#note that none of this applies to the New 52 version because that is not Tim Drake

[soleminisanction]

There’s a post going around about how Jason and Tim parallel each other because Jason’s tragedies are narratively driven and Tim’s are a result of his own actions and. I have some thoughts about it but wanted to hear yours

I've seen that post. I don't agree with it at all, mostly because I think it's incredibly forced to call Tim a tragedy in any sense of the word.

There's certainly A period of time when you could call Tim's life a tragedy, but that's the period between War Games and Final Crisis. And frankly, you couldn't find a better textbook case of being caught up in narrative machinations beyond your own control than all of the losses Tim has in that time of his life, because literally none of them are actually about him at all.

Steph's death at the end of War Game isn't about Tim or even Steph, she got full-on fridged for Bruce's manpain in a way that if you think about it for even half a second makes no sense and was clearly just done for the shock value. Jack technically dies because Tim is Robin, but only tangentially; he was actually set up to be a red herring for a completely unrelated murder conspiracy that just happened to involve other superheroes. Neither Infinite nor Final Crisis had anything to do with Tim's personal decisions, so Kon, Bruce, Dana, their passing all had nothing to do with Tim. Hell, Kon died because of an IRL legal dispute over the Superboy trademarks. Darla was innocent collateral damage, while Bart's death and Cass's brainwashing were both things that happened well away from Tim with no connection to him at all.

None of these things happened because of anything Tim did, he literally just got caught in the crossfire of other peoples' narratives. Even getting attacked by Jason and then Damian had nothing to do with him, and everything to do with them and their personal issues.

Red Robin absolutely starts with Tim in a bad place and then makes it worse through his own choices but it's in no way a tragedy, it's a triumphant-rise-from-a-terrible-fall drama.

Literally the only canonical version of Tim that the idea of "tragedy because of his own actions" applies to is, very specifically, the "Titans Tomorrow" Batman as he appears in the aftermath of Infinite Crisis. Prior to that, it was heavily suggested that the evil future Titans came about due to severe trauma from surviving the Crisis while most of the older-gen heroes got wiped out. After, they introduced the idea that evil!Bart and evil!Conner were the clones that Tim had made in the basement, and in that specific context, TT!Batman!Tim orchestrated his own fall.

But every other version out there? It's nonsense. Tim isn't a tragedy. You can't even argue that he's defined by a tragedy, even his backstory is all about being in the wrong (right) place at the right (wrong) time. Even his mother's death had nothing to do with him.

So yeah, I just kinda ignore that post because its primary thesis makes no sense.

[megashadowdragon]

This is one that will definitely be updated over time to add in any jokes someone may add in their own ones that Merlin may have "Helped" with. If you see any, happily tell me about em!

Much like the last one, I will limit it to 50 and start adding more as time goes along, when I hit one hundred from not only my ideas but other peoples, it will be reposted.

1. Under no circumstances will any of these rules be removed/changed, Merlin and any of his future counterparts will all be under the effects of these rules.

1a. It was revealed that we actually had to make a Geass for him to understand the above. This list is going to be a pain in the ass.

2. I will remember that "Excalibur Galatine" is not "Insta-Tan in a Blade" and will not pressure Gawain into using it while at the beach.

3. Spiking the Irish servants meed with something from the Pirates Arsenal is not allowed, the damages to the Simulation Room are still extensive.

4. "I am basically God" is not the best way to get into the pants of Jeanne D'Arc, I will keep that in mind.

4a. "I can kill God" is definitely the best way to get into Avengers pants.

5. Singing any form of meme songs is not allowed, no matter how catchy they are.

6. "Hero Creation" is not to be called "Bockity Boocus, Your Vagene is a Penis." Even if it did cause someone to laugh, the confusion that soon enough followed was not amusing.

7. Stop forcing Mordred to follow you with a boombox playing Shrek Songs, its basically breaking rule 5.

8. Yes, Soup is delicious. No, telling Arthur to shove the Potion of Youth in it isn't. Just because I can say that it helped with Kiyohime and Masters relationship, does not mean I am innocent.

9. Coaxing Arthur into punching Gilgamesh is not allowed, no matter how much of a "Fucking Bastard" he is for trying to force your "Pure and Wholesome" daughter into marriage.

10. Just because Fou hates you, doesn't mean you can piss him off then dodge so he kicks the nearest servant behind you in the face.

11. Writing a sick note is not a good way to sit in my room and watch anime. Servants can't get sick.

12. Just because master feels useless, does not mean that I should bring the "Card System" into Chaldea or make him a magical girl.

13. Could you stop sending Arthur to the kitchen to make you meals? Its getting frustrating because he cooks for everyone -Nameless

14. Giving Kiyohime "advice" is no longer allowed. No more info is needed.

15. "Magic" is not a viable excuse when someone asks you how or why you did something.

16. Just because you were a Grand Caster, does not mean you can waltz into the Babylon Room and kick Gilgamesh off of the throne under the pretense that you are of "Higher Class".

17. Yes, Lancelot did cuck your "Pure and Wholesome" kids. No, you cannot show him the Pain while dressed up as a naruto character.

17a. Do not use gravity manipulation in the dining room, tables are hard to replace.

17b. Turns out that I cannot summon Cerberus without people being pissed, who would have guessed?

18. It is understood that you are a massive playboy, but stop trying to convine the female servants that a Strip Club is a good idea.

19. Providing Arthur with any items is not allowed, this includes and is not limited to: Corrupt Grails Excalizords Motorbikes Copies of Braveheart Illusionary Spells Voice Manipulator Ideas

19a. The above applies to any future servants that are easy to manipulate.

20. We understand you can use magic to make items, but never shove a key into the Key Hole on Abigail's forehead again.

21. Painting every single one of Kintoki's items is not allowed. This goes for double if you try to call him Gintoki.

22. "Suiten Nikkō Amaterasu Yano Shizu-Ishi" does not translate to "Eightfold Blessing of How Ugly Your Are", not even if it uses a mirror as a focal point.

23. "You're probably related to me somehow" is not the best ice breaker for new servants.

24. Becoming female is not allowed.

24a. BECOMING FEMALE IS NOT ALLOWED.

24b. NO, NOT EVEN IF YOU ADD A DICK!

25. While going to the beach is fun, do not reach into other versions of Chaldea under the pretense of hanging out with "Your Friends" Merlin.

26. We understand that Fou is small and has been running in the corner for the last few years, but please don't make Werefou a thing.

27. Fanservice is not needed. We do not need to see Julius shirtless. Though, the slimmed down version was not something I would complain about -Gudako

28. Pretending you are Aqua from Konosuba is not allowed when you gift Blackbeard the ability to take panties.

29. "Arthur stole something" is not the best conversation starter and I will not use it in any further lines unless a Code Blonde level security announcement is needed in the future.

30. Trying to "Persuade" someone to do something is not allowed when the persuader has a rockin body and white hair. Just because you can become female does not mean you can do it -Gudao

31. Please stop annoying Antonio Salieri by turning into him and proclaiming Mozart to be a god.

31a. Stop turning into Master and offering "Services" to female servants.

31b. Don't turn into the director.

32. Just because you know magic, does not mean you should use it.

33. Highschool DXD is not what you should make Arthur watch, nor should you attempt to recreate dress break. Especially to use during combat to distract male/female servants.

34. Ibaraki is not to be teased for supposedly using dye on her hair, she is a natural blonde and should not be teased.

35. Hugging is fun. But please, don't hug Gudao while looking like Kiyohime. Especially when a female servant who is a weebit hostile is watching -Da Vinci

36. Convincing Nero and Elizabeth to hold a concert on the tables in the Dining Room is not appreciated. We may not have proof it was you, but we shall assume none the less -Staff

37. "Holy Hand Grenade" is not another name for "Excalibur", stop caling it as such.

37a. "Arondight" is no longer to be referred to "Sword of Promised NTR", no matter how much Osakabehime wishes to draw it.

37b. "Castle Condom" is not an alternative name for "Lord Camelot".

38. Do not, under any circumstances let Merlin into the Rayshift Room without anyone to see what he does. The last time he took control of it, he changed to location and hid it with a spell. Everyone was sent to that one time he had an orgy with a Queen and her kids.

39. Shouting out that Karna would make a hot female in both the looks and literal departments is not appreciated. Even if it did cause Arjuna to choke on his tea.

40. "You let [Insert Name] do it!" is not an excuse to do something you are banned from doing. Stop trying.

41. I am banned from making any mass produces/weaponized version of the Polygamist Castration Fist, no matter how much we dislike Gilgamesh, it will not be used on him.

41a. Maybe just a little.

42. Yelling out a random swear word is not appreciated whenever you stub your toe near Nursery Rhyme.

43. Quoting erotic novels is not needed. ESPECIALLY ON THE BATTLEFIELD!

44. Merlin is banned from any type of erotic media, if he is found reading or watching, he will be banned from leaving his room for a month and all of his things will be confiscated.

45. I am no longer allowed to hand out Invisibility Cloaks to people who quote Gurren Lagann.

46. "Reverse Swallow" does not mean "I Got Drunk, Time To Throw Up", it never has and never will.

47. Stop renaming Noble Phantasms in the Database, it isn't amusing.

48. Walking up to an American Servant and asking "Hows the Slave Trade?" is not a good way to start a conversation.

49. "Arthur did it" is not longer a viable excuse when everything goes down hill.

50. WHY DO PEOPLE EVEN LISTEN TO YOU!?

51. We understand that you love your Noble Phantasm, but the prana strain is too much. Especially when you summon Fou and proceed to throw him off of the tower mid NP.

51. I am prohibited from bodyswaping Blackbeard with any of the female servants after the Raikou and Abby incident.

51a. "Cosplay" purposes is not a valid reason.

51b. "Bodsplay" sounds ridiculous and not valid too.

51c. NO IT IS NOT A GOOD IDEA TO DO IT WITH GILGAMESH INSTEAD. AGAIN.

52. I will not turn Gilgamesh into a woman and make him taste a gallon of his own medicine.

52a. Nor I will use my "incubus" treasure to discipline him.

54. I shall not summon Freud to help Mo-chan with her daddy issues.

55. Merlin is banned from requesting any form of writing from Shakespeare.

55a. Merlin may not convince servants or Chadlea Staff to request literary works to be commissioned on his behalf to Shakespear, even if the servant in question agrees with the request.

55b. Especially from Kiyohime or Blackbeard

comments on reddit

[alcalavicci]

1988 interview with Dean. This is a really good one and helps bring more of his life into perspective. Note: the newspaper originally censored his swearing, but I’ve put it back.

Guthman, Edward. "Dean Stockwell: Third Time's a Charm." The San Francisco Examiner (San Francisco, California), August 14, 1988.

“Six years ago, Dean Stockwell's acting career had turned to dust. Reduced to playing parts in unreleasable, made-in-Mexico movies that now make him cringe, Stockwell decided to chuck it all and get out of Hollywood.

“Along with his second wife, Joy, Stockwell moved to Santa Fe, settled down under the wide New Mexico sky and applied for a real estate license. He even placed an ad in Daily Variety to announce his exile: 'Dean Stockwell will help you with all your real estate needs in the new center of creative energy.'

“Stockwell never sold a house; he didn't need to. Instead, almost as soon as he'd relocated, things started happening to the former 1940s child star. It began with a small part in David Lynch's 'Dune,' and escalated with an important supporting role in Wim Wenders' highly regarded 'Paris, Texas.'

“Moving back to California to cash in on his fortune, Stockwell acted in 'Beverly Hills Cop II,' 'Gardens of Stone,' and 'To Live and Die in L.A.' He also played a cameo role, as Howard Hughes, in the newly released 'Tucker: The Man and His Dream.' And in 'Blue Velvet,' David Lynch's American nightmare, he delivered a chilling cameo as Ben, a waxlike, sexually ambiguous drug dealer.

“And now, at 52, Stockwell says he's found 'the favorite role I've had, by far.'

“The picture is 'Married to the Mob,' a dark, romantic comedy by Jonathan Demme ('Melvin and Howard,' 'Stop Making Sense') and Stockwell plays Mafia don Tony 'the Tiger' Russo. Wearing an Al Capone fedora and full-length vicuna coat, Tony is a rich, sardonic, larger-than-life character -- the kind Stockwell has never had a chance to play until now.

“Opening Friday at the Galaxy and UA the Movies, 'Married to the Mob' has been touted as Demme's first shot at a genuine box-office winner. Set in Long Island, New Jersey and Florida, it stars Michelle Pfeiffer as Angela DeMarco, a young Mafia wife who tries to start a new life when her husband, Frankie 'the Cucumber' DeMarco, is pumped full of lead during a hot-tub tryst at the Fantasia Motel.

“When Stockwell's character isn't ordering hits, drug deals and the dumping of toxic waste, he's lusting assiduously after the gorgeous widow. Meanwhile, bumbling FBI agent Mike Downey (played by Matthew Modine) is jumping through hoops trying to shadow Angela and 'catch Tony with his pants down.' Instead, he falls in love with Angela.

“During a recent luncheon interview, not far from his central California home, Stockwell spoke about the film, about his new happiness as the father of two children and about the bizarre trajectory of his long career. Dressed in a long-sleeved shirt and slacks, wearing a Panama hat and drawing first on a cigaret, later on a cigar, Stockwell emanates prosperity and calm.

“'I don't know why I was unemployed so long,' he says, reflecting on a fallow period that started in the '60s and lasted the better part of two decades. 'The only thing I can figure out in my own mind is that, for some reason or another, I was being made to wait until a certain time in my life when my talent would reach its full maturity and fruition.'

“Ironically, he says, he felt just as equipped 10 years ago to do the work he's doing now -- 'only I couldn't get fucking arrested.'

“Today, Stockwell sees harmony in the fact that his new success coincides with the arrival of two children. His son, Austin, will be 5 in November, and his daughter, Sophia, turns 3 this month. Inordinately proud and protective, he refuses to allow his children to be photographed, and also requests that the town in which he and his family reside not be named. (There were no children from his first marriage, to Millie Perkins, which lasted from 1960 to 1962.)

“'I want to make a lot of money and I want to put it away for my children,' he says. To that end, Stockwell has been snapping up job offers. 'A lot of people ask me, "How have you been able to choose these wonderful things you're doing? Have you been very selective?" And I have to tell them, "I haven't been choosing what I'm doing." Things have been coming and I've been accepting virtually anything that's come.'

“Stockwell's ambition is so great that, for the first time in his life, he actively pursues aspects of his career that he once shunned- interviews, for example.

“'My entire motivation in life is my family,' he says. 'I don't need to get an award. I don't need recognition. I've had that already. What I need is to provide. The best way I can provide is to be successful, and the best way I can be successful is to take advantage of all the things at my disposal to achieve that, one of which certainly is press.'

“Take a look at the young Stockwell, specifically the version that emerges from old magazine and newspaper interviews, and you meet another person altogether.

“Robbed of a normal childhood, Stockwell had made 22 films by the time he was 15 -- including 'The Boy with Green Hair,' 'Kim,' 'Anchors Aweigh,' and the Oscar-winning 'Gentleman's Agreement.' Working nonstop, he had a privileged life that millions of children probably envied, but he loathed it nonetheless.

“The son of show-business parents -- his father, Harry Stockwell, was the voice of the Prince in 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,' and his mother, Betty Veronica, was a former stage dancer -- Stockwell made his professional debut at 7. It all happened by a fluke: when Stockwell accompanied his older brother, Guy, on a Broadway audition, the casting director took a liking to both boys, and cast each one. The play, aptly enough, was called 'Innocent Voyage,' and it led to an MGM contract for curly-haired Dean.

“From the beginning, the pressure on young Stockwell was intense. His parents had divorced when he was 6, and when his father defaulted on child-support payments, Dean reluctantly became the family provider. Over a six-year period, he averaged three to four films per year.

“At home, he says, 'There was a lot of friction... I was getting all the attention, but I hated it. [Guy] couldn't appreciate that, because he wasn't getting the attention. He had all these friends, his peer group, that he took for granted. I had none and I resented him for being able to live that way. I was fucking lonely.'

“When he was 13, chained to a seven-year contract, Stockwell was described by one magazine as 'a young rebel who despises acting and resents every moment it takes from his fleeting boyhood.' Many years later, Stockwell told columnist Hedda Hopper, 'Child actors exist in a sort of limbo between childhood and maturity and belong to neither. Adults take them too seriously and other children are either awed or hostile. A child actor can find friends in neither group.'

“Finally, Stockwell fled Hollywood when he was 16. He cut off his curly locks, started using his real name, Robert Stockwell, and for the next five years roamed the country, working menial jobs and disavowing his true identity. 'People that might have known me from seeing my films knew me as a young child,' he remembers. 'Now I was 17 and I wasn't that recognizable.'

“Around the time of his 21st birthday, Stockwell was pushing papers as mail boy to a Manhattan plumbing firm. 'Of all the jobs that I'd had in those intervening years,' he remembers. 'I think I hated that worse than anything. I came to the realization I had no training at anything. My primary education was very skimpy, very poor, and happened under the worst type of conditions. I was literally at the mercy of the world.'

“Most of Stockwell's childhood earnings were squandered by crooked accountants, he says, and he knew that the tiny sum being held in a trust wouldn't last forever. 'So I thought, "What am I gonna do? Well, let's go back and attack this [acting career] again, and see if I can do it a little more on my terms."'

“What followed for Stockwell was a brief but impressive 'second career.' He starred in the 1959 film 'Compulsion,' based on the Leopold-Loeb case of the '20s, and won a joint acting award with Orson Welles and Bradford Dillman at the Cannes Film Festival. He played the lead in the 1960 film of D. H. Lawrence's 'Sons and Lovers,' and in 1962 scored the plum role of Edmund Tyrone in Sidney Lumet's film version of 'Long Day's Journey Into Night,' holding his own alongside Katharine Hepburn, Ralph Richardson and Jason Robards.

“Stockwell was winning the best parts, but found his attention drifting elsewhere. What was happening, he says, were the first signs of the '60s youth revolution. 'It captured my imagination as much as anybody's. And it represented to me -- I can see this in retrospect -- something in childhood that I had missed: the freedom and loving being alive, without responsibilities and work and having to report to the studio every day, and deal with fans and interviews and shit that I hated when I was a kid.'

“So Stockwell called his agent, said, 'I'm not workin',' and dropped out once again. When he tried to come back three years later, though, 'I found it very difficult, 'cause I'd been out-of-sight, out-of-mind.' What followed was a long period of marginal employment: He found some TV work, took parts in low-budget trash ('The Dunwich Horror') and occasional oddities (Dennis Hopper's 'The Last Movie') and co-directed a film with musician Neil Young ('Human Highway') but often just didn't work at all. At one point, he went 18 months without a job.

“Today, along with his buddy Hopper, Stockwell is enjoying a major career renaissance. And with his starring role in 'Married to the Mob,' he says, he's never felt more confident.

“'I knew before I started the film that this character was going to work in spades,' he says, adding that Demme, as director, deserves credit for taking a risk with such offbeat casting. Instead of picking Peter Falk, Vincent Gardenia or another ethnically identified actor to play the Mafia don, he went with Stockwell (who is actually half-Italian on his mother's side).

“Demme's inspiration occurred on a flight from Los Angeles to New York, when he opened a copy of the Hollywood Reporter. Stockwell had just changed agents, and in order to announce the fact, had taken out a full-page ad. Demme saw the picture, and instantly recognized his Tony.

“Weirdly enough, Stockwell made another film immediately prior to 'Married to the Mob': a Canadian feature called 'Palais Royale,' due for an October release, in which he plays a character almost identical to Tony Russo.

“'It's very curious,' he says. 'For all my years I'd never had a role like this come my way, and here it was twice. The Mafia don in New York, the Mafia don in Toronto, both of them colorful and charming and also threatening. And I just thought, "What am I gonna do? It's the same character." So I decided to do the same character in both those movies.'

“To take the coincidence 'one nauseating step further,' Stockwell says he's also got a part in the recently completed 'Backtrack,' Hopper's next film. This time he plays a corrupt mob lawyer, dropping the Italian accent for a generalized East Coast sound.

“It would be difficult to find a film actor who's busier than Stockwell at this moment. And it would be difficult to find anyone whose job history better illustrates the vicissitudes, serendipities and insecurity of a Hollywood career.

“Looking back on his misfortunes -- at the career that he was forced to accept as a child, and the humiliation he felt when he couldn't maintain it as an adult -- Stockwell says he's not bitter. 'When you reach your maturity, I think it behooves you to accept the fact that it's absolutely futile and fruitless even to speculate on changing anything in your life. All you can do is get embittered. So I accept everything that's happened as part of my life, and try to push it in a positive direction from the moment right now.'”

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Disability and James

@zarohk asked for my thoughts on a Disability Studies/Media Studies perspective on the disability depictions in Animorphs.  [PLEASE NOTE: I am nondisabled, so if I err, please tell me so.]

I’ve mentioned before that James is one of my faves, and possibly my favorite minor character who isn’t a yeerk host.  His introduction pulls off a seemingly impossible feat through not only creating a likable Sixth Ranger, but creating a likable Sixth Ranger who comes after David.  James is also a complex, nuanced character whose disability is a feature but not a summation of his personality.  Plus, he’s a masculine boy who is all about about nurturing others, which always makes me happy.

A few places where I commend the depiction of James:

He leads a social community of disabled kids who help each other.  It’s a big part of third-wave progressivism to emphasize sub-communities and various identities helping each other out: women supporting women, queer pride, Latinx-American culture, etc.  That’s what we see with the Auximorphs, especially James.  James’s motivation is somewhere between 99% “help my roomies” and 100% “help my roomies.”  His initial response to Jake and Cassie explaining the war is “so what, a bunch of ableds are gonna get taken by yeerks, not my problem.”  It’s only when Cassie points out that the yeerks are eugenicists who murder disabled humans that he switches to “okay, I guess we’ll go fight in your stupid war.”  He insists on even the kids who won’t be fighting (Pedro, Tuan) getting the power to morph, and tells Jake that he’ll take suggestions but not orders.

He emphasizes his own and Pedro’s bodily autonomy.  James actually goes so far as to throw Jake onto the floor when Jake tries to grab his wheelchair — a move that emphasizes James has the right to move his own body around, and that that includes prostheses.  Everyday ableism too often involves random strangers taking charge of the bodies of disabled people, attempting to guide blind pedestrians or push wheelchairs around without asking permission to move a person’s body like that.  "My body, my business” is obviously a huge motif in Animorphs, and James pretty explicitly extends that to prostheses as well as fleshy limbs.

He’s nobody’s sidekick, and nobody’s fool.  When the Animorphs first tell James that they’re alien-fighting shapeshifters, he assumes that they’re here to prank the disabled kids who they think must be desperate for attention.  He barely gives them the time of day even when they prove themselves, and he doesn’t “play nice” even when they add him to the team.  James defies the cliché of the disabled kid desperate for the approval of nondisabled peers, and specifically calls it out.  He’s the leader of a semi-independent unit who has his own agenda, rather than being at the original Animorphs’ beck and call.  Like Toby and her hork-bajir, he’s here to make sure that his group and his loved ones don’t get left behind when the war ends and intersectional identities threaten their rights once again.

He kicks ass.  James is competent, tough, skillful, and self-confident with or without the Animorphs.  There’s a fairly realistic period where he has to learn the basics of morphing along with the other Auximorphs, but once he learns he’s highly effective.  He saves Jake’s life during the Air Force battle (#53), rescues the original Animorphs from Tom’s yeerk (#50), and helps Ax and Cassie escape a mob of morph-controllers who have them cornered in a subway tunnel (#52).  He’s agentic and powerful, something we don’t see enough of in disabled child characters.

He emphasizes that the more-privileged communicator has to be the one to do the work of meeting in the middle.  Cassie notes in #50 that James puts in a lot of work to communicate with Pedro (who is paralyzed) and Timmy (who has a speech disorder).  James is the one who can hear/speak in a fairly normative fashion, so James often “translates” for Timmy — but he always does so by letting Timmy finish a sentence rather than cutting him off by trying to guess what he’ll say next.  James is the one who can work the stereo in his and Pedro’s room, so he makes sure that he always lists genres and waits for a blink of confirmation before he changes the music.  James also defers to Pedro’s request for country western in spite of being a punk rock fan himself, because James remains conscious of the fact that if he doesn’t like the music he can always leave the room, while Pedro doesn’t have that option.

He’s thoroughly individuated.  James likes Blink 182 and dislikes reality TV.  He uses his morphs for agility — peregrine falcon, lion — more than firepower.  He spends a lot of time on his hair, and he treasures privacy as much as he values his friends.  He repeatedly calls Cassie and Jake on their bullshit, in spite of being visibly scared to do so as the new kid on the team.  One wouldn’t necessarily think that these are huge accomplishments (and to be clear, they’re not) but there are way way too many minor characters in wheelchairs, especially sci-fi stories, that don’t get characterized beyond their various emotions and thoughts that directly relate to their wheelchairs.

A few places where James falls into the common traps of implied ableism creeping into fiction, as written about in Narrative Prosthesis:

He gets “cured”.  The fact that James’s body is, however implicitly, depicted as a “problem” that must be “fixed” suggests that the theoretical ideal point is the nondisabled body he would have had if not for the car accident.  Like I said, it’s 100% fine if a disabled character gets written as preferring to be nondisabled, but if the series offers the unquestioned assumption that the “correct” body is the nondisabled version, then that’s... not great.

His disability is presented as a mystery that needs solving.  Like Loren, James gets presented with an implicit frame of “why are you like this?” that assumes his body is “abnormal” and therefore begs a question.  In James’s case, it comes in the form of Collette explaining why he’s disabled (a car crash) before we ever even hear from James himself.  Again, it’d be fine if this was the only time this happened, but the fact that the series “explains” almost all of the disabled characters (Taylor, Loren, Mertil, Kelly, Pedro) suggests that disability is something that needs explaining because it’s aberrant.

Some of the physical descriptions of James are a bit eugenicist.  After he first demorphs, Cassie says “standing over the group now, steady and strong, was James. He was taller than Jake, broader-shouldered... long and muscular” and describes how James helps to carry the other Auximorphs as they acquire battle morphs (#50).  James gets presented as a contrast point to the Auximorphs who remain disabled, because his body is presented as “correct” while theirs are not.  If it was just Cassie, that’d be one thing, but Ax says “unlike James, the others are physically helpless” (#50) and later Jake describes the contrast between James being strong and the other Auximorphs being “weak” and “faintly pathetic” (#53).  In the process, the descriptions tie together the ideas of being masculine, being independent, being physically strong, and being worthy of respect.  American rugged individualism, especially as it applies to white men and boys, has a dark side in that it often regards physical dependence on others as a sign of cowardice or weak will or moral failing.  That assumption underwrites some of the way that James gets described by the other Animorphs.

He gets killed.  By killing off James and his fellow Auximorphs, the series falls into the “kill or cure” narrative that Mitchel and Snyder trace throughout history for the overwhelming majority of disabled characters.  Disability is too often presented as being necessary to “solve” through death or cure, to the point where the Fries Test (designed to be a minimum threshold for disability representation, like the Bechdel Test for women) requires that disabled character(s) make it to the end of the story without being eradicated through cure or kill as the bare minimum condition that a story be somewhat less ableist.  Animorphs does not pass the Fries Test, because it eradicates its disabled characters through a combination of cures and kills.

Specifically, he gets killed to manipulate the emotions of a nondisabled character.  When Visser Three kills James, the moment is presented through Jake’s point of view, and it leads up to Jake’s decision to flush the Pool ship.  Maybe my biggest frustration is that that moment only serves to cause Jake pain and help push him off the rails.  It doesn’t change the plot of the final battle the way Tom’s death does, it doesn’t stop to give James a conscious choice the way Rachel’s death does, it just makes Jake sad and mad and reckless.  It’s the same dang dynamic as women in refrigerators: the less demographically privileged character becomes a prop for a more-privileged protagonist to have emotions about.

Anyway, to say it again: none of those individual elements of James’s story — death, cure, urgent backstory — would be necessarily problematic if there were equally-major disabled characters in Animorphs who didn’t demonstrate those elements.  It’s the fact that James demonstrates all of those elements and so do most of the other disabled characters that makes me wish the series had done better.

[m00nslippers]

Jason is a clever bitch and I love him, in RHATO Issue #32

Okay now we’re finally moving Jason closer to the Winick version that I think is most people’s favorite Red hood--it’s not there yet, but we’re seeing the hints. The cleverness, the charm, the unrepentant sass. Oh yes, we are going places, I like what I see.

Let’s dive in here.

Whoever made that post about Jason not even needing a cover story about being dead to revive his identity was kind of prophetic because here his cover is basically, “So I wasn’t actually dead. no more details, that’s it.” Which is pretty dang close.

And I’m not sure how he managed any of this without Bruce or Alfred finding out but that is damn impressive. We know they didn’t know because we see Alfred’s reaction shot to seeing him on TV. If we don’t see him interact with a few of the other Gotham vigilantes, (or at least see a reaction shot of them all like, “What!? Jason?! The guy we had to physically blackmail to attend galas is running a casino with parties every night? That Jason?!) at some point I’m going to be pretty disappointed, to be honest.

Also, as we already knew from the solicitations and previews, Jason is taking over the Iceburg lounge and looking fancy while he does it. I love it. Jason can put on an act with the best of the batboys. Look at this well dressed man! And his hair! He has hair again, praise the Lord, hallelujah!

Completely unrelated note, that reporter has some really fancy cuff earrings or something and I’m jealous.

I’m validated for noticing Suzie Su was behind Jason in the previews. She and her sisters are part of his crew basically. It’s actually nice to see villains/characters return, too often they are just one-shot or one-note baddies but Suzie has been there since New 52 RHATO and she got a bit of humanization in the Annual when we meet her sisters. She’s not just some creepy fat lady that creeps on Jason, she’s a big sister who is trying to do her best for her family and I like that Jason acknowledges that and brings her and her family in on his scheme and even gets them out of the crime business sort-of by giving them mostly legit employment.

The way he has a bunch of ladies following him around kind of reminds me of Dick with the girls from St. Hadrian's a little bit. But they were all super into Dick and these girls don’t seem interested in Jason at all except as like a boss, which I like.

Jason, this is the kind of thing you should ask about! Ugggghh ~

Wingman looked older in the last page of the previous issue for some reason, maybe he’s died his hair or something. So we still don’t know what’s going on with him. I was hoping we’d get something, a hint but we’ve literally got nothing to go on here. I honestly think he has some kind of direct relation to Jason. Either he’s his dad’s mind in a different inmates body, or maybe a lost cousin or brother or something, or has something to do with the future like he came from there. It’s got to be one of those things, nothing else makes sense that I can think of.

LOOK AT MY BEAUTIFUL BOY! JUST LOOK AT HIM. LOOK AT THOSE EYELASHES AND BLUE EYES AND THAT SMILE.

Anyone would be charmed. I think Jason is too much of an introvert to like this kind of public job exactly, but I also think he’d be good at it. Dick might be better, because he’s just a natural extrovert, but Jason is still up there. He’s a good actor, and he really cares about people so he’d take care of those he’s in charge of. Jason would be a good boss.

“Started from the bottom now we’re here,” that’s a Drake lyric.

Could these guys be bigger dorks?

Notice that Jason didn’t kill the guys that were causing trouble, he had Miggs (his nickname for Miguel) roll them off to the docks in a ball made with his powers and those dorks were totally right, the room he made was pretty gucci. You got taste, Miguel.These weren’t necessarily real bad guys, they were just punks, and Jason might be killing again but he doesn’t just kill any idiot that gets in his way or causes trouble.

Also, technically they might have been right about Night cheating, we don’t actually know how ‘legit’ the Su sisters are playing things.

I’m sort of torn on the way the colorist is depicting Miguel’s powers, like I miss the glowiness a little bit from New 52 Teen Titans. These look a little too much like normal bricks? But technically that might be better for Miguel, they can pass as normal bricks instead of a power when they have to. They looked clear or white before when the guys walked in there so maybe he can control their color/transparency and glowiness? I still would like to see them look glowy though.

A few things about Miguel: I think these panels illustrated pretty well what their dynamic is supposed to be. I know Jason called Bizarro his ‘friend’ but let’s be honest here, Bizarro isn’t Jason’s friend--he’s his little brother.

Jason compares Miguel to Bizarro and I think that’s key, he sees Miguel as like a little brother that he wants to help. He’s got powers that he doesn’t understand and people keep coming after him for them. I think with Miguel and Tim it was closer to a friendship of equals at least as far as Miguel saw. He admired and respected Tim as a leader and how he always seemed to know what to do, but in the end Miguel was older than Tim, he didn’t feel like he could completely lean on him. It looks like Miguel may have latched on to Jason in that way, since he has the bat-authority too and actually is older than him and a genuinely caring guy. And look at my boy Jason! He comforts and accepts him immediately, it’s so sweat.

Goddamn it, Jason is a good older brother! He’s the best freaking older brother, damn Bruce and the whole family’s bat-morals, man! You’re all missing this! He could have this with Tim and Damian and Duke and even Steph and Cass! He would love that! He would be so good at that! It’s a goddamn tragedy, is what it is.

Also it’s interesting how Miguel acknowledges the reboots, so are his powers related to reality-warping or something so he can sense it? Or it could just be more of this suggestion that a lot of people in the DC universe right now have memories from the previous continuity, so like it all kind of happened even if it technically didn’t type of thing. I kind of thought Miguel’s powers were energy projections made with his mind, like psionically, but maybe they are literally creating matter or something? I don’t know. I really need to read more New 52 Teen Titans to understand him and his powers.

And that line, “A loaded weapon in the hands of a confused teenager. What could go wrong?”

Wow, Jason, you really went there. Referenced you’re own crazy head-state when you went after Bruce in Under the Hood.

Jason is so self-deprecating, you guys.

“When Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept for there were no more worlds to conquer. “ This is apparently a quote from Die Hard, because of course it is. Jason is literally Jake Peralta from Brooklyn 99 confirmed.

Ugh, Lobdell’s version of Bruce is just such an asshole!

First of all, Jason hasn’t ‘betrayed him’ not even once, he was emotionally compromised and broke their agreement because he was acting on those feelings. He made a mistake. And Bruce cared more about his rules than Jason’s intentions or feelings or any of the good will they’d fostered in the last year or two. He acts like Jason sold him out or lied to him, when he never did any of those things.

Also, I don’t think saying, “stay out of Gotham and never come back or I’ll throw down and toss you in Arkham” is another chance, okay? It’s not like Jason got anything out of that deal, it was just Bruce not wanting to go through the trouble of hunting him down outside of Gotham because he straight-up knew that he wouldn’t be able to!

That Pretty Woman reference...

The funny thing is, Jason is more like the character who says that line than Bruce is. Bruce, kicking Jason out of the bat-family, is the one who is making the mistake. He could have had an ally, had say in what Jason did, had some limited control over him if he’d just forgiven him or talked to him at all, but because of his pride now he has none of that.

Now this, this is my shit right here. JASON HAS BRUCE BY THE BALLS. By going public with his identity he’s effectively made himself untouchable by Bruce. He’s got the identity of every Gotham vigilante in his hands, and honestly I really doubt Jason would ever give them up, even out of spite or hatred, he never did before when he could have, (he didn’t tell Hush Bruce’s identity, he just didn’t deny it when Hush figured it out, and we’re not sure if that’s even canon anymore anyway.) but it’s partly Bruce’s own doubt in Jason that is keeping his hands tied! That and the fact that if even one of his kids is outted as a vigilante it really puts the suspicion on him.

But seriously guys. Smart Jason is what Iive for.

God, Jason calling him dad, but only because he’s ‘playing up the act’ of civilian Jason Todd, has got to hurt Bruce. Assuming Lobdell’s version of Bruce has any actual feelings of affection for Jason, otherwise it probably just grates.

Lol, okay, so the situation seems to be that Jason dropped in to the Iceburg lounge to pay Penguin a visit. Cobblepot went, “Oh no! That damned Red Hood is here, hide me!” Ran into his panic room and locked it and Jason was just like, “Well, isn’t this convenient,” and made it so he couldn’t get back out.

And then presumably gangster-rules applied and Jason just got all his businesses because he said they were his and no one wanted to argue? I guess? Lobdell doesn’t give satisfying explanations, you guys. This is a testament to that.

I’m not going to lie though, this is pretty satisfying.

Alright, so I’m really excited for more you guys. This is not a perfect issue, a lot of things are hand waved, Bruce is acting even more out of character than usual, and we still have no dang clue what’s going on with Wingman, but there are definitely things here I like, and i’m looking forward to more.

[suzanneshannon]

Updating FloatingGlucose to .NET 5 - Display Nightscout or Dexcom Glucose Values on the Windows Desktop

Last month I learned how to convert a 13 year old .NET app to modern .NET 5 with the "try convert" tool. It was surprisingly easy to bring a "legacy" app well forward to a pretty darn cool self-contained app. That means NO .NET install. Just run an exe and you're set.

I found this 5 year old .NET application called FloatingGlucose from Bjørn that connects to a Nightscout open source diabetes server like the one I use and displays your current glucose values in a floating popup on your Windows desktop. It can also connect to the Dexcom Share servers. However, the app has an installer and requires .NET 4.6 to be installed.

How quickly - and successfully - can I convert it to a self-contained .NET 5 app? I don't know, I haven't written that part of this blog post yet. I'm still up here.

Let's try it.

Ok, I've forked it here https://github.com/shanselman/FloatingGlucose and I will bring it down to my local machine.

I started using the GitHub CLI lately and it's great, so I'll clone with it.

NOTE: I'm surprised I can't clone AND get submodules with the GH CLI so I guess I need to git submodule update --init --recursive after the initial use of GH.

And looks like GH is out of date so I'll 'winget install gh' to update it while I'm here.

Cool. Now I'll use the dotnet upgrade assistant. This tutorial will show you how. The upgrade assistant is a whole text-based command-line wizard to help you update solutions.

Upgrade Steps Entrypoint: C:\github\FloatingGlucose\FloatingGlucose\FloatingGlucose.csproj Current Project: C:\github\FloatingGlucose\FloatingGlucose\FloatingGlucose.csproj 1. [Skipped] Back up project 2. [Next step] Convert project file to SDK style 3. Clean up NuGet package references 4. Update TFM 5. Update NuGet Packages 6. Add template files 7. Upgrade app config files a. Convert Application Settings b. Disable unsupported configuration sections 8. Update source code a. Apply fix for UA0012: 'UnsafeDeserialize()' does not exist 9. Move to next project Choose a command: 1. Apply next step (Convert project file to SDK style) 2. Skip next step (Convert project file to SDK style) 3. See more step details 4. Configure logging 5. Exit > 1 [22:25:49 INF] Applying upgrade step Convert project file to SDK style [22:25:49 INF] Converting project file format with try-convert, version 0.7.222801 [22:25:52 INF] [try-convert] Conversion complete! [22:25:52 INF] Project file converted successfully! The project may require additional changes to build successfully against the new .NET target. [22:25:55 INF] Upgrade step Convert project file to SDK style applied successfully Please press enter to continue...

So I'm going step by step through the process, answering questions. OK, done. Let's see if it builds.

Looks like it doesn't. It has a custom setup PowerShell script that is trying to call InnoSetup and make an installer. Since I want to make a version that doesn't require an installer, I can remove all that from the PostBuildEvent and PreBuildEvent in the main csproj file.

Now I'm getting a number of compiler errors that aren't related to the conversion, but rather a misunderstanding about how exceptions are to be re-thrown.

When you say "throw err" you're actually losing your call stack and context.

else { //rethrow because we don't know how to handle other errors throw err; }

Instead, just:

else { //rethrow because we don't know how to handle other errors throw; }

throw to maintain the current error context. I'm just tidying up at this point.

I see a few warnings like:

C:\github\FloatingGlucose\FloatingGlucose\FormWebbrowser.cs(10,6): warning SYSLIB0003: 'PermissionSetAttribute' is obsolete: 'Code Access Security is not supported or honored by the runtime.'

and I comment them out as they are vestigial at this point.

I'm down to a final error:

Could not resolve this reference. Could not locate the assembly "System.Windows.Forms.DataVisualization".

Interesting, what's this about? Looks like not all of the Windows Forms DataVisualization project came along for .NET 5? The older code is here https://github.com/dotnet/winforms-datavisualization for .NET Core 3. The readme says "We consider the System.Windows.Forms.DataVisualization deprecated and we only provide it to ease porting to .NET Core 3"

However, Angelo Cresta has a .NET 5 version here https://github.com/AngeloCresta/winforms-datavisualization-net5 so I can try updating to his version. I'll bring it in as a Submodule and then add it as a Project Reference from the main FloatingGlucose app.

I'll also bump the JSON.NET reference from 9 to 13.0.1

NOTE: I'll also put in a dotnet_diagnostic.CA1416.severity = none in an .editorconfig to keep the compiler from warning me that this requires Windows 7 and above.

Boom, this 5 year old app is now a .NET 5 app and builds clean. SHIP IT. Well, test and run it first, eh?

2>Done building project "FloatingGlucose.csproj". ========== Build: 2 succeeded, 0 failed, 1 up-to-date, 0 skipped ==========

Nice, a clean warning-free build AND it starts up immediately AND looks OK on my 4k monitor likely due to the work that was done to make WinForms apps scale nicely on high dpi systems.

Does it work? Darn right it does.

Fabulous. Now I have a little widget I can have on my screen at all times that shows my current sugars!

And finally, can I make it a single no-install EXE that doesn't even need .NET installed?

dotnet publish --configuration Release --runtime=win10-x64 --output ./publish -p:PublishReadyToRun=true -p:PublishSingleFile=true -p:IncludeNativeLibrariesForSelfExtract=true --self-contained=true -p:DebugType=None .\FloatingGlucose\FloatingGlucose.csproj

Yes, now I have a single EXE I can run of this now .NET 5 WinForms app:

Fab. That was fun. Took about 2 hours. Consider if YOU can update your "legacy" codebase to .NET 5 and reap the benefits! Here is the 'works on my machine' late night release. PR's welcome. Night!

Sponsor: The No. 1 reason developers choose Couchbase? You can use your existing SQL++ skills to easily query and access JSON. That’s more power and flexibility with less training. Learn more.

© 2021 Scott Hanselman. All rights reserved.

     Updating FloatingGlucose to .NET 5 - Display Nightscout or Dexcom Glucose Values on the Windows Desktop published first on https://deskbysnafu.tumblr.com/

[philipholt]

Updating FloatingGlucose to .NET 5 - Display Nightscout or Dexcom Glucose Values on the Windows Desktop

Last month I learned how to convert a 13 year old .NET app to modern .NET 5 with the "try convert" tool. It was surprisingly easy to bring a "legacy" app well forward to a pretty darn cool self-contained app. That means NO .NET install. Just run an exe and you're set.

I found this 5 year old .NET application called FloatingGlucose from Bjørn that connects to a Nightscout open source diabetes server like the one I use and displays your current glucose values in a floating popup on your Windows desktop. It can also connect to the Dexcom Share servers. However, the app has an installer and requires .NET 4.6 to be installed.

How quickly - and successfully - can I convert it to a self-contained .NET 5 app? I don't know, I haven't written that part of this blog post yet. I'm still up here.

Let's try it.

Ok, I've forked it here https://github.com/shanselman/FloatingGlucose and I will bring it down to my local machine.

I started using the GitHub CLI lately and it's great, so I'll clone with it.

NOTE: I'm surprised I can't clone AND get submodules with the GH CLI so I guess I need to git submodule update --init --recursive after the initial use of GH.

And looks like GH is out of date so I'll 'winget install gh' to update it while I'm here.

Cool. Now I'll use the dotnet upgrade assistant. This tutorial will show you how. The upgrade assistant is a whole text-based command-line wizard to help you update solutions.

Upgrade Steps Entrypoint: C:\github\FloatingGlucose\FloatingGlucose\FloatingGlucose.csproj Current Project: C:\github\FloatingGlucose\FloatingGlucose\FloatingGlucose.csproj 1. [Skipped] Back up project 2. [Next step] Convert project file to SDK style 3. Clean up NuGet package references 4. Update TFM 5. Update NuGet Packages 6. Add template files 7. Upgrade app config files a. Convert Application Settings b. Disable unsupported configuration sections 8. Update source code a. Apply fix for UA0012: 'UnsafeDeserialize()' does not exist 9. Move to next project Choose a command: 1. Apply next step (Convert project file to SDK style) 2. Skip next step (Convert project file to SDK style) 3. See more step details 4. Configure logging 5. Exit > 1 [22:25:49 INF] Applying upgrade step Convert project file to SDK style [22:25:49 INF] Converting project file format with try-convert, version 0.7.222801 [22:25:52 INF] [try-convert] Conversion complete! [22:25:52 INF] Project file converted successfully! The project may require additional changes to build successfully against the new .NET target. [22:25:55 INF] Upgrade step Convert project file to SDK style applied successfully Please press enter to continue...

So I'm going step by step through the process, answering questions. OK, done. Let's see if it builds.

Looks like it doesn't. It has a custom setup PowerShell script that is trying to call InnoSetup and make an installer. Since I want to make a version that doesn't require an installer, I can remove all that from the PostBuildEvent and PreBuildEvent in the main csproj file.

Now I'm getting a number of compiler errors that aren't related to the conversion, but rather a misunderstanding about how exceptions are to be re-thrown.

When you say "throw err" you're actually losing your call stack and context.

else { //rethrow because we don't know how to handle other errors throw err; }

Instead, just:

else { //rethrow because we don't know how to handle other errors throw; }

throw to maintain the current error context. I'm just tidying up at this point.

I see a few warnings like:

C:\github\FloatingGlucose\FloatingGlucose\FormWebbrowser.cs(10,6): warning SYSLIB0003: 'PermissionSetAttribute' is obsolete: 'Code Access Security is not supported or honored by the runtime.'

and I comment them out as they are vestigial at this point.

I'm down to a final error:

Could not resolve this reference. Could not locate the assembly "System.Windows.Forms.DataVisualization".

Interesting, what's this about? Looks like not all of the Windows Forms DataVisualization project came along for .NET 5? The older code is here https://github.com/dotnet/winforms-datavisualization for .NET Core 3. The readme says "We consider the System.Windows.Forms.DataVisualization deprecated and we only provide it to ease porting to .NET Core 3"

However, Angelo Cresta has a .NET 5 version here https://github.com/AngeloCresta/winforms-datavisualization-net5 so I can try updating to his version. I'll bring it in as a Submodule and then add it as a Project Reference from the main FloatingGlucose app.

I'll also bump the JSON.NET reference from 9 to 13.0.1

NOTE: I'll also put in a dotnet_diagnostic.CA1416.severity = none in an .editorconfig to keep the compiler from warning me that this requires Windows 7 and above.

Boom, this 5 year old app is now a .NET 5 app and builds clean. SHIP IT. Well, test and run it first, eh?

2>Done building project "FloatingGlucose.csproj". ========== Build: 2 succeeded, 0 failed, 1 up-to-date, 0 skipped ==========

Nice, a clean warning-free build AND it starts up immediately AND looks OK on my 4k monitor likely due to the work that was done to make WinForms apps scale nicely on high dpi systems.

Does it work? Darn right it does.

Fabulous. Now I have a little widget I can have on my screen at all times that shows my current sugars!

And finally, can I make it a single no-install EXE that doesn't even need .NET installed?

dotnet publish --configuration Release --runtime=win10-x64 --output ./publish -p:PublishReadyToRun=true -p:PublishSingleFile=true -p:IncludeNativeLibrariesForSelfExtract=true --self-contained=true -p:DebugType=None .\FloatingGlucose\FloatingGlucose.csproj

Yes, now I have a single EXE I can run of this now .NET 5 WinForms app:

Fab. That was fun. Took about 2 hours. Consider if YOU can update your "legacy" codebase to .NET 5 and reap the benefits! Here is the 'works on my machine' late night release. PR's welcome. Night!

Sponsor: The No. 1 reason developers choose Couchbase? You can use your existing SQL++ skills to easily query and access JSON. That’s more power and flexibility with less training. Learn more.

© 2021 Scott Hanselman. All rights reserved.

     Updating FloatingGlucose to .NET 5 - Display Nightscout or Dexcom Glucose Values on the Windows Desktop published first on http://7elementswd.tumblr.com/

[lorealfernandes212]

SEO guide: Content and Search engine ranking factors

Search engine optimization plays a crucial role in the online success of a brand bolstering its business. The aim of SEO is to attract organic traffic from diverse sources and get repeated visitors as well. Almost 68% of online experience begin with search engines. 92.96% of global traffic comes from Google. 53.3% of all website traffic comes from organic searches. These statistics point to the importance of ranking for generating traffic with a successful content and SEO. The higher the ranking, more are the closest clicks and customer acquisition.

On page Content and Search engine ranking factors

Content

Content Quality

High quality adds more value to the content encouraging the readers to spend more time on the website. It builds a sense of familiarity and trust which compels the readers to go through the entire piece.

To ensure excellent quality-

·         Artistic content must be unique, original conveying a high degree of skill.

·         Any information from pre published contents should be well cited and accurate.

·         Information should be comprehensive and professionally presented.

·         The content should resonate with the brand.

According to a study though content marketing was up to 300% by 2016 engagement was only 5%. On top of that, people tend to spend only 37 seconds on a page which is why quality is important to attract as well as retain the readers.

Keyword Research

Keyword research is at the fundamental of creating good content. A proper keyword research helps to understand the language that customers are commonly using for searching particular products and services. It provides an insight into the audience’s pain points such as the informational, navigational or transactional needs that help create the perfect content for customer acquisition.

Keywords also help the search engines link search queries to the published contents. Effective choice of keywords as well as distribution boosts SEO ranking which is very important for brand awareness and customer acquisition. According to a study 90.63%of pages fail to receive any organic search traffic from Google due to low ranking in the search results.

Wording

The choice of words within the continent should be simple and appropriate to the topic. Just adhering to keywords for better ranking will be detrimental for the SEO health. The keywords or keyword phrases can be varied and synonyms appropriate to the contents can be used for more relevance as well as better optimization.

Freshness

Readers are more attracted to fresh or new contents. It doesn't mean minor updates or continuously churning out low quality pages for a freshness boost.

Contents age with time and they can be updated or the obsolete and expired ones can be remove. This will make the site more useful to readers and also point to the search that the site is well maintained. Since long enough Google has applied quality deserved freshness or QDF as a ranking factor for contents regarding certain types of queries.It is true for featured snippets as well.

Harnessing the power of freshness boost will help increase the brand visibility on the search engine results page by creating content relevant to popular trends, news, upcoming events etc. Caution must be taken for the fact that a QDF related boost subsides overtime and the page may get shuffled deeper within the search results.

Vertical Search

All the other ranking factors cover the web page content within the search engines.But only these are not enough; web page listings also hold vertical results. Having a hold particularly over this area through video, images or news will make the content show up in the special sections of the search results page.

Content length

The length of the content is also a factor for search engine optimization. Though it is not advisable to write more words just for stretching the length, content should have sufficient depth if the subject requires so. According to a research, contents with over 2000 words usually make it to the top ten positions in search engine rankings such as Google as depicted in the graph below.

This is not a concrete rule and there are obviously exceptions. But in general, a piece of content should be around 2000 words or more to be competitive on the SERP. Besides contents with such a length also attract more links and shares which contribute to the optimization efforts.

The above graph shows the relationship between the rank and length of the content. It can be seen that the first one typically has 2416 words while the 10th one has 2032 words. This points to the fact that Google prefers content rich sites and none of the content fall below 2000 words.

Direct Answers

Direct answers boost the trust factor which later proves fruitful for other inquiries. Besides, concerns come in evidence, so direct answers tend to drive the traffic.

It is often experienced that search results pop up before searching for a particular thing. These are meant to provide direct answers as to what one might need. It is all about results which are trending licensed or gathered by search engines.

Architecture

Crawl

Search engines crawl the websites. They shift from one website to another very quick. Sometimes they even store the pictures after getting copies of them. This is how contents are stored like a web book that is very easy to access along with a vast collection on the web. This data store activates whenever someone inputs a search query. The search engines cross check it with index for finding out relevant pages and put them forth.

This forwards conform to a sequence of appropriation. So this crawling works only when the content exists in index. Conversely the index will contain them only when crawled. It’s like a continuous cycle which can be taken advantage of if a published content is on the list first.

A common issues with crawls is-

·         They have a budget and everything works in an order. Besides there is also time limit along with every crawl etc.

Crawls can be improved by-

·         Properly using the internal link structure.

·         An idea about particular URL based pages which have not been crawled etc.

·         Properly using Robots. TXT

·         For avoidance as well as betterment, sitemaps are considerable. HTML and XML both can be brought to consideration for sorting the issues and improving the crawls.

Mobile friendly

A study has shown that more searches happen on mobile approximately accounting for 52% of the searches online. A mobile friendly content refers to such a content that is optimized for the readers who use smart phones. The site should be designed in such a way that these users are also able to access everything the desktop users can.

Simply having a mobile site is not enough. Caution must be taken to avoid common mistakes such as faulty redirects, unplayable content, interestitials, blocked JavaScript, CSS or images, incorrect view port, small font size and touch elements at anunusable proximity.

User experience is an important part of SEO and so optimization for mobile is a must so that users leave with a joyful experience.

Duplication

As Google maintains the index,often it becomes a case that the index becomes a mess. Every flip leads to the same content as an issue occurs regarding which page shows up in the search results. Besides, issues also arise when the same page is linked to different versions. This leads to a distortion in results lowering the value of the page.

A duplicate version can exist with or without www. Rather than redirecting, they act like an existence creep. It is to be noted that, there could be indexation of pages in search engines by the e commerce sites. The page will lack a proper appearance. This is because everyone searches for a content with the URL, not a particular page.

Addressing this issue through proper implementation and results become possible when-

·         URL parameters are managed.

·         301 redirects are implemented.

·         There are effective and better Pagination Strategies, etc.

·         There are rel=canonical tags.

Speed

Google is always aiming for a faster web and a heightened user experience. This is why speedy sites get a small ranking advantage over the slower rivals. But then, just a faster speed is not enough for ranking, it just bolsters it.

Another SEO advantage is the fact that speed is intertwined with user experience. A speedy site reduces the rate of bouncing by potential customers and improves the engagement and conversation rates as well. There are many tools available for identifying areas of improvement of a site like Google's page speed insights.

URLs

URLs are not a major ranking factor but it’s useful to use descriptive words in the page's URLs for the users and search engines. As the URLs appear on the search engines, an easy to understand URL helps searcher have a better idea as to what’s on the other end. Some easy tips to follow are-

·         Name the pages with words that describe the content.

·         Include keywords within the URL; use hyphens for separating the words.

·         Utilize directions for organizing the pages. Directories describe the content as well as the site’s architecture.

·         Care should be taken to avoid over stuffing the URL with keywords and incomprehensible strings of numbers and characters in the page address. Besides, for evergreen contents, dates should be avoided within the URL.

HTTPS

Google is always striving for a secure experience and that is why it has pushed websites for migrating to HTTPS servers so that a better security can be provided to the users. Typically, Google will index HTTPS over HTTP. If both are present and there’s no canonical, HTTPS will be chosen when it can.

HTML

HTML tags send cue to the search engines about a published content and enables it to render quickly.

Titles

It is the most important HTML signal that search engines use to understand the content. Titles should be accurate and concise to reflect the content and only the keywords that one wishes to rank should be featured. It should be noted that keyword stuffing is a toxin.

Descriptions

The meta description tag can be used for suggesting how one would like the pages to be described on the search results. Though technically it is not a ranking factor, a well crafted description helps to entice the readers into clicking the result.

Structure

Search engines get a better understanding of the content on a page due to structured data; for users it’s like an eye candy. Structured data talks to the search engines in their own language. Specific schema markup makes it easier for search engines to understand and digest the page structure along with the content. A properly structured data is translated by Google as a rich snippet which is more useful and attractive to the users.

Headings

They are a hierarchical way of organizing and identifying key sections of a content. Typically any page has a headline. In the HTML code behind the scenes, the headline has an H1 tag, the sub headings have H2 tags. Caution must be taken to not spam the headings with keywords. The ultimate goal is to make the content easy for searchers as well as search engines to navigate.

AMP

AMP gives super fast pages. It stands for accelerated mobile pages. As the importance of speed and mobile friendly content has been discussed before, AMP is necessary for the content to get a privilege on the page which ultimately increases engagement and mobile conversions.

Emerging verticals

Search engines are continuously upgrading with new features. The emerging verticals in SEO factors that affect content and SEO success are videos, images, local and voice.  These do not require a special set of SEO skills but need to be kept in mind for optimization.

Off page success factors

Off page ranking factors are out of the creator’s direct influence. Search engines evaluate the backlinks, reputation, location, authority etc. for delivering the most relevant results. These need to be taken into account while optimizing a site for search.

Thus, off page SEO and content ranking factors are Trust, Links and Users.

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[dailybiblelessons]

The Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

This week's blog post is here. It has a review of The Amplified Bible, a chance to think about our own blindness, and summaries and links for the lessons through Wednesday.

More information about the complementary and semi-continuous series is here: Which Series?

Complementary Hebrew Scripture from the Latter Prophets: Jeremiah 31:7-9

For thus says the Lord: Sing aloud with gladness for Jacob,  and raise shouts for the chief of the nations; proclaim, give praise, and say,  “Save, O Lord, your people, the remnant of Israel.” See, I am going to bring them  from the land of the north,  and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth, among them the blind and the lame,  those with child and those in labor, together;  a great company, they shall return here. With weeping they shall come,  and with consolations I will lead them back, I will let them walk by brooks of water,  in a straight path in which they shall not stumble; for I have become a father to Israel,  and Ephraim is my firstborn.

Semi-continuous Hebrew Scripture: Job 42:1-6, 10-17

Then Job answered the Lord:  “I know that you can do all things,  and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. ‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand,  things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. ‘Hear, and I will speak;  I will question you, and you declare to me.’ I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear,  but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself,  and repent in dust and ashes.”

And the Lord restored the fortunes of Job when he had prayed for his friends; and the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before. Then there came to him all his brothers and sisters and all who had known him before, and they ate bread with him in his house; they showed him sympathy and comforted him for all the evil that the Lord had brought upon him; and each of them gave him a piece of money and a gold ring. The Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning; and he had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand donkeys. He also had seven sons and three daughters. He named the first Jemimah, the second Keziah, and the third Keren-happuch. In all the land there were no women so beautiful as Job's daughters; and their father gave them an inheritance along with their brothers. After this Job lived one hundred and forty years, and saw his children, and his children's children, four generations. And Job died, old and full of days.

Complementary Psalm 126

When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion,  we were like those who dream. Then our mouth was filled with laughter,  and our tongue with shouts of joy; then it was said among the nations,  “The Lord has done great things for them.” The Lord has done great things for us,  and we rejoiced.

Restore our fortunes, O Lord,  like the watercourses in the Negeb. May those who sow in tears  reap with shouts of joy. Those who go out weeping,  bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy,  carrying their sheaves.

Semi-continuous Psalm 34:1-8, 19-22

I will bless the Lord at all times;  his praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul makes its boast in the Lord;  let the humble hear and be glad. O magnify the Lord with me,  and let us exalt his name together.

I sought the Lord, and he answered me,  and delivered me from all my fears. Look to him, and be radiant;  so your faces shall never be ashamed. This poor soul cried, and was heard by the Lord,  and was saved from every trouble. The angel of the Lord encamps  around those who fear him, and delivers them. O taste and see that the Lord is good;¹  happy are those who take refuge in him.

Many are the afflictions of the righteous,  but the Lord rescues them from them all. He keeps all their bones;  not one of them will be broken.² Evil brings death to the wicked,  and those who hate the righteous will be condemned. The Lord redeems the life of his servants;  none of those who take refuge in him will be condemned.

¹Peter uses this phrase in his instructions to believers in 1 Peter 2:1-10, which is our Monday Epistle Lesson. ²In John 19:31-37 (part of the recounting of the crucifixion), this scripture is fulfilled. Ordinarily, when the soldiers grew weary of watching their crucified victims, they would break their femurs, which hastened death. Jesus died before this was done.

New Testament Lesson: Hebrews 7:23-28

Furthermore, the former priests were many in number, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office; but Christ holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever. Consequently he is able for all time to save those who approach God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.

For it was fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, blameless, undefiled, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens. Unlike the other high priests, he has no need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for those of the people; this he did once for all when he offered himself. For the law appoints as high priests those who are subject to weakness, but the word of the oath, which came later than the law, appoints a Son who has been made perfect forever.

New Testament Gospel Lesson: Mark 10:46-52¹

They came to Jericho. As he and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” Jesus stood still and said, “Call him here.” And they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take heart; get up, he is calling you.” So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. Then Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man said to him, “My teacher, let me see again.” Jesus said to him, “Go; your faith has made you well.” Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.

¹There are parallel passages at Matthew 20:29-34 and Luke 18:35-43.

Year B Ordinary 30 Sunday

Selections from Revised Common Lectionary Daily Readings copyright © 1995 by the Consultation on Common Texts. Unless otherwise indicated, Bible text is from Holy Bible New Revised Standard Version with the Apocryphal / Deuterocanonical Books (NRSV) copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All right reserved. Footnotes in the Hebrew Scriptures that show where the passage is used in the Christian Scriptures are based on information from the Complete Jewish Bible (Updated) (CJB) by David H. Stern, Copyright © 1998 and 2006 by David H. Stern, used by permission of Messianic Jewish Publishers, www.messianicjewish.net. All rights reserved worldwide. When text is taken from the CJB, the passage ends with (CJB) and the foregoing copyright notice applies. Parallel passages are as indicated in the Modern English Version (MEV) , copyright © 2014 by Military Bible Association. Used by permission. All rights reserved. When text is taken from the MEV, the passage ends with (MEV) and the foregoing copyright notice applies. Note: The links in the titles above take you to Amazon, where you can purchase them and benefit The Lectionary Company. Image credit: The Healing of the Blind of Jericho by Nicolas Poussin via JesusChristsavior.net. This is a public domain image.

[lewiskdavid90]

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Course requirements:

Mac or PC capable of running Unity 3D. A copy of Unity 4.6.3 for early content, free from Unity. A copy of Unity 5 for later content, also free. A copy of Blender, free from www.Blender.org Either some experience of coding, or the will to do self-study.

Course description:

The course is continually updated, a major improvement was made in Glitch Garden in March 2016, and over 30 new quiz questions were added in June 2016.

This is the online game development school that was a runaway success on Kickstarter. As a result there are English closed-captions throughout.

Learn how to create video games using Unity 3D, the free-to-use game development tool. We start super simple so you need no prior experience or Unity of coding! With our online tutorials, you’ll be amazed what you can achieve.

Benefit from our world-class support from both other students, and Ben is on the forums regularly. Go on to build several games including a full 3D version of Pong with an online multiplayer scoreboard, and more.

You will have access to a course forum where you can discuss topics on a course-wide basis, or down to the individual video. Our thriving discussion forum will help you learn and share ideas with other students. Check out our reviews to see how people love this feature.

Unity 5: The first part of the course is taught in Unity 4. 6, as this is well established and stable. When you get to Bowlmaster we upgrade to Unity 5, and start using it’s great new features. You can use Unity 5 from the start if you wish, with only minor code differences.

The course is project-based, so you will not just be learning dry programming concepts, but applying them immediately to real indie games as you go. All the project files will be included, as well as additional references and resources – you’ll never get stuck. There are talking-head videos, powerful diagrams, quality screencasts and more.

Oh, and it’s just bigger and better than the competition. See the length and the reviews.

For each demo game you build you will follow this process…

Be challenged to build the entire game yourself. Be shown step-by step how to build it. Be challenged to apply, and re-apply your knowledge regularly.

You will get full lifetime access for a single one-off fee. The creators are qualified and experienced coders and avid gamers, so are able to explain complex concepts clearly, as well as entertain along the way. Most courses teach scripting using only C#.

You will learn C#, including Test Driven Development, a highly valuable skill. By the end of the course you’ll be very confident in the basics of coding and game development, and hungry to learn more.

What this course DOESN’T cover…

Whereas this course is already huge, we can’t possibly cover everything in that time. Here are some things we will not be covering…

Performance optimization. Editor plugins or modifications. Physics engine modification*

* Separate mini-course to cover these this now available.

Anyone who wants to learn to create games: Unity 3D is a fantastic platform which enables you to make production-quality games. Furthermore these games can be created for Windows, MacOS, iOS (even iOS 9), Android and Web from a single source!

If you’re a complete beginner, we’ll teach you all the coding and game design principles you’ll need. If you’re an artist, we’ll teach you to bring your assets to life. If you’re a coder, we’ll teach you game design principles.

Note: access to this course comes with an optional, free community site where you can share games and 3D models, as well as connect with other students.

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Full details Learn C#, a powerful modern language. Develop a positive attitude to problem solving. Gain an excellent general knowledge of game creation. Learn how object oriented programming works in practice. Transfer your knowledge to .NET, other languages, and more.

Full details Competent and confident with using a computer. Artists who want to learn to bring their assets into games. Some programming experience helpful, but not required. Complete beginners who are willing to work hard. Developers who want to re-skill across to game development.

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Reviews:

“Thorough, well laid out and easy to follow. This offers a wealth of information on Unity, C#, game development techniques and other related tools. Plus its pretty easy to gear your game toward any platform (iOS, Android, web, etc.). All without overwhelming me as I can come back to any area and move at my own pace. I would note it’s important to use the Unity version stated, unless you have some experience in this, as I began using a more recent version about halfway through the course and it does require me to convert some of the original course code (I’m not through the last course sections so it’s possible those are using a newer version, not sure yet). Regardless of version changes this is worth it for how much is covered and by the end you should know enough that a new version of Unity/converting some code will not be too difficult. Side note: I got my 16 yr old to follow along for portions covering games he found interesting…great opportunity to learn coding in a fun way. Although I was able to help him through problems before getting stuck too long and giving up. (As most teens are not patient!)” (Polly)

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“Thanks for awesome course! I found this course really engaging, it even encouraged me to go and get my Computer Science degree! The course starts with basics of C# and unity, from really simple projects (at first they were too trivial to me, but only then I have realised that they just cement the basics of C#’s language), and then throws at you some chunky other projects which teach you various aspects of Unity and C#. What i felt in the end was a slight regret that we did not cover everything Unity Engine has to offer, but that is for us to explore and probably even monetize! Knowledge gained here totally has usage in for example Unreal Engine. When you combine it with other courses you get extreme flexibility in terms of creating your totally own games! TL;DR: This course is meant for all begginers and game-maker wannabee’s like me and probably a lot of other people! Thanks again guys and keep on with the good work! Jakub” (Jakub Duchniewicz)

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Hi, I’m Ben. I have a degree in computing from Imperial College London, and a physics diploma from the Open University. I started working for myself at the age of 15, and never looked back. I explored careers as varied as being a commercial pilot, stunt-man, rock climbing instructor, and more. None of these provided a continued challenge, and stable income in the same way technology does. After building and selling a home computer support business, I became an angel investor and business mentor here in Cambridge UK. I fell in love with teaching game development through one of my investments, and I now spend all of my time sharing my passion with people like you. I can’t wait to help you experience the fulfilment, and financial freedom, that having a deep understanding of technology brings. So why not start learning to make games with me and my team now? See you soon! Ben

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[dailybiblelessons]

Tuesday: Reflection on the Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Revised Common Lectionary Proper 4 Roman Catholic Proper 9

Complementary Hebrew Scripture Lesson from the Torah: Exodus 16:27-36

On the seventh day some of the people went out to gather, and they found none. The Lord said to Moses, “How long will you refuse to keep my commandments and instructions? See! The Lord has given you the sabbath, therefore on the sixth day he gives you food for two days; each of you stay where you are; do not leave your place on the seventh day.” So the people rested on the seventh day.

The house of Israel called it manna; it was like coriander seed, white, and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey. Moses said, “This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Let an omer of it be kept throughout your generations, in order that they may see the food with which I fed you in the wilderness, when I brought you out of the land of Egypt.’” And Moses said to Aaron, “Take a jar, and put an omer of manna in it, and place it before the Lord, to be kept throughout your generations.” As the Lord commanded Moses, so Aaron placed it before the covenant, for safekeeping. The Israelites ate manna forty years, until they came to a habitable land; they ate manna, until they came to the border of the land of Canaan.¹ An omer is a tenth of an ephah.

¹One reading of Acts 13:18 is “For about forty years God cared for them in the wilderness.”

Semi-continuous Hebrew Scripture Lesson from the Former Prophets: 1 Samuel 2:18-21

Samuel was ministering before the Lord, a boy wearing a linen ephod. His mother used to make for him a little robe and take it to him each year, when she went up with her husband to offer the yearly sacrifice. Then Eli would bless Elkanah and his wife, and say, “May the Lord repay you with children by this woman for the gift that she made to the Lord”; and then they would return to their home.

And the Lord took note of Hannah; she conceived and bore three sons and two daughters. And the boy Samuel grew up in the presence of the Lord.

Complementary Psalm 78:1-4, 52-72

Give ear, O my people, to my teaching;  incline your ears to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in a parable;  I will utter dark sayings from of old, things that we have heard and known,  that our ancestors have told us. We will not hide them from their children;  we will tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the Lord, and his might,  and the wonders that he has done.

Then he led out his people like sheep,  and guided them in the wilderness like a flock. He led them in safety, so that they were not afraid;  but the sea overwhelmed their enemies. And he brought them to his holy hill,  to the mountain that his right hand had won. He drove out nations before them;  he apportioned them for a possession  and settled the tribes of Israel in their tents.

Yet they tested the Most High God,  and rebelled against him. They did not observe his decrees,  but turned away and were faithless like their ancestors;  they twisted like a treacherous bow. For they provoked him to anger with their high places;  they moved him to jealousy with their idols. When God heard, he was full of wrath,  and he utterly rejected Israel. He abandoned his dwelling at Shiloh,  the tent where he dwelt among mortals, and delivered his power to captivity,  his glory to the hand of the foe. He gave his people to the sword,  and vented his wrath on his heritage. Fire devoured their young men,  and their girls had no marriage song. Their priests fell by the sword,  and their widows made no lamentation. Then the Lord awoke as from sleep,  like a warrior shouting because of wine. He put his adversaries to rout;  he put them to everlasting disgrace.

He rejected the tent of Joseph,  he did not choose the tribe of Ephraim; but he chose the tribe of Judah,  Mount Zion, which he loves. He built his sanctuary like the high heavens,  like the earth, which he has founded forever. He chose his servant David,  and took him from the sheepfolds; from tending the nursing ewes he brought him  to be the shepherd of his people Jacob,  of Israel, his inheritance. With upright heart he tended them,  and guided them with skillful hand.

Semi-continuous Psalm 99

The Lord is king; let the peoples tremble! He sits enthroned upon the cherubim; let the earth quake! The Lord is great in Zion;  he is exalted over all the peoples. Let them praise your great and awesome name. Holy is he! Mighty King, lover of justice,  you have established equity; you have executed justice  and righteousness in Jacob. Extol the Lord our God;  worship at his footstool. Holy is he!

Moses and Aaron were among his priests,  Samuel also was among those who called on his name. They cried to the Lord, and he answered them. He spoke to them in the pillar of cloud;  they kept his decrees,  and the statutes that he gave them.

O Lord our God, you answered them;  you were a forgiving God to them,  but an avenger of their wrongdoings. Extol the Lord our God,  and worship at his holy mountain;  for the Lord our God is holy.

New Testament Lesson: Acts 15:1-5, 22-35

Then certain individuals came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” And after Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to discuss this question with the apostles and the elders. So they were sent on their way by the church, and as they passed through both Phoenicia and Samaria, they reported the conversion of the Gentiles, and brought great joy to all the believers. When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they reported all that God had done with them. But some believers who belonged to the sect of the Pharisees stood up and said, “It is necessary for them to be circumcised and ordered to keep the law of Moses.”

Then the apostles and the elders, with the consent of the whole church, decided to choose men from among their members and to send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They sent Judas called Barsabbas, and Silas, leaders among the brothers, with the following letter: “The brothers, both the apostles and the elders, to the believers of Gentile origin in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, greetings. Since we have heard that certain persons who have gone out from us, though with no instructions from us, have said things to disturb you and have unsettled your minds, we have decided unanimously to choose representatives and send them to you, along with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, who have risked their lives for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have therefore sent Judas and Silas, who themselves will tell you the same things by word of mouth. For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to impose on you no further burden than these essentials: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from fornication. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.”

So they were sent off and went down to Antioch. When they gathered the congregation together, they delivered the letter. When its members read it, they rejoiced at the exhortation. Judas and Silas, who were themselves prophets, said much to encourage and strengthen the believers. After they had been there for some time, they were sent off in peace by the believers to those who had sent them. But Paul and Barnabas remained in Antioch, and there, with many others, they taught and proclaimed the word of the Lord.

Year B Ordinary 9, RCL Proper 4, Catholic Proper 9 Tuesday

Selections from Revised Common Lectionary Daily Readings, copyright © 1995 by the Consultation on Common Texts. Unless otherwise indicated, Bible text is from The New Revised Standard Version, (NRSV) copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All right reserved. Footnotes in the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) that show where the passage is used in the Christian Scriptures (New Testament) from Complete Jewish Bible (CJB) by David H. Stern, Copyright © 1998 and 2006 by David H. Stern, used by permission of Messianic Jewish Publishers, www.messianicjewish.net. All rights reserved worldwide. When text is taken from the CJB, the passage ends with (CJB) and the foregoing copyright notice applies. Image credit: St. James the Just by an unknown icon writer, via Wikimedia Commons. James' judgment was adopted in the Apostolic Decree of Acts 15:19-29. This is a public domain image.