#ray does like the shortened version of his name though

[bloodxhound]

resident inbox goblin is back. what's your character/oc's name? did you create it? if you did, what thought did you put into it? if you didn't, what did the author intend for it to mean? either way, do you have any particular meanings you've appended to the name?

Ray Barlowe! Well, technically Raymond Barlowe ( that’s what it says on his ID / detective badge ), but he always chooses to introduce himself as the former — for reasons I’ll be putting in the tags.

I will admit I didn’t put much thought into his forename whatsoever. I chose Ray for no other reason than me really, really liking it. I didn’t even research its meaning before deciding on it, which is something I always do for new characters nowadays. I think a character’s name can contribute quite a lot to how a character is perceived  ( as far as first impressions go, associations, connotations, etc. ), and lend more insight into an author’s idea of the character.

Luckily, despite being born on a whim, it worked out fine in his case. Ray means "protector"; Raymond "wise protector" / "counsel". It ties in nicely with him being a protective character at the core, a shepherd of justice. Even the “wise” and “counsel” parts earn their justification in one of his later verses in which he returns to the LAPD to oversee rookie detectives and give his counsel on cases involving organized crime. Another thing that worked out in my favor is the fact his name coincides with the word ray, as in “beam of light”, which has made some characters nickname him  “Sunshine” and I live for the audacity and dissonance of giving this grumpy bastard man such a cute, positive nickname.

As for his last name, I put way more thought into it. Barlowe is a blend of two things: 1) a homage to Philip M.arlowe, the protagonist of various hardboiled crime novels and short stories, which is a genre in which the detective character typically not only combats ( organized ) crime but also a just-as corrupted legal system; and 2) a barlow, a type of pocket knife, the kind his father used in the murder Ray stumbled upon as a child.

[just-char]

How do you go by writing Percy's dialogue and talk patterns?

A very interesting question. In honesty, I’m not sure. More often than not, the words simply appear in my brain and I write them down.

In terms of what I’ve seen other people do that I thought was wrong: I think a very important aspect, at the least, is the politely formal tone of everything she says (regardless of who she’s saying it to.) Percy is cheery customer-service nice. Her vocabulary is nuanced and unusual. I often write her so that she says the words whole as opposed to shortened (“I will see about that” vs “I’ll see about that”) . I’m not certain she does this in show but it helps convey the tone to the reader since you can’t hear her speaking.

Often I see Percy written in fanfiction as very casual, which is most people’s downfall. For example, she might say something like, “I guess this has been a big waste of time.” In my personal opinion, Percy isn’t nearly casual and clued in enough to say things this way. There’s something relaxed about it as well that doesn’t feel very Percy, as she is wound tight and takes everything Very Seriously. A better version might be, “Ah. Perhaps this foray was for naught after all.” Of course, being the positive ray of sunshine that she is, she might also add: “Still, it was beneficial regardless.”

Percy likes to think out loud. She makes observations and then comments on them. She either completely forgets social rules (Does not introduce herself to Ramsey or ask his name) or follows them to a T (Everything about her conversation with Molly when they have tea) even and especially when those rules aren’t appropriate. This makes writing her dialogue dynamic and has the potential to get her into some interesting social situations.

Some general rules of thumb: Avoid casual/slang words like “so” “whatever” (unless using them very intentionally in an ‘out-of-touch old person’ way) and any adjectives you use (“big”, “shiny”) look up in a thesaurus and pick the oddest one. Percy speaks as though she’s a lot older than she is. Some of her expressions are very dated— it gives the impression she spent more time reading or speaking to adults than to other people her age when she was a child. The only filler word I try to use with Percy is “Er—“ because she sometimes stalls, (in the same way a computer might) but otherwise she does not tend to use them. For example, she would not say “Well, Uhm, I’m, uh—“ because she thinks about everything she says very carefully. Alternatively, she says exactly what she is thinking before she’s fully thought about it, which still wouldn’t make her stammer.

I cannot think of anything else. I hope this was helpful. :]

[sartle-blog]

Reimaging a Renaissance Man: Leonardo da Vinci in Fate Grand/Order

(Source: Aniplex)

  In Delightworks's mobile game Fate Grand/Order, you’re challenged to save the world with the help of historical figures and legends. In most cases, those historical figures turn out to be far different than you’d expect. Sometimes a person like the famous shogunate swordsman Okita Souji is changed to a female without explanation, but more often than you’d expect, the game is surprisingly clever in how it incorporates historical facts about the characters into their design. If you go into a history class and start to argue that King Louis XIV was secretly female, you might get kicked out. Looking past the anime images on the surface though, there is some art history to be learned from Fate.

  (Source: Aniplex)

  Leonardo da Vinci in particular is a great example of this. Leonardo is genderbent to be female, with the explanation that his search of perfection and beauty led him to redesign his body into the Mona Lisa. Also, she’s a little obsessed with the painting.

  Left: Mona Lisa by Shimokoshi (image: Aniplex) Right: Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci in the Louvre

  Fate also features a lot of art, called “craft essences” that come with effects to assist you while equipped in battle. Most of which have no historical basis except for, obviously, the Mona Lisa.

  (Source: Aniplex)

  As a mobile game, Fate rotates time-limited events and one called “Da Vinci and the Seven Counterfeit Servants” featured three craft essences inspired by famous masterpieces. They were earned by collecting Leonardo’s famous manuscripts and counterfeits of all his masterpieces and writings. 

  Left: Maiden Leading Chaldea by pako (image: Aniplex) Right: Liberty Leading the People by Eugène Delacroix in the Louvre

  Collecting Leonardo’s manuscripts rewarded you with Maiden Leading Chaldea inspired by Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People. In it, Liberty has been swapped out with Joan of Arc, referred to as Jeanne D’Arc in Fate, whose flag is as inspiring to your in-game army as Liberty’s was to France. In the bottom left, you can spot Gilles De Rais, who was a close ally of Jeanne, but this is the Bluebeard version of Gilles, not the noble warrior he was prior to Jeanne’s death. In history, Gilles de Rais was a companion-in-arms who fought alongside Joan of Arc. But after retiring from the military he became known for an interest in the occult and was convicted as a child serial killer. The story of his horrible murder spree was the inspiration for the Bluebeard fairytale.

  On Jeanne’s right is Hans Christian Anderson who’s holding up papers in place of guns because words are his weapons and the pen is mightier - well you get the picture. In the back are other in-game characters, but neither have a historical counterpart, so moving on. 

  Left: The Merciless One by Aoi Tsukimoto (image: Aniplex) Right: Pietà by Michelangelo, in the Apostolic Palace

  The counterfeit manuscripts give you The Merciless One, based on the Pietà by Michelangelo who was a close friend of Leonardo (in Fate lore not so much in real life). This features Jeanne D’Arc Alter who is a dark version of Joan of Arc. In the image she’s cradling the pre-Bluebeard version of Gilles de Rais, the noble warrior who fought bravely by her side. The art mirrors Jesus being held by Mary after his crucifixion with Gilles de Rais’s fall into evil. 

  Left: The Scholars of Chaldea by Cherokee (image: Aniplex) Right: The School of Athens by Raphael in the Apostolic Palace

  The last famous art inspired craft essence of the event was The Scholars of Chaldea. You received this one by collecting fake copies of Mona Lisa, Self Portrait, and Vitruvian Man. This piece was inspired by the painting The School of Athens, but specifically just Plato and Aristotle in the back center. In it, Dr. Roman (your in-game boss essentially) and Leonardo are featured as the two great minds whose partnership will help save the world.

  Leonardo Da Vinci also has two side quests focused on her, both of which, while fictional narratives, feature a few winks and nods to lesser-known facts and paintings from the artist’s life. 

  Tobias and the Angel by Andrea del Verrocchio in the National Gallery London

  In the first, she’s traveling with you to London and casually mentions she was the model for the archangel Raphael in Verrocchio’s painting in the National Gallery. Based on that brief description it's most likely Tobias and the Angel to which she is referring. There’s no historical evidence to back her claim as a model but it's possible (the real-life) Leonardo did assist in the painting of the piece and if so it's his earliest work as a painter.

  (Source: Aniplex)

  You don’t get to visit the National Gallery to see the piece, instead you make your way to the British Museum to see Leonardo’s old friend “Mikey”. It’s the only appearance that Michelangelo makes in Fate so far, and Leonardo makes a point of saying that he’ll be unable to return in the future. She speaks of him fondly as a dear friend, calling him the other “uomo universale” but since he’s a lingering ghost and the game is mainly combat-based you do have to kill him. Rest in peace Mikey.

  In real life, Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo were known rivals. Their best known interaction was a pair of commissions that put them in direct competition with each other. They were hired to paint battle scenes on the same wall of a Council Hall in Florence. Long story short, neither finished their work and they parted on unfriendly terms. But, it is thought that despite their rivalry they both had a private respect and appreciation for the other’s work. 

  Drawing of Michelangelo’s David by Leonardo Da Vinci in the Windsor Castle, The Royal Collection

  At least on Leonardo’s side, we know Leonardo did a sketch of Michelangelo’s David for example. In Fate, Leonardo mentions more than once how much she admires David, but in real life Leonardo likened Michelangelo’s depiction of human musculature to a “sack of walnuts.” Maybe he meant that, maybe he was just bitter. 

  If Michelangelo ever drew any of Leonardo’s works we’ll never know since he torched most of his sketches right before he died. At the core of their interaction in Fate, Leonardo is basically saying that Michelangelo was the closest she ever had to a true equal to her level of genius, at least in the field of arts. That aspect might have held true for real-life Leonardo. 

  Virgin of the Rocks by Leonardo da Vinci in the Louvre

  Leonardo’s second side quest focuses a lot on her mother and the painting Virgin of the Rocks. It’s not known if she’s talking about the one housed in the Louvre or the one in the National Gallery. She’s referring to both but mentions she can’t remember if one was painted by her apprentice. Based on the museums’ descriptions of the two versions, they were both done by Leonardo himself. She says that while painting the Madonna she found herself longing for her mother and that’s what prompted her to bring her mother to come stay with her in Milan.

  Leonardo says this with a twinge of regret, remarking that by moving her mother to Milan she may have unknowingly shortened her life and caused her to fall ill. In actual history, there isn’t much known about Leonardo’s mother. He writes in his journal of a Caterina, who is strongly believed to be his mother, that visited him in Milan but died within a year. Her cause of death is also up for debate so the tragic narrative suggested by Fate’s Leonardo does seem to be a fictional invention. It’s been theorized by some that Mona Lisa is based off of Leonardo’s mother. When asked about this in Fate, she says no but adds she’s sure her mother had a wonderful smile.

  In the side quest, Leonardo also mentions going way past the deadline for the commission of Virgin of the Rocks and getting really annoyed when she found out how much the patron wanted to pay for the piece. This has some historical basis, the description of the version in the National Gallery says it was possibly made to replace the original since Leonardo wasn’t paid adequately for the first and sold it elsewhere. 

  (Source: Aniplex)

  Next in the side quest, you encounter Leonardo’s assistant Gian Giacomo Caprotti who she refers to as Salaì. How she describes him in the above image seems to be historically accurate. Salaì is a nickname that means “little devil” and he stole from Leonardo often. Leonardo da Vinci wrote of him frequently in his journal, mostly documenting what he broke and how much Salaì’s father would have to repay him. 

  Despite all of his antics, Salaì lived with Leonardo for thirty years and was even left half a vineyard in his mentor’s will. So when you run into his ghost in Fate, it's pretty clear Leonardo was hoping for a real reunion but since he’s an evil ghost who can’t talk you have to put him out of his misery just like with Mikey. Rest in peace little devil. 

  (Source: Aniplex)

  Lastly, Fate introduced a second Leonardo Da Vinci, called Da Vinci Lily, and she is a reference to a unfinished masterpiece of Leonardo’s. This version is also known as Gran Cavallo, the name of a horse sculpture the real-life Leonardo was unable to ever complete. 

  (video source: Aniplex)

  She’s also supposedly modeled off her childhood appearance... if Leonardo looked like the Mona Lisa as a child. 

  Design for a fighting vehicle by Leonardo da Vinci in the British Museum

  Da Vinci Lily is in command of an armored vehicle called the Shadow Border. The Shadow Border, which was built/designed in part by Da Vinci, bears some similarity to an armored tank Leonardo designed in his journals. 

Studies of Horses by Leonardo da Vinci in the Collection of the Royal Library, Windsor Castle

  In real history, Gran Cavallo was to be the largest equine statue ever created, but at the time Leonardo’s attention was divided between The Last Supper and countless other projects. He created a clay model of the piece meant to be later cast in bronze, but French bowmen used it for target practice when they invaded Milan. He was never able to recreate it and the story goes he never stopped mourning the project. 

  Left: Bella Lisa by Simosi Right: Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci in the Louvre

  Da Vinci Lily also got her own version of the Mona Lisa, called Bella Lisa.

On the other end of the spectrum of historical accuracy in Fate, Thomas Edison is a lion, for reasons having nothing to do with his life or career. So while the same can’t be said for every Fate character, the design and writing around Leonardo da Vinci feels like a loving homage to the life and work of the universal genius.

By: Danielle DeVeaux

[bapydemonprincess]

1 to 5 for all your OCs cause I can't tell what all your ocs are and too lazy to look it all up, sryy :P BUT I do like what you have made that i saw!!! jsyn

Well, I’ll see what I can do!! It’s.. all under a cut becayse god it got long. 🙈🙈🙈

Aarushi:

1. What is their gender? Nonbinary.

2. What is their sexuality? Asexual.

3. What is the meaning behind their name? Do they have any nicknames?Aarushi is Sanskrit for the first rays of the sun. Which makes so much sense as they are a baby created between Agni and female Sebastian :’) And it’s most likely Agni came up with the name mainly and Sebastian totally loved it immediately. 🖤 In most cases, people seem to like calling Aarushi Aaru for short, so there’s that, and I also headcanoned myself Agni calls his child tiger cub (there was Bengali for it but I can’t find it 🙈) Lastly, Sebastian calls both Aarushi and Ambrose their “kittens” and that sticks too. 🥰 (much to Ambrose’s dismay) 

4. Do they have any siblings? How many? Are they older or younger?  Which sibling are they the closest with? As stated above, Ambrose is Aarushi’s only other sibling. In general it was a miracle Seb and Agni were able to have another child after the first, considering the difficulties they endured the first time around, but definitely didn’t regret it! So Aarushi was much older by the time Ambrose was born, and had also likely come and gone to go explore the world on their own and make contracts (they need to eat souls like mama). As for closeness, Aarushi and Ambrose’s relationship is a mixed bag of love/hate. Aka, Aarushi adored their baby brother, no matter what, but Ambrose is always going to feel a bitterness deep down involving his older sibling, considering compared to him, Aarushi has LOTS of power inherited from both Sebastian and Agni’s hand of Kali, and yet.. they really are a peaceful sort and nothing like a demon of Hell themselves!

5. What’s their relationship with their parents like? What about other relatives?

Aarush loves both Agni and Sebastian and has a strong bond with both parents. The only thing they ever disagree on is Mama’s idea of eating souls and such. Aarushi is a pacifist through and through, much like Agni, and though this worries Sebastian because they do need to eat souls to survive, Sebastian cannot fault their beloved kitten for how they think of things. As for other relatives, Aarushi considers Grelle Sutcliff and Hannah Annafellows, who are most definitely together and (possibly..?) happily married their aunts, especially since Hannah helped Sebastian through the whole pregnancy in the first place.

Ambrose:

1. What is their gender? Male.

2. What is their sexuality? Bisexual.

3. What is the meaning behind their name? Do they have any nicknames?

The name “Ambrose” is Greek, and means “Immortal” ..(I am so so sorry I cannot for the life of me remember why that was picked it was something to do with how ironically his life WAS almost snuffed out, or he was meant to be a powerful demon but didn’t/couldn’t become one.. I dunno! 🙈) And again, Sebastian calls him “kitten” and Aunt Hannah, Grelle and his father Agni call him a little raven or corvus. :3 Meanwhile his now boyfriend calls him “Rosie” as they can shorten his name to that 🖤

4. Do they have any siblings? How many? Are they older or younger?  Which sibling are they the closest with?

I think it’s basically the same answer as above :P

5. What’s their relationship with their parents like? What about other relatives?

Like the polar opposite of his elder sibling, Ambrose doesn’t get along very well with family. Especially Mum. Mainly due to Sebastian being the one he was meant to be given powers from but couldn’t handle it. Not to mention, with how independent Ambrose is, Sebastian’s motherly attitude constantly gets on his nerves from early on and many times he’d tried even running away from home out of frustration, wanting to be “free”, and of course rebellion in general. For some reason, though, when it comes to Aunt Hannah, Ambrose doesn’t mind her much.. She was the one to save the boy from death by Sebastian’s demonic essence tearing his soul asunder, and that involved her taking away most of the demonic parts of him.. But instead of also targeting her with his rage, Ambrose respects and admires her a little. She is a quiet, calm, knowing comfort. As if she too understands the urge for isolation and independence. 💜 And finally, as for Aunt Grelle, well.. as Hannah’s wife is a bit more hands-on, Ambrose isn’t that fond of her.. but despite that he does respect her fighting skills, as growing up, Ambrose had learned to fight with weapons with her, as well as her junior, Ronald Knox (who loves goading the half-demon on out of spite because he’ll never be a fan of Sebastian, of course.)

Ulva Gelzer-Michaelis:

1. What is their gender? Female.

2. What is their sexuality? Lesbian.

3. What is the meaning behind their name? Do they have any nicknames?

Without even needing to look it up again, I know for certain Ulva means She Wolf in old German! uwu As for nick names, obviously most call her pup or little pup, especially her Dad and Mama!!

4. Do they have any siblings? How many? Are they older or younger? Which sibling are they the closest with?

Ulva is an only child, as it was a miracle that Sebastian (while female of course) and Wolfram managed to have this little one by herself! However, since Wolfram considers Sieglinde Sullivan like a daughter as well, Ulva has come to know the young lady as like an older sister!

5. What’s their relationship with their parents like? What about other relatives?

Both Sebastian and Wolfram undeniably adore their only daughter, though the hyperactive little puppy girl does always give them a run for their money, and the demon’s Mother Hen instincts are very high where she is concerned, as Ulva always finds herself getting into things one way or another that she might regret.. other than that and perhaps the older servants of Phantomhive at that time and maybe the Earl too if still alive, no other relatives really.

Eddie the Demon

1. What is their gender? He/them for the most part.

2. What is their sexuality? Demisexual.

3. What is the meaning behind their name? Do they have any nicknames?

As most demons under contracts allow their current masters to give them names instead of freely giving out their true name or, in this case, not even having a true name, Eddie let Ambrose decide on that, and thus the boy was like “Hm.. well... with that spooky Victorian Author look I’d say Edgar, y’know, like uh Edgar Allen Poe? But eh.. You don’t look serious enough or old enough to be an Edgar, so how ‘bout Eddie!”

Of course, Ambrose loves calling his imp turned lover plenty of nick names ;), including Ed, sugar, baby, babe, sweetheart...

4. Do they have any siblings? How many? Are they older or younger? Which sibling are they the closest with?

Well, being a very young imp of Hell, it is unlikely Eddie has any siblings, or even knows about any :P (And the likelihood that any siblings they do have if any would come to kill them for the sake of getting more power and recognition is very high..)

5. What’s their relationship with their parents like? What about other relatives?

Like many, many demons of Hell, Eddie likely has no clue at all who exactly created them. :/ It may be unfortunate to us humans to be left like that, but demons really don’t care, especially after a few centuries of adapting to fend for themselves!

Aidan Astre Sutcliff-Michaelis

1. What is their gender? Male.

2. What is their sexuality? n/a as he was last seen/known as merely a toddler so I and @grelleswife would rather let that be until we eventually write something new in that verse where he’s grown older. :3

3. What is the meaning behind their name? Do they have any nicknames?

Aidan is a Gaelic/Irish name for “Little fire” and was thought of, of course, by his mother Grelle Sutcliff :3 And obviously both other parents Mey and Sebastian were in agreement. He is a little spark; a little flame they’d all brought to life with their love. 🔥 Besides that, Aidan is still called “baby” by his mama Mey, “kitten” by his papa Sebastian, and “little chap” from his mummy Grelle! 

4. Do they have any siblings? How many? Are they older or younger? Which sibling are they the closest with?

He is currently an only child! However at the end of our Sebagrellerin rp, he did confess to wanting a sibling, sooo who knows ;3

5. What’s their relationship with their parents like? What about other relatives?

Aidan is very close with everyone, and not only his three original parents, but also now Miss Hannah Annafellows who kinda in a way has become a third mother too. >w< 💜

Amy Michaelis

1. What is their gender? Genderfluid, but usually favoring female.

2. What is their sexuality? Pansexual

3. What is the meaning behind their name? Do they have any nicknames?

I don’t believe it is possible to derive a nickname from the name Amy, but I think it’s important to note in her original story in That Butler Big Brother, Bard likes calling her “Madam President” in a tender/joking way. >w< (And i personally think after that, back in Hell, Amy INSISTS her subordinates call her Madam President TOO. (though they all find the extra madam part confusing..))

In the original article of Amy the Demon, their other names/other version of their name is Amii or Auns, Hanar, Hanni.

4. Do they have any siblings? How many? Are they older or younger? Which sibling are they the closest with?

In every verse of this character, the one thing I think that will always be the same is she has an elder sibling named Naberius, who is the fourth Marquis of Hell in the Lesser Key of Solomon, and is who we headcanon Sebastian Michaelis as. Who knows if these two have any other siblings, but I personally like the idea of these two, being the weirdo outcast demons they are, are a rare breed on their own. While other demons in Hell would likely either immediately kill and/or leave any blood related demons to be forgotten, these two stuck together for some strange reason, and our best guess on the why is that as Naberius was much older, nearly an adult by the time Amy came into being, and something instinctively drove the crow demon to stay by her side, and raise her, despite.. the animosity they sometimes share towards each other...

5. What’s their relationship with their parents like? What about other relatives?

Neither Amy nor Naberius know or remember for certain who or what their parents are. Amy most definitely recalls absolutely nothing, while her older sibling only vaguely recalls someone very, very old holding them as a youngling close, and between soft, soft soft so soft.. black wings.... But that’s all.

Adam Borders

1. What is their gender? Transexual ftm

2. What is their sexuality? I am not completely certain if he is Bisexual or something else at this time, as all I know is story wise he fell hard for Amy, so he is attracted to her but I cannot jump to the conclusion just yet as to what that means.

3. What is the meaning behind their name? Do they have any nicknames?

Adam chose his name when he fully accepted himself as a transexual man, not only just because he liked it, but because of the Biblical humor only he’d understand behind it considering his dead name was Evelynn, similar to “Eve”. It is understandable that many wish to completely forget their dead name, but Adam liked doing this, as he has a rather dark, bitter sense of humor, especially regarding himself. 

As for nicknames, his current Senpai Grelle calls him “Handsome” or “Charming” like Prince Charming, and Amy herself just calls him Boy or “dear boy”. Amy also likes resorting to Ancient Greek or Latin with her terms as it gives her confused flustered looks. >;3

4. Do they have any siblings? How many? Are they older or younger? Which sibling are they the closest with?

Most of Adam’s life before becoming a reaper is very sad and a bit left unsaid.. but I think he had an elder sister, who like most of the rest of the family, reacted very badly to uncovering what happened to their deceased relative and the why of it. :( So Adam would likely never bring up his older sister again.. except maybe briefly, but only maybe after learning of Amy’s relationship to the other demon Adam meets eventually, Sebastian Michaelis, who is her older brother basically.

5. What’s their relationship with their parents like? What about other relatives?

Again, most of that is very depressing and dismal, as they never would have accepted Adam for who he truly was, and had tried forcing him to live a certain way he did not want to. :(

And so... that’s most of my OCs!! XDD @grelleswife and I have something else in the works involving our current RP, but i can’t spoil it right here so that’s all left out! And the only others were tiny characters like Sylvia the Angel from the RP, and my self insert that I don’t think i need to put down here. 🙈 Thank you though for sendig me this!!

[titleknown]

Three More Movies That Don’t Exist

So, since “everbody” liked my movies that don’t exist article, here’s more! CC0 for all to use, except Helltell which as a name belongs to @artemispanthar, and would only be released with their permission.

Behind The Castle Door- Considered the Annie Hall of horror movies for multiple reasons, the film was meant to be a relatively simple affair; a horror movie, about a bunch of monsters killing people in a castle.

Though, despite its simplicity, it was actually a rather ambitious production for the fledgling company, a fandom operation similar to the production of The Deadly Spawn whose producer by the name of Ray Gardner had ambitions to become a full-on producing operation akin to what Charles Band was doing in that period.

The first mistake was that to shoot the production over the widely spaced locations; using multiple castles for the sake of creating a weird feel because; again; fan production, the director decided to have two separate directors shoot the film simultaneously at different locations.

One of them was Al Mason; a veteran at these sorts of B-movies whom the producer was a huge fan of, and who was looking to make a comeback by making a more visceral; gory version of the sorts of films he used to make. The other was Marty Ralston; a friend of the producer’s from art school, who wanted to make it a deep psychological piece where the monsters were hallucinations based on the main characters’ torment.

Both of them hated each other, and immediately began undermining each others’ visions. When Al did a lurid gore scene, Marty immediately set up the next scene in the story to directly contradict it continuity-wise. When Marty did a hallucination scene, Jim used injury makeup to clearly mark the wounds from that scene as real, and so-on.

It got to the point where, without Gardner’s consent; the two began altering the script without Gardner’s consent to reach their own vision of what they saw for the film.

Of course, the dailies were a godawful mess. To the point where the editor, one Layla Rose, in frustration with the incompetence around her decided to secretly make her own secondary cut out of the footage. Which was fortuitous, given that when he found out what they were doing; during the time where the production should have wrapped; Gardner fired the two directors in a huff of rage, and had to figure out what the fuck to do with the footage the next morning.

But, her original cut was surprisingly good. To the point where when she asked for permission to shoot extra footage to fill out the film, her request was granted. Albeit, some of her most ambitions ideas clearly had to be compromised due to a shortened shooting schedule and the need to reuse previously made creature effects (Along with a few memorable pieces of public-domain footage), but the final effort did indeed manage to impress, and did manage to be enough of a steady seller on video to make a decent profit; and to launch Rose’s career in directing (Though sadly not Gardner’s producing company).

The core concept of the original film is kept, people stumbling into a castle and unleashing a horde of monsters, but the idea added both by voiceover; the new scenes; and the clever editing; is that this is happening to two different people at two different times, though whether it is due to one taking place later or them being parallel universes is unclear until the end.

The film’s a philosophical look at the parallelism of history; even though on closer inspection that was very clearly not the intention of the original script; which reportedly was a more simple; classic fannish project.

Which, does at least shine through with the creature designs; which were very clearly where most of the film’s budget was spent, taking influences from Heironymous Bosch but also extremely original in their own right (”Lady Lance”/”Lust Lance” appears to be most fans’ favorite, though I have a soft spot for “Trashcan” myself) ; the mechanism of the various puppets being very simple and effective for their job as demons haunting a castle, to the point where they were reused in various other films, though it doesn’t quite match the king of such films...

Staboratory- This was the one time notorious producer Ronnie Sharikov directed a film, and if it’s any indication, it shows why he left the production to others.

It’s a simple dirt-cheap slasher film shot on shitteo; with poor blocking; actors that often have flubs left in, continuity and effects errors that boggle the mind, and more terrible; terrible acting via post-production dubbing than you can imagine, all shot in what looks like a college science lab rented out over the summer.

But, what makes it bizarrely compelling is how viscerally unpleasant it is. The characters all hate each other; the men are misogynistic glory hungerers who torture their experiments (Represented often by crude puppets that at best look like a bootleg Boglin and at worst look like a used jizz-sock); the women are varying proportions of “nagging harpy” and “gross misogynist fantasy,” which might I add leads to the most unpleasant sex scene I have viewed on film.

But, the most unsettling thing is how it all feels like they’re essentially a family that hates each other, with that subtle; icy strain of emotional abuse that knots up my stomach. Jordy is the goddamn worst about it, a bullying brute of a man who’s the closest thing to a “hero” with everything about him feeling like the sort of “Primal scream against one’s father” Raymond Spum would have put in his films, except less good.

The narrative seems to be saying that the “monster;” a thing that looks like it’s made of dryer lint and shame; is killing them off, but there’s also some contradictory implications that one of them is doing the killing, or maybe they’re all halucinating the monster?!

IDK, look it up only if you hate yourself.

Helltell- The late-70s film that put Walton Buckner truly on the map; the production of this film was largely uneventful, with the budget being higher than any Ronnie had previously worked with; large amounts of costume recycling from other productions to save that still-modest budget where they needed it; and the shooting on a singular location; the notorious Sonora Sunset, Tucson’s equivalent to the Bradbury Building with just as long a history.

But, the uneventful production is likely why it ended up as popular as it was, the story of a detective deliberately staying at a mysterious hotel where multiple very wealthy people have disappeared, only to find the inhabitants are far stranger than he had thought; and the hotel seems to be far larger in far stranger ways than he thought.

The simple premise of the film does not at all sum up the nature of the film, with its halucinatory qualities and tendency to digress into strange side stories, the usually trite premise of a hotel “punishing” those for their sins made fresh by the introduction of not only an outsider, but the strange labyrinthine dive into its metaphysical workings; complete with characterizing the monstrous inhabitants who would normally be simple one-off scares.

In its way, it does seem to be an extension of the previous aesthetics and concepts of the director’s March Of The Puppetmaster; to the point it is speculated that the elevator operator; who re-uses the Rat King’s mask from that film; may even be the same entity as that film.

Of course, we cannot speak of the franchise without first talking about the Bellboy, the beautiful man who is seemingly head of the titular Helltell with the strange deformed eye; played by the mysterious; wildly charismatic Titus "Count” Ajax.

He seemingly showed up one day; on audition; and was basically hired on the spot. He was, by all accounts, a social butterfly despite seemingly nobody on the production having met him before, though he always shied away from conversation about his past, and strangely insisted on never being seen shirtless and never being seen leaving the filming location.

But of course, this would only become more of a mystery until its ultimate; anticlimactic conclusion; so we’ll save that for later...

[ageeksnerdyworld]

So awhile back I saw some post saying that Ras, Talia, and Damian would all be the English names the three characters go by in public. The three being easier to pronounce and being more accepted by other people. And that the Al-Ghuls would use these alternate names so often that they completely stopped going by thier real names.

The thing is that Ras is the Arabic word for head. Talia is a name Arabian and Middle Eastern people use. Same thing with Damian. And so this doesn't make sense.

So I'm gonna clear that up for y'all because it annoyed me. And I'm kinda tired of people trying to act like they know enough about things to make posts about them.

I am half Arabian, Palestinian specifically, on my father's side and I can attest to this actually being a thing. The alternate name thing. I go by Jasmine; the Anglicized version of my first name. Both my older brother and my father go by Sal; a shortened version of thier names. One of my younger brothers goes by his middle name, Dean, because it's more acceptable.

And even my father's side of the family does this. Whenever we're out and about and people need a name for a food order or something or other they use a different name. One of my aunts goes by Tina. Her husband, and my uncle by marriage, goes by Joe. Yet again the Anglicized version of an Arabic name. My youngest uncle goes by Mo. The shortened version of the name. Another uncle goes by Sam. The shortened version of the name again.

So, yes, the Al-Ghuls would definitely do that but they'd actually use names that are more Anglicized. That being said...

In my opinion Damian, whose name means tamer, would probably still go by his given name. It's Greek in origin even though it's used by Arabs and Middle Easterns and a lot of people know how to pronounce it. Or he would go by Dan.

Talia, whose name means girl/woman who recites the Quran often in Arabic, would go by Taylor. Or Dahlia because it sounds like her name and people can say it without trying twenty odd times with stupid confused looks on thier faces. (Sadly her name isn't Tamara cos then Tami would be the perfect alternate.)

And Ras would go by Ray. Or something completely off like Henry. Both have very regal meanings and I think he'd like them.

[gta-5-cheats]

The Americans, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, and More &ndash; The Weekend Chill

New Post has been published on http://secondcovers.com/the-americans-unbreakable-kimmy-schmidt-and-more-ndash-the-weekend-chill/

The Americans, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, and More – The Weekend Chill

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push();

.unokp5b111df7a2591 margin: 5px; padding: 0px; @media screen and (min-width: 1201px) .unokp5b111df7a2591 display: block; @media screen and (min-width: 993px) and (max-width: 1200px) .unokp5b111df7a2591 display: block; @media screen and (min-width: 769px) and (max-width: 992px) .unokp5b111df7a2591 display: block; @media screen and (min-width: 768px) and (max-width: 768px) .unokp5b111df7a2591 display: block; @media screen and (max-width: 767px) .unokp5b111df7a2591 display: block;

Over the weekend, Amazon picked up sci-fi series The Expanse for a fourth season, after it had been cancelled by Syfy earlier in May. On Tuesday, Deadline brought word that Jamie Foxx would play the lead role in creator Todd McFarlane’s film adaptation of his comic book Spawn, about a black ops guy who dies, ends up in Hell, and is then sent back to Earth as a demonic warrior.

On Wednesday, Woody Harrelson confirmed in an interview that he does indeed have a role in the upcoming Spider-Man spin-off Venom, and revealed that he’s also signed up for a sequel. There’s no official word on his role, but rumours abound that Harrelson might be playing serial killer Cletus Kasady aka Carnage. We’ll find out when Venom releases October 5.

Also on Wednesday, Deadline said that Apple had greenlit a comedy based on 19th-century poet Emily Dickinson, with Hailee Steinfeld (The Edge of Seventeen) in the lead role. On Thursday, Variety reported that Westworld’s James Marsden had been cast for Sonic the Hedgehog movie, where he’ll reportedly play a cop named Tom who teams up with Sonic. The film is slated for November 15, 2019.

Lastly, we got a poster and synopsis for How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, which presents a romantic interest for the dragon Toothless. How to Train Your Dragon 3 is slated for release on March 1, 2019.

That’s all the entertainment news for this week. Welcome back to The Weekend Chill, your one-stop destination for what to watch, play, or listen to this weekend. Here are the best picks.

TV: The Americans Picking up three years after the conclusion of season five, The Americans finds the Jennings in a very different world. While Philip (Matthew Rhys) has moved away from the KGB spy life to focus on their travel-agency cover business, Elizabeth (Keri Russell) and their daughter Paige (Holly Taylor) are now involved deeper than before. Stan Beeman (Noah Emmerich) has settled down and shuttered the Soviet task force.

The sixth and final season of the show – a shortened run of 10 episodes, which ended earlier this week – uses the time jump to push its fictional world closer to the geopolitical upheaval around the corner (the end of the Cold War), though it’s more interested, as always, in how people get caught up on the other sides of battle lines through no inclination of their own.

Critics are full of praise for the season finale, calling it a heart-breaking and excellent end to a terrific show, and some labelling it one of the top 10 finales of all-time. “Part of the reason The Americans became such a rare treat is because it so rarely bowed to the usual pressures of TV story-building,” Variety’s Caroline Framke wrote. “It allowed itself to be slow and insular in a deliberate way that almost always found a satisfying payoff.”

How to access: FX or Hotstar Time commitment: 1 hour, weekly

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt Created by Tina Fey and Robert Carlock – the latter of whom served as showrunner for the former’s previous comedy 30 Rock – for Netflix, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt follows Kimmy, a woman in her thirties, who was rescued along with three others from a doomsday cult in Indiana, where Reverend Richard Wayne Gary Wayne (Jon Hamm) had held them for 15 years.

After getting out, Kimmy decides to move to New York City, where she meets gay, struggling actor, Titus Andromedon (Tituss Burgess), and street-wise landlady Lillian Kaushtupper (Carol Kane), and gets a job as a nanny for high-strung and lonely socialite Jacqueline Voorhees (Jane Krakowski). In the three seasons since, Kimmy adjusts to modern-day customs and slowly rebuilds her life, going to college among other things.

The show’s fourth and final season will air in two parts, with six episodes earlier this week and the other six in January 2019. Reviews have been positive: The Atlantic’s Sophie Gilbert noted how it “jokes, over and over again, about how injustice is ingrained within every level of society”, and Vox’s Alissa Wilkinson said “the darkness that’s always been present is finally breaking through, even though it’s also loaded with the same hysterical one-liners and fast-paced humour”.

How to access: Netflix Time commitment: 3 hours

Pose Prolific producer-creator Ryan Murphy, who recently signed a $300-million deal with Netflix, is back with a new show on FX: a musical dance drama called Pose, created by Murphy, Brad Falchuk (Glee), and Steven Canals. Set in the mid-1980s New York, it looks “at the juxtaposition of several segments of life and society: the rise of the luxury Trump-era universe, the downtown social and literary scene and the ball culture world”.

Pose includes the largest transgender cast ever assembled, according to FX, with over 50 transgender characters in some form. Well-known actors include Kate Mara (Megan Leavey), Evan Peters (American Horror Story), James Van Der Beek (Dawson’s Creek), Angelica Ross (Her Story), and stage performers Billy Porter and Charlayne Woodard. The show starts Sunday in the US, and will be available on Hotstar in India from Monday.

Reviews are mostly favourable. Entertainment Weekly’s Kristen Baldwin said: “For all of its ballroom flash and diva fierceness, Pose is a sweet, touching drama about finding your family, your purpose, yourself.” The Hollywood Reporter’s Dan Fienberg noted “an introductory quality to the opening episodes” and added: “Pose is poignant, funny and completely accessible, whether you’ve been part of this community or your only point of reference is Madonna’s ‘Vogue’ video.”

Shop On SecondCovers

.pwykj5b111df7a26b9 margin: 5px; padding: 0px; @media screen and (min-width: 1201px) .pwykj5b111df7a26b9 display: block; @media screen and (min-width: 993px) and (max-width: 1200px) .pwykj5b111df7a26b9 display: block; @media screen and (min-width: 769px) and (max-width: 992px) .pwykj5b111df7a26b9 display: block; @media screen and (min-width: 768px) and (max-width: 768px) .pwykj5b111df7a26b9 display: block; @media screen and (max-width: 767px) .pwykj5b111df7a26b9 display: block;

How to access: FX or Hotstar Time commitment: 1 hour, weekly

Movies: Black Panther Set immediately after the events of Captain America: Civil War, T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman) returns home to Wakanda, the technologically advanced African nation that poses as an agrarian nation to its neighbours. Now king after the death of his father, he finds his rule being challenged by factions within Wakanda, who seek to overthrow him.

Black Panther must work with members of the Dora Milaje, Wakanadan special forces, and CIA to prevent his country from being dragged into an all-out war. In addition to Boseman, the film stars Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong’o, Danai Gurira, Martin Freeman, Daniel Kaluuya, Letitia Wright, Winston Duke, Angela Bassett, Forest Whitaker, and Andy Serkis. As always, Stan Lee has a cameo.

Black Panther Is the King of Marvel Movies

Directed by Ryan Coogler (Creed), the film received stellar reviews upon release from critics, including us. Thanks to an impressive cast, three-dimensional characters (plus a great villain), stellar writing and direction, resonating themes, and a soundtrack like no other Marvel film, Black Panther is likely the best of the MCU lot. And it’s now available for purchase on Blu-ray and digital media.

How to access: Amazon IN, Google Play IN, or YouTube IN Time commitment: 2 hours and 14 minutes

Other mentions: Over in the world of streaming, Netflix had several worthy additions: Brad Pitt-starrer World War Z, 2018 Oscars nominee for Best Animated Feature Film The Breadwinner, Disney’s 1940 animated classic Pinocchio, and the critically-acclaimed Beach Rats (2017) and Eye in the Sky (2015).

Luke Cage, GLOW, The Avengers, and More on Netflix in June 2018

Amazon Prime Video now has Batman Begins, which was earlier only on Netflix. The first two seasons of The Magicians are now available on Amazon as well.

Video games: Street Fighter: 30th Anniversary Edition For the thirtieth anniversary of its popular fighting franchise, Capcom decided to package the arcade versions of 12 Street Fighter games: the original Street Fighter, all five versions of Street Fighter II: The World Warrior, Champion Edition, Turbo: Hyper Fighting, Super, and Super Turbo; all three versions of Street Fighter Alpha: Alpha, Alpha 2, and Alpha 3; and all three versions of Street Fighter III: New Generation, 2nd Impact, and 3rd Strike.

Of these twelves, four titles – Turbo: Hyper Fighting, Super Turbo, Alpha 3, and 3rd Strike – also have support for online multiplayer, where four players can join lobbies. The game’s Nintendo Switch version has an exclusive eight-player local mode for Super Street Fighter II. Bonus features include a Museum Mode where you can view concept art from the past three decades, a music player to listen to tracks, and biographies for characters.

Street Fighter: 30th Anniversary Edition has received good reviews. It looks good on modern hardware despite the respective age of the 12 titles (between 1987 and 1999), sports responsive controls, sounds great, and has a lot on offer in main content and extras. The only things we didn’t like were a lack of context in some places, and a higher price on the Switch.

How to access: PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Steam for PC, or Xbox One Time commitment: 18 hours

Other mentions: Beyond that, you should check out Yoku’s Island Express, which brings together pinball mechanics, platforming and open world exploration. It’s getting good reviews, and it’s available on PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.

This week also brought a new action RPG with rogue-lite elements, called Moonlighter. If that’s more your style, be sure to read our review, where it scored a 7 out of 10. It’s available on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.

There’s also Ikaruga, Sega’s 2001 shoot ‘em up, which has been ported over to the Nintendo Switch. It’s getting great reviews, so if you’ve Nintendo’s handheld and have been looking for a new game, try Ikaruga.

Affiliate links may be automatically generated – see our ethics statement for details.

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push();

[technato]

Bats, Blimps, and Giant Camera Chips: 2018’s Top Tech Quick Hits

A dozen intriguing tech projects to look for in the coming year

Photo-Illustration: Gluekit

.multipleCredit .xlrg .hi-cap { margin-top: 0px; padding-top: 0px; } .mobileHide { display: inline;}

/* Smartphone Portrait and Landscape */

@media only screen

and (min-device-width : 320px)

and (max-device-width : 480px){ .mobileHide { display: none;} }

Photo-Illustration: Gluekit

Moonward Ho!

In December 1968, Apollo 8 became the first manned mission to orbit the moon. A half-century on, SpaceX, Elon Musk’s spaceflight company, is vying to do the same thing, offering to send two private customers on a lunar flyby aboard its Dragon 2 capsule. Meanwhile, German startup Part-Time Scientists aims to land the first 4G LTE base station on the moon this year. The base station will relay signals between the company’s yet-to-be-launched rovers and mission control back on Earth, but it could also be used by future lunar explorers. Further-out moon ventures include an inflatable orbiting habitat being developed by Bigelow Aerospace. If all goes according to plan—admittedly, a big “if”—2018 could mark the beginning of the return of humans to the moon. And this time it’ll be for a good long stay. [For more on lunar plans in 2018, see “China Promises the Moon.”]

EU Doubles Down on Data Privacy

On 25 May, the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will take effect, with tough rules aimed at protecting the privacy of people living in the EU. Europeans already have many more privacy protections than, say, U.S. citizens, including the “right to be forgotten.” But the GDPR goes much further: It protects virtually every kind of data pertaining to individuals, including medical records, online transactions, and social media posts. It also gives EU residents the right to opt out of automated decision making—via a machine-learning algorithm, for example—and to demand an explanation when an automated decision involves them in some significant way. The GDPR applies to companies doing business in Europe as well as companies that handle the data of Europeans. Unsurprisingly, firms far and wide are scrambling to comply.

Blimp Cell Towers Head Skyward

This year, Altaeros Energies plans to launch the first of its tethered-blimp cell SuperTowers. Each aerostat, floating up to 600 meters above the ground, will provide coverage equal to 30 traditional cell towers. The blimps are intended for remote locations where broadband service is too difficult or costly to supply by conventional means. Several other companies aim to do similar things, including Google, with its Project Loon balloons, and Facebook, with its solar-powered Internet drone, Aquila. Altaeros’s other big push is in high-altitude wind turbines. Who knew you could build a diversified business around lofting tech-laden tethered balloons?

A Home That Floats

Worldwide, hundreds of millions of people live on floodplains, where they’re at risk of losing their homes, if not their lives, to rising water. Such risks could be reduced if their homes could float. That’s the idea behind LifeArk, a prefabricated modular dwelling that is cheap to make, easily transported in shipping containers, and then quickly assembled on-site using standard tools. A project of the architectural firm GDS, the 6-square-meter units can be bolted together into larger structures and connected to the main power grid and sewer system, if available. For off-grid locations, the units come with solar panels, rainwater harvesting and filtration, and waste management systems. The first prototypes will be floated, er, installed on a lake in Lindale, Texas, about 140  kilometers east of Dallas, later this year.

Every Shark Counted

Sharks and rays are threatened worldwide, but even scientists who study them haven’t been able to quantify the extent of the problem. Vulcan Inc., in Seattle, a philanthropic entity of Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen, aims to fill in the missing data. Its three-year Global FinPrint project is counting sharks, rays, and other marine life around coral reefs, using remote underwater video stations as well as a video-processing AI that helps identify animals caught on camera. The survey of 400 reefs is scheduled to wrap up this year. Already, the data has been used by Belize to create a ray sanctuary, and it’s informing the Dominican Republic’s efforts to protect sharks. The project has also generated intriguing clips of eels, sea turtles, and sea snakes—which admittedly don’t have quite the viral pull of cat videos.

150 Megapixels in Your Camera

Sony continues its domination of digital camera sensors with the release this year of the IMX411, a CMOS sensor chip capable of an “absurd” (as one blogger put it) 150 megapixels. The chip will also shoot ultrahigh-definition 8K video at 30 frames per second. Two other sensors, the IMX461 and IMX211, will offer 100-megapixel resolution. All three chips are intended for medium-format digital cameras—Sony’s as well as other companies’—and for applications like large-area surveillance, digital archiving, and industrial inspection. If you’re thinking you really need such a camera, better stock up on storage, too: Each 150-megapixel image will translate into a 300-megabyte file.

Linking Up Chile’s Long, Skinny Grid

From north to south, Chile extends 4,300 kilometers, but at its widest point, it’s just 350 km. This elongated profile poses a challenge for the country’s grid manager, Coordinador Eléctrico Nacional (CNE). Until recently the Chilean grid consisted of four separate electricity networks, so there was no way to move, say, solar energy generated in the northern desert to the country’s populated middle. Last year, though, construction wrapped up on the 580-km Mejillones-Cardones interconnection, finally linking up the northern and central grids. Later this year, a new 750-km transmission line will better connect points within the central network, and CNE plans to fund another US $600 million in transmission projects, including a 500-kilovolt line for the south. A robust transmission network could allow Chile to tap into ocean and tidal energy—with 4,300 km of coastline, it’d be a shame not to.

A Subway Fit for a Queen

Late this year, the first major section of London’s £14.8 billion Crossrail train network is set to open. When the new rail service fully opens in December 2019, it will add 42 kilometers of tunnels to the capital’s transit system, along with 10 new stations and upgrades to an additional 30 stations. The 10-year effort—the biggest construction project in Europe—promises to relieve congestion and shorten travel times for up to 200 million passengers a year. Although the Elizabeth Line is named for England’s longest-reigning monarch, the queen strikes us as an unlikely commuter.

Error-Detecting Voting Tech

The two big concerns about electronic voting are that a system error will cause votes to be inadvertently miscounted or that a hacker will cause votes to be intentionally miscounted. Starting this year, the state of Colorado plans to roll out a technique that proponents say will guarantee the correct outcome: risk-limiting audits. This statistical approach, which the state successfully rolled out in the November 2017 election, relies on comparing a random sample of paper ballots with the corresponding digital votes. The closer the election result, the more ballots get audited. If the audit finds an error in the reported outcome, a full hand count will be done. But if the audit finds the reported outcome to have a high likelihood of being correct, no hand recount is needed. The company developing the software for Colorado, Free & Fair, is open-sourcing it so that other states can adopt it.

Frankenstein Turns 200

This year marks the 200th anniversary of the publication of Frankenstein. Although Mary Shelley began writing her gothic novel on a dare to devise a good ghost story, she also wove in elements of the latest scientific theories of the day, including Galvani’s studies of “animal electricity” and contemporary debates over human consciousness. Thus did Shelley spark a pop culture meme that today is as popular in Hollywood as it is revered in academia. Universities around the world will host Frankenfests throughout the year to celebrate the book, its creator, and her ideas.

Waiting for Stratolaunch

Announced in late 2011, Paul Allen’s humongous rocket-launching aircraft was supposed to take its first test flight in 2016, which got pushed to 2017 and then 2018. Most recently, Allen’s company said it would conduct engine tests at NASA Stennis Space Center in the second half of this year. Next year could finally see the Stratolaunch’s maiden voyage. The idea of the 117-meter-wide, six-engine plane is still appealing: Taking off from a commercial runway, it will ascend to about 9,100 meters carrying one or more rockets, for a total payload weight of 230,000 kilograms. (That’s an order of magnitude greater than the payload of Orbital ATK’s Stargazer.) From that altitude, a rocket is clear of more than half of the planet’s atmosphere and thus far easier to propel to low Earth orbit. The project’s long timeline only goes to show that reducing the cost and complexity of rocket launch is still about as hard as rocket science itself.

Good News for Bats

When bats meet wind turbines, it’s invariably the bats that lose. According to one study, U.S. wind power killed more than 600,000 bats in 2012. Since then, the world’s wind-generating capacity has doubled. Curtailing wind turbines during periods of peak bat activity does reduce fatalities, but it also cuts into an operator’s revenues. This year, NRG Systems, based in Hinesburg, Vt., will release a commercial version of its ultrasonic bat-deterrent system, which requires no curtailment. The equipment sits on the turbine’s nacelle and emits ultrasonic sound between 20 and 50 kilohertz—the same frequencies North American bats use for echolocation. A bat nearing the turbine will immediately change direction, thereby avoiding its date with destiny.

All photo-illustrations: Gluekit

Bats, Blimps, and Giant Camera Chips: 2018’s Top Tech Quick Hits syndicated from http://ift.tt/2Bq2FuP

[workreveal-blog]

Be a Search engine optimization (SEO) Master

New Post has been published on https://workreveal.biz/be-a-search-engine-optimization-seo-master/

Be a Search engine optimization (SEO) Master

Time to go back to fundamentals about developing online visibility on your commercial enterprise. On-page Search engine optimization is a simple manner: Optimize each and each page of your internet site to rank better in the seek engine consequences pages.

  Recommendations for writing meta description tags:

Be precise approximately what is on the web page or put up, so users understand what they’ll get if they click on Use your primary keyword word in the meta description include a name to the movement for web pages, Which include a telephone range if relevant maintain the story to around one hundred sixty-five characters, so it seems within the seek outcomes ultimately So Despite the fact that search engines don’t use the meta description tag without delay when your website does appear inside the results, deliver the reader a motive to go to your site.

Search engine optimization

Create keyword rich page and post URLs

WordPress creates a web page and publish URLs primarily based on the titles used. Therefore, consider what you need to name the page that gets you the most benefits.

Having a “Services” web page is high-quality. However, everybody has a Offerings page so what does that do for you?

Flip your “Services” web page into one that is greater descriptive “Inbound Advertising and Marketing Services” or “Private Training Offerings“. while WordPress creates the permalink, it’ll create the subsequent:

yourdomain.Com/Private-Education-Offerings/ yourdomain.Com/inbound-advertising and marketing-Offerings/. Now while a person is searching for Personal Training Services or inbound advertising Offerings, your web page will have a far better risk of showing up within the consequences.

For weblog posts, let the URL be formed from the publish title except your identity is long. For this submit, I shortened the URL to /on-web page-Search engine optimization/, the usage of my awareness keyword phrase.

Different Seo elements

make certain your website is mobile pleasant

Google desires to offer an exceptional revel in for customers regardless of the device they are using. In reality, when you consider that most people are looking using a cellular device, Google is taking steps to index content based totally on the mobile version of the internet site’s content material. This is called cellular-first indexing.

To make sure that your internet site indicates up within the search results, it desires to assist displays of all sorts and sizes. The pleasant manner to do That is to make your website cellular responsive, wherein the content material is equal to cell and laptop.

Maximum of the current WordPress subject frameworks all aid responsive design capabilities. It’s far a matter of enforcing them well to garner the quality outcomes.

Also, you can need to additionally put in force Multiplied cellular Pages (AMP) which serves a lighter version of the content for fast loading on mobile devices. Use the AMP for WordPress plugin to implement this to get commenced.

Take your website to HTTPS

Starting this 12 months, Google Chrome will classify all sites without SSL encryption as unsafe and could start indicating as such with more visual cues. And Even though now not a huge ranking sign, having an SSL certificate does assist together with your website’s visibility.

Although SSL is a small rating element in Google’s set of rules, there are other advantages of installing SSL certificates:

Will increase accept as true with among you and your visitors. Protects your tourist’s Personal data through touch bureaucracy. Even In case you don’t sell the product to your website, having the green padlock image sends a message which you are worried about your traveller’s safety.

How important is that this manner?

Essential.

Why spend time writing content if it isn’t seen?

Your content can be excellent, But if no one knows approximately it, it’s vain.

Don’t take shortcuts. The goal of manufacturing content is to help the searcher fulfil their need. And not anything feels higher than having your cell phone ring and a prospect is looking you due to the fact they observed you on the Net, and also you helped them in a few manner.

Make it an addition to doing the on-web page Seo fundamentals When you write your content. You’ll be rewarded with better search engine placements for extra visibility.

Providing quite a number Net Marketing Offerings Which include Google Search engine optimization, % and Social Media advertising. Now not handiest this, but the industry dominating agency are acknowledged for their non-stop efforts in presenting pinnacle tips to all, no longer best taking into account companies to marketplace their websites a bit themselves However additionally offering their clients with the deeper know-how of what the advertising methods entail using Google engine.

Search engine optimization

– Write unique content material always. Every internet site web page ought to boast unique content material – applicable to its individual page.

– Use greater unique key phrases along with your broader keywords, usually making sure that you’re the usage of the key phrases which your clients are searching for.

– Make website navigation smooth for customers to apply.

– Make pages load as fast as possible. I’ll load speeds can be exceptionally adverse.

– Paintings to get the first-rate viable excellent hyperlinks. It is continually satisfactory to have a few unusually high pleasant links than multiple harmful links.

1. Goal Your Seo in your Audience

It’s clean to think of Seo as having a one-length-suits-all experience, However different search engines like google and yahoo call for various things. What works for Google won’t always be in the same order as for Amazon, so take into account While you’re running for your Search engine optimization as an Amazon seller to Target that particular Target market. The biggest distinction is that with Amazon, you need to be far greater distinct than you would on Google.

2. recognise What Your Amazon Audience is attempting to find

Setting together a listing of popular keywords is easy; it includes things like ‘books’, ‘DVDs’, ‘apparel’, ‘Kindle’, and so forth. In other phrases, it’s the broadest definition of the kind of product you’re selling. And it’s also what’s going to water down your Seo rating due to the fact all of your competition could be doing the equal. As a substitute, come up with levels of keywords based totally on your studies that slim down the scope, like ‘Kindle Fireplace HD’, ‘Blu-Ray’, ‘men’s hoodies’ and ‘first version books’.

three. Adhere to Amazon’s Search engine optimization Shape

search engine optimization

Amazon has a unique manner they want their sellers to enter facts into his or her very own search engine, and also you’d do thoroughly to comply with it to the letter. In a manner, it’s easier than formulating your Seo for Google because Amazon’s already Performed their very own research. They want certain forms of phrases and terms that’ll result in conversions because their principal aim is to promote merchandise, so provide them what they need. Having stated that, it’s vital to recall to…

four. Write Compelling, unique replica

When you’ve crammed inside the first a part of things on Amazon — the formulaic part — it’s time to get a little creative. Consider, your pinnacle goal is to transform hits into sales, so write the kind of copy a good way to do this. If you’re feeling stuck, inform your shoppers how the product will Work for them in place of honestly describing it. Positioned the result inside the consumer’s life and shortly, it sincerely will be there.

Advocated for You Webcast, March twenty-eighth: Past the Landing web page 5. Fill In As An awful lot data As viable

There’s no reason why any of the statistics fields ought to be clean — ever. If a manufacturer made it, then the information is available. And In case you’ve done it, then you already realise all the statistics. When you have empty fields, then there’s a danger of shoppers by chance skipping over your list because you haven’t instructed them you’ve got what they’re seeking out.

6. Differentiate between the main phrases and Longtail keywords

The most useful thing you have to don’t forget here are long tail keywords a string of three or extra keywords. That’s at its handiest, although. In case you need motivation on why they’re so crucial, remember that they make up nearly 3-quarters of searches online. And the more searches you have, the higher your odds of converting.

7. Tailor Your keywords According to Competitiveness

On this instance, we’re not speaking about the dealers you’re competing with — or as a minimum, now not immediately. As an alternative, keywords are competing towards one another obtainable and your activity is to break far from the % a little bit. The civil case situation is hitting upon key phrases which can be high in seek quantity and little in opposition and locating them is a chunk like working towards your basketball competencies till you can sink greater shots than not. It takes endurance and persistence in uncovering them, and also a piece of good fortune. Speak of opposition…

8. Ignore Your competition

in the case of Search engine optimization, it’s excellent to place on a couple of blinders and forge ahead. No Amazon sellers are exactly alike and measuring yourself by way of every other’s requirements isn’t the satisfactory manner to head. Of direction, you want to be commonly within the recognise approximately what your competitors are doing, especially about the fee, But it’s a miles higher concept to spend that point growing your Seo strategies.

[technato]

Bats, Blimps, and Giant Camera Chips: 2018’s Top Tech Quick Hits

A dozen intriguing tech projects to look for in the coming year

Photo-Illustration: Gluekit

.multipleCredit .xlrg .hi-cap { margin-top: 0px; padding-top: 0px; } .mobileHide { display: inline;}

/* Smartphone Portrait and Landscape */

@media only screen

and (min-device-width : 320px)

and (max-device-width : 480px){ .mobileHide { display: none;} }

Photo-Illustration: Gluekit

Moonward Ho!

In December 1968, Apollo 8 became the first manned mission to orbit the moon. A half-century on, SpaceX, Elon Musk’s spaceflight company, is vying to do the same thing, offering to send two private customers on a lunar flyby aboard its Dragon 2 capsule. Meanwhile, German startup Part-Time Scientists aims to land the first 4G LTE base station on the moon this year. The base station will relay signals between the company’s yet-to-be-launched rovers and mission control back on Earth, but it could also be used by future lunar explorers. Further-out moon ventures include an inflatable orbiting habitat being developed by Bigelow Aerospace. If all goes according to plan—admittedly, a big “if”—2018 could mark the beginning of the return of humans to the moon. And this time it’ll be for a good long stay. [For more on lunar plans in 2018, see “China Promises the Moon.”]

EU Doubles Down on Data Privacy

On 25 May, the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will take effect, with tough rules aimed at protecting the privacy of people living in the EU. Europeans already have many more privacy protections than, say, U.S. citizens, including the “right to be forgotten.” But the GDPR goes much further: It protects virtually every kind of data pertaining to individuals, including medical records, online transactions, and social media posts. It also gives EU residents the right to opt out of automated decision making—via a machine-learning algorithm, for example—and to demand an explanation when an automated decision involves them in some significant way. The GDPR applies to companies doing business in Europe as well as companies that handle the data of Europeans. Unsurprisingly, firms far and wide are scrambling to comply.

Blimp Cell Towers Head Skyward

This year, Altaeros Energies plans to launch the first of its tethered-blimp cell SuperTowers. Each aerostat, floating up to 600 meters above the ground, will provide coverage equal to 30 traditional cell towers. The blimps are intended for remote locations where broadband service is too difficult or costly to supply by conventional means. Several other companies aim to do similar things, including Google, with its Project Loon balloons, and Facebook, with its solar-powered Internet drone, Aquila. Altaeros’s other big push is in high-altitude wind turbines. Who knew you could build a diversified business around lofting tech-laden tethered balloons?

A Home That Floats

Worldwide, hundreds of millions of people live on floodplains, where they’re at risk of losing their homes, if not their lives, to rising water. Such risks could be reduced if their homes could float. That’s the idea behind LifeArk, a prefabricated modular dwelling that is cheap to make, easily transported in shipping containers, and then quickly assembled on-site using standard tools. A project of the architectural firm GDS, the 6-square-meter units can be bolted together into larger structures and connected to the main power grid and sewer system, if available. For off-grid locations, the units come with solar panels, rainwater harvesting and filtration, and waste management systems. The first prototypes will be floated, er, installed on a lake in Lindale, Texas, about 140  kilometers east of Dallas, later this year.

Every Shark Counted

Sharks and rays are threatened worldwide, but even scientists who study them haven’t been able to quantify the extent of the problem. Vulcan Inc., in Seattle, a philanthropic entity of Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen, aims to fill in the missing data. Its three-year Global FinPrint project is counting sharks, rays, and other marine life around coral reefs, using remote underwater video stations as well as a video-processing AI that helps identify animals caught on camera. The survey of 400 reefs is scheduled to wrap up this year. Already, the data has been used by Belize to create a ray sanctuary, and it’s informing the Dominican Republic’s efforts to protect sharks. The project has also generated intriguing clips of eels, sea turtles, and sea snakes—which admittedly don’t have quite the viral pull of cat videos.

150 Megapixels in Your Camera

Sony continues its domination of digital camera sensors with the release this year of the IMX411, a CMOS sensor chip capable of an “absurd” (as one blogger put it) 150 megapixels. The chip will also shoot ultrahigh-definition 8K video at 30 frames per second. Two other sensors, the IMX461 and IMX211, will offer 100-megapixel resolution. All three chips are intended for medium-format digital cameras—Sony’s as well as other companies’—and for applications like large-area surveillance, digital archiving, and industrial inspection. If you’re thinking you really need such a camera, better stock up on storage, too: Each 150-megapixel image will translate into a 300-megabyte file.

Linking Up Chile’s Long, Skinny Grid

From north to south, Chile extends 4,300 kilometers, but at its widest point, it’s just 350 km. This elongated profile poses a challenge for the country’s grid manager, Coordinador Eléctrico Nacional (CNE). Until recently the Chilean grid consisted of four separate electricity networks, so there was no way to move, say, solar energy generated in the northern desert to the country’s populated middle. Last year, though, construction wrapped up on the 580-km Mejillones-Cardones interconnection, finally linking up the northern and central grids. Later this year, a new 750-km transmission line will better connect points within the central network, and CNE plans to fund another US $600 million in transmission projects, including a 500-kilovolt line for the south. A robust transmission network could allow Chile to tap into ocean and tidal energy—with 4,300 km of coastline, it’d be a shame not to.

A Subway Fit for a Queen

Late this year, the first major section of London’s £14.8 billion Crossrail train network is set to open. When the new rail service fully opens in December 2019, it will add 42 kilometers of tunnels to the capital’s transit system, along with 10 new stations and upgrades to an additional 30 stations. The 10-year effort—the biggest construction project in Europe—promises to relieve congestion and shorten travel times for up to 200 million passengers a year. Although the Elizabeth Line is named for England’s longest-reigning monarch, the queen strikes us as an unlikely commuter.

Error-Detecting Voting Tech

The two big concerns about electronic voting are that a system error will cause votes to be inadvertently miscounted or that a hacker will cause votes to be intentionally miscounted. Starting this year, the state of Colorado plans to roll out a technique that proponents say will guarantee the correct outcome: risk-limiting audits. This statistical approach, which the state successfully rolled out in the November 2017 election, relies on comparing a random sample of paper ballots with the corresponding digital votes. The closer the election result, the more ballots get audited. If the audit finds an error in the reported outcome, a full hand count will be done. But if the audit finds the reported outcome to have a high likelihood of being correct, no hand recount is needed. The company developing the software for Colorado, Free & Fair, is open-sourcing it so that other states can adopt it.

Frankenstein Turns 200

This year marks the 200th anniversary of the publication of Frankenstein. Although Mary Shelley began writing her gothic novel on a dare to devise a good ghost story, she also wove in elements of the latest scientific theories of the day, including Galvani’s studies of “animal electricity” and contemporary debates over human consciousness. Thus did Shelley spark a pop culture meme that today is as popular in Hollywood as it is revered in academia. Universities around the world will host Frankenfests throughout the year to celebrate the book, its creator, and her ideas.

Waiting for Stratolaunch

Announced in late 2011, Paul Allen’s humongous rocket-launching aircraft was supposed to take its first test flight in 2016, which got pushed to 2017 and then 2018. Most recently, Allen’s company said it would conduct engine tests at NASA Stennis Space Center in the second half of this year. Next year could finally see the Stratolaunch’s maiden voyage. The idea of the 117-meter-wide, six-engine plane is still appealing: Taking off from a commercial runway, it will ascend to about 9,100 meters carrying one or more rockets, for a total payload weight of 230,000 kilograms. (That’s an order of magnitude greater than the payload of Orbital ATK’s Stargazer.) From that altitude, a rocket is clear of more than half of the planet’s atmosphere and thus far easier to propel to low Earth orbit. The project’s long timeline only goes to show that reducing the cost and complexity of rocket launch is still about as hard as rocket science itself.

Good News for Bats

When bats meet wind turbines, it’s invariably the bats that lose. According to one study, U.S. wind power killed more than 600,000 bats in 2012. Since then, the world’s wind-generating capacity has doubled. Curtailing wind turbines during periods of peak bat activity does reduce fatalities, but it also cuts into an operator’s revenues. This year, NRG Systems, based in Hinesburg, Vt., will release a commercial version of its ultrasonic bat-deterrent system, which requires no curtailment. The equipment sits on the turbine’s nacelle and emits ultrasonic sound between 20 and 50 kilohertz—the same frequencies North American bats use for echolocation. A bat nearing the turbine will immediately change direction, thereby avoiding its date with destiny.

All photo-illustrations: Gluekit

Bats, Blimps, and Giant Camera Chips: 2018’s Top Tech Quick Hits syndicated from http://ift.tt/2Bq2FuP