#of all the shows I can think of I did not expect the rtl show about Wacken to have cool queer rep but it does

[so-you-melted-22]

It’s not even piracy anymore, I got the download link from one of the producers and the show hasn’t even aired…

[palalabu]

I've also ALWAYS been worried if they'll get uncomfortable about the shipping. But the more "extreme" ones. Like romantic fan fic and drawings of them. Have nothing against those things, just always worried that some moron with send them a pic or something and they'll get uncomfortable, especially lando. The media stuff from mclaren and f1 I haven't really thought too much of it because I never saw it in a romantic way from them, just a cute friendship. I think carlos and lando themselves don't think too much of it that way either. I think they even won't mind, especially carlos, a little bit of it. Like when they were reacting to 'no strings attached' and carlos kept mentioning "why are we kissing" and laughing about it 😄 I was more worried about fanfic for example, if they ever come across it. But then I saw max f talking about fanfic of him and lando. Which he reacted to in a way you would expect I think, understandable. But I don't think it effected how he is with lando. So I feel like maybe lando would be like that too and won't be affected by it. Maybe carlos is just not one to initiate those kind of jokes.

But I do think that lando "shows love" for/to carlos more than he use to. Like in 2019/2020. I think he has become more comfortable in 2021 just not fully yet 🤷🏻‍♀️

well sky did an interview with them with Loving You, before they took it down and edited it without the BGM. and RTL asked them if they get married who'll wear the wedding dress. so i think the media were wild back in 2019. and on instagram there's all kinds of carlando edit (i REFUSE to call fanvid as fancam ok. y'all don't know what a fancam is ok.) over there and they tag the drivers too. so like they know i'd say.

but how does it affect them? we can only speculate.

[youjustwaitsunshine]

Oo you were on the zoom call? Congrats!! Do you mind me asking what it was like?😊

I gave a slightly manic answer yesterday, now for a more factual recollection

So it was really really nice, it was about 40 people including some aston martin pr people and the presenter was really nice and is apparently a uk tv presenter. We were told to get into the call 15 mins early to make sure everything was working and to get 'briefed' on how it was going to go, did some small talk etc and for some reason they managed to take away all the nervous energy, they were absolute pros.

First off, they got Otmar in, the presenter/moderator called people and then they asked their questions, Otmar left, we talked a bit with the Aston people, then Lance joined and it was the same concept of asking questions, the presenter asked some, the people who were called up asked some and before he left you could also just do the hand raise thingy and ask a not pre-approved question i think? (like in the mail they sent you they asked you if you still wanted to ask the submitted question and in a later mail, it specified which driver you were supposed to ask it to, in my case i was asked if i was comfortable with asking the question to seb in particular)

and then Engineering Meeting Room joined (everyone else managed to have their name as the zoom name but not seb which was extremely endearing somehow) and Lance left, oh and when someone left the call, everyone was unmuted and said bye and thank you and it was the same deal with Seb as with the others, it was a really nice friendly atmosphere, normally zoom calls with people i don't know are Very Scary but they did amazingly at dissipating the anxiety.

Lance was a bit reserved and shy at first like he didn't really know what to expect but he was doing really well especially comparing it to interviews. Seb as well, he was very chill and looked like he was enjoying himself during the whole call and it's probably because when it's with fans you know they like you and they won't be out of line so you can let your guard down a bit, anyways, what i really liked was that Seb stayed that long. He almost stayed twice his scheduled time and it really showed how he cares about the fans especially when he fucking yeeted from the rtl interview later when the time was up but then again who wouldnt take any opportunity to get away from felix görner especially when that bitch made fun of his haircut in an interview with toto wolff,, anyways it was amazing to have the opportunity to talk to them and just have a nice time hanging out and i still cant believe that i was that lucky to be there

sorry for only answering now i only just saw this hhhhh

[houseki-no-suffering]

The Lustrous’ writing system

(contains minor and major spoilers from the manga!!)

Writing and reading are recurring elements in Houseki no Kuni. Phos’ first job is to write an encyclopedia and we know that the gems possess a vast library. Writing is so important that Peridot’s main occupation is making paper for other gems to use, just like Alex’s job is being a scholar and writing about Lunarians. 

Also, while Admirabilis, Lustrous and Lunarians seem to share a common language, they do not share the same writing system (when showed a dépliant of the Moon facilities, Phos is unable to read it). So which script do the Lustrous use?

Since it’s sensei that educates the gems in writing and reading, we can assume that he taught them a type of script that humans used when he was originally created, so we can try to identify it starting from the scripts that exist today.

First of all, there are many types of writing systems, each with their own conventions, and they are classified according to what the different symbols of the system stand for. While linguists still kill each other in their sleep over classifications criteria, for the sake of this post I’m going to adopt a simplified version of Daniels’ classification. So we have:

Logographic: like Chinese, each symbol is a morpheme (a single unit of meaning, like 王, king)

Syllabic: like Japanese kana, each symbol is a syllable (け, か and こ, ke, ka and ko)

Alphabetic: like our Latin alphabet, each symbol is a distinct phoneme, vowels included (like A, B, C etc)

Abugida: or alphasyllabary, it’s in between Alphabetic and Syllabic,  sequences of consonants and vowels are written as a unit like in Devanagari and Tibetan ( क् + प/ पे = क/ कॆ, K + a/e = Ka/Ke)

Abjad: like the Alphabetic, but symbols are only for consonants, like in traditional Hebrew and Arabic (ב‬ ,ג‬ ,ד‬, B, G, D)

Featural: the shape of the symbol resemble that of the sound, like in Korean Hangul (like ㅁ, M, that looks like a mouth) 

Another thing to account for is the direction of writing: when the gems write they go top to bottom, vertically and right-to-left like we can see from these pictures:

Pic 1 is of one of Alex’s drawings: the paragraphs align on the right side of the paper, while there’s room left on the opposite side of the sheet, at the end of the second paragraph. The second pic is of Rutile: while it looks like they’re taking notes left-to-right, they could also be editing what they just wrote because the entire page is already densely written. Also notice how they write with a stylus, not a brush, because this detail will be important later.

Similarly, here we have Ghost, Sensei and Phos reading right-to-left, starting from what would be the last page from a Latin script user’s point of view. Notice how the titles of the books are on the left of the binding. Sensei is also reading right-to-left: this is from the panel where he’s teaching a new book to young Phos so he’s reading the first pages, the ones on the right.

So we have a top-to-bottom, right-to-left script, which hints at the gems’ writing system being based on an East-Asian script, since they’re the ones most often written vertically&RTL. 

It would make sense for the Lustrous writing system to be Asian-based: the story is highly influenced by Buddhism and the mangaka is a Japanese woman. Yet, while I do believe that the script the gems use is Asian (or, well, similar to known Asian scripts) I don’t believe it’s Japanese. Let’s look at some examples:

(Lustrous script vs Chinese/Japanese cursive)

(regular Chinese/Japanese vs cursive form vs Lustrous script)

The gems’ script does resemble Japanese and Chinese cursive, but there are a few issues. First of all, cursive is hardly intelligible even for skilled readers, because it is regular writing that was drastically simplified and smoothed out to create a beautiful and abstract appearance: it’s more of an art form than an ‘actual’ writing system. Also, cursive is created by the movement of the brush never leaving the paper, so we would expect the gems to write with a brush when we know that they actually use a stylus. 

Finally, since cursive is just a type of calligraphy, we would expect some of the writing we see in the series to look like regular Japanese and Chinese, like the script on the left in the first picture, yet it never does.

(Lustrous script vs Traditional Mongolian)

What we do have examples of are the tidy and geometrical vertical lines that characterize the Lustrous’ script. They write vertically in a continuous swirl of characters that is similar not only to Chinese Cursive but also to another East Asian alphabet, with whom the Lustrous script also shares a lot of other characteristics: Traditional Mongolian, a script derived from the Old Uyghur alphabet, a distant relative of the Egyptian hieroglyphs.

I have a couple of examples to raise my point and they have to do with the few images of single letters/symbols that we see in the series, like the one below, from ep.12.

I couldn’t find a higher resolution picture, but look at the paper sheets on the wall of Alexandrite’s room: the one on the left is about the different types of Lunarian apparitions, while the one on the right is about the island where the gems live. 

If you squint your eyes a little, you can see that, above each portion of text in the image on the right is a symbol, probably a letter or a number to classify the different types of information. Same thing for the left image: there’s a symbol next to each ‘model’. 

When Alex tests Phos’ knowledge, they do refer to numbers to classify the different types of models, so let’s say for a second that those symbols are numbers. Even if the picture is not super clear they are not angular enough to be Chinese/Japanese numbers: 一 十 二 三 四 五 六 七 八 九 十 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10). Now look at Mongolian numbers:

They look swirly and rounded like those in the picture. Also, remember how Mongolian writes top-to-down? If you stack these numerals up in vertical sequences (like in dates or two+ digit numbers) they will acquire the same length of the ones showed in the picture.

Finally, we must also take into consideration the type of script. Remember that very long list at the beginning of this post? Well, how do the gems differentiate among symbols and sounds? Do they use an Alphabetic script like Mongolian or a Logographic one like Chinese? Do they use something different altogether?

Thanks to Phos’ never-ending curiosity, we do have one example of how the Lustrous’ write sounds and it’s from when Phos tried to speak with the Lunarians and heard them saying ‘fu’ and ‘a’:

When they write those sounds down, they use two different characters: one for ‘fu’ and one for ‘a’. 

Now, the manga is written in Japanese and Japanese uses a syllabic script, so it can’t write single consonants. Instead, it attaches the vowel ‘u’ (or sometimes ‘o’) to a consonant to suggest that it should be read by itself. So we could think that the ‘u’ in ‘fu’ is mute and that the Lunarian said ‘f’ instead of ‘fu.’ However that ‘fu’ is used to make a joke just a couple of panels later, suggesting that it could also exist as a syllable on its own, not a single consonant.

This would change the type of script the Lustrous use, because if Phos wrote down ‘f’ and ‘a’ (instead of ‘fu’ and ‘a’), then it would mean that the gems use an Alphabetic script, like Traditional Mongolian. On the other hand, if Phos heard ‘f+u’ and wrote down the syllable ‘fu,’ then the gems’ script could be Syllabic, like Japanese or an Alphasyllabary like Tibetan.

As for other types of scripts, I don’t think they are using a Logographic one (like Chinese), because if they were, then Phos would have written all the different ways in which the sound ‘fu’ could be represented, just like when Japanese speakers tell each other which kanji to use to write their name correctly. This is because each symbol stands for a morpheme (a unit of meaning), not a phoneme (a single emission of sound), so the same unit of sound can be written in different ways. 

Phos is looking at the sounds they just wrote to come up with an idea about what they could possibly mean: it would make sense for them to write down all the possible combinations of sounds for ‘fu’ and ‘a,’ not just one.

What we can say for sure is that the Lustrous’ script is not Abjad, because the vowels (like ‘a’) have an independent symbol. And speaking of independent symbols, if we come back to Mongolian for a second, we can see that the symbols for ‘initial fu’ and ‘independent a’ do look a little like what Phos wrote down:  

If this were true, then the Lustrous’ script would work like Mongolian: an alphabetic script where letters have different forms depending on their position in a word (initial, medial, final or independent).

There is one problem with Mongolian, though: it’s written vertically, top-to-bottom like the Lustrous’ script, but left-to-right rather than right-to-left. So if the gems are indeed writing in some sort of descendant of the Traditional Mongolian script, then it was modified to allow right-to-left vertical writing, like in a mixture between Chinese cursive and Traditional Mongolian. 

For example, the two Lustrous letters above look like a mirrored version of the Mongolian letters below, and that could explain how one system writes RTL and the other LTR.

Among all the existing writing systems that I have analyzed, I think that Traditional Mongolian and Chinese cursive are the ones that resemble the way the Lustrous write the most. Among the two, I believe Traditional Mongolian shares more features with the Lustrous script than Chinese cursive, except for the fact that Mongolian writes left-to-right.

If the gems really did write in a parent script of Mongolian, then it would be interesting to know if they also spoke a descendant of the Mongolian language or if sensei taught them Mongolian script because he was created in Mongolia, but this post is already long enough.

I’d love to hear what you think about the Lustrous script though, and if I made some mistake or forgot to mention something, feel free to add to this meta.

[leamichelenews]

Lea Michele talks about the end of "Scream Queens"

Interview translated using google translator

The brunette has already found work in a sitcom of the chain ABC. We interviewed her in Los Angeles! On Sunday, August 6th at the Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles, Disney Media Distribution presented a few new ABC series series in the presence of their actors, including sitcom "The Mayor", which will land On the small American screens on October 3rd. This is the story of a young rapper, Courtney Rose (Brandon Micheal Hall), who becomes mayor of his small town of California. Fortunately, to take on this unprecedented and overwhelming function, he will count not only on the support of his mother Dina (Yvette Nicole Brown), but on his friends including the charming and energetic Valentina Barella. The latter is incarnated, surprisingly, by Lea Michele, who did not take long to find work after the stop of "Scream Queens" (broadcast in Belgium on Plug RTL). The actress and singer originally from the Bronx, revealed by Rachel's role in "Glee" and who will blow 31 candles on August 29, answered our questions as part of this return. The least we can say is that between the end of "Scream Queens" and your entry in "The Mayor", you did not stay long inactive ... I'm going to tell you ... When I do not work, I do not know what to do ... So I'm very happy to have gone from one series to the next. After playing an hour-long fiction for ten years, I was curious to see how it was for a series of humor of thirty minutes. For now, I can tell you that it does not mean there is less work! Were you expecting "Scream Queens" to be suppressed so quickly after two seasons? You know, I think nobody wanted 'Scream Queens' to stop. My girlfriends actresses and I, we loved it and we formed a real family. As for Ryan (Murphy, the creator of the series, ed.), He bubbles so many ideas that he will continue to design stories for TV for many years to come. With 'Scream Queens', we really did two incredible seasons, and I sincerely believe that the first will become cult. In ten years, it will be a classic! You're particularly fan of horror fictions, do not you? Absolutely, it's my big obsession, I only look at that! So imagine my pleasure when I shoot a series of this kind ... That being so, it's better for me to watch a horror movie than to make one. In front of the screen, I scream so much that I wake up and warm my singing voice. (Laughter.) Exactly, where are you with the music? Your 2nd album "Places" was released a few months ago ... Yes, and I am very proud of it. This summer, I did a little tour to promote it, and when we finish the first season of 'The Mayor', I'll do one again. Probably next summer. I will also perform in October at Elsie Fest in New York with Darren Criss (who played Blaine in 'Glee'). We're going to sing all the Broadway classics, I'm very excited. "The Mayor" is also musical, but you were not asked to sing for it ... No, because it's rap that we hear in the series, and I'm not a rapper. I did not come by saying 'oh but that too, I can do it!' (Laughs). I'm back on that level and that's fine. Break from singing and focus only on comedy, I'm also asking. I really want to regain my roots as an actress, play, and humor, are my first passion. I grew up watching Tina Fey and Amy Poehler in 'Saturday Night Live', and they were my idols. In 'The Mayor', there are clearly fewer artifices, no choreography as in 'Glee' and even 'Scream Queens', which allows me to show myself. I feel a bit more vulnerable on this plateau, at the same time, I had not played a character so close to me. "The Mayor" evolves in the world of politics and law. Do you know him a little? I wanted to become a lawyer at one time, but my parents refused. They said 'you're a singer, that's your thing, not at the line!' (Laughter.) Jean-Philippe Darquenne, correspondent in Los Angeles.

Source

[comingouttoteach]

Week 20

Whoosh another one down. It’s been a tough one. My stress levels were high over half term. The 90-odd assignments got marked, the lessons got planned 48 hours in advance, the Year 12 SOW has taken flight, and EPS began to shape up. I only had one whole day off (a hangover; my first real one in at least two years) but I did get to frolic in the Welsh hills. 

My week started with the dreaded (I know this shouldn’t be an adjective I use for students but it’s taking its toll now) Year 7s on Monday period 1. I introduced them to Shakespeare and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, gauged prior knowledge, played them the first part of the animated tales version and then we drew a character/plot diagram on the board together and they copied it. I didn’t give any praise or RTL warnings (oops). On the riotousness scale (RS) (where 10 is the Stonewall riots of 1969) it was about a 7. The next lesson was about the same, except for the part where I showed them the whole 25 minute film and paused at points for them to do a gap fill. They’re instantly absorbed when there is a film to watch or a story to listen to, even the ones with ADHD. The last lesson of the week, where I gave them assessment feedback, a plot recap quiz and we read Egeus’ speech, was an 8/9. I was hungry, exhausted and fed up. I stopped the lesson halfway through and got them all to leave the room and line up outside in silence. I (thought I) gave them a right telling off, however the cover teacher that was observing me said I could try shouting at them (maybe I can’t shout?). I reiterated expectations, referenced their parents’ evening (which was the night before!) and expressed my disappointment. I told them that anyone disrupting the lesson henceforth would get an RTL warning/sent to RTL. I did give out quite a few warnings and some of them should have gone to RTL but there is still some resistance to it inside me. The cover teacher also held them back (it was just before lunch) for five minutes. Her tone was severe and deadly serious; it worked wonders. I think if I get the right tone I won’t have to shout. This coming week there are going to be changes. I much prefer this topic and I want them to enjoy it too. I want to get them acting, I want to get them doing some set design and, most of all, I want to impart my passion for close analysis. An impossible feat? Well firstly, I have no option; that’s what they’ll be doing for their assignment. Secondly, I believe it a satisfying activity, once you get the hang of it. They’ve had some experience of writing P(oint) E(vidence) A(nalysis) R(eader) paragraphs. Watch this space. My behaviour reward system that I’m rolling out this week looks like this:

Every student’s name is listed down the left-hand side. The weeks and dates for each lesson are across the top. This is how it will work:

- It will be printed out on A3 and stuck with blu-tack at the front of the room every lesson.  - Each lesson every student starts out with 5 positive behaviour points. They can get more by behaving well, trying hard and being kind, but the baseline is five. - If someone shouts out, disrupts others, talks over peers or me or generally misbehaves then they instantly lose the five points. - If they do any of the above a second time they get a warning. - If they do any of the above a third time then they will go straight to RTL. - 5 isn’t the limit; students can gain more points during each lesson. - At the end of the term I will reward the top 5 scores with... (TBC, maybe an Easter egg). - If the total for the whole class is over 200 then they get to watch the film in the last lessons of term. 

If I had presented this to myself last September I would have thought it cruel but what is crueler is the fact that there are many in the class who behave exceptionally well and try really hard but are forced to endure the disruptiveness of their peers every lesson. I am doing this for the ones that stare at me with repressed frustration, wishing they could just get on with the lesson. 

Moving on, transactional writing with Year 10 has been my most positive start to term. We’ve done formal and informal letters. This involved getting the most disruptive boy in the class to write a formal complaint letter to a head teacher about the questionable behaviour of their students as they leave school (the irony). We also analysed a formal letter written by a Year 9 student at the school who was prominent in organising the Bristol school strike for climate change. It was a letter she’d written to the head. They really engaged with it and I think I did a good job of remaining apolitical despite my absolute admiration of the girl (who is in my Year 9 class). These lessons have mostly been positive, with just a few useful suggestions form the teacher, such as:

- constant reminders that what they produce in their book will be their revision guide next year.  - giving them longer tasks to work on and less teacher talk/direction. - ensuring homework is challenging enough. 

Next week I’m getting them to write one more letter then we’re on to reviews. 

Year 9 are also onto non-fiction, with a focus on news articles. I nearly turned over the whole of the first lesson into a debate as to whether religious documents (Bible, Quran) are fiction or non-fiction, but resisted. I also gave them their essay feedback. A different class teacher (whose assessments I marked) had advised blind marking, however, this did not work so well for this Year 9 set. There were a few shocks, good and bad; one girl was nearly crying (bad kind). Most people’s grades were ran in line with grades they’d already received. I thought I’d done a good job but there is no way I will blind mark a class again unless I know them back to front, side to side and up and down (The teary girl’s essay will be marked again by the class teacher...). 

I fear I am not getting the most out of this class and feel the pressure, quite intensely, of their ‘top set’ status. They are all lovely, which makes behaviour actually all the more harder to manage; I’m too nice to them. Although it is not really being nice if it means they aren’t learning as much as they could be, is it? I am going to plan a lesson, from start to finish, with the class teacher, in order to get some practical help. 

I only saw my Year 8s once this week. I introduced the topic for the term: nature poetry (which apparently is boring). We spent a whole lesson understanding what all the different poetic terms are. It was a 5 on the RS. They are all fully in control of themselves and their actions (unlike the Year 7s) but they have a tendency to go off task at the slightest opportunity. Their lack of enthusiasm for the topic is also a concern. How can I make nature poetry cool? Maybe I will do my old ‘recite a poem’ trick again. 

I am still finding being in the school quite challenging. I’m very aware that I need to somehow step up my game. However, I feel as though I’m already taking five steps at once and every day is a tower block. I need more time in the day and more confidence. That would do the trick.

[spiritytheghost]

“hi, I’m not from the US” ask set

given how Americanized this site is, it’s important to celebrate all our countries and nationalities - with all their quirks and vices and ridiculousness, and all that might seem strange to outsiders.

Oh gosh, the wonderful @alessiaskyler tagged me, so... I’m from Germany too haha, but... wow, hard questions...

1. favourite place in your country?

I’m not sure, I have one, and if, then it would probably be home... or? Maybe, I’m forgetting something improtant xD There are many beautoful places, but nothing that i would call my favourite .-.

2. do you prefer spending your holidays in your country or travel abroad?

I’m not travelling very much, but if I do, it’s personal to me, so it doesn’t matter in which country it is

3. does your country have access to sea?

Yes, it does, but I’m living too far away :(

4. favourite dish specific for your country?

I’m a very picky eater, so I’m sure I don’t have one that’s specific for Germany

5. favourite song in your native language?

I’m not listening to german songs and even though I know some of them, I wouldn’t say that I like one as much as I like other favourite songs

6. most hated song in your native language?

Probably many of the german Rap Songs, unless I#m taking them not seriously, because then I can find them funny

7. three words from your native language that you like the most?

Am I supposed to know that?? xD ÄÄÄÄHM... I don’t know, I like so many words, but right now I can’t think of them :(

8. do you get confused with other nationalities? if so, which ones and by whom?

No, certainly not, I have blue eyes and was born with blond hair and I have pale skin, so... No. xD

9. which of your neighbouring countries would you like to visit most/know best?

England is not really a neighbour, but I’ve been there two times now and it’s wonderful *__* I’ve been to Austria with my family once and we were in France and Italy for a day, many years ago, so I don’t really know These countries very well and I don’t really know why I should travel there xD

10. most enjoyable swear word in your native language?

Wow, this is stuff I know xD Scheiße, verdammt and... I’d say fuck, but it’ s english, although everybody says it, but... then it’s Arsch or Arschloch, but that’s more of an insult xD

11. favourite native writer/poet?

I don’t have one, everybody I like is not from Germany xD

12. what do you think about English translations of your favourite native prose/poem?

... I don’t even know, if something has ever been translated in english from the stuff I know xD

13. does your country (or family) have any specific superstitions or traditions that might seem strange to outsiders?

Probably everything my family does is weird xD I can’t think of something specific :/

14. do you enjoy your country’s cinema and/or TV?

Normally not, there are very few TV shows and movies I like, but that’s it, because almost everything else is pretty stupid in my opinion or maybe it’s just that I’m interested in different stuff

15. a saying, joke, or hermetic meme that only people from your country will get?

Berlin Airport I guess, because I’m not sure how many other people know about this story xD OR maybe talking about the typical RTL and RTL II series, because everybody makes fun of them xD OMG and the Deutsche Bahn HAHA because the trains are never there on time xD

16. which stereotype about your country you hate the most and which one you somewhat agree with?

The Lederhosen - Dirndl - Beer - Thing, is fucking STUPID. I never wore any of it and I don’t like beer, what the hell is the point of it? And that all Germans are neat and always on time NO. DID YOU SEE MY ROOM? And I know so many people that you can expect to be there half an hour later than you planned it. NO.NO.NO.

17. are you interested in your country’s history?

I’m in general not interested in history. School taught me the stuff I need to know and there are definitely interesting topics, but that’s it for me.

18. do you speak with a dialect of your native language?

No, not really, in my Region we’re talking “normal”, maybe slang, but now with a real dialect.

19. do you like your country’s flag and/or emblem? what about the national anthem?

It’s a flag, what would I like about it? It’s what it looks like, the end. xD And I don’t like the national anthem, it sounds boring and like people love their country, but many Germans I know don’t have a community feeling, so nope.

20. which sport is The Sport in your country?

Soccer. But it’s fucking boring too and I hate when people are behaving like a bunch of crazy assholes because of it. It’s JUST A SPORT, for fuck’s sake! xD

21. if you could send two things from your country into space, what would they be?

I know some people I’d send there... to kill them xD And I don’t know why anything else from Germany should be there xD

22. what makes you proud about your country? what makes you ashamed?

Proud... maybe small things, but nothing that really is “made” by the german society. And all the other stuff, just makes me angry, not really ashamed.

23. which alcoholic beverage is the favoured one in your country?

Beer, I don’t like it, but many other people do.

24. what other nation is joked about most often in your country?

Hmm, a little bit about America, about Poland, and Greece xD 

25. would you like to come from another place, be born in another country?

I wouldn’t say that I really like being german, but if I was born somewhere else I probably wouldn’t be happy with that either, because every country has its flaws, that’s why I can live with being german. But I would definitely like to live in a different city, because my city is awful.

26. does your nationality get portrayed in Hollywood/American media? what do you think about the portrayal?

Some answer as Question 16, plus that the whole Nazi thing is there too, which I think is stupid, because every country has nationalistic sides, but that doesn’t mean that everyone in the country is as STUPID as them! God, I’m too angry for this question xD

27. favourite national celebrity? 

I don’t have one. Nope. They are all crazy. Some are very nice, but most of them are... nopppp.

28. does your country have a lot of lakes, mountains, rivers? do you have favourites?

Yes, I think so, but there’s again nothing that I’d call my favourite xD

29. does your region/city have a beef with another place in your country?

No, but we’re always making fun of the smaller cities around ours xD

30. do you have people of different nationalities in your family?

No. My answers are so boring, omg xD

@alessiaskyler you asked for it, so you got it! My answers are very weak, I saw that you put so much effort in yours, amazing <3 

[ladysiuanraine]

Exclusive interview with Colin O'Donoghue

September 13, 2017 | In fall of 2016 ABC's fairytale series "Once Upon a Time" returned for its sixth season which was full of additional fairytale characters and new adventures for the old ones. On the 13th of September season 6 of "Once Upon a Time" premiers in Germany at RTL Passion and in this interview we had the chance to ask actor Colin O'Donoghue about his character Captain Hook and his acting career so far.

You've been part of "Once Upon a Time" for quite a while now. Did you think six years ago that a character like Hook would be one of the good guys? I always knew that Hook was a bit more complex than an out and out villain, but didn't expect him to become who he became! How did you get the role of Hook? I auditioned for the role, fully expecting to not get it, thinking I was too young to play Captain Hook! I went in with a very clear idea as to how I'd want to play him. I feel very lucky! Is there another fairy-tale figure that you would like to embody? Maybe the Wolf from Red Riding Hood! You had an accident and broke a foot during filming of the musical wedding episode in season 6. What was the biggest challenge for you during that time? Hopefully you feel fine now, did everything heal well? Haha! Yep, I broke it dancing. All is mending now thanks. It was challenging dancing on it for 8 hours after! Can you tell us a little bit about the origination of your song "Revenge is gonna be mine"? I know the writer wanted it to be a kind of Pirate shanty, but in the style of Queen. I think Alan Zachary and Michael Weiner did an amazing job on all the songs. What was your reaction when you found out about the big wrap at the end of season six? I was happy for both the fans and the characters that they got their happy endings. The show took people on an amazing journey over the 6 seasons and I think they deserved that ending. For the first time you get a cursed counterpart in season 7. What will be the main differences between Hook and Rogers? I have a prosthetic hand! I'm a cop, and that's about all I can say at the minute!

Colin O'Donoghue, Once Upon a Time

© MG RTL D / ABC Studios

What kind of ending do you wish for Hook / Rogers? Haha! You won't catch me that easily! Happiness! Is there a fairy-tale or a story you would like to see on "Once Upon a Time", which hasn't been picked up on the series yet? I'm not sure what we haven't done yet! We’ve had a lot on the show!! Some years ago you were member of the Irish band "The Enemies". Do you miss the musical activity? I definitely miss playing music, but I love being on the show. I have a guitar at work I play around with when I've time. You do a lot of theatre. How do you handle both, theatre in Europe and your TV show in America? I used to do a bit of theatre, but the show shoots for 9 months of the year, I haven't had a huge amount of time. I do miss it though. What are your plans for the near future? Are there new projects in theatre, TV or movie that you can tell us about? At the minute I'm busy shooting season 7. It's hard to look past the next 8 months.

Colin O'Donoghue, Once Upon a Time

© MG RTL D / ABC Studios

You and Sam Heughan from "Outlander" dressed up like the other one. Was it fun wearing a kilt? And can you imagine playing a role on "Outlander”? Haha! That was fun. I love a kilt! Who doesn't?! Not sure my Scottish accent is good enough! You'd have to ask Bobby! Since myFanbase is an online magazine about TV shows we would like to know what your favourite shows are? I loved "Hannibal". I don't get a huge amount of time to watch TV. Thank you so much for making time for us, Colin. We wish you all the best and are excited to see you in the new season of "Once Upon a Time".

[vraskaacosplayandsound-blog]

Discussion - Annual Reports - August 29, 2017

Hello class,

I'm sure I am not the only one that was worried about this months course since I am one to shy away from financial tasks. Its not that they are difficult to me but they are nerve-racking and hold no interest. I know it is something that I do need at least general knowledge of though. I am ready to get this class started and learn from it even if I am not necessarily happy about it. To begin this course we were to look into 2 companies annual reports and gather information. I decided to go with Dreamworks and Time Warner.

If we start with Dreamworks the most recent report I can find is from 2015 and is 160 pages long. They appointed new leadership in their feature animation business and changed a few things in their creative process. In this transition they were only able to make one feature film that year and plan on focusing efforts to make 2 higher quality films annually than 3. We also see that they delivered their best top line result in 11 years and highest revenue growth percentage in 8 years, increasing 34% from 2014.

They are also one of the companies that combined their report with their 10K. We are able to get a brief history of the company and their dedication to family animation that we are all able to grasp. We even get to see a line up of releases coming soon including How to Train Your Dragon 3 on June 29, 2018. They also talk about the companies they have bought out, such as Classic Media, and those that they are making contracts with such as Netflix.

One of the major things that peaked my interest and the largest sections of the report was their Distribution and Servicing arrangements. It goes over deals and agreements with Fox, Paramount, Nickelodeon, Super RTL, and Planeta Junior. The other thing that stood out to me was their creative process. It includes a chart of how everything fits and works for one movie in a years time. Starting with things like screenplay, storyboards, visuals, modeling, and voice rigging in pre-production it moves to layout, animation, and lighting in production and ends with sound effects and music before delivery.  

It also goes over the main competitions that they have, many of which will come to no surprise, being listed as Disney, Pixar, Sony, and Fox’s Blue Sky and Illumination Studios. The last thing I wanted to talk about on this report was the employees. They had 2,500 employees as of December 31st, 2015. That number was surprising small to me until I read on to see they reduced their workforce by around 500 when they changed their creative track.

The next company that I took a look at was Time Warner that also has their most recent report from 2015. They also start off their report by talking about their current companies goals and projects. They want to bring the work of the worlds most talented storytellers and journalists to life for audiences to enjoy. They start with their heroic work on Batman vs. Superman, The Flash, and DC Super Hero Girls. Followed by dramatic work on Game of Thrones, Mad Max: Fury Road, and Confirmation. Continuing on to funny work on Big Bang Theory, Rick and Morty, and Silicon Valley.

They even continue on with more genres. Next was informed with work on Last Week Tonight, Full Frontal, and New Day. Then competitive with NCAA March Madness, Friday Night Knockout, and Real Sports. As well as innovative with HBO Now, CNNgo, Bleacher Report, and DC All Access. You would think I would be done, but they still continue on with playful in Teen Titans Go, Sesame Street, Steven Universe, and the :Lego Batman Movie. They also have unpredictable with Ellen, The Voice, Impractical Jokers, and Little Big Shots. And finally, at last, we have boundless with Latin Grammy Awards, Toonami India, Wataha HBO Poland.

While I have been a fan of the Time Warner company I for one didn’t know that they were involved in so many different and varying projects all atlas once. Its very impressive. When the CEO says in the report that he wants to continue showcasing an unmatched ability to create brands and content that forge deep connections with audiences across all platforms around the world I feel like he is succeeding. I'm also sure thats what he wanted people reading his report to feel as well.    

We also get a list of their board of directors, senior corporate executives, and senior operating executives so you know the “big wigs” at the company if you are a shareholder. The last thing I wanted to talk about that I find interesting is the Risk Factors section of the report. It says that the company must respond successfully to ongoing changes in the Us television industry and consumer viewing patterns to remain competitive. It also says that popularity of content is hard to predict and can change rapidly and failure to renew agreements on favorable terms or at all could case the companies subscription and advertising revenues to decline. I feel it was smart to add this in there and a warning that there are predictions added that can change and can’t be held as truth. It gives people not only positive to look at and keeps them realistic.

The risk factors is one of the things in Time Warner that differs from Dreamworks. They put that in there since they have so many different projects to work on all at once and Dreamworks only has to focus on 1-3 a year. Another difference is the fact that, while they did both introduce their companies, Time Warner had a separate slide for each genre and product connected to it for reference to give visual aid. Dreamworks did on the other hand offer a few release dates for future projects while Time Warner wants to keep those as secret as possible for a bigger reveal factor on certain shows.

All and all they did go into detail about what their company does, who they are working with, what they most recent creative plans are, their different deals and agreements made, comprehensive incomes, cash flow, equity, and reconciliations which is what you would expect from an annual report. Seeing the different companies and the way that they present their report also shows that they portray what they want their company to portray as much as possible and focus on the companies brands.

Overall this was my first time ever reading an annual report and getting to see these definitely puts a few more things into perceptive of how you have to show yourself to the community and those that will possibly back you. As well as the organization, dedication, and other great lengths they go to to stay the large household names that we all know.  While I highly doubt that I am ready to try to right one on my own right now, this is an eye opener as to what a great example looks like for future reference in my own work.

Sincerely, Hunter Smith

References:

DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc. (n.d.). Retrieved August 29, 2017, from http://www.annualreports.com/C...  

Time Warner. (n.d.). Retrieved August 29, 2017, from http://ir.timewarner.com/phoen...

​

[onetradeatatime-blog]

New Post has been published on Taking One Trade at a Time

New Post has been published on http://takingonetradeatatime.com/2017/01/14/progress-black-and-white/

Progress - Black and White

Last week, in my weekly trade review, I laid out my overall goals for the year. Primary this is to become more systematic in my trading.

        I traded Monday, and I quickly realised I cannot have both systems in my head. The ongoing rebuild of my system into a systematic progress and my current one which is primary discretionary.

    I have made a decision to stop trading until I have finished my rebuild.

    Let me be clear, this rebuild is not about throwing out my current edge. It is about 2 things

    1) Understanding my context read better, and how I can systematic use this to improve my targets.

2) Turning my triggers into a more black and white means of entering. This is to reduce the amount of decisions needed to be made per trade.

    How am I approaching this?

    Context

    I have split my context reads into areas. For example, Trending and Balance, these are then split into sub sections.

For example, Trending with expectancy to go into balance / pullback.

    For a while now, I have been using the OODA decision loop to help me make decisions. Which I simplified to DADA

    Hypothesis – Collect Data on the Hypo, Analysis, Decision and Act and repeat.

    Which is good model for analysing stats and trade reviews.

    But over Christmas, I read Streetlights and Shadows: Searching for the Keys to Adaptive Decision Making by Gary A. Klein.

    Which is a good book, but it did not tell me anything new. But if you are into improving your decision making then it is interesting book.

    But one section discussing the decision-making loop, and that the studies found that experienced people tend to use a different model called Recognition Primed Decision Model.

        I think this model fits in well with trying to incorporate my context read into a more usual model for targets and areas to fade. So, I have altered this to fit my needs with regard to reading context whilst remaining flexible.

    Example

    Situation

Trending Market

Clues

Trend Rots are >= STD DEV

   Counter Trend Rots are <= STD DEV

   Increasing or equal Vol/Delta on Trend Rots

   Not at HTF Area of Interest

   No Change in character in last rot in either Vol/Delta/PA

   HTF ROT < STD DEV

Exp

To make new extreme

Goal

Buy Pullback to AOI with Target HTF AOI

Actions

How I enter the market.

   Where my stop is.

   What is my TM.

    Obviously, the actions change for each play. But I stick to this model until the clues or expectancies start to be violated which then gives me more clues to my other context models. Which I then switch to.

    The primary use is to give me better targets, for my entries, and whilst seeming more rigid, gives me more flexibility and takes the focus off the individual levels.

    I am also working on my stats, to make them into more useable pieces of information. Whether they are for scalps for gap closes and open drive, or whether they indicate where a likely target / bottom / top should be for the session.

    What has helped with the Stats on the Bund at least, has been splitting the sessions into European and US. As the nature of these individual sub sessions can be very different.

    Triggers

    I have been working on how to express my discretionary triggers into a more black and white format. This is, not surprising, hard and slow going. But I am making progress. Does not help that I am new to coding in RTL in RT Investor. So, I make a lot of mistakes and it will take me at least another week to get on top of this.

    It is not that my triggers are that complicated. Just how do I express something that was very much discretionary into something that is black and white but adaptive enough to be a realistic trigger. But I am making progress and in turn this is teaching more about my triggers than I knew previously.

    For example, One of the order flow triggers I have been using which indicates a possible fade entry. Once coded and tested also shows that it certainly is not a fade entry when price breaks out of a range. Instead of a sign of weakness it becomes a sign of strength.

    But all in all, very interesting time.

    Looking forward to putting it all together and getting back to trading.

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