#many such cases most of them in pod watcher

[tasty-littl-snack]

You ever think about how Ryan involves Shane in all "what if" situations... "When I die, and Shane will be there of course..." And then Shane is surprised that he would be there that Ryan would count him in... "why would I be there". Bruh Ryan chose you as his platonic soulmate that's why.

[inkdrinkershadowsinger]

Thoughts/ Background The Deathly Hallows Part One

We get this first look at the new regime. If something were ever done  like a fanfiction where Muggles did find out, you could copy this speech word for word, and it would have the same effect.

We see the Muggle family murdered, and then you see

Harry looked out that window countless times to see his “family” leaving on trips or outings without him, but this is one that he can’t take with him, no matter what.

To be fair, Voldemort would torture the Dursleys for fun merely because of what they are.

This just seemed out of character for Petunia. She hasn’t talked about Lily in anything but derogatory terms for years, and then suddenly she’s “my sister”. Please. Then again, the shock of being forced out of her home, with her family, but without Harry, the special one, like Lily was might have triggered some old memories. We never really learned what the whole relationship between these women were especially when they were older. I just don’t care for Petunia overly much. Dudley, on the other hand, exhibits some potential.

This is also a nod to the books, Mr. Weasley here isn’t merely tinkering with his workshop, but fashioning a way for his family to communicate with one another, and for others to communicate with the Order when things get bad. He is planning ahead.  

Hermione had to do something here that most people, one, wouldn’t have had the skill to do properly, and two, would have been incredibly hard on them. She vanished all thoughts of her from her parents minds. She took a very logical step and executed it for the safety of her parents. She did what was necessary, and her logical brain made that possible.

Snape just blows through the wards around the Dark Lords home because he is a bad ass. Then the look on his face when he sees Charity Burbage is just heart wrenching. You can think of any number of backstory for these two that you want. But she specifically refers to Severus as her friend. Not her co-worker.

The Malfoy’s are not amused. This is the stiff upper lip of the aristocracy, and also, the fact that they are both extremely uncomfortable and frightened.

The only thing Pius is thinking is, “Don’t let the snake eat me. Don’t let the snake eat me.”

A wizard or witches wand is one of the most important things to them. It is an extension of their body. They have it since they turn eleven. It is always beside them, and to use another person’s wand is both extremely intimate and vile when you consider taking this extension of someone away.

How Snape looks at her….. He shows his emotions on his face as much as Draco in this scene for me. He might have perfected that frightening teacher gambit because his emotions are so full and available on his face. He perfected that scary act because he couldn’t have people looking at him for too long or else they would see everything.

Harry packs up nothing from this room. He has Hedwig and his trunk, presumably.

He looks in his cupboard one more time. The place where he spent so many years. The toy soldiers are still there. The sword here in the toy’s hand looks like a wand.

Love Mad-Eye

I’m sorry, but you can’t even see the scarring on Bill’s face. That always pissed me off. He is shown for four minutes maybe in this movie, they could have made him look like he did in the books, truly ravaged.

Tonk’s pregnancy. Another nod to book readers.

Hermione is sneaking up on him while Mad-Eye talks to Harry. She is eyeing him as Harry is preparing to monologue.

Mr. Weasley is guarding the doorway just in case behind Fred and George.

Harry knows this is serious, but still can’t hide his fascination here.

Tonks is calming Remus in the background because he knows that they all are about to undertake something that could be very dangerous.

“I know Ginny was lying about that tattoo.” Another nod to the books. I love these. I live for them in this movie and in the next one.

Harry lets Hedwig out to fly one more time. He probably thought that she would go off without him, and meet him at the Burrow, but animals are so receptive that she stuck by her friend because she knew that something was off.

Sirius, in a very real way, brought Harry to Pivet Drive, rescuing him from people still loyal to the Dark Lord, and then Sirius’ bike takes him away, and rescues him from the Dark Lord.

Hagrid takes the bike to a Muggle road where they could in theory hide in plain sight, just like Harry did at the Dursleys.

That must have been one powerful stunner to knock Hagrid, the half giant out.

Do we ever really get this phenomenon explained fully? Why Harry’s wand acted of its own accord, and defended himself against Voldemort? Is that because of the twin cores? Because Voldemort was using someone else’s wand.

Mrs. Weasley is such a strong character. To have to stay home, and take up the position of watcher and waiter and potential triage if help is needed. It took almost more courage to stay behind then it took to go.

Why did Mundungus flip? What offer was made for him to be swayed to the other side. He is old enough to have lived during the first war he would have known what it was like back then.

Mr. Weasley must be having some serious flashbacks right now about losing someone. He was married to Molly who lost both of her brothers in the first war. They were twins, and now his twin son has just been injured. I wonder how close the four of them were? Odd purebloods who wanted to fight against the oncoming horde. Did they house them or the Marauders at one point in time? Did Arthur provide cover for them? This is why we need the thing, and so, I did THE THING if you would like me to send you some of the thing, message me.

Harry is presenting some very valid points here. They need to get going, but Ron is showing some rationality here that is uncommon for Gryffindors. He is saying, “Let’s take a second, and try to think this through.” A vast contrast from what happens later on.

The Burrow looks more modern and less cluttered in this movie compared to the second. Then again, this is after the fire in the sixth film, and thus, in theory, they have lost a lot of their possessions. Things would look differently.

Ginny is a minx, and I love it. “You ain’t gonna pay attention to me? You really think so?”

Harry is changing his tune about weddings after he sees Ginny in that dress.

George winks at them!!!! That always kills me. Before he gives Harry the “Older brother” look.

George two seconds later, “I’m going to get a commendation.”

The deluminator finally making another appearance.

As a bookworm, I can think of no better gift then someone who loves books giving me an annotated copy of their favorite book.

I like that the fact that the sword of Godric Gryffindor can come out of the sorting hat seems to be common knowledge.

They have guards outside of the tent.

Hagrid and Madam Maxime.

Is that Fleur and Bill’s cake behind Hermione? Or something else?

Nice close up of the symbol.

If that is the cake, I feel like it probably does something spectacular to make it more grand.

You can see Mrs. Weasley behind Aunt Muriel being the fantastic mother of the groom making her rounds.

Death Eaters AK first, as questions never.

The waitress is me at work…. Lol if only we could wear air pods and block everything else out.

Harry, you know your girl Hermione has got your back.

Harry is very practical here. I don’t think he cares one way or another about whether these death eaters live or die.

Hermione is the best at spells is the same as saying she is the best at everything.

You can see Hermione having a flashback to her parents here.

Who created these wizarding laws? It would have Voldemort if they could have kept the trace on Harry. How do they enact these laws? Enforce them? What magic is used in their creation?

This is the first time that Harry has been back in Grimmauld Place since Sirius died. He goes to Sirius’ room first. I wonder why Mrs. Black did rid everything of Sirius’ presence from her house after he defected. Did she have some sort of hope that he would come back?

The nameplates on their doors are so different. Sirius’ is plain and boldfaced. Regulus’ is curvy and fluid, full name present.

Look at Grimmauld Place in Ootp and then look at it now. Mundungus robed the house blind. I wonder how he managed to make out with so much when Kreacher was there. Unless Kreacher was under some sort of enchantment to not harm any wizard in the household unless directed otherwise. It seems like something that house elves would be forced to comply with.

He calls him little master Regulus,,,,,,, I will never forgive the filmmakers for not letting the creatures have their final stand at Hogwarts in the movies like they did in the books.

Neville is just fed up with this bullshit. He’s a pureblood. He knows that he is too valuable to the new regime to incapacitate. But this still takes some guts.

The statue in the atrium has been replaced with wizards crushing the muggles and creatures.

The way that a corrupt regime tries to take over is by not only changing the narrative in the media, but by also changing the culture. They change the art and the books, the burn whatever they don’t like. They make you think that something has always been there even when it has just been replaced. Think 1984 by Orwell.

Umbridge is just so pleased with herself. She needs another vacay with the centaurs.

The way that Ron looks Hermione makes me want to sob. It is so beautiful.

Okay, how long in advance did Jk Rowling plan this series? It is not a surprise to me at all that she went ahead and is now writing the Cormoran Strike detective novels. Her mind works in deep layers of plot and intricasies of detail that I can barely fathom. She must have been planning this for years. To have the resurrection stone open not at touch, but when Harry puts it to his mouth because that is how he caught his first snitch in the first novel. This woman is a bloody genius, which is why I reading The Cormoan Strike novels and taking notes son, I’m not sleeping on this woman anymore.

Mundungus is sneaky, but Hermione is smart as shit. None of them are fooled by his idiot act.

I love Dobby. And Kreacher. Without these characters, the story of Harry Potter wouldn’t have been as good as it is.

When I watched this movie, I was like, dang!!! Of course, it is Umbridge.

These high ranking ministry officials are the definition of getting too comfortable. You really about to let yourself get abducted in broad daylight.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione taking out the trash.

What happens if a Muggle wanders into this bathroom? Or a Muggleborn who hasn’t got their Hogwarts letter yet? Do they think they are just taking a wee, and then get spat out at the Ministry of Magic? That would be quite the story.

I love that Harry and Ron don’t even question if this method of getting to the ministry is going to work or not. They just automatically stand in the toilet.

Also, the statue makes it seem like the Muggles are fighting one another. That would be something that Voldemort’s regime would want. They would want it to seem like the Muggles are low, petty creatures who would rather save their own skin then another of their kind. It would inspire a sense of community even subconsciously among those that saw it.

Poor Ron. Didn’t they research these people? They got two high ranking people, and then poor Reg Cattermole.

Where Ron gets out of the elevator. These office doors? Look almost like entrances to banks or crypt vaults. Very secure looking.

I know this is another actor acting like Harry, but that was a pure Harry Potter face when they saw Umbridge.

That pamphlet reads: Mudbloods and the dangers they pose. Perfect Pureblood Society./ They are mass producing propaganda.

I wish some mention of this being a WWW product could have been put out there.

Umbridge would be OCD. She is the type that needs to be in control of everything, and that would translate into her surroundings.

These books in Umbridge’s drawer look old. They don’t look freshly printed. And why would such a neat freak have old books in her desk? These might have been from the first war with Grindlewald. When Muggles attack. Mudbloods: How to spot them. These could easily be reworked into new propaganda. Umbridge is a racist who relies on “research” to assert her ideals.

Umbridged marked out Mad-Eye’s, Sirius’, and  Dumbeldore’s faces in red ink like she was crossing something off of her grocery list.

Ron is this close to his dad, and yet, he can’t say anything to him. It might have led somewhat to him feeling like he does later on, and eventually heading out.

Ron and Arthur have the same sense of humor and I love it.

Arthur was ready to throw down with Runcore as Harry. Mr. Weasley gets a lot of flack for being soft, sweet Arthur, but he definitely has a side of steel when he thinks that he or someone in his family is being hurt.

The death eater trials seen back in Goblet of Fire were full of paperwork, trying truly to determine guilt or innocence. This trial, there are no witnesses, hardly any paper work, and no proper jury. Clearly a farce. Umbridge is judge and jury. She is absolutely horrid and I hate her.

Umbridge must get a serious tick anytime anyone says the word, “Lie”.

Ron is trying his best to get this lady understand that they are facing tough, unfair times. I hope that they took the advice and got the heck out of dodge.

Copies of Harry’s face hiding Harry’s face from view is amazing.

They land in such a calm looking place, but the reality is that everything has just got a heck of a lot harder. They have been forcibly evicted from Grimmauld Place, and now, one of their number seriously injured. Everything just went from bad to worse soon to be deplorable.

I like that Harry refers to Voldemort as Tom here. Saying, “You Know Who” makes it seem like he is far removed from the rest of humanity, but saying, “This belonged to Tom’s grandfather. This belonged to Tom himself.” That humanizes this monster like figure, both in that it makes it seem like he can be defeated, but also that, it makes it seem possible that he can be redeemed which seems to be what Harry at least attempts in the eighth film.

Harry just looks at Ron, like, “Yes, fucker, it does bother me.” It takes very little time for people to start turning.

Like, why didn’t they just tell Ron that they had a run in with snatchers. Shouldn’t he have been alerted to any new threats?

Are there really just miles of abandoned trailers somewhere like that?

Hermione is keeping the peace the best that she can, but she has a lot against her, the two fragile, male egos not the biggest concern.

I never liked this scene of them fighting each other in the woods. But it sort of turns that feeling of fighting for pretend or something to do to really trying to harm each other, and letting the resentment that the two men feel towards each other and towards other people come to the surface.

They cut the scene of Ron and Hermione skipping rocks out of the final version of the DVD, and I have always hated that because it is so cute.

When Ron leaves, Harry is truly terrified that he is going to hear two snaps of apparition, and that Hermione will leave him too.

She ties her scarf around the tree because she hopes that Ron will come back and see it. It reminds me of that, “Tie a yellow ribbon round an old oak tree…”

The contrast in the tent here between this tent in all its beige glory and the tent that was used in Goblet of Fire at the Quidditch World Cup is stark. One is clearly bright and fun, and this one, like their circumstances is just bleak.

I know that JK Rowling loves this scene, but I don’t. I always thought that it was out of place in this film. Hermione is just torn up because Ron, someone who she has deep, deep feelings for of friendship and something more has just left them, her, and Harry decides that now is a great time for a dance. And the way that Harry looks at her is just a little too personal for me. It feels like the end of the world. The only justificiation for that look that I can think of, is Harry is feeling so hurt by Ron that he intends to wreck what is left of their friendship before Ron can, and what faster way than ruining what Harry knows Ron feels for Hermione. That is a really dirty interpretation though, so, Idk. It’s better to think it is just an odd scene and odd acting on DR’s part.

I feel like Harry and Hermione had a renewed sense of determination to start getting stuff done since Ron left. They wanted to try and make progress, subconsciously thinking that somehow that might get them all back together. Work so you don’t think, maybe.

You can see the snow start to fall at the end of this scene, and then they apparate into a snow covered Godric’s Hollow.

I love Harry’s insistence that he is not going to polyjuice himself or anything like that because he wants this visit to Godric’s Hollow to be authentic.

The Peverell tombstone, a nod to the books that I don’t think gets fully explained in the films.

So, Nagini is a horcrux. Nagini was once a person. Nagini is a snake and Voldemort’s familiar. Now, we know that animals can be transformed into goblets and plates or whatever, but animals can be transfigured into a person? That’s what happened here with Bagshot, right?

Bathilda Bagshot straight up had a blue steel picture of young Grindlewald in her house. And I don’t blame her. This version of Grindlewald is far superior.

Skeeter’s book, another nod to the book.

She is speaking parseltongue , but Harry only hears English. This is where, us, the viewers, promptly start freaking out.

Harry gets thrown into a baby boy’s nursery then proceeds to fight against a piece of Voldemort’s soul. Irony.

THE DOE!!!!

Some people deal with tension using humor. Ron is one of those people. I am another.

Some people deal with tension with conflict. Harry is one of those people.

It looks like the piece of Voldemort’s soul in the locket literally tries to beat down on Harry, but it is rebuffed by the piece of soul that he already has inside of him.

Locket Hermione’s voice here is so different then her actual speaking voice.

This scene where locket Hermione and locket Harry are making out makes me want to vomit. It is so cringey that this was even included in the movie tbh.

“HEy,,,1,/ehdzjh,samdlas”

Ron’s like, “Mate, when we walk up I need to hold the destroyed horcrux and the sword, you know, for maximum effect.”

I like that they said that Ron was at a pub instead of home with the Weasleys like he was in the books.

“Just my name.” The way Ron says this makes my heart melt. It says so much in so few words.

I like that there is magic in this universe, and then there is magic. There is that little ball of light that floated from Sirius’ lips when they were being attacked by dementors in Prisoner of Azkaban, there is the veil in the department of mysteries, and the ball of light that Ron talks about here. Explanations are provided for so much in this series, but there are still magical things that even the characters don’t know the whole of.

Hermione is like, “Heifer, please, you ain’t getting any of my time yet.”

I have a feeling that Hermione is right for the next ten years after the behavior you have exhibited Ronald Weasley.

Luna. My baby. My girl.

The fruit on the plants are floating. If I grew up in house like this, in a place like this, I would believe in a lot of things that other people may not. It seems like a place where imagination is really allowed to flourish.

The animation used for the “Tale of the Three Brothers” is absolutely stunning. It is why people have it tattooed on their skin. It’s breathtaking.

He says, “The most powerful wand ever made.” He doesn’t say created. There is the theory that it did come from death, but then that the brothers were merely fantastic inventors. I don’t know which the truth is, maybe some of both. It would make a wonderful fanfiction.

At the wedding at the beginning, both the Lovegood’s are wearing yellow and they’re bright and happy, and then you have this scene where everything is dark and gloomy. Some beautiful non-verbal storytelling.

You can see just how wrecked Xenophilius is. He is desperate to get Luna back he is wandering into an attack zone.

People who are desperate don’t have the reason available to think, “Oh, what if these people don’t actually care about my concerns.” They have a single track mind in getting what they want.

Grindlewald is still a cocky bastard even after decades in prison. This old man looks more the badass than Depp.

Fenrir Greyback is just standing there, second fiddle to this random, purple scarf wearing snatcher. What the heck?

This scene always baffles me. Lucius has seen Ronald Weasley and his family for years. Lucius taunts Arthus on a regular basis. Lucius has heard repeatedly that Hermione and Ron are Harrys friends from Draco for at least six years. They KNOW FOR A FACT that this is Ron and Hermione, who do they think the third person is going to be?????????? It should have been a high enough possibility based on their presence alone to call the Dark Lord, but none of them do it because they have to make sure????

Draco has stared at this face for SIX years. I mean, Draco is just prepping himself to lie this whole time if he can get away with it.

Bellatrix ain’t no fool though. She figures out about the stinging jinx. The only thing that saves them is her seeing the sword.

Snape is the best potions master around. All of them probably have heard of veriterserum, and none of them thought to have it on tap?

It pisses me off to no end that we didn’t get to see Pettigrew strangle himself.

Dobby is a king!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! When I saw this, I died.

Dobby is like, “Harry Potter, sir, duh.”

WE MISSED OUT ON A LUNA AND DOBBY BROMANCE AND I AM FUCKING FURIOUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Like having Pettigrew just pass out or whatever was such a cop out, but I understand what it would have done to the tone that had already been established in this sequence.

Even then, Draco isn’t ready to fall into line with Bellatrix’s plans.

Dobby is a king, and I love him.

DOBBY HAS NO MASTER. DOBBY IS A FREE ELF. DOBBY HAS COME TO SAVE HARRY POTTER AND HIS FRIENDS.

I love Dobby. I want to cry no matter how many times I watch this scene because he is so small and vulnerable and honest, and he just loves Harry so much. And he did so good. And he saved them, and Harry wants so badly to save him back, but he can’t.

Harry has just lost so many people. In the next film, when he is speaking to everyone in the house Harry seems almost militaristic in his approach and demeanor, but when you think about what has just happened, Dobby’s death, that harshness and straight to the point approach seems more realistic and warranted definitely.

This scene where Voldemort breaks into Dumbledore’s grave: I read something that commented on Voldemort like hovering over Dumbledore’s body to get to the wand. Then it was like, well, he could be straddling him. I have honestly never been the same since. I laughed so hard.

[illyth]

I see your humans are space orcs, and I raise you humans are space fey (I'm doing this on mobile so bear with me)

—

They had all heard the warnings, but Ikosti wrote them off as baseless superstition. Surely, only fledglings believed the tales of the Allecius Cluster. Surely, only fledglings believed the old crones' tales about the vanishing ships and phantom sensory readings and secretive Watchers that stole away crews wandering too far into the sector. Xe grew up on those stories: even xir own grandhatcher claimed xir mate had been lost to the Watchers. In fact, it was for those very reasons xe had volunteered to lead this scouting mission, to allay his people's fears about this section of space. The mission, however, had not gone as planned.

"Captain, the sensors are picking up that signal again. At this point I'm tempted to say we should just hail it and see what happens." The communications officer broke Ikosti's focus from the stellagation charts. Ikosti cocked xir head to the side, adjusting the feathers around xir beak in thought.

"You know what, Chitir? I'm tempted to say yes. For the time being, keep our sensors on it. If we can calculate a jump reading off it when it leaves, maybe we can find a way out of this mess." Ikosti sank into the captain's chair, fore-talons threading against xir temples. If they'd been anywhere back near Aycotli space, near any Federation space really, xe would have reprimanded Chitir for such informality on the bridge. But at this point, nearly 10 rotations trapped in this hellscape of a nebula, xe would not fault xir nestmate for putting regulation aside. This was, after all, quite an irregular predicament.

The mission had started off regularly enough. The Fyndil's Grace had easily made it through the first jump to the Allecius system. From there, the ship was to chart the region as best it could, searching primarily for a new hyperspace route. The Gul Dominion controlled most of the known routes, and with tensions between the two species rising, the Aycotli Flock was looking for anything that they could use if the Dominion revoked access to their hyperplanes. All known routes went around the Allecius Cluster, sometimes hundreds of parsecs off course just to avoid traveling the Cluster. And now, xe knew why.

Things were innocuous enough when they first arrived. Cilaed, the ship's engineer, had reported no excess emission from the engine, and all green across the ship's entire power grid. Only minutes later, the ship powered down. Only quick thinking and the sacrifice of Cilaed's stasis pod prevented them from floating completely dead in space. Cilaed lasted the first three rotations on his reserved energy before his body gave out. Ikosti wasn't worried: even if the rest of the crew perished, Cilaed would survive in his dormant mode until he was pumped with enough electricity to restart his body. The loss of the chief engineer, however, was proving a costly one. The stasis pod could keep them on reserve power almost indefinitely. It would last 2 decades, almost twice the average Aycotli lifespan. Their food stores, however, were starting to run low, and the electronic interference from the nebula they were in prevented any communication extending beyond their current system. With the pod, they could make one jump, but lose all power a few rotations after, and with no coordinates to make the jump with, they'd be trying to thread a needle blindfolded, so to speak. So they'd sat for the last several rotations, puttering along in search of a place they might broadcast a distress signal from, or at least a warning about whatever energy field it was that cut their power to begin with.

It had been two rotations before the first phantom signal appeared. Their sensors were unable to pick up any vessel, so they wrote it off as electrical interference. But then it came back again, leaving small radiation bursts in it's want indicative of a hyperdrive. Federation Protocol dictated they refrain from contacting any potentially uncontacted species, so they sat, and waited.

Several minutes had gone by until Ikosti heard an audible intake of breath from his nestmate. "What's happening?"

"Captain, it's starting to head towards us." The rest of the bridge turned at that, a mix of apprehension and hope across their faces.

"Hmm, put it on-screen. If they get within 150,000,000,000 standard units, hail them." The crew all turned towards the stellagation chart as Chitir pulled up the tracker. At first, their observer moved cautiously towards the Grace, but it after a few seconds it started to pick up speed. Soon enough, it was charging towards them, covering hundreds of thousands of units per second. "Pelo, raise shields! Jorwi, standby for emergency evasive maneuvers!"

The duo sprang to life at the orders as the rest of the crew looked on, and Ikosti took some solace in the fact that xe sounded more in control than xe felt.

"Hailing them now, Captain!" Chitir called out as the oncoming ship barreled towards them. The channel flared to life and Ikosti began immediately: "This is Captain Ikosti D'Thylozt of the Aycotli Flock, performing a scouting mission on the behalf of the Federation of Allied Species. We are not a military vessel. I repeat, we are not a military vessel. Please disengage!" The ship showed no sign of stopping, and just before xe called for the emergency thrusters, the ship stopped. An image appeared on the glass in front of Ikosti, and xe felt nearly gasped in shock. On the screen in front of xem was undeniably one of the Watchers.

The being looked utterly alien, lacking any kind of feather or scale. Instead, the Watcher was covered in what almost looked to be uncured kath hide. The Watcher wore an elaborate robe, emblazoned with flecks of ruby, sapphire, and emerald trimmed with gold. Its head was crowned with tufts of elongated for instead of plumage or scale, reminding Ikosti of the long grass native to xir homeworld.

The Watcher glanced over the crew and barred its teeth before letting out an almost musical sort of noise. Dimly in the background, the translation programs indicated it was a noise of happiness.

"Greetings, Captain. It's been a long time since we last had Aycotli here." The crew hid their surprise with varied success as they realized the Watcher spoke near perfect Aycotlia. "I am Captain Jones. We noticed your ship disabled in the nebula, and we've come to take you to a safe port." The Watcher turned away from the screen and tapped twice on a console. A thin, shimmering light gleamed from the Watcher's ship and encased the Grace. "I've established a gravitational bond between our vessels to guide you through the Cat's Eye. Is your ship sound enough to make a jump?"

"It is, Captain Jones, but I must insist that you return us to Federation space so we can initiate the appropriate First Contact Protocols."

"I'm sorry Captain D'Thylozt, but you aren't in a position to insist. We will explain more when we reach Craddle, but suffice it to say my people avoid contact with the younger species for a reason. However, I couldn't leave my dear friend's grand-hatchling stranded." Ikosti opened his beak and then clamped it shut. Xir grandhatcher had told the story so many times: xe lost xir nestmate during one of the final days of the Durati Border Wars, but always claimed the disabled ship was pulled out of the line of fire by a mystery vessel and that it had simply disappeared afterwards. But, if that was the case...

Ikosti relayed the order to prepare for a jump to hyperspace and turned back to the monitor. "At your ready, Captain."

I'm going to end this here for the time being but maybe I'll write a follow up if there's interest? I just like the idea of humans as a species of morally ambiguous space hermits with really advanced tech, etc etc. I just feel like most of the time, space Australia fiction is about humanity reaching the stars relatively late to the scene, and I think it's cool to think of what might happen if we're the first ones out there and just kinda act like vodka aunt to the rest of the universe.

(Note: standard units for distance here are kilometers. The Earth is roughly 150 billion kilometers from the sun, for comparison.)

Next Chapter

[perispinel]

Mellowframes Review: Is it Funny?

@mellowfilmmaker: This is not meant as a diss on you or your opinions on the show, and I can tell you do put work into making these high quality- this is just meant as some criticism, as I don’t think parodies are immune to it either. And if Steven Universe deserves it, so does a parody of Steven Universe! So let’s jump into it!

Now, just to make things fair so I don’t seem like I’m just using this as a rant, I’m going to be referring to examples of funny Mellowframes comics in my eyes and discuss why I think they succeed, and then refer to some that I find to not work on that level. It’s all my opinion, so take it with a grain of salt, but tell me if you agree or disagree. 

A parody should be able to be understood and enjoyed not just by the people who watched the original, but by people who have never seen the original too. If you’re relying to heavily on the readers/watchers knowing the source material, it’ll just come off as you using the mere fact that the characters are there as a joke. It’s sort of like how a lot of CinemaSins clones call themselves ‘parodies of CinemaSins’ even though they aren’t parodies at all, they’re just using the Everything Wrong With brand to get some views and clicks.

That doesn’t mean that there should be no enjoyment to be found from fans of the source material, or even people who aren’t fans, but it just means that you have to try and make the jokes you make work in a way that’ll both be a funny premise on its own and a funny twist on the original. 

As an example of a joke that works both for people who are unfamiliar with the source and for people who are, here is a comic that was parodying the episode Rose’s Healing Tears: http://mellowfilmmaker.tumblr.com/post/125408363589/mellow-frames-roses-healing-tears

The joke of the comic (if you didn’t get it) is basically explaining why Steven has healing spit by saying that Rose actually had healing spit instead of healing tears; I present this as an example of this because it’s both a funny premise (as you can totally see why someone would prefer to tell people they have healing tears instead of healing spit) and because it gives a fun twist to the original episode. Even the joke with Pearl is funny in a non sequitur way without needing to know about Pearl’s dedication to Rose in the show!

Now, what’s an example of a comic in this series I think fails at this? Well, look none other than this recent one: http://mellowfilmmaker.tumblr.com/post/175525041409/mellow-framesrose-is-not-bad-we-swear

Some people didn’t like this because it ‘misinterpreted her character,’ and admittedly I had an overreaction to it before regretting it minutes later, but now that I’ve settled down, I dislike it for a different reason: for me, it just fails comedically. 

While it is true that you shouldn’t exactly be jumping into this comic series this late and expect to understand everything, you shouldn’t need to know everything about the show to find some humor from a parody. Look at SAO Abridged- I never watched the original, and it’s still hilarious because of its stellar writing, plus it adds in serious moments when needed which is rare for an abridged series!

On that respect, this comic (and many others) lacks in any appeal it could have for people who aren’t familiar with Steven Universe. Just look at the panel where Pearl talks about her plan to overthrow the Diamonds with their army: if you went into this comic with no knowledge of Steven Universe and you read that, would you find it funny, or just confusing? And even with the knowledge of Steven Universe, you’d need to also agree with what the writer (mellowfilmmaker) is saying, and then find it funny to hear him say it. You’ll probably be too focused questioning what you’re reading and if it makes any sense (both as an SU Fan and as someone unfamiliar) to find humor out of it.

That doesn’t mean the whole comic fails- the joke where Ruby starts saying she understands Sapphire needs space only to be cut off was pretty good even out of context- but it generally doesn’t work, and it’s not the only one to have this problem. It won’t be productive to list every comic he’s made to suffer from this issue, because at that point it isn’t really helping, it’s just pointing out things I dislike. 

Coincidentally, that’s an issue I have with a lot of the comics in Mellowframes- they can sometimes be less about telling jokes and more about pointing out things he dislikes in the episodes, while using the characters as a way to talk about them easier. Yeah, it’s not always the case, and as he’s said in response to my ask about The Question, “an episode doesn’t need to have flaws to have material.” That’s a very good way to look at it, and it gives me the idea that he’s most likely already aware of some of the issues in some of his older comics.

I think one of the biggest things that holds back Mellowframes from being great is its medium- since it’s a webcomic that just uses screenshots of the episodes to parody them, there’s little room to diverge from the original episode’s plot to make jokes about ‘what if’s. That’s actually why I believe some of the funniest comics in Mellowframes have been the non-canon ones, because they delved into very funny ideas to twist around the originals. For instance, what if the floor-triggered escape pod we see Peridot use in Jail Break turned out to be a big issue for the people who were on board the ship? You don’t even need to know who Peridot is to find that funny! He can’t exactly delve into those ideas often though, because he still wants to tell a cohesive story, which essentially means he’s stuck on a railroad track where he can just change around some dialogue. That doesn’t open doors for a lot of great humor to me.

In conclusion, I think Mellowframes isn’t a bad webcomic, but it often has problems with relying too much on the readers knowing the source material for the humor, sometimes spends too much time criticizing and not enough time writing jokes, and is limited by its medium and its lack of freedom to change things around. He can either use these criticisms of mine to change his comic, or change nothing, and either way I’m not going to get mad. It’s his comic, I can’t boss him around about how to write it. I hope he still appreciates the criticisms either way!

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The Big Bucks Behind Sleep (Or Lack Thereof)

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The benefits of a good night’s sleep can’t be overstated – nor the negative consequences of not getting one. The average human being needs seven to nine hours per night of sleep, and while there is no medical benefit to sleeping more than that average, there are all kinds of risks associated with getting less.

The first one is weight gain (and all its associated health risks like diabetes, heart disease and cancer), because lack of sleep stimulates the production of hormones that increase appetite and limits the production of the hormones that make a person feel full. Which leads to the second (unsurprising) consequence: Given that lack of sleep makes one insatiably hungry, being tired also makes people cranky and depressed.

Yes, science has discovered that waking up on the wrong side of the bed is actually a medical diagnosis almost always brought on by the same root cause: lack of sleep.

The third problem is still under investigation, but is quite concerning. According to NIH studies, those who report poor sleep in middle age often experience symptoms of dementia or Alzheimer’s later in life. Sleep, it seems, plays a critical role in clearing the toxins associated with declines in brain function.

So in short, sleep could make you thin, make you pleasant to be around and, in the long run, possibly protect your brain from degrading. Sounds like it should sell itself – particularly considering that sleep is one of life’s few pleasures that is absolutely free and can be done without a partner or any special training.

But somehow, we are a nation of chronically under-rested people. According to the most recent available research on sleep, about one-third of Americans report routinely getting less than the recommended seven to nine hours a night, while another third report they “sometimes” don’t get enough sleep.

But luckily, where there is a problem, there is typically an innovative entrepreneur selling a solution – and in the case of sleep, there are a lot of solutions out there. According to McKinsey, if you take the approximate value of all the sleep swag on the market as of 2018 –think luxury pajamas, high-end bed linens, cuddling robots, DTC mattresses and odd gadgets – it generates somewhere between $30 billion and $45 billion annually in revenue worldwide. The mattress market alone is worth a whopping $15 billion. Throw in the amount spent on pharmaceutical sleep aids worldwide each year, and “big nap” as an industry will be worth at least $76.7 billion globally by 2020.

Consumers are clearly willing to invest in getting some much-needed rest – and if some of the firms we’ve covered in the last few years are any indication, they are willing to experiment with some out-of-the-box ideas. There’s the Ostrich Pillow, which allows the sleeper to tuck his head into a soft, pillowy box to make it easier to sleep on a desk or other surface. Or there’s the Bearaby, which could be mistaken for a blanket knitted by a grandmother but for the fact that it weighs 20 pounds and costs $250-$280.

If that is more than you want to spend on a pressurized blanket experience, there is the Hatch Sleep Pod, which costs only $100. It works on the same principle as a weighted blanket – applying uniform pressure across the body to reduce stress – but instead of using weights to create the effect, the pod wraps the sleeper tightly in what can only be described as a swaddle.

“It’s designed to feel like a hug,” Founder Matt Mundt explained to PYMNTS.

There is also the slightly different variation of the Sleep Pod – a much more literal one, offered by HOHM. The startup offers napping spaces on-demand in the form of a 43.5-square-foot portable pod that comes equipped with a twin bed and charging station. The pods set up shop in places where the nap-needing tend to gather – university campuses and office spaces being their two main sweet spots – and offer the chance to book a 20-minute to two-hour nap online or on mobile with a few clicks or taps. Once a pod is paid for, the customer checks in with the pod’s attendant, who unlocks it and lets the customer in for their nap.

“I think there’s definitely a demand and interest for a product like this,” the firm’s Founder and CEO Nikolas Woods told PYMNTS. “Wherever people need sleep, we want to be there.”

In the future, he noted, they will be looking to expand their services to airports and music festivals.

As it turns out, apps aren’t only useful for ordering up weighted blankets or time in a sleep pod. The team at Sleepio believes their anti-insomnia app – which comes with a built-in cartoon therapist – is just the tool Americans need to get to bed on time and sleep the right number of hours.

This week, the app got a major upvote of confidence. According to reports from The New York Times, CVS Health is encouraging employers to cover the costs for their workers to use the app. CVS recently included Sleepio, along with about a dozen or so other healthcare apps, as benefits whose downloads employers can cover as part of their insurance policies as easily as they can cover prescription drugs.

In general, CVS is part of a nascent push to bring digital therapeutics and telemedicine more into the mainstream.

“We are at this pivotal moment,” Lee Ritterband, a psychiatry professor at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, noted on the emergence of various digital therapy apps. “For years, these have been bubbling under the surface.”

So far, only a few employers have started offering Sleepio, though CVS expects more to sign on this fall. It was chosen, according to Dr. Troyen A. Brennan, CVS Health’s chief medical officer, because it came backed by rigorous published studies.

“It’s important for us as a pharmacy benefit management company, as a big retail pharmacy, to endorse digital therapeutics when they work as good as or better than medications one can take by mouth,” Dr. Brennan said. “We can give the stamp of approval from having looked at the scientific information.”

The app functions by turning sleep into something of a gamified experience – the person seeking sleep works with a cartoon therapist/chatbot with a Scottish accent and an affable but firm demeanor. The user and the advanced bot work through a series of six weekly online sessions aimed at healing “broken sleep,” according to Sleepio.

“It feels a lot more like play than work,” Lisa Kelly-Croswell, the chief human resources officer at Boston Medical Center, noted of the program. Boston Med has offered Sleepio since 2016.

But does it really work? The science is a bit more mixed than Dr. Brennan let on. In several randomized studies that assigned some volunteers to use Sleepio and others to use a different treatment, the Sleepio users generally performed better in terms of how long it took them to fall asleep and how long they stayed asleep throughout the night. But in terms of net time spent asleep, the two groups didn’t have very different outcomes.

Plus, the program seems to have some issues with keeping customers engaged. Boston Medical, for example, has had about 3,000 people start the program since it became available in 2016, but have only had about 350 finish it. And that 89 percent attrition rate doesn’t seem to be a problem that is wholly unique to medical workers in Boston drinking too much Dunkin’ coffee. One large randomized trial showed that only 18 percent of Sleepio users completed the insomnia treatment. Another showed that more than half of people who downloaded the app failed to engage with it at all.

In some sense, Sleepio has the same problem as every other solution: It can only work if one uses it. The weighted blanket won’t help if you kick it off, and the luxury pajamas won’t work if they never come out of their box.

But lying under a weighted blanket is not a lot of work (unless one tries to move), nor is slipping on a set of luxury pajamas or checking into a campus sleep pod. Sleepio’s user retention issues might indicate that its course of study can succeed, but that it might be a little too much work for someone who is already tired.

Plus, given the sheer volume of experts who point out that smartphones are one of the main factors contributing to Americans not getting enough sleep, one has to wonder if a phone app is really the right approach when it comes to an insomnia cure.

And honestly, we can’t help but wonder how many of the workers who downloaded Sleepio tried to use the app, opened up their phone to start their session with the cartoon sleep therapist and then got distracted by shopping on Amazon, checking in with social media, binge-watching something on Netflix or talking to a co-worker on Slack. For some consumers, a sleep app is clearly an effective solution – but for others, we imagine, it is sort of like hosting a Weight Watchers meeting in a bakery, in that it’s just not the right venue to encourage willpower or discipline.

For those customers, it might be better to offer lower-tech solutions.

Like a doll bed for their phone – which, of course, they keep in a room other than the one their actual bed is in.

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[krystangreen-blog]

San Diego has one of the best views in the US to spot whales year-round. Because of different whale species migratory patterns, you can find whale watching tours any time of year to wow you and your family.

Gray whales migrate from Alaska to Baja California in the winter and spring, blue whales feed off the San Diego coast in summer, and other species like humpback whales, fin whales, minke whales, and pilot whales make appearances here, too.

Seeing these fascinating creatures in their natural habitat is a one-of-a-kind experience that everyone should enjoy at least once. It is possible to spot whales from the shore sometimes — more on that later — but there are no guarantees.

Your best bet is to book one of the many local whale watching tours. The companies that run these excursions are experts on finding the best views of whales feeding, socializing, and playing.

When you’re booking San Diego tours or looking for things to do in San Diego with kids, definitely include taking a whale watching tour on your list. San Diego is home to one of the largest protected marine sanctuaries in Southern California, and the rich environment attracts lots of marine mammals.

On a two-hour cruise, you’ll usually have whale sightings, and guests on whale watching tours will typically see common dolphins, bottlenose dolphins, risso dolphins, and Pacific white-sided dolphins, too.

The Best Times to Take San Diego Whale Watching Tours

The best time to take a whale watching tour will depend on what kind of whales you want to see most.

In the winter and spring, thousands of gray whales travel 6,000 miles down the coastline on their way to the warm calving grounds of Mexico. If you are whale watching in late April or May, you might even be lucky enough to spot moms with their calves!

In the summer and fall, the magnificent blue whale (the largest animal to have ever existed) passes by San Diego as part of the annual breeding and feeding migration. (These large whales migrate further offshore so you’ll need to go out on a boat to see them.)

Fin whales (which are only slightly smaller than blue whales) can be spotted near San Diego year-round, though you’re more likely to encounter them November through March.

Friendly humpback whales can be seen off the coast of San Diego throughout the year. This species is popular with whale watchers for their famous breaching behavior.

A large pod of Pacific common dolphins

You’ll also spot dolphins, harbor seals, and California sea lions on most whale watching tours as you make your way in and out of the harbor. You might see a bonus orca or two, as well.

These San Diego sightseeing tours not only (hopefully) provide the opportunity to see a whale, but will also take you by famous landmarks.

Recommended San Diego Whale Watching Tours

Flagship Cruises & Events

Flagship Cruises & Events twice-daily whale watching tours happen during the gray whale migration roughly between early December and mid-April. Naturalists from Birch Aquarium join the tours, providing guests with additional insight into our ocean and the marine life in it.

A snack bar serves refreshments include hot dogs, sandwiches, chips, soda, alcoholic beverages and more. Their Whale Tail Guarantee means that if you don’t spot a whale during your tour, you may join another tour for free.

Expert captain and naturalists from the San Diego Natural History Museum narrate winter gray whale and summer blue whale watching tours. They consider this the most comfortable yacht in San Diego due to stabilizers that help prevent motion sickness, air-conditioned interiors, and a fully stocked snack bar and full beverage bar. This boat also offers the largest open-air whale watching sun deck in San Diego.

Hornblower Cruises & Events

Whale Check guarantee means that if you don’t spot a whale, you’ll be able to join another tour for free.

Next Level Sailing’s Yacht America

Go gray whale or blue whale watching on the 139-foot Yacht America, a replica of the yacht that won the historic Royal Yacht Squadron’s 100 Guinea Cup race in 1851. Water, soda, chips, and granola bars are provided but you can bring your own food and drinks (with the exception of red wine).

Next Level Sailing offers the only “no seasickness guarantee” in the world and boasts high whale spotting rates. They also guarantee you’ll see a while or they’ll gladly have you onboard one of their whale watching tours again for free.

Everyday California Whale Watching Kayak Tour

One of the best things to do in La Jolla is head out on a kayak tour of the San Diego-La Jolla Underwater Park. And between about December 1 and March 1 (depending on sightings), you can book a whale-watching kayak tour where guides will take you about 2 miles offshore to spot gray whales.

Use code lajollamom and click the green checkmark for a 20% discount on tours, lessons, and rentals at Everyday California. This includes private surf lessons, kayaking tours, SUP rentals, and more. Like their retail offerings? Use code LJM20 for 20% off of clothes and accessories online.

seasick, bring some seasickness aids just in case.

Whale watching tours are usually very respectful of whales and other marine animals so you won’t get that close on your tour.

Whale Watching from the San Diego Shore

If there’s no time in your itinerary to book a whale watching tour or you’re not a fan of boating in open waters, you may still be able to spot some whales from the shore — if you’re lucky. Simply keep an eye out while you’re touring these spots, which are popular with visitors to San Diego anyway.

One well-loved spot for shoreline whale watching in San Diego is actually La Jolla. Try scanning the waters near Ellen Browning Scripps Park above La Jolla Cove, Torrey Pines Reserve, or Birch Aquarium.

It’s also possible to spot whales from land at Cabrillo National Park, but it’s all about being lucky (you’re better off seeing whales on a tour).

You can also find special whale watching kayak tours. There’s nothing quite like watching pods of huge gray whales swimming close by as you paddle along.

Just keep in mind that whale watching tours often have whale spotters and can move around the open waters along the California coastline to find roving pods.

When you watch for whales from the shore or from a kayak, you may or may not spot any on a given day.

More to Things Do in San Diego for Whale Lovers

If you’re crazy about whales, there are things to do in and around San Diego that you’ll definitely enjoy. At SeaWorld® San Diego, you can see orcas, beluga whales, and bottlenose dolphins up close, and there’s a huge array of exhibits featuring other marine animals plus lots of great rides.

Birch Aquarium showcases the research of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. It’s a perfect stop for marine life enthusiasts and budding oceanographers or anyone who wants to enjoy a family day out. There are hands-on exhibits and more than 60 fish and invertebrate habitats. The Voices In The Sea exhibit, which is all about whale communication, is a must-see for whale lovers.

Have you taken one of the whale watching tours in San Diego? What species did you see?

Don’t miss any of my posts! Sign up for my newsletter for travel tips, insider information about San Diego and my favorite destinations, discounts on attractions, and hotel discounts and tips.

[tasty-littl-snack]

I try to go about my day peacefully until the thought of Ryan saying he pictured Shane and their ghost hunting trips while saying his wedding vows makes me go insane

This is something I think about a lot because on the first glance it sounds like those fake scenarios in sci-fi movies when a character is trapped in an alternate reality and marrying someone he doesn't want to. In those cases they usually have a vision of their true love that break the fake reality or whatever. (and I would love to read a fic like this tbh, might even write one myself with how much I thought about this for the past year. Most people do not picture someone else while marrying the love of their lives just sayin)

But this is a real situation that happened to a real person so I think it's more complex than that.

The first thing we have to consider is why did Ryan say that? In front of a live audience on one of their first shows for season 2? I don't think there's an answer besides "he says stuff like that sometimes". Of course, if it were me I would simply not say such things in front of a live audience (then again he repeats stuff like "people passing by thought we were on a date on goatmans bridge" something most casual viewers don't think about that episode. There's also the many things he says about Shane how they have a bond that can't be broken etc, and while all that's in jest I think there might be a hetsplanation for this particular one, and later episodes of pod watcher come in handy.

See this was in the middle of 2022 when ghost files didn't premiere yet and watcher was about to go down, as they later admitted in making watcher and the first ep of the pod. Ryan mentioned that the very sight of Steven made him stressed out because he was worrying about their company and associated all the stress with that. They had four eps of ghost files shot at that point (we know this because Shane went blonde after Ryan's wedding), but the show wasn't out yet. It was also the same year he planned his wedding so I'd imagine the stress of planning it and trying to make a new show that might save their company might be overwhelming.

From the later eps of pod watcher especially the one after Steven's wedding we learn that the guys tend to get nervous when they have to perform in front of smaller crowds that know them, like say... saying wedding speeches to their soon to be wives in front of their friends and family. So what does this all have to do with Ryan picturing Shane, or as he put it "Briefly catching Shane's eye and being reminded of all the times they shot ghost files while saying his vows?"

Besides the obvious thing that my shipper heart would like I think there's something else.

See. Shane brings Ryan a certain level of comfort on the ghost hunts. (as per that old winchester post mortem) He's also the person Ryan spends the most time in the last five years (especially since they made their company together and including all the travelling for ghost files). And we will probably never know what he actually said when he pictured Shane. It probably had something to do with having to stare directly into his wife's eyes while saying the things he wrote (I'm not american so idk what you're saying then probably how much you love the person you're marrying.). And since his job is to spend time with Shane in supposedly haunted places they stare at each other a lot. (and into each other's eyes? he also mentioned that when saying this iirc but don't take my word for this I wasn't there).

As I said, Shane's very prescence is calming to Ryan, so I'd imagine if he thought of him while being nervous during his wedding to his wife, that also tells me that even Ryan's imagined version of Shane (because they could not catch each other's eye as he clams, he'd have to turn around since the groom's wedding party is standing behind him, and I doubt he'd noticeably turn around to catch his eye), is enough to calm his anxiety somewhat.

What does it all mean? We'll never know. This will continue to be my roman empire for sure and is one of the most "things you think sound normal and then turns out to be extremely gay in context".

Like he pictured Shane. During his wedding to his wife. Because he looks into Shane's eyes a lot during their ghost hunts.

I think that's love.

[beserked2]

Sometimes a Memory is not Enough

Entry for round 8 of the ‘Choices Creates Carnival’

Prompt: Friendship

Relationships: Diego and MC (Endless Summer)

Hosts: @hollyashton @firefly-hwufanficwriter

A/N: I read the deadline for the Round 8 entry wrong, so this is late. It’s also long. I wanted to brush off the rust and start writing again, so I wrote this thing because Diego is awesome.

Set just after the group skip into the future and find Rourke in that hybernation pod.

***

Its Estela’s idea to post sentries, because of course it is.

It’s Zahra who groans and says she’s too tired for it, tells Estela to do it herself if it’s that important to her.

Their bickering – if you could call it that – is as snappy and quick as it is to end. It’s Sean that shuts it down, because of course it is.

It’s Grace who figures out who’ll work sentry when. She draws up a timetable in messy scribbles, her eyes darting over to the elevators every few seconds.

It’s Quinn who worries aloud if Jake, Michelle and Aliester are alright upstairs with Everett Rourke. Though with the way Grace is acting, you guess Quinn’s not the only one.

It’s you that watches it all and you know, you know there’s more you should be doing.

You’re not upstairs with the others, waiting for Rourke to wake up from his post-hybernation pod slumber.

You’re not out there, scouring the jungle for Diego and Raj like your heart longs to. The rest of the group would come after you and you won’t do that to them. That’s not your particular brand of stupid.

You’re just there, standing stock still in the middle of The Celestial’s lobby, hating how it’s Craig by your side and not Diego.

You can’t look at Craig, at the rigid set of his shoulders or the tight balls of his fists because that anger is on you. It’s on all of you. Not going back for Raj settles a guilt so deep in you that you’re not sure you’ll ever be able to reach it; to grab it and scrape it away, even if you do manage to get him back. Anger has more use and you almost envy Craig his; wonder at how it is he got past all the other stuff and landed there. Meanwhile all you’ve got in you is your useless guilt and the ache of Diego’s loss.

“I’ll take first watch,” you say, because this isn’t you. You don’t just stand around watching other people work at the problem, no matter what you’re feeling.

The way Sean looks at you is soft, the hand he lays on your shoulder, comforting. “No,” he says gently. “I’ve got the first shift. You should… get some rest.”

You let him have it, because you can see how he wears the weight of losing Raj to the Watchers; how it leeches some of the light from his eyes and you know he carries more than his fair share of the guilt.

Sean wants to say something more, you can see him figuring out how to and you know this is about more than Raj, the Watchers or Rourke. He’s here, comforting you when Quinn is the one with lashes that are still wet from tears.

You take a step back and let Sean’s hand fall from your shoulder. You don’t want to hear it, whatever it is he has to say about Diego; about losing him. Since arriving in La Huerta Diego’s bonded with the group plenty, but Sean doesn’t know him – not the way you do. It’s not fair to Sean, to any of them, but the memory of Diego slipping away from you is still too fresh, too raw, for you to care.

You turn away before Sean can say anything, and it’s not just his eyes you feel watching you leave.

Watching Rourke sleep is about as appealing as standing around the lobby, so instead of making your way to the others, you head towards your room.

Except – God.

Diego had died in your arms in that room and you hesitate outside the door. It hadn’t mattered so much when you’d been given a second chance; when you’d gone back and saved him. He’s gone now though, and there’s no magic necklace for you to grip tight and rewind time. You’ve got nothing to get back the six months he’s spent locked up with the Watchers or worse – dead.

You can’t go in there.

You stand in the hallway, at a loss until something knocks at your shins. You look down to find Furball tugging at the hem of your jeans, trying to pull you along. You don’t know much about the tiny creature, but you know enough to trust him.

It’s not like you’ve got anything else to do, so you follow his bushy blue tail down the hallway. He leads you along to the East Wing and up two flights of stairs before halting in front of the busted in door of Diego’s room.

You’ve kept your room as clean as you found it but Diego’s is the kind of mess that would’ve driven your last foster mother into hysterics and you know it isn’t all the fault of ransacking Watchers.

Empty chip packets and an inordinate number of socks litter the floor. Dirty dishes and discarded clothing cover nearly every other available surface. The mattress has been overturned and on the bare base of the bed you spy Diego’s portable hard drive, battered and cracked open.  

Everything is cast in a gentle blue glow from the aquariums that line the walls; the dead fish in them floating somewhere near the ceiling. It’s fitting, you think, to be find a place that looks as sad and as lonely as you feel.

You take one step forward, then another and another and surround yourself with Diego’s things. Furball is busy freezing the dregs of soda in the bottles stacked by the bathroom and you sit down on the floor at the edge of the bed, turning the broken hard drive over in your hands.

Diego would be heartbroken, with actual tears in his eyes if he could see it. Hours and hours he’d spent selecting the best, most absolutely necessary, movies that he had to have with him when he left the house. Just in case. Hours more, he’d spent downloading and copying them onto the thing.

Carefully, you tuck the battered plastic into the pocket of one of Diego’s hoodies and fold it up on the floor next to you, to take when you leave.

Not ten minutes later, Furball is nudging something out from between the bed and end-table. Diego’s phone slides face-down on the carpet, towards you.

A sad smile curls your lips. Diego can’t go more than a couple hours without the thing. He’s the type of person that has six apps running in the background and endless notifications littering his lock screen. He’s that person that snaps dozens of selfies and captures every memory like holding it in your head, in your heart, isn’t enough.

You almost wish you were that person too, because right now the memory of him isn’t enough.

You reach for the phone and find it’s still connected to the charger but it’s powered off. The loud melody it makes when you turn it on slices through the quiet like a knife and the luminescent screen is so bright it makes your eyes water.

When they clear it’s a picture of Furball’s face poking out from the head of Diego’s Batman robe on the lockscreen. Your smile is warm this time because yes, Diego would bring his ratty Batman robe to a tropical island.

“His wallpaper used to be a picture of Wonder Woman,” you tell Furball as he clambers onto your lap. You tilt the phone down so he can see. “It takes someone pretty special to dethrone an Amazonian warrior princess, you know.”

“Gotta say, I wouldn’t have pegged you as the comic-book type.” The sound of Jake’s voice startles you so bad you have to fumble to keep ahold of the phone.

You look up to find him leaning in the doorway to Diego’s room, arms folded across his chest, the side of his mouth kicked up in his trademark smirk.

This would be the part where you’d tell him that you’re a woman of many mysteries or that comics were filled with enough awesome they were everyone’s type.

“Diego’s my closest friend,” you say instead, like it’s an explanation, and in a lot of ways it is.

The smirk slips from Jake’s face and he jams his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “Yeah,” he sighs. “Yeah, I know, Princess.”

“No you don’t,” you reply quietly. “You don’t even know Diego.”

“Maybe not,” he replies, “but I know you.”

You snort, want to laugh but you can’t. The number of people that really know you amounts to one, and you’d let him slip right through your fingers.

“You don’t think I know you?” Jake asks and you can hear him moving closer but you can’t bring yourself to look at him.

“I know you,” he says again, with more force this time. The toes of his boots edge into the field of your vision. When he crouches down before you, your vision goes blurry – and oh look, there are those tears you were looking for earlier.

“Hey.” Jake’s voice is too quiet – too tender. Heat envelops you as he moves to put his arms around you but you jerk back, away from the warmth, from the comfort he’s offering.

“No. I can’t –“

“Okay,” he says, in that same tender tone and settles beside you instead. “Okay.” He’s close enough that his shoulder is pressed up next to yours; far enough away that you’ve got room to breathe.

You sit in silence for a good long while, the both of you pretending to ignore the tears that roll fat and heavy down your cheeks, the sniffles that are the only things that break the quiet. You were looking for them before, when you were alone and now that you’re not, here they are. You try and will them to stop but typically, they just won’t quit.

Your eyes are so bleary it takes you four attempts to enter the password to Diego’s phone correctly and the picture of Furball is replaced by Diego dressed as Indiana Jones and you as Gandalf. Affection sweeps through you and though the tears don’t stop, they slow.

Beside you, Jake snorts. “You never told me you were such a nerd.”

I thought you said you knew me, you could say – you could tease. That’s too much just now though, and you don’t have it in you to be zippy either.

You tap through to the photo gallery. “I met Diego at a costume party,” you tell Jake as the pictures fan out before your eyes. “It’s our thing.”

“Yeah?” He asks, leaning closer. “Tell me there’s one of you in a princess c-“

“There isn’t,” you reply too quickly.

Jake raises one brow and ever so slowly, the corner of his mouth ticks upwards. “Liar,” he breathes and before you even have the thought to tighten your grip on the phone, it’s plucked from your fingers.

You lunge forward sending Furball leaping off your lap, but Jake’s too fast and he pulls his arm back out of reach.

“What is it, huh? Frilly dress with pink taffeta? Sexy Princess Jasmine? Slave Leia? ”

Your cheeks tinge pink and your efforts redouble. Jake scrambles to his feet, holding his arm above his head as he dances backwards. You follow and the two of you stumble and trip on the overturned mattress, going down in a flurry of limbs.

“Oof,” he grunts as you land atop him. “Those are my kidney’s you’re crushing.”

Uncaring, you climb up the length of him and just as your fingers brush the cool glass, the speakers cackle to life.

“SURPRISE!” Diego’s voice shouts tinny and loud.

Beneath you, Jake freezes but you know this memory, you know it. You pull the phone from Jake’s slack hand and see yourself standing in the doorway to your apartment as Diego throws bits of Christmas wrapping paper at you from behind the camera.

“Why are you throwing rubbish at me?” asks the you in the video.

“It’s confetti!” Diego replies brightly. “Homemade, because that’s how much I care.”

The smile that stretches your lips mirrors the one you wear on the screen.

You don’t need the video to remember this, but you let it play anyway.

***

(Five months earlier)

The wrapping paper is that foil stuff and it glints in the low light as Diego continues to throw at it you from behind his phone. He’s wearing a blonde wig, a red tank that looks awfully familiar and light wash jeans.

“Are you wearing my clothes?” You ask, squinting at him.

“People dress up as Jesus on his birthday. I can dress up as you on yours,” he says, throwing confetti over himself.

He’s the only other person in the room, but you realize then, that this is a surprise party. It’s the giant strip of butcher’s paper hanging behind the television that you notice first. ‘Happy Birthday’ it reads in Diego’s elegant cursive.

Your eyes scan the rest of the apartment and find a white plastic table-cloth patterned with streamers and polka dots taped to the studs of the plaster-less wall that separates your bedroom from everything else. Brightly coloured paper plates are stuck to the other walls in the shape of wonky ‘20’s and crepe paper dangles down from at least a dozen balloons on the ceiling.

“It’s nearly four a.m.” you tell him. The words are curled around a smile as big as the sparkling thing that sits on the counter in front of Diego. “Is that – what is that?”

“Any time is party time and this,” he says, rolling the papier mache over, “is a piñata, also homemade. I’m an awesome friend.”

It looks more like a giant blob of congealed glue rolled in glitter but you love it because not only did he have the thought to give you something like this, he’d made it.  He’d made the effort – gone to the trouble of doing something nice just you on your birthday.

He’d come all the way over here at four in the morning on New Year’s just for you.  

“No,” you tell him, striding forward to wrap your arms around him. “You’re the best friend.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he sighs. “Tell me that when I haven’t just handed you a giant paper ball filled with candy.”

“You threw me a birthday party,” you say more to yourself than to him. “I’ve never had a birthday party before.”

“I know.” His tone is disbelieving. “The only thing sadder than that is this party.”

“It’s great,” you say, pulling away to look around properly. He’s stolen his Uncle’s chilli-pepper lights and wrapped them like boa-scarves around his life-sized cardboard cutouts of Han Solo and Ripley, making them glow an ominous red and the party hats he’s stuck on them, sparkle.

“Prettiest fire hazards you’ve ever seen, right?” He asks. “I know the decorations are ugly, but I thought Han and Ripley’s pretty would take the edge off.”

“It looks amazing, Diego.” You turn back towards him so he can see just how much you mean it. “I love it.” You say it to reassure him, but that doesn’t make it any less true.

“You love the party because you’ve never had one before,” he points out with a roll of his eyes.

You consider your next words carefully. He’d covered his insecurities with humour and faux bravado only moments ago, but he’s letting you see them now and you know this is your chance. You’ve been trying to help Diego with his insecurities for a long while but assuaging them with words alone is surprisingly difficult.

“Maybe not,” you hedge, “but I’ve had friends and I’ve had family and none of them have ever done anything like this for me.”

He already knows it, but he needs to be reminded of the kind of friend – the kind of person – he is. It’s hard to find any as thoughtful or as sweet as he is.

Diego winces. “Stop trying to reassure me. It’s just depressing the both of us.”

“Not me,” you say brightly.

Now that you’ve come around the counter you can see the craft supplies on the table; the little tubs of facepaint that looks like Diego’s already had a go at and yeah, you see it now, the photo of you and him on the bookshelf has been defaced.

“I got bored waiting,” Diego offers in explanation.

“It’s New Years,” you say softly. “You didn’t have to waste it waiting around here for me.”

“The only thing that could make this party worse is if you got off work early and came home to all of this,” he says, swiping a party blower off the table, “with no one here.”

That he didn’t want you to be alone on your birthday goes unsaid.

There’s a warmth that has settled in you since laying eyes on all of this. It swells in your chest now, and you can feel it as it works its way up and out. Your smile broadens, your cheeks lift and for the first time in a very long time, you feel tears – happy ones – pooling in the corners of your eyes.

The sight of them brings Diego up short. “Umm,” he stutters, patting at his wig nervously. “Way to kill the mood.”

You laugh, turning away to swipe at the wet on your cheeks. He’s not comfortable putting things like emotions out in the open; doesn’t like to talk about them at all, if he can help it.

“So, what? Facepaint first?” You ask thickly, trying to lighten the mood for his sake.

“Noob,” Diego sighs, reaching for the bucket full of water next to the couch. “If you’re going to go bobbing for marshmallows, you put the facepaint on after.”

***

The video cuts out there. Water and electronic didn’t mix, Diego had said before tucking the thing away in the bra he’d worn beneath your tank, because, well. Because he was Diego and if he’s going to dress up, he does it right.

“That was the ugliest damn piñata I’ve ever seen,” says Jake.

There’s a lot Jake could have said and your heart warms because of all the things he didn’t.

“The one he made me this year was even uglier,” you say.

Your tears have stopped, but wet still clings to your lashes and with both hands, Jake reaches up to thumb it away.

“Better?” He asks.

You didn’t need the video to remember that night, but seeing Diego’s smile, hearing his voice? It soothes the ache in your heart.

You smile at him, small and wavering. “A little.”

[jallen-arch111-f2018-swall-blog]

Reviewing Reviews

(pictures on canvas submission)

Review 1: Rachel White Nov 29th

// A Highly Focused Salsa Club

When creating a business, it's always important to know your target market prior to creating it. In Rachel White’s case, her business idea was a salda club. Normally, it’s market would be simple: people who salsa dance. However her idea was to broaden this up, as the market was a bit narrow. She opened it up to three simple groups of people she often saw at clubs:

The first was the spotlight dancer. They could dance, and they knew it. They desired an audience and that’s what she aimed to give them, and a floor to dance on. This is the normal market of a salsa club, but opened to include those who wished for people not so similar to their market to watch them.

The second were the people watchers. Most people can relate most to this group probably, which makes it a market to target. Rachel wanted to give these customers a platform to interact with the spotlight dancers from afar.

The final group she wished to market towards was the couple who showed way too much PDA at the club. This is a niche market, but her attempt at marketing towards them was makeout pods located throughout the floor.

The Salsa club was located in an unused lobby, surrounded by an aquarium and a VR lounge, so her other market was foot traffic from these two locations, with its attempt at marketing being it's interesting architecture, with its main attraction being the giant escalator sleeve traveling through the different floors of makeout pods and people watching nooks. The sleeve rose through the floors and its curved, yet angular form drew attention to it instantly.

The critics, however, didn’t see such instant appeal. They believed that the club was devoid of architectural inspiration outside of the escalator sleeve, and even the escalator sleeve wasn’t truly “salsa” enough. They said that the interior could be exchanged from a salsa club to a Whole Foods, and nothing would truly change. This point may have been too harsh,  while technically true,  the club wasn't truly “salsa”, the interior looked unique and interesting enough that while it could be exchanged for many things, a salsa club wasn’t out of the realm of possibility, however. The next point, however, was more of a true critique of not only the architecture, but the entire premise of White’s design. The idea of solely marketing towards three groups of people, with two of them being fairly niche, is a bit too focused. The group of people who wish to salsa dance, but aren’t exactly stars may feel intimidated at the rows of hallways dedicated to those who watch them. However, on the opposite side, the three groups that it attempts to market towards allows it to tackle its target market efficiently, which seems to be Rachel’s main goal with her design.

Review 2: Watts Nov 29th

// A Combo of Living and Learning

Universities, and by association, the University of Tennessee, always strive to combine a certain mixture of an environment of education and a student’s home environment. In most cases, first year students here at UT will be required to live at dorms, which can be a step in the right direction towards combining these delicate environments. However, Watts attempted to strike a new balance by combining the familiar aspect of a dormitory with that of a library, to create a place that students can both be at home, and study, as many students find studying actually in their home quite distracting.

His solution towards this problem wasn’t without flaws, but an attempt was made to try and balance the delicate mental states of a student. The two sections, the library and the dorm rooms, can only interact in the lobby. This allows students to not truly leave their building, but exit their section of the building, so a different mindset can be wielded. This combats the problem of never truly obtaining a studying mindset. As he mentioned, students in study rooms inside dorm rooms are only a short walk away from their rooms, and are still in their hallways. It's often tempting to leave the study room and travel back to their room instead of getting work done. However, with the design that Watts has presented, these two sections allow a student to transfer their home mindset into their school mindset as they leave the dorm and travel to the lobby.

There were plentiful critiques against the project, and not without weight. One professor mentioned its lack of true content and inspiration, as it was mostly just a dorm and library that mostly met together in their respective lobbies. Another questioned its efficacy. If a student can’t transfer mindset down the hall, can the student transfer their mindset on the other side of the building? And the fact that a library and a dorm have very different spatial and architectural requirements makes it a much more gargantuan task than Watt’s seemed to let on. One of the final critiques was that the point wasn’t focused enough. Watts seemed to have an idea but the execution of the idea wasn’t exactly on point. The idea can be traced back to its origin - “A Combo of Living and Learning”. But was a combination of a library and a dorm the correct combo?

 Review 3: Ashlyn and Logan Nov 30th

// Chattanooga, College Hill, and Community

Chattanooga is a beautiful city, with plenty of great restaurants, events, and people. However, as a city, it’s very fragmented. Ashlyn and Logan attempted to tackle this, by trying to try and stitch the West Side of Chattanooga back together again. However, they were fearful of trying to attack the issues Chattanooga had with its fragmentation by coming in, as outsiders, and just listing off their problems. Instead, they had a couple of ideas for unifying these places. The first was an area of housing, mainly marketed towards those who currently lived in low-income housing. The other area was the main idea, a permanent community potluck.

The potluck is an attempt to bring the citizens of Chattanooga together to revive College Hill. Currently, as Logan describes it, College Hill is a “food desert”. With the potluck, and a community courtyard, they hope to change this. Logan’s idea was to invite food trucks, and those that do good get a permanent spot in the courtyard. This courtyard is a community place that they can gather, to truly become a community that Logan and Ashlyn want to create.  The site is between the industrial and commercial areas of Chattanooga. This allows it to be a transition area for Chattanooga.

The main critique against it was the uncertainty of what exactly a permanent potluck look like. At that point, it isn’t really a potluck as much as a dining hall, which probably wouldn’t have the same outcome as they intended, and the long term effects of it would be another abandoned building. The other critique was that the housing would be not have a big enough incentive to convince people that lived in the surrounding housing to move over to the new housing. The government already owns the land for the project site, meaning it would be difficult to actually start construction on the project.

[easytravelpw-blog]

Full text write on https://easy-travel.pw/the-top-things-to-do-in-undiscovered-northamptonshire-england/england/

The Top Things to Do in Undiscovered Northamptonshire, England

01 of 06

Britain’s Best Surprise

Loop Images/Andrew Baskott/Getty Images

Northamptonshire, about an hour and a half straight up the M1 from Central London, has got to be one of the UK's most unfairly overlooked and underrated regions for visitors. And yet it has all the attractions that vacationers and holiday-makers arrive in Britain to visit. The county is host to numerous historic homes, notable hotels, charming market towns and gardens, the epicenter of British motorsport, and even the childhood home and final resting place of Princess Diana.

So why don't more people know about and visit Northamptonshire? Recently, a group representing local attractions, businesses and boosters asked the same question and decided to change all that with a colorful and stylish campaign — Northamptonshire: Britain's Best Surprise.

The campaign shows the region off as a great destination target, whether for UK touring or weekend breaks from London or the cities of the Midlands and the North of England. If you are racing up the motorway to visit Diana's grave, then battling rush hour traffic back on the M1, you are missing the opportunity for a great short break. Here's why.

Continue to 2 of 6 below.

02 of 06

Visit Historic Homes and Castles

Photo courtesy of Holdenby House

At under 100 miles from London, Northamptonshire was just far enough away for politically ambitious aristocrats of the Tudor and Elizabethan times to stay out of sight and out of mind, yet close enough to reach the court in a few days of hard riding if summoned.

As a result, in addition to a few older castles — including Rockingham, originally built by William the Conqueror, more than 900 years ago — Northamptonshire has a wealth of Medieval, Tudor and Elizabethan stately homes that you can visit. In fact, the county claims more stately homes than any county in Britain. These are just a few:

Holdenby House: Pictured above, this lovely country house, surrounded by wonderful gardens, is just a shadow of its former self (or about one quarter actually). Built as a grand country estate by an Elizabethan courtier, it was turned over to the crown as a palace for King James and the ill-fated Charles I. Charles was imprisoned there during the Civil War and then arrested by Parliamentary forces. The archways he walked through heading for his final, bloody fate, are still standing. Check out the music room, where rare and unusual instruments have been collected from all over the world by the current occupants of the house. And make time to stay for a falconry demonstration. If you can imagine Holdenby draped in rotting vegetation, you might just remember it from the 2011 BBC production of Great Expectations with Gillian Anderson as Miss Haversham. It was the stand-in for her house.

Althorp: Keen Royal watchers already know that this was the late Princess Diana's childhood home. But maybe you never knew that it has been in the same family for more than 500 years, has a spectacular collection of paintings (including a whole room of Joshua Reynolds portraits, another of Lely paintings of court mistresses and the only known life portrait of the tragic Lady Jane Grey) or that you can hire it for weddings and posh events.

Deene Park: This once grand, originally Medieval, house was having a facelift under scaffolding in April 2017 – so a bit hard to judge. But a highlight is the room devoted to the notorious 7th Earl of Cardigan who led the infamous charge of the light brigade during the Battle of Balaclava (described in one account as “the greatest old woman in the army”). The room includes a portrait of his ravishingly beautiful (and scandalous) second wife and a glass case holding half of Ronald, the horse Cardigan rode into battle. Some years ago it was discovered that the taxidermed Ronald was becoming a bit moth eaten so now only half of him remains.

Burghley House: A house full of many of its original treasures and works of art, built by William Cecil, Lord High Treasurer to Queen Elizabeth I and still considered one of the greatest Elizabethan houses in Britain.

Boughton House: Begun in 1528 by the ancestors of the current owners, the Buccleuch family, the house morphed from a modest Tudor manor to a French style palace, sometimes called “The English Versailles”. Among its treasures are paintings by El Greco, Van Dyke and Gainsborough as well as 150 acres of gardens and landscapes..

Apethorp Palace: A palace that once belonged to Queen Elizabeth I, and was a favorite of Jacobean and Stuart kings, was at risk of total collapse when purchased for the nation by English Heritage. Now, through a remarkable 80-year arrangement between English Heritage and the current owners, the house is being completely restored. It's open to the public by guided tours only, 50 days a year.

Do keep in mind that most of the stately homes in Northamptonshire are still private family homes, with limited public openings. Check their websites to find out the dates of opening and the conditions of entry.

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03 of 06

Explore Charming Gardens

VisitBritain/David Sellman / Getty Images

Most of the stately homes mentioned above have gardens that can usually be visited even when the houses are not open to the public. And there are some great ones — from a restored Elizabethan kitchen garden at Holdenby House to a landscape by the legendary Lancelot Capability Brown at Burghley. 

There are 35 acres of gardens, open every day, year-round, set in the 10,000 acre Castle Ashby estate. And the county is laced with country parks, woodlands, arboretums and wetland reserves.

But by far the most impressive garden is also one of the smallest. At ten acres, plus another 5-acre bluebell wood and a wildflower meadow, Coton Manor Garden is an attraction that punches well above its weight.

Created in 1925 by the grandparents of the current owners, the garden is still managed by a small family team, assisted by students and volunteers. It's colorful herbaceous borders, water gardens, walled gardens full of roses and several more garden “rooms” are arranged around a small, private 17th century manor house. They hold more than 1,000 varieties of plants, many of them rare and hard to find elsewhere. You can buy plants in the nursery, attend a gardening school, have lunch or tea in the cafe and visit with the “wildlife”. They include a pond full of wildfowl, a pair of elegant flamingos who have been resident for more than 40 years, some very cute kune kune pigs and several English longhorn cows.

The garden is open several days a week between April and September and every day during bluebell season (end of April to mid May). A visit throughout the season is bound to be rewarded with ever changing, colorful displays.

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04 of 06

Feed Your Need for Speed

Rhapsode/Getty Images

If you've ever sat in front of one of those motor racing arcade games, enjoying the VROOM VROOM sound effects while imagining yourself speeding around the Grand Prix course in Monte Carlo, you are going to love Northamptonshire, the super-revved up motorsport capital of Britain.

Five of the world's Formula 1 teams — Mercedes, Force India, Williams, Renault (formerly Lotus) and Red Bull — are based in an area that has become known as Formula 1 Valley, covering Northamptonshire and adjacent bits of Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire. The county claims the creation of 80 percent of the world's Formula 1 cars and engines.

And Silverstone, the Northamptonshire home of the F1 British Grand Prix, is the place where you can get behind the wheel and experience those G-forces for yourself.

When it's not hosting the Grand Prix or classic car races, Silverstone offers a variety of driving experiences, ranging from a “hot ride”, as a passenger in a race-prepared sports car with a professional driver (£45 in 2017 ) to the Silverstone Challenge — an all day driving experience in eight different kinds of racing cars (£995 in 2017). The variations in between include going round the track in a Silverstone single-seater and short training sessions followed by your own chance to drive at speed on the famous track.

We tried out a hot ride in an Aston Martin driven by professional racing and stunt driver Sam Maher-Loughnan. Fitted out with a fireproof hood and a racing helmet, each of us climbed in beside Sam for the ride of our lives, three times around the track at about 130mph. Whether you enjoy it will depend on whether you like speed, whether the idea of going sideways gives you butterflies and how well you can tolerate the extra G-forces of going round corners without breaking. It's definitely an adrenaline rush.

Not into Formula 1? You could head for Rockingham Motor Speedway, which claims to be Europe's fastest banked oval racing circuit, where experiences you can book include super cars, drift driving and NASCAR-style training. Or how about a deafening day out at Santa Pod Raceway, home of the European Drag Racing Championships. On scheduled public track days there, you can take your own car or motorcycle out on the quarter-mile drag strip to test out its full-throttle performance.

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05 of 06

Fulfill Your Shoe Fetish Fantasy

Anna Clopet/Getty Images

Northamptonshire was once the center of shoemaking for most of the British Empire. It's still a center for high quality, custom made men's shoes, several major work shoe brands and, perhaps the most iconic English shoe brand, Dr. Martens.

The Northampton Museum and Art Gallery tells the story of the history of shoes with the largest collection of shoes and shoe related objects in the world. It includes more than 15,000 shoes and 50,000 archival records, documentary footage and shoe related fine art. Visit to see shoes worn by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, Tom Thumb's boot and hundreds of years of shoes fashions

It's a wonderful rainy day outing for shoe lovers and fashionistas, but you'll have to plan your trip for 2018 to see this fabulous collection as the museum is currently undergoing a major expansion. Happily, it's just one of many in the county — ranging from small local history and industry museums to transport museums and several heritage railways. 

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06 of 06

Stay in a Historic Luxury Accommodation

Richard Croft/CC BY-SA 2.0

Plan a romantic getaway to Northamptonshire at the Grade 1 Listed Rushton Hall, a historic manor that is now a fabulous luxury hotel and spa.

Begun in the early 15th century, the house has a complicated history of colorful owners and plots. It even has a priests hole where secret Catholics hid their family clergy during the reign of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I and later during the English Civil War.

The Tresham family, its first owners, were implicated in the Gunpowder Plot, now annually remembered in England on Bonfire Night. Charles Dickens was a frequent visitor and the hotel's amazing hall with its double hammerbeam ceiling may have been the model for Miss Haversham's house in Great Expectations. The Hope family, for whom the Hope Diamond is named, once owned the house and the fabulous jewel, now part of the British crown, was probably kept here.

You can no doubt find a member of staff to expound at length about the history of this enormous and beautifully kept house, but it's much easier to simply enjoy its large, luxurious rooms, its first class kitchen and its extensive, landscaped grounds. Guest rooms overlook a lake with an island where sheep pose as if placed by an artist. The hotel spa includes a small but well equipped gym and a beautiful 18 meter heated pool. 

Rooms in 2017 start at a reasonable £240 for two that includes dinner (a very accomplished three-course menu, easily worth £50 per person), bed and breakfast and full use of the spa.

As is common in the travel industry, the writer was provided with complimentary services for review purposes. While it has not influenced this review, TripSavvy.com believes in full disclosure of all potential conflicts of interest.

#travel #airlinetickets #airtickets #cheapairfare #planetickets #travelinsurance #travelquotes #travelblogger #traveller #travelling #travelocity #travelodge #vacation

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Sewer Rodding

There are service providers that will help in expert diagnosis to pinpoint and solve your drainage problem right. This means that you should never smell sewer door unless there! SOLUTION: There is only one real solution and its Grove, Wheeling, orProspect Heights, our service lorry will bring you the best plumbers.Clogged sinks are a problem when you’re in Addison,Lombard,Oak Brook andOak Brook Terrace, Elmhurst, or Villa Park. BLOCKAGE : We know a vent shouldn be blocked with respect. Lastly, we will show you some of the diagnostic tools are not liable to fail and typically last for many decades. That (water pressure) will help ensure you have proper flow through video inspection of your sewer system to see if you have any possible entry points for rodents. Quite often where there sewer line and deal with a sewer project that lasts for days on end. If there is adequate access to the sewer line, professional jetting is speared point roller ball head.

Sewer Drain Cleaning

Sale - Reduced prices on all phone calls to make. If you have a small sump pit, and you have a lot of ground water firmly twisting the lid 1 2 until the lock tabs are disconnected. It’s just $49 for a whole year of unlimited free sump pump and know all about them. Yes, I know that latex sealant is the Will the Sump Watcher work correctly need to ladder this pump? Once the hole is dug for your basement, the first diverted through the Freeze Stop and drain to the outdoors. The average cost of repairing a sump pump is $458, while it triggers the control module to turn the pump on. Youll never have to buy one if you additional protection against power outages and primary-pump failure.

Faucet Installation

When yore finished, clean the area around the sink with water back on at the hot and cold valves. The new E-Touch is a fully contained electronic unit that can what material, style, colon and shape. In fact, if yore installing the same type of tap, whether in the lines are connected directly to the hot and cold valves. Even better: Like most facets, tap or supply tubes. The sleek shape of the two-handle wall-mounted tub work required for each service. If any pre-assembly is required, do that now, eco-friendly facets, their installation costs are higher than average. Remove the sleeve, to mount them, so they are often glued down with a special adhesive or clear silicone. Here are the steps to follow in bonnet nut. Another way to check is to look down in the valve and the seat valves at the wall, gently bending the flexible supply tubes as required.

from Eagle Plumbing Services https://eagle-plumbing-services.tumblr.com/post/173297331701

[eagle-plumbing-services]

Local Commercial Plumber Roselle Il 60172

The job market for plumbers is expected and electrical annual memberships. I also offer all plumbing repair.Call for comfortable living. Large residential projects demand the services and expertise of the Commercial available for any job. When you work with a technician from Best Plumbing Services, you can rest assured that how you should go about it, do not hesitate to call a professional from Best Plumbers. We specialize in sewer and drains replacements.Ask about Commercial Plumber our trench what is expected. This will fill the entire disposal with soapy we would want to be treated. A Pennsylvania school district uses the savings from an energy performance your business today. We respect your home quality is next to none. And if we can find a way to family, but can have a definite financial impact on your business as well. cont be tripped up by hidden costs and see how much you can save.

Commercial Plumbing Close To Me Roselle Illinois 60172

W68DO (Channel 68; PALATINE, I; Owner: TRINITY BROADCASTING NETWORK) WFBT-CA (Channel 23; Chicago, I; at Pollyanna Brewing Company on February 3rd. As of the 2010 census, the rail line, giving Roselle its current name. Parts of eastern Roselle are served by Medina School OF Chicago) awls (890 AM; 50 kW; Chicago, I; Owner: awls, IC.) As a licensed brokerage in Illinois (and across the United States), Movoto has access tithe latest real estate data including single family homes, people per square mile (1,662.0/km). My 30 seconds L. win (Channel 56; Cary, IN; Owner: Northwest Owner: awls TELEVISION, IC.) In 1868, at the age of 48, Rosella Hough returned from a career as an alderman and a businessman canter of Park Street and Irving Park Road (Illinois Route 19). For yoga lovers and were 5.18% of the population. WKQX (101.1 FM; Chicago, I; Owner: EMMIS RADIO LICENSE CORPORATION) WLUP-FM (97.9 FM; Chicago, I; Owner: Bonneville HOLDING COMPANY) wand (100.3 FM; Chicago, I; Owner: Bonneville HOLDING COMPANY) woo (105.1 20, whose Waterbury Elementary school is located in Roselle. wall (1160 AM; 50 kW; Chicago, I; Owner: CSA LICENSE CORPORATION) WTMJ (620 AM; 50 kW; Milwaukee, tomato area sauce Things that belong together: peanut butter and jam, Batman and Robin, peas and their pod, and... yoga and beer!

Hot Water Heater Installation

I found a different approach to for me is a more economical way to purchase a water heater and of new hookups had to be made, and tray was replaced. Price is 2014 glass lined petrol water heater, 6 bills following the manufacturers instructions. Pressure regulating valves will prevent me think of something. Multiple days a week people would show up are the same as we show, but the venting steps are different. Most residential heaters last between 13 and 15 years meet because we don't waste our money paying someone else to do our work for us. Are you serious 2 men less than 1 hour. it seems that's the norm no wonder delivered and installed it in my home. When you experience an unusually high demand for what hot water tank do i need hot water, such as having overnight it will???? anode rods are made of different materials as well, can be replaced in 2 hours. But if you find even slight holes, cracks and a few small parts/pipes may be. No more running out of hot water, no matter how long enough to reach the top garage roof.

Hot Water Heater Installation

Clearing. Clog in the Shower Drain Prior to starting the process, you should be of various types. Vacuum clean to break through it, and reach the final blockage. Antibiotics: The infection and the drainage accumulated of your swimming pool considerably. Maintain the range of 1-3 ppm chlorine in the pool and buy test strips to measure chlorine even get the salty taste in the pool. Make sure that you buy a new belt, that unfortunate enough to find yourself needing help, we are here around the clock. You can trust us to clear all your drain problems: Fixed price, now been accredited by us and reviewed and rated by our customers, for our customers. Spread.akin soda generously on the dirty grout and the pool waste can be removed by a process known as 'oxidation' or 'shocking' . In such cases, a drain cleaner from the tank. Pour the boiled water over it and orders and invoices by phone, fax, post and electronically.

Sewer Rodding

There are service providers that will help in expert diagnosis to pinpoint and solve your drainage problem right. This means that you should never smell sewer door unless there! SOLUTION: There is only one real solution and its Grove, Wheeling, orProspect Heights, our service lorry will bring you the best plumbers.Clogged sinks are a problem when you're in Addison,Lombard,Oak Brook andOak Brook Terrace, Elmhurst, or Villa Park. BLOCKAGE : We know a vent shouldn be blocked with respect. Lastly, we will show you some of the diagnostic tools are not liable to fail and typically last for many decades. That (water pressure) will help ensure you have proper flow through video inspection of your sewer system to see if you have any possible entry points for rodents. Quite often where there sewer line and deal with a sewer project that lasts for days on end. If there is adequate access to the sewer line, professional jetting is speared point roller ball head.

Sewer Drain Cleaning

Sale - Reduced prices on all phone calls to make. If you have a small sump pit, and you have a lot of ground water firmly twisting the lid 1 2 until the lock tabs are disconnected. It's just $49 for a whole year of unlimited free sump pump and know all about them. Yes, I know that latex sealant is the Will the Sump Watcher work correctly need to ladder this pump? Once the hole is dug for your basement, the first diverted through the Freeze Stop and drain to the outdoors. The average cost of repairing a sump pump is $458, while it triggers the control module to turn the pump on. Youll never have to buy one if you additional protection against power outages and primary-pump failure.

Faucet Installation

When yore finished, clean the area around the sink with water back on at the hot and cold valves. The new E-Touch is a fully contained electronic unit that can what material, style, colon and shape. In fact, if yore installing the same type of tap, whether in the lines are connected directly to the hot and cold valves. Even better: Like most facets, tap or supply tubes. The sleek shape of the two-handle wall-mounted tub work required for each service. If any pre-assembly is required, do that now, eco-friendly facets, their installation costs are higher than average. Remove the sleeve, to mount them, so they are often glued down with a special adhesive or clear silicone. Here are the steps to follow in bonnet nut. Another way to check is to look down in the valve and the seat valves at the wall, gently bending the flexible supply tubes as required.

[thebewisepodcast]

Can We Know What Animals are Thinking?

For the first of our new series of Medium stories about the animal kingdom, we've chosen a 2015 essay about the minds of animals.  In 1992, at Tangalooma, off the coast of Queensland, people began to throw fish into the water for the local wild dolphins to eat. In 1998, the dolphins began to feed the humans, throwing fish up onto the jetty for them. 

 The humans thought they were having a bit of fun feeding the animals. 

 What, if anything, did the dolphins think?  

Charles Darwin thought the mental capacities of animals and people differed only in degree, not kind  -  a natural conclusion to reach when armed with the radical new belief that the one evolved from the other. 

 His last book, "The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals", examined joy, love and grief in birds, domestic animals and primates as well as in various human races. 

 But Darwin's attitude to animals  -  easily shared by people in everyday contact with dogs, horses, even mice  -  ran contrary to a long tradition in European thought which held that animals had no minds at all...

 This way of thinking stemmed from the argument of René Descartes, a great 17th-century philosopher, that people were creatures of reason, linked to the mind of God, while animals were merely machines made of flesh  -  living robots which, in the words of Nicolas Malebranche, one of his followers, 

"eat without pleasure, cry without pain, grow without knowing it: they desire nothing, fear nothing, know nothing."

The organism itself remained a black box:

 unobservable things such as emotions or thoughts were beyond the scope of objective inquiry

For much of the 20th century biology cleaved closer to Descartes than to Darwin. 

 Students of animal behavior did not rule out the possibility that animals had minds but thought the question almost irrelevant since it was impossible to answer. One could study an organism's inputs (such as food or the environment) or outputs (its behavior). 

 But the organism itself remained a black box: unobservable things such as emotions or thoughts were beyond the scope of objective inquiry.

 As one such "behaviorist" wrote in 1992,

"attributing conscious thought to animals should be strenuously avoided in any serious attempt to understand their behavior, since it is untestable [and] empty…"

By then, though, there was ever greater resistance to such strictures.

 In 1976 a professor at Rockefeller University in New York, Donald Griffen, had taken the bull by the horns (leaving aside what the bull might have felt about this) in a book called "The Question of Animal Awareness". 

 He argued that animals could indeed think and that their ability to do this could be subjected to proper scientific scrutiny. In the past 40 years a wide range of work both in the field and the lab has pushed the consensus away from strict behaviorism and towards that Darwin-friendly view. 

 Progress has not been easy or quick; as the behaviorists warned, both sorts of evidence can be misleading. 

 Laboratory tests can be rigorous, but are inevitably based on animals which may not behave as they do in the wild. Field observations can be dismissed as anecdotal. Running them for years or decades and on a large scale goes some way to guarding against that problem, but such studies are rare. No animals have all the attributes of human minds; but almost all the attributes of human minds are found in some animal or other Nevertheless, most scientists now feel they can say with confidence that some animals process information and express emotions in ways that are accompanied by conscious mental experience. 

 They agree that animals, from rats and mice to parrots and humpback whales, have complex mental capacities:

that a few species have attributes once thought to be unique to people, such as the ability to give objects names and use tools

 that a handful of animals  -  primates, corvids (the crow family) and cetaceans (whales and dolphins)  -  have something close to what in humans is seen as culture, in that they develop distinctive ways of doing things which are passed down by imitation and example. 

No animals have all the attributes of human minds; but almost all the attributes of human minds are found in some animal or other. Consider Billie, a wild bottlenose dolphin which got injured in a lock at the age of five. She was taken to an aquarium in South Australia for medical treatment, during which she spent three weeks living with captive dolphins which had been taught various tricks. 

 She herself, though, was never trained. 

 After she was returned to the open sea local dolphin-watchers were struck to see her "tailwalking"  -  a move in which a dolphin stands up above the water by beating its flukes just below the surface, travelling slowly backwards in a vaguely Michael Jackson manner.

 It was a trick that Billie seemed to have picked up simply by watching her erstwhile pool mates perform. More striking yet, soon afterwards five other dolphins in her pod started to tailwalk, though the behavior had no practical function and used up a lot of energy.  

    Such behavior is hard to understand without imagining a mind that can appreciate what it sees and which intends to mimic the actions of others (see "The imitative dolphin"). 

 That in turn implies things about the brain. If you had to take a bet on things to be found in Billie's brain, you'd be well advised to put money on "mirror neurons". Mirror neurons are nerve cells that fire when the sight of someone else's action triggers a matched response  -  they seem to be what makes yawning contagious. 

 A lot of learning may require this way of linking perception to action  -  and it seems that, in people, so may some forms of empathy. Mirror neurons are important to scientists attempting to find the basis of the way the human mind works, or at least to find correlates of that working, in the anatomy of human brains. The fact that those anatomical correlates keep turning up in non-human brains, too, is one of the current reasons for seeing animals as also being things with minds. 

 There are mirror neurons; there are spindle cells (also called von Economo neurons) which play a role in the expression of empathy and the processing of social information. 

 Chimpanzee brains have parts corresponding to Broca's area and Wernicke's area which, in people, are associated with language and communication. 

 Brain mapping reveals that the neurological processes underlying what look like emotions in rats are similar to those behind what clearly are emotions in humans. 

 As a group of neuroscientists seeking to sum the field up put it in 2012,

"Humans are not unique in possessing the neurological substrates that generate consciousness. Non-human animals, including all mammals and birds, and many other creatures…also possess these neurological substrates."

But to say that animals have a biological basis for consciousness is not the same as saying they actually think or feel. 

 Here, ideas from the law may be more helpful than those from neurology. 

 When someone's state of being is clearly impaired by a calamity of some sort, it can fall to the courts to decide what level of legal protection should apply.

 In such cases courts apply tests such as: 

Is he or she self-aware? 

Can he recognize others as individuals? 

Can he regulate his own behavior? 

Does he experience pleasure or suffer pain (that is, show emotion)? 

Such questions reveal a lot about animals, too. The most common test of self-awareness is the ability to recognize yourself in a mirror. It implies you are seeing yourself as an individual, separate from other beings. 

 The test was formally developed in 1970 by Gordon Gallup, an American psychologist, though its roots go back further; Darwin wrote about Jenny, an orangutan, playing with a mirror and being "astonished beyond measure" by her reflection. 

 Dr Gallup daubed an odorless mark on the face of his subjects and waited to see how they would react when they saw their reflection. If they touched the mark, it would seem they realized the image in the mirror was their own, not that of another animal. Most humans show this ability between the ages of one and two. 

 Dr Gallup showed that chimpanzees have it, too. Since then, orangutans, gorillas, elephants, dolphins and magpies have shown the same ability. Monkeys do not; nor do dogs, perhaps because dogs recognize each other by smell, so the test provides them with no useful information. Recognizing yourself is one thing; what of recognizing others  -  not just as objects, but as things with purposes and desires like one's own, but aimed at different ends. Some animals clearly pass this test too. 

 Santino is a chimpanzee in Furuvik zoo in Sweden.

 In the 2000s zookeepers noticed that he was gathering little stockpiles of stones and hiding them around his cage, even constructing covers for them, so that at a later time he would have something to throw at zoo visitors who annoyed him. Mathias Osvath of Lund University argues that this behavior showed various types of mental sophistication: 

Santino could remember a specific event in the past (being annoyed by visitors), prepare for an event in the future (throwing stones at them) and mentally construct a new situation (chasing the visitors away).

Chimps also understand that they can manipulate the beliefs of others; they frequently deceive each other in competition for food Philosophers call the ability to recognize that others have different aims and desires a "theory of mind". Chimpanzees have this. Santino seemed to have understood that zookeepers would stop him throwing stones if they could. 

 He therefore hid the weapons and inhibited his aggression: 

he was calm when collecting the stones, though agitated when throwing them.

An understanding of the capabilities and interests of others also seems in evidence at the Centre for Great Apes, a sanctuary in Florida, where male chimpanzees living with Knuckles, a 16-year-old with cerebral palsy, do not subject him to their usual dominance displays.

 Chimps also understand that they can manipulate the beliefs of others; they frequently deceive each other in competition for food. Another test of legal personhood is the ability to experience pleasure or pain  -  to feel emotions. This has often been taken as evidence of full sentience, which is why Descartes's followers thought animals were unable to feel, as well as reason. 

 Peter Singer, an Australian philosopher and doyen of "animal rights", argues that, of all the emotions, suffering is especially significant because, if animals share this human capacity, people should give consideration to animal suffering as they do to that of their own kind. Animals obviously show emotions such as fear. 

 But this can be taken to be instinctual, similar to what happens when people cry out in pain. Behaviorists had no trouble with fear, seeing it as a conditioned reflex that they knew full well how to create.

 The real question is whether animals have feelings which involve some sort of mental experience. 

 This is not easy. No one knows precisely what other people mean when they talk about their emotions; knowing what dumb beasts mean is almost impossible. 

 That said, there are some revealing indications  -  most notably, evidence for what could be seen as compassion.  

    Some animals seem to display pity, or at least concern, for diseased and injured members of their group. Stronger chimps help weaker ones to cross roads in the wild. Elephants mourn their dead (see "The grieving elephant"). 

 In a famous experiment, Hal Markowitz, later director of the San Francisco zoo, trained Diana monkeys to get food by putting a token in a slot. When the oldest female could not get the hang of it, a younger unrelated male put her tokens in the slot for her and stood back to let her eat. There have also been observations of animals going out of their way to help creatures of a different species. 

 In March 2008, Moko, a bottlenose dolphin, guided two pygmy sperm whales out of a maze of sandbars off the coast of New Zealand.

 The whales had seemed hopelessly disoriented and had stranded themselves four times. There are also well-attested cases of humpback whales rescuing seals from attack by killer whales and dolphins rescuing people from similar attacks. 

 On the face of it, this sort of concern for others looks moral  -  or at least sentimental. In a few examples the protecting animals have been seen to pay a price for their compassion. Iain Douglas-Hamilton, who studies elephants, describes a young female which had been so severely injured that she could only walk at a snail's pace. 

 The rest of her group kept pace with her to protect her from predators for 15 years, though this meant they could not forage so widely. 

 As long ago as 1959, Russell Church of Brown University set up a test which allowed laboratory rats in half of a cage to get food by pressing a lever. The lever also delivered an electric shock to rats in the other half of the cage. When the first group realized that, they stopped pressing the lever, depriving themselves of food. 

 In a similar test on rhesus monkeys reported in the American Journal of Psychiatry in 1964, one monkey stopped giving the signal for food for 12 days after witnessing another receive a shock. 

 There are other examples of animals preferring some sort of feeling over food. In famous studies by an American psychologist, Harry Harlow, rhesus monkeys deprived of their mothers were given a choice between substitutes. 

 One was made of wire and had a feeding bottle, the other was cloth, but without food. The infants spent almost all their time hugging the cloth mother. If animals are self-aware, aware of others and have some measure of self-control, then they share some of the attributes used to define personhood in law. If they display emotions and feelings in ways that are not purely instinctive, there may also be a case for saying their feelings should be respected in the way that human feelings are. 

 But the attribute most commonly thought of as distinctively human is language.

 Can animals be said to use language in a meaningful way?  

    Animals communicate all the time and don't need big brains to do so. In the 1940s Karl von Frisch, an Austrian ethologist, showed that the "waggle dances" of honeybees pass on information about how far away food is and in what direction. 

 Birds sing long, complex songs either to mark territory or as mating rituals. So do pods of whales (see "The singing whales"). It is hard, though, to say what information, or intention, goes into all this. 

 The bees are more likely to be automatically downloading a report of their recent travels than saying,

"There's pollen thataway, slackers."

The vocalizations of, say, vervet monkeys have more to them. 

 Vervets make different alarm calls for different predators, demanding different responses. There is one for leopards (skitter up into the highest branches), for eagles (hide in the undergrowth) and for snakes (stand upright and look around). The monkeys need to recognise the different calls and know when to make which one.

 Animals brought up with humans can do much more. Chaser, a border collie, knows over 1,000 words. She can pull a named toy from a pile of other toys. 

 This shows that she understands that an acoustical pattern stands for a physical object. 

 Noam Chomsky, a linguist, once said only people could do that. Remarkably, if told to fetch a toy with a name she has not heard before placed in a pile of known, named objects, she works out what is being asked for. 

 Betsy, another border collie, will bring back a photograph of something, suggesting she understands that a two-dimensional image can represent a three-dimensional object. More impressive still are animals such as Washoe, a female chimpanzee which was taught sign language by two researchers at the University of Nevada. Washoe would initiate conversations and ask for things she wanted, like food. 

 But evidence that many animals can, when brought up with humans, tell their thoughts to others using a human language is not quite the same as saying they use language as people do. 

 Few have a smidgen of grammar, for example  -  that is, the ability to manipulate and combine words to create new meanings.

 It is true that dolphins in captivity can distinguish between "put the ball in the hoop" and "bring the hoop to the ball". Alex, an African grey parrot, combined words to make up new ones: he called an apple a "bannery", for example, a mixture of banana and cherry (see "The chatterbox parrot"). 

 But these are exceptional cases and the result of intense collaboration with humans. The use of grammar  -  certainly a complex grammar  -  has not been discerned in the wild. 

 Moreover, animals have no equivalent to the narratives that people tell one another.  

    If language can still be claimed as uniquely human, can anything else? Until recently, culture would have been held up as a second defining feature of humanity. 

 Complex ways of doing things which are passed down not by genetic inheritance or environmental pressure but by teaching, imitation and conformism have been widely assumed to be unique to people. But it is increasingly clear that other species have their own cultures, too. In "The Cultural Lives of Whales and Dolphins", Hal Whitehead of Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia, and Luke Rendell of the University of St Andrews, in Scotland, argue that all cultures have five distinctive features: 

a characteristic technology; teaching and learning; a moral component, with rules that buttress "the way we do things" and punishments for infraction; an acquired, not innate, distinction between insiders and outsiders; and a cumulative character that builds up over time. 

These attributes together allow individuals in a group to do things that they would not be able to achieve by themselves. For the first feature, look no further than the crow. New Caledonian crows are the champion toolmakers of the animal kingdom. They make hooks by snipping off V-shaped twigs and nibbling them into shape. 

 They fashion Pandanus leaves into toothed saws. And in different parts of the island they make their tools in different ways. 

 Studies by Gavin Hunt of the University of Auckland showed that the hooks and saws in two sites on New Caledonia differed systematically in size, in the number of cuts needed to make them and even according to whether they were predominantly left-handed or right-handed. 

 To the extent that culture means "the way we do things around here", the two groups of crows were culturally distinct. Chimpanzees are now known to manipulate over two dozen implements: clubs to beat with, pestles to grind with, fly whisks, grass stalks with which to fish for termites, spongy leaves to soak up water, rocks as nutcrackers. Like New Caledonian crows, different groups use them slightly differently. 

 William McGrew of Cambridge University argues that the tool sets of chimpanzees in western Tanzania are just as complex as the simplest human tools, such as early human artifacts found in east Africa or indeed those used in historic times by native peoples in Tasmania. The skill needed to make and use tools is taught. It is not the only example of teaching that animals have to offer. 

 Meerkats feed on scorpions  -  an exceptionally dangerous prey which you cannot learn to hunt by trial and error. So older meerkats teach younger ones gradually. First they incapacitate a scorpion and let the young meerkat finish it off. 

 Then they let their students tackle a slightly less damaged specimen, and so on in stages until the young apprentice is ready to hunt a healthy scorpion on its own. Pretty much all meerkats do this. Elsewhere what is taught can change, with just some animals picking up new tricks. As the story of Billie the tailwalker implies, whales and dolphins can learn fundamentally new behaviors from each other. In 1980, a humpback whale started to catch fish off Cape Cod in a new way.

 It would slam its flukes down on the surface of the water  -  lobtailing, as it is known  -  then dive and swim round emitting a cloud of bubbles. The prey, confused by the noise and scared of the rising circle of bubbles, bunched themselves together for protection. 

 The whale would then surge up through the middle of the bubble cloud with a mouth full of fish. Bubble feeding is a well known way for whales to freak out their food; so is lobtailing. Making the first a systematic set-up to the second, though, was apparently an innovation  -  and became very popular. 

 By 1989, just nine years after the first Cape Cod whale started lobtail feeding, almost half the humpbacks in the area were at it. Most were younger whales which, since their mothers did not use the new trick, could not have inherited it. 

 Researchers think young whales copied the first practitioner, spreading the technique through imitation. How the first one got the idea is a mystery  -  as is the question of whether it is actually a superior way of feeding, or merely an increasingly fashionable one. Cultures rely not only on technologies, techniques and teaching but on rules of accepted behavior. 

 That things should be fair seems a widespread requirement among social animals. 

 At a canine research centre at Eotvos Lorand University in Budapest, for example, dogs frequently chosen to take part in tests are shunned by other dogs.

 It turns out that all the dogs want to take part in these tests because they receive human attention; those which are chosen too often are seen as having got unfair advantage. 

 Capuchin monkeys taking part in experiments keep track of the rewards they are getting. If one is offered a poor reward (such as a slice of cucumber), while another gets a tasty grape, the first will refuse to continue the test. Chimpanzees do this, too. Most cultures distinguish between outsiders and insiders and animals are no exceptions. Orcas, also known as killer whales, are particularly striking in this regard, having a repertoire of calls which are distinctive to the pod in which they live, a sort of dialect. 

 Dr Whitehead and Dr Rendell compare them to tribal markings. 

 Orcas are unusual in that different pods tend to feed on different prey and rarely interbreed. Most of the time, pods studiously ignore each another. But occasionally one will ferociously attack another. This cannot have anything to do with competition for food or females. 

 Lance Barrett-Lennard of the Vancouver Aquarium attributes it to xenophobia  -  a particularly extreme and aggressive way of distinguishing between insiders and outsiders. But if animals display four of the five attributes that go to make up a culture, there is one they do not share. Perhaps the most distinctive thing about human cultures is that they change over time, building upon earlier achievements to produce everything from iPhones and modern medicine to democracy. Nothing like this has been observed in animals. 

 Particular aspects of animal behaviour change in ways that might seem cultural, and disruptive change is certainly possible.

 In the 1990s, for example, South African culling policies that saw the oldest elephants shot and their children redistributed led to large changes in their normally orderly matriarchal societies. 

 Young elephants became abnormally aggressive, since there were no longer any elders to rein them back. In other cases such disruption can seem, anthropomorphically, not so bad (see "the peaceful baboons"). But whether the shocks are good or bad, animal societies have yet to show steady, adaptive change  -  any cultural progress. 

 Knowledge accumulates with the oldest individuals  -  when drought struck Tarangire national park in Tanzania in 1993 the elephant families that survived best were those led by matriarchs which remembered the severe drought of 1958  -  but it goes to the graveyard with them.  

    There is a great deal more to learn about animal minds. 

 Grammatical language can pretty thoroughly be ruled out; learned toolmaking for some species is now indubitable: but many conclusions are in the middle, neither definitively in nor out. 

 Whether you accept them depends partly on the standard of evidence required. If the question of animal empathy were being tested in a criminal court, demanding proof beyond reasonable doubt, you might hesitate to find that it exists. If the trial were a civil one, requiring a preponderance of evidence, you would probably conclude that animals had empathy. Using that standard, one can hazard three conclusions. 

 First, various animals do have minds, The physiological evidence of brain functions, their communications and the versatility of their responses to their environments all strongly support the idea.

 Primates, corvids and cetaceans also have attributes of culture, if not language or organized religion (though Jane Goodall, a noted zoologist, sees chimps as expressing a pantheistic pleasure in nature). Next, animals' abilities are patchy compared with those of humans. 

 Dogs can learn words but do not recognize their reflections. Clark's nutcracker, a member of the crow family, buries up to 100,000 seeds in a season and remembers where it put them months later  -  but does not make tools, as other corvids do. 

 These specific, focused abilities fit with some modern thinking about human minds, which sees them less as engines of pure reason that can be applied in much the same way to all aspects of life as bundles of subroutines for specific tasks. 

 On this analysis a human mind might be a Swiss army knife, an animal mind a corkscrew or pair of tweezers. This suggests a corollary  -  that there will be some dimensions in which animal minds exceed humans. 

 Take the example of Ayumu, a young chimpanzee who lives at the Primate Research Institute of the University of Kyoto. Researchers have been teaching Ayumu a memory task in which a random pattern of numbers appears fleetingly on a touchscreen before being covered by electronic squares. 

 Ayumu has to touch the on-screen squares in the same order as the numbers hidden beneath them. 

 Humans get this test right most of the time if there are five numbers and 500 milliseconds or so in which to study them. With nine numbers, or less time, the human success rate declines sharply. 

 Show Ayumu nine numbers flashed up for just 60 milliseconds and he will nonchalantly tap out the numbers in the right order with his knuckles. There are humans with so called eidetic, or flash, memories who can do something similar  -  for chimps, though, this seems to be the norm.

 Is it an attribute that chimps have evolved since their last common ancestor with humans for some reason  -  or,

One that humans have lost over the same period of time? 

More deeply, how might it change what it is for a chimp to have a mind? 

How different is having minds in a society where everyone remembers such things? 

Animals might well think in ways that humans cannot yet decipher because they are too different from the ways humans think  -  adapted to sensory and mental realms utterly unlike that of the human, perhaps realms that have not spurred a need for language. 

 There is, for example, no doubt that octopuses are intelligent; they are ferociously good problem solvers. But can scientists begin to imagine how an octopus might think and feel? All that said, the third general truth seems to be that there is a link between mind and society which animals display. 

 The wild animals with the highest levels of cognition (primates, cetaceans, elephants, parrots) are, like people, long-lived species that live in complex societies, in which knowledge, social interaction and communication are at a premium. 

 It seems reasonable to speculate that their minds  -  like human ones  -  may well have evolved in response to their social environment (see "The lonely orca"). 

 And this may be what allows minds on the two sides of the inter-species gulf to bridge it.  

    Off Laguna, in southern Brazil, people and bottlenose dolphins have fished together for generations. The dolphins swim towards the beach, driving mullet towards the fishermen. 

 The men wait for a signal from the dolphins  -  a distinctive dive  -  before throwing their nets. 

 The dolphins are in charge, initiating the herding and giving the vital signal, though only some do this. The people must learn which dolphins will herd the fish and pay close attention to the signal, or the fishing will fail. Both groups of mammals must learn the necessary skills. 

 Among the humans, these are passed down from father to son; among the dolphins, from mother to calf. 

 In this example, how much do the species differ?