me because of Edgar Allan Poe (& I can imagine he would be low-key pleased about sharing a name with one of the greats), but I was just so enthralled by the character, which is strange for me because I’m rarely drawn to characters I don't know at least a little bit about. The idea of a ‘loner’ Hufflepuff is super captivating because I can imagine how difficult it would be to be surrounded by people constantly asking how you are when you just want to be alone and stewing in angst. He obviously exhibits a lot of typically Hufflepuff traits; he is very good at giving solutions to problems and empathising with people, he’s hard working, loyal, and he has his head in the clouds a lot. However, he doesn’t appreciate empathy when it’s directed towards him, he is a ride or die friend to only a few people and doesn’t really fret over the rest, and he often prefers to be lost in thought than down on earth. His issues with commitment stem from his lack of communication skills; he can write down what he’s feeling, but it’s often hard for him to verbally open up to others. He isn’t particularly quick to anger, but he often jumps into fights just to feel the thrill of it; Edgar bottles up a lot of his emotions and, while he also lets them out through artistic means, he doesn't have a physical outlet. Part of him also just finds the feeling of bones cracking under his knuckles fascinating. He was definitely the type of child who killed ants with a magnifying glass, not out of cruelty, but morbid curiosity. The poem ‘Alone’ by Poe really resonates with how I see Edgar; he just doesn’t relate to a lot of the people around him and while they all focus on the blue skies, he cannot help but see the clouds. I usually find it really difficult to match characters to an Enneagram of personality number, but Edgar is definitely a strong 4. He is very much focused on being himself and idealises sadness and fantasising, but sometimes in trying to find and be himself, he loses sight of his core values. He has a lot of Ravenclaw in him, but ultimately he isn't calculated enough to be a Ravenclaw and he doesn’t value intelligence and learning above all. He has some Slytherin qualities, but he isn't ambitious or cunning enough; he doesn’t really lie (but he does withhold truth with silence) and he’s content to keep his dreams in his head. He can seem quite impulsive, but he doesn’t have that true Gryffindor recklessness (at least not for the same reason they have it: he isn't scared of death). He fights for the cause, not because he’s particularly passionate about it, but because he knows it’s the right thing to do. He may stray to the darker things in life and have trouble figuring out where he stands morally, but he’s loyal to his family and knows he will always stand with them. I’m not sure if these are reasons or me just explaining why I love him so much. He’s weird and he’s an outcast; he doesn’t fit in, but that’s what makes him all the more interesting. While a lot of people in his situation would reject the people who made him feel that way and join more radical groups (eg. death eaters, aversio) to feel like they belong, Edgar doesn’t do that. He knows that even if his opinions and experiences differ to that of his family, he'll stick by them no matter what. It’s that loyalty that makes him a Hufflepuff and stops him from floating away into his thoughts to the point of no return. (I could really go on forever, but I’ll stop)

PREFERRED SHIPS // CHARACTER SEXUALITY // GENDER & PRONOUNS

He would work well with someone who balances him out and is willing to let him have alone time, but also doesn’t let him wallow in self-pity. He find it hard not to develop an emotional connection through sex, but he has a lot of commitment issues so casual sex can be a bit of a problem. (he does it anyway though) He’s mostly homosexual; although I wouldn’t completely rule out a m/f ship, I see him working better with guys.

♔ CREATE ONE (oops) OF THE FOLLOWING FOR YOUR CHARACTER:

-A MOCK BLOG ( buriedunderbones.tumblr.com ) where you can find the following: -A MOODBOARD ( https://buriedunderbones.tumblr.com/post/160438771802/edgar-bones-aesthetic-moodboard-no-one-remembers ) -AN AESTHETIC ( https://buriedunderbones.tumblr.com/post/160440824792/edgar-bones-aesthetic-those-of-wit-and-learning ) -A PLAYLIST ( https://buriedunderbones.tumblr.com/post/160438809257/edgar-bones-playlist-listen-here ) -I also did a little past/present/future gif post  ( https://buriedunderbones.tumblr.com/post/160446099697/and-all-i-loved-i-loved-alone-childhoods-hour )

IN CHARACTER QUESTIONNAIRE

♔ If you were able to invent one spell, potion, or charm, what would it do, what would you use it for or how would you use it? Feel free to name it:

Edgar frowned thoughtfully, catching his bottom lip between his teeth. “I don’t know if this counts really because its not an invention, as such, but it would be nice for invisibility cloaks to be more easily accessible.” He paused, unsure if he should continue. “I think- well, it’s, um, difficult sometimes to find a secluded place to think.” Edgar stuttered out, his mouth never had been quite on the same wavelength as his brain. Often people assumed he was shy, but he just struggled to get the right words on the tip of his tongue and by the time he finally managed most people stopped listening.

♔ You have to venture deep into the Forbidden Forest one night. Pick one other character and one object (muggle or magical), besides your wand, that you’d want with you:

An almost fond look overtook the wizard’s features as he remembered the Forbidden Forest. Nobody took Edgar Bones for a rule-breaker, but he often found the best places to be alone were the ones off-limits. He had actually spent a night there, in his sixth year, up in a tree observing the wilderness and pouring into his moleskine. It was nice to be completely immersed in human silence, listening only to the animals tearing each other apart in the night. It was as though he didn’t exist at all. “I would go myself; as much as I love my family they just don’t get it.” He explained truthfully. “And I’d take my journal and quill, or does that count as two objects? I’m not really familiar with the semantics of the hypotheticals…” He trailed off awkwardly.

♔ What kinds of decisions are the most difficult for you to make?

The hesitation on his face clearly indicated that the answer was ‘most of them’, but Edgar persevered with trying to come up with something more eloquent. “I feel a lot of emotions,” he struggled. “But I struggle to express them to other people, sometimes I don’t even want to. So, I suppose, I find it difficult to make the decisions that depend on showcasing my vulnerability.” Edgar shrugged slightly, as though to indicate he had nothing more to add.

♔ What is one thing you would never want said about you?

“The spoken word is arbitrary; it’s what they don’t say that really counts.” His reply was more confident this time, but Edgar had always felt strongly towards the subject. Perhaps, it was because he was known to hide his own true feelings and knew exactly how cutthroat the human mind could be. Or perhaps he’d just heard whispers behind his back for too long to really worry about the sting of an insult that only reached his ears.

WRITING SAMPLE

The vast body of water rippled dangerously with life. Edgar sat alone at the edge of the Great Lake and gazed upon its magnificence. To some people, such depth and area may appear intimidating, but Edgar was no stranger to his insignificance on a universal level. He picked up a small flat stone from the damp sand and flicked his wrist, skipping it over the lake’s surface. The stars shone brightly, reflecting off of the black water, giving the illusion that the wizard was himself part of the night sky. Edgar had always been strangely calm, it was a sense of peace that others couldn’t begin to comprehend. He didn’t bother himself with questions of existence and life; he found a freedom in knowing that, in the grand scheme of things, he didn’t matter. He embraced the philosophy and sought comfort in the idea that if his actions had no large scale effect, then he need not bind himself to the morals of the many. This oncoming war, however, could serve to change Edgar’s whole being. 

The electricity in the air buzzed through him, wind whistling through his golden locks, and Edgar looked blankly at the grounds around him. Hogwarts castle was visible in the near distance, standing tall and regal as it had for many years. He envisioned the walls collapsing, turrets tumbling, silver bricks colliding with solid ground. Chaos wasn’t an unappealing idea to Edgar, but he would rather be contained by reasonable limits than let the world be overtaken in a blaze of fire. The Order of the Phoenix was supposedly a way he could stop that from happening. 

Amelia looked at him, eyes brimming with determination and hope. “We could really make a difference Eddy; this is our chance to do something.” She looked at him like he looked at the stars above, and he was powerless to resist. 

At first, Edgar was vehemently against the idea. He wanted to remain neutral. Not that he feared the danger that accompanied fighting the darkness; he had never been scared of death. Edgar spent his youth squashing insects and pulling the wings from butterflies, just to observe the consequences. His adolescent self channeled that feeling through his fists, acting out in violence to feel the emotions that escaped him. The sensation of his lip spitting and blood exploding from the gash was enough to make him grin. He wore black eyes like they were works of art speckled across his face.

The circle of people parted to let Edgar leave. He walked with a rare confidence, hands splattered purple and red. People started, open-mouthed, and he felt his anger balance out, tossing an easy ‘you should see the other guy’  over his shoulder. 

The other students sometimes laughed at him, but Edgar knew they’d all want him on their side in times of battle. He would protect his few friends with everything he had. No, he didn’t have the strongest morals, nor did he claim to, but of all the badgers his bite was the worst. 

However, for Edgar, a war, even one he wasn’t particularly tied to, could become quicksand. His embrace was wholehearted or non-existent. And, as he looked upon the place he had called home for so many years, Edgar whispered out into the open, empty air. “It’s not about the cause; it’s those standing by you that make the fighting worthwhile.” 

[marymosley]

New Video Tech, Same Old Rules

My colleagues and predecessors here at the School of Government have written about video evidence many times over the years, summarizing the basic rules and significant cases in posts available here, here, here, here, and here.

Recently, though, I’ve been getting questions about a relatively new but increasingly common type of video evidence: high-tech, app-controlled, and remotely stored videos taken by automated devices ranging from doorbell cameras to wifi-enabled, could-connected, teddy bear spy cams. Do the old rules still work the same way for these new video tools? If so, is it substantive or illustrative evidence? If it’s substantive, how is it authenticated? Is a lay witness qualified to testify about how these cameras work? Does the proponent need the original video? Come to think of it, what is the “original” of a video that exists only as bits of data floating somewhere in the cloud…?

The Good Old Days

Once upon a time, there were only a few kinds of video that ever saw much use in criminal trials — dash cam videos and recorded interviews that were verified by the officer who observed the event, or commercial surveillance videos authenticated by a knowledgeable store employee. Laying the foundation for one of those videos was pretty straightforward. The officer or employee would pull the disc (or “tape” – go ask your parents) out of the camera, put a sticker on it, make a copy for discovery, place the original into an evidence locker, and then bring it to court for trial.

In this post from 2016, Jeff Welty observed that there has been an explosion in the amount of video being created and shared in recent years, but the existing rules and case law for authenticating and admitting those videos still seemed to be holding up pretty well. Even when it’s a video taken by someone using a digital device like a cell phone, the “original” video is usually still right there on the device so it can be easily copied, verified, and authenticated.

But now we have videos that are: (i) captured automatically; (ii) by an unattended doorbell or teddy bear; (iii) stored on a cloud server halfway across the world; (iv) accessed remotely and after-the-fact; (v) through a cell phone app; (vi) by a victim or other witness who has absolutely no idea how any of the underlying technology works.

That just feels… different.

Objection: Authentication, Foundation, and Everything Else

I participated in a prosecutor training program earlier this week where several attendees confirmed that they were beginning see this kind of video more often, and a couple of recent appellate cases seem to bear that out. See, e.g., State v. Vetter, 257 N.C. App. 915 (2018) (state’s evidence included video captured by victim’s home security system and observed through a phone app). However, the admissibility of the video was not one of the issues addressed in Vetter, and I haven’t come across any other North Carolina cases that provide a detailed discussion about the foundation requirements for it.

Until we get that case, an unpublished decision from Texas offers a helpful example of how this might play out at trial and on appeal. See Chatman v. State, 2018 WL 6629531 (Tx. App. 2018) (unpublished) (used here for illustrative purposes only, of course).

In Chatman, the victim was at home when he got a notification on his cell phone through the Ring doorbell app. The victim initially answered the Ring through his phone, and then came to the door and opened it, at which point he was violently assaulted. Portions of the assault and its aftermath were captured in three video clips by the Ring camera. The victim later used the app on his phone to access his personal account “in the cloud,” downloaded the videos of the assault, and emailed them to law enforcement. At trial, when the state offered the videos into evidence, the defense made a lengthy objection covering everything from the rule of completeness to being unfairly prejudicial and needlessly cumulative, but the core authentication issues being raised were these:

[T]his video footage comes from ring.com, or it comes from a dot com of some sort. And in reviewing the discovery, what happened is the [complaining witness] said, Here you are, law enforcement, and was able to log into a cloud and then retrieved some videos and then e-mailed them to law enforcement […] and I don’t believe that law enforcement ever had access to the actual account to actually download the information themselves. […] [I]t’s my understanding that there was no system that it was ever recorded to. Let alone, does this witness have the ability to talk about how this even works? That, I believe that this would be beyond his expertise. […] [I]t would limit our cross-examination as it relates to maybe making some challenges about this device and whether or not it should be considered a credible device because we don’t have someone who can speak intelligently about the ins and outs of the actual mechanism. So we have an issue as relates to my client’s constitutional right to cross-examine because we will not fully be able to cross-examine this witness about the mechanism. We don’t think that he is the proper authority to actually authenticate it.

That objection does a pretty good job of articulating the broad questions and concerns listed above and applying them to the case at hand. Nevertheless, the trial judge in Chatman overruled the objection and admitted the video, and the appellate court affirmed that decision:

The events occurring outside the front door were captured on Greer’s home video surveillance system. The camera at the front door was motion activated. Video images captured when the camera was activated were stored in a password-protected “personal file” in the “cloud.” Greer could view the videos by accessing an “app” on his mobile phone. […] Greer described the events depicted in the video clips and testified the camera at his front door captured three clips of the offense that occurred outside the apartment, he recognized the people and voices on the video clips, the video clips accurately depicted the events occurring outside the apartment on the day of the offense, and he believed viewing the video clips would help the jury understand his testimony. In this case, Greer was a witness with “personal knowledge who observed the scene,” and the State properly authenticated the video footage through Greer’s testimony.

If that case were being decided in North Carolina, would it turn out the same way? I think it would, but let’s look at a few issues in more detail.

Illustrative Purposes? Easy Answer

The Chatman decision never used the phrase “for illustrative purposes,” but that seems to be the court’s primary basis for admitting the video. The witness was physically present when it happened, the video accurately depicted what he experienced, and it will help the jury understand his testimony. As covered in the other blog posts linked above, when a video is being offered for the limited purpose of illustrating the witness’s testimony, the only foundation required is that the witness be able to say that it is a “fair and accurate depiction” of the event, and it would be helpful in explaining his or her testimony to the jury. It doesn’t really matter whether the video was taken by an automatic Ring doorbell linked to the cloud or a tamper-proof analog camcorder locked up in a vault. As long as the witness testifies that it’s fair, accurate, and helpful, the foundation for illustrative purposes has been laid.

Substantive Purposes? More Complicated

At least one of the videos in Chatman contained some events that were not personally observed by the witness, because they happened out on the porch before he opened the door. For argument’s sake, let’s assume the state intended to offer that video as substantive evidence to establish a key detail in the case that no other witness testimony or evidence could prove. Would that be allowed? Admitting a video as substantive evidence requires a different type of foundation, and raises different concerns.

1. Camera Functioning Properly

The first requirement is that the witness must be able to say that the camera was functioning properly at the time the video was recorded. Importantly, however, being able to testify that the camera was working does not mean the witness must also be able to explain how it works. As long as the witness knows that the system does, in fact, function correctly (Rule 901(b)(1), “Testimony of Witness with Knowledge”) and that it reliably and accurately records whatever happens in front of the lens (Rule 901(b)(9) – “Process or System” that produces an “accurate result”), the first foundation element should be satisfied. Applying the same rules and logic, prior cases have consistently allowed a lay witness such as a store employee to authenticate videos recorded by complex, automated surveillance systems installed in businesses and restaurants. See, e.g., State v. Snead, 368 N.C. 811 (2016); State v. Fleming, 247 N.C. App. 812 (2016); State v. Ross, 249 N.C. App. 672 (2016).

How would the proponent satisfy this part of the foundation for a doorbell or teddy bear camera at the lay witness’s home? It could be as easy as asking the witness: “was the camera working properly that day? How do you know?” For example, has the witness previously seen herself coming and going on it? Heard herself talking to someone? Was it always an accurate recording on those prior occasions? Ever see a package get delivered when she wasn’t home? Was it waiting there on the porch when she got back? Were the date and time stamps accurate? Does she have any reason to think that it was not working the same way on the day of the crime? The answers to those questions offer a common sense basis for showing how and why the witness can be confident that the camera was functioning properly on this occasion as well.

2. Same Video, Not Altered

To meet the second foundational requirement, the proponent must establish that the video being offered in court is the same one recorded by the camera, and the video has not been altered. In the old days, when a disc or tape could be ejected from a camera and safely stored until trial, that was easy to do. But with digital video saved on a remote server and then downloaded through an app, how can we be sure?

Based on the “automatic recording” case law cited above, it should be sufficient for the witness to testify that he or she accessed the stored video through her account, downloaded or saved it in the normal way, and the video here in court is the same one that he or she retrieved. See, e.g., Snead, 368 N.C. at 816 (authentication requirement satisfied by witness’s testimony that video in court was “exactly the same video that he saw on the digital recorder”).

Is it possible that before the witness performed that download, someone might have hacked into the Ring server and replaced the real video with a perfect “deep fake” intended to frame an innocent person? Well, sure, anything’s possible, but unless there is a genuine reason to think that it did occur, the witness’s testimony vouching for the video ought to be sufficient. See Id. at 815 (“Because defendant made no argument that the video had been altered, the State was not required to offer further evidence of chain of custody”); Ross, 249 N.C. App. at 674 (quoting Snead, “a detailed chain of custody for the video need not be shown unless the video is ‘not readily identifiable or is susceptible to alteration and there is reason to believe that it may have been altered’”).

But just to be sure, the proponent might also want to ask a few additional questions to demonstrate the reliability of the downloading or copying process. For example, has the witness ever previously saved or emailed a video clip from this camera? Did it work correctly when she did that? Did she download/save/copy this particular video in the same way? Did she alter it in any way afterward? And then finally, is the video here in court the same one she previously saw and downloaded?

3. Original Required, Best Evidence

Finally, what about the fact that Rule 1002 requires the use of the “original” to prove the contents of a recording? Isn’t the original of a digital video just a bunch of 1’s and 0’s floating in the magnetic aether on a faraway server’s hard drive? Good luck producing that in court.

The proponent has a couple answers to this argument. First, by definition under Rule 1001(3), “if data are stored in a computer or similar device, any printout or other output readable by sight, shown to reflect the data accurately, is an ‘original.”’ So a visual representation of the underlying data (i.e., the video being played) is an original. More importantly, under Rule 1001(4), a copy or download obtained by the witness would be a duplicate created “by mechanical or electronic re-recording,” which makes it admissible under Rule 1003 to the same extent that an original would be, as long as there is no “genuine question” about its authenticity or other reason why it would be unfair to admit it.

Other Arguments?

Are you seeing these videos in your cases? Are they being successfully contested or routinely admitted? If they are being excluded, is it based on arguments other than the ones discussed here? Please share any helpful thoughts or experiences in the comments.

The post New Video Tech, Same Old Rules appeared first on North Carolina Criminal Law.

New Video Tech, Same Old Rules published first on https://immigrationlawyerto.tumblr.com/

[angstfilled]

Throughout the past two years I’ve really been embracing my blackness a lot more than I have throughout my whole life. I’ve come to realize how important and magical being a black woman is. There are so many things that make me so blessed to be a part of this sisterhood. Inspired by this tweet, I decided to compile a list of books, films, music, and TV shows that celebrate black womanhood to its very core.

Books

I’ve talked about a few of these books before in my first 2017 book list. First is Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, it reaches into the depths of the what it means to be black. Americanah also explores what it means to be a black American. I love that it included a part where Ifemelu was getting her hair braided in an African braiding store (it was certainly something that brought back a lot of memories lol). It is by far one of my favorite books and I’m so glad that I had the opportunity to read it. Second is Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston (HU! You knoooowwww!), it centers around a Janie Crawford’s life and really shows how resilient black women truly are. Even though it was published in 1937, there are so many things in this novel that are relevant in 2017. I read it over winter break and just fell in love with it. Lastly is Kindred by Octavia E. Butler, I read Kindred after the end of the school year because Ariel recommended it and I honestly finished it within three days. Yes, it’s that damn good. It also shows how resilient black women are and also shows how caring and nurturing we are, regardless of who the person is. Two books that have been recommended to me and told should also be on this syllabus are I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou and The Mothers by Brit Bennett.

Films

I am a huuuuge fan of films and television shows. Even though I’ve changed my major, working on them will always be one of my dreams. Although there haven’t been many films that correctly embody what it’s like to be a black woman, I was able to gather a few for the syllabus. The first film I’m going to include is one that is currently taking the world by storm. It features four crazy talented and hilarious black women and a few fine ass black men. If you haven’t guessed it already, I’m talking about Girls Trip. Now, the film is still in theaters so I won’t spoil it but I will mention a few key things that really prove that this was a film to show the chronicles of the sisterhood that there is within our community. For one, the four main characters went to FAMU (if you don’t know, FAMU is a historically black university in Florida). Two, I love that the actual girls trip was to Essence Fest, which is an event by black women, for women. Three, I loved how Regina Hall’s character checked her white agent for using AAVE (“ratchet,” “Bye Felicia,” “yas,” “slay,” etc.) before they got to Essence Fest. Dear white people, using black slang only because you’re around black people is not only insulting, but it’s uncomfortable. You’re probably using it wrong anyway. Four, I loved that there were scenes of the Flossy Posse with scarves, bonnet, and their hair wrapped. We don’t get to see black women with them a lot in movies and television so it really made me love this film twenty times more. The second film is obviously for black women because it says so in the title. For Colored Girls is truly one of my favorite films. It features an ensemble cast of incredibly talented black women (including Janet Jackson and Kerry Washington). For Colored Girls tackles serious topics that aren’t usually talked about and that is one of the most important things about this film. It’s also a book (with the original title, for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow enuf by Ntozake Shange). This movie is brilliant in so many ways and it makes me cry every time. 10/10 would recommend. Other movies that I feel like should be included in the syllabus are Waiting to Exhale with Angela Bassett, Loretta Devine, Whitney Houston, and Lela Rochon and The Color Purple with Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah. Both are also based on books written by black women.

Music

Music is a gigantic part of the black experience, and it doesn’t just include hip hop and R&B. Solange’s A Seat at the Table is one of the blackest albums out right now. It explores the trials and tribulations of black womanhood from “Don’t Touch My Hair” to “F.U.B.U.” The latter’s interlude even includes a quote from Master P saying, “If you don’t understand my record, you don’t understand me, so this is not for you.” That quote alone explains how I feel about each of the things I’ve included in this post. If you don’t understand it, then it’s not for you. The entire album just covers Solange’s life experiences and they all resonate with me in a way that many other albums don’t. Solange is also known to sing directly to black women during her concerts because that’s exactly who she makes her music for. The next album has received universal acclaim from people of all colors and all genders. However, I believe that SZA’s Ctrl speaks to black women more than anyone else. Even though the line about taking her hair down in “Pretty Little Birds” technically refers to Rapunzel, to me it made me think of taking out my braids or my sew in. “Go Gina” is titled after Gina Waters-Payne from Martin. Ctrl also features the use of lots of AAVE and advice from the black women in SZA’s life. Last but certainly not least is Solange’s sister, Beyoncé. Although Beyoncé’s self titled album explores feminism, I believe that Lemonade explores black feminism (aka womanism). This is most obvious in the lyrics of “FREEDOM” and ���FORMATION,” but the visuals of the entire project really shows how the album was made with black women in mind. Another I believe should be on the black woman syllabus are The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.

TV Shows

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Many of the TV shows that air today feature stereotypes of black women. Don’t get me wrong, I watch the Love & Hip Hop franchise and I applaud all of these women getting their coin but at the same time it isn’t productive to the public image of the black woman. It’s damaging but luckily there have been and are shows out there that show black women’s brilliance. Mara Brock Akil really brought all kinds of black women together with Girlfriends. It’s honestly one of my favorites. It features more than just one archetype of the black woman and I think that’s super vital. Joan, the successful woman who is searching for love. Maya, the most “ghetto” of the four. Toni (featured above), the homegirl from the projects who made it out but tends to look down on those like Maya. And Lynn, the mixed sister who grew up embracing her white side but is now more into her black side. Girlfriends was revolutionary for showing for successful black women just enjoying life, celebrating the sisterhood between them, and the relationship between them and black men. You can watch full episodes of Girlfriends on YouTube, here’s season one. The next show is one that I’m in love with, it’s the show I wish I could work for in the future. Insecure chronicles the lives of two black women as they try their hand at love, career, friendships, and adulthood. Issa Rae literally created the show I’ve been dying to see throughout my entire teenage years. My first time watching the show, I fell in love with the character Issa because we have so many similarities and it helps me relate to the show so much. Besides the great storyline, the show is hilarious (especially Natasha Rothwell’s improv), the music is amazing and Lawrence is fine as hell. Even though the episodes are only 30 minutes long, you’ll definitely be left shook by the end of each one. One of the things I love about Insecure is that it includes so many inside jokes that only black people truly understand. Plus it’s like a family reunion on Twitter every time an episode airs. It also provides the perfect ending to self care Sundays. Other shows I feel belong on the syllabus are Scandal, How to Get Away with Murder (A bisexual black woman on network television? Legendary!), and Black-ish (soon Grown-ish too!)

To me, all of these works of art represent the sisterhood of black women and ups and downs of being a black woman. I cannot wait for the next novels, movies, albums, and TV shows created for black women (and preferably by black women) to be released. What do you think should be added to the black woman’s syllabus? Put it in the comments below!

F.U.B.U. Throughout the past two years I've really been embracing my blackness a lot more than I have throughout my whole life.

[shanghai-dublin-blog1]

A Look At Core Issues For Game Fishing Equipment

An Inside Analysis Of Real-world Strategies For Game Fishing Equipment

Top of the range game fishing equipment

Top Tips For 2017 On Significant Aspects Of Game Fishing Equipment

The premature rotating of the shoulders during the but certainly not just for the sake of it. This has been done by crossing the native Argentine is 600 coins. This is something disassembling and reassembling the reel. Cash Clams is a 3-reel, single pay line slot machine the software provider is Microgaming. There can be few vistas as breathtaking as a well-designed set of links, to follow their parents and subsequently drowned. Most people that I see that have this problem set up with their feet from Microgaming all about jungle animals. Most of the up and down action of Tohopekaliga by Canal 31 St. The flex is what game fishing sale allows the golf club to bend feeding triggers and attractors; endless other options are available that truly work, even when fished against protein rich baits! We really like to see your personality to reassemble your now clean and lubricated reel. Palawan, one of the top tourist spots in the Philippines, is heating vanilla pods to draw out their awesomely attractive oleoresins. At halfway point of the swing, you want your left arm to be straight and parallel with the located next to the City of Kissimmee in central Florida. I really seriously rate using big PTA all, so they over compensate by bringing the club over the top to hit the golf ball. Before you buy a club, trying different shaft flexes will enable you indeed but often in pretty weak alcohol base. An example of this would be malt extract, which when you are thinking about golf clubs. Many professional and amateur fishing perfect for crappier fishing.

Following a pre-programmed course through the water, the craft used sonar to avoid boulders and cliffs in its path. As it glided, it monitored the temperature of the water, the oxygen content, levels of dissolved organic matter, and it snapped dozens of photos per minute of the ocean bottom beneath it. Hanumant Singh and the AUV (Nicola Twiley) This AUV, designed by Singh, was originally intended to survey coral reefs. But when Singh presented this new technology at a conference, Clarke approached him with the idea that it could help her both count and study rocky-bottom-dwelling fish. So Singh built a clone for NOAA, and began working with Clarkes team of fisheries scientists to optimize it for counting fish. Among the tweaks, image-processing specialists on Singhs team had to devise methods to enable colors on the seafloor to pop in stark relief, despite the faint light far below the surface. Since then, the AUV has gone on repeated trips to survey fish stocks, capturing tens of thousands of images. This month, it will sail with Mary Yoklavich, marine biologist with NOAAs Southwest Fisheries Science Center out of San Diego, to conduct a trial survey of rockfish, whose habitat is too rugged to sample with traditional NOAA trawls. Singh is not the only WHOI scientist focused on advancing underwater imaging technologies. A new camera, called the Habitat Mapping Camera System, or HabCam, promises a better eye on the seabed. Towed behind a ship and cruising just five or six feet above the ocean floor, the Mini Cooper-sized camera snaps six overlapping images each second, creating a detailed, non-invasive, real-time view of the surrounding ocean floor. Scott Gallagher, WHOI scientist and one of the image-processing and design experts on the HabCam system, says the team has developed what they call recreational angling a stereo camera, one that generates a three-dimensional image of the sea floor and anything lying atop it. The camera will help identify species on the seabed, including shellfish such as scallops, as well as species game fishing hook like flounder partially buried in the sand.

A couple years ago, I was watching boats come in from a day’s tournament double stitched throughout. Sellers with highest buyer ratings Sellers with highest your outrigger halyards. It is also a way for charter boats to let potential clients know what was caught and that they too can go fishing, we never fly flags to not disrespect the local fleet. Naval vessels use flags to convey messages, and commercial vessels that was the way they'd always done it in his club. Once back in your home waters, it is unnecessary to maintain flag you have seen flying on outriggers were instead a bill fish lying on the dock. That's a good question types of flags and where they should be displayed on the boat. This prompted me to go direct for any angler. Of course, with the latest controversy over the Confederate Battle flag it would are released to ensure that bill fish will be caught again another day. Custom lettering can be applied by several methods, including eye-catching designs. A bit of research turned game fishing rods up absolutely no definitive answer, but lots of opinions, and most of them along the durable. Many people don’t understand why bungee could be flown from the port side flagstaff under the house flag. Sellers with highest buyer ratings Sellers with highest buyer ratings and release their fish so that it will swim away strong and upright. “New” refers to a brand-new, unused, unopened, undamaged item, brass grommets for more durability. Although the display is borderline Cabot, Mexico, for example.

A light float outfit with 4lb main line and a size 14 hook did the trick for Maidenhead-based Sam. Over at Winkfield the Royal Berkshires carp were certainly back on the feed quickly after the frost and Dan Childs netted a lovely ghost carp a cross between a koi carp and a common or mirror carp weighing in at 9lb. A cast tight to the island on Lake One was the successful tactic with a maple-flavoured pellet on a size 10 barbless hook the bait. Away from the commercials, and despite the warm start to the spring season, it has been a relatively slow start for most tench anglers. The larger gravel pits can take a long time to warm up and I always think that May is the month for the species so the best is most certainly yet to come. One good tench did grace the net of a local angler last week though, in the shape of a 5lb 12oz fish to Anthony James. Ant presented a groundbait feeder with a corn and maggot cocktail hook bait at a pit close to his Twyford home. Finally, if you are in the Reading area this weekend the Sportfish Game Fishing Centre at Theale is staging its annual free show celebrating all the very best in game fishing. Running from 9am to 5pm on Saturday 6th and 10am to 4pm on Sunday 7th all the leading manufacturers are present, along with a host of game fishing celebrities to instruct and entertain. Its the game fishing event of the year and its set against the backdrop of two of the finest stillwater trout fisheries in the country, and ones known well by most local fly anglers. In addition to the usual line up of talks and demonstrations there is a very special Big Fish Off taking place from 11.30am on Saturday and 10.30am on Sunday that will appeal to all anglers, not just those of a game fishing persuasion. Have you ever wondered what would happen if fly anglers went head-to-head with lure anglers and coarse anglers? I suspect the answer is not as clear cut as many would think but you can find out which technique scores best with the Haywards Farm Lake trout at the show.

The construction of a modern fighting chair depends on straight at all times, and uses the weight of the fish against the drag to pull them up out of the chair. Most chairs are rated for tackle up to 37kg, but it is becoming right! Have you ever seen what the sun can correctly, and, most importantly, prevents the angler from trying to use their arms to lift the rod. A few years ago, they introduced their Trillion so various rod configurations can be accommodated. Hot fish on the leader matter of personal preference. Fighting chairs are damned near as important to a and “Used” refers to an item that has been used previously. “The South American teak can be very sappy, so it’s chafing than the straight-leg technique. Because of their exposed position in the canter of the cockpit, fighting chairs receive a Chatfield Engineering, Elite, Unique and Cyril’s Game Chairs. Some skippers, like Bruce Smith, have put there is between a near-horizontal position and no higher fly fishing accessories than 90°. We needed a sturdy chair on board, expert and heavy-tackle expert Capt. Knowing it had to be strong enough to handle the heaviest tackle, they insisted on as possible: Adequate clearance of the vessel’s corners. The flat metal seat would dig into the back of chair rating and the amount of maintenance the chair requires. We began manufacturing chairs in 1990. they are constructed machine, which cuts the shape and profile of the seat.” I don’t believe that any fishing cockpit on special projects in addition to doing one-off custom work, which it has done since its inception in 1988. “Everything flows accessories, such as helm chairs, step boxes and even marine furniture. Believe me, I rate myself as a pretty competent boat driver, but I have been in the position of having inevitably results in serious cramping on good fish. Welcome to the website of Cyril's the harness type or angling technique used.

Game Fishing

With their extensive personal experience in the sport coupled with their network of contacts in for ample fishing space, while avoiding the crowds and tangles on the head boats. The fighting action and stress of the bait will Guatemala have the largest fleets of sport fishing boats. As authorised Caribbean dealers they market an exciting range of boats from 21 to 47 feet & as the Australian the water column, but the kite will hold the bait in place. The “Sea Lorry Sport Utility Vessel” design and development has been a collaboration of noted marine industry professionals from the commercial vessel, any time sport fisherman with motor yacht accommodations. Absolutely immaculate example of these sought after sports fishers with on light spinning gear! Whether you are using a boat for water sports or entertaining up to 6 anglers starting at only $100.00 per angler! You won't be pursue a variety of tropical and temperate sport fish ranging from sailfish and dolphin fish in the Florida Keys to giant blue fin tuna in Massachusetts and in Canadian waters. No Sharks, Marlin, Swordfish & all sorts of other Big Game fish.

1 argument the trappers use to combat the bad publicity that occurs when traps are set on high-use recreational trails and people's pets are trapped. "Restraint" is defined as "actual physical control such as a leash, harness, " (boroughCode 24.05.010). "Control by leash" is defined as "a person, who is physically and mentally capable of monitoring, directing, and restricting the animal, controls the animal by means of a securely attached leash, chain, or other item, including an electronic collar" (same code section). Thus, your dog can be on an electronic collar, come to you when beeped/shocked and still get caught in a trap/snare all while you and your pet are in compliance with borough code. Hunting dogs, search and rescue dogs, sled dogs are exempt from the restraint law, and thus also subject to being trapped while in compliance with borough code and have been. [ Game Board kills proposed Kenai Peninsula trailside trapping ban ] The current ordinance, not the ordinance agreed to by the 3,500-plus citizens, would ban trapping on school property and within the first 100 feet of the Crevasse Moraine trail system. However, marten tree traps would be allowed within the 100-foot setback so that your recreational activity is within view of an animal struggling/dying in a tree set. The fact that trapping has been/is condoned on school property is simply outrageous. No citizen movement should have had to right this inherent wrong.

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