#severe weather procedures

[meteorologistaustenlonek]

LOCATION CHANGE --- Date/time still the same for @NWSMorristown's new #Skywarn #stormspotter training class. Was the American Red Cross, now Old Harrison ES. Class size limited to 100.

Register now at: https://www.weather.gov/mrx/skywarn_classes

[morbidology]

In 1961, at just 27 years old, Leonid Rogozov was the sole physician stationed at a Soviet Antarctic research station. His skills were put to the ultimate test when he developed acute appendicitis—a life-threatening condition that required immediate surgery. Trapped in the remote wilderness of Antarctica, where evacuation was impossible due to severe weather conditions, Rogozov faced a dire situation: the only way to save his life was to perform an appendectomy on himself.

On April 30, 1961, Rogozov prepared for the operation with meticulous care. Using local anesthesia, he enlisted the help of two colleagues, who handed him surgical instruments, held a mirror for better visibility, and adjusted the lighting. Despite the challenges of performing the procedure on himself, including battling pain, nausea, and the psychological stress of operating on his own body, Rogozov successfully removed his inflamed appendix in a grueling operation that lasted nearly two hours.

[chronicbitchsyndrome]

speaking of professional dx, i think it's important to recognize that professionally dx'd disabled people are at a severe legal disadvantage compared to disabled people who purely self-id; one of the reasons i'm so intensely pro-self-dx and actively advocate for people to self-dx over professional dxing is because professional diagnosis comes with a cavalcade of systemic oppression and violence from the state, no matter what country you're in.

some things that professional diagnosis of a disability might do, depending on what disability and which country you live in:

bar you from adopting children

get your preexisting children removed from your care

bar you from immigration to most countries

open you up to conservatorship or other form of legal guardianship past the age of majority by your parents or other adults who care for your medical needs, without regard for your consent

remove your ability to consent to medical procedures or withhold consent for medical procedures

bar you from accessing gender care (if trans)

obviously, there's plenty of resources that are artificially gatekept behind professional diagnosis, like mobility aids that are only affordable through insurance, prescription medication, testing like blood tests and MRIs, AAC devices, and more. but i think it's important to remember that those of us who need these things aren't necessarily privileged by our professional diagnoses, insomuch as we're forced into a situation where we have to subject ourselves to endless state violence via professional diagnosis in order to have access to those necessary resources.

i think it's particularly important for those of us professionally diagnosed to remember that. there's a tendency in some circles to treat professional diagnosis like it makes us better or more "legitimately disabled" than self-id disabled folks; this isn't true and it's important to remember that we shouldn't feel the need to define ourselves by a thing that actively harms us. plus, just because someone doesn't have a professional diagnosis doesn't mean they don't need the resources that are kept behind it; often it means they can't afford to weather the state violence that comes with the dx, and so instead they have to suffer without medication or aids or testing and have a significantly worse and shorter life because of this. just because they have legal privilege over you doesn't mean they necessarily have social privilege over you or quality-of-life privilege.

[pmamtraveller]

SCENES FROM MODERN LIFE; THOMAS EAKINS

Thomas Eakins (1844–1916) was an influential American painter known for his realism and focus on the human form. His father was a calligrapher and writing teacher, and at first, that seems to have been Thomas Eakins’ direction, too. He studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts where he learnt drawing and anatomy.

The Champion Single Sculls (Max Schmitt in a Single Scull) (1871)

Created to commemorate the victory of Eakins's friend, Max Schmitt, in a rowing competition on Philadelphia's Schuylkill River. Eakins, a passionate oarsman himself, depicted Schmitt in a moment of calm rather than in the throes of competition. The painting captures great detail in the water, oars, and weather, Eakins even included himself in the artwork, rowing in the background.

Portrait of Dr. Samuel D. Gross (The Gross Clinic) (1875)

It is a portrait of the renowned Philadelphia surgeon in the surgical amphitheater of Jefferson Medical College (now part of Thomas Jefferson University). Eakins includes himself in the painting, seated at the far left, sketching the scene. The patient's mother, who looks away and shields her eyes, unable to watch the surgery, is also included. The procedure took place before the advent of aseptic technique, so instruments were clean but not sterile, gloves and gowns were not worn.

Arcadia (c 1883)

This painting was an unusual venture into mythology, created during a period when Eakins was experimenting with photography. Eakins had bought his first camera in 1880 and started to use it as a photographic sketchbook. Although it can be read as another step in his campaign for painting from life, the work features models posed in a pastoral setting, including his future wife, Susan Macdowell, and his nephew, Ben Crowell.

Swimming (The Swimming Hole) (1885)

Bathers have been a popular and recurrent theme in paintings since the dawn of the art. Here, Eakins features identifiable figures, which are Eakins himself and several of his students. However, its exhibition in 1885 sparked controversy due to its graphic portrayal of nudity and identifiable figures. This backlash contributed to Eakins's resignation from the Academy in 1886 after a series of complaints about his promotion of nude studies.

The Agnew Clinic (1889)

This fine painting shows the surgeon performing a partial mastectomy, and the whole scene is a testament of how surgery had advanced in just fourteen years. The clean white gowns worn by the doctors, the use of sterilized instruments, techniques promoted by Agnew. Eakins completed the painting quickly, in just three months, rather than the year he took for his earlier masterpiece, The Gross Clinic.

[race-week]

im new to f1 so i hope this doesnt come off as a bit stupid but can you explain what goes into deciding a red flag (for example lance strolls barrier crash taking longer than the others) thank you!!

Typically barrier repairs in qualifying require red flags, but red flags are never instantaneous as there’s a procedure that has to be followed

The process for flags is

Incident happens, nearest marshal post waves either yellow or double yellow flags depending on severity.

The race director assesses the situation and decides whether to red flag it.

Therefore there’s always some sort of delay between the initial yellow flag and the red flag, as race control assesses.

Marshals themselves can’t wave red flags, a red flag can only be enforced by race control.

In the past they’ve been criticised by drivers and fans for putting out red flags too soon, i.e. when drivers ended up being able to get the car going and get back to the pits, so typically there is a period of time where if the driver is trying to get the car going they’ll wait.

Now this shouldn’t have really been the case for Stroll due to the damage of his car, he wouldn’t have been able to get it back to the pits safely, but that is likely the reason for the delay. In addition race direction have access to the main TV feed but not any additional onboards (only what’s shown on the main feed), they also have the on track CCTV which can be kind of iffy in poor weather so they don’t always have the best information available.

Typically from yellow/double yellow to red it takes about 20 seconds, this qualifying had a couple shorter ones, about 7-10s, a 25s one and a 40s one.

Also this isn’t for you anon but :

Race Control are not Stewards

[rocksandrobots]

PotP Ch 56 - Blizzards, Blackbirds, and Bargains: Part 2

Well, technically not from Corona directly. The dagger that laid out on the table before them bore the symbol of the Brotherhood, the crest of Umbra. Which was close enough. 

Another dimension was another dimension after all. 

“Watcha looking at?” Aunt Cass peered over the teens shoulders to see what had caused such fuss and fascination. 

“Uh… nothing.” Hiro squeaked. 

“Varian found a neat dagger in the snow.” Tadashi answered, cool as can be. “Someone must have dropped it. We're trying to figure out who it belongs to.” 

“Well, your best bet is to turn it over to the lost and found at the police station.” Aunt Cass advised, as she walked over to the TV controls laying behind the counter. “You can give it to Chief Cruz once the storm is over.” 

She flipped on the TV to see the weather. 

“As you can see here, there's another cold front coming in tonight.” The weather girl said, pointing towards a green-screened map. “While the snow has eased up some, we're expecting more flurries later on in the day and even possibly some sleet tonight.” 

“Therefore we advised people to still stay indoors and if you have to go out, try to get your errands done before 3 PM. The trolley will run from 10 to 2 in the afternoon for those of you who do need to travel.

Over to you Duff.” 

The scene changed to the news anchor at his desk. 

“Thank you Sheryl. Breaking news this morning. Apparently a series of burglaries happened last night while the city was distracted with the snow storm. Several banks, jewelry stores, and museums are reporting losses, with no evidence as to who the perpetrator might be.” 

The scene changed again, and Chief Cruz, all bundled up in scarf and earmuffs, stood in front of the police station. 

“We think it's an inside job. There's no signs of forced entry and all of the security cameras were tampered with. In addition, given the sheer volume of items missing and the distance between the various locations that were hit, would seem to suggest that multiple robberies happened near simultaneously; indicating an organized crime ring.” 

While the Chief went on explaining proper safety procedures, the rest of the gang shared knowing looks.

------------------

It was difficult to see through the swiftly falling snow as the heroes flew, skated, and teleported across the city. Even Baymax’s sensors seemed to be on the fritz. 

Despite this, the gang had found various treasures haphazardly strewn about town. Tapestries, toy chessmen, fur cloaks, small chests, other weapons, books, scrolls, a lone deerskin boot, and even a parchment map that was torn to shreds; all of it tossed about by the wind and all of it foreign to this world. 

Varian’s goggles fogged up as he stepped out of the portal onto a rooftop. He wiped them clear with his sleeve and bent down to pick up another artifact. 

This one was a ragdoll, worn, faded, and tattered, as if it hadn't been played with in years. In fact a lot of the stuff they had found was in a damaged state; as if all this stuff had been abandoned and thrown into this world like garbage. The dagger he had first found being the most intact due to the material it was made of. 

Varian frowned. The doll’s coal black eyes stared back at him dully. They were also made of obsidian; same as the dagger, same as the stone chess pieces, and same as the arm bangle they had found earlier. Varian didn't know much about his father’s home country, but he did know that stone carving was a time honored tradition there. 

He himself had never learned the craft, but his dad’s skills had been well regarded. He would, on rare occasions, carve small gifts out of stone. A toy here, a piece of jewelry there; quartz wedding rings were popular in the village and one of Varian’s favorite toys growing up was a carved knight on horseback. 

“Oooh! I found a dress!” Honey Lemon’s voice broke out over the intercom, snapping him out his thoughts. “Well part of a dress anyways. One of the sleeves is missing.” 

“Wooop! Yes! I found an axe!” Fred hooted with joy. 

“You're not keeping the axe, Fred.” Wasabi dismissed. 

“But-” 

“Put it down.” Gogo demanded. 

“As cool as all this medieval stuff is…” Tadashi chimed in, ignoring the argument over the axe, “has anybody figured out where it's all coming from yet?” 

“I may have found something.” Hiro said as he flew past on Baymax. “Meet me in the park.”

------------------

“Well I guess we found that ‘cold front’ the weatherman said to look out for.” 

Wasabi was the first to speak, if nothing else than to ease the overwhelming sense of dread that had overcome the group. 

Before them, at the top of king’s hill in the park, was the largest portal they had ever seen. 

It stood as tall and as wide as a two story building. 

There were no frames nor turbines, like with previous set ups, but there was a swirling vortex of energy that whirled around the gateway. And this gateway led straight to a raging snow storm. 

Wind, sleet, and snow blasted out of the inter-dimensional window and into the freezing San Fansokyo air. 

Hiro gulped. “S-so how do we stop it?” 

“Over here!” Gogo called out. “I think I found the controls.” 

They met her at the foot of the hill where stood a metal podium with controls built into the top and a generator beside it. Varian kicked over some snow to find the buried wires traveling back towards the top of the hill, and presumably whatever electronics kept the portal in place. 

“Hey look!” Fred yelled as he opened up a nearby sack. “Do you suppose they're using these to power the portal?” 

He held up a diamond, looking through it like a spyglass. 

“No, but I do think we’ve just found all of the stolen loot that went missing last night.” Hiro said, opening up another bag to find a pearl necklace. 

“So you're telling me that whoever opened up the portal to the fairytale dimension, decided to go on a robbery spree?” Tadashi asked, incredulously. “Wouldn't they have they're own riches in that Umbra kingdom?” 

“Looked more like junk to me.” Gogo commented; pulling out a single ripped leather glove from her back pocket and holding it up to remind everyone the real value of the other worldly treasures they had found. 

“Maybe they're a part of the fae and are like exchanging trash for shiny stuff cause they think it's an even trade or something?” Fred guessed.

“The fae wouldn't use electricity, Fred.” Varian stated matter of factly as he examined the controls. That's when his eyes landed on the blue folder. 

“That's Callahan’s notebook.” Hiro said when he noticed what Varian was holding. “But I thought you lost it.” 

“So did I.” Varian muttered as he flipped through the notes. 

“But both Callahan and Momosake are still in jail.” Honey Lemon timidly pointed out. “Who else would have known about it?” 

They all got their answer when another, smaller portal opened up right next to them, and out stepped Sirque with a bag slung over her shoulder and a stolen crown perched precariously on top of her head. 

Super villain and heroes stared at each other for a moment, stunned. Until Sirque rolled her eyes, dropped the bag of loot, and raised her hands. 

“Alright, fine. You caught me.” 

“Shut the portal down now!” Varian demanded.

Sirque took a step back, surprised by the ferocity in his voice. 

“Okay… okay. It'll take a moment to power everything down ...” 

She turned off the smaller portal behind her and walked over to the control panel. 

“You have to shut everything off in sequence or it'll risk an implosion.” She finished explaining. 

“That's the least of our problems.” Varian muttered. 

“I don't know. ‘Imploding giant portal’ does sound like a pretty big problem to me.” Wasabi countered. 

“Listen. The rocks could come through at any moment. That's a far bigger worry right now.” 

“Rocks?” Sirque asked. 

“Do you have any idea where that portal leads to?” Varian responded. 

“The frozen tundra.”  She pointed back towards the gateway like it was obvious. 

“Yes… the frozen tundra of a completely different dimension.” 

Sirque blinked at him, unsure how to respond to such a statement, but then decided it didn't matter. 

She rolled her eyes again and shrugged. “If you say so.” And then began the power down sequence. 

She didn't get the chance to finish. 

Halfway through the ground began to rumble under their feet. But before anyone could yell “Earthquake!”, black stalagmites burst from below. They barreled straight towards the group, towering as tall as a grown man, before abruptly stopping a few feet past where they all stood. 

It was all over and done within a matter of seconds. The gang of superheroes barely had time to roll out of the way from the onslaught. 

“Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod.”  Honey Lemon kept repeating over and over again as she clung to the base of one of the rocks in shock. 

“What was that!?” Sirque yelled. 

“The rocks.” Varian answered, lifting Hiro off his feet. 

“Is everyone okay?” Gogo shouted. 

“I’ve been better.” Wasabi grunted. 

Everyone rushed to his side. One of the black spikes had pierced his armor, breaking the shoulder guard and grazing his shoulder. 

“It sliced right through my shield like a knife through butter.” He hissed, as Baymax applied antiseptic to his wound. 

“Fortunately it doesn't look too deep.” Tadashi said, examining Baymax's handiwork. 

“Only a minor cut.” The robot confirmed. “It should heal within a few days.” 

“I wish the same could be said about the portal.” Fred replied. 

The others turned to look at him. He was standing near the now busted up control panel, holding a severed cord. 

Sirque’s eyes widened with horror. “Oh that is not good.” 

“Please don't say why.” Hiro whispered. 

Sirque ignored his pleas. “The generator was used to kick start the portal, but the electromagnets use kinetic motion to maintain energy. Without the controls, I can't tell the portal to power down.” 

“No…. No…” Varian practically laughed in disbelief. “Do NOT tell me you don't have a way to shut the portal down.” 

“Well there is a backup… but…” 

He grabbed her by the shoulders. “No buts, where is it?” 

Pinned in his grasp, she timidly pointed back towards the portal. 

“There’s another set of controls on the other end, to stabilize the connection.” 

Gogo spoke up first. “So you’re telling us, someone has to go in there, turn everything off, and then get back through the collapsing portal before they're trapped in another dimension for all time?” 

“Why do you keep saying it's another dimension?” 

“Because it is!” Varian shouted, finally letting go of her. “Or do you think those are natural to this world!?” 

He pointed back towards the rocks. 

Sirque frowned. 

“You don't… you don't know that. They could be.. they be an unstudied phenomenon-”

“ I've studied them. I've spent my life studying them. Their chemical makeup doesn't match anything on this Earth. Their physical priorities defy basic physics. They've managed to go against all known scientific research.” 

“Trust us.” Tadashi stepped in. “It's alien, and so is he, and that portal you just built leads to another world.” 

“You must be joking.” But she didn't sound confident, not in the slightest. 

“Joking or not, we need to get those controls rebuilt and that portal turned off asap.” 

“We don't have time.” Varian hissed. 

“Nobody's going through that portal.” 

Varian pressed his lips tightly together as if considering a further argument, but then huffed and marched over to the control panel instead. 

“We need a soldering tool.” He said. 

“I have a toolbox.” Sirque offered, and ran to her stash to get it. 

Those not versed in portal tech, stood to the side and watched. 

Honey Lemon had finally calmed down but still looked shell shocked, while the rest of the gang shuffled nervously, unsure what to do. 

“Screwdriver!” Varian called out, while Sirque connected the power cables. 

Gogo handed him the tool out of the toolbox. 

“So… those are what destroyed your village?” She asked. 

“Yeah, and they'll destroy San Fansokyo if we don't get this portal closed.” 

He finished screwing back in the brackets on the casing, and putting the screwdriver in his mouth, took two ends of a severed wire in his hand and spliced them together.

“Gat me a mut, mill ma?” He hummed, and Gogo went hunting for a ceramic nut for the wires. 

“How much time do we have?” Tadashi asked, peering over the other side of the panel. 

Varian spit out the screwdriver into his hand as Gogo handed him some nuts and terminal ends. 

“No idea. It could be a couple of hours or just a few minutes.” 

“What's our backup plan if we run out of time?”

Varian stopped and stared hard at him. 

“There is no backup. Nothing can stop the rocks. Nothing. So don't even try it.” 

Tadashi frowned, but for once didn't argue.

Hiro kept a pensive eye on the portal as he listened in on his brothers’ conversation. 

“Baymax?” He quietly asked his robot companion, hopefully out of earshot of the others. “Can you detect where the other control panel is?” 

Baymax scanned the portal entrance way. 

“They're is an energy signal coming about half a mile from the portal’s entrance.” 

“How fast can you get to it?” 

“Given wind resistance, I estimate roughly three minutes.” 

“So three minutes to get back through the portal before it collapses, plus whatever time it would take to turn it off. How much time would it take for the portal to close completely?” 

Baymax gave the best imitation of a shrug that he could. “I'm afraid I do not have enough information to make that calculation.” 

Hiro mulled over the options in his mind as he walked over towards the reconstruction. 

“Hey Sirque, if someone went through the portal-”

“No one is going through the portal.” Tadashi interrupted. 

Hiro ignored him, “How hard would it be to turn the other set of controls off?” 

“Not hard. It's just a simple powering down sequence.” She answered off handily as she flipped through her notes. “First the electromagnets have to be told to slow down, and then the signal has to be shut off, then finally you can cut the power. Do it out of order though and the portal could implode.” 

Hiro nodded. “The magnets have to stay stabilized till the power is fully off, got it. So all together, you think what, about six minutes to power it all down?” 

Sirque gave it some thought. “Yeah, that sounds about right. Given the portal's size, it's not instantaneous like with my portable tech.” 

“I know what you're thinking, and no.” Tadashi said. 

“You said we needed a backup.” Hiro argued back. “Baymax and I could fly in there and out again the quickest.” 

“Well fortunately we won't need to risk it because Varian is going to fix the panel here. Ain’t that right, V?” 

In answer the control panel sparked and caught on fire. As Varian frantically scrambled away, Baymax calmly put out the small flame with his built in extinguisher. 

“It's o-okay.” Varian tried to keep the rising panic out of his voice as he examined the damage. “It's just a little surface scaring. Nothing major. I can still fix this.” 

No sooner were the words out of his mouth than did the ground start to rumble again. Varian gulped down his fear and turned to look at the portal. 

More rocks were heading their way, but this time they were further off. 

They could see the black spikes puncturing the snow off in the distance, but it wouldn't take long for the dangerous formations to reach them. Certainly not before Varian had a chance to rewire the controls. 

A scream from Honey Lemon broke Varian out of his racing thoughts. 

“Hiro NO!!!” 

Too late. 

Varian barely had time to register the wind rushing past him as Baymax blasted off towards the portal.

------------------

Hiro ignored everyone's cries as he rushed through the portal. 

He wasn't sure what he had expected when entering another world, but honestly it didn't look any different from the images of Alaska you'd see on National Geographic. He could understand why Sirque would have assumed that she had created another spacial portal like all the others. The only thing indicating it's alien nature was the large black pointy rocks spiking up through the snow, and they had only just appeared five minutes ago. 

Yet despite having not been there moments before, the rocks already trailed off far into the distant horizon in a winding, erratic line as far as the eye could see. Like a giant black serpent snaking its way through the snow. 

The enormity of it filled his stomach with lead. These things were fast, and right now they were heading straight towards San Fansokyo. And given the evidence of what he'd seen here, they wouldn't stop at just the city. 

“I have found the controls.” Baymax interrupted his thoughts as they landed near another metal podium. The rocks had thankfully just missed it by a few feet. Hiro wasted no time in jumping off and dashing towards the panel. 

The power down procedure was simple enough. The control layout wasn't much different from Varian’s portal at school. Probably because both were based off of Callaghan’s work on the Silent Sparrow project. 

He flipped the final switch and heard the telltale sign of sparking electromagnets slowly winding down in the distance. 

“Quick, Baymax!” 

He jumped onto the robot’s back in mid-flight and they took off at full blast towards the portal. 

They were racing side by side with the rocks now. Which somehow managed to just keep pace ahead of them by a few yards. 

Hiro forced himself to tear his eyes away from unnatural phenomena and focus on their destination instead. 

The energy glow around the doorway was dimming and Hiro could just make out the shapes of his friends in the distance. 

They were beginning to run towards them, no doubt calling out to him. 

He gauged the distance. A little more than a football field to go… Five hundred feet… Four hundred… Three hundred… Two…

“Come on… come on…” He hissed, willing them to go faster… or for the rocks to go slower… or for the power to stay on longer… 

They were only ten feet away when the energy connecting the magnets arched, sputtered, and then died away. 

“NOOOO!!!” 

His friends, the portal, and the gleaming towers of San Fansokyo faded away into a swirl of white snow right as he and Baymax flew past what should have been the gateway. 

Baymax skidded to a halt and hovered there as Hiro looked on in horror at the nothingness before them. 

Nothing but the snow and the back rocks; which continued on regardless.

[calciumdeficientt]

Cal !! Saw the previous ask about Bryce and I absolutely loved your ideas- do you have anything in mind for Gord dearest?

Please, call me milky!

Anyway …Gorrrrrrrd! Gord was my first love, he was the first NPC i heard speak when i played the game (past this is your school,obvs) and he’s the one that hit me over the head with the autism sledgehammer. i want to scrunch him up and throw him in a wood chipper

GORD VENDOME HCS

He’s the cuntiest bitch on the bullworth academy campus and I’m literally not going to accept any form of argument, he came out of the womb wearing aquaberry. He lives and breathes it, its his lifeblood. He plans his walk around school to and from each class, checking the weather to make sure he if needs to tweak any parts of the route so that’s he has the best chance of getting every student to see how effortless, demure and graceful he is in his choice of fine clothes, jewellery and hair care. No one is fooled by him, they know it takes a hell of a lot of effort.

Gord does a closet reshuffle every 6 months or so, just to make sure all his clothes are on trend and in season. This is standard prep procedure, but what makes Gord’s rearranging so special is that he literally cannot bear to throw anything away. He attaches memories to every stitch of fabric he’s ever put on his body, he’s a work of art and therefore every single outfit he’s ever worn simply has to be memorialised, he can’t throw it all away. His father has dedicated several houses just to the backlog of Gord’s discarded clothing. There’s more than enough in there to fully stock several Aquaberry locations for literal decades.

He gets dreadful hay fever, its actually kind of disgusting to look at him if he hasn’t taken an antihistamine. Luckily very few people have ever seen him like that, he has several boxes on his person at all times during the spring and summer. He just doesnt have the heart to tell Jimmy about his pollen allergy, so when he’s given flowers he has to hold all of his sneezes in. This then makes his eyes water, and therefore makes Jimmy think he’s so overjoyed with the gift that he’s moved to tears. Luckily for gord he keeps several hand stitched silk handkerchiefs on his person at all times, initialled with thread made of spun gold, he’s not some kind of common mutt that uses disposable tissues.

Gord is a rather talented pianist, he was given the choice as a child to either play polo with his father, or take piano lessons. The thought of the latter made him so lightheaded he thought that he was having a heart attack so he chose to play piano instead. His family have a very nice grand piano in their house’s foyer, but a separate, dedicated room for music practice with an equally expensive, but less aesthetically pleasing piano. On special occasions when the Vendomes wanted to show off, they’d plonk Gord in front of the piano and set him loose. It was usually Schubert or Bach to show how deeply cultured their young son was; but in his personal time, Gord found he much preferred to play the works of more modern classical composers, Leonard Cohen was a particular favourite in his early teens. He doesn’t play all that often nowadays, he’s much too busy, but every time he thinks he might be forgetting he’ll spend an hour or so playing through the giant stack of sheet music he’s accumulated over the years.

His cologne is one of a kind, hand mixed by a company in Milan, its tailored to him and only him and was originally a gift for his 10th birthday. It’s more feminine smelling than most colognes but he thinks it makes him stand out more, he’s not a traditionally masculine guy, so he likes that his cologne reflects that. He’s been gifted many other scents, usually from distant relatives or prospective marriage candidates that dont really know him but they’re just not the same.

Actually got bullied so insanely hard for his ears when he was a kid that he refused to leave the house without a hat on. Even when he first came to bullworth kids weren’t the nicest to him. His ears are a big source of insecurity for him and he is in the process of convincing his father to let him get surgery to tuck them in. His satellite dishes are so cute and he should never get rid of them but its not really up to me.

Comforts Pinky when Derby forgets about every single one of their dates, he takes her shopping for whatever she wants, to dinner someplace exclusive (he always makes reservations on days when those two have dates, he just knows Derby will bail), and then back to Harrington house to watch movies. He openly cries at the sad parts of the romcoms they inevitably end up watching, often more so than Pinky.

Holds a fondness for poor people that not even he himself can fully explain. If he had to pinpoint it, its their freedoms. They’re free to be content with nothing, or to work to fix it, they dont start at an advantage in life and therefore get to enjoy the ride a little bit more. Thats his rose tinted view of it anyway, obviously he hasn’t the time to spend creating a nuanced understanding of his infatuation, he just accepts it as part of his psyche and moves on with his own, utterly fabulous life.

[open-hearth-rpg]

Journeys: Great RPG Mechanics #RPGMechanics: Week Five

In Playing at the World Jon Peterson mentions the impact of the board game Outdoor Survival (1972). It influenced early D&D– framing the act of crossing wild distances as an adventure unto itself, with perils beyond monsters. This theme appeared in several early board games– traveling out into a blank map, filling it in, and dealing with random events (Source of the Nile, Magic Realm, The Mystic Wood). The third booklet of original Dungeons & Dragons, “The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures,” specifically references Outdoor Survival and using it in play. 

So, while dungeons have always captured the imagination, travelling through great spans has always been a close-run second. The popularity of hex-crawls and point-crawls, moving through unknown space, illustrates something basic. There’s no functional difference between different spaces and locations within a game. A dungeon, in terms of motion through it, mechanically operates like a forest or a city. The party moves through a space and arrives at an event. There’s some description possibly of the passage, but functionally it is the same. 

The difference lies in the trappings and mechanics: time, obstacles, physicality, travel resources, etc. There are some meta-considerations as well. I remember running a city-based campaign which had a set of maps I’d drawn of different neighborhoods and areas. I had a player complain that he wanted a traveling campaign, to see different things. I explained that the city was varied and interesting– going to other places and neighborhoods could be just as cool. We went back and forth as I tried to drill down on what he wanted. 

It eventually came out that he wanted a game where his character could loot, destroy, and shit on folks and then move on. Having a game in a city meant he’d have to deal with people and potentially suffer consequences. 

In any case, if time and distance function mechanically the same across different sizes and instances (dungeon, wilderness, city), how does a game differentiate? The most common tool has been random encounters– with chances varying based on the terrain. Different environments have different appearance rates. That’s an approach ubiquitous to early FRPGs. That might then be elaborated with guidelines for speed, exhaustion, weather, supply, and encumbrance. The level depends on how crunchy the game is. In fact these kinds of systems have been a hallmark of trad approaches. 

So it was interesting to see a more modern, story-driven game take a swing at travel and work to integrate it into play. The One Ring (with the original subtitle of Adventures over the Edge of the Wild) aims for this. TOR has some trappings of the trad game, like Encumbrance but handled simply. It has the need for a map and the calculation of possible distance and travel time. Resolution here goes through setting route, judging distance, multiplying by terrain, and comparing that to speed. That generally determines the number of fatigue tests being made. 

Those tests are made by the traveling companions, with each having a different role. We have the Guide (making decisions), Scout (setting up camp), Huntsman (finding food), Look-out Man (keeping watch). Journeys have a set procedure beyond fatigue tests with players carrying out their role and comparing it to a hazard target, with different events possible.   

Forbidden Lands takes a page from TOR, echoing this procedure. It falls somewhere between Mutant: Year Zero’s zone exploration and TOR’s role system. In practice it feels a little more mechanical and wearing than a Tolkien-esque journey. Forbidden Land’s travel can be brutal– that’s a feature of the base game system. The land is supposed to be harsh, newly opened after a post-apocalyptic calamity. In that sense it works, but in play it can seem absolutely punishing for players who don’t expect it. I definitely want to explore travel in play– with something more than just an Undertake a Perilous Journey move. In theory I love the idea of a deep journey procedure, but neither TOR or FL exactly hit what I want. The former feels like too much calculation and too many rolls potentially and the latter like a procedure for beating down the player’s resources. I love the idea of Journey mechanics, but I want something which falls in the middle of those– offers interesting play, adds to the story, and feels like the sweeping grandeur of crossing great distances.

[avalypuff]

I have more headcanons that I don’t think I can make into detailed stand-alone posts on their own, so I’m going to compile them here.

If it wasn’t clear, I absolutely love Rauru, Mineru, and what little we know of Zonai as a whole, so these are all about them as well a few snippets of their culture. Please refer to this post for my views on hybridization with other races.

Headcanons are under the cut. Oh also, just to clarify, I’m a believer that BotW/TotK are their own separate entities totally separate from all past games including SS. Please keep that in mind if anything “doesn’t add up with the timeline” :)

Food

• Zonai are carnivorous (this I believe is more than just headcanon, going off the fact all their teeth, even their molars, are sharp). While they can eat fruits and vegetables in small portions, they can’t sustain a healthy vegetarian/vegan lifestyle and will eventually become malnourished and sick without meat.

They’re also uniquely capable of digesting monster parts, unlike Hylians who get sick even from thoroughly cooked parts. Zelda was particularly surprised/concerned to see Rauru enjoying some Octorok calamari, and the following occurred:

“You can eat that?” -Zelda

“I can. Unfortunately you cannot.” -Rauru

• Rauru loves sweet food, such as glazed meats, and brown sugar steaks, while just about the only thing Mineru enjoys enough to eat consistently is a simple dish of spicy meat skewers. Rauru himself has no tolerance for spiciness. Never had, never will.

Physiology and Culture

• Zonai men are commonly known as “bucks” and women are “does” (like deer—goats too, lol)

• Zonai shed. Particularly in spring, as the weather gets warmer. Their fur might be short, save for areas where it grows longer and scale-like, but it doesn’t go unnoticed, especially when you’re sharing sheets with one.

• The third eye doesn’t have the same type of sight that their main eyes have. It’s an organ used to focus their magic, hence why it never opens unless they’re conjuring a huge spell.

• Males grow four horns, which, if not filed regularly*, can grow up to several inches, with the lower set remaining smaller and shorter.

Females cannot grow horns at all.

In the case of trans individuals it’s not uncommon for does to choose hairstyles that would hide their horns from view, but it’s in no way frowned upon to show one’s horns or lack there of if gender doesn’t align with physical appearance. De-horning is an extremely painful procedure, and not expected, though some opt for it anyways.

*Rauru files his horns each morning as part of his personal care routine.

• Fancy headdresses that give the wearer large, ornamental horns (think the dragon armor sets Link wears) are worn by both does and bucks during ceremonies or even celebrations/parties. Everyone loves them.

• Zonai don’t really have surnames. Instead they practice naming conventions based on their fathers’ names. In Mineru and Rauru’s case, their father’s name also ended in ‘ru. This wasn’t practiced by every family, mind you, but definitely by nobility.

• They don’t really kiss. Their lips physically can’t curl outwards like that. Instead, they share affection with tender nuzzling (gentle biting and licking when things get steamy).

Rauru loves being kissed by Sonia though, and always returns her affection in a Zonai way.

• Families typically consisted of mother, father, and one or two children at most. They had slightly longer lifespans than Hylians (Think a couple decades. Nothing extreme.) but didn’t breed as often, so their numbers were already low when they began going extinct. More on that in a minute.

• The same attributes of Zonaite that made it an efficient fuel source also give off a strange and poorly-understood radiation that invokes feelings of greed in those who spend a lot of time with it. This is part of what originally lead the Zonai to the surface, then later all the way into the depths, where they built mines all throughout in their desperate search for more.

As fate would have it, the depths concealed more than just tons of Zonaite. There is an entirely different ecosystem down there, with plant life, animals, and insects unknown to the surface world, as well as less... desirable life forms. Opening up and exploring the depths, as well as putting forth massive construction efforts to build mines, exposed the Zonai explorers to the first strains of a virus that would eventually devastate their entire civilization.

It didn’t happen all at once, but gradually over time they realized people who spent time in the depths were getting sick, and for some reason it was only the Zonai who were succumbing to the illness. More Constructs were brought in to aid with mining in place of people, but the damage had already been done and the virus was making its way to the surface world as well as the sky.

Despite the best efforts of researchers and doctors, the virus was spreading and mutating too fast, and 100 years after originally digging into the depths and unleashing the sickness onto the world, almost all the Zonai were completely wiped out.

• Mineru and Rauru were born at the tail end of the pandemic/mass extinction, and by the time Mineru was a teenager and Rauru almost as well, they were the last of their kind.

Rauru and Mineru

• Rauru, while used to being revered as a god by Hylians, doesn’t exactly enjoy it. …This I feel is supported somewhat in the scene where Ganondorf is loading him up with praise. Granted Rauru’s clear discomfort could just as easily be attributed to Ganondorf’s thinly-veiled threats. I like to think it’s both, as we also learn from the Ancient Tablets side quest that part of what caused him to fall in love with Sonia was that she was unafraid to speak to him as an equal, unlike everyone else who reveres him. This headcanon is a play on the trope “it’s lonely at the top.”

• When Rauru first proposed to Sonia, with a Secret Stone no less, she rejected him. Her reasons being she didn’t want to marry out of convenience, or duty, but for love above all else. A kingdom cannot thrive without love, after all.

Also, despite her excellent judge of character, and knowing that Rauru’s intentions were pure, more than anything she wanted him to understand his own reasoning for wanting to marry her, as well as to be aware that she’s her own person, and just because he is Zonai does not mean he can have whatever he wants all the time. (Referring to the previous headcanon, he may not like being treated as a god, but he’s used to it. It’s important to remember that, even in fiction, people are complicated.)

Sad, but wishing to understand and consider Sonia’s words, Rauru was going to let her keep the Secret Stone, but she gave it back to him. Their friendship continued to grow from there, and the next time Rauru asked for her hand in marriage, having grown as a person himself, Sonia accepted.

• Rauru doesn’t enjoy being called cute. It embarrasses him a lot, actually. By adulthood he’d decided it’s a waste of time to try and protest (he’ll always be Mineru’s cute baby brother) but he tries his best to ignore those comments.

• Mineru used to call him “Ru” or “Ruru” when they were young. He absolutely hated it.

• Mineru was very small as a baby. Even as a child she remained short, and when Rauru was born she was delighted at the prospect of being a BIG sister. Her joy was relatively short-lived however, as by age 10 Rauru had already grown taller than her. Although she’s taller than any Hylian, of course, Mineru is still short by Zonai standards. It doesn’t bother her anymore.

• We know that Rauru would often sneak away to hunt in favor of his duties as King, but I like to think it was not animals he was hunting, but monsters. He loved a thrilling fight.

• Rauru’s earrings are all clip-ons. By his own admission his ears are way too sensitive to endure being pierced ten times! In fact, because Zonai ears are one of their most sensitive parts, clip-on earrings were very common for others as well.

• Mineru learned all about Zelda’s friends from their time together, but nothing could have prepared her for meeting Purah 10k+ years later. Despite Mineru knowing she didn’t have much time left after Ganondorf was defeated, she enlisted Purah’s help in building a flying machine big enough to carry everyone up to Great Sky Island. The two bonded fast—maybe even faster than Mineru bonded with Zelda. Had things been different they might have even shared a romance… alas, as she often had to remind people in the present day, “I am only a spirit.”

Purah still thinks about her often.

- - -

footnote: I left politics out of this post to keep things neutral so these could apply either way. I have my own opinions on Rauru’s leadership, but that’s for another time. :)

[ivanttakethis]

Tov Cassio - Modern AU

- Tov was adopted by Cassio when she was about 2 years old.

- She still has her heart issues and is chronically ill. Luckily, Cassio had the means to get her better care.

- Cassio is a famous runway model turned high fashion designer with a fashion house called Cassiopeia.

- Also similar to canon, Cassio initially adopted Tov as an “accessory” (think like some famous celebrities), and then quickly figured out that raising a child — especially one with health concerns — is hard. They don’t want more kids after her, which is perfectly fine with Tov.

- Tov’s last name is Cassio, and Cassio dropped their first name when they became a well-known model. Tov actually doesn’t know what Cassio’s first name is/was.

- Tov and Cassio have a better relationship in this AU than in canon, but it’s far from perfect. Sometimes Tov feels like she has to parent Cassio instead of the other way around.

- Like her guardian before her, Tov is a fashion model.

- As soon as Tov was old enough to walk and listen to directions, she started modeling and walking in fashion shows with Cassio.

- Known in the industry for her “resting bitch face”, but it’s considered a positive attribute for walking runways.

Rando: “I thought models were supposed to smile.”

Tov, completely deadpan: “Not the ones at my level.”

- She doesn’t tell people what she does for work. Not because she wants to keep it a secret, but she just doesn’t volunteer information about her life if you don’t ask her directly.

- Most of her classmates don’t know Tov models until a billboard with her face on it pops up downtown. People promptly lose their minds.

- Talks about going to places like Milan, Paris, and Tokyo the same way she talks about the weather.

- Usually dressed in “quiet luxury”. She incorporates her beloved star motif however she can; earrings, necklaces, rings, all real gold and silver.

- Cassio got Tov’s ears pierced when she was a toddler. She was pretty chill for the procedure.

- Rarely if ever wears flat shoes. She loves platform boots and wedges.

- Big fan of fantasy novels; put off by the whole genre of sci-fi (ironic).

- Owns several expensive telescopes to view the night sky and the stars. Don’t ask her to hang out on a meteor shower night. She will not come.

- Tov is very independent and self-sufficient. She knows how to cook, do laundry, and other household chores.

- Doesn’t have a driver’s license.

- She’s a homebody. If she needs to go somewhere, she gets one of her friends to take her.

- The type of person to leave a party when they get bored, but also won’t tell anyone that they’re leaving.

- Cats are drawn to her. She does not know why. May become a victim of the cat distribution system.

- Friends: Himei, Tallis, Nyx, Moran, Dian, Solei, Aurien, and Flor

- Acquaintances/Friends of Friends: Lang, Castor, Stasya, Kyo, and Cirrus

- One-Sided Fondness: Azure

- Don’t Like Her Vibe But I Understand Her: Daiki

[usafphantom2]

USAF crew faulted for Ellsworth B-1B crash

Ryan Finnerty26 July 2024

US Air Force investigators blame crew error for a January crash that saw the destruction of a Boeing B-1B Lancer strategic bomber.

The January 2024 incident occurred during a training flight from the aircraft’s (85-0085) home station of Ellsworth AFB in South Dakota. While attempting to make a night landing during poor weather conditions, the aircraft undershot the runway forcing a rare quadruple ejection of the B-1B’s crew.

B-1B crash

All four aviators survived, but the $450 million dollar jet bomber was deemed a total loss after skidding across the airfield and catching fire.

The lead investigator in the accident probe now says many of the factors that led to the catastrophic mishap are likely to be repeated.

In a report Colonel Erick Lord said the inquiry found that “many failures leading to this mishap were not a one-time occurrence or an aberration”.

The crew’s failure to conduct a composite crosscheck during the approach was seen as the primary cause of the accident.

“The mission crew did not follow the low-visibility approach to land communication and flying responsibilities,” the report states.

The mishap pilot apparently failed to brief the remaining crew on the expected vertical velocity during the approach, which prevented weapon systems officers from performing an adequate crosscheck. The pilot also descended below 200ft above ground level without approval from the onboard instructor pilot.

“The mishap pilot did not effectively crosscheck the airspeed, descent rate, and projected aircraft flight path leading up to the mishap,” investigators conclude.

“By failing to crosscheck using his instruments effectively, the mishap pilot did not recognise the [aircraft’s] deviations from the desired airspeed, descent rate and aircraft flight path.”

Deteriorating weather conditions during the winter training flight had forced the B-1B crew to cut the sortie short and attempt an instrument landing on a different runway than originally planned. The landing occurred during night hours with visibility even further reduced by dense fog in the local area, which investigators say exacerbated the Lancer crew’s deviation from established policy.

A ground-based flight supervisor also improperly directed the B-1B pilot to land on a runway that lacked adequate weather observation – violating a Notice to Airmen alert issued over the impaired visibility.

Investigators describe “undisciplined procedures” employed by the ground-based flight supervisors, including insufficient shift changeover and individual failure to review applicable airfield hazards, that resulted in the mishap B-1B making a dangerous and unauthorised approach.

As a result, the aircraft rapidly descended below its authorised altitude and impacted the ground before its intended landing zone.

While Lord notes that bad weather “substantially contributed” to the crash, he says a “culture of noncompliance and widespread deviation from established policy” amongst bomber crews within the B-1B squadron created the potential for such an incident.

“I find by a preponderance of the evidence that these leadership and climate issues directly contributed to the mishap,” he says in the investigation report.

He notes a failure by squadron leadership to conduct adequate supervision of flight operations and a lack of effective communication regarding airfield and weather conditions as examples of the poor safety culture at the 34th Bomb Squadron.

The investigation board also found an “unsatisfactory level of basic airmanship” within the Lancer squadron’s flight crews.

As further evidence of this, investigators note that the lead instructor pilot onboard the mishap aircraft apparently exceeded the maximum approved weight for the B-1B’s Collins Aerospace ACES II ejection seat, which is rated for 111kg (245lb) according to the USAF.

That individual apparently suffered more severe injuries during the ejection than the rest of the crew, according to the investigation report.

The B-1B ejection system is typically set so that an ejection initiated by one crew member triggers a rapidly sequenced firing of the remaining seats. This procedure is meant to prevent a collision between crew members.

Ryan FinnertyRyan Finnerty is the Americas defence reporter for FlightGlobal.com and Flight International magazine, covering military aviation and the defence industry. He is a former United States Army officer and previously reported for America’s National Public Radio system in New York and Hawaii covering energy, economics and military affairs.View full Profile

@violetpilot1 via X

[lol-jackles]

Looking at the trial(see # Rust tag on twit for sourcing) I see there were bullets obviously left lying around, the safety on set was a total failure, the producers hired someone for two jobs who wasn't experienced enough for one. This was obvious enough that the crew walked off. This was obvious enough that a few days before, Guiterrez was taken to task (and then given "space" when she vented, wtf) The actor before Jensen developed a "conflict." Why would anyone fail to object and shut it down?

And there was a possibility that Hannah was high from cocaine. Any empathy I had for her went out the window when she handed the "set Mom" a bag of cocaine and assumed she would hold on to it without question.

Hannah admitted to loading the gun herself, and failing to properly check the rounds. The evidence points towards her as the source for the live rounds, and that she failed to identify them multiple times throughout production.

That said, Baldwin and the rest of the producers were being cheap when they hired her, made her work a second job as prop master, and now she's being used as a scapegoat. Not to say she's not responsible, she definitely is as she loaded the guns and failed to properly check the rounds as well as the source for the live rounds, but she's certainly not the worst person on that set.

I want to know which producer thought it was a swell idea to hire an inexperienced armorer with no apprenticeship in a job with one credit to her name on a Western film full of guns and gunfights. It’s like hiring a first-year pilot school student to fly a 747 by themselves.  And the pilot is high on cocaine.

This set was a shit show and created a perfect storm for something like this to happen. Many failures in organization and safety. Plus the union and crew issues.

I’ve been a background actor and an extra on several shows and independent movies with a lot of guns, and even where a bullet was meant for me (collateral damage when a hitman missed his target).  In every one of them, the armorer, prop master, and the AD handled the gun in all the scenes to verify it is not loaded.  I’m also a gun owner and permit holder and we’re taught that no one should ever take a gun from someone and assume that it is unloaded.  Always check for yourself.  One very memorable experience on a movie set the armorer handed the gun to several people on set to verify that it was not loaded, including me because he knew I was a permit holder. So as you can see, a gun goes through several hands to verify it is not loaded before given to an actor.   But on the day of the Rust fatality, there was no armorer on site of the scene, and the AD never checked the gun to verify it was not loaded.

Conditions on outdoor standing set ranging from sucky to terrible are expected: the bugs, the weather, the hours, the young angry PAs, and the producers having mental breakdowns.  And yes, shortcuts are constantly taken by disregarding safety protocols, especially on low-budgeted/shoe string-budgeted films. There were a few times I thought I was going to get hurt or maimed in car scenes and it didn’t even involved car chases, just idiots driving and talking at the same time.  But firearm safety protocol were never disregarded, at least from what I’ve witnessed.   

Hundreds of thousands of action and war movies and police procedural tv shows, injuries or death from guns are very rare: 3 total in 37 years, though that is cold comfort for Halyna Hutchin's family.  

[distilled-prose]

First week in March 1974 ...it was fifty years ago today...

Winter quarter 1974 at the University of Georgia started out bleak and held that attitude for almost eight weeks.  My class schedule included two labs, one being organic chemistry which was an open lab that required daily work all week long.  My days would start in the cold dark and typically ended the same way.  The sun had become a hypothetical concept for me.  It was as if the entirety of the University of Georgia campus had devolved into some dystopian nightmare.  Academically, it was to be the worst quarter of my college career.  But that’s not why it’s memorable.

My roommates and I lived just off campus.  While not excessively removed, it was not walking distance.  But my only transportation was a stripped down 1967 Matchless motorcycle.  On rainy days it was extremely uncomfortable.  On many mornings it was below freezing before dawn and the drive into school was not only uncomfortable, but also exceedingly treacherous.  The days slogged by, dreary, and unrelenting in desolate shades of gray.  It is tremendously difficult to describe the bleakness of it all. However, even with exams looming on the immediate horizon, at the very end of February, Spring ignored the calendar and turned up SEVERAL consecutive gloriously sunny days, days in the mid to high seventy-degree range.  It extended right into March.  The winter quarter darkness had been banished.  Life resumed.  Campus dress immediately took a turn for the better with this long anticipated, most delightful weather.  Everyone was relieved to put their coats away.

Coincidentally, at the same time, reports began filtering in about people in different parts of the country (mostly the south) running through public places without their clothes on. The news reports called it "streaking".  Even Paul Harvey, in his noon time update  ("Stand by for NEWS") mentioned it almost daily. It was like the manias described in medieval times.

Never a campus to be left behind, sightings of Streakers close to home began circulating.  Through classrooms, across quadrangles, through the cafeteria, everything was fair game.  It was all spread by word of mouth, as the internet and cell phones were still decades away.  Coupled with the warm days and evenings, the activity seemed ideally suited for our circumstances.

My roommate (law school) and I (pharmacy school) were visiting friends of ours (“the girls”) at their apartment in a toney part of town.  It was the first Tuesday of the month, March third, less than a week after the weather had gotten so wonderful.  Someone called one of the girls and said there was a streaking event currently in progress at Russel Hall, one of the girl’s high-rise dorms.  So, without much of any kind of delay, we headed right over to check it out.  As reported, there were streakers circling the building and students congregated all around it watching. They were sitting in the grass, enjoying the unseasonably warm evening.  It was well after dark, but jackets weren’t needed.  It must still have been in the low mid sixty-degree range.

Periodically someone would exit the emergency stairwell facing Baxter street and run completely around the building, re-entering where they had started.  While it didn’t seem odd at the time, all the streakers coming out of this girl’s dorm were male. My roommate and I went to check out the source of the excitement.  “The girls” made themselves comfortable on the lawn. There were about a dozen guys, no girls, at the bottom of the stairwell when we arrived.  Guys who were dressed were coming in and also leaving via this one exit door that opened to the side of the dorm facing the street.  The procedure for that night was explained to us by this one guy who seemed to be the major coordinator for this impromptu event. One person would be sent out after they had completely stripped down.  Another person also would be already stripped down and ready to go.  After forty-five seconds or so, maybe a minute, the second person would be sent out while the next person stripped down. The exit door was opened just a bit so the first person could return inside without delay after completing their loop and get dressed.  Although there was no rule (right word?) against it, nobody did a repeat run.  So the spectators had a fairly constant spectacle of new streakers every forty-five to sixty seconds.  Heaven forbid the spectators' interest was allowed to wane! My roommate and I decided to have a go, of course. After we finished our individual loops, got dressed, and came back out, we found our friends, and sat and watched as the night dreamily wore on.  The girls were disappointed they did not recognize us in our moments of glory.  But we didn’t volunteer for a repeat performance.  It was all pretty heady stuff for the mid-seventies!

The campus was ALL abuzz the next day from the previous evening’s escapades.  I’m certain there wasn’t much didactic learning going on that Wednesday.  I certainly don’t remember going to my open lab… By Wednesday early evening the word was out.  The University of Georgia was unofficially organizing to have the world’s largest streaking event on Thursday night, March fifth.  Details were quite fuzzy, but it was supposed to start at the Meyers quad, on the south campus.  I still can’t imagine how it was organized sans cell phones and emails.  But by the end of that day everyone was looking for details.  As Thursday developed, still without the focus on whatever academic major anyone THOUGHT they had, the plans became clear:  Gather at the Meyers Quad and be ready to run by 11 p.m.  The route was to be down Stanford Drive, past the stadium, and up into the Reed Quad.  People had started gathering by 10, and the quad at Meyers was absolutely packed.  One of “the girls” from our group was in the quad, not yet quite certain if she was going to run or not.  A guy asked her why she hadn’t taken her clothes off.  She deflected by asking him the same thing.  He said, “I DO have my clothes off!”  It was that crowded.  She ultimately decided to watch instead of participating. Right about 11 everyone started running.  The street was lined several deep with spectators all along the course.  There were students, of course, and faculty, townsfolk, little children, old people, campus police, city police.  It was quite the spectacle.  Guys streaking outnumbered the girls by about twenty to one, as I recall, and much to my roommate’s and my dismay.  The ending was extremely disorganized with folks wondering if they should put their clothes back on or not.  Some folks had not carried their clothes with them, having left them at the start of the event.  Some dorm residents were dancing naked in their windows in the various Reed Quad dorms. And I’m not certain who did the official counting, but the reports ended up claiming fifteen hundred streakers.  We’d set the record.  We entered the history books.  And I sit here tonight, fifty years later to the day, amazed it all could have happened. (The day of the event, in the UGA school newspaper, Brad McCall posted the cartoon you see below.  It was one of several he did during the build-up and immediate aftermath to that night.)

@goneahead @thelovelymazza6 @ends-2-beginnings @gorgeous-and-glamorous @littletornado @resistancekitty @frances17

[niqhtlord01]

Humans are weird: Space Vampires

(A continuation from Humans are weird: Space Werewolf) ( Please come see me on my new patreon and support me for early access to stories and personal story requests :D https://www.patreon.com/NiqhtLord Every bit helps)    

The drop ship slowly crested its way down through the cloud banks and shook as it hit yet another pocket of turbulence.

“Would you like me to pilot?” Markus joked as he tightened his crash harness again. “I might not be as experienced as you, but I think I can avoid at least one batch of bad weather during our trip.”

Flint chuckled beside himself before quickly stifling it as Hooper grunted from the cockpit.

The craft was an older class V model of shuttle. Enough room for the cockpit and a small storage area in the back where Markus and Flint sat in modified seats. Much of the craft had been modified beyond what the original designers had envisioned, but in their line of work it was a hunter’s job to adapt to any situation with whatever they had on hand.

“You? Pilot?” Hooper laughed as he flipped a series of switches in rapid succession. “You’d be more likely to crash us into a bloody mountain and call it a detour.”

The shuttle shook again suddenly and it felt like it dropped ten feet before stabilizing out. Markus was opening his mouth to make another remark of Hooper’s piloting skills when the now unamused Hooper held up a finger for silence.

Several more shudders pierced swarmed the craft before finally the shuttle cleared the cloud banks and saw the world below. A desolate world of stone and sand with a sky constantly drowned in the depths of clouds so dense that barely any light at all ever reached the surface of the blighted world.

A perfect world indeed for their contact to meet them on.

“Are we sure we should be doing this?”

Hooper took pause from scanning the horizon for their landing to tilt his head back and see Flint looking between the pair. The signs of doubt already beginning to creep over his features as his right foot slowly tapped a rhythm to some new age song. It was a trick Hooper had taught the young hunter to calm his mind when the darkness began to creep ever closer.

“We’ve not got a choice I’m afraid.” Markus spoke before Hooper could. “We’re in uncharted waters and they’ve more a grasp than any of us.”

“But what if they double cross us?” Flint pressed. “When have we ever known them to honor a parlay of truce, let alone not lie to our faces?”

“I understand your reluctance,” Hooper began as he flicked on autopilot and turned the pilot’s chair around to face Flint, “and if times were different I’d be the first one in line to kill these bastard.”

“But Markus is right,” Hooper admitted with a heavy heart, “right now we need to put aside our old grudges and work together.”

“If it makes you feel better, at the first sign of a double cross we can kill them all!” Markus announced boldly and slapped his knee. Flint said nothing at this but smiled; though he could not help still tapping his feet a little softer. Hooper watched this quietly and kept his own council confined within the depths of his thoughts.

He had been hesitant to bring Flint along for this task. Normally a novice hunter would not be exposed to these sorts of dealings until they had become folly ordained within the order; but Markus had lobbied hard for the lad and their previous dealings with the werewolf pack on Sectus II had shown he could hold his own. Markus was also right that there was little time to follow traditional procedures and they needed every hunter in the field they had.

“Is that it?” Flint asked sheepishly as Hooper was dragged from the council of his mind and turned back to look out the cockpit window.

Just nestled in the valley between two long and tall mountain ranges was a red light glowing so bright it was even registering on the shuttles scanners.

“Strap in you two,” Hooper said as he flipped off autopilot and began the descent, “we’re about to find out.”

With that said the shuttle began a rapid descent towards the surface of the planet until coming to a stop just beside the strange red glow. The area around the light was completely deserted save for a lone figure. Their features were hidden beneath their cloak but they seemed untroubled by the storm of dust and flying stones as the shuttle came down next to the flame.

“Gear up.” Hooper said as soon as the shuttle finally came to a rest and the engines started spinning down. He watched the figure for a moment to see if they would move to greet them at the boarding ramp, but they just stood stoic by the light.

“I thought you said we should trust them?” Flint spoke as he untangled himself from the webbing. Hooper shook his head as he unbuckled himself from the flight chair and picked up his plasma caster that was nestled beside him. He popped in a fresh power pack and the weapon began to hum to life as the lethal energies coursed through its elegant frame.

“I said we need them, not that we should trust them.”

The trip of hunters loaded themselves with the weapons and tools of their trade before Markus hammered the boarding ramp switch and the back of the shuttle popped open with a grinding screech. It took a minute to fully open before the hunters set foot on the desolate world and walked around the shuttle to meet with the figure.

None of them spoke as they approached the stranger as they finally moved; walking towards the flame and casually extinguishing it with a casual kick of dirt. Hooper switched between keeping his eyes on the figure and scanning the horizon, but for the most part the figure was the only one out in the open for miles around.

“I thought we had agreed to meet alone.” The figure spoke as the trio of hunters stopped several paces between the two parties.

Hooper smirked. “That we did,” he said as he swept his plasma caster around the surrounding area, “so would you care to tell your friends to leave and I’ll do the same.”

The figure cocked his head in confusion, but Hooper just pointed his weapon at the ground he now stood over.

“You think we didn’t see your friend buried in the stones?” Hooper asked mockingly. “Tell them to get out here now or this one below me is about to find out what a face full of holy plasma feels like; and trust me when I say it makes holy water feel like a pin prick.”

Standing silent, the figure made no move to acknowledge Hooper’s claim. It wasn’t until the whine of the plasma caster finally reached its highest pitch indicating that it was ready to fire that they finally gave up and made a gesture with their right hand.

All around them more figures suddenly began bursting from the ground in showers of rock and stone, causing Flint to reach for his weapon before a calming hand from Markus forestalled him. These new figures wore elaborate sets of armor, now decorated with a thin layer of dust from their hiding places. Each held a sharpened blade in their hands while burning red eyes tracked the hunters every movements. The one beneath Hooper’s feet making an awkward assention as he crawled up from the stone beneath his legs.

“It is good to see your order has not lost its touch.” The figure said as they removed their hood to show a youthful looking face. “Existence can become so dull without a good sparring partner.”

“Morgan.” Hooper said with a tilt of his head. He powered down his plasma caster as the other figures shuffled over and stood behind their master.

Morgan, voice of the conclave of vampires, nodded in return and looked passed Hooper to Markus and Flint.

“And you’re friends are?” Morgan asked, but Hooper shook his head.

“Cut the formalities and let’s get this done.” He said.

The right eyebrow of Morgan twitched for the briefest of moments in anger but otherwise he retained his composure. The vampiric assassins jittered around him as if sensing their master’s anger but knew well enough to remain silent.

Holding out his hand towards one of the assassins, the vampire stepped forward to Hooper and presented him with a datapad before returning to his position behind his master. Hooper powered on the pad and began reading the information as it scrolled by.

“The names and last known whereabouts of the vampires responsible for the most recent…..” the voice paused for a moment to consider his words, “breaches; as you requested.”

“Breaches!?”

Morgan looked towards the speaker to find that it was young Flint who now spoke brazenly; his outrage at the dismissiveness of the vampire beyond constraint.

“Your kind slaughtered three colony worlds and left a damn near hundred young bloods to ravage the rest of the planet it a blood fueled ram-

“FLINT!!!”

Flint stopped himself as Hooper shouted at him and fixed him with the hardest stare he had.

“Shut. Up. Now.” he spoke through gritted teeth.

Not expecting this from his mentor, Flint looked confused and upset before relenting and resuming his silence. Hooper turned back to Morgan who had remained silent during the outburst.

“My…..apologies, for my protégés outburst;” Hooper said much to the surprise of Markus and Flint, “he still needs to learn how these matters are conducted.”

Morgan grinned, an expression that made Flint’s hand twitch towards his own gun, and waved away Hooper’s apology.

“Think nothing of it.” He replied to Hooper, before tilting and looking directly at Flint. “And I would go so far as to state that I agree with their assessment entirely.”

Whatever the trio had been expecting the vampire to say during these dealings, a formal apology was not amongst them. It was rare for a vampire to admit they were wrong, let alone agree with a mere mortal.

“Since the discovery of space travel the vampire conclave has found it increasingly difficult to keep its members in line.” Morgan began as he paced around the meeting area. He would stop every now and then to look at the ground before bending down to pick up a stone of unremarkable appearance before casually tossing it aside.

“On Earth such acts of carnage were contained and swiftly dealt with to maintain the balance, but now; as the universe opens up around us some of our kind see worlds as their own private feasting grounds.”

“Can’t keep your house in order?” Hooper mocked.

In a blink of an eye Morgan vanished from his position opposite Hooper and appeared with his hand inches from the hunter’s throat. The hunter could smell the sulfur radiating off the vampire and knew he had struck a nerve. He could see the crimson color of Morgan’s eyes and felt the vampire was using every ounce of his strength to resist feeding on Hooper.

Markus, Flint, and the vampire assassins all readied themselves as if battle would ensue but Hooper held up a hand to stall his companions.

“You would be wise to remember your place.” Morgan spoke through gritted teeth. His sharpened fangs protruding from his mouth with each syllable ready to dig deep into Hooper’s neck and drink of his blood. A notion Hooper was well aware of and had his right hand firmly priming a garlic grenade in his pocket to dissuade the vampire should he press further.

“The vampire conclave is handling the dealings of our kind on a hundred worlds across a dozen star systems. Your continued existence is merely a byproduct of our generosity for allowing you to live long enough to spread humans to more worlds to feast on.”

“There’s plenty of alien’s out there too,” Hooper said calmly, “why the special interest in us “lowly” humans?”

“They are..” Morgan spoke as he slowly pulled away from Hooper and the hunter eased off the garlic grenade, “incompatible.”

“That didn’t seem to bother the werewolves.” Hooper pointed out. “Nor zombies for that matter; those buggers will eat just about anything.”

Morgan sighed deeply and run his hands over his face as if he was about to speak slowly to a small child.

“I do not have the time nor patience to explain why human blood is the desired choice for my kind; just know that it is the will of the conclave to see your species continued existence to serve us in the coming millennia.”

He tapped the datapad Hooper still held in his other hand with a long finger ending with a sharpened fingernail that looked like it could cut steel as if it was cardboard.

“A decree that some of my kind are now putting at risk by their rampant blood feasts. If we do not pool our resources now they will exterminate the entirety of the human population leaving us without a crucial food source.”

“And here I thought you just enjoyed our company.” Hooper said begrudgingly. “So your only wish to keep using humans is for vampire food?”

Morgan paused to collect his thoughts, debating internally if he should share the new information with his hunter adversaries.

“There is another reason,” Morgan spoke slowly having made up his mind, “and it is with regards to alien blood.”

This peeked Hooper’s interest and he motioned for the vampire to continue.

“During your encounter with the werewolves from your previous…adventures, did you not see aliens infected by their mark?”

“We did.” Hooper replied, unsure were Morgan was going with this.

“We have discovered similarly, that when the blood curse is applied to nonhuman species the results can be……detrimental.”

“Meaning?” Hooper asked impatiently.

“The curse changes aliens in ways we have not seen before, and at times these new abominations have abilities far beyond even our elder’s capabilities to contain.”

This was grave news that Hooper could hardly believe. A vampire elder, or leader of the conclave, was easily thousands of years old and possessed enough strength and skill that centuries ago it had taken the entire order of hunters to destroy just one of their number. To hear that these beings of unimaginable destruction were being hard pressed by newly turned alien vampires was something that filled Hooper with a sense of dread he had not known in decades.

“You see our problem now.” Morgan spoke, seeing that the hunter finally realized what is at stake. “If we do not correct these divergences now, we may see a galactic scale level of devastation.”

“And to show you we are not joking,” Morgan continued as one by one the vampire assassins began vanishing into smoke leaving the area until only Morgan remained, “we brought you one to see firsthand.”

A loud roar thundered through the valley and the trio of hunters all reached for their weapons. In the distance they could see an ever growing mound of flesh thrashing towards them. Rows of teeth catching the light as it stampeded towards the gathering and Hooper caught sight of a pair of bright crimson eyes that he had seen just now in Morgan’s visage.

“Au revoir, Mr. Hooper.”

Hooper turned back to see Morgan vanishing into smoke, laughing as the tyrant alien vampire continued thundering towards the hunters.

[lonestarflight]

The Original Crew of Gemini 9

"Portrait of the Gemini 9 prime and backup crews. Seated are the Prime crew consisting of Astronauts Elliot M. See Jr. (left), command pilot, and Charles A. Bassett II, pilot. Standing are the backup crew consisting of Astronauts Thomas P. Stafford (left), command pilot, and Eugene A. Cernan, pilot."

The original prime crew of Gemini 9 (GT-9) was to be Elliot M. See Jr., command pilot, and Charles A. Bassett II, pilot. They were a part of NASA Astronaut Group 2 "New Nine" and Group 3 "The Fourteen", respectively, and this would have been their first spaceflight. On February 28, 1966, about four months before their scheduled May 17 spaceflight, they and the backup crew flew in two T-38s from Houston, Texas to St. Louis, Missouri. They were there for two weeks of simulator training for rendezvous and docking procedures, and to inspect their Gemini spacecraft at the McDonnell Aircraft plant.

"See and Bassett flew in one Northrop T-38A Talon jet trainer, tail number NASA 901 (Air Force serial number 63-8181), with See at the controls and Bassett in the rear seat. A second T-38, NASA 907, carried Stafford and Cernan in the same configuration. Weather at Lambert Field in St. Louis was poor, with rain, snow, and fog, broken clouds at 800 ft (240 m) and a cloud ceiling of 1,500 ft (460 m), requiring an instrument approach. When the two aircraft emerged below the clouds shortly before 9 am, both pilots realized that they had missed the outer marker and overshot the runway.

See then elected to perform a visual circling approach, a simplified landing procedure allowing flight under instrument rules, as long as the pilot can keep the airfield and any preceding aircraft in sight. The reported weather conditions at the airport were adequate for this type of approach, but visibility was irregular and deteriorating rapidly. Stafford began to follow See's plane, but when he lost sight of it in the clouds.

Astronaut Elliot M. See Jr. inside Gemini Static Article 5 spacecraft prior to water egress training in the Gulf of Mexico.

"As See and Bassett’s jet vanished from sight, Stafford barked to Cernan in his backseat: 'Goddammit, where’s he going?' It was the last they ever saw of their comrades."

"Stafford instead followed the standard procedure for a missed approach and pulled his aircraft up, back into the clouds for another attempt at an instrument landing.

See completed a full circle to the left at an altitude of 500 to 600 ft (150 to 180 m), and announced his intention to land on the southwest runway (24). With landing gear down and full flaps, the plane dropped quickly but too far left of the runway. See turned on his afterburner to increase power while pulling up and turning hard right. Seconds later, at 8:58 a.m. CST, the plane struck the roof of McDonnell Building 101 on the northeast side of the airport. It lost its right wing and landing gear on impact, then cartwheeled and crashed in a parking lot beyond the building which was in use as a construction staging area."

"The wreckage of their T-38 training jet, covered with firefighting foam. The jet clipped the roof of Building 101 with its right wing, then skipped twice along the roof before plunging into a construction yard nearby and exploding."

Both astronauts died instantly from trauma sustained in the crash. Inside Building 101, 17 McDonnell employees and contractors received mostly minor injuries from falling debris. The crash set off several small fires inside the building, and caused minor flooding from broken pipes and sprinklers. Stafford and Cernan didn't see the crash and made an instrument landing 14 minutes later. They were asked by the control tower, “Who was in NASA 901?” Stafford replied back “See and Bassett." They were told that McDonnell Aircraft Corp. had a message for them. "A few minutes later, as Stafford opened his canopy, there was James McDonnell ('Mr. Mac' himself, aviation pioneer and founder of McDonnell Aircraft Corp.) waiting for them. In solemn tones, he explained that See and Bassett were dead."

"A truck slowly pulls the Gemini IX capsule past flags at half staff at a McDonnell parking lot on March 2, 1966, in memory of the two astronauts who were to have flown it into space."

See, 38, had been a civilian test pilot and the married father of two girls. Bassett, 34, an Air Force pilot, left a wife, a daughter and a son.

"Alan Shepard and Deke Slayton flew to St. Louis to lead an investigation. Their closed investigative hearing was held in Building 101. On May 27, their report cited deteriorating weather conditions and a descent that was too steep for See to pull out."

The backup crew, Thomas P. Stafford (left), command pilot, and Eugene A. Cernan, pilot.

"The promotion of Stafford and Cernan from backup to prime crew meant that a new backup crew was required. Jim Lovell and Buzz Aldrin were originally the backup crew for Gemini 10. This is significant as the standard crew rotation meant that a spot on the backup crew of Gemini 10 would have placed Buzz Aldrin on the prime crew of the non-existent mission after Gemini 12 (the crew rotation usually meant that after serving on a backup crew, an astronaut could expect to skip two missions and then be on a prime crew). Being moved up to the backup crew of Gemini 9 meant that Aldrin flew as part of the prime crew on Gemini 12, which played a major part in his selection for the Apollo 8 backup and Apollo 11 prime crews, ultimately making him the second human on the Moon."

-Information from Wikipedia: link, link

NASA ID: S66-15620, S66-28075, S66-15622, S66-15621, S65-28456

source, source

[climatecalling]

Switzerland’s KlimaSeniorinnen, or senior climate women, are not who most people think of when they talk about those on the frontlines of the climate crisis. The 2,400 members of the group live in one of the richest countries on Earth. Due to their age – the youngest is 64 – they will witness just a fraction of the extreme weather that their generation’s children and grandchildren will see. But these retirees are among those fighting hardest for a livable future. The women are suing the Swiss government in Europe’s top court for violating their human rights with policies that do too little to stop the planet from baking. Their case, which could send shock waves through courts across the continent, rests on two simple facts. Heatwaves are getting hotter as people burn fossil fuels. And women, particularly older ones, are more likely to die when temperatures soar. ... After years of setbacks in regional and national courts, which threw the case out on procedural grounds, the KlimaSeniorinnen have taken their case to the European court of human rights. The court has not previously ruled on government climate action but will hear the Swiss case along with similar cases from a French mayor and several Portuguese teenagers early next year. The results will open the door to cases in other countries if governments across Europe do not comply with the rulings.