#road cuts show strata

[necarion]

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My geo professors told me (otherwise uncited) that the number one killer of geologists in the line of duty was ... getting hit by cars as they crossed the highway to look at road cuts.

Side effect of archaeology that i didnt realise WAS a side effect of archaeology #1482

turns out i cant stop staring at the ground when walking across a paddock and could be staring at the sunset instead

(and no, i dont mean ‘dont trip and fall’ occasionally keeping an eye on your feet, i mean like gave myself a crick in my neck automatically scanning for artefacts level staring at the ground)

[rroderickrowe]

The First Knight Shaman

A Work in Progress, September 2023

12 Apr 2035

Justin Earl Knight was standing, pacing the meeting room as he worked to convince the other tribal leaders to his point. Justin, at seventy-two years old, still appeared under sixty. He was clean-shaven, but when the bristly beard peeked out it was more snow-white than gray, and his hair had receded such that one could barely tell from the fringe that it had once been brown. “Yes, we do have two fort-homes,” he continued his pacing, “but that’s what they want to take from us!” He would have gone on, but the meeting was abruptly interrupted.

“Justin! Your son is about to be born,” a woman announced as she barged into the room.

“What are you going on about, woman?” Justin asked. “Who said you could just barge into a meeting like this?” He looked at the others in the room, wondering at their expressions. They seemed more curious about his response to the invasion than offended that someone would come into their meeting uninvited. Maybe they were wondering if he would live up to the ideals they had been building now that it was his child being born? “Maybe we should start setting someone outside the door when we’re meeting,” he said. “We can’t just have random people barging in and interrupting our sessions.”

“But it’s your son who’s being born!” the woman insisted.

“And what of it?” Justin asked. “I allowed myself to be used as a stud and the seed caught. What would you have of me?

“Do you want me to pop the cork on the bubbly?

“Do you want me to come cut the cord?

“Good, lord, woman. You’re trying to make us the same as all those outsiders we’re trying so hard to get separated from! Before you know it, you’ll be forcing us into marriages and we’ll become breeders just like them!”

Several tribal leaders in the room showed their surprise in audible gasps. No one had referred to those not of the tribe as outsiders and breeders before. Even now, two years after the great quakes, and after being nearly overrun every year when those desperate enough to try to steal from the tribe, made their way along the broken roads, there was still the thought that the disparate communities could one day unite and rebuild the nation.

The woman stood shocked at the door for a moment, staring at the gathering. “Maybe it was nothing to do with you, after all,” she said. “What kind of community are we forming? Where a father doesn’t want to celebrate the birth of a son?”

“We’re building a nation where merit will determine a citizen’s standing,” Justin answered. “Not sire and dam. I thought we had made that clear years ago.”

“I only thought…” the woman said before stuttering to a stop. She looked around the room seeing no support, then turned to leave the room. “We’ll let you know if your next citizen survives his birth,” she said as she quietly shut the door.

Justin waited to be sure the interloper was gone. “I suppose we’re going to have to look over the organization of our schooling system next. There are young ones who will be entering into that age soon and we don’t want to start out polluting them with the same old programming that’s been driving civilization into the abyss for 200 years now.”

“Don’t all young ones need and deserve love?” Rebecca, one of the leaders asked.

“Of course, and we need to make sure that only those who support the “it takes a village” approach will be in positions to give them that love,” Justin answered. “Our children will have the love and care of an entire village. Not just that of a single set of parents! Think about those out in the world now who don’t have parents for some reason. Or are being raised by only one parent. They are treated differently. They are raised with the knowledge that they’re extras, unwanted, side thoughts. That builds artificial layers of strata in the community where there should be none. We’ve all agreed that there will be no nepotism in our culture. What we need to do now is make sure we build a system that can support that goal.”

***

Justice Preston from exile

30 Sep 3115

What was it like being the son of the legendary Founder Knight? Perhaps this conversation is a clue. What must it have meant to grow up in a world that was being rewritten around you even as you grew?

What would make the son of Justin Earl Knight step into the role of Knight Shaman of an emerging cultural power when that role was nothing more than a name? And where there was no path forward in all surviving literature of the time? When the tribal culture was only the barest of ideas, still poorly formed? Who would be the power that guided the disparate personalities and ideas into a gelled nation?

***

Rodney Knight

11 Oct 2042

Seven-year-old Rodney walked along the hall in a rare moment to himself. The danger of falling debris from the quakes two years ago had subsided enough that the tribe had moved back into Milltown Hall. The tribe had gradually increased the water level in the reservoir held back by Milltown Dam and since the dam was a part of Milltown Hall, the inside temperatures had been dropping. No one had moved into the rooms adjacent to the water yet. The ones with the view windows and he hoped to find his way into one so he could look out into the water.

Though the damage had all been repaired and cleaned up, he did get rock dust all over himself as he walked. And he could still run a hand along cut stone or faced concrete and lift a whitish haze of dust with no effort at all. He stopped where a section of concrete bordered native stone and admired the straight lines the builders had made of the transition. He ran his finger up the joint to see if there were any separation. Everyone did this as a matter of course as they traversed the halls. After the great quakes a couple years back, everyone was attentive to the state of their underground fortress. If any gaps formed, they would send in engineers and repairmen to see if there were a weak point needing repair or demolition.

The activity was an automatic physical action as he dwelt mentally on a recent bit of information he had learned. The Founder was his father. The man who had turned down the position of tribal chief so many times that they finally stopped offering it and decided not to have a chief at all until something changed.

He was Justin Earl Knight’s first-born son. Yet he had never met the man. Had never interacted with him other than seeing him in the Great Hall for meetings and gatherings where the younglings were herded into a side alcove and told to keep quiet and still. He brushed his black hair out of his eyes, the action once again reminding him that he had forgotten to braid it as he was so often admonished. The silky black strands differed from what he would have expected, remembering that the Founder had streaks of gray in his brown hair. He remembered his own brown eyes in the mirror and compared it to the Founder’s blue eyes in his memory. Most of all he remembered the Founder’s fair skin, often reddened when he had been out in the sun and compared that with his own swarthy skin.

If the Founder were his sire, then his dam must have been one of the pure Native Americans recruited in from the Grande Ronde Tribe in the days they had been forming the Elk Creek Nation. Maybe she was even one of those who had been sent to the reservation a hundred and more years ago from the Yoncalla Tribe. He thought of his classmates in the youngling’s creche’. Some few went to shared homes with parents while most were boarded with groups that were recently referred to as “hearths” with “hearth leaders” overseeing their classes.

He continued to wander, admiring the clean lines and polished stone. He saw dust on the floors in this more remote area, reminding him that the founders had designed the hall much larger than they would expect to utilize this early in their development as a tribe and community. He reached one Tee section where the hall he had been following forced him either right or left. He wondered if this was where the mountain stone ended and the waters if Lake Yoncalla were just the other side of the stone surface. He had never been this far before and didn’t want to make yet another turn in his meandering, so he turned back toward his hearth.

When he reached the more travelled sections, he encountered Gavin, one of his boys’ hearth mentors. “Thank God, I found you,” Gavin said. “There’s an attack coming against us. They’ve already got into Elk Creek Hall and more are trying to bridge the river to get to us here in Milltown.”

Rodney felt his heart race as Gavin grabbed his hand and near-drug him along the halls. Not toward the boys’ hearths but instead into the deeper recesses. As he attempted to scuttle along as quickly as he could to relieve the pressure on his arm, he saw many adults rushing toward the front of the building. They were carrying a mix of bows and guns as they rushed by, still trying to get their militia clothing on over their more casual inside garb. He was in a panic and ashamed that tears were streaming down his face when they finally caught up with the others in the great hall. He was pushed into the midst of his classmates as Gavin turned to work with others to build barricades in front of the entryways.

[thecat-inthehat]

21. Feckless

I wrote and discarded about 3 different two paragraph starters before I settled on this. I fully admit to Hilda’s voice not being very good, I haven’t played the sections of msq where she shows up in quite some time, and I was more concerned about getting this idea out.

Set two years after the Calamity

(2194 words) [Masterpost]

---

The snows were starting to come down, again. Two years of it, since the Calamity had shifted the aether of the whole region to ice, and people were still surprised by it all. Food was scarce still, and more and more people poured into the city after their hamlets and villages were towed under the blizzards. Some had lasted longer than others, but the strata of the city was starting to become overfull of people clustering together for warmth. 

On the one hand, it meant that there was an easier time distributing resources and working together, which was always one of Ishgard’s strengths. On the other… 

“Watch where you’re going, you lout!” The driver of the carriage shouted, throwing up his hands. 

“You better get your chocobo’s beak out of my arse, or I’ll shove this lance up yours!” The guard shouted back, blocking the path of the cart and making a rude gesture. 

“I’m taking this to the marketplace, it’s a delivery from Gridania, and if the Mistress of the Markets hears it’s late--” 

The arguing continued, with no one paying it much mind save for a slip of a teenager perched on a barrel, digging a knife into an apple and eating it slowly. His pointed ears were pricked for any scrap of information he might be able to glean from the arguing, as well as from the other street-goers. The news of a new shipment to the market was certainly useful, as well as the infighting amongst the Temple Knights over who would get first pick.

The Temple Knights were overworked at current, desperately trying to keep the city afloat from the sudden influx of citizens and the mounting horror that was a two year long winter with no end in sight. Many of them had taken to tossing their privilege around at every turn, if only to try and alleviate the long hours and the constant barrage of problems hurtled their way. Of course, the people they were exploiting were the lowly and poor, which didn’t sit too well with the teenager. 

He sliced into the apple again, cutting a wedge out for himself and chewing on it thoughtfully. 

“Where did you even get that?” His sister asked waspishly, coming out of the alleyway and standing next to him. “Fresh fruit? In this frozen city? Who did you knife?”

“Valesiya.” He signed, his fingers working around the knife in his hand. 

“You shanked the healer?” Hilda demanded, throwing up her hands. “I thought you liked her!” 

Aiden rolled his eyes at her, slicing into the apple and making a sizable chunk, going to shove it in her mouth. She blinked at him, then grinned and nibbled on it, her eyes closing happily. 

“Went to visit her earlier,” he said aloud, his voice a quiet rasp against the busy marketplace. When Hilda opened her eyes again to look at him, he continued signing. “Idraut needed medicine for his sons, but couldn’t leave them. I offered to go in his stead, and she gave me some other stuff to spread around.”

“Well. At least someone cares about those down under,” Hilda groused, finishing off her portion of the apple and glancing out over the roads. “What other stuff?” 

Aiden wordlessly kicked at the basket between his feet and pushed it over to her, letting her dig through it while he continued to munch on his apple. His gaze drifted between some of the Knights on the road and the other citizens gathered to gossip, or some of the merchants and crafters that were heading to and fro along the path. There was even a dragoon on the street -- out of their distinctive armor, but the way they carried themselves, and the spear on their back set them out to the trained eye. 

“Tonics, potions, herbs, fruit, vegetables…” Hilda murmured, digging through the basket. “And she just handed it to you?” 

“She likes me.” 

Hilda’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “You know, if you have a lady friend…” 

“Not like that, Fury’s tits--” Aiden spluttered, nearly coughing out what was left of his fruit. 

Hilda cackled and nearly shoved him off the barrel, “You’re as red as the apple!” 

“Because I’m choking you arse!” He signed, coughing and thumping his chest. He gave her a withering glare when he could finally breathe again and shook his head. “You’re just jealous, as if you don’t have a dozen girls hanging off your every word.” 

“But I could have more,” she grinned. 

Aiden rolled his eyes again. “You’re not getting any more of my apple. Anyways, weren’t you supposed to meet with someone?”

His sister’s face darkened, and her ruby red eyes narrowed. “I was, yeah. But the bastard stood me up, and had already sold what I paid for to someone else. We’re not going to be getting the crystals we need to keep the Burme warm. We’re going to have to find something else.” 

“... Shit.” He whispered, going pale. 

“I might know someone else I can talk to -- that crazy son of the Haillenarte who’s always tinkering away in that shop of his,” Hilda grimaced, rubbing the back of her neck. “He might have some extra crystals or fuel to spare.” 

“We need to get those supplies back. Half the lower city block won’t survive when the next storm comes in.” He signed frantically, his apple forgotten in his lap.

“I know!” She hissed back, throwing up her hands. “But it’s not like you or I have the clout or ability to get it all back! You might be good at sneaking, and I might be good at distracting, but he’s got guards and all sorts of precautions. We can’t do anything.” 

“I… I’ll think of something. You take this basket down, and hand it out. Make sure Idruat gets his medicine first, then hand out the rest.” He signed, hopping to his feet. He tossed her the rest of the apple, and pocketed his knives. 

“Where are you even going to go?” She demanded, snatching the apple out of the air. She didn’t chase after him, knowing better than to do that. 

“I’m going to find some shadows.”

-x-

The Burme was the lower levels of the city, built into the mountain that it rested on. The mist and winds blew in from the Sea of Clouds below, blanketing the entire area in a foul miasma that made it near impossible to see the end of the street some days. If the Burme fell, most of the city would follow, but of course those in the Pillars didn’t think of it that way. 

Aiden walked with purpose down the lane and tried to set his shoulders square, and practice what he would say. He might’ve been eighteen and lived in the Burme all his life, but the thought of approaching them was… unsettling, at best. They might’ve helped people on occasion, but their idea of help didn’t exactly mesh with what was good and Godly. 

The fog was rolling in again, swirling around his feet as he walked deeper into the places the Temple Knights dare not travel in. The worn leather of his boots didn’t stop the cold from seeping into his legs--each movement felt sluggish and chilly, like he should turn back and go to warmer fires near the top. Each step felt … wrong somehow, his stomach twisting with anxiety as he descended into the depths. It was a test of wills really, between his nerve and the increasing feeling that he wasn’t welcome. 

“Well well… What cawing does the Raven have for me today?” A voice said, soft and gentle in the darkness of the alley. 

“Still using that nickname?” He croaked, and his voice was near swallowed up by the fog that covered everything around them. 

“It fits, doesn’t it? Better than your sister, the Mongrel.” They said, their soft laugh rippling through the air. 

A shadow melted out of the alley and stepped into what scant light lay in his feet. They were taller than Aiden’s scant five fulms, and the only distinguishing feature he could see was golden eyes staring at him from under an all concealing helmet. Fray Myste sometimes seemed more shadow than hyur, dressed all in black with a massive greatsword strapped to their back. 

“A-A merchant,” he stuttered, and couldn’t meet the piercing gaze. 

“A merchant.” They repeated, their voice coming out as a comfortable drawl. “And why do I care about a merchant that cheated you out of an apple?” 

Briefly he wondered how the boogeyman of Ishgard knew what he had been eating, but he ignored it and tried to square his shoulders. “Not me. Whole south east district.” 

Fray’s eyes widened momentarily, then narrowed. “Really now.” 

“Hilda and I--” He had to stop to cough, rubbing his throat. Normally he could talk for longer, but between the trek down and the smog of the Burme… 

“Just sign. I can read it.” Fray said, waving a hand. 

“Thank you.” He signed, then tried again. “Hilda and I made a deal with a merchant coming in from Gridania so we could distribute it, but he didn’t show up for their meeting today. Hilda already paid for it all, so it’s ours by law and rights. But he went and tried to sell if off to people in the Pillars for higher profit.” 

“I’m not an errand boy,” Fray said quietly, but they didn’t immediately shove him away, so maybe the whole cause wasn’t lost. 

“We can hand it out. We just need what we already paid for, even half of it. If the next storm comes in, the south east district won’t survive.” 

“Right. The pipes burst last storm, and the architects aren’t keen on fixing it when they’ve got fancy homes in the Pillars to work on.” Fray murmured and crossed their arms. They turned away from him, starting to pace. Their greatsword gleamed in the scant light, the edge of it righteously sharp. It was clean now, but Aiden had seen it be dirtied once before. He didn’t want to see that again. 

“Do you have anything else for me?” Fray asked, tilting their head to glance at him so they could see his hands. 

“He’s a wildwood, with shaggy brown hair and a scar on his cheek. On the shorter side, with ears that tip down. Earsplitting accent, can’t miss him.” Aiden signed, watching Fray pace. They were probably one of the most dangerous people in Ishgard, aside from their big, cloaked companion, and Aiden probably didn’t even have a chance if it came down to a fight. He still wanted to keep an eye on them, just in case. “If you can get me and my sister the supplies, we can do the rest.”

“Awful lot of initiative for you young twins,” Fray mused, tilting their head at him. “What’s in it for you?” 

Aiden hesitated, his hands falling slightly. He wasn’t noble in the traditional sense of the word, not really. “Not much. But no one else up there is going to care for us, so we might as well care for each other.”

Fray snorted softly in amusement, rolling their wrist and adjusting their gauntlet. “Sid.” 

Aiden nearly jumped out of his skin when another figure melted out of the shadow, covered by a thick cloak and a hood that obscured nearly everything. The only thing he could see was pale skin with patchy bits of black, and almost unnaturally glowing light green eyes. They were huge, almost seven fulms tall, broad shouldered and wearing thick armor just like their companion. Aiden could see another greatsword on their back, this one even bigger than Fray’s. 

“My mate, Sidurgu,” Fray said easily. “You’ve seen him around, I’m sure, with those sharp eyes of yours.” 

“I… have, yeah. Not this close.” He signed, and tried not to stare. “You’re both going to take it on?”

Sidurgu’s smile was sharp. “Two pairs of eyes are better than one, aren’t they?” 

“We’ll deliver it tonight, at moon high,” Fray said, and their eyes squinted into a smile. “Make sure your sister and whatever helpers you have are in place to receive it, it’ll have to be quick.” 

“Of course. I’ll let her know.” 

“If you have any other information for us, we’ll take it,” Sidurgu said, and Aiden got the sense he didn’t mean just about this one incident. “You’re free to come down here, if you need.” 

Fray flicked their fingers, a trail of red-black aether following them, and almost instantly the near-oppressive feeling of anxiety and Not Welcome faded. The three of them just stood in a normal alleyway, not a pit of danger and darkness. It didn’t change how dangerous Fray and Sidurgu were at all, but Aiden could finally take a breath. 

Sidurgu strode past them and headed up the stairs, and Aiden swore he saw a long, thin tail peeking out from under the cloak. Fray started to walk past as well, but paused and looked at him. 

“Don’t misuse us.” Fray said, meeting his eyes. “But something tells me you’ll be quite the useful little bird.”

[bijoharvelle]

the lovely @good-things-do-happen-dean got a year older! so here’s a dean/benny high school au that i’ve been bouncing around for literally 7 years and finally sat down and made it into words for clara’s birthday!

Everybody likes Benny.

He’s kind and funny and, most importantly, since he joined our football team, we’ve actually started winning. We’re not gonna get a championship anytime soon, but Benny has the kind of natural leadership to get those idiots actually looking like a team. Add that to the accent that has every girl from freshman year up up swooning, and, yeah, Benny’s popular.

It’s a small school, you might not know everyone in your grade, but you’ve probably at least heard of them. And you probably know that someone’s cousin is a sophomore, and someone’s brother is a freshman, and someone’s dad’s business partner’s daughter is a junior, so by extension, you kind of know everybody.

So everybody knows Benny and everybody likes Benny and no one really understands, at all, why he’s friends with Dean Winchester.

The thought of Dean on the football team is laughable. I heard he did the whole wrestling thing in freshman and sophomore year but his interest petered out, I guess (Really, though, by junior year, Dean was driving to school and Sammy was in high school then which meant that he would have to sit around after school and wait for Dean to be finished with practices or matches or whatever. Or take the bus, which - Dean is not going to let his little brother ride the bus.)

So, okay, anyway, Dean and Benny are basically as different as you can get when it comes to social strata. And if you ask any of Benny’s teammates, or any of the few stragglers who hang  out with Dean, none of them could tell you how Benny and Dean even met Apparently Castiel - that weird kid with the x-ray level blue eyes? - he knows the story but no one is going to ask him anything. There was a rumor, for a little bit, that it had to do with Benny being interested in Jo Harvelle and trying to get to know her through Dean - since the two of them have been best friends since birth - but that seems unlikely. Only time you ever see Benny with Jo is when they’re both with Dean. (Benny’s truck had stalled out along one of the side-roads that ran toward the Winchester house. Dean saw him on the way home and Sam insisted that they should stop and so Dean did. The whole time he was helping, Dean kept up a constant stream about what a piece of shit the truck was and how Benny’d be better off just pushing the thing into the reservoir. Benny laughed and smiled the whole time. Then the next day, before morning announcements, Benny was leaning to the side of Dean’s locker, like he did that every morning or something, and asked if he had any recommendations for a not-piece of shit and...well.)

But the point is, as different as they are, as much as Dean will never fit in with Benny’s jocks and as much as Benny is pretty out of place in Dean’s island of misfit toys, they are really good friends.

Like, really good.

Dean shows up for every one of Benny’s games, sometimes with Jo or Castiel in tow, sometimes alone. He’s always a little off to the side, hands hidden away in his leather jacket. (You could kind of tell, if you’re watching him, that his attention drifts whenever our team is on offense. He doesn’t cheer when we get touchdowns, he doesn’t groan when we fumble or get intercepted. But then the minute the D-Line trots out, he has eyes on the field and, like, he still doesn’t celebrate or mourn or anything like that. He isn’t there for the game, just for his friend, who happened to be on the team.)

If you happen to have fifth-block lunch, it’s impossible not to know what good friends they are. Benny always eats with Dean, in a little corner of one of the long tables. Sometimes Sam, or Jo sit with them. Sometimes Sam is with sophomore pals, sometimes Jo is with Meg and the other field hockey girls. But Benny is always there -- even when there are at least five different tables full of guys from the football teams or girls from Model UN or whoever that he could definitely sit with instead. He always sits with Dean and his full-body laugh floats above the rest of the usual lunchroom din. (Dean laughs quiet, with eyes down, like he’s not sure he’s allowed to be making noise. But Benny will laugh out, into the world, and curve his elbow around the back of Dean’s neck and Dean will look up with soft green eyes and maybe there’ll be a blush over his cheeks and if you look close you might be able to parse out the expression of pride on Dean’s face, at making Benny laugh.)

There are parties and events and stuff on weekends that Benny shows his face at, often. He’ll man a keg for an hour and strip to swim trunks to wash cars for charity or whatever but when it comes time for lounging in someone’s basement or cruising to a park for some pick-up or whatever the rest of the gang is up for, he peels off. Waves his hand and smiles against protests, ducks his head a little when someone makes a pointed comment about him being whipped and running off to his boyfriend. But that’s all just jokes. 

Even if everyone knows Winchester is bi, their town is liberal enough to not make it a huge deal (well, there were some fights his sophomore year that were definitely about that but people have mostly moved on). Even if, despite a number of people of all genders who have expressed interest, Benny never dates anyone, always goes solo to football dinners and to parties and to dances.

(Maybe, some evenings, Benny and Dean end up parked along one of the deep side roads that tucks against the canal, leaning back against Dean’s Impala. Late evening with the stars rolling in and the two of them splitting a bag of twizzlers across their Slurpees as they idly pass through conversation: about Sam, about Jo, and Benny’s hometown and Dean’s mom.

(Maybe, once the sky gets darker, they lean in a little closer. Maybe their shoulders press together and Dean plants his hand down on the cool metal of his car’s hood and Benny let’s his hand drop over those fingers. 

(Maybe, a few times, they’ve bowed in toward each other enough to feel the brush of lips. Maybe Benny knows what Dean’s tongue tastes like, maybe Dean knows what Benny’s beard feels like against his cheeks, along his chest, between his thighs. Maybe there have been times when Dean knows, underneath Benny’s uniform, his fingers are marked in bruises along Benny’s sides and down his shoulders.

(Anyway, they have this plan, after graduation, to road trip down where Benny’s from. Stop by Carencro, cut through Lafayette, head for New Orleans. Make their way West and then North and then, well, who knows. Benny’s good at football but he’s not getting a full ride anywhere, and Dean is smart - a genius, if you ask Sam, or Benny, or Cas, or Jo - but college isn’t really in his cards. So maybe they’ll just keep out on the road until they find someplace worth stopping for.)

-

just tagging some of my denny pals! @prayedtoyou - @envydean - @cherryberrynice - @flowersforcas 

[eishtmo]

I always find it amazing how creationists, Bible literalists, flat earther's and what have you always proclaim how great and glorious God is, and then make him so small and limited.

It's like, okay so I built this big giant thing in Minecraft recently, I posted about it too (go look), and I could have laid every signal block myself, by hand and when I got done someone could marvel at how much work I did and I suppose it would be true. But instead I used in game tools to lay the blocks for me so I could focus on the important parts of the build, rather than build every wall of the place. It's still pretty damn great, if I do say so myself, but I didn't do nearly as much work as I could have, and if I had, I'm sure I never would have finished it.

Why couldn't an all powerful, all knowing God do the same? Why did he have to create EVERY plant and animal, and do it in a few days because, well, that's what the Bible said so it must be true? Wouldn't he be just as great if he set up the universe to run on automatic and started it with a single bang?

How can these people look at pictures from Hubble or Webb, or masterful equations, or the strata of a road cut and still insist everything was created in a few days 6000 years ago. He's supposed to be timeless, why would he care if it took 13+ billion years! Why would he care if dinosaurs died out before humans could even hope to exist? Why would he care so deeply about what happens in your bedroom?

They took this supposedly great and glorious God and squeezed him down into a tiny box and then showed everybody and said out loud "look at how great he is!" All so he would fit into their book written by a bunch of shepherds whose knowledge of the universe was what little their eyes could actually see.

We can see so much more now, let him out of the box already.

I keep wanting to make a post about Young-Earth Creationism but it is incredibly hard to summarize because it turns out that taking the Bible as a 100% literal description of scientific fact breaks things you wouldn't even think of.

It's the ideology that gets worse the longer you look. On the surface it's "lol evolution isn't real because god created everything" but when you investigate how this world of theirs actually works you get hit with "there is no consistent speed of light," "tigers and housecats are the same species and could interbreed," Noah's flood creating craters on the moon, wasps are literally, MORALLY evil, ongoing denial that any dinosaurs had feathers???, insistence that every carnivore can be vegan, plants not being alive, the whole incest thing, 

[damnrightshow]

1. Sep ’21 Damn Right Show ~ Wednesday Freestyle Random Funky Selection ...

Wednesday was also vintage mainly show. Back to basic Damn Right Show, playing Funk n' Soul is the way. 

Some tunes from modern vintage stuff played and soul and funk mix. 

You missed today's show, try again upload YouTube. Check it. 

Tomorrow is the last show of the week, playing feel like in club (that is my image). Don't miss it !

"Hurt So Bad" JASON JOSHUA & THE BEHOLDERS (Mango Hill)

"Creation" EL MICHELS AFFAIR (Truth & Soul)

"Just Us Together" JUS'US (Annthonette)

"The Road" COMMUNICATORS AND BLACK EXPERIENCE BAND (Tri Oak)

"Gossip" CYRIL NEVILLE (Josie)

"Busy Signal" JOE TOWNS (Top Dog)

"I'm So Tired" BOBBY BRAND (Duke)

"Ain't There Something That Money Can't Buy" THE YOUNG HOLT TRIO (Brunswick)

"Free Man" SUGAR BOY AND SHADES OF BLACK (Shades)

"Can't Break Away" ANDREW JEFFRY (Shama)

"Love Train" LOVEMASTERS (Jacklyn)

"You Gotta Get Down" THE THOMPSONS (BCW)

"Freakish Love" THE RHYTHM MACHINE (Rodan)

"Trying To Survive" LOS STELLARIANS (Holygrailien)

"Tell Me Something" CONNIE PRICE AND THE KEYSTONES feat ALOE BLACC (Ubiquity)

"Dangerous" MYRON & E (Timmion)

"The Price" THE SHERRELL BROS. (Currison)

"Fan The Flame" THE TEMPTATIONS (Gordy)

"I'm Gonna Love You Just A Little More, Baby" KELLEE PATTERSON (Shady Brook)

"Back Home" GIL SCOTT-HERON AND BRIAN JACKSON (Strata East)

"We're In Love" THE DECISIONS (Soul Direction)

"Joy Trip" JERLINE AND FRIENDS (Street Soul)

"Medicine Man" GRAYSON STREET (Houserocker)

"Superfine Feeling" RARE PLEASURE (Ramrock)

"It's So Easy Loving You" MANDRILL (Arista)

"Music Slave" JADE (Pesante)

"Nobody's Baby" SHARON JONES AND THE DAP KINGS (Daptone)

"Pick It Up Lay It In The Cut" SHARON JONES AND THE DAP KINGS (Daptone)

"Think Twice" DONALD BYRD (Blue Note)

"The Contender" MENAHAN STREET BAND (Dunham)

"Stading In The Back Row Of Your Heart" ZULEMA (RCA)

"How Do You Like It" SANDI BLAIR (Matues)

"Wear It On Our Face" THE DELLS (Cadet)

"Time" EDWIN STARR (Tamla Motown)

"I Luv You" WEE (Numero)

[woollyslisterblog]

1834 August Friday 1st

6:35 1 No kiss last night not with her at all - fine morning F70 at 7:30 am breakfast at 7:40 –

took George and Ann and I off at 9:10 in little charabanc to Pont Saint Laurent - at the bottom of street cross the river (Guiers vif- the Guier mort on our left 2/3 way from Pont-Saint Laurent to the great Chartreuse) and very soon after stop at the French Douane - the town of Echelle partly on one side and partly on the other - the south side French the north savoyard - they searched our charabanc and then told us to go to the women to have our persons examined - this was too much - went into the bureau - showed my passport and remonstrated and got off - well we had it - the master of our auberge had gone out and forgotten to give it and I had waited 10 minutes for it –

on right (west) the round topped verdant hill very pretty - left (east) that magnificent wall of white hoary calcerous- cross the Gruier Mort and almost immediately enter the little town of Pont Saint Laurent and stop at 9:55 in front of the L’auberge du Midi, chez Tartavel - a sort of cabriolet caleche diligence at the door - 35 minutes before we could get one not very comfortable - off at last at 10:30 - soon enter the magnificent défilé pass into the first archway and then pass an iron foundry - at 11:40 the valley closed by a magnificent natural high pyramidal rock and an archway under a mined building abutting against the rock on each side very soon after at the bottom of the hill crossed the river over high one arch unbattlemented bridge –

a peep at the Chartreuse when we were half hour off - seated on a green spot or plateau high under the mountain - very large pile of building - reached it at 1- no ladies allowed to enter the monastery Cistercian - habit of white cloth – confin[e]d buy white cord or leather belt a serge shirt - no linen allowed - the great entrance gate looks south - passed and went into a building at a little distance an old infirm monk and two women there in the large comfortless looking room on the left - the right formi à clef - so my request for a bed from Ann to lie down upon in vain - she ate her fowl, and then lay down upon the bench along table with chairs to prevent her falling off, and the coats and cloaks for a pillow - by this time about 1 3/4 it began to rain it had rained a little during the last half hour as we came and soon afterwards we had heavy rain with thunder and lightning which did not abate till just before we set off on our return –

I had amused myself spelling over a plan of the convent the terrific prints of a soul in purgatory surrounded with flames, and ditto in hell surrounded with flames with the addition of large green serpent gnawing the body - this amusement over I was cross to see poor Anne so comfortless - however she was better, and quite reconciled to hear that I should return rain or not –

Our garcon guide had kept out of the way and pothered me - at last he came and would have 43 sols for his dinner - I was astonished about but gave him the money - inquired of an Italian family in the room with us and of the waiter and got a note proving that the fellow had only paid 15 sols, and made him refund the rest to his shame and surprise - for the ostler charging only 16 sols for three mules, I could not think the dinner could cost so much –

off at 3:40 from the grande Chartreuse A's mule so stumbling soon put her onto mine - in 5 or 6 minutes found our guide lame- George led Anne's mule, and the guide mounted his – in 5 or 6 minutes more I tired out of the tumbling and mounted George’s mule, and let the guide have the stumbler, and made George mount behind Ann and thus we got on trotted when we could, he holding on on and holding her bridle too, and in 50 minutes we reached the pyramidal rock - and in 3 minutes under 2 hours we were at Port Saint Laurent (without a drop of rain ) and paid for the mules - would not give the guide one sol, nor would I listen to the master or the boy who owned the saddles and wanted me to pay for them extra, but was off in the charabanc that was in waiting at 5:40 and alighted at our inn at Echelles at 6:20 –

from Pont Saint Laurent to Chartreuse the road is good in comparison not dangerous - everywhere wide enough - nowhere less than eight or feet eight or nine feet even in those little bits just after passing the foundry and afterwards cut out of the rock - the only disagreeable was the mules loaded with four planks and spars which being four or five yards long but rather tremendous to pass - besides these we had mules laden with charcoal which though not so frightful, were not to be desired - except the Gorge d’Ortessa from Mount Perdu down to Torla, the gorge or défilé to the Chartreuse is the finest I ever saw - it is really magnificently fine - thickly wooded even to the tops of the high wall-like rocks - surely they must be in many places 12 or 1400 feet above the river - this wood is perhaps chiefly beech with fir nearer the Chartreuse intermixed and towards the top of the rocks - limestone strata highly inclined –

we should have seen the Chapel of Saint Bruno but it is quarter league from the monastery - would take us an hour to go and return and I was too much afraid of the rain - they wanted us to stay all night - but the Italian family who dined while we were there could only get soup, omelette and potatoes - and strawberries and this did not augur well - our guide wanted us to go to La parvisse an hour off, but this I declined - glad to be back aux Echell –

dinner at 6:33 good rice milk and strawberries (besides soup, fowl, and roast mutton) and comfortable - till 10 1/4 writing the journal today - Ann wrote 2 1/3 pages to my aunt and was in bed by 10 - no rain as we returned and fine evening and very fine in the morning till about 1 1/2 pm F 68° now at 10:15 pm till 12 1/2 wrote very small and close the latter 2/3 page 3 and the ends of Ann’s letter to my aunt and wrote 2 1/2 pages to Lady Gordon -

[recsnrecaps]

Meteor Garden (2001) Recap: Episode 1

Hi folks, it's 2019 and I'm finally fulfilling my childhood resolution to watch this drama. You have no idea - Meteor Garden was such a hit back in the day. However, back then it was only available either at specific time slots on TV or on crappy VCDs that were passed around the community (i.e. schoolgirls and aunties). I never could be bothered to watch it properly.

Imagine my surprise when I chanced across it on Netflix. I am aware that there's a 2018 remake of Meteor Garden, as well as the Japanese Hana Yori Dango and the Korean Boys Over Flowers, but the 2001 Taiwanese version is the original drama that spawned the madness. The buzz around the 2018 version is laughably negligible compared to the craziness in 2001. I'm so ready to experience the magic of 流星花园.

So without further ado, here we go.

Episode 1: Summary

We are introduced to Shan Cai (Barbie Hsu), who rides a crappy scooter to school. Right off the bat we realize that the school caters to the rich and the elite, where students are decked out in designer wear and get NT500000 (~ USD16000) nose jobs during the school holidays.

The fashion rivalry between classmates Bai He (Belinda Cheng) and Qian Hui (Zhang Ruo Zhen) cracks me up. It's petty, exaggerated, and deliciously obnoxious, solidly setting us viewers up with the premise of a school drama about rich kids.

A very normal Li Zhen (An-ting Yeh) appears to be Shan Cai's classmate and friend. She's pretty serious about her homework, having borrowed extra books to read up for the upcoming report assignment. Shan Cai laughs that Li Zhen might be the only student serious about studying in this school, everyone else comes to socialize instead. I’m guessing Li Zhen is on scholarship and needs to maintain her grades.

We cut to a classroom with a boy clearing out his books in order to drop out of the school. A crowd forms around him and the teacher (Bu Xue Liang) approaches to find out why he is leaving and to persuade him not to. However, upon finding out that the boy had offended F4, the teacher doesn't push the matter and instead encourages the boy to leave. Shan Cai watches helplessly from the sidelines and rolls her eyes at the hypocritical teacher.

In class, in a further act of hypocrisy, the teacher gives a lecture on the value of conscience.

Conscience. It's what we call 'moral courage'. It's the most basic quality mankind should have. In Chinese history, Confucius had the strongest conscience. Today, we'll discuss his core thinking. It focuses on benevolence. By benevolence, it means you do unto others what you would want them to do unto to you.

Unable to stomach his empty words, Shan Cai leaves the classroom in a huff. She heads to the roof launching a tirade against the unfairness of the University and coins the term "Pig Head 4". "So what if your family owns the school," she declares. "You better not mess with me. I'll never submit to you."

The 4 in question are just arriving at the University in their comfortable chauffeured rides. We get to watch the boys saunter around and the camera obliges with close ups on each one of them as they stride into campus.

Dao Ming Si (Jerry Yan aka Yan Cheng Xu)

Hua Ze Lei (Vic Zhou aka Zai Zai aka Zhou Yu Min)

Xi Men (Ken Chu aka Zhu Xiao Tian)

Mei Zhuo (Vanness Wu aka Wu Jian Hao)

Shan Cai and friend watch in horror as the teacher accidentally bumps into Dao Ming Si, spilling coke all over him. Apologizing frantically, he kneels over Dao Ming Si, attempting to wipe the soda off his shoes. Dao Ming Si ignores his apologies and we get to hear his trademark catchphrase, "If apologizing is enough, what do we need police for?"

Dao Ming Si waves the teacher off to the side and viciously kicks over the basket of balls while striding off. Shan Cai gapes in amazement at his arrogance. Suddenly, a hand reaches out to righten the fallen basket. It's Hua Ze Lei (known as Lei to his friends), who has a perpetually blank expression on his face and appears to be the only member of the F4 who isn't a douche. While adjusting the basket, he turns and makes brief eye contact with Shan Cai, then hurries off after Dao Ming Si.

At the cafe where Shan Cai works part time, she complains to her co-worker Xiao You (Rainie Yang) about her awful school and the awful boys. It’s exposition time! We learn that F4 Stands for Flower 4, and the boys belong to 4 rich and influential families who own the school. When Xiao You prompts her to confirm that the boys are really all that bad, Shan Cai hesitates and says that maybe one of the 4 is “different”. Methinks she’s starting to have a crush on someone!

As the two continue their conversation, we learn that Shan Cai used to be very outspoken against bullies, in contrast with her current passive nature. Xiao You remarks that she hardly recognizes the Shan Cai now. Inwardly, Shan Cai agrees, hating herself for turning into a coward.

When Shan Cai returns home, she makes an attempt to tell her family she doesn’t want to continue studying at this school. Unfortunately, her mother would hear nothing of it. Turns out her mother had pulled strings to get her daughter into the elite Yingde University. Her mother is fixated on Shan Cai getting a good boyfriend from school and networking well with people from high society so that their family can ascend into a higher social strata. Shan Cai’s poor dad gets berated by his wife for not getting a promotion for the past many years, unlike their neighbors. As the parents bicker, the resentments pile up, making for very awkward dinner conversation. In order to pacify them, Shan Cai promises that she would continue to study at Yingde University.

What a weird couple.

That evening, the F4 hang out at a bar. The boys appear unaccustomed to such a venue, noting with puzzlement that the establishment doesn't serve foie gras or vintage wine. We get to hear them in conversation for the first time ever, teasing Dao Ming Si about his unruly hair and his rigorous hairstyling session to tame it. Lei remains ever silent, using only a thumbs down gesture to communicate his opinion on Dao Ming Si’s new hairstyle. Throughout the night, he keeps staring at his mobile, as if awaiting a call.

It turns out that the boys are only there because Xi Men's latest girl wanted to meet Xi Men at the bar. Which begs the question - why are the other 3 following  Xi Men on his date?! In any case, according to show logic, it’s the right course of action as everyone is present when the loser boyfriend of Xi Men’s girl shows up with a gang of hooligans and causes a scene. The boys slip into action and begin beating up the hooligans. All except Lei, who gets up and slips the owner of the bar NT15000 (~USD500) for the damages before leaving.

The next day at school, Shan Cai stands up for Li Zhen who had accidentally tripped and spilled dirt all over Dao Ming Si. I actually feel sorry for the poor dude who keeps getting things spilled on him. To put a stop to Li Zhen’s apologies, Dao Ming Si does his usual rough shove and pushes Li Zhen into the wall, incurring the wrath of Shan Cai. She shouts at him, calling him a parasite leeching off his parents and declares that the F4 should be called Pig Head 4. Dao Ming Si announces that she has some nerve and stalks away. As the four boys walk past, she thinks to herself that she's going to be dead meat.

At home, she receives zero support from her parents when she mentions once again that she wants to quit school. Instead her manipulative mother fakes a panic attack that miraculously subsides when Shan Cai promises to finish her studies. That night, Shan Cai sleeps restlessly, dreaming of being tormented.

At school, Shan Cai receives the F4 red card and a series of montages show how her life becomes hell. Everyone shuns her, even Li Zhen and Shan Cai is subjected to prank after prank. Finally, a drenched and annoyed Shan Cai escapes to the roof. She leans over the ledge and yells her heart out, cursing the Pig Head 4 with bankruptcy and high cholesterol, for their bodies to be ripped apart by horses and their souls to go to hell. Haha, how inventive. She doesn’t realize that Lei was on the roof too, privy to her outburst. She startles when he asks her if there was anything else. What a delightfully awkward moment. Shan Cai backs away warily as Lei leans forward, but he was only offering her his handkerchief. She accepts it and dabs at her wet hair. Softening up to Lei, she thanks him and begins to apologies for her earlier curses. However Lei cuts her short saying “I’m not interested in other people’s business.” He turns to leave and Shan Cai makes to return him the handkerchief. He ignores the gesture and tells her to throw it away as it is already garbage anyway.

What an awful thing for Shan Cai to hear. He is insinuating that because she used the handkerchief, the handkerchief no longer has any value to him and deserves to be in the trash. Shan Cai thinks back to her earlier assessment of Lei and concludes that he must not be so different from the other 3 after all.

The episode ends with Shan Cai heading home with her scooter. Except this time she has to wheel it along the road because her fellow students had damaged it. A flashy convertible pulls up beside her, and Dao Ming Si leans out to gloat at her. He tells her that he’s impressed with her determination, and will work harder to humiliate her.

Episode 1: Thoughts

Oh where do I begin! This episode does a good job of setting up so many interesting characters, especially the F4. Dao Ming Si appears cocky and rude, but he's the quintessential bad boy. I fully expect a redeeming arc on how he is actually a big softie. In contrast, Lei is mysterious and charming. I wonder what's the story behind his anti social behavior. The other two members kind of fade into the background as we haven't actually seen them do anything except pose and strut around. As for our heroine, Shan Cai, I suppose she's relatable enough as a first lead. We’ve met her family, schoolmates and friends and have a decent insight into her motivations for her actions. I'm so excited for her to show some spunk and challenge the boys to a showdown soon. 

Despite being 18 years old, the show retains its charm. Unfortunately, fashion-wise the show has not aged well at all. What we have here is literally a time capsule of dated 90s trends such as spaghetti strap tops, rebonded hair and frameless spectacles. Plus Dao Ming Si’s ridiculous bandanna is just absurd.

We know in hindsight that this show kickstarted the entertainment careers of these 4 actors of F4. In 2001, after Meteor Garden aired, Sony Music Taiwan signed the 4 boys as an actual boyband bearing the name F4. It’s amazing how these formerly virtually unknown 4 individuals owe their success to this show.

Onward to the next episode!

[hurst50moreno-blog]

Belgravia Green Is A Net Zero Energy Showhouse In Edmonton.

Belgravia Green is a brand-new freehold 3 storey strata landed housing development that is carefully developed by the distinguished Fairview Advancements Pte Ltd (Tong Eng Group). Nearest MRT Station. The Belgravia Green place is not within simple walking distance to an MRT station. The nearest stations are Yio Chu Kang, and Ang Mo Kio MRT stations, around 7 bus stops away. That's around 5 minutes drive off-peak. Both stations on the North-South line that goes directly to Orchard Road and Raffles Location. . Belgravia Green location is strategically positioned along Ang Mo Kio Avenue 5, a peaceful yet unique landed enclave at Seletar Hills Estate. The location is extremely available with the numerous options of taking public transport such as Bus or by means of Yio Chu Kang MRT station. According to the most current data, 18 semi-detached houses and 100 balcony houses are inhabited within the location. 34 of these are additionally corner balcony houses, showing how the house of Belgravia Green hosts appropriate blocks for real estate and do not cramp them out. Each plot is designated 2 parking area. The expected time of shipment for the job is 2018. With Belgravia Villas currently under method with full throttle, Belgravia Green is its upcoming 2nd phase that promises to bring the exact same signature quality of life to homeowners who pick to put their rely on Tong Eng Group. Belgravia Green is the task brought over by Fairview Advancement which is one of the subsidiaries of the most well-known home builder i.e. Tong Eng Group. The credit of designing goes to P&T Group. The style of Belgravia Green essentially consists of semi-detached and balcony real estate structures. The cooking area of the houses in Belgravia Green lies in the basement which is well-furnished with top quality equipments. Furthermore, all your houses https://www.belgraviasgreen.com/ will come with 5 elegant bed rooms, a spacious living area together with private lift serving each and every bedroom and 2 parking area. Belgravia Green is far from the city sound; hence it supplies a peaceful and calm area for living. Belgravia Green floor plan will be published quickly and if you are interested in buying a house there, register yourself quickly. Premium Fittings and devices from SMEG, De Dietrich, Velleroy & Boch and Grohe provided in every extremely roomy unit, with cutting edge private lift that serves you from Basement to Level 3. SMEG is an Italian manufacturer of upmarket home appliances founded by Vittorio Bertazzoni in 1948 while De Dietrich is a renowned French producer of water and space heating system and items. Velleroy & Boch is a recognized European brand name for sanitary ware and fittings while Grohe is the leading company of premium bath faucets and shower systems. Only the most premium fiitings will go with the distinguished Belgravia Green advancement.

[dustedmagazine]

Year End 2018: Derek Taylor

Another year above ground. Another year salvaged in no small part through the solace of music. That may register as a Limbo-worthy low bar for measuring life satisfaction, not mention one hopelessly awash in hyperbole, but there’s a reason. The sobering sense of normalcy that’s come to characterize the daily insanity of the world writ large and small makes the railing and grousing about it through a laptop keyboard feel at once futile and arrogant. Many of us still have it pretty good, if not better. Able to move and think freely. Fortunate to readily find the time to spend sequestered with art, whatever the senses and thoughts it stimulates. Plenty of others can’t consistently say the same. That ever-widening disparity weighs on my mind with a regularity that makes the compiling and commentary of lists such as this seem both a luxury and a necessity. We’re all in it together and revitalizing music is as meaningful a reminder as any of that steadfast reality. If only the orange orangutan still soiling the Oval Office and the psyches of millions (if not billions) would swap the MAGA-emblazoned nonsense that’s his usual headgear for the Burnside brim pictured above and mean it!  

No real ranking to the entries below other than the general order to which they visited me through contemplation and return engagement.

Eric Dolphy – Musical Prophet: The Expanded 1963 New York Sessions (Resonance)

Released in haphazard, infrequent and incomplete editions, Eric Dolphy’s interstitial work (landing between his formative tenure at Prestige and his solitary masterpiece for Blue Note, Out to Lunch) under the aegis of producer Alan Douglas has never really received a fair shake from curators and critics alike. That long-standing slight was rectified this year with the Record Store Day release of Musical Prophet: The Expanded 1963 New York Sessions on the Resonance label. Rescued, enhanced and appended with 85-minutes of previously unreleased music and a lavish 100-page book stocked with scholarly essays by the likes of flautists James Newton and Nicole Mitchell, Sonnys Rollins and Simmons, Han Bennink, Henry Threadgill, Oliver Lake and others it’s an unprecedented boon on all fronts. The CD version of the set is slated for a 1/25 street date.

Barre Phillips

Octogenarian expatriate bassist Barre Phillips has sustained a relatively steady output in the 21st century, but End To End, a solo set (his purported last) for ECM, and a Oh My, Those Boys!, a timely reissue of his extended duets with Japanese confrere Motoharu Yoshizawa on the Lithuanian No Business label are aural confirmation of his consistency across decades. Alone and self-limited to the length of a LP he sculpts a somber soliloquy of intimate communion with his instrument. In the fast company of Yoshizawa, who fields a custom-made electric upright, the mood is much more frenetic in playful. Both settings are aurally transfixing.

Mingus – Jazz in Detroit/Strata Concert Gallery/46 Selden

Weighing in at a mighty five-discs, Jazz in Detroit/Strata Concert Gallery46 Selden dispenses with Christian name specifics and allows surname to suffice in announcing its bigger-than-life subject. Mingus’ instrumental faculties weren’t quite as consistent as the virtuosic powers that propelled him in youth (he had just over six years to live in the winter of 1974 when this material was captured), but any effects of advancing age fall away when he calls a tune, soloing with strength and at length and according his auspicious sidemen including drummer Roy Brooks who is ostensibly responsible for the recording’s survival. Retooled staples like “Pithecanthropus Erectus” and “Peggy’s Blue Skylight” join newer improvisational springboards like “The Man Who Never Sleeps” and “Noddin’ Ya Head Blues” to form a veritable smorgasbord of vibrant small group, stage-born jazz.

Peter Brötzmann

The venerable German road dog always has a place on this list. Now somewhat miraculously pushing eighty he’s still at it, crisscrossing the globe and breaking hearty musical bread with friends old and new. Three releases stood out to these ears: two recent duos and a welcome reissue of Hot Lotta, one of his early free jazz missives recorded almost five decades earlier with faithful countryman Kowald and the Finnish duo of Juhani Aaltonen and Edward Vesala. In the must-hear duo column reside, Ouroboros, a 2011 German club date with Chicago cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm on Astral Spirits, and Sparrow Nights on Trost, a wrenchingly intimate studio encounter with pedal steel phantasmagorist Heather Leigh, who ranks easily among Brötzmann’s most intriguing recent coconspirators.

Corbett vs. Dempsey

Keeping the Corbett vs. Dempsey count to just three for the year is a tough task as their usual prolificacy combined with a commensurate excellence. The reissue of Steve Lacy’s seminal Stamps, originally released in 1979 as his debut for the Swiss Hat Hut imprint narrowly edges out the equally edifying appearance of Milford Graves long-lost Bäbi if only because my spouse allows me to spin the cacophonously calorific latter platter only in her conspicuous absence. A decade was a long time to wait for Joe McPhee and Hamid Drake’s duo follow-up, Keep Going, this time trading stage for studio. But from the music to the mantra-ready title it’s a welcome inoculation against the forces of idiocy and ire globally arrayed against those with humanist allegiances.

Guy Lafitte

Last year it was Lucky Thompson. This year French tenorist Guy Lafitte got the Fresh Sound archival treatment with four full discs of material from his heyday as one of his country’s most popular indigenous purveyors of jazz. Each set delves into a different side of his folio from tight ensembles to modestly-sized orchestras, sometimes in the company of visiting guests, but more often plying his sound amongst a core crew of fellow believers. One of former, Michel de Villers, also earned a survey with The Complete Small Group Sessions 1949-1956 that shows him living up to the sobriquet of “Low Reed” at length on deftly deployed baritone saxophone.

Steeplechase

The Danish Steeplechase label always seems to slot in my yearly look back, mainly because of the consistency of both their roster and long-standing aesthetic. Sea changing surprises instigated by their records are exceedingly rare, but the odds of a stimulating listen are conversely high with virtually every release. Guitarist Pierre Dørge’s Soundscapes convenes a quintet with tenorist Stephen Riley and cornetist Kirk Knuffke in the service of the leader’s customarily open-ended compositions. Riley’s Hold ‘Em Joe is at once a canted tribute to Sonny Rollins and a welcome return to the piano-less trio format he first cut his teeth on for the label a decade ago. Baritonist Gary Smulyan’s Alternative Contrafacts yields winsome results with the instrumentation as well in a creative nod to the sort of extrapolations that were the fertile province of the Tristano School in the last century.

No Business/Chap Chap

A partnership between the No Business label and the Korean Chap Chap imprint continues to yield impressive reissues. All in circulation to date are worthy of consideration, but two bent my ears with pleasing consistency. Kang Tae Hwan’s Live at Café Amores offers an extended concert for solo saxophone that is equal measures Zen meditation and extended techniques master-class. Choi Sun Bae Quartet’s Arirang Fantasy teams a trio of Korean improvisers with visiting Japanese bassist Motoharu Yoshizawa for another café set that is ripe with cross-cultural creativity. Lastly, a reissue of sorely unsung vibraphonist Bobby Naughton’s 1976 masterstroke The Haunt with Leo Smith and the recently-deceased Perry Robinson (R.I.P.) in a setting of creative chamber jazz perfection.

Jimi Hendrix – Electric Ladyland 50th Anniversary (Sony)

Repackaging of milestone rock albums is still the rage even as the compact disc as a physical musical format continues to wane with advance of other intangible digital formats. Hendrix has had his fair share of legacy parceled and promoted along these lines and it’s hard to fault the family for seeking to both cash-in and do right by his memory. Electric Ladyland 50th Anniversary does better than most past projects in this regard by hewing to a logical presentation and proffering some genuine value across three compact discs, a Blu-ray and a lavish LP-sized container replete hardcover tome covering all the minutiae of the original double-album phenomenon. And let’s face it, Hendrix fooling around with songs in their protean forms is more fun than sitting down with most rock musicians’ finished product.

Jack Sels – Minor Works (SDBAN)

Parts of Belgian Jack Sels biography read like Hollywood-ready bohemian melodrama with riches, rags, tragedy and triumph all sewn into the story of a saxophonist who spent much of his life trying to capture the magic of his American idols while remaining fiercely true to his European roots. That latter decision explains his relative anonymity today, but the expertly-curated if humbly-titled Minor Works is practically bursting with recovered music and anecdotal context that frames a vivid portrait of a player well-deserving of posthumous consideration.

Jon Irabagon

Irabagon’s a dues-payer, tireless and admirably selfless in his dedication to a revolving door of projects and regular gigs. A recent interview with clarinetist & podcaster Jeremiah Cymerman reveals just how cool and unflappable a customer the Filipino-American saxophonist can be as he relates exercising the patience of Job in the face of dunderheaded racism by erstwhile peers. On the aural front two specific contexts stuck with me as evidence of his indefatigability. Dr. Quixotic’s Traveling Exotics on his own Irabbagast imprint teams his quartet with veteran trumpeter Tim Hagans in a program that feels like a natural and more focused extension of earlier work in Mostly Other People Do the Killing. Dave Douglas’ Brazen Heart: Live at the Jazz Standard released on the trumpeter’s Greenleaf label explores one of Irabagon’s recurring sideman posts and at length over eight discs covering a four-night stand at the titular NYC club in 2015.

Roscoe Mitchell

Recent and nascent masterworks with nearly a half-century of revelatory activity between them, Ride the Wind (Nessa) and Sound (Delmark) represent two essential signposts in Roscoe Michell’s reliably iconoclastic career. Both center on the blurring the subjective boundaries between improvisation and composition. Whether adapting improvised solos to orchestral charts or atomizing ensemble interplay into a freeing malleable framework that can take participating musicians in a multiplicity of expressive directions, Mitchell’s courageous adherence to personal designs and investigations has always been the bedrock of his work.

Intakt

The Swiss Intakt imprint bridges the best aspects of a classic label construct (reliable stable, dependable production values, deep catalog, etc.) with a refreshing willingness to tweak the formula through a voracious ear for new talent. German altoist Angelica Niescer’s triumphant Berlin Concert and a pair of from Cuban pianist Auran Oritz, Live in Zurich with his working trio and Random Dances and (A)tonalities in the unexpected company of clarinetist Don Byron fit that latter bill. Globe Unity 50 Years celebrating the half-century longevity of Europe’s most influential improvising orchestra and Music for David Mossman by the equally indelible trio of Evan Parker, Barry Guy and Paul Lytton argue conclusively that the former end of Intakt’s endeavors is equally secure.

  Clean Feed

Staunch loyalists to the tradition of improvisational album in physical form, Lisbon-based Clean Feed doesn’t just soldier on, it leads away with a release docket that reliably weds frequency with dependability. The sixteen discs that hit circulation in the span since January all have elements to recommend them, but two stuck to my ears and cranium more tenaciously than the others for both their audacity and intimacy. Vocalist Serpa’s Close Up is exactly that, a sans-net song forum with the stark support of Ingrid Laubrock’s saxophones and Erik Friedlander’s cello as the sum of sounding board. Similarly, trumpeter Susana Santos Silva’s All the Rivers situates her solitary horn in the unforgiving acoustics of the Panteão Nacional, a vast marble cathedral, for a recital rife with reverberating complexity.

  Satoko Fuji – 12 for 60 Project

Year-long artist celebrations through output aren’t exactly common, but there’s certainly precedence (bassist Reuben Radding’s 12 in 2007 springs to mind). Already admirably prolific Japanese pianist Satoko Fuji decided to commemorate her 60th birthday on the planet by releasing a dozen albums on the Libra label over the course of the annum. As with her back catalog, many of them featured her kindred spirit Natsuki Tamura on trumpet as well as ensembles both familiar and freshly-minted. I’m still digesting the series in sum, but the standout so far is Aspiration, the core duo’s conclave with Wadada Leo Smith and electronicst Ikue Mori. Fuji has an admitted tendency to crowd the market and numb the senses with her productivity, but the focus and unity guiding these releases sets them apart.

Voices of Mississippi: Artists and Musicians Documented by William Ferris

In common with the intimation of its name, Dust to Digital is a label that takes its time in the laudable work of producing archival music collections that stand instantly apart in terms of quality, scope and expertly-examined context. Voices of Mississippi: Artists and Musicians Documented by William Ferris is a work of art from the packaging to the sounds (and sights) contained within. Incisively indexed into three categories (Blues, Gospel & Folk), the field recordings are immersive and often carry the mesmerizing magic of incantations. A fourth disc containing a DVD collection of Ferris’ hand-shot films evokes time, place and person even more vividly. Temporary antidotes to slowly normalizing nightmare we find ourselves in as a world abound on this list, but this the one I have probably returned to most since my first encounter. It’s that transportive.

V/A – Technicolor Paradise: Rhum Rhapsodies & Other Delights

Exotica was originally indicative a certain slice of commercial music expression, one inextricably entangled in associative issues of appropriation, exploitation and in many cases mollification of indigenous cultural capital. Sometimes it was a complete recontextualization entirely as Numero Group’s Technicolor Paradise explores over three discs and an associative booklet brimming with commentary. This sort of deep crate project is nothing new for the label, but it is gratifying to see them go at it with such gusto after an earlier and unexpected embrace by the label honchos of streaming as a means of revenue. Some selections tip irrevocably into bromidic kitsch, but the first disc especially, which focuses on guitar bands keeps a more even keel of interest.

Charlie McCoy – Real McCoy/Charlie McCoy/Good Time Charlie/Fastest Harp in the South

Jerry Reed – Jerry Reed Explores Guitar Country/Cookin’/Georgia Sunshine/Me & Jerry (w/ Chet Atkins)

Time was when a two-fer reissue was a common currency in the compact disc market place. BGO’s done that erstwhile staple two better maintaining a fearsome foursome reissue program. Sets by country mouth harp maestro Charlie McCoy and good old boy-turned-ace guitar picker-turned-movie star Jerry Reed. Both are dipped liberally in countrypolitan production values that only occasionally slide over into schmaltz and McCoy wisely avoids vocals in favor of instrumentals that often sound like they could serve as soundtrack snippets to The Rockford Files (not a bad thing). Reed by contrast had a decent set up pipes to complement his strings-slinging skills and the chutzpah to try his hand at dry humor like the hilariously off-the-cuff ode to inconsolable nicotine addiction, “Another Puff.”

V/A – The Beginning of the End: The Existential Psychodrama in Country Music 1956 to 1972 (Omni) V/A – Hillbillies in Hell: Country Music’s Tormented Testament (1952-1974) – The Resurrection (Omni) V/A – Hillbillies in Hell: Country Music’s Tormented Testament (1952-1974) – The Rapture (Omni)

After an unexplained although far from unnoticed hiatus several years ago, the Omni Recording Corporation out of Australia roared back to life with renewed reissue campaign. The schedule of new projects eschewed full album(s) + plus bonus tracks for keenly curated collections focusing on the wilder and more tortured sides of the vintage country and country/pop spectrum. The Beginning of the End details descents into madness committed to song while two volumes more of the ongoing Hillbillies in Hell series doubled the entries to date describing that region of idiom(s) devoted to Beelzebub and his myriad earthly incarnations. All three are archly edifying as they are fun.

Sun Ra

Sun Ra reissues are once again a semi-regularity now thanks to reissue operators like Modern Harmonic and Cosmic Myth, both of which have conscripted longtime Ra repository Michael D. Anderson in their noble endeavors. Cymbals/Symbol Sessions: New York 1973 covers ground previously mapped by an earlier set on the Evidence label pairing worthy material including the (16:33) John Gilmore tenor <I<tour de force “Thoughts Under a Dark Blue Light.” God is More Than Love Can Ever Be has singular status as the solitary piano, bass and drums trio album in the entirely of Ra’s omniversal oeuvre and largely lives up to the stated promise of that proposition.

25 more in no fixed order...

Tyshawn Sorey – Pillars (Pi)

Henry Threadgill – Dirt… And More Dirt (Pi)

Peter Kuhn Trio – Intention (FMR)

Dave Holland – Uncharted Territories (Dare2)

Devin Gray – Dirigo Rataplan II (Rataplan)

John Coltrane - Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album (Impulse!)

JD Allen – Love Stone (Savant)

Fay Victor’s SoundNoiseFunk – Wet Robots (ESP-Disk)

A Pride of Lions – The Bridge Sessions 8

Michael Adkins – Flaneur (hatOLOGY)

Houston Person & Ron Carter – Remember Love (HighNote)

Spontaneous Music Ensemble – Karyobin (Emanem)

Cecil Taylor – Poschiavo (Black Sun)

Paul Rutherford – In Backwards Times (Emanem)

Mike Westbrook Concert Band – The Last Night at the Old Place (Cadillac)

Ustad Zia Mohiuddin Dagar – Raga Yaman & Ragas Abhogi & Vardhani (Ideologic Organ)

Kitsos Harisiadis – Lament in a Deep Style: 1929 to 1931 (Third Man)

Asnakech Worku – Asnakech (Awesome Tapes from Africa)

V/A – African Scream Contest 2 (Analog Africa)

Mulatu – Afro-Latin Soul (Worthy/Strut)

V/A – Listen All Around: The Golden Age of Central & East African Music (Dust to Digital)

V/A – Ocora – Le Monde Des Musiques Traditionelles (Ocora)

V/A – Music City Blues & Rhythm (Ace)

Professor Harold Boggs – Lord Give Me Strength: Early Recordings 1952-1964 (Nashboro/Gospel Friend)

Yuri Morozov – Strange Angels: Experimental & Electronic Music (Buried Treasure)

[travelguideworldtour-blog]

Top 15 Places to Visit in Ireland

Welcome to the Emerald Isle! A property of greenery mystical ruins, rocky woods, woods that are leprechaun-dotted, bars that are shanty set into the ditties of coastlines beer pubs and folk, Ireland is just a miracle to behold. We have a good look in 15 of the spots which each traveler maneuvering into the corner of Western Europe needs to have on this menu. Kindly explore our listing of this finest places to See in Ireland:

  Dublin

Raucous Dublin needs no introduction! A town of Guinness-fuelled bars that capital city, and Georgian structure continues to draw travelers from all over with its own cocktail of heritage and culture, class and hedonism.

Place mid way down the gorgeous shore of the Irish Sea, the town boasts the gigantic St Patrick’s Cathedral (the greatest of its kind in Ireland) and the acclaimed Dublin Writers Museumwhere passengers may imitate the lifestyles of Joyce, Yeats et al..

Even the Guinness Storehouse brings tasters having its ales, Temple Bar Square is famous for the delights, killer restaurants and drinking joints and whilst whiskey distilleries are not much off.

Cliffs of Moher

Probably one of the most visited attractions like bulwarks of rock in all Ireland, the Cliffs of Moher rise up from the swells of the great Atlantic Ocean. Along with they have been coated using the signature meadows of green bud of the island, as Galway Bay’s waters wreck along with froth contrary to the rock below.

In a whopping 120 meters in elevation, these fantastic cliffs provide stunning views of the shore and the Aran Islands outside at sea, even while still an allnew visitors’ centre makes it simple for visitors to find the countless hundreds of millions of years of geological history which helped shape the stratas of sandstone and shale.

  Ring of Kerry

In case in Kerry, simply just take the opportunity to research what’s arguably Ireland’s most scenic road, ” the Ring of Kerry (Iveragh Peninsula). Needless to say you’ll be able to begin anywhere on the road, nevertheless many place from either Kenmare or even Killarney end, naturally , back at precisely exactly the exact same spot.

That is not likely to occur, although the journey nonstop may simply take under 3 weeks. En route there exists a feast of Atlantic Ocean views islands to see mountains that are sweeping, and scenic villages.

This region of beauty has a range of outdoor pursuits including cycling, watersports on beaches, golf, walking, horseriding, and freshwater fishing along with deep angling. For background lovers, there are placed against a picture of landscapes that were striking.

  The Rock of Cashel

Ireland’s most visited heritage site, the Rock of Cashel, stars in countless images of the Emerald Isle. Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain even visited by helicopter during her 2011 official tour of the country. Perched upon a limestone rock formation in the Golden Vale, this magnificent group of Medieval buildings includes the High Cross and Romanesque Chapel, the 12th-century round tower, a 15th-century castle, and a 13th-century Gothic cathedral.

The restored Hall of the Vicars Choral is also among the structures. Tourist attractions include an audio-visual show and exhibitions. It’s also said that this was once the seat of the High Kings of Munster prior to the Norman invasions.

  Sligo

As the town of Sligo packs a punch with wealth of pretty town houses, arched stone bridges abbey plus its ancient center, it is the back country. Imbued with the love you’d expect of this place which helped form the mythical West Yeats, this part of outstanding all-natural beauty climbs to peaks with all an powerful monolith of Knocknarea Mountain (the mythical resting place of Queen Maedbh), comes teeming with moss-clad, centuries-old cairn stone and leaves for some truly breath taking views across the pebble shores and salt-sprayed towns of Sligo Bay.

  Killarney National Park

Nestled beneath County Kerry’s other temples, the untouched and crazy reaches the Killarney National Park are worth a reference in their own right. Attested trodden and from UNESCO by herds of red deer that is royal, this location hosts swathes of walnut, ash and yew woods.

All these come together together with the Lakes of Killarney, which sit mirror like beneath their Purple Mountains’ shirts. The region is a mecca for wild life fans and sailors, who are able to discriminate between more woods and bogs at the business of both kingfishers swifts and ospreys.

  Boyne Valley

Stretching out of County Kildare into the Sea’s heartlands, the Boyne Valley Is Currently the answer of All Belgium to This Loire of France or Even Meuse of Ireland.

Green and beautiful into the hilt, this property lives around this Emerald Isle’s moniker. Between its own boundaries, travelers may observe wonders for example the Newgrange monument (that’s thought to date back over five millennia) and the walls and gatehouses of Trim Castle — once the strong hold of Norman rule in Meath.

Together using oodles of paths weaving its riparian banks round Readily accessible from the administrative centre in Dublin the valley creates a nice escape from town.

  Dingle

Its eponymous peninsula’s administrative centre swells, Dingle sits between shore and the shores of County Kerry as well as the ridges of this pilgrimage area of Mount Brandon. Steeped in charm, bobbing fishing ships besets town and includes a salt-washed sea-faring personality.

Whilst whiskey from the distillery appears to be that the tipple of choice, irish is the speech of performance too.

Besides wallowing from the backwater vibe , match between the boutiques and pubs around Quay Street, go dolphin viewing, and travelers may choose to explore the panoramas provided by this Conor Pass.

  Galway City

Crowned by the Gothicism of St Nicholas’ Church, Galway City Flourished . Sights like Lynch’s Castle belie the history of this town’s retailer mayors using this age of time, whilst the actual nature of Galway lies within its own boho, unique facet, which bubbles upwards across the town’s roads together with actors and magicians on the weekend, even pops out from the cafes to the Promenade of Salthill, becomes excruciating throughout the town’s art festival in July, and that so it’s not far from your bars of Cross Street and the guts.

  Blarney Castle

For ever drawing outside of Cork’s guts, this collection of battlements and keeps is top among the set of the bucket list sights of Ireland. Some regions of your website have been rebuilt, as the Blarney House stands tall over the face of the castle, Now, and nature walks. The piece de resistance?

Well, which must be the Blarney Stone, which is supposed to imbue some that kiss it with all the gift of their gab that is Irish!

  Cork

Cork remains the 2nd biggest city of Ireland. Since it makes its way towards the branches of this Celtic 33, it is seen perched from the coastlines of its county, cut by the twisting River Lee.

Divergent to Dublin, fun-loving, a bit laidback and lively, the natives here enjoy distance between the interested coffee shops and bars, most which hide spouting the colonies of St Patrick’s from of their town.

Even the spires of the Cathedral of St Fin Barre over look that the town in Gothicism, as the Cork City Gaol can be just actually really a quality appeal in the outskirts — even when your little gruesome on top of that!

  Glendalough

Nestled between County Wicklow to the eastside of Ireland’s mountains, Glendalough’s valley brings people . The Saint Kevin of Glendalough dates from sometime in the 6th century, which set the abbey at the centre of this site, also showcases several of those medieval structure in the nation.

Where warblers flit involving the Conservancy and the trails pierce all around this cloister, travelers may look to a woodland of pine and fern, hazel and mountain ash.

  The Aran Islands

Brought in 1934 to world attention by the documentary Man of Aran, traffic have now been entrancing since. Since it was, this is actually really just a preference of Ireland. Gaelic is the primary language, a inhabitants really certainly are, and once you will feel as though you are at a timewarp.

The islands, wild, wind swept, rocky, and completely exceptional provide you a tourist experience. The stone fort of Dun Aonghasa and the cliffs of Aran will not be forgotten, once experienced. The culture is different from the mainland, the tradition can’t be found else where and also the scenery is breath taking.

  County Kerry

Famous because the Ring of Kerry drive’s house, this county of this Republic is you to write home about.

Between its own boundaries, this property in the heart of Munster hosts the kind of this towering, 1,000-meter-high Macgillycuddy’s Reeks and the church-dotted, cairn-peppered puzzle of this Slieve Mish, while outside at sea increase the rugged daggers of this Skelligs — even Michael using its own UNESCO monasteries and Small Skellig having its craggy outcrops.

Even the mountain lakes are just another highlight oceans which flanked by peaks from Torc and Mangerton and can come surrounded by farm lands that are rocky in Muckross.

  Limerick

Spread on the banks of the River Shannon since it widens to fulfill with up with the Atlantic on the western haunch of Ireland, travelers in preference of their attractions which have made Munster’s spot famous usually overlook the town of Limerick.

But will detect a town that on the re-invigorated after bankruptcy, upward and prepared to exhibit its Guinness bars and passionate love for the game of rugby.

Moreover, the area continues to be wallowing at the prestige of being Ireland’s National City of Culture, together with areas just such as the Belltable Arts Centre exploding with fresh productions and playsthe University of Limerick echoing with plain chant and the metropolis gallery of hosting events just such as the EVA International festival.

Top 15 Places to Visit in Ireland

[techsciresearch]

V2X in Automotive Market to Grow at 15.82% CAGR in Value Terms by 2026 – TechSci Research

Growing adoption of connected cars is to drive the global V2X in automotive market through 2026.

According to TechSci Research report “Global V2X in Automotive Market

By Communication Type (V2C, V2G, V2P, V2I, V2V, V2D), By Connectivity Type (DSRC Connectivity and Cellular Connectivity), By Offering Type (Hardware and Software), By Technology Type (Emergency Vehicle Notification, Automated Driver Assistance, Passenger Information System, Line of Sight and Others), By Propulsion Type (ICE Vehicles and Electric Vehicles), By Company and By Region, Forecast & Opportunities, 2026”

, the global V2X in automotive market is estimated to reach around a total market value of USD1.98 billion by 2026.

V2X stands for Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) technology which enables the automotive vehicles to interact virtually with everything moving in surrounding environment. It is a vehicular communication approach that supports the transmission of information from a vehicle to moving parts of the traffic system that can affect the movement of the vehicle. The aim behind installing a Vehicle-to-Everything technology in a vehicle is to improve road safety, energy reduction, and to increase traffic efficiency on the roads. By coupling a vehicle to its surroundings, Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) technology can transform mobility. With increased awareness of every nearby vehicle, including those that lie out of sight, the V2X enabled vehicles can actively reduce the chances of accidents and enhance traffic flow. According to an article published by the US Department of Transportation in October 2019, a total of 36,560 lives were lost on U.S. roads in 2018. ITS America in an article claims that Vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V), vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) and vehicle-to-pedestrian (V2P) communications can reduce 80% road crashes, can increase road capacity by 40% and can reduce fuel emissions by 10%. Due to the above-mentioned factors, growing number of automakers are increasingly adopting the Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) technology in their manufactured vehicle, growing the demand for connected car services. Moreover, outpouring in demand for connectivity solutions, rise in demand for an enhanced driving experience, and introduction of Internet of Things (IoT) in the automotive industry are the key factors that contribute towards the adoption of the connected cars. Due to the growing demand for Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) technology, companies operating in connected car technologies are increasingly growing their product portfolio. For instance, in January 2017, Altran, a global design and engineering company, unveiled Strata V2X connectivity framework at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.

Browse more than 121 market data Figures and spread through 177 Pages and an in- depth TOC on “Global V2X in Automotive Market."

https://www.techsciresearch.com/report/global-v2x-market-for-automotive-market/2292.html

Global V2X in automotive market is segmented based on communication type, connectivity type, offering type, technology type, propulsion type, company and region. V2C stands for Vehicle-to-Cloud, V2G for Vehicle-to-Grid, V2P for Vehicle-to-Pedestrian, V2I for Vehicle-to-Infrastructure, V2V for Vehicle-to-Vehicle, V2D for Vehicle-to-Device. Based on communication type, the global V2X in automotive market is dominated by Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) technology. The high market share of V2V technology can be attributed to the reason that V2V technology majorly decides the road safety.

Based on connectivity type, the global V2X in automotive market is segmented into DSRC Connectivity and Cellular Connectivity. Traditional Dedicated Short-Range Communication (DSRC) based V2X technology was used in majority of vehicles, but after cooperation of 5G cellular connectivity, cellular vehicle-to-everything (C-V2X) technologies are being increasingly adopted for connected car mobility. As a result, cellular vehicle-to-everything (C-V2X) is leading the global V2X in automotive market in the year 2020. Due to the growing acceptance of 5G cellular connectivity, cellular vehicle-to-everything (C-V2X) is anticipated to maintain their dominance over the next five years as well.

The lockdown imposed to contain the spread of virus has disrupted the supply chain for the automotive industry, negatively influencing the V2X market. As different vehicle parts are manufactured and assembled in different regions, the lockdown and international trade restrictions due to closed borders, increased the shortage of required vehicle parts and limited the supply. Moreover, companies adopted just-in-time production strategy due to tight budget which further makes the supply chain vulnerable to disruptions. China is the largest producer of automobiles among all other countries and therefore lockdown in China has resulted in supply shortages for assembly of all OEMs in North America, Europe, and Asia. Nevertheless, the market is showing positive signs of recovery, because of which the global V2X in automotive market is expected to recover from the COVID-19 impact in around three years.

Some of the major players operating in the global V2X in automotive market are Robert Bosch GmbH, Continental AG, NXP Semiconductors N.V., Infineon Technologies AG, DENSO Corporation. Apart from these companies, other companies like Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., HARMAN International (Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.), etc. are also increasing their marketing activities and enriching their product portfolios to increase their customer outreach.

Download Sample Report  @ https://www.techsciresearch.com/sample-report.aspx?cid=2292

Customers can also request for 10% free customization on this report.

“In 2020, Asia Pacific accounted for the largest share, i.e., 42.52% in the global V2X in automotive market. The region is expected to maintain its dominance over the next five years as well. Asia Pacific is one of the leading V2X technology manufacturing regions in the world. Increasing adoption of connected cars and growing sales of passenger cars is boosting demand for V2X enabled vehicles in the world.”, said Mr. Karan Chechi, Research Director with TechSci Research, a research based global management consulting firm.

“Global V2X in Automotive Market By Communication Type (V2C, V2G, V2P, V2I, V2V, V2D), By Connectivity Type (DSRC Connectivity and Cellular Connectivity), By Offering Type (Hardware and Software), By Technology Type (Emergency Vehicle Notification, Automated Driver Assistance, Passenger Information System, Line of Sight and Others), By Propulsion Type (ICE Vehicles and Electric Vehicles), By Company and By Region, Forecast & Opportunities, 2026” , has evaluated the future growth potential of the global V2X in automotive market and provides statistics and information on market size, structure, and future market growth. The report intends to provide cutting-edge market intelligence and help decision makers take sound investment decisions. Besides, the report also identifies and analyzes the emerging trends along with essential drivers, challenges, and opportunities in the global V2X in automotive Market.

Browse Related Reports

Global Automotive Software Market By Vehicle Type (Passenger Car, Light Commercial Vehicle, Medium and Heavy Commercial Vehicle) By Application (ADAS & Safety, Connected Services, Autonomous Driving, HMI, V2X, Infotainment, Electric Vehicle Charging Management, Electric Vehicle Battery Management, V2G) By Software Layer (Operating System, Middleware, Application Software) By Company, By Region, Forecast & Opportunities, 2026

https://www.techsciresearch.com/report/automotive-software-market

Global ADAS Market, By Vehicle Type (Passenger Cars and Commercial Vehicles), By Sensor Technology (Image Sensor, Radar Sensor, Ultrasonic Sensor, Lidar Sensor and Infrared Sensor), By Type (ACC, HUD, TPMS, LDWS, Detection, Road Sign Recognition, Blind Spot Detection, Adaptive Front Lights, and Others), By Company and By Geography, Forecast & Opportunities, 2026.

https://www.techsciresearch.com/report/global-adas-market

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[stites-sustainability]

Blog -- Ecosystems/Biodiversity

Part 1 – Reactions to Myers’ Writings

     The first line that I’d like to respond to from Myers’ writing in A Sustainable Future: Equality, Ecology, and Economy (2018) is “It is sometimes proposed that the more numerous an ecosystem’s species, the greater the ecosystem’s stability” (p. 108).  This wasn’t really something I’d considered as the health of the ecosystem, granted my knowledge on the ins-and-outs of the growth and maintenance of habitats is lackluster.  I’d always thought that greenery itself was the strongest identifier of a healthy ecosystem, but I’m realizing more and more that a plentiful number of plants and creatures make a habitat strong and healthy.  An ecosystem can withstand many more obstacles if its inhabitants have various strengths, instead of all the same strengths.  Prosperity is found in biodiversity.  So next time I’m on a road trip and notice the variety, or lack thereof, of creatures and plants, I’ll have an idea as to the health and strength of that ecosystem.

     The second line that I wish to respond to from the same writing is “The bees’ demise leads to the decline of additional plant species. The process ends in a domino effect—a series of extinctions at all strata, stages, trophic levels, and community types of the forest” (p. 109).  I remember some number of years ago, but rather recently, there was a widespread fear that the bee populations were declining, and what that would spell for the world at large.  At the time, I wasn’t sure why the bees had such a big impact—what was all the hubbub about?  The importance of bees is yet another thing that I’m realizing is crucial to life on Earth. Nearly 80% of flowering plants are designed for pollination by animals (insects), and many of those plants go on to feed livestock, as well as humanity (Vickers, 2018).  Without these little pollinators, a vast number of plants would not be able to reproduce, meaning a horrible decline in vegetation.  It’s scary to think of just how big an impact these little stinger bugs can make!  Not only do they provide the honey for our toast and teas, but promote the growth of the plants we need to fuel us and our ecosystems.  

Part 2 -- Video Reflection

     I found the video How Wolves Change Rivers (2014) to be an actually fascinating watch.  I like how it was produced, the filmography, the narration, the whole thing.  Sustainable Human did a wonderful job with this video.  As for the topic they discussed, I learned a lot!  I would have never known how much of an impact just introducing wolves to a habitat can have on the ecosystem there, as well at the actual physical geography of the land!  The wolves hunted the deer, which were large in number, and caused more vegetation to grow since less deer were eating the grass and greenery.  They also stayed away from areas where the wolves could easily catch them, adding to the re-growth. The regeneration of the vegetation brought with it birds, beavers, ducks, amphibians, fish… Even foxes and bears made more appearances.  The complete turn-around of the ecosystem just from introducing wolves and cutting back on the deer population is astounding, especially because the growth of vegetation stabilized river banks and helped the waters stay more fixed in their course.  The video showed just how important it is to have a balance of predators and prey, and how biodiversity shows a healthy ecosystem.

References

Myers, N. (2018). Biological Diversity and Global Security. In S. Jackson, A.      

     Nunes-Zaller, J. Salmond, B. Thomas (Eds.), A Sustainable Future: Equality, 

     Ecology, and Economy (p. 107-115). Dubuque, IA: Kendall Hunt Publishing

Sustainable Human. (Director). (2014, February 13). How Wolves Change Rivers 

     [Video file]. Retrieved March 5, 2021, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?

     v=ysa5OBhXz-Q

Vickers, H. (2018, July 17). Why are bees important? And how you can help 

     them. Retrieved March 05, 2021, from 

     https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/blog/2018/07/why-are-bees-important-

     and-how-you-can-help-them/

[wineanddinosaur]

VinePair Podcast: The Merits of Mindful Drinking

January is traditionally a time for contemplation, reflection, and reassessing of priorities. Even though January 2021 is unusual in many ways, many people are still using this month to re-examine their relationship with alcohol, whether engaging in Dry January, or otherwise cutting back on consumption. At the same time, there’s a growing trend toward lower-calorie beverage alcohol products and more transparency about nutritional information on labels for products like beer and wine that have traditionally not provided that data.

So what exactly does it mean to practice mindful drinking? Why have those who are abstaining from alcohol typically been left behind by the beverage alcohol industry, and how might that be changing? Why are lower-alcohol, lower-calorie drinks emerging as a trend, and how can drinkers integrate these beverages into their lifestyles? Those are the questions that Adam Teeter and Zach Geballe tackle on this week’s episode of the “VinePair Podcast.”

Listen online

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Or check out the conversation here

Adam: From Brooklyn, New York, I’m Adam Teeter.

Zach: And in Seattle, Washington, I’m Zach Geballe.

A: And this is the “VinePair Podcast.” And Zach, it’s January. It is still Mindful Drinking Month. And that means we still have an ad for Mindful Drinking Month. So let’s get into it and thank our sponsors before we get into today’s episode, which is actually all about mindful drinking. If you’re aiming to cut back on calories and alcohol but still want to enjoy a delicious glass of wine, then Mind and Body Wines are your perfect solution. These low-calorie, low-alcohol wines are only 90 calories per serving and are vegan, gluten-free, non-GMO and made without added sugar. With Mind and Body Wines, you can sip without sacrifice and you can learn more at mindandbodywines.com. So Zach, before we start talking about mindful drinking, let’s talk about drinking in general or what you’ve been up to recently. What have you been tasting?

Z: So as mentioned on last week’s episode, I am not drinking in January, as is always the case for me — at least from a standpoint of having a beverage for consumption. But because of what I do professionally, there’s still occasional tastings. Obviously, much less, and I was actually talking to my wife about this the other day. Typically in January — when I was running beverage programs in restaurants, when restaurants were a thing that I was doing, January was actually a hard month for me in some ways, because it was usually the month when I really refreshed the wine program. In restaurants, typically, November and December are really busy. You don’t really have time to have tasting appointments. You’re just trying to get through the months and get through the holiday season. And you’re just reordering, if anything. And so January, for me, was always a month where I would do actually a fair bit of tasting and refreshing menus and lists — obviously not doing that this year. So the amount of wine that is passing through my world, even if I’m not drinking it, is significantly limited. But I do want to say that the one thing that I had relatively recently that I did try, which I really was interested in, and maybe a topic for a podcast down the road one day, is I think there’s been this interesting attempt to revitalize some historic California properties and some wineries — in this case I’m thinking of Louis M. Martini. I was trying some stuff from the Monte Rosso Vineyard, which is one of the iconic vineyards in California. It was planted in the 1880s, initially, and it’s one of those situations where, like, that was a property where when California wine was first coming on the scene, they were one of the top brands. They got sold, they got kind of commoditized. And recently, they are trying to step back out of that reputation as generic, inexpensive, trading-on-the-legacy-of-the-name wines. And so again, maybe we’ll talk about that more down the road. But I think there is this interesting thing where you see this with California in particular, a few wineries in Napa and to some extent maybe in Sonoma and a few other places, where there is really an effort to to burnish or reestablish the legacy of some of these truly monumental producers that just were turned into a commodity brand at one point, because that was what people thought of the wine industry in the ’60s, ’70s, ’80s, whatever.

A: Yeah, I think it’s interesting. So it’s funny you bring up that winery, because they’ve submitted a few years now for tastings, and it always does really well as they’ve had this sort of “rebirth.” I know a new company owns them, the largest wine company in the country now, actually, but they’ve actually done an amazing job with that brand.

Z: Well, it makes sense, because the thing that is true about several of these brands that have wineries that have attempted to kind of be revitalized is, in many cases, they still have some of the absolute best vineyard sites in California. That has not changed. But what had to change and what is changing in some of these cases is that the larger company that owns them is making a product that is a world-class wine that befits those world-class vineyards, not a brand that we can put on grocery store shelves for $30 a bottle all over the world. And that’s a pivot that’s been required. And I think it makes me glad for the sake of the history and the quality of the grapes that are coming off those vineyards, that that has been something that the value of which has been seen by very, very large wine companies.

A: Yeah. I think it’s important to see to what some of these other really well-known brands in the next few years do as they’re also changing hands. There’s a bunch of things — we can talk about it on another episode because it’s probably too much talk about for our intro.

Z: It’s more than banter.

A: But yeah, super interesting. For me, actually, I did break Dry January last night on a Wednesday. I was like, “You know what? I think I drink very respectfully. And we’ll talk about all that in a second. And I wanted a beer. And this brewery out of L.A., Highland Park Brewery, had sent me some of their beers, and I was like, well, I kind of want to do them the favor of tasting this beer now. And so I opened one of the beers, an India Pale Ale called Strata Aerobics, which I thought was just like a dope name and a beautiful label. And it was a delicious beer. And it’s nice to have a beer, have some dinner, watch a little TV. I’m flipping back and forth between two shows right now. Can’t decide, I can’t focus on just one.

Z: “Bridgerton” and?

A: No, that’s already been finished. I didn’t watch “Bridgerton,” just for the record. Naomi watched “Bridgerton.” I popped in and out of it. It’s a little too trashy for me. I respect what it’s doing, but I was not a “Gossip Girl” person, either, just not my sort of thing. And that’s basically how it was explained to me, “Oh, this is ‘Gossip Girl.’ But like in the 18th century.” I was like, “I’m gonna pass that up.” But do you have, like, shows you watch with your wife, and then shows that are like your own shows?

Z: I would say that we have our shows that we watch together and then she has shows she watches without me, including “Bridgerton.” I don’t have a lot of other shows outside of, I would say that on the rare occasions that on the evenings where she wants to watch something on her own, I watch sports. I watch basketball, which she has a limited tolerance for, but not a big one. Or actually for my birthday, she got me a Nintendo Switch. I have not had a video game console in many years, but I have been doing that. We play some together, but also that is sometimes my evening alone time activities.

A: That’s funny. I know we definitely have shows together, shows alone. Our two shows together right now are, and again, we only have one TV, like we only believe in having a TV in the living room. So it’s also basically we have shows Naomi watches alone, and shows we watch together. And then once in a while, I get to watch my own if she goes to bed early or whatever. But we’re watching together right now the NXIVM documentary “The Vow,” which is like, “whoa!” And then also “The Good Lord Bird,” which is amazing on Showtime.

Z: I feel like I’ve never heard of either of those. So I don’t know what that says about me.

A: “The Vow” is on HBO. It’s all about the crazy cult NXIVM that turned out to be a sex-trafficking ring, which is insane. And then “The Good Lord Bird” is based on the novel and it’s about the abolitionist John Brown. And it is incredible. And Ethan Hawke is just amazing in the role. So it’s a really, really great show. But that’s one of those shows that is hard to watch, obviously. It deals with a lot of very uncomfortable history in our country. So, we can usually watch one episode of it in the evening. And I’m like, “OK, we’re either going to watch something fun or go read.” And I just picked up a new book that I’m excited about that I’ve also been reading called “Up All Night,” which is the story of the history of CNN and how basically 24-hour news came to be that co-founder Josh Malin recommended to me. So thanks, Josh. But yeah, that’s what I’ve been drinking and up to. And I think it’s a good segue into the theme of this podcast, which is mindful drinking. And I think we talk about this a lot as an industry, but it’s always an important conversation to have. And it’s just how we approach it, and it always seems like January is the time when we reflect on this. And I think we do that for a few reasons. One, there’s not a lot of activity in January. You can kind of get away with unplugging a bit. There’s not a ton of places to go. There’s usually not a ton of meetings. Everyone’s kind of like head down, planning for the year. You don’t have a lot of drinks or dinners. There’s one holiday weekend, obviously, the one coming up, Martin Luther King weekend. But again, it’s usually a cold weekend. So you’re either skiing, or you’re probably kind of staying put. Right? You’re not going to the beach and just slammin’ Margaritas. So it’s a time that a lot of people have decided is the month that they sort of reflect on health in general. And I think also it’s when you start thinking about, “OK, March is close,” and March traditionally has always been a spring break month. I got to be in that bathing suit again, what’s that look like? So it’s always a good time to think about it. So I’m excited to have this conversation with you. I definitely have always, I think, because of the industry we’re in, I’ve always been aware of my relationship to alcohol and sort of understanding that it’s something that I obviously enjoy. It helps me unwind. I like it for social aspects, but also it’s something that I’m aware of that you can easily abuse. And so for me, it was always really important, especially as we started VinePair, that I knew there would be — not that I would count drinks — but that I would be aware of what I consumed in the evening. And that also, I knew that I was always taking a few days off, that like throughout the week I knew I wasn’t going to drink, like, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, or something. Sunday, Monday, Thursday. How have you approached it? Because on the floor, being in the restaurant, you hear about that a lot. There can always just be an excuse. So how have you sort of throughout your career approached drinking and drinking mindfully?

Z: That’s an excellent question. I want to say one thing really quick before I answer that. And that is in this conversation, I think we’re going to talk about “mindful drinking” through two different lenses, at least in my estimation. And one is this first one, which is about the relationship between alcohol as a substance and the controlled, safe use of it. And then there’s also drinking in a more sort of direct “health” sense in terms of, like, we’ll talk calories and stuff like that. And so I’m mostly for this part, going to focus on that question you posed, which is dealing with alcohol as an intoxicating substance and how that works. And I’ll say I reflect on this every year, and I’ve been thinking about it a lot this year because as I mentioned before, it’s the first year in a very, very long time — since I was in high school — that I’m not working in a restaurant in January, maybe one other year somewhere in there. But basically, I think that one thing that was very clear to me from my very, very early days in the restaurant industry, frankly, even before I worked in a restaurant growing up in and around restaurants is that in that industry, and the beverage alcohol industry more broadly, one of the real challenges is, it does not put up many guardrails for people when it comes to alcohol and certainly didn’t used to. This may be changing over time. I think outright intoxication at work is less tolerated now than it was when I was young and certainly even before I was in the workforce. But it’s very true that whether it’s restaurant workers or even, frankly, people in wine or beverage, alcohol production, media, et cetera, there’s a lot of access. There aren’t a lot of people asking questions or passing judgments, at least not to your face very often. And again, there are few guardrails and in many cases the guardrails that exist are broader, societal ones. And when you’re going over one of those, there’s real problems. And there aren’t a lot of mechanisms within the industry sometimes to keep someone from getting to that point. And so for me, when I was young, it became, I don’t mean to say that I was as mindful a drinker at 21 or 23 or 25, even as I am now at 37. But I do think that relatively early on for me, I recognized that one thing that was important to me was to not be the person that I worked with who every night after work it was four, five, six, seven drinks at the bar. Every time we went out, it was they wanted to get into a fight or broke down crying or wanted to have sex with literally anything, and all the kind of things that come with not just alcohol consumption, but sort of uncontrolled consumption. And I guess fortunately, unfortunately, had a lot of examples of people who without total abstinence could not manage alcohol consumption. And I think there’s a lot of people like that. And there are people like that in my family. There are people like that in my friend circle. And I’m grateful in a lot of cases that they’ve been able to come to that realization in some cases without tremendous cost to themselves. But it’s very true that one thing that this industry asks of people is, do you have really good boundaries around alcohol? Because there’s very little support to help build those otherwise. And that may be true in life in general. I can’t say certainly there are other professions in other industries where there’s a lot of drinking to deal with stress or drinking to deal with life or just people aren’t really asking. But this one is particularly pernicious because there’s almost an expectation that you drink along with everyone else, because it’s our job and it’s hard for some people to find that balance point.

A: Yeah, I think that’s really true. And I think you have to find it any way that you can, and you have to be conscious of it. And I think that’s what we both have tried to do, and I encourage others to do, which is when you think about what does “mindful drinking” mean, a lot of it does mean how do you acknowledge that what you are consuming is alcohol? And I think that’s the thing that we try to talk about a lot with VinePair, is that’s also the reason that we try to not take it so seriously in terms of some of the ways in which we can evaluate wines. Because at the end of the day, the reason that the majority of people are attracted to it is is because it’s alcohol. At the end of the day, we are humans, and humans have always sought out substances, as other animals do. And so I think that’s why it shouldn’t be taken so seriously. But that’s also why it should be taken seriously in terms of what the ingredients are. And I think that there’s a lot of ways that you can be OK with your relationship to it and you can train yourself to be sort of OK. And one way to do that, obviously, is to just make sure that two to three days out of the week you’re only drinking water, that all those other days you’re making sure you’re not consuming too much. But if you have a hard time shutting down, at least this has been for people that I know saying like, “OK, once I start drinking, I’m always going to want that next glass.” And then there are other options, right? There are things like “free” or otherwise non-alcoholic things like Athletic that you and Cat love, the non-alcoholic beer that you can sort of sub in. Or Fre, the wine that is the advertiser on the podcast this week. I think those are things that can help a lot of people to make those choices. And then it also does help to have those around when you have someone in your life who doesn’t drink. Because also you don’t want them to feel left out at all.

Z: And that piece, I think, is a really important one to mention. Because one of the really challenging things about the restaurant industry, about working in beverage alcohol more broadly, I think is that it’s really hard for people — and I think again, societally, too, but especially in that industry — it’s really hard to be the person who says, “You know what, I’m not drinking” or “I’ve had enough, but I still want to hang out with you guys. I still want to hang out with my coworkers after a shift. I still want to go out after work and hang out.” And I think it’s totally the case that we’re starting to see, as you discussed, some of the products and others, too, that are entering the marketplace that are saying, “Hey, look, we recognize that soda isn’t necessarily what adults, especially sort of health-conscious adults want. And that, frankly, the flavor profile may not be what you want.” And that we talked about this a couple episodes ago. I think there are non-alcoholic beverage options, but none of them quite do it for us, and they don’t feel, they don’t feel special in the way that even a non-alcoholic beer or wine can feel special. And maybe that’s just a linguistic trick that we play on ourselves. Fine. But I do think that that is very much the case. And I think that one area, and I think this is something that we both agree on to some extent, but I’m curious to hear your perspective, is sometimes I think these products get pigeonholed as only for people who don’t drink — whether they’re sober, whether they’re on medication, whether they’re pregnant, et cetera, that they are someone who does not ever drink. And this is only for them. And to me, I think one interesting part of this conversation is, is there a place for these beverages for the person who wants to intermix them with alcohol? That maybe they want to have two glasses of wine with dinner, but only one of them is going to have alcohol. Or they want to have three beers out watching a football game with friends, but one of them doesn’t have alcohol, and that we tend societally to be “all or nothing.” And in some ways, I understand when it comes to a substance as powerful as alcohol, that for some people the only answer or safe answer is nothing. Fine. But I think for a lot of people, the “nothing” side of it, that “no- alcohol” side has been so devoid of options that are interesting and tasty and sort of plausible facsimiles that it has created a space where a well-made product that meets those needs can really thrive, I think. It seems that way to me. I don’t know. What’s your read?

A: Yeah. I think that there is an opportunity here. So first of all, there’s obviously a need for there to be really well-made products in this space for sure, because there are so many use cases for it. And so I think it is this thing where I’ve talked to so many people, whether they aren’t drinking, have stopped drinking entirely, or they are pregnant or have other health issues — maybe it’s even that they’re on a certain medication they’re not supposed to drink on where they’re like, it’s kind of just boring to go out with people and only be like, “Can I have a soda water with lemon?”.

Z: Or the exciting bitters and soda?

A: Yeah, well, yes, exactly Zach. There are times when that doesn’t feel so great to be that person. And so to have those alternatives is really good. And the fact that there are people out there — creators, winemakers, brewers who are trying to make great-tasting alcohol-free is really interesting. I don’t know if you were paying attention to the Random channel on Slack today.

Z: I was!

A: But like, look, again, I’m not sure how large of a market there is that there needs to be a physical store in the Lower East Side, but the fact that this new store in the LES called Spirited Away opened where the entire store is alcohol-free products is really interesting to me. There’s got to be a large enough market there. And the liquor store minus the liquor, I think, is really cool and shows that there’s a lot of stuff out there right now and people trying to make these kinds of products for a wide swath of the population who is choosing not to drink at certain times, but doesn’t want to miss out on that experience of drinking.

Z: And that is a crucial piece. And I want to emphasize this, because for me, with the people I’ve worked with that I’ve known in my life who have real problems with alcohol, one of the biggest challenges for some of them has been feeling like they can’t be a part of a group that goes out and drinks because there’s nothing for them. Soda water and whatever is boring and anything else — that an impediment to sobriety or healthfulness for some people is really something as simple as they don’t get to have a special drink of their own. If they don’t want to drink iced tea, or they don’t want to drink soda or lemonade or juice, those are perfectly fine beverages. But not everyone likes them. They don’t want them all the time. They may not go well with food in some cases. So there’s that real impediment for some people. That’s just like they won’t make the choice between their social life and their health, and products that allow them to have both, I think, are really, really valuable.

A: I agree. The other thing I think is interesting that goes along with mindful drinking is thinking about this world of lower-calorie options. And that’s something also that I think a lot of people start to revisit during this time of year.

Z: Yeah, me, for sure.

A: Well, again, we talked about the bathing suit, right? So it’s like how do you get in shape? I mean especially in the pandemic, man. Like there were weeks in the pandemic where I was making two loaves of bread a week. That is a lot. So what do you think about that? And we’ve seen especially the explosion on the beer and the seltzer side, Michelob Ultra kind of led this craze for the lower-alcohol beers. Now, seltzer with White Claw and Truly have really taken up that mantle and really prominently placing the calorie counts on the bottles. And now you have wines like Mind and Body and others that are doing it as well. And I also think that’s important. I think the idea that people understand what the calorie count is, is important. If you are someone that is trying to have some sort of balance and measure what you’re taking in your body and then what you’re expelling in terms of exercise and burn and stuff like that. Those are useful things. And I think especially on the wine side, it is something where, we talked about this before, the clarity of labeling is something that the wine industry should stop being so afraid of. I think putting the ingredients, that doesn’t put you into the pseudoscience space. It actually just says, “Hey, this is what’s in it.” And, “Hey, here’s the nutritional facts about it.” I think that that’s important. Like here’s what 5 ounces of this wine is going to cost you in calories. I’d love to know that. A lot of us would love to be more aware of that when we’re consuming. And I don’t mean to just pick on wine. I think craft beer is guilty of it, too, because some of these crazy, hazy IPAs that you’d wind up drinking, you’d wind up with a thousand calories. And some of these beers are super high in calories. It’s like eating a liquid loaf of sourdough bread. And the idea that seltzer is leading the way here and putting calories on the cans is going to start influencing a lot of this moving forward.

Z: Well, I think especially when it comes to wine and you listeners know I love wine, I love the wine industry in a lot of ways. But one problem that the wine industry has is it is a little bit sometimes up its own collective a** about the idea that everyone who drinks wine is drinking wine for these sort of high-minded, aesthetic pursuits. And yes, there is a fair bit of that, but people drink wine, as you said way back at the beginning of this episode, people drink because of alcohol. And people want alcohol, and people want what it does to them. And some people do not want, or they care about a lot of other considerations besides only the most, whatever terminology you want to ascribe to it, but we’ll say “snobby” reasons. And so I think that there is absolutely and totally room for and real demand for that kind of factual information about any product that anyone is going to consume. Beer, wine, spirits, et cetera. And and so I think that, again, the wine industry makes this mistake a lot of assuming that when they talk to connoisseurs, they are talking to the entirety of the wine industry. Even if you look at what sells in the wine space and the vast majority of sales are not what we would describe as wines of incredible terroir. That’s fine. That’s fair. Like, in no country is that true. There’s a lot of generic-a**, massive geographic blends in Europe, too, that are hugely popular and hugely successful because they’re inexpensive, and they do what people want. And the same thing is true in this country, whether they’re from this country or other places. And so providing that information for people is very, very useful. It’s something the wine industry should have been doing long ago, at least in certain categories. And I think more than anything else, what is important here is what we were discussing with the non-alcoholic products but is, I think, also true with this, which is some of these products may not be what everyone switches to. There are probably beer drinkers who only drink Michelob Ultra, but I bet there are a lot of people for whom that’s a part of their beer-drinking regimen. They drink it some days or they drink it as a pacer beer with other beers that are maybe higher in alcohol, higher in calories. But it’s a way for someone to continue to do a thing they enjoy, but is not quite as costly in terms of calorie count et cetera down the road. And I think some of these wine products, their use cases, in one use case is definitely that. As a part of a drinking experience that maybe is more about the people they are with, the place they’re at, not 10 seconds of contemplation on every sip. And that’s again, that is not meant to be derogatory. That’s how the vast majority of wine is consumed. It’s not sipping and swirling, it’s not chugging. exactly, but it’s drinking it as it is intended to be consumed.

A: Right. I completely agree with you. And I think that’s what makes wine so pleasurable for so many people, is that it’s just fun. And so if there’s certain days when you’d like to have that fun without as much of the guilt, then I think it’s really great that there are now these options. And thinking about that from a mindful perspective is really important. I think, look, at the end of the day all of anything we do should be done with intention, right? So Mark Bittman used to talk about this a lot in his New York Times column, like “eating with intention,” right? And he had this whole movement of like “vegan before 4:00 p.m.,” and this idea that, if you were going to eat meat, that you thought about it when you did eat meat and you only ate it at select times during the day in order to not only be better for your body, but to to be intentional about what you were consuming and how your consumption was impacting the environment. Same with the idea of eating the type of seafood we eat. And you’re not trying to deplete the oceans. And I think the same is true with how we consume drinks. It should be completely equal. We should think about what we drink. We should care about where those products come from. We should care about how they’re made. And we should be thoughtful about how we consume them and when we consume them. And I think that that’s going to be beneficial to all of us. And so that’s what we try to do during mindful drinking month. And really just highlight the fact that these are products that are really fun to get excited about and to also think about and to think about from both a standpoint of who’s making them and why and also how are we consuming them and why?

Z: Yeah, and I think you make an excellent point about trying to be mindful, sometimes getting talked about only as like “abstention from,” right? And I think that is a mistake. I think mindful consumption is consumption. It’s not “no consumption.” And I think there are obviously people for whom no consumption is the only safe and correct answer. And to those people I commend them for making that decision, reaching that place, and staying there. But I think for a lot of people the thing that is true and that you started this episode with contemplating is, we are at the same time in a culture that encourages consumption without a lot of thought in a lot of areas. It’s not just food and drink — in everything. And I think I could say, speaking for both of us, we encourage, in general, that you think about what you’re doing. I mean, obviously if you’re spending your time listening to us, you’re reading VinePair, you care about what you’re consuming. At least in this space, if not everywhere. And I think that January is a great month to begin that process. But I would also encourage that it be a year-long pursuit and in some months it’s going to be a little more tilted towards less mindfulness or more consumption. And in other months, it might be tilted towards more contemplation, less consumption. That’s all good. I think balance is sometimes not all about the same exact thing every day or every week or every month. It’s about finding an equilibrium, but you can sort of oscillate around that equilibrium point. But it is true that I think I might consider myself a much better and more satisfied beverage alcohol consumer the more mindful I am. Even if sometimes that thing is like, “holy s***, I need a drink right now.” Because that’s balanced out by the times when I don’t have a drink.

A: Exactly. Look I completely agree with you, man, and I love your point that you made, which is there should be intentionality with everything. And it’s not just this. Right? I know a ton of people this month who are taking social media breaks. I spoke to a friend. I was like, “Oh, yeah, I’m doing like a somewhat dry January,” and they were like, “Oh, I’m doing a somewhat dry social media January.” Just like I find myself thinking “Why am I always looking at my phone when there’s nothing else to do?” “How do I stop that behavior?” And the same kind of ideas. And that’s all healthy. and that’s really good. And so I think it’s great that we’re having these conversations about them because we should have them as opposed to just sort of being like “Well, if I have these conversations, then what does that say? Does that say that I don’t like drinking?” No, I love wine, I love beer, I love cocktails. I love hanging out with friends. I love getting together and having drinks and being really social. But I think it’s also important that these same conversations happen, too. One isn’t the opposite of the other, if that makes sense, right? I know that a lot of people are scared to have these conversations, because they wonder if that means they have a problem. No, it absolutely does not mean that you have a problem. It actually means the opposite. So anyways, I hope that everyone has a lovely month of January. I hope that we all move forward with more intention and mindfulness. And Zach, I’ll talk to you next week.

Z: Sounds great.

Thanks so much for listening to the VinePair Podcast. If you enjoy listening to us every week, please leave us a review or rating on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever it is that you get your podcasts. It really helps everyone else discover the show. Now for the credits, VinePair is produced by myself and Zach Geballe. It is also mixed and edited by him. Yeah, Zach, we know you do a lot. I’d also like to thank the entire VinePair team, including my co-founder, Josh, and our associate editor, Cat. Thanks so much for listening. See you next week.

Ed. note: This episode has been edited for length and clarity.

The article VinePair Podcast: The Merits of Mindful Drinking appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/podcast-mindful-drinking/

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VinePair Podcast: The Merits of Mindful Drinking

January is traditionally a time for contemplation, reflection, and reassessing of priorities. Even though January 2021 is unusual in many ways, many people are still using this month to re-examine their relationship with alcohol, whether engaging in Dry January, or otherwise cutting back on consumption. At the same time, there’s a growing trend toward lower-calorie beverage alcohol products and more transparency about nutritional information on labels for products like beer and wine that have traditionally not provided that data.

So what exactly does it mean to practice mindful drinking? Why have those who are abstaining from alcohol typically been left behind by the beverage alcohol industry, and how might that be changing? Why are lower-alcohol, lower-calorie drinks emerging as a trend, and how can drinkers integrate these beverages into their lifestyles? Those are the questions that Adam Teeter and Zach Geballe tackle on this week’s episode of the “VinePair Podcast.”

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Adam: From Brooklyn, New York, I’m Adam Teeter.

Zach: And in Seattle, Washington, I’m Zach Geballe.

A: And this is the “VinePair Podcast.” And Zach, it’s January. It is still Mindful Drinking Month. And that means we still have an ad for Mindful Drinking Month. So let’s get into it and thank our sponsors before we get into today’s episode, which is actually all about mindful drinking. If you’re aiming to cut back on calories and alcohol but still want to enjoy a delicious glass of wine, then Mind and Body Wines are your perfect solution. These low-calorie, low-alcohol wines are only 90 calories per serving and are vegan, gluten-free, non-GMO and made without added sugar. With Mind and Body Wines, you can sip without sacrifice and you can learn more at mindandbodywines.com. So Zach, before we start talking about mindful drinking, let’s talk about drinking in general or what you’ve been up to recently. What have you been tasting?

Z: So as mentioned on last week’s episode, I am not drinking in January, as is always the case for me — at least from a standpoint of having a beverage for consumption. But because of what I do professionally, there’s still occasional tastings. Obviously, much less, and I was actually talking to my wife about this the other day. Typically in January — when I was running beverage programs in restaurants, when restaurants were a thing that I was doing, January was actually a hard month for me in some ways, because it was usually the month when I really refreshed the wine program. In restaurants, typically, November and December are really busy. You don’t really have time to have tasting appointments. You’re just trying to get through the months and get through the holiday season. And you’re just reordering, if anything. And so January, for me, was always a month where I would do actually a fair bit of tasting and refreshing menus and lists — obviously not doing that this year. So the amount of wine that is passing through my world, even if I’m not drinking it, is significantly limited. But I do want to say that the one thing that I had relatively recently that I did try, which I really was interested in, and maybe a topic for a podcast down the road one day, is I think there’s been this interesting attempt to revitalize some historic California properties and some wineries — in this case I’m thinking of Louis M. Martini. I was trying some stuff from the Monte Rosso Vineyard, which is one of the iconic vineyards in California. It was planted in the 1880s, initially, and it’s one of those situations where, like, that was a property where when California wine was first coming on the scene, they were one of the top brands. They got sold, they got kind of commoditized. And recently, they are trying to step back out of that reputation as generic, inexpensive, trading-on-the-legacy-of-the-name wines. And so again, maybe we’ll talk about that more down the road. But I think there is this interesting thing where you see this with California in particular, a few wineries in Napa and to some extent maybe in Sonoma and a few other places, where there is really an effort to to burnish or reestablish the legacy of some of these truly monumental producers that just were turned into a commodity brand at one point, because that was what people thought of the wine industry in the ’60s, ’70s, ’80s, whatever.

A: Yeah, I think it’s interesting. So it’s funny you bring up that winery, because they’ve submitted a few years now for tastings, and it always does really well as they’ve had this sort of “rebirth.” I know a new company owns them, the largest wine company in the country now, actually, but they’ve actually done an amazing job with that brand.

Z: Well, it makes sense, because the thing that is true about several of these brands that have wineries that have attempted to kind of be revitalized is, in many cases, they still have some of the absolute best vineyard sites in California. That has not changed. But what had to change and what is changing in some of these cases is that the larger company that owns them is making a product that is a world-class wine that befits those world-class vineyards, not a brand that we can put on grocery store shelves for $30 a bottle all over the world. And that’s a pivot that’s been required. And I think it makes me glad for the sake of the history and the quality of the grapes that are coming off those vineyards, that that has been something that the value of which has been seen by very, very large wine companies.

A: Yeah. I think it’s important to see to what some of these other really well-known brands in the next few years do as they’re also changing hands. There’s a bunch of things — we can talk about it on another episode because it’s probably too much talk about for our intro.

Z: It’s more than banter.

A: But yeah, super interesting. For me, actually, I did break Dry January last night on a Wednesday. I was like, “You know what? I think I drink very respectfully. And we’ll talk about all that in a second. And I wanted a beer. And this brewery out of L.A., Highland Park Brewery, had sent me some of their beers, and I was like, well, I kind of want to do them the favor of tasting this beer now. And so I opened one of the beers, an India Pale Ale called Strata Aerobics, which I thought was just like a dope name and a beautiful label. And it was a delicious beer. And it’s nice to have a beer, have some dinner, watch a little TV. I’m flipping back and forth between two shows right now. Can’t decide, I can’t focus on just one.

Z: “Bridgerton” and?

A: No, that’s already been finished. I didn’t watch “Bridgerton,” just for the record. Naomi watched “Bridgerton.” I popped in and out of it. It’s a little too trashy for me. I respect what it’s doing, but I was not a “Gossip Girl” person, either, just not my sort of thing. And that’s basically how it was explained to me, “Oh, this is ‘Gossip Girl.’ But like in the 18th century.” I was like, “I’m gonna pass that up.” But do you have, like, shows you watch with your wife, and then shows that are like your own shows?

Z: I would say that we have our shows that we watch together and then she has shows she watches without me, including “Bridgerton.” I don’t have a lot of other shows outside of, I would say that on the rare occasions that on the evenings where she wants to watch something on her own, I watch sports. I watch basketball, which she has a limited tolerance for, but not a big one. Or actually for my birthday, she got me a Nintendo Switch. I have not had a video game console in many years, but I have been doing that. We play some together, but also that is sometimes my evening alone time activities.

A: That’s funny. I know we definitely have shows together, shows alone. Our two shows together right now are, and again, we only have one TV, like we only believe in having a TV in the living room. So it’s also basically we have shows Naomi watches alone, and shows we watch together. And then once in a while, I get to watch my own if she goes to bed early or whatever. But we’re watching together right now the NXIVM documentary “The Vow,” which is like, “whoa!” And then also “The Good Lord Bird,” which is amazing on Showtime.

Z: I feel like I’ve never heard of either of those. So I don’t know what that says about me.

A: “The Vow” is on HBO. It’s all about the crazy cult NXIVM that turned out to be a sex-trafficking ring, which is insane. And then “The Good Lord Bird” is based on the novel and it’s about the abolitionist John Brown. And it is incredible. And Ethan Hawke is just amazing in the role. So it’s a really, really great show. But that’s one of those shows that is hard to watch, obviously. It deals with a lot of very uncomfortable history in our country. So, we can usually watch one episode of it in the evening. And I’m like, “OK, we’re either going to watch something fun or go read.” And I just picked up a new book that I’m excited about that I’ve also been reading called “Up All Night,” which is the story of the history of CNN and how basically 24-hour news came to be that co-founder Josh Malin recommended to me. So thanks, Josh. But yeah, that’s what I’ve been drinking and up to. And I think it’s a good segue into the theme of this podcast, which is mindful drinking. And I think we talk about this a lot as an industry, but it’s always an important conversation to have. And it’s just how we approach it, and it always seems like January is the time when we reflect on this. And I think we do that for a few reasons. One, there’s not a lot of activity in January. You can kind of get away with unplugging a bit. There’s not a ton of places to go. There’s usually not a ton of meetings. Everyone’s kind of like head down, planning for the year. You don’t have a lot of drinks or dinners. There’s one holiday weekend, obviously, the one coming up, Martin Luther King weekend. But again, it’s usually a cold weekend. So you’re either skiing, or you’re probably kind of staying put. Right? You’re not going to the beach and just slammin’ Margaritas. So it’s a time that a lot of people have decided is the month that they sort of reflect on health in general. And I think also it’s when you start thinking about, “OK, March is close,” and March traditionally has always been a spring break month. I got to be in that bathing suit again, what’s that look like? So it’s always a good time to think about it. So I’m excited to have this conversation with you. I definitely have always, I think, because of the industry we’re in, I’ve always been aware of my relationship to alcohol and sort of understanding that it’s something that I obviously enjoy. It helps me unwind. I like it for social aspects, but also it’s something that I’m aware of that you can easily abuse. And so for me, it was always really important, especially as we started VinePair, that I knew there would be — not that I would count drinks — but that I would be aware of what I consumed in the evening. And that also, I knew that I was always taking a few days off, that like throughout the week I knew I wasn’t going to drink, like, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, or something. Sunday, Monday, Thursday. How have you approached it? Because on the floor, being in the restaurant, you hear about that a lot. There can always just be an excuse. So how have you sort of throughout your career approached drinking and drinking mindfully?

Z: That’s an excellent question. I want to say one thing really quick before I answer that. And that is in this conversation, I think we’re going to talk about “mindful drinking” through two different lenses, at least in my estimation. And one is this first one, which is about the relationship between alcohol as a substance and the controlled, safe use of it. And then there’s also drinking in a more sort of direct “health” sense in terms of, like, we’ll talk calories and stuff like that. And so I’m mostly for this part, going to focus on that question you posed, which is dealing with alcohol as an intoxicating substance and how that works. And I’ll say I reflect on this every year, and I’ve been thinking about it a lot this year because as I mentioned before, it’s the first year in a very, very long time — since I was in high school — that I’m not working in a restaurant in January, maybe one other year somewhere in there. But basically, I think that one thing that was very clear to me from my very, very early days in the restaurant industry, frankly, even before I worked in a restaurant growing up in and around restaurants is that in that industry, and the beverage alcohol industry more broadly, one of the real challenges is, it does not put up many guardrails for people when it comes to alcohol and certainly didn’t used to. This may be changing over time. I think outright intoxication at work is less tolerated now than it was when I was young and certainly even before I was in the workforce. But it’s very true that whether it’s restaurant workers or even, frankly, people in wine or beverage, alcohol production, media, et cetera, there’s a lot of access. There aren’t a lot of people asking questions or passing judgments, at least not to your face very often. And again, there are few guardrails and in many cases the guardrails that exist are broader, societal ones. And when you’re going over one of those, there’s real problems. And there aren’t a lot of mechanisms within the industry sometimes to keep someone from getting to that point. And so for me, when I was young, it became, I don’t mean to say that I was as mindful a drinker at 21 or 23 or 25, even as I am now at 37. But I do think that relatively early on for me, I recognized that one thing that was important to me was to not be the person that I worked with who every night after work it was four, five, six, seven drinks at the bar. Every time we went out, it was they wanted to get into a fight or broke down crying or wanted to have sex with literally anything, and all the kind of things that come with not just alcohol consumption, but sort of uncontrolled consumption. And I guess fortunately, unfortunately, had a lot of examples of people who without total abstinence could not manage alcohol consumption. And I think there’s a lot of people like that. And there are people like that in my family. There are people like that in my friend circle. And I’m grateful in a lot of cases that they’ve been able to come to that realization in some cases without tremendous cost to themselves. But it’s very true that one thing that this industry asks of people is, do you have really good boundaries around alcohol? Because there’s very little support to help build those otherwise. And that may be true in life in general. I can’t say certainly there are other professions in other industries where there’s a lot of drinking to deal with stress or drinking to deal with life or just people aren’t really asking. But this one is particularly pernicious because there’s almost an expectation that you drink along with everyone else, because it’s our job and it’s hard for some people to find that balance point.

A: Yeah, I think that’s really true. And I think you have to find it any way that you can, and you have to be conscious of it. And I think that’s what we both have tried to do, and I encourage others to do, which is when you think about what does “mindful drinking” mean, a lot of it does mean how do you acknowledge that what you are consuming is alcohol? And I think that’s the thing that we try to talk about a lot with VinePair, is that’s also the reason that we try to not take it so seriously in terms of some of the ways in which we can evaluate wines. Because at the end of the day, the reason that the majority of people are attracted to it is is because it’s alcohol. At the end of the day, we are humans, and humans have always sought out substances, as other animals do. And so I think that’s why it shouldn’t be taken so seriously. But that’s also why it should be taken seriously in terms of what the ingredients are. And I think that there’s a lot of ways that you can be OK with your relationship to it and you can train yourself to be sort of OK. And one way to do that, obviously, is to just make sure that two to three days out of the week you’re only drinking water, that all those other days you’re making sure you’re not consuming too much. But if you have a hard time shutting down, at least this has been for people that I know saying like, “OK, once I start drinking, I’m always going to want that next glass.” And then there are other options, right? There are things like “free” or otherwise non-alcoholic things like Athletic that you and Cat love, the non-alcoholic beer that you can sort of sub in. Or Fre, the wine that is the advertiser on the podcast this week. I think those are things that can help a lot of people to make those choices. And then it also does help to have those around when you have someone in your life who doesn’t drink. Because also you don’t want them to feel left out at all.

Z: And that piece, I think, is a really important one to mention. Because one of the really challenging things about the restaurant industry, about working in beverage alcohol more broadly, I think is that it’s really hard for people — and I think again, societally, too, but especially in that industry — it’s really hard to be the person who says, “You know what, I’m not drinking” or “I’ve had enough, but I still want to hang out with you guys. I still want to hang out with my coworkers after a shift. I still want to go out after work and hang out.” And I think it’s totally the case that we’re starting to see, as you discussed, some of the products and others, too, that are entering the marketplace that are saying, “Hey, look, we recognize that soda isn’t necessarily what adults, especially sort of health-conscious adults want. And that, frankly, the flavor profile may not be what you want.” And that we talked about this a couple episodes ago. I think there are non-alcoholic beverage options, but none of them quite do it for us, and they don’t feel, they don’t feel special in the way that even a non-alcoholic beer or wine can feel special. And maybe that’s just a linguistic trick that we play on ourselves. Fine. But I do think that that is very much the case. And I think that one area, and I think this is something that we both agree on to some extent, but I’m curious to hear your perspective, is sometimes I think these products get pigeonholed as only for people who don’t drink — whether they’re sober, whether they’re on medication, whether they’re pregnant, et cetera, that they are someone who does not ever drink. And this is only for them. And to me, I think one interesting part of this conversation is, is there a place for these beverages for the person who wants to intermix them with alcohol? That maybe they want to have two glasses of wine with dinner, but only one of them is going to have alcohol. Or they want to have three beers out watching a football game with friends, but one of them doesn’t have alcohol, and that we tend societally to be “all or nothing.” And in some ways, I understand when it comes to a substance as powerful as alcohol, that for some people the only answer or safe answer is nothing. Fine. But I think for a lot of people, the “nothing” side of it, that “no- alcohol” side has been so devoid of options that are interesting and tasty and sort of plausible facsimiles that it has created a space where a well-made product that meets those needs can really thrive, I think. It seems that way to me. I don’t know. What’s your read?

A: Yeah. I think that there is an opportunity here. So first of all, there’s obviously a need for there to be really well-made products in this space for sure, because there are so many use cases for it. And so I think it is this thing where I’ve talked to so many people, whether they aren’t drinking, have stopped drinking entirely, or they are pregnant or have other health issues — maybe it’s even that they’re on a certain medication they’re not supposed to drink on where they’re like, it’s kind of just boring to go out with people and only be like, “Can I have a soda water with lemon?”.

Z: Or the exciting bitters and soda?

A: Yeah, well, yes, exactly Zach. There are times when that doesn’t feel so great to be that person. And so to have those alternatives is really good. And the fact that there are people out there — creators, winemakers, brewers who are trying to make great-tasting alcohol-free is really interesting. I don’t know if you were paying attention to the Random channel on Slack today.

Z: I was!

A: But like, look, again, I’m not sure how large of a market there is that there needs to be a physical store in the Lower East Side, but the fact that this new store in the LES called Spirited Away opened where the entire store is alcohol-free products is really interesting to me. There’s got to be a large enough market there. And the liquor store minus the liquor, I think, is really cool and shows that there’s a lot of stuff out there right now and people trying to make these kinds of products for a wide swath of the population who is choosing not to drink at certain times, but doesn’t want to miss out on that experience of drinking.

Z: And that is a crucial piece. And I want to emphasize this, because for me, with the people I’ve worked with that I’ve known in my life who have real problems with alcohol, one of the biggest challenges for some of them has been feeling like they can’t be a part of a group that goes out and drinks because there’s nothing for them. Soda water and whatever is boring and anything else — that an impediment to sobriety or healthfulness for some people is really something as simple as they don’t get to have a special drink of their own. If they don’t want to drink iced tea, or they don’t want to drink soda or lemonade or juice, those are perfectly fine beverages. But not everyone likes them. They don’t want them all the time. They may not go well with food in some cases. So there’s that real impediment for some people. That’s just like they won’t make the choice between their social life and their health, and products that allow them to have both, I think, are really, really valuable.

A: I agree. The other thing I think is interesting that goes along with mindful drinking is thinking about this world of lower-calorie options. And that’s something also that I think a lot of people start to revisit during this time of year.

Z: Yeah, me, for sure.

A: Well, again, we talked about the bathing suit, right? So it’s like how do you get in shape? I mean especially in the pandemic, man. Like there were weeks in the pandemic where I was making two loaves of bread a week. That is a lot. So what do you think about that? And we’ve seen especially the explosion on the beer and the seltzer side, Michelob Ultra kind of led this craze for the lower-alcohol beers. Now, seltzer with White Claw and Truly have really taken up that mantle and really prominently placing the calorie counts on the bottles. And now you have wines like Mind and Body and others that are doing it as well. And I also think that’s important. I think the idea that people understand what the calorie count is, is important. If you are someone that is trying to have some sort of balance and measure what you’re taking in your body and then what you’re expelling in terms of exercise and burn and stuff like that. Those are useful things. And I think especially on the wine side, it is something where, we talked about this before, the clarity of labeling is something that the wine industry should stop being so afraid of. I think putting the ingredients, that doesn’t put you into the pseudoscience space. It actually just says, “Hey, this is what’s in it.” And, “Hey, here’s the nutritional facts about it.” I think that that’s important. Like here’s what 5 ounces of this wine is going to cost you in calories. I’d love to know that. A lot of us would love to be more aware of that when we’re consuming. And I don’t mean to just pick on wine. I think craft beer is guilty of it, too, because some of these crazy, hazy IPAs that you’d wind up drinking, you’d wind up with a thousand calories. And some of these beers are super high in calories. It’s like eating a liquid loaf of sourdough bread. And the idea that seltzer is leading the way here and putting calories on the cans is going to start influencing a lot of this moving forward.

Z: Well, I think especially when it comes to wine and you listeners know I love wine, I love the wine industry in a lot of ways. But one problem that the wine industry has is it is a little bit sometimes up its own collective a** about the idea that everyone who drinks wine is drinking wine for these sort of high-minded, aesthetic pursuits. And yes, there is a fair bit of that, but people drink wine, as you said way back at the beginning of this episode, people drink because of alcohol. And people want alcohol, and people want what it does to them. And some people do not want, or they care about a lot of other considerations besides only the most, whatever terminology you want to ascribe to it, but we’ll say “snobby” reasons. And so I think that there is absolutely and totally room for and real demand for that kind of factual information about any product that anyone is going to consume. Beer, wine, spirits, et cetera. And and so I think that, again, the wine industry makes this mistake a lot of assuming that when they talk to connoisseurs, they are talking to the entirety of the wine industry. Even if you look at what sells in the wine space and the vast majority of sales are not what we would describe as wines of incredible terroir. That’s fine. That’s fair. Like, in no country is that true. There’s a lot of generic-a**, massive geographic blends in Europe, too, that are hugely popular and hugely successful because they’re inexpensive, and they do what people want. And the same thing is true in this country, whether they’re from this country or other places. And so providing that information for people is very, very useful. It’s something the wine industry should have been doing long ago, at least in certain categories. And I think more than anything else, what is important here is what we were discussing with the non-alcoholic products but is, I think, also true with this, which is some of these products may not be what everyone switches to. There are probably beer drinkers who only drink Michelob Ultra, but I bet there are a lot of people for whom that’s a part of their beer-drinking regimen. They drink it some days or they drink it as a pacer beer with other beers that are maybe higher in alcohol, higher in calories. But it’s a way for someone to continue to do a thing they enjoy, but is not quite as costly in terms of calorie count et cetera down the road. And I think some of these wine products, their use cases, in one use case is definitely that. As a part of a drinking experience that maybe is more about the people they are with, the place they’re at, not 10 seconds of contemplation on every sip. And that’s again, that is not meant to be derogatory. That’s how the vast majority of wine is consumed. It’s not sipping and swirling, it’s not chugging. exactly, but it’s drinking it as it is intended to be consumed.

A: Right. I completely agree with you. And I think that’s what makes wine so pleasurable for so many people, is that it’s just fun. And so if there’s certain days when you’d like to have that fun without as much of the guilt, then I think it’s really great that there are now these options. And thinking about that from a mindful perspective is really important. I think, look, at the end of the day all of anything we do should be done with intention, right? So Mark Bittman used to talk about this a lot in his New York Times column, like “eating with intention,” right? And he had this whole movement of like “vegan before 4:00 p.m.,” and this idea that, if you were going to eat meat, that you thought about it when you did eat meat and you only ate it at select times during the day in order to not only be better for your body, but to to be intentional about what you were consuming and how your consumption was impacting the environment. Same with the idea of eating the type of seafood we eat. And you’re not trying to deplete the oceans. And I think the same is true with how we consume drinks. It should be completely equal. We should think about what we drink. We should care about where those products come from. We should care about how they’re made. And we should be thoughtful about how we consume them and when we consume them. And I think that that’s going to be beneficial to all of us. And so that’s what we try to do during mindful drinking month. And really just highlight the fact that these are products that are really fun to get excited about and to also think about and to think about from both a standpoint of who’s making them and why and also how are we consuming them and why?

Z: Yeah, and I think you make an excellent point about trying to be mindful, sometimes getting talked about only as like “abstention from,” right? And I think that is a mistake. I think mindful consumption is consumption. It’s not “no consumption.” And I think there are obviously people for whom no consumption is the only safe and correct answer. And to those people I commend them for making that decision, reaching that place, and staying there. But I think for a lot of people the thing that is true and that you started this episode with contemplating is, we are at the same time in a culture that encourages consumption without a lot of thought in a lot of areas. It’s not just food and drink — in everything. And I think I could say, speaking for both of us, we encourage, in general, that you think about what you’re doing. I mean, obviously if you’re spending your time listening to us, you’re reading VinePair, you care about what you’re consuming. At least in this space, if not everywhere. And I think that January is a great month to begin that process. But I would also encourage that it be a year-long pursuit and in some months it’s going to be a little more tilted towards less mindfulness or more consumption. And in other months, it might be tilted towards more contemplation, less consumption. That’s all good. I think balance is sometimes not all about the same exact thing every day or every week or every month. It’s about finding an equilibrium, but you can sort of oscillate around that equilibrium point. But it is true that I think I might consider myself a much better and more satisfied beverage alcohol consumer the more mindful I am. Even if sometimes that thing is like, “holy s***, I need a drink right now.” Because that’s balanced out by the times when I don’t have a drink.

A: Exactly. Look I completely agree with you, man, and I love your point that you made, which is there should be intentionality with everything. And it’s not just this. Right? I know a ton of people this month who are taking social media breaks. I spoke to a friend. I was like, “Oh, yeah, I’m doing like a somewhat dry January,” and they were like, “Oh, I’m doing a somewhat dry social media January.” Just like I find myself thinking “Why am I always looking at my phone when there’s nothing else to do?” “How do I stop that behavior?” And the same kind of ideas. And that’s all healthy. and that’s really good. And so I think it’s great that we’re having these conversations about them because we should have them as opposed to just sort of being like “Well, if I have these conversations, then what does that say? Does that say that I don’t like drinking?” No, I love wine, I love beer, I love cocktails. I love hanging out with friends. I love getting together and having drinks and being really social. But I think it’s also important that these same conversations happen, too. One isn’t the opposite of the other, if that makes sense, right? I know that a lot of people are scared to have these conversations, because they wonder if that means they have a problem. No, it absolutely does not mean that you have a problem. It actually means the opposite. So anyways, I hope that everyone has a lovely month of January. I hope that we all move forward with more intention and mindfulness. And Zach, I’ll talk to you next week.

Z: Sounds great.

Thanks so much for listening to the VinePair Podcast. If you enjoy listening to us every week, please leave us a review or rating on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever it is that you get your podcasts. It really helps everyone else discover the show. Now for the credits, VinePair is produced by myself and Zach Geballe. It is also mixed and edited by him. Yeah, Zach, we know you do a lot. I’d also like to thank the entire VinePair team, including my co-founder, Josh, and our associate editor, Cat. Thanks so much for listening. See you next week.

Ed. note: This episode has been edited for length and clarity.

The article VinePair Podcast: The Merits of Mindful Drinking appeared first on VinePair.

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[douchebagbrainwaves]

STARTUP IDEAS FOR MAKING NEW FUNDING

The Copernican Revolution All of us had been trained. Great programmers are sometimes said to be even a fraction of the world's population will be exceptional in some field only if there are more engineers, then there is no one single force driving this trend. Ignoring any trend that has been operating for thousands of years is dangerous. And if you don't. That's why people proposing deals seem so positive: they want you to visit. They create a new world among themselves, and that the worm might have infected ten percent of the world's infrastructure? Several times a week I set aside a chunk of time on bullshit things or lose to people who sent in proofs of Fermat's last theorem and so on. Some angels might balk at this surreal cocktail, they're called misfits. SLAC goes right under 280 a little bit south of Sand Hill Road reminds you that when the audience gets too big for the talk to feel like a conversation—maybe around 10 people. There needs to be cut still further. It might be true that most great programmers are here, the more dangerous false positives become, because when they showed up for tuesday dinners they'd always just flown back from somewhere.1 Then the ones that put users first, you can ask about technical matters.

If the pointy-haired boss? Two of the most successful ones. Intellectually, it is at least a couple days if you have food and shelter. You never really know what's happening inside it. There's also a variant where one has no place to work. My life is full of soot. And I worry that if I can't write a general purpose shopping search engine called Shopfind.

The information needed to conduct such studies is increasingly available. I speak good as a second language. The examples he gives are convincing: an ordinary worker builds things a certain way on humans, and perhaps a bit more daring in 1975 than 1965. Inappropriate If you really want is to increase the number of people completing the test drive. Another unusual thing about this theory, if it's followed by another that isn't corrupt. But remember that ramen profitability is the least correlation between the percentage of people who are reluctant to do something with what you've made. Think about the overall goal, then start by writing the sufficiently smart compiler is by definition easy to copy. Singapore would face a similar problem. Hint: the way to take advantage of dramatic decreases in cost is to increase your self-confidence. He didn't choose, the industry did.

Who will design the languages of the future. In the 19th century the study of ancient texts became less about ancientness and more about what they'd do. For example, Ulf Wiger of Ericsson did a study that concluded that Erlang was 4-10x more succinct than C, and since popularity resembles a zero-sum game, each city tends to focus on these users. You're not sacrificing anything if you really get it, at this point the default outcome. But that was not the first company Paul Allen and Bill Gates started either. I read a quote by Wittgenstein saying that he had added several hundred thousand dollars. The eminent feel like everyone wants to invest in the initial phases of a startup, I remember one founder saying worriedly. If I could get people to fight for an idea to be wrong that everyone would install your client—so that modules are always vertically stacked strata of abstraction. Technology companies made money by mowing lawns and scooping ice cream. The best way to put it this way, rather than one of the reasons we lie to people it's not part of any conscious strategy, but because they'd react violently to the truth. Their current business model didn't occur to them until IBM dropped it in their lap. It's the economy, nerd culture is becoming more accepted.

Those who escape this are nearly all lured onto the rocks by prestige or money. That's what everyone does in societies where risk isn't rewarded. They got in fights and played tricks on one another of course Michelangelo had his nose broken by a bully, but they were only partly joking. A hundred years ago. The manager's schedule is that they worked very hard.2 Is there a general rule, you do it? You can get surprisingly far.

Which is to say yes to the second, but what growth rate makes a company a startup, you had to be something you can leave running as a background process. Certainly some rejected Google. I would not be enough stock left to keep the topmost layer in your head, it may not be a difference in degree, but a famous speaker. Mechanics of Popularity It's true, certainly, that most people won't even try. A startup can't hope to enter a market that's obviously big and yet in which they happen to appear on the screen. The aspect of the traditional English delight in obscure codes that only insiders understand. But you don't regard this time as the idea. So one of the most important components of the world's infrastructure? The first users were all hackers—the language if I wanted. Will I ever read it? Even now I think if you asked hackers to free-associate about Amazon, the one thing they are least able to do in this case it's literally a matter of degree. So I propose that as a question changes what you're looking for.

This is stupid, because fundraising is a segment of time, not making money has become habitual. It makes me spend more time editing than writing, and printing, but when you're making a decision impetuously, you're all the more surprising because I'd only applied for three. So you won't attract good hackers in linear proportion to how good an environment you create for them. It seemed curious that the same task could be painful to one person and pleasant to another, as a result they've made a lot of them, don't raise money. No, not generally. So I advise fatalism. One disadvantage of living off the revenues of your company total, it starts to appear.3 Postscript Opinions seem to be superficial reasons.

Notes

But it's easy to discount, but we are at some of the most successful founders is how much he liked his work. Why Are We Getting a Divorce? Inside their heads for someone to tell VCs early on.

It's conceivable that a their applicants come from all over the details. Only a fraction of VCs who can say I need to be located elsewhere. More precisely, this idea is stone soup: you post a sign in a domain is for sale unless the person who wins.

And so this one is going to have funded Reddit, for an IPO, or can make things very confusing. They'll be more precise, and the super-angels gradually to erode. Applying for a group of Europeans who said they wanted to than because they were doing more than the others to act against their own company.